by Jewel Geffen
“What?”
“Well, only P.B. I can think of around here is... Patrick Bernard... But he's not exactly on good terms anymore. I doubt he would have sent you here.”
“No, no, that was it, yeah! Patrick Bernard. I did get the impression that there some kind of... bad blood, or something?”
“I'm surprised Bernard even talked to you. Real closed lipped kind of guy, was my impression. He's been around since the early days, long before me, even. Him and Mr. Mason go way back. Before the falling out.”
“What happened?”
John shrugged. “Dunno, really. I don't get involved in the Club gossip. Not what I'm here for.”
“Hm... I can't help but be a little curious...”
John stood up rather suddenly, and snatched up his wine bottle. “There'll be plenty of time for all that later, Luke my boy. For now, I want you to come with me.”
“With you? Where?”
John Stevens smiled. “Why, to introduce you to my lovely wife, Alice, of course. Come on then, it's going to be quite a show.”
Chapter Nine
He followed John Stevens up the stair, his head whirling. It all fit. Patrick Bernard...
Things were starting to make sense. An old higher up in the Club, someone with knowledge and access, somebody with history. A falling out for some reason, then slowly building resentment, until he decided to do something about it. It would have been easy to recruit Henry Virgil, since he'd already familiarized himself with the man, maybe even known him before he'd taken the position as doorman.
Maybe he wasn't trying to blackmail any one person. Maybe, instead, he wanted to bring down the whole club, and was willing to go to any lengths to do it.
So, what was the next step? He had to find out more about Bernard, obviously. That might prove to be tricky, but at least he had an idea now, a direction he could pursue. They might be able to get a handle on this after all.
There was another question, though: Mason. What was there between Mason and Bernard? Why had Mason seemed so evasive and eager to close down the investigation? Was there something he didn't want Scott to find? Something that Bernard had over him, perhaps?
They went up to the second floor and John took him down the hall a ways. He turned to Scott, the wine sloshing in the bottom of his bottle and a gleam in his eyes. “Let me show you something, Luke,” he said.
“What's that?” Scott said trepidatiously.
“Your future,” John said, and opened the door.
The room inside was gorgeously appointed, with mirrors all along the walls and an ornate lavatory through a little door. The main feature, of course, was a bed. It was a massive four-poster thing with lacy black translucent curtains and canopy.
Scott could see movement through the curtain, the shapes of bodies, one black and one white. A man and a woman, obviously naked. If there was any confusion as to their activities, the sounds which came from behind the curtain soon erased any doubt.
“Ooh! Ooh! Oh, God, yes... yes...YES!”
John gave Scott a smile and gestured towards the seats along the side of the room, plush chairs with high armrests and ornate backing. They both sat and watched.
John's wife Alice was being vigorously fucked on the bed. She was on all fours, her bottom lifted up. A hulking black man stood behind her, pounding down hard, one hand gripping her hips tightly as he thrust into her, over and over again.
With each thrust she gasped, a sharp cry of pleasure and supplication. The man had a handful of her blonde hair and was pulling her head firmly back as he plowed her. He growled out fierce and bestial grunts as he used her.
John leaned over and started to talk, his voice low. “Let me tell you about my first time doing this, Luke. I was scared, let me tell you. So nervous I could hardly think straight. I remember the way my hands were shaking. It was a friend of mine from work. An acquaintance, really. Gorgeous strapping black man, about six foot five, pure muscle.”
John's wife moaned. The man fucking her pushed her head down onto the mattress, shifting her easily into a position of total submission, face down and ass up, her body his to use for his own pleasure.
“I'd been working on him for some time, just little things. Started off slow, I'd show him pictures of Alice in her bikini from our vacation, stuff like that. Ask him if he thought she was hot, that sort of thing. Just little stuff to ease him in at first. Then, slowly – this is over a period of weeks, you understand – I start to turn up the heat.”
“Fuck me! Fuck me with that big black cock, please! Fuck, I love it so much! Fuck that little white pussy!” Alice's voice was husky with lust, ragged with pleasure. The man snarled in response, practically throwing himself into the activity at hand.
“I start to get less subtle about it. I start telling him about her sexual interests. He's not sure how to take it, but he likes it. I move on from swimsuit pictures to underwear pictures, then nude ones. Then I tell him, very close and confidingly, that her greatest wish has always been to have sex with a black man.”
“Really?” Scott asked, his throat dry. It came out as a bit more of a croak than he'd hoped.
“Anyway. We make the arrangements. He's going to come over and have sex with her. I was so turned on I could hardly breathe, but at the same time I'm terrified. All those things I was telling you earlier, they're running through my head constantly. Then the big day comes.
“It was a bit like this. I'm just sitting there watching this man undressing my wife... Watching him take her in his arms, watching him kiss her nipples, watching him slip his finger inside of her. And I'm watching her... absolute pleasure. She's loving it.”
As if to confirm this, Alice gave a sudden shuddering moan, her whole body shaking as she started to orgasm.
“And then he lays her down on the bed. I'm just quivering with anticipation, hardly able to contain myself, and he's bringing that beautiful big black cock and sliding it over her slippery wet pussy lips. God, I'd never seen her so wet. She wanted it so bad she could hardly stand it. And then he's inside her.”
The man fucking Alice let out a low groan, one that Scott knew meant his own orgasm wasn't far off.
“He fucks her, and he does it like I could never do. Just pounding her again and again with that massive thing, grinding on her clit, filling her so deep. He leaves her shuddering with orgasm after orgasm, just absolutely rocked with it. And then...”
John held up a finger, waiting just a moment, a little smile playing on his lips. The man fucking Alice gasped and slammed against her. “Yes, baby!” she moaned, “Fill me up, fill me up!”
“...He cums,” John finished, right on cue. He reached up and started to undo the top button of his shirt.
The man lay there on top of Alice for a moment, then rolled off, panting and chuckling. She giggled beneath him, gasping for breath and dizzy with pleasure.
“After he leaves she's still just lying there on the bed,” John said, working his way down to the bottom of his shirt and slipping it off. “And I go to her, and I lay down between her thighs...” he licked his lips slowly, smiling. His hands shook with anticipation. “And I start to taste her. I sink my tongue deep into that creamy pussy, and I can taste that black man's superior cum just gushing out of her cunt.”
He rose and started walking towards the bed.
Scott just stared after him, legs crossed to hide his erection.
John stood at the opening of the gauzy curtains. He looked back and grinned. “Nice to meet you, Luke. Best of luck with things. My advice? Just enjoy the ride.” He opened the curtains and crawled onto the bed, clutching his wife's thighs and pulling her towards himself.
Scott could see the other man's head moving down between Alice's pale thighs. She moaned, and tightened her legs around him, pushing his face down on her well-used pussy.
The huge black man came off the bed, brazenly naked and sweating, his huge black cock swaying. He picked up a towel from the bedside table and mopped off his brow. H
e glanced over at Scott. “Hey,” he rumbled, and flashed Scott a bright grin, “Enjoy the show?”
Scott gulped, and made a swift exit, out of the room and back down the stairs to where his own wife waited for him in the arms of a black man.
Chapter Ten
They came in the door, all three of them together, in silence.
Scott draped his jacket over the back of the chair in the dining room and looked at the two of them. Julie, still breathtakingly beautiful, blushed and walked silently towards the bathroom, probably to clean off her makeup.
“How did it go?” James asked, his voice steady and deep.
“You ever hear of a man named Patrick Bernard?”
James' eyebrows rose. “Bernard? Ah... that makes sense.”
“It does?” Scott sat at the table and undid the top button of his shirt. He'd meant only to try and cool off a little, but it reminded him unconsciously of the way John Stevens had removed his shirt before going down on his freshly-fucked wife. Almost ritually, like it was a part of a ceremony to him.
“I didn't think of it when you mentioned his initials. I don't think I ever knew the man's first name, but I'm familiar with Mr. Bernard.”
Scott nodded at the seat on the opposite side of the table. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He's been a member of the Club practically since the beginning. One of Mason's old friends from before the association was even formed.”
“So he's a, what do you call it, a swinger?”
“A cuckold, Mr. Chapel.”
Scott felt a little chill run through him at the world. There was something dirty and enticing about the very sound of it; he felt that he would be uncomfortable even trying to bring himself to say it aloud. “Okay, so is he?”
“He is, of course. And quite devoted to the practice.”
“Anything personal between the two of you?”
“As in: have I ever slept with his wife?”
“Yeah.”
“No. I've never met the woman, nor do I know anything about her. Which is about all I can say for Bernard himself. His involvement with the Club had dwindled a great deal in the past few years, as I understand it.”
“And you never knew the reason?”
“Not as such. I heard hints of some sort of argument between him and Mason, but I wasn't privy too or interested in that sort of gossip.”
“You too, eh?” Scott grumbled. What he wouldn't give to have somebody who was, he might actually get some solid information. “Never mind. We'll just have to go straight to the source.”
James frowned. “What do you mean?”
Scott smiled. “I mean, maybe it's time to pay Mr. Bernard a house call.”
* * *
Julie Chapel stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. What are you doing, Julie?
She had to look away. She turned and faced the opposite wall. Her hands were shaking. Why were her hands shaking?
What a night this had been. She felt like Alice in Wonderland or Dorothy in Oz. She was just a normal girl, just an average everyday woman, a school teacher, and here she was tumbling into this upside-down kingdom of luxurious perversion.
She'd always known that Scott's job brought him into contact with another side of the world than she was used to, but she had never expected it to be anything like this. She certainly hadn't thought she might become a part of it herself.
What would her friends say if they saw her like this? In a place like that? Would they be disgusted with her? Jealous, perhaps?
It had only been pretend; she had to remind herself, she'd only been playing a role to help Scott solve his case. She hadn't actually gone there and done those things. That had been the other woman, Felicia. That separate self.
It had been Felicia who'd dressed up in that startlingly erotic gown, Felicia who'd sat at the table with that handsome, intelligent and charming black man. It had been Felicia who'd listened to him talk and felt him gently caressing her shoulder and experienced a fluttering in her heart when he had leaned in close to whisper in her ear.
“You are a vision,” he'd said, and she felt a tremble right down her spine.
She'd hardly known how to respond, only smiled and looked away, then back at him because she couldn't bear not seeing his face, then away again because it was too intense to meet directly. Like looking into the sun. She needed only the memory of it. She could feel it right now, and she clutched her hands to her breasts, her heart beating just a little bit faster.
It had definitely been Felicia who'd been kissed by him. No, not by him, that put the onus too much on him. She had been the one to initiate it, and she couldn't deny that even to herself.
She hadn't planned to do it.
It had been after Scott left the room with that man. He'd glanced at her and she'd looked back, a slight feeling of panic rising in her. Why was he leaving? Where was he going? What was she expected to do here in his absence?
Then James had reached over to take her hand in his and he'd given her a reassuring squeeze. “It's alright,” he'd said, sensing her discomfort. “This is good. This means that it's working.”
“What should we do?” she'd whispered back.
“Just what we have been doing,” he'd said.
It had been fine for a while, they just chatted, and she could almost ignore the thrum of sexual energy that seemed to radiate in the air between them, a great glowing effervescence that lit everything in sparks and shadow.
Then another couple had come by, a man – a black man – whom James had seemed to know, and a young woman.
“Hello, Shawn,” James had rumbled, clearly annoyed at the interruption, though the younger man didn't seem to take the hint. He and the white woman he was with – her wedding band prominently displayed – had been all over one another, kissing and groping and touching and practically climbing on one another right there in the booth.
Julie had felt increasingly awkward and unsure of herself. The more intimate and sexual the other couple became, the more she felt like she ought to be doing the same. Wouldn't it appear suspicious for her to be in a sex club and not to do anything? Wouldn't people eventually notice?
Then the younger man said something that seemed to confirm her suspicions. He'd looked her over and grinned. “Shy one, isn't she?”
He hadn't seemed to mean much by it, but the point was made. James had scowled at him in a warning sort of way and had seemed about to speak when Julie – seized by a kind of madness, she thought – grabbed hold of his face and pulled him to herself. Her lips met his and her mouth opened.
He was surprised at first, caught quite off guard, then he responded. He kissed her back. She could feel his arms sliding around behind her back, drawing her close against him. Her breasts pushed against his powerful chest, and his great arms encircled her. His breath tasted of wine, and his mouth was sweet.
She'd only meant it to be a quick peck, mostly to prove a point, but once the kiss had begun she'd tumbled into it. Like Alice down the rabbit-hole… She'd pressed her body up against his, and she'd loved it. All her sense of time had seemed to vanish, even the worry that Scott was about to come back into the room and see her like this was no more than the faintest of concerns.
There was only the kiss.
When it did eventually break apart she felt like she'd just come out of a long and winding railroad tunnel and into the light. She'd blinked, feeling dazed and breathless.
The young black man had hooted with laughter. “Damn, Professor, she's something.”
“Yes,” James had said softly, gazing deep into her eyes, “she certainly is.”
But that wasn't her. That was the other woman, Felicia.
Right?
The bathroom door opened a crack. “Honey?”
It was Scott.
“Come on in, sweetie,” she'd said after clearing her throat.
He stepped inside and sat against the sink. “You okay?”
“I'm fine, yeah. Just... that
was a strange night.”
“I'm sorry I put you through it, Julie. It helped, though. Really did. We caught a break.”
“I'm glad,” she said, “and it really wasn't bad. I mean, it was just going out to a drink with a friend, really, nothing more to it than that in the end when you think about it.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he seemed somehow lost in thought, “I guess that's all it was.”
“I'm... really tired honey. I'm going to get to bed, okay?”
“Yeah, sure thing,” he said, still staring at nothing.
She kissed him softly and briefly on the cheek, little more than a brush of her lips against his face, and she stepped past him and into the hall.
Chapter Eleven
“Okay, so I got what you wanted, but I'm not handing over shit until you tell me why you want it. So what's this all about, anyway?”
“I need help, Jack. Unofficial. I think you've got a hint of what I'm onto. Something big, and there are major players involved here.”
Jack Kowalski took the cigarette out of the corner of his mouth and held it up in front of himself as if surprised to find it there. He grimaced and flicked it away down the alley. It skittered across the damp concrete, throwing sparks. “So it's connected to that peeper we had to cut loose.”
“Yeah. Thing is, I don't think he was doing it for the kicks. Someone put him there.”
“And you think it has something to do with this... this place?” Jack's mouth twisted on the word, like it left a sour taste on his tongue.
“That's right. It's all connected to the Club. I still haven't worked out the details, but something's going on behind the scenes there, and it's going to erupt. I don't really care about it, but I don't want anybody innocent getting hurt in the blast. Myself most of all.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “What's your involvement, anyway?”
“I just took a job, Jack. Same as always.”
“Well, if you want my advice, you'll make sure it stays just a job. These people,” he lifted a manila folder and smacked it against his leg, “these are not people you wanna get tangled up with.”