by Lexi Archer
I blinked. “A club? Like the sort of place where people go and dance or something like that? You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would run a dance club.”
“A dance club? No, nothing like that. I run a club that caters to a very exclusive clientelle. I count a number of the senior partners at your firm as members. You might say that being a member of my club is something of a prerequisite for someone becoming a member of the upper ranks of your own firm,” he said.
I felt a tingle running along my scalp. Down to the tips of my fingers. A prerequisite to becoming a partner in the firm. That sounded very much like this was some sort of test. A test that would end with me finally becoming senior partner if I passed.
Only.
It sounded very much like there might be a price to this. It sounded very much like the price might be Anne. I’m not sure why I got that idea, but there it was. The thought excited me as much as it turned my stomach. My cock was rock hard under the table and it was all I could do to keep my breathing normal. I didn’t want to do anything that would give away to this man just how interested I was in what he was saying.
“So what does this exclusive club have to do with me?” I asked.
“That depends,” he said.
“On?”
“Whether or not you’re interested in learning more about it,” he said.
“I think I’d need to know a little more about what this is all about. Like does this club somehow involve my wife?”
Felix smiled. A thin, knowing smile. “You’re a very perceptive man, but no. It doesn’t have to involve Anne if you don’t want it to. At least not initially. All I’d like is for you to come with me to my club tonight. You’d get a chance to visit with some of the senior partners at your firm on a more one on one basis. What would you say to that?”
“How can I say no to an offer like that?”
“Very good. I’ll send you a text message with some of the information. Now how about we enjoy the rest of this fine meal they’ve laid out for us?”
“I have one more question for you,” I said.
“What would that be?” he asked.
“Why me? Why pick me out over all the other guys at the firm? Why go to all this trouble and buy me the expensive meal?”
Felix shook his head and took a moment to chew a bit of steak. Finally he finished and put his fork down.
“I’ve decided I like you, I think,” he said. “And besides, any man with a wife as beautiful as yours is someone who I want in my club. I’ve always taken an interest in beauty.”
“So this is about Anne after all?”
“I wouldn’t say that. She is part of it, but not the whole thing. You both interest me. And it may be that there are other people who are interested in you and your performance at your work as well, but that isn’t my business to divulge.”
I swallowed. This was getting more and more interesting. People at the firm were interested in me?
“So what do I have to do?”
“Simply follow the information I send you, and tell no one. As I said, I run a very exclusive club. If word were to get out…”
He smiled and shrugged. The message was clear enough, though. I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of a man who held so much sway with the senior partners at work.
So I dug into the steak instead. I figured it might be awhile before I got a chance to enjoy something like this again. Then again, I suppose it was also possible if I got a promotion because of getting involved in this club that I might be able to get in here sooner rather than later.
7: Mysterious Appointment
The end of the day. Five o’clock. Well at least it was the end of the day for people who worked regular jobs. For people who worked in my area of the firm it was anything but. Five just meant it was time to grumble about people who worked normal jobs and got to go home right around this time.
Damn it.
Only I suppose I had a different excuse this time around. I looked down at my phone and swiped it to unlock. Stared at the information presented there. I was to be at a certain address by six. If I wanted to get there from the office with the kind of foot traffic that usually hit around the office then I’d need to get going right about now.
And yet I hesitated. Felix said this wasn’t about Anne, but I’d seen the way he looked at her that night at the party. It was the same way Brad had looked at my wife. It was the look of a man who was very interested in what my wife had on offer. The look of a man who desperately wanted to bed her.
I was more excited at the prospect than anything else. I hated myself for being more excited at the prospect than anything else. It turned my stomach to think of my beautiful Anne with another man even as it set my cock throbbing and I wanted nothing more than to watch her feeling the ultimate pleasure with another.
It was all sorts of fucked up.
I made my decision. I picked up the phone and dialed Anne. The phone rang a couple of times. I knew she’d be making her way out of her own job not too far from here. It was entirely possible she was in an elevator or something where she wasn’t getting the signal. It was almost a relief that she wasn’t getting the signal. That meant she wouldn’t pick up and I wouldn’t lie to her because I was about to do something that could be stupid.
Something that could jeopardize our relationship, if I was being perfectly honest.
The phone picked up. I fought the urge to swear. That would be a little awkward. That would definitely let her know something was up. No, what I needed to do was be cool. Not let on that I was doing something that could have potentially far ranging negative consequences.
“Edward? What’s up? The usual?”
I winced. “The usual” meant I’d be working late. Again. I’d explained to her time and again that it was all part of the job, and she seemed to understand. That didn’t make me like it any less every time I had to bail on her though. I sometimes wondered if everything I was missing out on because of this job would be worth it in the long run, but I figured I was burning a little bit of my youth to live the easy life for the rest of my days.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” I said. “They’ve got me doing research for a project that should’ve been done five days ago and it just got on my desk today. You know how it is.”
A sigh on the other end that broke my heart. Both because she was so obviously used to this at this point and because I was lying through my teeth this time around. I didn’t have any work to do. Actually I was surprisingly not busy compared to my usual workload. I could go home right now and it probably wouldn’t be the end of the world.
I wasn’t going to do that, though. I was going to go to this club and I was going to see what Felix was all about. I was going to do it because I had a sneaking suspicion that this guy might be a fast track to the top. I was going to go because I couldn’t get the thought of my wife with another man out of my head, and I had a sneaking suspicion that going to this club was going to be a way to finally see that happen as well.
I was scum for thinking that, but there we were.
“Well I’ll settle in and catch up on my stories or something,” she said. “Don’t work too late.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said.
Yeah, total scum. That was me. I wasn’t going to stop, though. I needed to know more. And so that’s how I found myself standing in front of Felix’s building looking up at a decent-sized brick building that looked like it’d been here for at least a hundred years, if not longer. I looked down at my card to make sure I was in the right place, but it seemed everything was in order. I sighed. It was time to figure out what was going on here.
The front entrance was guarded by a camera. I hit a call button and heard a buzz. A moment later a voice piped through a speaker next to the camera.
“How can I help you?” a feminine voice said.
“Um, I’m here to see Felix? He gave me his info in a text,” I said.
There was a click and the door opened. Apparently th
at was all I needed to get in here. Maybe Felix had told whoever was guarding the door to expect me. I stepped through the door and found myself staring at a palatial area that made the digs back at the law office look absolutely primitive by comparison. I’m talking ultra modern with marble flooring and it all led to a desk where one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen in my life sat tapping away at a computer.
That seemed like as good a place as any to start. When in doubt, go to the attractive woman and try to figure out what the hell is going on. I leaned on the counter and she looked up at me and smiled. It was a sultry smile that went straight to my cock. This girl didn’t have anything on Anne, my wife was always going to be the most beautiful girl in the world as far as I was concerned precisely because she was my wife, but this girl was a looker. A definite ten out of ten.
Now that I thought about it, she had the same sort of generic model good looks that all the trophy wives back at the firm had. There had to be something to that.
“Can I help you sir?”
It was the same voice from the intercom. So she had to know why I was here. Okay then. Maybe she was pretty, but it looked like Felix chose them for looks and not for their keen analytical ability. Or maybe I was just getting too used to all the smart girls working in the junior associate area trying to break through the glass ceiling at the firm.
“Um, we just spoke through the intercom? I’m the one who’s here to see Felix?” I said.
Her face lit up. “Of course! He’s already on his way. He really bagged a cute one this time.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
The girl stood, revealing her uniform. If it could be called a uniform. It was a red dress that was low cut so that I could see all the way to Timbuktu if I looked down. I blushed as I realized this hottie wasn’t wearing any underwear. Normally that was the sort of thing I’d be interested in giving a second look, but right now all I could think about was that I didn’t want Felix walking down here and seeing me ogling the help at the front desk. So I tore my eyes away and forced myself to look into her eyes.
Not that it was much better there. She had a look on her face that clearly said if she wasn’t all that blessed in the brains department, there were other areas where she was otherwise skilled. I swallowed as she licked her lips and reminded myself that I was a married man. A happily married man.
“Well Felix always likes to bring in good looking ones for the girls, but he really hit the jackpot with you.”
Her eyes ran up and down my body, and I found myself wondering if Anne really was the reason why he’d taken such an interest in me. Was there something else going on here? For the girls? What was she talking about?
“Talia, behave yourself with our guests,” a voice said from off to the side.
I looked over and jumped. Somehow Felix had managed to appear there without giving any sort of indication that he was sneaking up on us. Damn.
“Felix. So good to see you,” I said. “I was just chatting with…”
“With Talia, yes I know. She does delight in teasing the new recruits,” Felix said.
“New recruits? What are you talking about? I just came here because…”
Felix held out an hand and wrapped it around my arm. “I know precisely why you came here. Don’t worry. Talia likes to have her fun, but she doesn’t bite.”
“Or do I?” she asked with a giggle as Felix led me off into the building. “Maybe I’ll see you later stud!”
Her giggles echoed as Felix led me to an elevator. We stepped on and I must have looked really fucking nervous because he smiled and held out his hands.
“I do apologize for her behavior. She likes to make people nervous their first time. She is also a sort of test for new recruits,” he said.
“You keep saying new recruits. What are you talking about? And what do you mean that was a test?”
Felix smiled another mysterious smile. “That is simple enough. If she likes you then you get to move on to the next level.”
“And if she didn’t like me?” I asked.
“Well then, things would have become more difficult, but not impossible for one such as yourself.”
Damn it. We were out here at this club, whatever the hell it was, and he was still making with the mystery. I was enough to make me want to scream out in frustration. What I did instead was nod politely and play along. If he wanted to be all dark and mysterious for a little while then that was his business. I figured he’d get around to telling me what this was all about soon enough.
We stepped into a room that was even more opulent than the area downstairs. It was obvious the man was spending his money on the area that serviced his clients, and that was saying something considering how damn expensive the entryway was!
“Welcome to my little corner of the city,” Felix said, holding his arms out.
I stopped and stared in astonishment. The lights were turned up, but there were doors leading off to rooms where it seemed nice and quiet and dark enough that people could get up to something without worrying about being discovered. As I stared around the room I realized that I recognized the people in here. Not all of them, to be sure, but there were enough people from the firm that it was pretty obvious what was going on here. Men with their wives, their trophy wives, milling about and chatting like they were having a grand old time. It was like a country club set in the middle of the city.
The only difference being that I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a single country club in the world where they sanctioned the sort of things the clients were getting up to here. The trophy wives were out in droves, but they were mixing with younger men who were all muscular and pretty good looking. I saw Mr. Roth and his wife off in one corner with some guy I didn’t recognize, and she was making out with him pretty hot and heavy!
Perhaps more astonishing than that, though, was the way Roth reacted. I figured a big powerful man like that, the sort of guy who was used to people asking how high he would prefer when he told them to jump, would be down with another guy making out with his woman.
Unless, of course, he was suffering from the same affliction I currently had.
There was a second level to this place as well. Up top there were tables and very comfortable looking chairs, and there was some older dude who was pretty good looking for being an older dude in each of those chairs looking down into the dark rooms on the other side of those doors I’d noticed. Looking down intently.
I could only imagine what was going on in those rooms.
“What is this place?” I asked.
Felix took in the entire room with an expansive gesture of his arms. “This is my club. My refuge in the city for men who enjoy sharing the pleasures their wives have to offer. Welcome, Edward, to Hedonism.”
8: Introduction
“Hedonism? What the hell is this all about?”
“Hedonism is my club. My refuge in this city. As for what this is all about, well perhaps it would be better to show you rather than explain.”
I glanced around the room at all the people writhing and sucking face and generally having a grand old time with one another. It didn’t seem that anything reached the level of people outright fucking here in what I assumed was the main area of the club, but they were so close as makes no difference.
As I watched one couple broke off from the main group and headed to one of the side rooms. It was a middle aged guy who was pretty good looking, but the cut of his suit made it clear he was the one with the money in the relationship. I didn’t recognize him from the firm so I figured it was a good bet he was a captain of industry or finance at some other company somewhere in the city.
The thing that had more of my attention was the beautiful lady with him. Short, petite, with a body to die for and dark hair that ran down to her shoulders. We’re talking about the kind of woman who’s guest starred in just about every guy’s secret jerk-off fantasy at some point in their life. She was built to kill, and she was in the arms of a man who very obviously w
asn’t her husband.
And they were walking across the room to a nice private area. They disappeared into that dark room with the husband in tow. No doubt so he could watch his wife doing all sorts of depraved things with this new guy. I took in a sharp breath as I thought of that. Apparently just the thought of a wife being unfaithful was enough to poke the bear growling inside me. It didn’t even have to be my wife who was getting down and dirty.
Damn.
“So you bring women here and they have sex with other men in front of their husbands?” I asked.
“Something like that. You might say that I simply facilitate a more libertine lifestyle for the rich and powerful of the city who are interested in my services.”
“So why did you bring me here? I’m not rich and powerful. Not by a long shot.”
Felix smiled and shook his head. “You’re not rich and powerful now. An up and comer at your firm, though? Well who’s to say where you might be a year from now? Five years from now? I told you I know women and I have a good eye for them. Well I’m here to tell you that I also have a good eye for the rich and powerful. I have to be to maintain my line of work. I see something in you.”
I felt a chill at that and it had nothing to do with anything he’d said about wives cheating on their husbands. He thought I had potential?
“Have you heard something from someone? Did someone at the firm say something to give you the idea that I might be an up and comer or something?”
“I cannot betray confidences. Let me just say that when you’re at my club that usually means you will very quickly become an up and comer. Whether that is because you are at my club or because you were selected for my club because you’re on your way up is irrelevant. The point stands that this changes things, and all you have to do is agree to be recruited into the club.”
“But I have no way of paying for this. I mean this sort of place…”
Felix put a finger to his lips and I went quiet. Obviously he wasn’t quite done talking yet.
“What if I told you that the fee is not exactly monetary? At least not to begin with? I’ve seen the way you look at your wife. I know how you felt watching her with another man.”