by SM Johnson
Okay. I am grounded. The evening can continue and I can handle it.
I was about to unpack my laptop and do some more reading, when there was a tap at my door. Avery walked in without waiting for me to invite him.
Huh. Funny.
I peeked at the doorknob. It didn’t have a lock.
Not that I’d want to lock him out. Or at least I didn’t think I would.
He’d changed clothes, and it was the first time I’d seen him in anything but a suit. He looked just as good in jeans and a more causal, black button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled halfway up his arms.
“We should go shopping,” Avery said. “I want to take you out tonight, but not wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie.”
I was startled. “We’re going out?” I didn’t care about the clothes – whatever. I had no sense of style. But I was very worried about this going out thing. I got tongue-tied and made a fool of myself around people, and I didn’t want to embarrass Avery.
“Not a good idea,” I said. “I’ll embarrass you.”
“I highly doubt that, Julian. You are adorable. I will enjoy being seen with you on my arm.”
I sat on the bed, shaking my head and wringing my hands. “I can’t function. I get too nervous. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I throw up, sometimes both. You can go. Just leave me here. I’ll read. That’s what I do. It’s safe for me.”
“Okay. I wanted it to be a surprise, but to keep you from getting too anxious, I’ll just tell you. I’m taking you to the kind of club where spankings happen.”
I was speechless. There were kinds of clubs where spankings happened? He didn’t seem like a person who lied or made things up, but I have to admit that simple statement sounded too weird to be true.
He didn’t give me a chance to react.
“I’m going to order you not to say a single word while we’re there, and I will be delighted to tell anyone and everyone that I have forbidden you from speaking. Don’t waste any energy worrying about this.”
I was very worried about this, but as usual, it was easier to obey him than to find the words to argue.
The first place we went was to a barber.
I started shaking the second I sat in the chair.
“Jules?”
I heard the question in his voice, but was too busy with my breathing to answer. Hank is taking you to the barber to cut that mop of yours. Don’t argue with me. It’s disgraceful hanging in your face like that. No son of mine will be walking around looking like a homeless person. What if my friends see you?
“Jules.”
Not a question this time. There was that firmness in his voice, the tone that centered me. Just like that the tightness in my chest eased, my throat relaxed, and I could breathe just fine.
“Yes, sir. I’m good.”
I hated haircuts. For one thing, when I was younger, I never had a say in it, and always ended up with a respectable boy cut that made my ears look too big for my head and my nose too big for my face. The other awful part was the plastic cape thing that was always involved with haircuts. The cold drape over my arms made me feel trapped. The plastic collar that itched and choked at the same time.
I shivered as the cape went around me.
Avery stared at me. Just that.
Not the contemptuous, self-amused stare of my step-father, but a very serious, very direct kind of watching.
The barber did his thing, and I cooperated, sneaking peeks at Avery whenever I could.
Avery kissed me.
The memory came out of nowhere, and I felt myself blush.
I almost chewed a strip of flesh from the inside of my lip, but remembered to stop myself. I clenched my fingers together in my lap instead. Everything is going to be all right. Because Avery kissed me.
This was like no barber I’d ever been to, because when he was done with my hair, he did something to my eyes. With make-up.
After the haircut, Avery led me into a store, where he told the sales person that I didn’t like to talk. The two of them stripped me down to my underwear – and then took away even my underwear, because they thought bikini briefs would “work better” – whatever that meant. Which became clear when they brought the tightest low-cut jeans in the world to the dressing room and expected me to somehow put myself into them. And it was a struggle, let me just say.
The shirt wasn’t much looser.
The whole ensemble made me look skinny in a sexy way. In fact, looking at myself in the mirror was a little shocking. The barber hadn’t cut off all my hair. It still brushed my shoulders, and whatever he washed it with made it as smooth and silky as Avery’s neckties. The bangs were the main difference, still longish, but now they fell in a pleasant, messy way over my left eye. My left eye that had eyeliner around it. My right eye, too. I looked like a whole different person.
I never imagined I could look like this.
And when Avery saw me? Well, he looked like he was going to pounce on me and swallow me whole right there. Just eat me right up.
It made me nervous. Surprise.
Out of nowhere I suddenly got woozy and started shaking again.
This wasn’t me. This couldn’t be me, in my own life.
Avery put an arm around me. “I think you need to eat. A couple of finger sandwiches and a ton of sugar is not going to get you through this.”
“Can we get a hot dog from a street vendor? They’re my favorite thing about New York.”
“Your very favorite thing?” he asked, and his voice held…something I didn’t quite recognize.
Oh. Oh.
“My second favorite thing. Sir.”
His eyes darkened and the corners of his lips lifted, just the tiniest bit, and the combination made him look like a satisfied predator.
This was happening way too fast.
It was exhilarating. And terrifying. Maybe the most terrifying thing that’s happened to me so far. And I never wanted it to stop.
The hot dog was just as good this time as it was last time. I found my equilibrium and stopped shaking.
The club was called The Dungeon. Avery’s name was on a guest list, and the door guy checked his name off, then asked for mine. Avery said my name, and something in the way he said it started me trembling all over again.
“Will he be applying for membership?” the door guy asked, and Avery said, “Not tonight. He’s a transplant from Minnesota and doesn’t have a New York ID yet. But I vouch for him, and that’s all you need to know.”
“Yes, sir,” the door man answered, writing my name next to Avery’s on the list.
I shot Avery a question with my eyes. I wanted to ask the question out loud, but Avery had been very clear that I was not to speak. Not a word.
“Thursday is Members Only night. I am a member. Tonight you’re my guest. All you need to do is look pretty and not say a word. We’ll discuss anything you might see or have questions about later. At home.”
Home. He meant his apartment when he said that.
He took my hand and led me into the club. Paused near the coat check and released my hand. And what he did next was so unexpected I was thankful I wasn’t supposed to talk, because I’m not at all sure what would have come out of my mouth. He pulled a leather dog collar attached to a chain leash out of his back pocket, and fastened the collar around my throat.
He gave that soft chuckle, the one of enjoyment, and I can only imagine my eyes were bulging out of my head. I made a move to touch the collar, but he slapped my hand away. It was a firm slap, followed by a meaningful look.
That almost made me laugh, too, because he wasn’t forbidden from talking.
But anyway, I got the message. Leave the collar alone.
“One last thing,” Avery said. I stayed still and watched him remove a small roll of black tape from his pocket. Electrician’s tape, I found myself thinking, my eyes glued to his fingers manipulating the roll, pulling off two short strips of tape. He put them over my mouth. I could feel the bigness of my eyes, a kind of ho
rrified embarrassment.
Without further ceremony, he slipped the handle of the leash around his wrist and then twined his fingers with mine. The cold links bumped against our arms as we moved further into the club. Avery greeted people, and people greeted Avery, as we made our way to the bar. He ordered drinks for us and chatted for a few minutes with one of the bartenders. The bartender glanced at me briefly, and all my insides cringed, but he didn’t comment on the tape, just let his attention go back to Avery. In the course of the conversation, Avery introduced me. “This is my new friend, Jules. He’s not allowed to speak right now, so please excuse him for not saying hello.”
And again, the way he said my name shot a tremor up my spine.
The bartender smiled at me. “Mr. Phoenix makes friends quickly, yeah? I’m Doc. Nice to meet you. Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk next time.” He chucked me under the chin like I was a little kid, and I felt my face go red.
Even without talking, this was almost too much. The tape, the collar and leash, the bartender acting like this was some kind of normal.
Avery whispered into my ear. “Look around.”
I glanced from side to side, then turned to look at the rest of the club, which was a smattering of tables behind me, and beyond the tables, a square of blue mats arranged like a boxing ring. I wasn’t the only person in this club wearing a collar. I counted four others just from that quick look around. There were a lot of folks wearing leather. A lot of tattoos. And a woman who had similar tape in an X shape over each nipple of her bared breasts. Biker bar came to mind, but I didn’t remember seeing bikes parked outside. Leather bar, crept into my mind then, reminding me of some things I’d read. Gay leather bar? I took another look.
The people who were coupled up mostly appeared to be the same gender.
So, yes.
Gay leather bar.
I slid onto a bar stool, so nervous all of a sudden that my knees threatened to buckle. Would there be no end to Avery surprising me today?
Avery’s fingers slid beneath the hair at the back of my neck. “Nothing to be nervous about, so don’t you dare be destroying the inside of your lip. I’ll catch you the minute you think I’m not paying attention, you know.”
I could hardly hear his words, because the brush of his fingers on the back of my neck was so loud.
His fingertips moved in the tiniest caress ever, and I felt it like a trickle of molten liquid all the way down my spine.
He squeezed, and the molten turned to goosebumps.
When he let go of me, the abrupt lack of his touch felt like a loss, felt like naked, somehow.
“Grab your drink, Jules. I see a friend.”
I picked up the drink I wasn’t even able to sip, and followed Avery, weaving between tables and getting a better view of the blue mats.
There was, uh, activity, happening over there. Four posts squared the space, and there was a pink-haired, red-faced young man tied to one of the posts, and a man wearing ass-less chaps was swinging a many-tailed whip at his back. I stopped walking to stare, but Avery didn’t, and the result was a nasty tug at the collar that almost made me spill my drink. I realized I needed to pay attention to Avery at the risk of being jerked right off my feet. Or strangled. I hurried after him.
He stopped at a table just outside the square of mats, shook hands with one of the three men sitting there, and said, “Do you mind?”
The man wearing sunglasses, the one Avery shared a handshake with, said, “Not at all. Pull up a chair for your boy, too.” He had the kind of accent I associated with people who spoke Spanish before they learned English. Like my long-lost father.
Avery snagged an empty chair from the next table over, and everyone shuffled to make room for the extra seat. Avery pointed at it, and I sat down.
“New boy?” The question came from Sunglasses.
“The newest,” Avery said. “We met very recently.”
Sunglasses guffawed, then looked first at the man at his right, and then the man at his left, and said, “Happens that way, sometimes, don’t it, gatitos?”
Whatever that was, it meant something to his companions, both of whom were suddenly fighting grins.
“S’cuse me, I’m being rude. Phoenix, I don’t think I’ve formally introduced you to my boys.” He tilted his head to indicate the man with goldish blond hair sitting at his right. “Dare.” He jerked his chin to the left. “Zach. Boys, this is Avery Phoenix, and…” his voice rose to the pitch of a question as he looked at me.
“Julian Sparks. Jules,” Avery said. “He’s forbidden from speaking, as you can clearly see.”
I expect Sunglasses had a name, but it didn’t seem like I would learn it unless I remembered to ask Avery later. The gentle teasing and the invitation to sit made me think this person was a closer friend of Avery’s than the others who’d greeted him.
A loud, drawn-out moan brought my attention back to the blue mats. The man in the chaps had a hand between the legs of his partner, and his arm was moving at a pace that could only be a hand job. The moans got louder and then turned into pleading words.
I couldn’t help staring. Surely someone was going to stop them at any moment. I could feel nervousness in my stomach, worried that they were going to get in trouble, or I was, for watching, for being too interested. But I couldn’t seem to look away.
“First time?”
I recognized the voice of Sunglasses, and forced myself to turn back to the table, but raised my hands to my face to cover my blush.
“It’s our first time out in public anywhere,” Avery said. “And I didn’t ask him, but yeah, I think it’s safe to assume he’s never been to a place like this.”
“Hmmm,” Sunglasses said, staring at me. “You want me to explain it to him, like the birds and the bees?”
Avery’s laugh was the kind that flung his head back, mouth open, his whole body shaking with mirth. “No, that’s okay,” he finally managed to say. “If you start that, he’ll die of mortification. I’ll answer any questions he comes up with.”
“What did he do to earn the punishment of silence?”
I thought it was kind of great that Sunglasses would think my not being allowed to talk was punishment. I was grateful for the opportunity to observe all of this without having to string words together and hope they came out of my mouth correctly.
“Ah, that’s a private matter,” Avery said, without missing a beat.
I let my eyes stray to the blue mats, where the guy wearing the leather chaps was unfastening his partner from the post, then supporting his weight as they walked together to a curtain and disappeared behind it.
Was this like, Oz, or what?
Avery squeezed my shoulder. “There’s a space back there where they’ll rest. The sub, the one who was tied to the pole, will get a long cozy cuddle from his partner, probably with a blanket and a bottle of water to rehydrate.”
I had more questions than my mind knew what to do with. I mean, sure I’d read stories where people tied each other up for sex play, but only the one with the tentacled demon had hit the slush pile.
Was that story the reason he brought me here? Did he think I wanted something like this?
No. I corrected my over-active thoughts. He was on the list. He’d been a member before he met me.
Did that mean Avery liked the story, too?
I’d dreamed several versions of that story, long before I’d read the actual words. Perhaps that’s why I was struck stupid in this place, this den of people wearing leather and collars and leashes. It was too delicious for my anxious self to even consider. I could get lost in a world like this, with people like this. It was, perhaps, better for me not to know such places existed, because I’d had several obsessions during my life, and the fact that this club and the people in it were real could easily become the next one.
Paper airplanes when I was eight years old, which grew to intricate and complicated origami by the time I was eleven. The world’s religions when I was thirteen,
reading all the books of belief, or translations of them, and comparing their similarities and differences. Searching out the origin stories, the histories, trying to find the common thread that might offer me proof of a real God.
The graffiti on train cars when I was sixteen, taking photographs, putting them on the internet, trying to connect art with artist, having awkward conversations with taggers who always figured out I was more of geek than a kindred spirit.
There were periods of time before my twenties that I saw connections everywhere – from the telephone and cable wires attached to houses, to imagining an actual information web, a physical structure that surrounded the world. I sometimes thought it interfered with my own connection to the world, a connection that even religion failed to explain.
There was hospitalization then, and medication. Talk of schizophrenia, but as we had no genetic history, a smart and kind psychiatrist finally explained away my obsessions as an extended but completely normal questioning of existential mysteries. “Smart people question on a more global scale,” he said. “Not only asking Why am I here? But also Why is anyone here?” He offered the medication, not to stop me from thinking about things on a grand scale, but because such thinking caused me debilitating anxiety.
I monitored my interests after that, taking care not to chase ghosts or ghostly ideas with such single-minded energy.
The slush pile occupied my mind and my time, and, if I was honest with myself, was probably just another obsession.
Reading had always been my most favorite activity, after all.
A finger snap brought me out of my rumination. “Jules. Would you like to taste your drink?”
I nodded, suddenly parched. Avery gently tugged the tape away. I took a sip of my drink and discovered it was mostly ice and soda. Again, Avery surprised me, this time with his brilliance. Because the last thing in the world I wanted was to get drunk in this bar, in the presence these people.