by Lulu Astor
I watch as he swings an arm around the beautiful blonde’s shoulders and feel another injection of adrenaline pump into me. They start walking toward the bar, toward me. The woman is speaking to another man—the blond man who earlier caught Naomi’s attention—who seems to be with them and Ian happens to glance up and that’s when he sees me.
His pretty eyes lock right into mine.
The look on his face is one of utter shock. I continue to watch as various emotions flash across his beautiful countenance but they fly by so fast it’s impossible to grab them long enough to discern exactly what they are. He says something to his friends, disengages from the blonde, and then heads straight in my direction. My legs begin to tremble as the bartender replaces my drink with a fresh one and I smile up at him gratefully.
“Ian.” My voice comes out more breath than voice. I’m so nervous that my whole body is shaking at this point and, please God, I don’t want him to notice.
“Ariel. You look surprised to see me here.”
“I might say the same to you. And, yes. I guess I’m not surprised that you’re here but I wasn’t expecting it… and I am surprised at your… uh, demeanor.”
One brow rises and there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. “My demeanor? Care to elaborate?”
I shift my weight on the stool, trying for comfort in a wretchedly uncomfortable moment. For a moment I lose his attention. ADHD? “It’s just that you seem so, um, friendly? I watched two women maul you just now and you actually smiled and chatted with them.”
“And you find that unusual?”
“Well… yes, for you. Normally you’re kind of aloof. And I thought you didn’t like people getting too close or familiar with you.”
He leans in and speaks directly into my ear so neither of us has to shout or strain to hear over the music. “I apologize if I gave you that impression, Ariel. I myself tend to avoid unfair generalizations when possible.”
My face gets hot and I know I must be scarlet with embarrassment. He was always so good at verbal sparring—always, as in all twenty-five days we spent together. But still I try to dig myself out. “When I went to your office? You seemed quite cool with the women you employ… and yet you see them daily…” I trail off weakly, realizing I’m just making things worse for myself.
“True, but then I don’t put my staff in bondage and do rude things to their bodies, either. That kind of proximity tends to breed familiarity.”
My cheeks are now on fire; any moment now I’m expecting to spontaneously combust. He’s discomfiting me on purpose and enjoying my misery. I mutter under my breath, Thank God for small favors but I’m not sure he hears me so I speak up, “And these women you do?”
“Some of them,” he says mildly, glancing around. “In the past.” He focuses on me again and stares me in the eye. “Your turn now. To explain, I mean,” he adds with a wicked grin. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He’s pissed that I’m intruding on his stomping ground? “I came at the urging of a friend who’s a member here. It was just meant as a lark. If my presence makes you uncomfortable, I’ll leave. Actually, I wasn’t planning on staying beyond a few minutes anyway.”
“Please don’t leave on my account, Ariel.” His eyes begin to gleam and his lips stretch into a smile. An evil smile. “In fact, would you like me to show you around?”
Mariah and Naomi finally take notice of the spectacularly gorgeous man in front of me. “Ella?” Mariah nearly shouts over the music.
“Naomi, I believe you know Ian?”
She nods. “I used to see you around… though not lately. Glad to see you’ve come back.”
Ian nods his head in greeting.
“Mariah, this is Ian Bla—” Oops, almost forgot the no surname rule.
Mariah smiles, trying to make herself heard over the music. “Yes, I remember Ian. He came to our condo looking for you after you absconded from the country last year.”
He offers a restrained smile to Mariah. “Nice to see you again, Mariah. And it’s also very nice to see you again, Naomi. I’m going to steal Ariel away from you ladies for a little while… if that’s okay?”
Both of them turn to me and I nod my assent nervously. Mariah looks admiringly at Ian. “Sure. Just make sure to bring her back just the way you found her, please.”
He gives them his most devastating smile, the one that should come with a warning label that says Caution: dangerous to your health and mental well-being.
“I’ll be sure to do that. Excuse us, please. Ariel?” He holds out his hand.
I slide off the barstool. “Can I take my drink?”
He assesses me up and down. “I think maybe you’ve had enough.” He moves to grasp the glass to put it back down but I swing it out of his reach.
“No, Ian, I haven’t had enough. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s enough alcohol behind that bar to be enough for me tonight.” And I walk ahead of him, drink in hand.
He was right though: I’m wobbly on my high heels so drinking more would be foolish. I whip around, by some miracle not stumbling, and hand him my glass. He merely smiles with approval and places it on a small table near a sofa crowded with people, some seated, others kneeling on the floor. Subs. I shake my head.
“Ariel, I should warn you: if you found my small dungeon disturbing, the things you’ll see here will give you nightmares. Are you sure you’re up for this tour?”
“Sure, why not? I should also take this opportunity to say thank you for dropping the lawsuit. I was surprised… but grateful.”
“So grateful you didn’t bother to call me, I noticed.”
I gape up at him. “I wasn’t sure if you would have deemed it appropriate. My attorney told me to refrain from doing anything.”
“Your attorney probably didn’t welcome the competition. Jackson told me he seemed more than professionally interested in your welfare.”
I roll my eyes—he always did think every man wants to sleep with me. “Jackson?”
“My attorney. Anyway, I do appreciate your gratitude. You’re welcome.”
“Hmm. Will you tell me why?”
“Why?”
“Why you dropped it?”
“After you explained how it all happened, my sense of betrayal and outrage dissipated. I didn’t want to hurt you.” He turns and puts his hands on my arms. I want to throw myself at him, embrace him, kiss him, and in my mind’s eye I do it. In reality, I stand there stiffly and wait for his cue.
“I care about you, Ariel. I wanted you back in my life but blackmailing you into it didn’t seem the right way to go about it.” He laughs.
Wanted? His use of the past tense stabs me in the chest. “I care about you, too, Ian. I’m sorry if my book hurt you, truly I am.”
He leans in and kisses me gently. “Come on, let me show you just how mild a Dominant I really am. Maybe you’ll look more favorably upon me.”
We walk down a long hall. On either side are rooms where people are doing… things. Various things. Terrifying things.
“The whip frightened you so much that it might be prudent to show you just what punishments are available, to show you how lightly you got off—and by got off, I mean got away with.” He grins wickedly at his dirty little joke.
I blush on cue, as he knew I would. Just then I hear a woman scream—I wouldn’t call it bloodcurdling—but it was bad enough to scare me. I must have turned white as a sheet because Ian moves his body closer to mine as if my terror beckoned him.
“Okay?”
I nod.
He leads me deeper into the darkness. I don’t care to examine the reasons why but I feel completely safe with Ian. When I was with Mariah and Naomi, I still felt like prey sitting there at the bar, but I feel protected with him by my side. We hear a woman sobbing and we follow the sound.
My eyes are taking in the scene but there is a sharp disconnect between the images being absorbed by my retina and my brain’s processing of the information. What in hell is g
oing on? I glance up at Ian.
He must feel my eyes on him or he just anticipated my confusion. Without taking his eyes off the scene, he explains it to me. “That submissive’s crime must have been severe—accordingly, so is her punishment. She’s riding what’s called a wooden pony.”
He turns and whispers in my ear. “As long as she remains on her tiptoes, she can hold herself off the pony. Once her calves become strained and she is forced to put her weight on her full foot, she will come down on the pony… and it will hurt her most tender parts.” He says that with a smirk but his eyes look troubled. I look again in sheer horror.
The girl is stark naked. Her arms are chained overhead and she is holding onto something—I suppose for balance. Her legs are straddling a piece of wood about two by four inches with the narrow part turned up. Apparently she was on it long enough to have to come down on the wood already and she is weeping pitifully and continually adjusting her position, seeking to escape the pain, no doubt. Her movements mimic riding an actual horse and I suppose that’s how the torture implement got its name. I want to rescue her but the man standing right next to her, observing or perhaps providing her punishment, is big and very mean looking. I feel like a criminal just standing there and doing nothing but what could I do? God, these people are cruel bastards.
“Do you know what she did to deserve something so harsh? She didn’t violate a CA, by any chance?”
A beguiling smile is my response. Why does he have to be so damn beautiful?
“No. I don’t know what she did—I just arrived a minute or two before I saw you. This is the first time I’ve been to the club in well over a year.” He looks at me pointedly as if that’s meaningful to me. Does he mean that he hasn’t been here since he met me? If that’s supposed to make me feel better, well, it actually does.
“But, to answer your question, they usually don’t use the pony unless it’s something egregiously bad. The last time I saw it used, the sub had done something to cause another sub to get hurt because she was jealous the girl hooked the Dom she herself wanted. She paid for it and still didn’t get the man.”
“How do they know how long to put her on that thing? Or do they just make it so lengthy a session she’s bound to be badly hurt?” And my words are exactly right: she’s bound for the express reason of hurting her.
If he notices the pun, he chooses to ignore it. Obviously I’m not making light of the situation. “They look at her body, her weight, her age, and how toned her muscles are, and they estimate how long she’ll likely be able to stay on her toes. Then they double that time for the punishment. That way, no matter how strong or how stubborn, she will get the pain.”
“Ah.” I cringe, my muscles contracting in sympathy. “Such devious minds.”
“That punishment is as old as the hills. The most inventive tortures were conceived in the Middle Ages. Some are still used.”
“Are Doms ever punished or is it just the poor women?”
“First of all, some men are submissives and some women are Dommes, though admittedly it usually skews the other way. And, yes. Though Doms are not usually punished, I have been witness to a few. There was one just recently that a friend told me about.”
He looks at me, one brow raised, as if challenging me to ask about it. Normally, I wouldn’t, since I like to be difficult with difficult people but I desperately want to know. “Okay, I’ll bite. What did he do?”
“Ignored a safe word. That’s probably the worst possible offense a dominant could commit. Because he was a longstanding club member who had lost his temper and acted uncharacteristically irrational, the owners gave him a choice rather than just kick him out: he could either forfeit his club membership or accept a whipping by the club’s most vicious sadist. The caveat was that he would not be permitted a safe word, since he tried to deprive a submissive of the right. He chose the punishment and it was quite severe, so I’m told.”
A violent shudder reverberates through my body and Ian sees it, smiling gently. “Come. Let’s go see some more. That is, if you’re up for it?”
I nod. In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. This club was really like a chamber of horrors. Why would anyone choose to do these things?
“Ian, why would that man choose the whipping over losing his membership? Aren’t there other clubs around? Is the membership that valuable?”
“To some it is. There aren’t any other private clubs like this one in the area. The public ones are not as safe, or clean, or interesting. He knew he was in the wrong; it was worth it to him to take the whipping and continue. It’s a community here and people feel free to be themselves within these walls.”
We walk past a woman being spanked on this obnoxious looking bench. Her skirt has been flipped up her back and every passer-by could see all she has to offer. Apparently no one believes in underwear here. Another shiver runs up my spine.
He pauses to give me a long look. “Have you seen enough or would you like to continue?”
“Is there a lot more to see?”
He laughs. “Yes, lots more, but frankly, I’d just as soon not show you. Come on. I’ll take you back to your friends.”
Relieved, I nod. “Okay, thanks, Ian.” As we’re walking back upstairs, my hand in his big, warm, masculine one, I realize that I’m suddenly depressed: I’m going to leave this place and he’s going to stay. And do things. With women. The idea makes me sick to my stomach.
Just before we reach the bar, he pulls me to a stop. “Poor thing, you’re so pale. This outing probably wasn’t a good idea for you.” He looks at the bar. “But your friends look like they’re having a good time.”
I follow his eyes. It was true: both Mariah and Naomi are talking with men and looking as if they are having a grand time of it. “Mmm, I guess I’ll be going home alone tonight,” I laugh but he doesn’t join in. Instead, his eyes sparkle with some secret devilry but before I can read it, it’s gone.
“Are you living here now?”
“No. Just staying for a few weeks before I go visit my parents and then on to New York.”
“New York?”
“Just for a quick trip. I’m not sure where I’ll end up—somewhere with a good doctoral program, I suppose.”
“Any chance it will be here?”
I shrug. “It’s not impossible but it’s unlikely.”
He’s staring into my eyes and I’m so turned on by him I want to launch my body at his… instead, I retreat. “Well, thanks for the tour, Ian. It was nice to see you and I’m glad I got the chance to tell you I really appreciate your dropping the lawsuit. It was kind of you.”
“Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow? The weather is supposed to be nice and I thought to perhaps take a drive.”
“Um, okay. Yes, I’d like that. You have my number, right?”
“Yes. Why don’t you go see what your friends are planning to do? If they want to stay and you want to go, I’ll take you home.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I know you just got here, Ian. I wouldn’t want to spoil your evening.”
He laughs. “Spoil it? Funny. Go check, Ariel. I’ll wait.”
His eyes look stormy and I wonder what’s going on in that Machiavellian mind of his. But I want to stay with him, I do. I may be crazy but whatever. So I march up to Mariah who is presently chatting with a ruggedly good-looking man—he looks like a cowboy. But that’s impossible, right? I mean, this is a BDSM club, after all.
“Mariah? Can I have a minute?” I have to yell to get her attention.
“Sure. Will you excuse me for a moment?” I hear her shout to her new friend.
“I’m leaving, Mariah. You look like you want to stay. Ian offered to take me home. Do you want me to accept?”
She looks at me oddly, then glances over to Naomi whose lips are currently locked together with those of Ian’s blond friend. “Yeah, looks like Naomi’s occupied for the evening. And I’d like to stay,” she says excitedly and turns her head away from her cowboy. “Isn�
��t he gorg?”
I smile and nod. “Okay. I’m ready to go home so I’ll take Ian up on his offer. I’ll see you later or tomorrow.”
I thread my way back to Ian. “They’re staying; I’m going. If you really don’t mind, I’ll take you up on your generous offer.”
“Let’s go.” He offers me his arm.
“Don’t you need to tell your friend you’re leaving?”
He shakes his head. “He’ll figure it out. Come on.”
My heart is beating wildly again. In the club we couldn’t get too intimate but now we’re outside—it’s just he and I, without the lawsuit clouding the energy between us. As we walk to his car, parked in the lot behind the club, I allow myself a long look at him. There was too much going on earlier to check him out thoroughly. He’s wearing black jeans that fit him like a snug glove, and a black tee-shirt that stretches tautly across his broad chest. Black boots, black belt, a high-tech black rubber watch. The man in black—I really like the effect though it does make him look a bit like Satan, if Satan was a breathtakingly handsome man.
“Where am I taking you, Ariel?”
I suck in a deep breath. Should I do it? If he turns me down, I’ll be crushed. Oh, what the hell—you only live once. I thrust my chin up. “Your place?”
His head rears back in surprise. “Are you saying you want to spend the night with me, Ariel?”
I nod, not trusting my voice to hold up. I can’t believe I just said that—just propositioned him. It’s a first for me.
He’s looking into my eyes without saying a thing, just gazing, as if he’s reading my mind or soul. Say something for God’s sake. Yes? No? Maybe so? Absolutely not? Something, damn it.