“You need any help with your gear?” Tony asked him.
Kel started unloading the cart off to one side of the large space. “No thanks. Just one more run and I have it all. I didn’t feel like loading it all in the truck.”
“We need to cut you a door through the back wall,” Tony joked. “Save you some time.”
Kel smiled. “I don’t mind the walk.” He knew his friend was kidding, but he valued his privacy far too much to do that. “We doing dinner tonight?”
“As usual,” Seth said. “Sigalo’s.” A group of the close-knit friends frequently ate dinner together on Saturday nights before heading to the club. The roster varied, but a core group of people almost always attended.
Kel grinned. “Hey, Tony. Any more of your employees going to show up?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Jesus, don’t curse me. I’m just glad Mike and his wife have fit in with everyone.”
Shayla laughed. “I’m now required to find out the particulars of anyone new who joins our book club,” Shayla said.
Mike’s wife, Jenny, had become interested in BDSM via the book club. The two women didn’t know their husbands worked together.
“I like Jenny and Mike,” Leah said. “They’re sweet. They’re so cute to watch when they play. Newbie kinksters, just learning the ropes.”
“Mike has come a long way in his rigging skills over the past few months,” Kel said. “Very impressive ropework.”
“I’m trying to talk him into learning suspension,” Seth said. “I know he could easily do it, but he doesn’t think he’s got the skills.”
Kel unloaded his cart. “Well, better that than he’s trying to string people up his second week in the lifestyle.”
Everyone snorted and laughed in agreement.
“I’ll be right back,” Kel said as he towed his empty cart toward the door leading to the lobby.
“Sure you don’t want any help?” Tony asked.
“I do this for a living,” Kel assured him. “This is an easy job.” He headed back around the end of the building to his place. He didn’t mind the exercise. He didn’t do enough of it normally. While he wasn’t fat, he’d put on ten pounds in the past few months that he knew he needed to get off his six-foot frame before it settled in for good.
He didn’t know how many people were supposed to be there today for the afternoon class. Well, demo. Not so much a class. Scrye, whose real name was Mark, had invited people to come watch the presentation while Kel shot it. Attendees had to reserve their place for the limited number of spots, but Scrye liked the energy a crowd brought to a space when rigging.
Yeah, a little bit of an ego, but not any worse than most of the riggers out there. In fact, the man was a lot more modest and easy to work with than many of them.
Kel didn’t care. He was there to point and shoot the rigging. It wasn’t a job that would pay a lot in terms of money, but it would get his name out there more as a photographer and boost his own portfolio. Especially since the model, Scrye’s wife, June, had signed releases allowing Kel to monetize some of the shots for resale. He had a couple of book cover artists that frequently purchased images from him for their work.
Scrye blew in twenty minutes later like a miniature tornado, deep belly laughs and mile-wide grins aplenty as he started getting things ready.
Kel often wondered if June was a naturally calm and placid person to put up with such a large and turbulent personality all the time, or medicated just enough so it didn’t bother her. Scrye was a great guy, but his energy would overwhelm Kel after too long. Like mainlining caffeine.
At least I don’t have to live with him.
* * * *
At one o’clock, one of their other part-timers came in to help, and Karen set Mallory free for the afternoon.
“Go have some fun with your friends. Or talk to your uncle. Or something.” She smiled. “I appreciate you coming in this morning to work. We’ll talk about the new schedule next week. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”
Going home wasn’t on Mallory’s agenda. She sat in her car in the parking lot with the engine running and the AC struggling to cool the interior while she texted Chelbie.
You home? I’m done at work earlier than I thought I’d be.
A moment later, the phone rang in her hand.
“Get your butt over here right now.”
“Why?”
“The class. Duh. Scrye is rigging at the club this afternoon. He’s doing a demo for a photo shoot. I already emailed the club, and they said there were a couple of spaces left. If we leave when you get here, we can make it there before it starts. Street clothes are fine, meaning you don’t have to change from your work clothes.”
“I can’t aff—”
“Free, girlie. Drivest thou with haste. Hasta la bye-bye.” She ended the call before Mallory could offer up any other excuses.
With a sigh, but feeling a little lighter in spirit, Mallory dropped the phone into the passenger seat, made sure her seat belt was fastened, and headed toward Chelbie’s house.
Maybe the day isn’t a total loss after all.
Chelbie had a way of taking over and brightening Mallory’s mood in a seemingly effortless way. Mallory loved her for it. Mallory had no sooner pulled into Chelbie’s driveway than her friend bounded out of the house and impatiently started yanking on the passenger door handle until Mallory hit the unlock button.
After helping Mallory get her stuff moved to the backseat, Chelbie slid into the seat, closed the door, and got her seat belt fastened. “Off, ye lover of lattes! Release the Honda hounds and speed therily to…” She waved at the windshield. “Floor it, sister.”
“I’ve already had one brush with the law today. I don’t need another.” She shifted it into reverse and carefully backed out of the driveway.
Chelbie dropped the act. “What? What happened?”
Mallory was almost in tears again by the time they reached the club, but she’d gotten the whole story out to her friend.
Chelbie frowned. “Seriously, we need to talk to my parents and get their advice about this.”
“I don’t want to bother them.” Mallory noted the parking lot was half full. “And I don’t want to get upset before we go inside.” She took a deep breath and fanned her face, leaning in so the cold air from the AC vent blew on her. “Let’s get in there before we miss anything.”
Chelbie reached across the seat and laid a hand on Mallory’s. “You’re my best friend, and I love you. You always have a place if you need it.” Chelbie’s bright, cardinal-red hair was cut in a short pixie style that looked adorable on her. She’d been blessed at birth with light blonde hair that she despised for some unfathomable reason. Today, she’d used dark eyeliner and blue eye shadow, combined with her midnight blue tunic and black leggings with short boots.
She was adorable, where Mallory felt frumpy and loathsome by comparison. Through no fault of Chelbie’s, either.
“Don’t make me cry. Let’s go watch some rope.”
Chelbie studied her a moment longer before finally unfastening her seat belt and reaching for the door handle. “I might volunteer you to get tied, you know.”
Mallory’s face heated. “I don’t need to be a rope bunny.” She’d been dying to try shibari but had yet to work up the courage to ask one of the riggers to tie her.
Ironically, she’d had no problem asking other Tops, like Landry or Cris, to do impact play on her. She never engaged in sexual play with any of them, and always kept a bra and panties on when playing, but she loved the sensations of impact play.
It was one of the few things that allowed her to escape her brain for a couple of blessedly worry-free moments.
“You need a playday,” Chelbie insisted as they got out. “And I’m going to make sure you have one if it kills you.” She shut the passenger door and headed toward the lobby entrance.
At the rate my day’s going, it just might.
Mallory shut her car door, shouldered her purse, a
nd hit the button on her key fob to lock the car before following her friend.
Chapter Six
Kel got his lights arranged around the club’s large metal A-frame suspension rig Scrye would be using for today’s demo. They hung a black fabric backdrop on the wall behind it to hide the faux stone paint design on the wall. The focus needed to be on the model and the rigging, not the background.
The audience would be seated in front of the rig, but behind Kel and his cameras. No one would be allowed behind the rig this afternoon, to prevent people from accidentally walking into the shot. Seth and Tony would stand off to either side as spotters, but well out of the scene.
Where Scrye was like a large grizzly hopped up on dark chocolate and triple espressos, June was a slim, petite anchor of white marble with a quantum gravitational pull of calm on the man. A former gymnast, and now a yoga and gymnastics teacher, the forty-year-old woman could still easily contort her body into positions that would put the average nubile coed into traction if they attempted them.
Kel liked shooting their work because of the variety they brought to a scene, but truth be told, he wasn’t personally attracted to June. She was pretty, and definitely in shape, but…
There was nothing different or discernible about her at all.
Nothing remarkable.
She could be any one of thousands of nameless bondage models out there.
And because of her work, June absolutely could not take any kind of impact play or other play that might mark her in suspicious ways. The incidental bruise she could easily explain away as an occupational hazard. But Scrye had to be very careful with her in sessions not to let her hang too long, or tie her too tightly, and mark her with ligature bruising.
Which was a shame, because that was exactly the kind of thing Kel enjoyed.
The process as much as the result fascinated him. The pliability of human flesh, the way it responded, rebounded, transformed and then back again after play.
By the time they were ready to start, they had at least thirty people in the audience. Kel stood off to the side and watched Scrye go through his usual spiel, a mix of humor and safety warnings filled with as much energy as the rest of his play.
Kel was beginning to think the man didn’t have an off switch.
For the shoot, June would wear a mask across her eyes, a G-string, and a bandeau top that would conceal her breasts without interfering with the rigging. That was both to keep the book from getting slapped with an “adult” label as much as it was for her own privacy. In their personal play at the club, he usually tied her fully naked.
As Kel scanned the audience, he recognized many of the faces. Some of them were good friends, some acquaintances, and some people he’d seen at the club before, but whom he didn’t know very well.
One woman in particular caught his eye. He’d seen her, and her friend, at the club dozens of times over the past year or so. He’d also seen her play with a couple of different Tops, but never sexually.
He’d never seen her tied, though.
As he studied her from across the room, her attention safely focused on Scrye and June, Kel’s eyes took in her voluptuous curves. He knew some men, whose perfect ideal of a woman meant a single-digit clothing size, might label her fat, but she wasn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination.
He wondered how she’d look tied up, the kinds of ligature marks that would be left embedded in her flesh after releasing her, if she was interested in needle play—
He shifted position when he realized his cock was starting to respond to the mental masturbation he’d subjected himself to. He thought her name was Mary, or Marcia, or something like that, but he’d never talked to her personally.
I’ll have to remedy that.
He watched her rapt attention as she watched Scrye. Her long, reddish-orange hair was too bold to be a natural color, but it looked perfect on her, accentuating her blue eyes and bringing out the creamy tones in her skin.
I want my ropes on her.
Whoa. Calm down.
This wasn’t like him, to get excited about someone. Hell, he didn’t even know if she wanted to be tied up. She might just be there with her friend, or simply curious.
He forced his focus back onto Scrye.
I will try to talk to her today. At least introduce myself.
* * * *
When the rigger started his first tie, Mallory risked a glance at the photographer. She was pretty sure his name was Kel, and she’d seen him at the club many times.
Once again, her own fear kept her from speaking up, from introducing herself. He played with slender women. At least, that’s all she’d ever seen him play with.
Why would he ever want to play with me?
The best riggers at the club were always busy during play sessions. They usually drew a crowd and had a waiting list of people wanting to be tied by them.
Yes, it was true, she saw a large variety of body types in the lifestyle. People who made her look like Jabba the Hutt, and people who made her look like an anorexic model, and everywhere in between, from ages eighteen to eighty-something.
Still, this was her body. And her self-consciousness held her back. In this regard, at least. Playing with other Tops hadn’t been an issue. She’d seen people playing with everyone from the skinny to the obese.
Rope riggers, however…
It just seemed that, unless it was their own partner, they rarely tied anyone on the…larger end of the body frame scale.
Of course, she wasn’t at the club every night it was open, and this was the only club she attended on a regular basis. Maybe her fellow chub club members got plenty of play on other nights, or at other clubs, or even privately.
That would be my dumb luck, wouldn’t it?
Chelbie leaned in and whispered in her ear. “You going to talk to that guy today, or do I need to do it for you?”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Watch me. Well, not right now. He’s busy. Duh.”
Mallory’s heart raced. Chelbie was rarely a person of idle threats. If Chelbie thought someone needed a hard, loving shove in the right direction, she was more than happy to give it in any way possible.
Now Mallory desperately tried not to look at the photographer, sure that if he caught her staring at him that he’d think she was some sort of weirdo or something.
Relatively speaking, considering what they were all there to watch.
Normally, she didn’t have a problem talking to Tops and asking to play. She’d seen enough of them play, and knew enough of them by talking with others—and the Tops themselves—to feel comfortable approaching them.
The mental block about rope riggers was one she wished she could break through. Get the initial rejection out of the way.
If only she felt she could live up to the high expectations that invisibly hovered around the rope scenes she’d watched, maybe she wouldn’t feel like that.
Mallory leaned her head close to Chelbie and whispered, “Isn’t there a rope club or something?” She hoped her comment might get her friend to relent and not bug the guy on her behalf, if Chelbie thought she would take the initiative herself.
“Meets every other week, on Wednesdays.”
“Oh.” That left her out. She usually worked Wednesday nights.
So much for that plan. Maybe if she went to some of the club meetings, she might find a way to get herself over the emotional hump, so to speak.
As they watched Scrye work, Mallory snuck glances at Kel. Now that he was actively photographing the rigger, his focus apparently lay totally on the job at hand. His short brown hair had tousled slightly as he worked, his brown gaze intent. He was around six feet tall, built lanky with lean muscles and long, nimble fingers she supposed knew their job very well, regardless of what he was doing.
He exuded a quiet calm, in direct contradiction to the boisterous rigger the audience raptly watched.
Chelbie poked her in the side and grinned, sending a flush of heat straight t
o Mallory’s face. She recognized that sneaky look her friend wore.
Like it or not, Mallory would end up talking to the rigger if it was the last thing Chelbie did. Mallory knew she might as well come to grips with the idea now.
Maybe it won’t sting as much if he shoots me down with Chelbie standing right there.
It would sting regardless, but an embarrassment shared with her best friend was an embarrassment more easily gotten over, she supposed.
* * * *
When Scrye and June took their first break, Kel used that opportunity to swap out camera batteries. He’d stupidly forgotten to recharge them the night before. That was one reason he always carried plenty of extras. Some of the attendees crowded around Scrye and June, asking questions about the ties he’d used, putting Kel’s friend firmly in his element as the center of attention and praise.
Kel was focused on one of his cameras when he heard a woman clear her throat behind him. He turned to see the young woman with the red pixie cut. Just behind her, her friend, the gorgeous woman who’d captured his attention earlier.
He straightened and smiled. “Hi.”
Pixie Cut grinned. “Hiya. I’m Chelbie.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at her friend. “This is my bestie, Mallory. I’m that annoying kind of friend who will force you to get over whatever you’re embarrassed about. She would really like to experience rope, but she’s been too chickenshit to approach any of the riggers about it.”
He glanced over her shoulder to see Mallory’s face now practically glowing red. In fact, it looked like she was about to turn and run, but Chelbie’s right hand shot out behind her and unerringly captured her friend’s left wrist, preventing her escape.
He offered up a smile. “You’ve never been tied before?”
Mallory’s gaze dropped to the floor. He took the barely perceptible movement of her head as a negatory.
Okay, so my way to her is through the friend.
He wasn’t an idiot.
His Canvas Page 4