The piano music had stopped. He and Pete sat close together on the piano stool, and as I watched, Pete untied the leather band that held Ivan’s hair back, so it cascaded over his shoulders.
The two men stood and, as Pete flung his arm over Ivan’s shoulders, walked to a sofa at the far end of the room. I was expecting—hoping for, to be honest—some heavy making out to occur, but instead they held hands and talked quietly to each other as though no one else in the room mattered. As though they weren’t surrounded by gorgeous bodies—the unsinkable Jennifer displayed herself in front of them, stretching and preening.
Her efforts paid off as another couple of guys approached her. One of them, buffed and shaved with a pierced eyebrow, yanked her unceremoniously by her thong onto another sofa, where she rode his thigh while thrusting her breasts into the other’s face.
They attracted some attention, the focus of the room turning to their antics. I took a quick look at the balcony. A few dark figures stood there, and, as far as I could tell, with their attention on that end of the room.
I stood and stretched elaborately, running my hands over my breasts. On the balcony, no one moved. I was as close to being invisible as I could be.
I strolled over to the doorway, punched in the code and opened it just enough to slip through—Bluebeard’s wife entering the forbidden chamber—then closed the door quietly behind me.
I found myself at the far end of what had to be the front entrance to the house. Across an expanse of beautifully polished wooden floorboards, scattered with silk rugs, was an imposing door flanked with stained-glass panels. To my right was a staircase, polished and carved woodwork gleaming, and I could hear faint sounds from upstairs. Meanwhile I stood here barefoot and in my underwear, feeling extraordinarily conspicuous, and to be honest, dumb. Did I really expect an orgy on every floor so I’d blend in?
I saw the shadows of a couple of people at the front door and the knob turned. I looked around, discovered a doorway under the stairs and darted inside. As my eyes became accustomed to the dimness I saw a coatrack, and then dived behind it as the door opened and I heard familiar voices.
“…and I told him if you don’t get a surge protector you’ll fry your hard drive, and what about data backups? Not a clue. Not even a thumb drive. I mean, these people are dumb.” I recognized the voice as Jake’s, and then heard the slithering sound of his jacket being pulled off.
“Oh, forget about work, honey. Let’s try and relax.” Cathy, cooing to her husband. I saw her hands, tipped with gleaming red nails, straighten his down jacket onto a hanger. I pressed myself against the wall as she hung a leather bomber jacket next to his.
“You smell so good, baby.” Jake’s voice lowered to a growl.
Oh, no.
Oh, yes.
“Honey.” She giggled. “Don’t you want to wait until we’re upstairs?”
He made growling, slurping sounds that indicated that he certainly wasn’t going to wait. Clothing rustled. A zipper slid down.
One of Cathy’s hands emerged from between the coats and almost smacked me in the nose.
I ducked.
Her hand grasped, fluttered and grabbed the coatrack. I squeezed myself away from them.
Jake meanwhile issued instructions. “Leg around my waist, baby. Oh, God. Oh, yes, that feels so good. Uh. Uh. Hold my balls, baby. That’s right.”
Juicy, slapping sounds filled the darkness. I could smell them, his sweat, her juices. It was a bit too late to introduce myself to them at this point; what the heck could I say? Oh, hi, didn’t hear you come in…great to see you again, guys.
Fortunately this seemed to be a quickie, from the acceleration of the sounds of fucking and Jake’s hoarse grunts. Cathy let out a few whimpery whoops that reminded me of a visit to the primates in the zoo, and then Jake announced he was coming and something clattered to the floor.
A high-heeled shoe lay ominously close to my foot. I kicked it out again.
“I need a tissue, honey,” Cathy said. “Where’s my purse?”
“I got one.” Jake’s hairy hand rummaged around in the coats, inches from me.
“We’re gonna be late.” She dug her foot back into the shoe and I tensed up. Her hands appeared and grasped Jake’s pants at his ankles to hoist them back into position. If she looked down and to the side she’d see me.
Oh, Mr. D. would love this. He’d love the details of the hot bodies in the Great Room, and I’d get turned on when I described Pete and Ivan together (only I’d make it a lot sexier, pre-come dribbling from erect cocks, wet patches on their pants, fingers caressing balls and nipples). But this episode in the closet had the ironic quality Mr. D. enjoyed.
Jake did his zipper up, grumbling he was still hard, and didn’t Cathy want to go down on him?
To my relief—I was getting a bit claustrophobic and the coats tickled my nose—she giggled and told him he’d have to wait. More fumbling around with the coats—I held my breath as his coat swayed and slithered on the hanger—as he reached for an inside pocket and drew something out. “I hate this damn thing,” he muttered.
“It makes you look so sexy,” said Cathy, the cheerleader of fucking. “Like Zorro.”
“Yeah. You ready?”
So they were masked. Light filtered in as they opened the door—Cathy wore a tiny silver lamé dress, so tight I wondered how she got in or out of it, but it was so short I didn’t think she’d need to remove it for anything. She tugged it down as they left to its full length, barely covering her ass.
I cracked the door after I heard Cathy’s heels tap away and the creak of the stairs overhead as they ascended. I examined the garments on the coatrack. I needed something to wear that looked like normal clothes, since apparently you were supposed to arrive dressed, whatever you might plan for later, and found a wrap of black silk streaked with silver that I swathed around my waist like a sarong. Also, lying dusty and forlorn on the floor, a black mask, that I cleaned off with someone’s scarf. A few dismal feathers floated away, but it would do.
I hoped no one would notice my bare feet.
I poked my head around the door—all clear. As though I belonged upstairs, I strode out of the coat closet and up the stairs, toward the dim sounds. At the first landing, I hesitated. The stairs branched to right and left, but straight ahead of me was a door that I was pretty sure led to the balcony above the Great Room. I cracked open the door. Sure enough, a few figures clustered at the railings, looking at the scene below. Jennifer had launched into a pole-dancing act on one of the pillars, while Ivan, at the piano, played a parody of burlesque bump-and-grind.
I retreated back through the door and peered out at the staircase.
At the landing I hesitated and took the right staircase. I could smell food, something savory and delicious, and my stomach growled. I wished I’d had more pizza at home—I remembered Patrick’s concern over my low appetite and how self-conscious and defensive I’d felt, but somehow strangely pleased, too. How long had it been since someone cared about what I ate?
A corridor led off at the top of the stairs and I peered down it. The smell of food was stronger now. As I hesitated, there was a muffled thump and a ringing sound, and two wall panels slid apart—an elevator. Waiters emerged with a rolling cart of food. They took no notice of me, but pushed the cart and its covered dishes into a room. I peered around the door. Masked people, Jake and Cathy among them, sat at a long banquet table with an elaborate centerpiece, laughing and talking.
The centerpiece. I took a second look. The centerpiece was Lindy, her skin gilded, flowers strewn over her naked body, a huge orchid between her thighs. As I watched, someone reached for a strawberry from the fruits piled around her, absently stroking her skin. My view was blocked as waiters bearing plates of food moved among the guests.
One of them stepped away and gestured to me to go inside but I shook my head.
At the table a guy wearing a mask that gave him the face of a lion stood and headed for the doorway and me, cell phone at his ear. He was tall and slender, a few threads of gray in his dark hair. As he passed me, I heard a few words, to my surprise apparently about investments.
“But of course…” He sounded slightly annoyed.
He sounded familiar. Very familiar.
“Mr. D.?” My voice rose to a squeak.
He turned and looked at me and the lion’s eyes gazed at me, unreadable, in his mask. Did I imagine it, or did he hesitate?
I couldn’t move. I felt as though I’d been turned to ice.
At that moment the elevator arrived with a rumble and a chime, and the man—Mr. D., I knew it was him—squeezed past a half-dozen waiters and more carts of food. They jostled to let him on, blocking the corridor, the carts of food between us, while I shouted to him, tearing off my mask. “It’s me. It’s Jo!”
The elevator doors closed and some of the guests, alerted by my raised voice, emerged from the dining room. One I recognized from his lanky build and reddish hair.
“Heck, Jo,” said Harry the Chairman, “you’re in a shitload of trouble now.”
“YOUR PUNISHMENT WILL BE QUITE SEVERE,”
Angela, the leather-clad Mrs. Danvers of the Association, said. She wore a very professional black leather mask with rivets and sequins but one thing spoiled her appearance and I let out a nervous giggle.
She looked down at her fluffy pink slippers. “Those boots are hell on my bunions. Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
She didn’t answer but held open the door of the room in which I’d spent the past hour pacing back and forth, not knowing whether I wanted to laugh or cry or rage. I’d been fooled, taken, manipulated, screwed.
Why? Why had he done it? Why had I not suspected when everything seemed to fall into place so easily? The only flaw in his plan—and I wasn’t quite sure whether it was a flaw or not, maybe that had been planned, too—was that I had discovered him.
“Who is he?” I asked Angela.
She looked at the untouched plate of food and glass of wine they’d sent in—how very civilized—and shrugged. “The pigeon breast was quite exquisite. I’m sorry you didn’t have an appetite. Come with me.”
I followed her, past the dining room, which was now deserted except for a few waiters loading tablecloths into laundry bags, and she pressed the button for the elevator that had taken Mr. D. away from me. We traveled down in silence, the elevator taking us naturally enough to a kitchen, where a few staff members looked at us with curiosity. Angela led me through a series of corridors into the locker room.
“Am I being thrown out?” This seemed a dreadful and ignoble thing to happen and I felt tears prick at my eyes.
“Not yet.” She spun the combination on a locker and reached inside. “Top off.”
I removed my T-shirt and crossed my arms over my breasts as the chilly air and Angela’s interested gaze hit them. She handed me a black leather bustier, partially unlaced, that I dropped over my head.
“Other way around,” she said, impatient at my stupidity, and yanked it around me so the lacing was at the back.
She tugged at the laces and my breasts squashed together and up. She kept lacing and I gasped for breath.
“Nipples out,” she instructed.
“What?”
She huffed with impatience at my stupidity. “Like this.” She tweaked my breasts so that my nipples sat above the leather. “And we’ll put these on.”
These
turned out to be nipple clamps, little crocodile jaws that clipped onto my engorged nipples, darkening and enlarging them. They were joined by a chain, which she tugged, and the sensation, pleasure and pain mixed, made me almost jump out of my skin. I was dying to know what was going to happen next but I was damned if I would ask Angela, who now retrieved her spike-heel boots from another locker, and with some reluctance removed her slippers.
As she huffed and puffed with the boot zippers, I saw myself in the full-length mirror, noticed how my back straightened at the sight of my reflection. My nipples stood out like pushpins, my eyes bright, my hair mussed up. The chain from the nipple clamps dangled at my crotch.
Boots on, Angela swiped a comb through my hair and, after asking whether I had any lipstick, reached into her own locker and applied dark red to my lips. She stepped back to admire her work and smeared a little lipstick on my nipples.
“Very nice,” she said. “Wet panties?”
“What?” I didn’t know whether she meant mine or hers, but she delved a finger into mine and nodded approval.
“Dirty little slut,” she murmured. Her finger skimmed my clitoris and sensation jolted into my nipples. “They’ll have fun with you.”
“Who will?”
“You’ll see.” She removed her finger. “You’d better use the bath room.”
This sounded either ominous or dirty-minded, I wasn’t sure which, but while I peed she rearranged her hair in the mirror, finishing it off with a great cloud of hairspray, and refreshed her own lipstick. After I’d washed my hands, she took the end of the chain and tugged, making me whimper with pain—but not all pain. At least it took my mind off Mr. D., whose actions hurt me much more than any state-of-the-art nipple clamps.
Angela set off at a brisk walk, the possibility of causing me pain apparently distracting from her bunions, while I trotted along behind her. As I expected, we went back into the Great Room, where I was met with a chorus of jeers, but also some fist-pumping and shouts of approval. Angela jerked the chain—strange how I’d never fully appreciated that metaphor until this moment—and abandoned me in the middle of the room.
They crowded around me and I grabbed the end of the chain before anyone else could.
“Oh, nice, very nice.” Pete was purring with excitement, his dick tenting out his boxers. “Little Jo, all dressed up for the occasion. You have been a naughty girl, haven’t you? Hey, Ivan, what do you think we should use?”
“Hmm.” Ivan flicked one of my nipples with his fingers. “We need something to take that silly grin off her face.”
“I do not have a silly grin on my face!”
Ivan raised his eyebrows. “Did I give you permission to speak? Did I, Pete? I don’t think so. I think she’s in enough trouble—she shouldn’t be taking any chances. Because it could earn her extra punishment. Right, Jo?”
I shrugged.
Pete jerked the nipple clamp chain and I gave a yelp of pain. “When Ivan or I ask you a question, you reply. Otherwise you don’t say anything. Understood?”
“Yes.” And then as he frowned at me, I added, “Yes, sir.”
He smiled approval.
There was something I liked about this game, in addition to the pressure on my nipples and the tingling between my thighs. I liked being at their mercy, and being aware, from the stirrings in their pants, that to some extent they were at mine. I could, as Ivan had predicted, take what happened in the Great Room very seriously; I could base my life around what happened here, everything outside fading into trivial obscurity. There was the added attraction of the unknown, that I was about to undergo some sort of humiliating punishment, but I didn’t know what it was to be.
Illumination came in the form of Jennifer carrying a battered leather case. “Why do I always have to do this?” She dropped it at Ivan’s feet and reached out to give the nipple clamp chain a yank. I took a quick step back.
“Be nice.” Pete slapped her bottom.
She giggled. “Wait ’til they take the clips off, Jo. You’ll feel it then.” She delved into the bag and came up with a tattered leather slipper. “Eew. This stinks. Whose is it?”
“Mine.” Pete took the slipper and slapped her ass with it. “Hands off. Go sit down. Everyone else, too.”
Ivan reached into the leather bag. “How about this?” He held up a cane.
Pete took it from him and bent it between his hands, then gave it a few whistling strokes in the air. “I don’t know. You have been a very bad girl, haven’t you, Jo? What do you think?”
“You’re asking me? Sir?”
“Mmm.” He stroked one of my nipples with the cane. “It would hurt a lot. But I think you’d like it.” He ran the cane down my torso, over my belly, and prodded between my legs with the tip. “You’re not wet, are you?”
I parted my legs a little. “I can’t help it.”
He tucked the cane beneath one arm so he could stroke my clit and one of my engorged and sensitive nipples. “It would be real bad if you came at any time. It might earn you a couple of extra strokes. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
I made some sort of breathy, excited noise.
“Would we?” he repeated and tugged the chain.
“No, sir,” I managed to respond, as my legs quivered with excitement.
“Then I think you’re out of luck.” His finger at my clit barely moved and I guessed everyone else nearby could hear the small wet sound it made. The room was very quiet now, everyone sitting and watching, and up in the balcony, the dark shapes of motionless observers.
“Nah, it’s too much,” Ivan said and plucked the cane away from Pete, breaking the moment.
Pete laughed and folded his arms.
Ivan continued, “We don’t want her passing out. Something less lethal. How about this?” The item he pulled from the bag looked painful enough, a small black whip. He trailed it over my nipples. “It’ll hurt some, or to be honest it’ll hurt enough, but you should be able to stand after. What do you think, Pete?”
Pete took the whip and slapped it against his leg. “Sure. Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” Then, as though speaking to an audience, he raised his voice. “Jo’s been a very naughty girl, so she’s getting ten strokes.”
He tugged on the chain, taking me by surprise, and I let out a sound more like a squawk than anything else; it wasn’t the sort of sexy moan that probably I should have produced and Ivan grinned.
“Panties off,” Pete said.
In this room, where clothing was tugged aside or hands went delving inside, this was an unusual request. I slid my panties down, slowly. If I was going to be on show then I’d do my best (and try to restrain the unsexy squawks), because now I wanted to perform for the motionless onlookers on the balcony. And above all, I wanted to please Pete and Ivan, who had become my father confessors, my conspirators. I kicked my panties aside with what I hoped was an air of bravado, although I was feeling nervous now.
Pete strutted around, cracking the whip, his erection bouncing inside his shorts. Jennifer and another woman had opened a closet door (another of those doors hidden in the paneling, like the ones to the elevator upstairs) and pulled out a contraption on wheels. It reminded me of illustrations from the Inquisition and of gym equipment. Whatever it was, it could be tilted and angled to best display someone tied to it—and that someone was to be me.
Ivan ran his hands over my bare butt. “It’s going to hurt, honey,” he murmured in my ear. “Scream as loud as you want. I’ll make you feel real good after.”
Even in my present condition I wasn’t that stupid. “You wish.”
He delved into the bag and brought out a handful of leather straps with buckles, rather like wide bracelets.
Jennifer locked the wheels of the whipping horse and resumed her seat, cross-legged on the floor. She looked at me with greedy interest and so did the others. We’d watched Lindy in pretty much the same way as she poured water into a dozen glasses, fighting off loss of control and humiliation.
Leather straps in one hand, Ivan led me over to the whipping horse and arranged me on it. He caressed me as he did so, running his hands down the inside of my thighs to spread them and securing my ankles. My breasts poked through the wooden lattice and he secured the chain to the frame with a small clip. By the time he’d fastened my wrists above my head I realized the level of expertise he employed. I could move, some. But every time I moved my torso or arms, it put pressure on that chain and thus onto my nipples.
He messed around with the controls, to adjust the angle and tilt, and then nodded approvingly.
“Breathe deep, babe.” He leaned in to kiss my mouth and stepped back out of sight.
Nothing happened. Behind me I could hear the small sounds of people shifting and the occasional whisper, and then I jumped out of my skin as something cold trailed over my butt. I twisted my head but I couldn’t see—all the movement did was to put pressure on my clamped nipples. Pete had trailed the whip over my buttocks, a prelude to what was to come next.
What came next was a whistle of leather through air and the loud crack as the whip met my skin, and Christ! It hurt. It really hurt. Pete meant business. Tears sprang to my eyes and my body gave an involuntary jerk and clench. I gulped in air.
And another.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I did. Tears burst from my eyes, to my humiliation. I wouldn’t scream, I promised myself. They’d told me I could, but I wouldn’t.
A pause. That wasn’t good, not being able to anticipate the blow. Two down, eight to go—and then two in quick succession, exquisitely painful as the whip landed on places it had reached already.
I clenched my eyes and teeth shut.
Another vicious sting across my butt, but lower, catching untouched skin. Halfway there.
At the next one I screamed. I had some sort of absurd idea that if I made enough noise maybe Pete would change his mind and stop. I wrenched at my bonds and the pain in my nipples made me sob aloud. I tried to keep myself under control—breathe deep, as Ivan had said, breathe, relax my muscles, breathe myself beyond the pain—
Three. Two. One.
Finished. A roaring noise. Applause. For me. Once I’d been used to extreme pain followed by the ecstasy of its absence, and applause, but that now felt like a lifetime ago.
“You did good.” Ivan’s breath warm on my face. “Open your eyes. It’s over. You did real good.”
I opened my eyes to look into his gray-green ones. “I did?”
“Oh, yeah. They loved it.” He dabbed at my face with a tissue.
“Oh. Great.”
He kissed me again, deep and lingering, one hand stroking my nipples, and unclipped the chain. “We’ll get these off, soon. Your butt has some very pretty stripes.”
“I know. I can feel them.”
He raised a hand to unbuckle me. “Be quiet.”
“Why?” Why would I
not
be quiet? No one was whipping me.
He dropped a hand through the lattice and stroked me, small economical movements. “You’re real wet. Come for me.”
My legs shook. I gripped the frame of the whipping horse and he caught my mouth with his as I came, oh, God, I came with a great rush of pain as everything clenched and released, my nipples burning.
“Our secret,” he murmured and set himself to untying me. “Was that good?”
I nodded. “Outrageously good. I don’t know that it had anything to do with—”
“Babe, it had everything to do with being whipped. Even though it wasn’t much of a beating.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Pete’s a big softy. He went easy on you. Hold tight. I’ll get your ankles.”
He came around to the other side of the frame and unbuckled the straps at my ankles. He dropped a kiss on my butt, steadying me with his hands on my waist. “Slowly, now.”
I needed his support. My legs shook and my butt was already stiffening up, so I cried out with pain as I moved. He scooped me into his arms, and laid me facedown on a couch, where everyone crowded round me to kiss me or make admiring comments on Pete’s handiwork, even offering me a view in a small mirror.