25. The Conductor
SOUNDTRACK: All by Myself by Lexxi Saal
~ brIDGET ~
I sat at the back of Sid’s little theater, unmoving, jaw slack, my mind racing.
When I came to the door just before five, David and a couple other guys were there. One of the other men had a clipboard, and as each person approached the door, we were assigned a seat.
Like some kind of fucked up movie-theater.
There were only fifteen people there, each of them handing over a piece of paper before they were given their tickets.
Then the doors were opened and we filed in—some whispering quietly with others, everyone looking at their tickets, which were just plain, blank pieces of white paper with a seat number printed on it.
I was the last one through the door, and I leaned close to David.
“What’s the paper they’re all handing over?” I whispered to him as he found my ticket and ripped it off. I didn’t have whatever the others did and I was worried this was going to be Ronald’s ploy to win the little scuffle over my access.
But David just winked. “Legal waivers,” he said with a small smile. “Sid says he’s not going to touch you, so you don’t need one.”
I frowned, but took the ticket David handed me and walked into that little hallway.
I’d been given seat eighteen.
I frowned harder when I read that, because there were only fifteen people here. But I followed the others without a word and walked in, found my seat—in the center of the back row—and waited.
What unfolded in the thirty minutes following that moment was possibly the most fucked up, mind-boggling thing I’d ever seen. For reasons I couldn’t even articulate.
Ronald, the man who called himself Sid Vicious, The Conductor, wasn’t just a Dom. Though the room had several more furniture pieces in it now that made it look less like a stage and more like a den, along with chests and satin-finished wooden boxes that were obviously filled with his newly-sterilized toys.
Still, there was nothing earthshattering—I’d seen far more intimidating pieces in some of the other dens in the past.
But my skepticism was short lived. Because it turned out, Ronald was a mentalist.
He spent the first ten minutes of this little pageant hypnotising everyone except me… or something. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that the first three rows of this room were full of people who, one by one, were placed in some kind of trance.
And then he had started talking. Asking questions. And smiling a lot.
Like he’d fed them all some kind of truth serum, these people each answered his very delving, very personal questions.
Secrets. Secrets within secrets.
Fears.
Hidden fantasies, hidden desires, hidden fetishes.
They all came out. And as each person spilled their darkest thoughts and fears, Ronald made notes on a clipboard just like the one the Protectors at the door had used.
At first I just gaped—was this some kind of therapy disguised as a Dom session?
But then he’d been through the fourteen other people in the rows ahead of me, and he lifted his eyes to meet mine as he put the clipboard down.
He must have caught the question in my eyes.
“Don’t worry, Bridget,” he said with a sly smile. “Today you get to just watch. But I want to see what you think at the end, and if you ever decide to come back and participate, as I said, I’m in .”
I was so stunned I didn’t even answer, just stared at him as he leaned over a woman in her forties from the first row, gently tipped up her chin and made her meet his eyes.
“Are you ready, Penny? Do you want to try?”
Penny nodded, quick and jerky, like she was both nervous and excited. And as Ronald took her hand and drew her out of the chair and began to work his… whatever this was, I saw why.
Now, fifteen minutes later, she was on all fours, staring up at Ronald like he’d hung the sun in the sky. She crawled towards him slowly—afraid of his rejection. Because he’d warned her it might happen. Not like an asshole. But like… like he was taking care of her.
His eyes blazed with a heated kind of satisfaction. He hadn’t even touched her except when he helped her out of the seat. Yet, she was now naked, her breathing short and shallow, and she’d admitted that she’d cheated on her husband several times, and was now considering divorce.
And that she rarely orgasmed when she had sex.
And that she was scared of Ronald.
That part had made him smile broader.
When she said that, my stomach clenched so hard I got nauseous. Yet, his response surprised me.
“If you fear me, Penny, why are you here?” he asked in a low drawl, that was very calm, but very intense.
I watched her face, saw the flicker of awareness in her eyes and my breath stopped.
She swallowed audibly, but her eyes never left his. “Because the whole point of this is to face fears, right?”
Ronald nodded like she was a good student who’d pleased him. “You’re absolutely right, beautiful. So tell me…” For the first time since this started, he drew close to her, standing over her, but cupping her face like a lover. “What was the boundary in your mind or body when you walked in this door?”
Her breath whooshed out of her. “Anal,” she said quickly, like she wanted to get away from the word.
My eyebrows went up. Seriously?
“I hate it,” she said, then licked her lips and gazed at him like she was pleading.
“Why?” he asked quietly.
“Because when I was fourteen my brother used to rape me that way because he said there was no way I could get pregnant.”
Ronald nodded and stroked her cheek. “Have you ever told anyone that before?”
“No.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“Because seeing you made me feel like… like I wanted to get rid of the fear.”
He beamed at her, then squatted in front of her, took her face in both his hands and stared at her like she’d just given him a gift. Then he leaned in and kissed her and I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing—the gentleness in him, the fascination. Like she was a prize. What the hell was he—
“You are safe here,” he purred. “Every single one of these people was personally assessed by me and they will not tell your secrets. They will not reveal anything you say or do here. You’re free, Penny. Do you believe you’re free?”
“I want to be.”
“Good girl. But your heart is racing, and you’re beginning to sweat. Tell us why.”
“Because I’m afraid you’re going to fuck me up the ass.”
He gave a low, husky chuckle. “That’s because I am, darling… but not until you ask me to. Not until you want me to. We’ll face your fear together so that you can walk out of here and never be afraid again. Are you ready?”
She stared at him like he’d just revealed a profound truth, then she nodded.
He leaned in and kissed her again, then murmured, “Now, let’s get started.”
It was like watching a high quality porn movie with the premise that the Dom was a psychologist, using sex to work his clients through their issues…
Except it was real. And, at least here and now, it was working.
I tried to imagine what Gerald would think of this therapeutic approach, and almost choked on my own spit.
I told myself it had to be a party trick. A two-bit hypnotist magician who could make people think they wanted something they didn’t actually want, and I almost fled.
But then I remembered his words.
Bridget, what you see at five is going to scare you. I’m not sure if that’ll make you run towards me, or away from me. But either way, I’m in…
And then, as I sat there, bolt upright in my seat, I watched that woman turn into his sub. Give herself into his hands.
My adrenaline started pumping the moment a panting, sweating Penny, who’d been pawed and pleasured and seduced, bent herself over the bed and begged Ronald to take her by the back door.
My heartrate rose as I watched him prepare her body, ready her physically, and her mind as well. His hands gentle and coaxing, while his voice remained low and calm, the murmured assurances, the reminders of truth… as if there was no one in the room but them.
It was fascinating.
My belly began to tingle when he finally decided she was truly ready and—still whispering comfort to her, positioned himself behind her and swept her hair up with his hands, murmuring reassurance to her as he applied lube, then wrapped her wavy brown hair around his fist.
I was panting when he trailed his other hand down her spine to grab her hip and take a firm hold on her for the first time.
My belly fluttered when his eyes rolled back and he groaned softly while her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open because he’d entered her. The startled joy on her face was as if he’d just introduced her to a world she’d never seen before.
My body pulsed with need and want as I watched the patience he showed in easing into her, talking her through it, and praising her when she relaxed… The affirmation never stopping until he was drawing in and out of her, and her slightly-sagging breasts began to swing.
Which was when I tore my eyes off the pair and scanned the other participants—who stared, eyes bright and wide, shoulders rising and falling with their quickened breaths, but none of them made a sound.
And when Penny began to keen, then shriek, when she finally arched and froze, resisting him for the first time as her body began to twitch and shake… and then she slumped onto the bed… weeping.
And he didn’t come.
He drew out of her, calming her, stroking her, whispering in her ear in ways we couldn’t hear, but he mopped up her tears, then helped her clean her body, then dressed her and ushered her back to her seat, holding her face for a long moment as he thanked her for trusting him… then he took the hand of the man to her right and brought him to stand in the center of the floor.
I lost all track of time as he walked that man through a repressed desire to dress in women’s clothing and be blown by another man—and the change in Ronald was stunning. With this man he laughed and cajoled and reassured, but accepted no backwards step. He pushed and challenged, and eventually, fallated him to climax.
I forgot that the world existed when he started working with another woman who was a high powered executive, and all she’d ever wanted was to be helpless in the hands of someone stronger than her, but she’d never found the man who could—or would—intimidate her.
The need in me grew tight and urgent when Ronald’s countenance changed.
He never raised his voice. Never overtly dominated her. But no one in the room missed it as he suddenly embodied an unwavering, ruthless Dom.
She would listen, and she would obey.
She would take what she was given, and she would learn the freedom of losing control.
At one point, even in the trance, her nerve broke, and just as he was challenging her, she started scrambling away. My body reacted as if it was me he was chasing. My heart was pounding in my skull, adrenaline flooding me.
I almost came when he tackled her to the ground.
Then, with arm locked around her middle, he pulled her head back, his hand clasped around her throat, pushing her chin high as he growled in her ear and I saw shades of that moment with Cain that raised all my questions.
“Try to free yourself—you can’t,” he snarled.
She shuddered and struggled, squeaking with the effort to get out of his arms, but then she stopped, panting. A moment later she swallowed with some effort, then shook her head. “I can’t,” she rasped because of the pressure he had on her throat.
I was leaning forward in my seat, wishing I could masturbate because the ache between my thighs was so great it was almost painful.
Every moment was a struggle, she didn’t let him take anything without a fight. But eventually he had her bent over too, and even though no one moved, and no one spoke, the air in the room went tight.
And just as he finally had her positioned, he turned his head, just for a moment.
It was the first time I’d seen him take his attention from the person he was dominating.
He looked right at me as he entered her and I actually gasped.
It was as if my vision zoomed in. I was locked in that gaze, need and want twisting together, tighter and tighter in my belly as the woman began to cry out, then scream, and the room echoed with the sound of their bodies meeting and her cries.
I was quivering, right on the edge of coming myself, but it wouldn’t happen without some kind of stimulation.
I leaned forward, tempted to get out of my seat and go join them, but even though Ronald smiled at me, he dropped his chin and shook his head once. And when I froze, he turned back to her, holding her so tightly she couldn’t breathe until he pounded her to her climax.
She was a mess at the end—as chaotic and shaky and grateful as I was.
My hands were actually trembling.
None of the others affected me that way. But by the time we left that den, two hours after we entered it, he’d fucked or fiddled with six of the attendees.
And everyone that he didn’t touch, slumped with disappointment when a high, resonant chime echoed through the room.
Clearly it was the signal of the end of the session.
Ronald finished with the dude and his wife who’d come to the club together because they were bored.
By the time Ronald led a round of applause for their display and wiped the sweat off his brow, I felt about a strong as a cooked noodle.
He stood near the exit, speaking quietly with each person before they left—but when I started to get out of my seat as the row in front of me made their way out, he caught my eye again and shook his head.
I sat back down with a thump.
And fizz of need in my belly.
And I waited until the very last person had walked out.
I watched him stand in the entrance to the hallway and watch them go, then pull a cloth out of his back pocket and wipe his face, then his chest, and take a deep breath, before he finally turned and faced me.
And his eyes were hard as flint, and bright as the sun.