CHAPTER FOUR #2
Amani's expression shifted. The playfulness was still there, but underneath it was something firmer.
Something that reminded Rodney, suddenly, that this boy was Lady Leo's son.
"Because I don't do secrets. Not about this stuff.
You're here because you chose to be, and you get to keep choosing, every second, the whole night.
If you panic and rip the blindfold off and run for the elevator stark naked screaming, nobody in this building will stop you.
They might stare, because, well, yeah, they'll definitely stare, but nobody will stop you.
The restraints are part of the experience, not the prison. You feel the difference?"
Rodney thought about it. About the sharks holding his arms while Dominic's hand closed around his throat.
About the silver van and the helplessness and the absolute absence of any choice at all.
And then about this, a leather strap with a release tab.
A clip he could undo. A blindfold he would put on himself.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I feel the difference."
"Good." Amani bounced back immediately, the seriousness folding away as fast as it had appeared.
"Okay, so after the wrist thing, I walk you to the platform.
It's raised, not high, like two steps up.
There's a ramp. I'll guide you. The ankle tether clips to a ring on the platform, and it keeps you in one spot so you don't accidentally wander off the edge while you're blind.
The bidders walk around you. It's a silent auction, they bid on tablets, so it's not like someone's going to be yelling numbers.
It's actually pretty quiet. Just people looking. "
"At me. Naked."
"At you. Naked. Yes." Amani didn't sugarcoat it.
"And some of them will like what they see, and some of them won't, and you won't know which is which because of the blindfold, which is a mercy.
Nobody needs to see the face of a guy who's decided he's not interested.
The point is, nobody touches you during the auction.
That's the rule. Look but don't touch. When the auction closes, the winner comes up, introduces himself, or herself, and takes you to a private room.
What happens there is between the two of you, within the club rules. "
"What are the club rules?"
"The big one is the safe word. It's 'lioness.' You say that, everything stops. Not pauses. Stops. Done. Over. The Dom backs off, I get called, you get your clothes, you go home. No questions, no arguments, no guilt. My mom built this place on that rule, and she's never let anyone break it."
"What if someone tries?"
"Then security removes them." Amani said it the way someone would say then the sun rises in the east. "Mom's got three gorillas and two Kodiak bears on the security team. They don't mess around."
"Other rules," Amani continued, ticking them off on his fingers.
"No permanent marks without prior negotiation.
No shifting during a scene without agreement from both parties.
No recording, no photos, no phones on the club floor.
No drugs. No alcohol past a two-drink limit if you're playing.
And no means no, always, no exceptions, the end. "
"That's the short version?"
"About forty pages for the long one. Mom's thorough.
" Amani hopped up to sit on the bench, his legs swinging.
In his tiny shorts, with his easy grin and his complete lack of self-consciousness, he looked like someone who'd been born comfortable in his own skin and had never once questioned it. "Questions?"
Rodney had about a thousand. He picked the one that felt most pressing. "What's it like? The auction. You said you've done it."
Something lit up in Amani's eyes. Not just enthusiasm, memory.
The specific glow of someone reliving a good experience.
"Once. My mom set it up for me, she wasn't thrilled about it, but she knew I'd do it anyway, and she'd rather control the situation than have me sneak around behind her back.
So she vetted the bidders personally, put me in, and I—" He laughed, a little breathlessly.
"God, I loved it. I know that sounds insane.
But standing there, feeling all those people wanting you?
Competing for you? Not knowing who's going to win, or what they're going to be like, or what the night is going to hold?
It's the biggest rush I've ever felt. And I've felt some rushes. "
"You weren't scared?"
"Terrified. For about thirty seconds. And then the bidding started and I could feel the energy in the room shifting, and it was like—" He searched for the word. "Like being the center of gravity. Everything revolving around you. I know that sounds egotistical."
"It sounds like something only a lion would say."
Amani laughed, delighted. "Fair. But the thing is, you'll feel it too.
Even if you're scared. Especially if you're scared.
Fear and excitement are the same chemical, did you know that?
Your body can't tell the difference. So all that terror you're feeling right now?
" He poked Rodney lightly in the shoulder.
"Some of it is excitement. You just don't know it yet. "
Rodney wasn't convinced. But Amani's certainty was its own kind of comfort, not because Rodney believed he'd enjoy this, but because Amani so clearly had, and if this kid could stand on that platform and love it, then maybe the platform itself wasn't the enemy.
Maybe it was just a stage. And Rodney was just a man who'd never been on one before.
"One more question," Rodney said.
"Shoot."
"The people who bid. Do you know any of them? Are they... are they okay?"
Amani's expression softened. The performance dropped away, and for a moment it was just one person looking at another.
"My mom vets every single bidder. Membership at KK requires a year minimum before you can participate in an auction, and you have to be in good standing, no complaints, no violations, no creepy shit.
Are all of them perfect people? No. Some of them are intense.
Some of them are rough. Some of them will push you further than you think you can go.
But none of them are dangerous, Rodney. Not in the way you're afraid of.
The dangerous ones go to the Playground, and my mom makes sure they stay there. "
That was what he needed to hear. Not that it would be fun, he couldn't make himself believe that yet.
But that it would be safe. That the people in this building operated within a system that had rules.
That someone was watching. That if everything went wrong, there was a word he could say and a door he could walk through.
He looked at the locker. At the blindfold and the cock ring that he'd thought was a hair tie. At the strip of leather with the hidden release tab.
"Okay," he said. His voice was steadier than he expected. "Let's do this."
Amani hopped off the bench and clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to jostle him forward a step.
"That's the spirit! Or at least a reasonable facsimile of spirit.
I'll take it." He headed for the door. "Get undressed, put on the blindfold, and the cock ring, please, it goes under your balls and around the base, I promise it's easier than it sounds, and knock when you're ready. I'll be right outside."
He was almost through the door when Rodney said, "Amani?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For explaining everything. You didn't have to be this... thorough."
Amani leaned against the doorframe. The club noise seeped in around him. For a moment, the constant motion stilled, and he looked less like a force of nature and more like someone who took this part of his job very seriously.
"Yeah, I did," he said. "That's how it's supposed to work.
You walked in here scared out of your mind, and my job is to make sure you're still scared, because a little scared keeps you sharp, but that you're not lost. There's a difference between being scared and being lost, Rodney. You can handle scared."
Then the grin came back, full wattage. "Now get naked. The auction starts in twenty minutes and I still have to do your cock ring if you can't figure it out, which based on the hair-tie situation, you probably can't."
The door closed behind him. Rodney was alone.
He took off his grandmother's green shirt and folded it carefully. Then his jeans. Then everything else. He put it all in the locker, neat and ordered, the clothes of a man who might not be the same man when he put them back on.
The blindfold was soft against his fingers.
He lifted it to his face. The silk was cool against his eyelids, and when he tied it behind his head, the darkness was total.
Complete. The locker room disappeared. The mirror, the bench, the fluorescent lights, all gone.
There was only the sound of his own breathing and the muffled pulse of music from the club beyond the door.
He reached for the cock ring. It took him three tries and a significant amount of awkward fumbling in total darkness, but he managed.
It was snug and strange and he tried very hard not to think about how ridiculous he must look, a naked, blindfolded, overweight panda in a cock ring, standing alone in a locker room.
He found the door by touch. Knocked twice.
It opened almost immediately, and the warm grass-and-sun smell of Amani was there. "Good. You figured out the cock ring. I'm impressed and a little disappointed. I had a whole tutorial prepared."
Despite everything, the fear, the nakedness, the absolute insanity of what he was about to do, Rodney laughed. It was small and shaky and a little hysterical, but it was a laugh, and Amani's delighted "oh, good, you can still do that!" made it worth the effort.
"Hands behind your back, please."