CHAPTER FOUR #3
Rodney put his hands behind him. He felt the leather wrap around his wrists, heard the soft click of the fastener. He tested it, subtly, and yes, there was the tab. Right where Amani had shown him. One pull and he was free.
He didn't pull it.
"Okay," Amani said, his hand settling on Rodney's arm.
"Here we go. I've got you. I won't let you fall.
We're going to walk through the main room to the auction platform.
It's about thirty steps. People will look at you.
That's the point. But nobody will touch you, and I'm right here the whole time. "
Rodney nodded. He couldn't speak.
They walked. Amani's hand was firm on his arm, guiding him with small pressures, left here, straight now, step up.
The noise of the club rose around them as they left the hallway.
Music. Conversation. The clink of glasses.
The smell of leather and cologne and a hundred different animal scents layered over each other.
Rodney could feel people's attention on him like heat from a spotlight.
Whispers danced in the darkness. Imagined laughter.
Imagined every one of them looking at his soft stomach and his thick thighs and thinking that's what the sharks sent us?
"You're doing great," Amani murmured near his ear. "Almost there. Two steps up, there you go. And one more. Now stop."
The surface under his feet was flat and smooth. The platform. He was standing on it. The air felt different up there, more exposed. Like being on a stage. Which was exactly what it was.
He felt Amani crouch beside him. The clip on his ankle was light, barely noticeable, like a loose bracelet. "That's the tether. You can move about three feet in any direction. And remember, one tug and it's off."
"Okay." Rodney's voice was barely there.
Amani stood. "Can I get you anything before the auction starts?"
"My clothes?" Rodney asked, and the hope in his own voice was almost funny.
Amani's soft laugh was close and kind. "Afraid not. But I meant it, water, something to eat, a hand to hold for a minute?"
Rodney swallowed. "I'm okay."
"You're better than okay." Amani squeezed his arm once, tight and quick.
"The auction runs about thirty minutes. It's silent, tablet bids, so just stand there and try to breathe.
People will walk around you. Let them look.
That's all they're doing. And when it's over, the winner will come up and introduce himself, and then the two of you will go to a private room and figure things out from there. "
"What if nobody bids?"
"Oh, teddy bear." Amani's voice carried a smile that Rodney couldn't see but could absolutely hear. "They're already bidding. The tablet opened five minutes ago. You have seven bids and counting."
Rodney's heart stuttered. Seven people. Seven strangers who'd looked at him, round, soft, trembling him, and decided he was worth money. He didn't know whether to be terrified or flattered and settled on a queasy combination of both.
"Now," Amani said, and his voice dropped low. "Don't react to this, but—" He paused. "Oh shit, he's here."
"Who?"
"No one. Just a panther. He almost never comes anymore. He—" Amani seemed to catch himself. "Doesn't matter. The auction's kicking into high gear. I'm going to go, but I'm right at the bar if you need anything. Just say my name and someone will come get me. Okay?"
"Okay."
Amani's hand left his arm. "You're going to be fine, Rodney."
And then he was alone.
Not alone. The people around the platform were obvious in the dark, moving, watching.
The weight of their attention was physical, pressing against his skin like humidity.
He stood as still as he could and tried to focus on breathing.
In through his nose, out through his mouth, the way he'd once seen a therapist suggest on a YouTube video he'd watched at three in the morning during an anxiety spiral.
The restraints are part of the experience, not a prison. Amani's words. The tab was under his thumb. The clip was on his ankle. He could leave. He was choosing to stay.
Someone walked close to him, close enough that he felt the displacement of air against his right side.
They didn't touch him. They circled. Slow, deliberate steps.
The scent that reached him was warm and musky and feline, not lion, something darker.
Something that made every prey instinct in his panda brain light up like a switchboard.
The person stopped in front of him. Rodney could feel them there, a presence like standing in front of a heat lamp. The silence between them stretched.
Then they moved on, and Rodney released the breath he'd been holding.
Minutes passed. More people circled. Some quick, some slow.
One person lingered long enough that Rodney could hear their breathing, slow, controlled, predatory.
Another passed so quickly he barely registered them.
He lost count. He lost time. The blindfold turned the world into sound and smell and sensation, and somewhere in the middle of it, the raw edge of his terror began to dull, worn smooth by repetition and the simple fact that nothing bad was happening.
People were looking at him. That was all they were doing. Looking.
He was still scared. His heart was still pounding. His skin was still prickling with the awareness of being seen. But underneath that, like a current beneath ice, he felt the pull he'd been fighting since Lady Leo's office. The wanting to know. The bet he was placing on himself.
He was being wanted. These people, strangers, predators, dominants who spent their nights in leather and confidence, were looking at him. At his body. His round, soft body. And they wanted it. They were bidding on it. Competing for it.
Nobody had ever competed for Rodney before. Nobody had ever wanted him enough to fight for the privilege.
He stood a little straighter. Not much. Just enough that his shoulders pulled back and his chin came up, and the trembling in his legs eased from a shake to a shiver.
He still wanted his clothes. He still wanted to run. But under the fear and the embarrassment and the overwhelming strangeness of it all, some small and stubborn part of Rodney was, for the first time in his life, enjoying being seen.
***
Mordechai cocked his head to the side and watched the panda.
He'd come to Kinky Kritters on impulse, which wasn't like him.
He was a planner. A strategist. His days were structured down to fifteen-minute increments, and his evenings were usually spent in his study with a glass of Scotch and a case file.
He hadn't been to the club in over a year, not since the incident with Amani, when Lady Leo had made it clear that her son was off-limits to Doms who left bite marks deep enough to scar.
She'd been right. Mordechai had been too rough with the boy.
Amani was enthusiastic and willing and stronger than he looked, but he was also young and eager to please, and Mordechai had pushed further than he should have because Amani kept saying yes and never said stop.
That was the problem with a sub who wanted to impress you: they'd let you break them and smile while you did it.
It had made Mordechai uncomfortable enough to step back from the club entirely.
Not because he was ashamed, he wasn't, exactly, but because the experience had shown him something about himself he didn't like.
He'd taken what was offered without checking if the offering was wise.
He'd told himself he was done with KK. Told himself the club scene wasn't for him anymore, that he'd outgrown it, that the revolving door of eager subs and one-night encounters had lost its appeal.
All of which was true, and none of which explained why he was standing there watching an auction he hadn't planned to attend.
Something had pulled him back. Not Amani, that door was closed, and rightly so.
Not boredom, though he was bored. A restlessness that had been building for months, a sense that his life, for all its professional success and material comfort, was missing a frequency.
A note he couldn't hear but could feel the absence of.
And then he'd seen the panda.
Not his usual type. Mordechai knew that immediately.
He'd always gravitated toward lean, athletic subs, men whose bodies advertised discipline, whose muscles gave him something to test himself against. The panda was none of those things.
He was soft where Mordechai's usual partners were hard, round where they were angular, built for comfort rather than competition.
But his hands. Mordechai noticed them first. They were bound behind his back, and they were beautiful, broad palms, thick fingers, surprisingly elegant for a man his size.
They were clenched into fists, knuckles white with the effort of holding himself together, but his wrists stayed relaxed against the leather.
Control and chaos, right there in his hands.
A man gripping himself tight while letting the restraints hold him loose.
And his skin. Pale and fine-grained and flushed pink from the chest up, the kind of skin that would show every touch, every mark, every place a mouth had been. Mordechai's fingers itched.
He was standing on the auction platform, blind and bound and shaking, and he was still there.
That was what caught Mordechai and held him.
Not just the novelty of a panda, though he'd never been with one, and curiosity was a factor.
It was the contradiction. A man who was visibly terrified, who was sweating so heavily it ran down his chest, who clearly hated every second of being on display, and who had not left.
Had not pulled the quick-release on his wrists or unclipped his ankle.
Had not said the word that would end it.