Chapter 13 #3
Half the audience gasped when the submissive was jerked into the air.
Not lifted, jerked. Yet her face showed no surprise, no fear, and certainly no words as she relaxed her body and went with the flow.
Her Domme secured her, suspending her in the air with only the five hoops and their silk bands to keep her leveled.
Her legs slowly drifted down as the Domme loosened the grip those bands had on her ankles.
Jamie watched in absolute awe, and almost in fear that the submissive was going to crash to the ground, while more silk bands tied to this one, that one, and wove in and out of the woman’s protruding arms.
There was no telling what was going on. A woman who worked for the club brought out a step ladder for the Domme to use.
She climbed on it right away, hurrying to wrap her beautiful, black-haired model in as many silk bands as possible.
She was forced into the position of a mummy, right there, suspended in the air.
The Domme whispered something in her ear, and she drew her knees up, pushing them into her stomach.
The Domme was quick to wrap another silk binding around them.
Soon, the submissive was completely wrapped, except for her head.
Jamie held her breath. This was almost unreal.
The Domme jumped off the stool and removed her jacket, tossing it onto a bench. The same staff woman from before appeared to the side, offering a glass of whiskey on the rocks. The Domme downed it, her model still hanging from the ceiling, calm and patient.
The glass went back on a serving platter. The server walked away. The Domme returned to her project, hands on hips as she studied her partner above her. “I see,” she muttered. The only reason Jamie could hear her was because the seat was close enough. “That one right there…”
She got back on the stool and readjusted the strap. She whispered something in the submissive’s ear, but she did not respond. Behind her, Jamie felt Etta stir, probably to finish off her drink and discreetly order another one from a server.
“Do you want anything?” Jamie shook her head. She was still working on the cosmo and was too transfixed on the stage to say or do anything else.
Before the audience could lose interest, before they could be distracted by something else, and before they could conclude that this was all they would see tonight, the Domme leaped off the stool while pulling on one of the binds.
Whoa! Everything came undone. Every bind, except for two, snapped out of the hoops and fluttered to the floor, some of them caught on a draft and drifting toward the tables.
The woman, who had once looked so secure, exploded from her silky shell, bursting with a loud gasp as her long hair splayed around her and then pointed to the ground.
Her arms hung above her, a pattern appearing between the both of them. Wings. Round like a butterfly’s.
Once it was clear that this was part of the show, eager applause rang out from every table. Hushed voices rose around Jamie. Even Etta, who usually didn’t comment on much, said she wasn’t expecting that.
“A butterfly hatching from its cocoon,” a man at another table explained to his friend. “Now, that’s exquisite bondage.”
The Domme hopped back up on the stepstool one last time.
With the help of the same woman from before, the two of them gingerly lowered the model to the ground.
Once she was secure on her feet, the worker stepped away, and the Domme was left to untie her girlfriend and take off the blindfold.
She shook out her arms with a smile as they stood at the front of the stage and graciously bowed. The applause intensified.
“Wow,” someone muttered at the table while the lights came back on. The couple stepped off the stage. “That was unreal.”
Ira stood up to use the restroom. Before they could go, they said, “My shoulder sockets are in such sympathy agony right now. Be right back.”
Etta backed away from Jamie, although a hand remained on her thigh. “What did you think?” Etta asked.
I’m still trying to process it. While Jamie expected some form of art, she did not expect what essentially became a performance piece.
That young woman had been so calm and trusting of the one tying her up…
and she had a great, imaginative mind to come up with something like that.
Did she come up with it? Or did she get it from somewhere else?
Jamie wasn’t an artist. She barely knew how to write legibly some days, but she could appreciate fine art when she saw it, and the more she thought about what she saw, the more she appreciated it in turn.
“It was exciting.” Those were the first words to come to mind. “I don’t want you trying that on me anytime soon, but…”
Etta chuckled. “How about something simpler than that?”
Jamie chewed on her smile. “I wouldn’t mind.
Been a while since you bound me to bed, ma’am.
” She wasn’t always in the mood for it, but when she saw something like that, she couldn’t help but think about Etta tying her up to their bed, covering her in kisses before doing whatever the hell she wanted.
It always ended with both of them too exhausted to continue.
The performance was the only thing anyone would talk about for the next five minutes.
Someone described it as a magic trick. Another person said they had seen the Domme’s Instagram account, and it was mostly weavings and other pieces with her girlfriend.
Jamie found out that the couple did shows like this all over.
I feel sorry for whoever’s next… they better be damn erotic to compete with that.
“Look who I found getting lost in our happy little home.”
Ira returned with two guests, who apparently commanded enough presence to force half the people at the table to scoot over and make room for them.
Soon, Etta no longer sat next to Kennedy Anderssen, but the master bondage artist, who accepted the table’s hospitality alongside her young girlfriend – who was in the process of yanking off her pretty collar and shoving it in her partner’s pocket as if she couldn’t stand it any longer.
Ira followed them, reclaiming their much narrower seat on the other side of the table.
“Everyone, this is Varen Lake, one of the sharpest tech gurus in the Pacific Northwest… and her… uh…”
“Nala.” The woman showed no inhibitions as she introduced herself. “I’m her Nala.”
“Right. Her Nala. Well, this is… everyone…”
“You are hopeless at entertaining,” Kathleen said with a sigh. “Now they’re going to think we’re the rudest bunch in the Northeast. That’s a hard title to claim.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Varen said, with a strong, steady voice. “We’re used to that sort of treatment in the socially frigid PNW.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, either,” Nala quipped.
The ice was thus broken, and Jamie – crammed between Etta and Monique at a table that wasn’t meant to hold more than six people and now held twelve – felt greater pressure to either say nothing or to be the most articulate woman she had ever been. So she elected to say nothing.
I don’t want to be the reason these newcomers run away grumbling about all of us.
Jamie would never forgive herself – the others would never forgive her.
One of the first things she learned after becoming Etta’s serious girlfriend was that socializing and business went hand in hand in this world.
Nobody “just” sat down and had a chat. Business always came up.
If someone was new? They were seen as prospective clients, service providers, or investors.
Varen Lake was a name Jamie would hear many times over the next few weeks, usually in the business context.
Thanks to this dinner, Varen would go on to make more than one business contact that would help her expand her work to the East Coast. So while tonight everyone commended her on her more artistic side, she had that look in her eyes that said, “How much money can I make off you lovely people?” Since Jamie had no idea how invested or interested Etta would be in management apps, she kept her mouth shut.
Varen’s girlfriend, on the other hand, did not keep her mouth shut.
She wasn’t impolite, but Nala was louder than Lara, cruder than Kathleen, and definitely more socially unaware than Monique.
By a thousand leagues. People looked at her with a mixture of fascination and disbelief whenever she spoke.
Cocky young arrogance that Jamie never naturally espoused, yet that teeming confidence she was always jealous of others having fun.
Jamie knew how to speak her mind around those she was comfortable with, but this was not such a situation.
So she ended up being one of those people staring in disbelief – and fascination – as Nala interrupted her solemn, rich girlfriend to tell her that she was full of shit regarding something or other.
Jamie had to excuse herself to the bathroom shortly after.
As she was coming out of the stall, however, she bumped into the only other woman currently in the restroom with her.
Nala stood in front of the mirror, touching up her mascara.
She was so short that she had to stand on her tiptoes, one leg kicked out behind her.
Her boots made this scene more comical than sexy.
“Hey!” she called, catching Jamie’s reflection in the mirror. “What was your name again? I missed it earlier.”
Jamie froze, hand seizing her clutch for comfort she didn’t realize she needed. “Jamie.”
“Ha! What a pair of Disney princesses we make!”
Jamie stared blankly until she got the joke. Is she confusing me with someone named Jamie? “I didn’t realize an animal could be a Disney princess…”
“Hey, if it’s good enough for Princess Leia now…”
“That’s true.”
Jamie took a step toward the bathroom door, but present company was not going to let her get away that easily.
“You’re not one of them, are you?”
Something speared Jamie right in the heart. Fear? Deception? That knowing feeling that she was an imposter all along? Imposter syndrome is real! “Um…”
“I mean, you’re not part of that privileged crowd. Originally. Wow, this is coming out all shades of wrong… sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” Jamie continued to stand as if she didn’t know whether to stay or go.
Would it be rude to walk out now? She felt rude just standing there and acting like a deer caught in Nala’s headlights.
What does she want from me? On the stage, this young woman was quiet and obedient.
Now she acted how most people saw Jamie out of the corner of their eyes.
“I’m not… yeah, my parents are a couple of commune farming hippies. Clearly I’m not, though.”
“Oh, clearly not.” Was Nala rolling her eyes? Why do I like it? Was it because she was refreshing after spending half the night with a table full of snooty rich people? Now, Jamie… “I did some reading on your girlfriend. She’s cute. A lot like mine… built up all her riches.”
“I suppose so.” Jamie knew nothing about Varen’s background.
She was good-looking, though. Not every woman at that table was Jamie’s type, but Varen was up there.
Etta is #1, of course. Jamie hoped she wasn’t blushing as she thought of her own girlfriend.
“It’s rather rare around here. Lots of rich families that have only gotten richer.
” Would keep getting richer with subsequent generations, too.
Like little Baby Warner, who would be one of the richest kids around when Helen and Monique finished combining their fortunes.
“It’s more common out west, yeah, but they’re also few and far between. Do those other people at that table make you wanna pull your hair out all the time? Because I’ve been around them ten minutes and want to twist a few rings off fingers if you know what I mean.”
Wow, no wonder she was able to help take down some whackjob.
“They can be a bit… well, you get used to it.”
“Do you really?”
Jamie took a step back. “Well… not really. You are always on your toes.”
“Blech!” Nala’s sour face made her look five years younger. “Glad I don’t live out here.”
Before Jamie could build up the courage to abandon Nala to the restroom, she said, “I liked that performance, by the way. I didn’t know bondage could be so… entertaining?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, Varen’s weird like that.”
“Weird?”
Nala absentmindedly combed her fingers through her black hair.
“Well, not weird, but her brain works differently. She sees patterns and stuff like that everywhere. I don’t get it.
I’m just along for the ride.” She smiled, cheekily.
“Although I’m in school for the first time in a while now.
My goal is to get as good as her at the whole coding thing. What do you do?”
“I… uh…” Jamie couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
“I fuck my boss. Well, she used to be my boss. Now I’m a professional girlfriend.
” The more Jamie faced these sorts of situations, the more she realized she didn’t have a life outside of Etta.
She wouldn’t dare say that, however. “I’m in transition, I suppose you could say.
I was in administration until I got serious with my girlfriend. Now I’m…”
“Enjoying the high life of having a rich girlfriend. Don’t worry, I get it.” Nala turned back to the mirror. “There’s something to be said for no longer living in someone’s dirty closet.”
Jamie snorted. “Or living in the most rundown apartment between a couple of dealers.”
“Or counting out how much oatmeal you eat so you don’t run out before payday.”
“Or cutting the mold off bread slices because we need penicillin in our lives anyway.”
“Ha! Sounds like you get it.”
Do I? Jamie opened her clutch and pulled out one of the calling cards. She handed it to Nala, who took it without a second thought. “Do you game?”
“Do I… do I game?” Nala was on the verge of cackling. “Well, not as much as I used to now that I’m in school, but hell yeah. You game?”
“Oh, I game.”
The look they shared only meant one thing: even though they lived on opposite sides of the country, they were now rich enough to afford the communicative means to make a new friendship work.