Chapter 5
Gen
Ipush on. ‘Well, thank you for completing the initial NDA,’ I say. ‘That covers us for this meeting. Should we extend a membership to you, there’ll be a full NDA to protect all parties.’
‘I’ll get my lawyers to go through it and suggest changes,’ he says.
Hasty there, cowboy.
No one’s offered you membership yet.
I smile tightly. ‘I assure you, we don’t make any exceptions to our policies.’
‘I’m not angling for an exception, or any exemptions,’ he says. ‘I want to make sure I’m fully protected.’
‘By all means, feel free to have your lawyers look over anything,’ I tell him.
Our NDAs are iron clad. His lawyers won’t need to worry about their precious client having any of his naughty shenanigans leaked.
‘I have a questionnaire to walk you through, unless you’d rather go through it in your own time, and then I can take you through to have a look at the club if that suits?
It might be easier to talk through our offering in situ. ’
He settles back on the sofa, hitches up his trouser leg at the thigh, crosses one ankle over the opposite knee, picks up his espresso cup, and holds it to his mouth.
‘Shoot,’ he says. He takes a sip, and my eyes linger on the slight pout that sensual mouth makes as he does so.
I reach hastily for my iPad. We have different questionnaires depending on the profile of the individual seeking admission to the club.
Those interested in our Unfurl programme, for example, tend to be less experienced, and we usually suggest they work through the questionnaire in the privacy of their own home.
I’ll never forget the boner Rafe got when he read through his now-girlfriend, Belle’s, questionnaire. I thought the poor guy’s dick was going to break off. It was priceless.
Anyway, for those like the enigmatic Mr Wolff, we don’t need to tread so lightly. A three-minute stint alone in a room with him tells me he’s not a shy little lamb.
A lethal predator, more like.
‘Do you have a preferred term to describe your sexuality?’ I ask.
‘I like women,’ he says. ‘Plural.’
The way he emphasises the last word gives me actual chills.
‘Do you play with other men at all?’
‘Sure.’ He takes a sip of his espresso as I wait. ‘But only when we’re all fucking the same woman. Or women.’
‘So you don’t partake in sexual acts by or on others who identify as male.’
‘Never say never,’ he says. ‘But generally, no.’
‘How would you describe your primary objectives for joining Alchemy?’
He takes another sip before setting the little cup and saucer down on the table in front of him. Then he leans forwards, spreads his legs and rests his elbows on his thighs as he surveys me. He strokes his chin with the fingertips of one hand, considering the question.
There’s something about this man’s presence that has my nervous system very confused.
Being the focus of his attention feels alarming and thrilling in equal measure.
He is a force to be reckoned with—it’s impossible not to notice.
I’m deeply disappointed with myself for being unable to come up with a more cerebral way to describe his aura than the crass but wholly accurate concept of Big Dick Energy.
The guy has it in spades. He could be ugly as sin, and he’d still exude an undeniable magnetism.
Unfortunately, he’s far from ugly.
‘Discretion,’ he says finally, his gaze roaming around the room. ‘Variety. Convenience. I’m a busy man. I like the idea of every sort of fucking being served up to me on a platter. Open-mindedness. Relative anonymity, I suppose. And… challenges.’
He looks directly at me as he throws out that last word.
‘You’ve come to the right place,’ I say lamely, breaking eye contact on the pretext of making a note on the iPad.
‘You’ll find variety and open-mindedness and acceptance here at Alchemy, but I also hope you’ll feel as though our members share commonalities, like integrity.
Most of our members are, like you, hugely successful. Many of them share your priorities.’
He nods, his face impassive.
‘You’ll see the facilities shortly. Our main recreational area is The Playroom.
The bar is a clothes-on space. We have twelve fully-kitted-out bedrooms, six on this level and six downstairs.
Also downstairs is The Vault, a space for our more adventurous members to play.
But the main Playroom has a stage and a few St Andrew’s crosses.
We’re big on themed nights and party events.
Slave Night, foam orgies, that type of thing.
‘We also have a concierge who can arrange bespoke scenarios on and offsite for you. Nothing is too much trouble. We have a couple of female members with kidnapping kinks—one finds herself the victim of elaborate ‘kidnappings’ on an almost weekly basis, thanks to our concierge. And my colleague had a full-size confessional that he salvaged from a church reconstructed in one of the rooms downstairs—religious kink is very popular with our members.’
There’s that wolfish grin again. ‘I can relate.’
A sudden vision assails me. Anton Wolff, dark and predatory in priestly garb. A man of God unleashed. Fucking and fucking and fucking the repression out of his system.
On me.
Holy fuck. I blame Rafe for the priest thing. He and Belle have done far too much of that here.
I clear my throat. ‘Would you like to share any preferences or fetishes you may have with me at this point?’
I swear it’s getting hot in here. He steeples his fingers together as he surveys me.
‘Control.’
‘Mm-hmm.’ I pretend to write it down in a valiant attempt at escaping from his assessing gaze.
‘Abasement. Of willing participants, naturally.’
My palms are starting to sweat. The stylus feels slippery in my hand.
‘Those are the big ones. Everything else stems from those. Everything I do, every toy I use, every person I choose to fuck, or to edge into fucking oblivion. It all comes down to those two things. Being in control and having women submit to me completely. Having them be so desperate for that orgasm they’ll let me do anything.
They’ll let anyone watch. They’ll let me and my friends do whatever we like to them because the only thing they can think about is how badly they need to come.
‘I will never, ever tire of that dynamic and I’ll take it every which way I can. That’s what I want from this place, because in every actual fucking relationship I have, it seems to be off the table.’
I’m staring at him, but I can’t help it. Those eyes of his are locked on me, so dark they’re almost black. I watch his unfairly perfect mouth enunciate words that make me half-sick with need.
Control.
Abasement.
Submit.
Need.
Orgasm.
One thing is horribly, painfully, unfairly clear to me.
This guy is the real deal. He may think he’s showing me his dark side. In fact, the way he said those things felt like he was trying to shock me.
Or more terrifyingly, test me.
The worst bit is that some part of me wants to pass his test. To please him.
And as I shove that part of myself deep down inside my carefully curated, polished, circumspect facade, I silently admit that if a woman did want the kinds of depraved things he’s articulating, then she could do no better than to allow Anton Wolff to deliver them.
I bet he’s a true master of his dark arts.
I bet he’d be fucking relentless until he’d got me right where he wanted me.
The stylus slips from my hand.