25 - TERRIBLE BEAUTY
Lacey
Ricardo wasn't coming. Janice explained en route that he was working a session that couldn't be moved.
I walked up to the door of the Second Circle in heels and the black silk dress Janice had bought me earlier in the week.
The same hostess, only this time she slid a slim red bracelet toward me without asking. "Congratulations," the hostess said. "And welcome."
I looked at it. Then I looked at the one on Janice's wrist. Then I looked up. "Is this right? I'm a visitor."
The hostess's smile shifted by a degree. "The bracelet isn't given by mistake."
Janice leaned in. "Lacey. You're a member now. Accept it and relax."
The hostess studied me with amusement. "You're one of us," she said, and this time it wasn't a script.
"But it costs, there's a fee…" Janice. Of course. "Janice, I can't accept this. It's too much." I moved to give it back, even though I wanted it.
Janice refused, of course. "No, Lacey, you belong here. You can pay me back once things with Douchebag Brad are fixed."
I had to laugh despite myself. I shouldn't accept it. It was lighter than I'd expected and heavier than I'd planned for. I slid it over my wrist, and it hugged me like it had been measured for me.
The bouncer saw the bracelet on my wrist and gave me the small nod. Janice swept past him with her usual unbothered familiarity, hand light at my lower back, steering me through the inner doors.
"Drinks first," she said, her hand sliding from my lower back to the bone of my hip.
I let her steer me to a small round table near the lounge where we'd sat the last two times.
I picked up the glass of wine she slid toward me and took a longer pull than the first sip required.
"Tonight is about you and me," she said, leaning in. The slip dress caught the light. "And whatever this room decides to give us. Yes?"
I looked at her. The eyes I'd known calibrated to a different light. The pulse moving in the soft skin of her throat.
"Yes," I said.
"Good girl."
The words penetrated my center, deeper than last time. I let myself feel it. I set the wine down.
The song was slow. Her hand at the small of my back drew me close. Her other hand laced through mine and held it at chest height between us. She was four inches taller than me, but her barefoot and me in heels put our faces closer than I'd expected.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"Are we dancing, or are we dancing?"
"What's the difference?"
She smiled. Slow. "One of them I can do with my mother, the other with my lover."
She let go of my hand and put both of hers on my hips. Pulled me an inch closer. The slip dress moved against the silk of mine and her thigh came up between mine the smallest fraction and the room went a little dimmer at the edges.
"Janice."
"Mm."
"What are we doing?"
"Dancing." Her mouth was close to my ear. The faint warmth of her breath. "Don't overthink it."
I didn't overthink it.
I let her hands stay where they were. I let her thigh stay where it was. I let her pull me close enough that her chest pressed against mine and her cheek brushed mine when she turned her head, and when she breathed out near my temple, I breathed in to match her.
A few weeks ago, I'd run out of this club and shame burned through me like a sickness.
Tonight I was dancing with my best friend's hands on my hips and her body fitted along mine and the only thing I felt was the slow rolling heat of being touched by someone who'd been waiting to touch me longer than anyone else.
Janice's hand slid up my back and pressed at the base of my neck. Held me close. Her mouth moved near my ear.
"You feel that?" she murmured.
"Yes."
"That's been here a long time, Lacey."
I closed my eyes for a count of two. Opened them.
"I know."
She made a small, pleased sound against my temple. The hand at the base of my neck stayed.
When the song got faster, she pulled back just enough to look at me. Her cheeks were flushed. Her pupils were wide.
She didn't let go of my hips.
"James is here," she said.
I blinked. "What?"
"James. From the last time. I just noticed him at the bar." She didn't turn her head to show me. She was watching my face. "He's been texting me all week. He didn't know I was bringing you."
"He's the one with—"
"The one I introduced you to. The Black guy. Tall, easy smile."
"I remember him."
"He's good," she said. The small private smile that had been getting more frequent lately. "I like playing with him. He's gentle and he's filthy and he does this thing where he—"
"Janice."
She laughed. "I'm just saying. He's good."
"You want to play with him tonight?" I asked.
"I want to play with him tonight, but only if it's okay with you. And only if you watch."
"In the public area?"
"In the public area." Her hand left my hip and came up to brush a strand of hair behind my ear.
The room slowed.
A hot tight ribbon pulled through my belly. My nipples hardened against the silk.
"Why?" I asked.
"Why what?"
"Why do you want me to watch?"
"Because I want you to see what it can look like," she said. "When you stop pretending."
She stepped back. The cool air rushed into the place where her body had been.
"I'm going to talk to him for a minute."
She turned and walked toward the bar, and I followed her.
The public play lounge was the same wide dim space I remembered from our second visit.
Low padded platforms in a loose semicircle, gauzy curtains drawn back at the edges, mirrors along one wall doubling the room.
Amber light made the air feel warm even where it wasn't. A couple moved together on the platform nearest the curtain, her hair fanned across his shoulder, his hand sliding slowly up the inside of her thigh.
A trio on a chaise farther back. I only looked long enough to catalog three men. No one acknowledged our entrance.
At the far end of the lounge, set against the wall under a recessed light, was the cross.
Dark polished wood, a large rectangle with an X of thicker wood about six feet across, ankle and wrist cuffs at the four points.
A ledge along the base for the bound person to stand on.
On the wood backrest hung various tools and other things I couldn't readily identify with sex, though some looked like they might be for working with animals.
I'd filed it under things other people did.
James was already walking Janice toward it.
He'd nodded at me when she brought me to the bar.
He'd taken Janice's hand and pressed his mouth to the inside of her wrist with a slow tenderness.
Thank you, he'd said to me, for letting her share this with you, and Janice had laughed and said I hadn't said yes yet, and James had smiled and said I would, and meant nothing aggressive by it.
Janice told me where to stand, so she could watch me and I could see everything.
I'd said yes. Of course I had.
Now Janice stood in front of the cross and James talked to her in a voice too low for me to hear. She nodded. He stepped behind her and lifted her hair off the back of her neck. He kissed the place where her neck met her shoulder, slowly, and her eyes closed.
I stood about ten feet away.
He turned her around to face the cross. He undid the tie of her slip dress at the side.
The thin wine-colored fabric slid down her body and pooled on the wooden ledge at her feet.
She stepped out of it. Black lace bra, black lace panties, the faint sheen of her skin in the amber light.
He reached around her with both hands and unhooked the bra.
Slid it down her arms. Set it aside on a small table where he'd also set a folded towel and a length of black silk.
He turned her again. She faced the room now. Faced me.
Her eyes found mine and stayed there.
He took her right wrist. Lifted it above her head. Buckled the leather cuff around it. The metal click was very quiet. He took the left wrist. Did the same.
Janice's arms were spread above her head now, her body extended along the cross, breasts lifted with the angle of her arms. The line of her ribs showed. The line of her hips. The black lace of her panties was the only fabric left on her.
She didn't look away from me. I had to remind myself to breathe.
James knelt and took her right ankle. Cuffed it to the lower right point of the cross.
Took the left. Cuffed it to the lower left.
Her legs were spread now. Not wide. Enough that the line of her thighs opened cleanly and the lace between them sat in the amber light like something set out on display.
I hadn't moved.
My breath shortened. My breasts rose against the silk. The intense need in my pussy had decided what it thought of this already.
James stood. He ran one hand from Janice's collarbone down between her breasts to her stomach. Slowly. The way you run a hand down a thing you own.
"Ready?" he said, low, to her.
"Yes," she said, and the word was for me.
He kissed her. Thoroughly, one hand cupping her jaw and the other low on her hip, and Janice's body strained gently against the cuffs, not trying to get free.
The bound arms moved a fraction inside the leather.
The bound legs flexed against the ankle cuffs and didn't pull.
She kissed him back without any of her usual coordination, because she didn't have the use of her hands, and the small disorganization of it, Janice without her hands free, Janice having to receive instead of provide, was the most exposed I'd ever seen her.
He kissed down her throat. Down between her breasts.
He took one nipple into his mouth and Janice gasped, a small sound that ran the length of her body and made her hips lift fractionally against the restraints.
He moved to the other. The same patient attention.
Her eyes flickered with the second gasp and then settled back on mine, pupils enormous now, breath quickening.
His mouth went lower. Down her stomach. He knelt.