Chapter 19
NIA
“T hank you,” I tell Brody as he carefully pulls my car onto the driveway. He expertly navigates around the bump in the cement at the end of it as if he’s done it a million times before. I still haven’t gotten the hang of it, and I’m certain that I’ll lose the bottom of my car one of these days, going over it too quickly.
As I press the latch for my seat belt, I turn away from him, suddenly feeling embarrassed; small, maybe. “When do we go to the…?”
“I’m going tomorrow night,” he tells me. “I’d be happy to pick you up.”
His eyes are burning into me. I hear more than see his knuckles rolling over my worn-down steering wheel cover, which squeaks under his grip. His energy has taken up the entire interior of the car and I can’t seem to find my breath under the weight of it.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night, then,” I tell him, reaching for the handle of my door.
“Nia,” I hear just before his hand finds my jaw. Forcing me to look at him, he quirks a brow at me, a small smile ticking at the corner of his mouth. “If you want to learn from me, you’ll have to look at me.”
I swallow, wrapping my fingers around his wrist as I make…far too little effort to move his hand. Letting out a sound torn between a chuckle and a giggle, I tell him, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Brody.”
“Seven thirty.”
“Okay,” I smile.
My jaw feels cold when he releases it, reaching instead for my keys to pull them from the ignition. I sit frozen in place as he steps out of my car and moves to my door, opening it for me.
A wordless exchange passes between us as I climb out and move toward the front door of my house, feeling his eyes on me as he slips his phone from his pocket, and still as I step inside, offering him a small wave of my hand.
As I close the door behind me, my thumb nail finds itself between my teeth, an attempt to bite away the smile that wants to spread across my face, and to disguise the worry working its way through my veins.
I may have bitten off more than I can chew, here.
But man, am I excited to find out.
“No, no, nope, definitely not,” I grumble as I swipe dress after dress across the bar in my closet. “None of these are right.”
I’ve already said the same thing about nearly every one of my blouses, each pair of pants, and every skirt in here, too. I pull in a steadying breath to stave off my frustration, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror resting on top of my dresser, shaking my head at the hot rollers clamped into my hair.
Matthew sits perched behind me on my bed, slurping the last of his drink from the obnoxiously-sparkly, totally-cliché tumbler that I got him for his birthday least year as a joke . The vinyl ‘ Yes, I am a nurse. No, I don’t want to look at it. ’ printed on the front of it may be the most sparkly part of the whole thing, and I chuckle as I look at it, knowing that the quote has resulted in him being shown more lumps, bumps, and holes than anyone ever wants to see.
“Are you going for something specific?” He finally asks.
Sighing, I say, “I want ‘hot and single’ but also ‘independent woman who doesn’t have time for you.’”
“Andi says you want a pantsuit,” he laughs, setting down his phone, along with the advisory text messages from his wife.
“No! I want to look…” I sigh. “I want to look like Nia Cavanaugh, not the former Mrs. Hart.”
“Are you trying to to look like that for yourself?” He asks, setting his tumbler onto my nightstand as he steps toward the closet. “Or for someone else?”
I open my mouth to answer, but no words seem able to find their way out. Ten minutes ago, I would have known the answer to that question. Now…
Reaching into my closet, I pull out a short cocktail dress that I bought years ago and never had the opportunity to wear. It’s made of a silky white fabric, and the neckline acts as a choker, leaving the back completely open. It’s daring; it’s more bold than anything I’ve ever worn before.
It’s perfect.
Tonight opens the door for a new chapter of my life to begin, and I plan to welcome it with open arms.
After slipping into the dress and pulling the rollers from my hair, I’m left on my own, with no one here to help distract me from the doubt picking away at the corners of my mind. I shove it away by making one more bold choice: painting my lips a bright cherry red.
Checking the time, I tousle my hair and comb my fingers through the curls before grabbing my clutch bag and racing down the stairs to wait for Brody.
To wait to be introduced to myself.
To find out who Nia can be on her own.
The entrance to The Haven is an incredible contrast tonight from my first visit. There is no line out the door, meaning no hushed voices whispering about the woman in line who definitely doesn’t belong here.
My hand rests in the crook of Brody’s elbow as we approach the same man that checked my bag that first night, and Brody reaches for his wallet, pulling out two shiny, silver cards as the man greets us.
He scans over them, then checks our IDs and once again the contents of my purse – which I was sure to give a decent clean-out before bringing, this time - before opening the door for us.
“Have a good evening, Mr. Montgomery, Ms. Cavanaugh,” he tells us with a nod.
“ That is one thing I like about this place,” Brody tells me as we step inside. The main room is much quieter tonight, bathed in a soft purple light rather than the red that was lit up the last time that I was here.
“What’s that?” I ask him.
“Mr. Montgomery stays outside of the building. Once the door closes, I’m just regular, plain old Brody.”
“So I’m just Nia, then,” I comment.
He angles his head to look at me, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He seems to fight them a lot; his smiles. I don’t think that he likes to give them very freely. Not real ones, anyway.
“You can be whoever you want to be here,” he says. Holding one of the silver cards between his index and middle fingers, he aims it in my direction, silent instruction to take it. My name is printed on the front of it. “You’ll need this.”
“Is this a…?” He nods, and what feels like seven million goosebumps rise to the surface of my skin. “I can rent a room with this.”
“Yes,” he tells me, “you can.”
Does he want me to rent a room?
Does he expect me to rent one with him?
“I—” I clear my throat, which now feels painfully dry. “Thank you.”
I tuck the card into my wallet as we approach the bar, where the woman that I met before is seated. I hang back for a moment, watching as the two of them hug each other, and Brody leans against the bar, stretching the back of his black dress shirt across his broad shoulders.
“I don’t bite, love,” the woman chuckles, patting the stool next to her in invitation. “Isla Cabot,” she says, extending a hand to me as I take my seat.
“Nia,” I smile at her. “Cavanaugh.”
“Nia Cavanaugh,” she echoes, as if committing my name to memory as she swirls the glass in her hand. It looks to be a martini. Pulling it to her lips, she says, “I was hoping we would see you again. So we’re your teachers, huh?”
Her arm loops around mine, pulling me closer to her as Brody slides a glass of white wine in front of me.
With Isla’s arm still looped in mine, the three of us move through the main room and down one of the halls. More of the rooms are open tonight than before, some with couples and groups ducking behind their doors, lighting up the red lights next to them.
“We’re going to check out a voyeur room,” Isla tells me with a smile.
“Voyeur, as in…”
“Me,” she says. “People who like to watch. I don’t like to participate. I watch, and I play by myself, and it’s fantastic.”
My brow furrows at that. “Your ‘Dom’ lets you do that?”
Isla lets out a loud laugh, patting my arm with her free hand. “No one lets me do anything, love,” she tells me.
“She means that she doesn’t have a Dom,” Brody adds. “That’s only one small piece of the picture. Kink isn’t just for Dominants and their submissives.”
“Okay. So you’re a voyeur,” I say to Isla, trying to keep myself steady as I turn my attention to Brody, “and you’re a…”
“Brody’s a sadist,” Isla tells me.
I don’t miss the roll of his eyes as his friend answers on his behalf. I think I stop walking for just a second, feeling my blood turn to ice in my veins at the word. Sadist . The man has been around my daughter; I’ve baked cookies for him, for Pete’s sake.
“It isn’t like the garbage that you see on TV,” he tells me, keeping his eyes ahead of him. “I don’t scene without a consenting masochist, and I’m not some crazed man in the streets, getting off on hurting unsuspecting bystanders. I enjoy doing cruel things to nice people in a controlled environment.”
This time, I do stop, and I grab onto his elbow to turn him toward me before catching myself and clasping my hands together in front of me.
Hazel eyes look down at me, boring into me with a questioning quirk of his brow.
“Am I safe around you?” I ask him quietly.
“Do you feel safe around me?”
Red.
Yellow.
Green.
After-hours phone calls and ‘I’m proud of you’s.
A comforting touch when my world feels upside down.
Yes; yes, I do feel safe around him.
Incredibly so.
Does that erase the sudden fear that I feel when I hear such an ugly word used to describe him? Does it take away conversations that I’ve had with police in my ER about people described in the same way? No; but I also don’t think that he could be anything like those people.
Pulling his lips into a tight smile, he inclines his head, silently ordering us forward.
“These are my favorite rooms,” Isla announces.
In front of us sit several rooms, each with large windows at their fronts that the other rooms don’t have, save for the one in the main hall. Most of them have drawn curtains, but one…
Beyond the window lies a couple separated only by a chair, which looks to be missing most of its seat. A nude woman sits perched on the chair with a man settled on the floor beneath her. His head is between her legs, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what exactly he’s doing to her.
Why he has what looks like a cage secured around his penis, however, I’m not sure.
“I love a queening chair,” Isla sighs almost wistfully.
It’s hard to ignore the flip in my stomach as I watch the woman’s head fly backward, her ankles fighting against the silk ribbon tying them in place around the chair’s legs. Brody stands next to me, stoic and unphased by the scene in front of us, with his hands clasped behind his back as if he’s looking at an art exhibit.
“What,” I ask with a playful nudge to his arm, “you don’t do that?”
He chuckles, dark and deep. “No, I don’t. When I’m eating a woman’s pussy, I prefer to feel her weight on my face,” he tells me.
“Brody!”
“You wanted to come to the club,” he says firmly. “You’re going to hear how people speak in the club. I told you, I get to leave the Montgomery name at the door here.”
“So those people know they’re being watched right now,” I say.
“Yes they do,” He nods, finally turning his head in my direction to pin me in place with those damn eyes, “and it’s turning them on. Do you like watching them?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t dislike it?”
His brow arches, and when he speaks, his voice drops in pitch. Almost imperceptibly, but I find myself incredibly tuned-in to him as his energy once again begins to fill the space around us. I’m barely aware of the presence of his friend anymore, now consumed by her own world, seemingly miles away from us.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” He demands.
“Tell—” I gulp. “ Telling you.”
The corner of his mouth ticks up, and he turns on his heel, not needing to instruct me to follow him. I do it almost as if on instinct. I follow him like a puppy down the hall as he pulls open the large double doors which piqued my curiosity during my last visit.
This room is a complete contrast to the main room, and even to the room with the ‘queening chair.’ I stare in awe at the chandeliers of artificial candles, at the silk curtains that drape over the walls, at the strange furniture spread throughout the room.
There’s a hint of vanilla in the air, hidden somewhere beneath the smell of sex, that almost feels romantic. The sounds of moaning, crying, and cursing fill the room as people – so many people, some of them alone, some in pairs, some in groups – make use of everything in the room, their bodies in particular.
“Close your mouth unless you want someone to fill it,” Brody quietly orders.
I do as I’m told, not having realized that it had fallen open to begin with. Embarrassment hits me at his public scolding, but so does…something else. I can’t quite name it.
“Did you…” I hesitate, suddenly unsure if I even have permission to speak. “Did you come here with your wives?”
“My second wife, yes, frequently. I never had sex with the first.” My brow scrunches and I open my mouth to speak, but quickly close it again. “I was raised to believe that sex was only to be used for the purpose of having children. I’m sterile,” he tells me.
“Right, from the…” I pause as he nods, clearing my throat. “I think that’s how I used sex, too. I didn’t— it was fine and it was necessary if we wanted to have a baby, but it wasn’t something that I ever just, wanted to do. Not like these people,” I say, gesturing toward the writhing bodies in front of us.
He turns toward me, studying me. His eyes scan over me as if he’s trying to read me like a page in a textbook. I want to shrink under their gaze, but I roll my shoulders instead, forcing myself to keep standing tall. That seems to earn his approval in our silent exchange.
“What did you like about the woman on her knees?” He finally asks.
My cheeks heat as a blush rises to them, and suddenly I feel three inches tall. “You can’t look at me while I answer this,” I tell him, looking at my shoes rather than at the man now standing in front of me, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“If you plan to have a Dom, you’ll have to get used to maintaining eye contact when you’re expected to,” he tells me. “So look at me and answer the question, Nia.”
Slowly, as if I might burst into flame at the mere thought of it, I move my gaze to meet his, holding firmly as our eyes meet.
“She seemed happy,” I tell him. “It looked like, even though what she was doing was humiliating, she was enjoying it. And when you touched her jaw the way that you did, it…god, I don’t know. I thought I might like someone doing that for me. Dan never touched me like that. He would kiss me, and once or twice a year, we would have sex, but that’s it.”
My hand flies to my mouth at my admission, but Brody leans forward with a deep chuckle, keeping his hands in his pockets as his mouth sits less than an inch from my ear.
“You get to leave Ms. Cavanaugh at the door here, too,” he tells me. “Just be Nia, and don’t be embarrassed about what you say, do, or enjoy here.”
“I’m standing in a sex club, saying that I don’t like sex,” I tell him. “You see how ridiculous that is, right?”
“Maybe you don’t like sex, and that’s fine,” he shrugs. He turns to look toward the room behind him, watching the others for a moment before returning his attention to me. “Or maybe you haven’t had the right kind of sex. It isn’t ridiculous to want to figure that out.”
Standing this close to me, his cologne melds together with the vanilla and the sex taking up the rest of the room to make one big, intoxicating fragrance cocktail that I can’t stop myself from drinking down.
I’d get drunk on it, if I could.
My hand wants to rest on his chest, maybe even push him away from me, but ‘no touching’ was one of our rules; and I get the impression that rules are very important to him.
We are surrounded by sound, movement, and intensity; but that all fades away as he hovers near me. The only thing that I see is beautiful swirls of jade and amber tucked behind thick lenses, the thin rim of metal around them shining under the dim light overhead.
A gust from the air conditioning system hits my bare back and I feel naked; exposed.
I might even be able to be convinced that I feel slightly aroused.
“I should go home,” I whisper.
A knowing smile crosses his lips, and I fight against my own eyes, denying them the glance that they beg me to allow them at his lap.
As we move toward the exit and into the parking lot, the cool night air hits my skin and I hurry toward the VIP parking space that houses Brody’s SUV, climbing into the passenger seat as quickly as I can.
The vehicle shifts under his weight as he climbs inside, slipping the keys into the ignition, and my eyes move to the time shown on the dashboard which tells me that hours passed while we were inside. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice how quickly the time was going by.
We’re nearly to my house by the time that I finally speak again, clearing my throat before I do.
“Thank you for taking me tonight,” I tell him. “I think some of the questions that I had were answered.”
“Oh?” He asks, turning his face just a few degrees toward mine as his eyes stay on the road ahead of us.
I nod, knowing that he may not see me – but hoping that he does. “I want to go back.”
“You can go any time you’d like,” he tells me. “Just show your card at the door.”
I know that he’s being polite, that he’s offering me freedom, choice, and control that feels like it’s been taken away from me recently.
But I’m not sure that it’s what I want.
Silence hangs between us as my fingers fiddle with the latch on my bag, as the car slows to a stop in front of my driveway. As Brody’s eyes shift to me, waiting.
“I want to go back with you ,” I finally tell him. “I want you to show me more.”
His jaw shifts and he swallows before turning toward me. “I can show you more,” he says. “The Friday after next. Eight PM.”
My hand meets my lower stomach as it does somersaults. My mind races through the website that he told me to forget all about as I reach for the door handle. The things that I’m supposed to ignore. The things that I think he would be annoyed to know that I can’t force from my mind.
And as I step out of the car, just before I close the door, I take a chance.
“I look forward to it, Sir.”