The very first thing I noticed about her were her ankles—because the shiny catsuit she was in was an inch too short to cover them.
They were a stark white in the darkness of Vertigo’s debauched basement rooms where anything—and anyone, to some degree—could be bought.
I’d been sitting at the well-stocked bar sipping wildly overpriced whiskey and idly watching the door for company, because despite paying my membership fees, it’d been a long time since I’d bothered to come down here. The bouncer still remembered me, as did some of the other patrons, and I gotten more than one welcoming nod plus a few hopeful stares. But the people who still knew me knew what I liked best.
Being alone.
It wasn’t that I was a voyeur—on the contrary—but that I didn’t enjoy any of the burdens being a committedly good dom required. Building a relationship, trust, having a flair for public exhibitionism, a tolerance for aftercare—I was just as aware of my own flaws as I was of everyone else’s currently in this room.
Which was why when she came in, in her too-short shiny black catsuit and her strappy black heels, I would’ve bet a stack of hundreds that her fetish costume had come from the Halloween store.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful—she was; the catsuit left no doubt of her figure, which was just curvy enough to grab while being taut enough to bounce a quarter off of—but she was anxious, and I didn’t recognize her, so that meant that she was not for me.
I wanted a sure thing, with someone who already knew I was an asshole.
That didn’t stop her from trotting up to me at the bar, like a nervous yet still sexy-filly. Her long, dark brown hair was in a high ponytail, and it splashed in waves down around her shoulders, giving her a somewhat pony princess look.
All she would need to complete it would be a bit in her mouth, hoof-boots instead of heels, and a propensity for crawling.
“Hi,” she breathed, flashing me a smile.
I took a moment to stare her down before responding, hoping that it might quiet any further attempts at conversation. “Hello,” I said, and turned away from her, observing the rest of the room while shielding myself with my drink.
That didn’t stop her from tapping me on my shoulder.
“Is this seat taken?”
The music was loud enough I could pretend to ignore her. Or I could show her my true nature and just get up and walk away—I owed no one my time.
She tapped me again though, more insistently, not catching the hint. “Um, this seat—was someone else—” she asked.
I looked back with a sigh, caught her shifting slightly as she anxiously pulled down the sleeves of her suit, and I realized her predicament. Her store-bought catsuit was too tight—the only safe place she could get away from the torture of her heels was beside me, at the bar, with its higher stools she could lean on—because if she sat down in that get-up, there was a good chance it would rip.
“I suppose it’s free,” I said, gesturing to it with the drink in my hand.
Her smile—showing off the best teeth Daddy’s money could buy, I was certain—somehow turned even brighter. “It’s my first time here,” she confessed.
“I had guessed,” I said slowly, then remembered the club’s rules and narrowed my eyes a bit. “Where’s your minder?”
Only friends of friends could get into this place, and you had to sign off on whoever you brought, at least for the first time. It helped keep the community safe.
She fluttered a hand over her shoulder. “He went to talk to someone.”
“And abandoned you?” I questioned the man’s judgement at once.
She gave a soft laugh. “It’s not like there’s murderers down here.”
I cocked one eyebrow up at her. “How can you be so sure?” Her eyes widened, and it was my turn to laugh. “I apologize. That was a sorry attempt at a joke. Have a good night,” I said, standing and picking up my drink for a location change.
Her expression spun on a dime, looking a little stunned. “Would you like to know a secret?” she quickly asked, over the thumping base.
And apparently I had invited this on myself, by being kind. “Not really,” I said, begging off.
“I don’t have a minder,” she said, pressing quickly on.
“Well, then I’ll have to be speaking to Vertigo’s membership coordinator about that, because I’m not paying as much as I do to be having conversations here with casuals.” I took a step back, attempting to extract myself. She was pretty, but I had a suspicion the whiskey in my glass was older than she was.
“I just knew the password,” she said, and then added at a slightly louder volume. “Do you want to know what it was?”
“No,” I said simply, turning around to walk away.
“It was, ‘I’m gorgeous and I like to get spanked,’” she called after me, at a pitch where everyone at the bar could hear.
I paused at that. It was clear she wanted my attention.
And while I didn’t want to give it to her . . . she still had it.
“Ignore him,” said another man’s voice from behind me. “He doesn’t play well with others—but I can show you a good time.”
I slowly turned, and saw Clark—a trust-fund type, far closer to her in age—circling in on her like a shark. Her warm brown eyes were filled with panic, until she noticed me noticing, and then she kept her gaze on mine like I was her savior.
And I realized that was why she was here, and what she wanted—the same as most people in the place.
Saving.
And it’d been a long time since I’d been in a situation where I could save anyone.
“Oh, come on, Rhaim,” Clark complained, as I strode back. “Everyone here knows you’re rusty—”
“Fuck off, Clark,” I said, without taking my eyes off of the woman. “Daddy issues?” I guessed, and watched her cheeks flush even in the club’s dim light.
“Yes,” she admitted, the tip of her tongue furtively peeking out to give her full lips a nervous swipe.
“As long as you cop to them,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Uh—Lisa,” she said, after a moment’s panic more.
I knew what it was when she said it. “That’s your real name, isn’t it?” I asked her, mystified.
“Was it not supposed to be?” she asked.
Her password story might actually be real at this rate. “We usually leave our real names upstairs. For instance, the guy who sells weed on the back deck calls himself Madman23—and I’ve never met his older brothers one through twenty-two, or his younger brother, twenty-four.”
I was making conversation with her now, pretending to be personable, a little to piss off Clark, who was still watching, but more to calm her, and she gave me a slow smile in return.
“What should I call you, then?” she asked, swinging her mane of a ponytail over one shoulder provocatively.
I cast an appreciative eye over her entire body, before staring her down again. “You are gorgeous,” I agreed. “But did you mean what you said?”
She rose up on her toes and nodded hopefully, so I downed my drink and set the glass on the bar behind me, before offering her my arm. “In that case—you can call me sir.”
Lisa took it and we walked through the rest of the floor at a stately place. Vertigo had installations in certain rooms that they took pride in, sometimes holiday themed, others just represented common kinks, but they went to elaborate lengths to make them special for scenes, all the better to draw crowds in when a theme changed.
I’d already walked the premises earlier in the night out of curiosity, which was why I knew exactly where I was taking her, in her silly catsuit, and on her teetering heels: a throne room.
It was done up to look like it was from that ridiculous dragon show on television, and it contained someone’s massive, beautiful antique chair that’d they’d sacrificed at the altar of sexuality. It had all sorts of blunted swords artfully laced to the back of it, with winding layers of suspension rope wound around the front, a comfortably padded seat, and wide leatherbound arms—real leather, unlike the outfit she was in—with two women playing on board.
“Oh,” Lisa gasped as we entered, and I suspected from the way she’d been looking around en route, she hadn’t made it past the bar.
I should’ve wondered why—I was good looking; but not magnetically attractive. I’d kept myself up—for a long time I’d had nothing to do but work and work out—but I was well aware God hadn’t blessed me with the same charisma he had others. My boss liked to tell me that my gruffness was part of my charm, but if it was, he was the only one who thought so.
Nero Ferreo liked me because I was his living pit bull, both in person and on paper. He enjoyed having the plausible deniability that came from having someone else do all your dirty work, and I enjoyed pretending like it was all his fault that I had to do it, like I didn’t enjoy it in the least.
I’d started off with him twenty years ago, when we were both much younger men, on the cusp of our “industry” evolving, away from the docks and into finance. And when wetwork shifted to deskwork, I was one of the few men who worked for him capable of making that change. You’d think a bunch of bookies would be better at doing math, but no . . .
But I still sometimes I need more avenues to pursue my long denied baser nature, which was how I’d found out about Vertigo myself, years ago, first as someone else’s friend, and then as a member, once I could afford it.
I had no idea how she’d really gotten into this place, but since she was here, I was going to give her an evening to remember.
I waited for her to return her focus to me after surveying the room. The women on the throne weren’t wearing much more than electrical tape and glittering diamond chokers, riding something purple and silicone between them, with one of the club’s photographers nearby.
Lisa’s jaw dropped once she parsed that. “They take pictures here?” she said, gawking at me, before practically hiding behind my back.
“Yes, but you’d have to pay extra.” I chuckled, but gave her cover nonetheless. “Some people want to commemorate the occasion, and they may only get to come here once a year. Which is also why we’re patiently waiting our turn for them to finish.” She believed me enough to creep forward again, watching the couple on the throne before giving me a guilty look, which I waved away. “They wouldn’t be doing it in public if they didn’t want people to see, so go ahead. I’ll be right back,” I told her, briefly leaving her to negotiate with the other members who were watching the show in line.
I didn’t expect her to last more than ten minutes, and while I had no idea who she was, many people would’ve known me here in real life, no matter what name I gave them, so I’d never bothered to lie about it—and outside of these walls, I was the kind of man you wanted to owe you favors.
So it was nothing to gladhand a few fellow pervs, allowing us to cut—and I was happy the show was still going when I returned, because Halloween-store Lisa and I needed some time to talk.
“We’ll be next,” I informed her, coming back to stand by her side.
Her lips parted at that, and she took in a thoughtful breath, nodding deeply, like she was preparing herself to go on a frightening rollercoaster ride. Her eyes were still on the women, who were chasing after pleasure, which gave me the freedom to look at her. Her ears were delicate pink shells, closely set against her head, and the angle of her neck was swanlike.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?”
“No,” she breathed, without turning.
“How do you know you like it, then?”
Her amber eyes flickered up at me. “College is a time for experimentation,” she said, with a hint of a tease, before sobering. “But this seems a bit more real.”
“It can be.” The thought of someone else her own age trying out things on her they’d only seen in porn disappointed me. Why would you take a thoroughbred to a children’s party? “So let’s both do our homework.”
At that, I had her attention again, and if I were honest, traitorous parts of myself liked it.
“I want you over my knee, but I only intend to touch you from here,” I said, indicating a height beside her hip, “to here.” I sank my hand down to outside her mid-thigh. “Will that be all right with you?”
She bit her lips and then nodded.
“Words, please.”
“Yes,” she said, and swallowed. “You can touch me.”
It was my turn to nod. “Did you have a safe word you wanted to use?” I asked, and when she didn’t respond quickly enough I added, “Like a code word in case you’d like me to stop?”
“I won’t want you to stop,” she said brashly.
One of my eyebrows rose perilously high. “May I touch your chin, then, before I give you incredibly stern advice?”
She gave me a questioning look. “Sure.”
I took it in between my thumb and crooked forefingers to make sure she could see nothing else but me. “Anyone who says that, in real life, and especially in here, is a fool. Are you a foolish girl, Lisa?”
Emotions ran rampant across her face again, especially at the mention of her name, then she squinted. “Maybe I need to be punished?”
I shook her head for her with the hold I had on her chin. “Don’t play act yet. We’re not done with the rules—and if you’re too impatient for rules, then I’m walking.”
She straightened her shoulders and became serious quickly. “I’m sorry,” she said, then added “Sir” as an afterthought.
“Good. Back to our discussion. What’s your safe word?”
“Mmmm . . . Lambo?”
“As in the car?” I asked.
I felt her nod again, and let go of her. “All right—if you’d like. Just one last question, then: what do you want to get out of tonight?”
That made her blink with surprise. And then she inhaled, as if to say something, but then fell back, swallowing whatever words had been on the tip of her tongue, as her gaze jumped everywhere but at me. “I—I don’t know.”
“Don’t know—or would rather not say?” I pressed.
“Can’t say,” she answered quietly.
“Brave enough to get spanked in front of strangers in public, but too scared to tell me why?” I asked with bemusement.
“Something like that,” she said, looking down briefly at her pedicured toes—before raising her chin back up defiantly. “What is it that you want?”
“For you to call me sir,” I said simply.
She groaned at that, as I hid a grin. Then she sighed heavily, before asking, “And what is it that you want, sir?” in a falsely congenial tone, like each of the words pained her.
I gave her a Machiavellian look—the same kind of look I gave suited men in boardrooms before I stole their companies from them—and instead of taking a highly appropriate step back, she took a challenging step forward, so brazen she almost made me laugh while giving me a hard on.
She was the exact type of woman I shouldn’t have been playing with. She ran hot, then cold, she didn’t know the rules, but was determined to win the game. I considered lying to her, but seeing as I had already had a more interesting night with her than I’d expected, if I were honest with her and she backed down now, then either I’d sorely misjudged her, or it wasn’t meant to be.
“Well?” she demanded, staring up at me, completely fearless, so I decided to reciprocate.
“What I want, little Lisa, is to make a pretty spectacle of you.” The women on the throne were moaning louder, and the scent of sex was heady in the air—so I took her chin again and leaned down and in, so she could hear me, and I would only smell her honey-scented shampoo. “I won’t tell you how beautiful you are, because you surely know it,” I said quietly into her ear, “but I like the idea of you strewn across my lap, your heart-shaped ass in the air, you mewling with each stroke as I spank you, preferably until you cannot breathe, and possibly until you cry.” My desires became more cogent as I gave them voice, and then they outstripped rational thought entirely. “I want you to dredge through whatever brought you here tonight and leave it behind as I beat it out of you, until there’s nothing left of you but the pride that you’ve survived me.”
I heard her breath catch in my ear. “Are we playing now?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then . . . . I want that.”
“Which part?”
“All of it,” she said, before adding, “Daddy.”
I made a dissatisfied sound as I rose up, releasing her. “I’m not sure whether or not that makes me feel old, or like a monster,” I said, giving her side-eye with an arched brow.
But then she was there, her eyes wide and her expression begging me for something I already knew I couldn’t give her. “Why not both?” she said, with absolute sincerity.
The acridity of cleaning products cut through the air. The women on the throne were through, and some of the club’s new members were doing their service hours, quickly preparing it for our show.
And Lisa was still . . . hoping, I thought, was the best verb.
Wanting me to be something for her that I could never be. My only consolation was knowing that no other man in the room could manage it either—so it was just as well that she was with me.
I heaved a sigh. “Fine. I can call me that. You cannot call me that. And this is just one scene. Nothing real. After that, I don’t owe you—and you don’t know me,” I said quietly.
She nodded quickly. “I understand,” she said just as quietly back.
“All right.” Everyone in line knew we were next, and the throne was empty.
Waiting.
I centered myself, ignoring everything else in the room, settling my full attention on her like a heavy cloak, and I watched her accept it, frighteningly receptive to me, ready to respond to all of my cues. She was like some kind of filly indeed—one who’d been searching for the right rider—and so I gave her a somewhat wicked grin. “Lisa, would you like everyone else in this room to see what a good girl you can be for me?” I asked her utmost indulgence.
She gave me the sweetest, most trusting smile I’d ever seen, one that made me feel like an asshole for sins I hadn’t even committed yet. “Yes, please,” she said, beaming.
I offered her my hand, and she took it.
I let her lead the way to the throne, so that I could watch her ass—might as well pre-game some, since I was back here—and so that everyone else would see her acting of her own volition.
I had dragged women through rooms here kicking and screaming before—consensually, of course, with all the rules carefully hashed out and written down, practically notarized—but this wouldn’t be like that.
No, because somewhere along the line I’d apparently decided to be a good person . . . well, maybe not good, but I’d decided to give her what she wanted for the evening. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly when it’d happened, but no one was more surprised about it than me.
I mounted the dais the throne sat on and took my seat, careful to arrange myself—and the hard on I was sporting—for maximum comfort before crossing my legs. I could’ve spanked her lying flat across my lap, but I liked the idea of her being a little topsy-turvy, and having to brace herself against her own abuse by placing her hands on the carpeted floor. She made to kneel down, and I tapped my upper thigh meaningfully when she paused.
“It’s just that,” she said, trying to move and wincing, as all the lines on her catsuit became uncomfortably tight.
I resisted the urge to chuckle. “If your suit tears, you’ll be giving the couple over there the best show of the evening,” I said, tilting my head their direction. “But if it does, I swear I’ll give you my coat to take home, to cover yourself with.”
I had no business breaking up a bespoke Fioravanti suit, but I would if I had to.
If I didn’t, my dick might never forgive me.
“Okay.” She nodded and ungracefully climbed over me, like she was crawling into a tunnel. Her hands reached the ground and she shimmied, wriggling until my thigh caught her beneath her hips, and my cock was pleasantly trapped between my stomach and her ribcage.
“Remember your safe word,” I reminded her. “And tap my leg twice if you can’t speak.”
“Okay,” she said again, looking innocently over her shoulder at me, one side of her face framed by her hair. “Go slow?” she asked—her first true hesitancy of the night.
I slowly put one hand down over her right ass cheek, the one furthest away from me, to palm it while I could see her expression.
“I would never hurt my little girl,” I promised, as her face went even more flush than it had been prior from being so close to the ground. And then I added “Much” and raised my hand.
Five spanks in, and there was a strong chance I was going to hell.
I’d always assumed that if there was one, I was, because where the hell else—pun intended—would have me?
But the longer this went on—and I wanted it to last a very, very long time, far longer than I’d asked the others in line behind me for permission—the more certain I became.
I’d started slowly, rubbing her between blows, my callused hands taking their fill of her beautiful half-moon curves, sliding over the mere millimeters of cheap fabric that kept me from her skin.
Then she’d pitched her hips up higher, practically begging me for violence, and I felt myself inclined to give it to her . . . and I knew she’d let me, if I asked her right.
I sank back into the throne a little bit and jutted my hips forward, contemplating the perfection of her ass, as the shine of her costume was being slowly dulled by my handprints.
“You do realize you’re the most perfect girl here, don’t you?” I said, stroking a hand across her lower back.
I felt her whole body tense—her stomach muscles against my thigh, her arms straighten against the ground. I even heard her give a little gasp.
“There I was, sitting all by myself at the bar, wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my night,” I said, as rhythmically as possible, like I was charming a snake, and I moved my hands from stroking to palming, kneading the places on her I’d already hit, that I was sure were sore. “And then you came in, and I knew.”
That . . . wasn’t precisely accurate. But we were in a scene, and I was well aware it was what she wanted to hear.
“You did?” she said softly, twisting her head back quickly to look at me over her shoulder.
Lucifer was handing me his business card.
Beelzebub was opening a gate.
“I did,” I lied, and somewhere in the distance I heard Asteroth throwing away a key. “You were meant for my hand from the moment I saw you,” I said, running one of my forefingers down the seam stretched against her crack. The action made her close her eyes and shudder, and it was all I could do not to evilly laugh. “Can I spank you harder, Lisa?” I used her name because I hoped she would know it was a genuine request, but as soon as her eyes opened, and before she could rationally answer, I switched tactics like the asshole I was doomed to be. “Do you think you can take it for Daddy?”
She twisted more fully toward me at that, panting harder than the pain required. “I can take anything,” she breathed.
And in that moment . . . I wanted to give it to her.
It’d never occurred to me that perhaps I was the one who needed a safe word.
“You don’t mean that,” I told her in a low growl. “We discussed this.”
Her eyes blazed and she shook her head. “Don’t tell me what I don’t mean.”
“Then maybe you do need punishing after all,” I threatened.
“There’s nothing you can do that can hurt me,” she proclaimed, and I quite literally felt her insubordination as she physically braced for whatever onslaught she was taunting.
But I was older than her, and wiser than her, and extraordinarily used to getting my way.
“No?” I asked her rhetorically—and then roughly slid my hand between her thighs.
Her whole body tensed as she gasped.
“Technically this is within the priorly arranged touching zone,” I said, twisting my wrist to gain a little freedom—enough space to run the pads of my first two fingers against the fabric trapped against her pussy.
She took a long and shuddering inhale, before protesting, “You wouldn’t.”
“You clearly don’t know me,” I said, leaning over, to look her directly in her eyes. “I absolutely would.”
It was nothing to find her clit—I highly doubted she was wearing underwear—and once I was there, I thought the only thing that would stop me would be her saying the name of an overrated car brand. I traced lightly against it, getting her used to the idea of me touching her intimately—and the expression on her oval-shaped face was an exquisite combination of turned on and betrayal.
“Are you okay?” I asked her softly.
Me asking made her melt against me and she quickly nodded. “I think so,” she said, then nervously added, “You’re not really mad?”
Daddy issues indeed. “How could I be?” I told her, then gave her my best impression of a warmhearted grin as I stilled my hand. “When everyone here is going to watch the prettiest girl in this room come for me?”
Her gaze lingered on mine, as she bit her full lower lip and then slowly released it as her thighs squeezed to pull my fingers in.
“Such a good girl,” I praised her, sitting back up. She gave me one last longing look, and then braced one hand on the ground and clutched the other against my calf. I pushed my hand in deeper, for better leverage as I stroked her, and her thighs parted to let me.
I ran a figure-eight pattern over her clit, before pulling it between my first two fingers in a gentle V, feeling her rock against me. I had no idea how much time had passed, but if anyone else in line complained before I got her off, I would kill them personally.
“So beautiful, so passionate,” I crooned on. “So smart enough to pick me,” I added, and felt her laugh. She pushed her knees a little wider, giving me more space, and I rubbed my thumb against her pussy, which made her moan. “Did you like that?” I asked, so quietly she probably couldn’t hear—but she might feel the soothing rumble of my voice. I circled her entrance, pressing hard against the fabric that separated us, while working against her clit with my fingertips and knuckles. “Is my little girl going to come for me?” I asked more loudly.
Her hand around my calf grabbed tighter, and her hips rose in response, grinding against my hand, and riding up and down the shaft of my trapped cock, too.
I had sudden visions of what I would do to her if no one else was there. I would stay on the throne of course, but I would rip her out of her silly catsuit, wind my palm with her long hair, and make her ride me. I would come in her pussy, her mouth, and her ass, and after I’d satisfied myself with every hole, I’d stripe her tits with my cum just because I could.
And then she gave a needy whine, pulling me back from my reverie.
“Mmmm,” I purred, leaning forward to capture her hips between my lap and my chest as I put my elbow between her knees, and turned my hand into a fist, so I could bring all the muscles of my forearm to bear, rocking against her pussy’s edges with the knuckle of my thumb, feeling the muscles of her cunt quiver with anticipation. “Does my little girl need me?”
She was panting harder now, it was easy to see the movement of her ribcage beneath her catsuit’s shine. “Yes,” she hissed.
I changed angles and took a long moment to just trace the folds of her pussy and stroke at her clit, and no matter where my fingers went, her hungry hips chased me. I would’ve laughed, were I not so breathlessly hard. “Yes what?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” she begged, arching into me. Her entire body was tense, her toes pointed far harder than her precipitously high heels required. I could tell she was on a cliff, all she needed was to be pushed over.
And for this one instance, this singular moment in time, I was a man who could not resist temptation. I ground into her pussy and rubbed her clit roughly.
“Yes . . . what?” I asked again, more meaningfully, and the second she realized what I was giving her permission to do her fingers clawed me, her hips hitched up, and I came as close as I could to fully fucking her with my hand.
“Yes—yes—Daddy,” she cried out, arching against me, coming beautifully, the muscles of her stomach pulling tight against my thigh in waves as her orgasm hit her, passed through, and then roiled back again. She kept crying out as she came, making pleasing, helpless sounds, absolutely lost in the moment, utterly forgetting that we were in the middle of a crowd.
“Mmm, good, so good,” I promised her, stroking her back as I followed her through, my hand riding each of her spasms. “What a good girl,” I swore, petting her until she stilled. “You needed that, didn’t you?” I kindly asked, like I was doing everything for her sake, like she hadn’t just given me enough material to jerk off without porn for the rest of the year.
Her hips slowly sank, and she released me to reach for the ground with both hands, pushing herself up, to collapse to the ground on the other side, sliding off of me to scattered applause.
I watched the realization that we weren’t alone flood her, as her lips parted with surprise, but she didn’t take her eyes off of me.
“Are you all right?” I asked her, and she nodded.
“A little lightheaded,” she said, bowing briefly down so her blood pressure could even out, all fears about her catsuit’s seams forgotten.
“Yeah, you came pretty hard,” I said, as she attempted to gather herself, and I realized I liked her just like that.
Wrecked by me, and kneeling.
And because unlike certain people, I hadn’t gotten the chance to come—which apparently meant that all of my sensible blood was in my cock—there was nothing left to check the urge to say so.
I took her chin in my hand again and raised it, making her look up.
“If we ever play again, I’d want you to lick my shoes and worship me.”
Her eyes went wide, and she nodded slowly—and as my own blood redistributed itself, I let her go.
“You were brilliant, Lisa,” I said, hopefully summoning both of us back to reality with the sound of her name. I stood and offered her my hand. She took it, standing upright shakily, and I carefully moved us away, making sure she didn’t trip on the step down, pulling us to a darkened corner of the room before releasing her. “How do you feel?”
She patted her herself with her hands like she was unfamiliar with her body. “Dizzy,” she said, “but good.”
I made eye contact with a circulating server who came over with two flutes of champagne, and took both, offering one over to her, which she took.
“These are on my tab, seeing as I don’t believe you actually have one. But thank you for an excellent scene,” I said, and made our glasses clink. “You should probably take some Aleve tonight, and sit on an ice pack in the morning.”
She stared at the glass and its contents like they were alien things, and then she looked at me. “Did you have a good time?”
“Yes. Of course. I only do things I enjoy,” I said, brushing her question away.
She nodded her head and smiled at me. “Then . . . can we talk?”
And here it came. The part of the evening where she would try to make plans with me, to create some nebulous future out of nothing more than sheer endorphins. I cursed silently. “No. You are not mine, nor do I want you.” Lisa blinked, rocking back on her heels.
I’d been in this exact same situation a hundred times before, and learned that abruptness verging on rudeness was the only cure.
“I say a lot of things in a scene, and I’m willing to suffer a fair amount of carpal tunnel to get a girl off,” I admitted, before taking a sip of my drink and giving her a look of pity. “But somewhere out there I suspect you have an actual father, and I suggest you get over him.”
Little Lisa stood much straighter as her sudden shame sobered her up.
And then she threw her drink at me.
I laughed half a second after the cold champagne hit my face, licking away a trail of bubbly alcohol and blotting it off with my tie before it could burn my eyes.
“That’s too bad,” I said, polishing my own glass off with a grin. “It was very expensive. You would’ve liked it.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“You almost did,” I taunted, and watched her nostrils flare and her eyes burn. She was so spirited—no wonder I wanted to break her.
Not for any dire purpose—no—for the same reason people pulled apart daisies.
Just because I could.
Which was why I shouldn’t be with anyone.
I knew because I’d made that mistake before.
“Get home safely, little girl—it’s probably past your curfew,” I said, taking her empty glass from her as she sputtered, putting both our glasses on a nearby table. “And think fondly of me tomorrow, when you see my handprints on your ass.”
I gave her a low wave, then turned around, walking to the coat room to collect my coat, my phone, and summon an Uber.
Did I fuck my hand that night?
Yes.
Fuck yes.
I spent half the ride home hard, and luckily my coat hid my hard on from the doorman, and then I was tempted to stroke myself in the elevator, but remembered they had cameras in time—so I made it to my own door, first, until it was locked behind me, and I’d stumbled to my couch.
I should’ve taken pity on my dry cleaners, but they were used to me, and besides they were already going to be getting out champagne. It didn’t matter, I’d pay them a fucking hazmat fee—I just needed to stroke myself to completion, imagining myself buried inside her cunt.
I was so hard and ready and because I’d already wanted to blow more than once tonight, it didn’t take long at all—just remembering the perfect curves of her ass and her wriggling body and—I was gasping and groaning in moments, covering myself with my own cum.
I rocked my head back like the rest of my body was a traitor—because it was. I had only the most tenuous connection to it: I punished it in the gym, I forgot to feed it for days at a time, and I worked straight through for weeks without sleep.
And then here it was tonight, making demands—already getting hard again, like it’d never heard of a refractory period.
“She’s not even here,” I complained. But it was like my body didn’t know that—not when if I breathed in deeply enough I could convince myself I could still smell her hair.
“Fuck,” I cursed, and the rest of me agreed.
I let my hands do what they wanted to, closing my eyes, and this time, I imagined her riding me.
By Monday morning, I’d fully recovered my inner asshole—and working most of Sunday helped. Nero had texted me on Saturday saying he needed to run a proposition by me, but said he wouldn’t till we met in person next, which told me that it was too dangerous to put in writing, so I wanted to get caught up.
I made it a point to go to the gym early and finish up my run on time, so I could shit, shower, and shave and be in my office, exactly where he wanted me to be, at eight-oh-one.
And eight-oh-three.
And eight-fifteen.
I was used to him by now. Nero Ferreo was the human embodiment of a cat. Easily distracted, with the potential to be ruthlessly cruel. As the head of Corvo Enterprises it wasn’t his job to be on time—and ever since I’d first been the driver in one of his cars for him, back when I was fourteen, well before I had a legal license, I’d always known waiting was part of the job for me.
So I carried on—he’d find me when he needed to—greasing all the wheels of our assorted legal industries, making sure that all of the money we made via illegal means was bleached, washed, and starched, going through an entire screen’s worth of excel tabs one by one, until my assistant, Mrs. Armstrong, rapped twice on the door like she always did.
“Mister Selvaggio? Mister Ferreo is here.”
I glanced at the clock. Ten-oh-five.
I would’ve told her to let him in, but it didn’t matter, he was already opening the door. Nero was of the opinion that nothing should be locked to him in the entire building, because he owned it all—which everyone knew, as he was fond of reminding us.
But I couldn’t truly complain. I remembered where I’d come from and where he’d found me—and he’d made sure I was well compensated over the years.
And every once in awhile he would throw me a bone like for old times sake. Like when his coke dealer had cut his stuff before an important party a few months ago.
So many bad things could happen to someone in international waters.
It was really just a shame.
I stood as he walked in, ready to shake his hand, offer him a drink from my bar, and get down to business.
“Bestiola!” Nero bellowed, because he only had one volume, using the only nickname I’d ever had on this earth—little beast—despite the fact that I was now forty-four—and I would’ve complained about it like I always did, only I noticed someone else walking in right behind him.
And this time she wasn’t in a catsuit—no, she was in a caramel brown pencil skirt, and a shiny, loose off-white, long-sleeved blouse, and her hair was in a bun.
“You remember my daughter Lisa? Little Lissy?” he went on, as she walked in, surveying the room coolly, before she looked at me.
“Rhaim Selvaggio,” she said pleasantly, holding out one hand, like the hand she’d be shaking wasn’t the same one that’d spanked her on Friday night before making her come. “Of course I remember you.”
“I remember you, too,” I told her with a complete flat inflection, as Nero went on, oblivious, grabbing her shoulder and shaking it roughly, like she was one of the boys.
“Lissy just got her MBA. I want you to teach her everything you know, Rhaim—because someday soon this place is going to be hers.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, with a sweetness that didn’t reach her eyes—I knew because she was staring fire right at me.
Daddy’s little girl hated me.
I.
Was.
Fucked.
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