Because the night was dark and there was no sign near the street entrance, Colleen Frost almost missed the long, U-shaped driveway of the Devilhouse, and she cranked her clunker car’s steering wheel to turn through the gate in the wrought-iron fence when her phone had demanded she Turn here!
People who were wealthy and connected enough to get into the Devilhouse must know where it was and not need anything as gauche as a sign.
There was still a line to get in, though.
Colleen stood in the queue with the other shlubs who hadn’t used the valet parking, fidgeting in her cosplay outfit from AZMangaCon three years before. The fluttery blue miniskirt still fit, but the white bodice was a little tight over her boobs. Walking around a tiny store for work and sitting in an office chair while moderating message boards wasn’t a lot of exercise.
Even though night had fallen hours ago, the asphalt parking lot and sidewalk under her feet reradiated the desert sun’s heat and rippled warmth up her legs. Colleen fanned herself hard with a slick paper flyer because she was beginning to sweat under her costume and long blond wig.
This wasn’t going to work. A random internet dude had told Colleen he’d get her on the VIP list and pay her cover charge for the swankiest, most notorious nightclub in the Valley, and she’d believed him.
Sucker.
Not to mention that she was meeting said random internet dude at a nightclub at night. She hadn’t told her local friends about it because they would’ve talked her out of it. Meeting a stranger alone, even in a public place, was a stupid thing to do.
Yet, here she was.
And she wasn’t leaving, even though her knees felt a little trembly.
At the head of the line, an enormous, barrel-chested man was standing behind a podium and soberly checking IDs. Subtle tattoos of eagles clutching a globe in their claws scrolled over the dark skin of his arms that were so muscular they stretched his black tee-shirt’s sleeves, and the knit cotton clung to his pecs and abs. A name tag—Jeffrey—was pinned on the left side of his chest. Underneath his name was written, Director of Security.
Colleen approached and offered the man her driver’s license.
He pinched it between his thick thumb and forefinger and examined it, flashing a blue beam of light over it. He looked up at her with dark, piercing eyes and then back down at the ID card.
In her license picture, Colleen’s eyes and hair were basic brown, but her costume included a long blond wig and blue contact lenses. Her foundation was thick and white, almost clown-like, and exaggerated eyeliner around her eyes made them cartoonish vertical ovals. A glue stick and concealer had made her eyebrows vanish, and she’d painted arched brows on much higher. Plus, she’d contoured her chin and nose until her face was practically elfin.
When she’d been cosplaying at nerd conventions, she’d discovered the devious magic of contour and highlighting. Even though Colleen had always been pudgy, she could contour her cheekbones and chin and dress up as Black Widow or Wonder Woman with conviction. Some of her friends she’d gone to the cons with hadn’t recognized her until she’d spoken.
She’d also doused her face with setting spray so she wouldn’t leave half her makeup on his . . . whatever.
She flapped her hands at her nautical blue and white dress with fluffy red bows on her bosom and tailbone and her red thigh-high boots. “It’s a cosplay costume,” Colleen told the bouncer, trying to be helpful. “That’s my license. That’s me.”
“Mm-hmm.” The man gestured to the better-lit lobby behind himself. “This isn’t really a cosplay kind of club.”
“I’m incognito,” she said, trying not to sound like a dork.
“Yeah,” he said, drawing the word out with suspicion. “Step over here and look up at that lighting fixture.”
Colleen followed his directions even though she wasn’t exactly sure why. The chandelier on the ceiling blazed with tiny gold light bulbs that grew into snowflakes as she stared at it, and her eyes watered.
The man looked at her license and then peered at her eyes from the side. “I can’t tell. Look at me and move one of the contact lenses aside, please.”
Colleen turned, stuck her finger in her eye, and dragged the bright blue contact lens to the outer corner of her eyeball, showing him her brown iris underneath.
One side of the man’s full lips rose. He selected a long pencil from a cup on his podium and lifted one of the long blond ponytails that trailed to her knees, peering at the nape of her neck and, Colleen assumed, bits of her brown hair peeking from under the bottom of her wig cap and hairpiece. He said, “Uh-huh. Nice wig. Okay, it’s possible. You can wait in the ID-checked line over there.”
He gestured toward a second set of blue velvet ropes with another line of people long enough to look like they were waiting for the newest ride at Disneyland.
Gray fog coasted into her head, and her lungs squeezed out a hopeless sigh. “I, um, I was told I’d be on the VIP list?” she asked.
“There is no Colleen Frost on the list,” he said while writing something on a sheet of paper.
“Oh, um, no. It would be under the name QueenMod, I think?”
He stopped writing and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes from under his curling eyelashes. “I beg your pardon?”
“Um, QueenMod. It’s my nickname.” Colleen sucked in a deep breath. “Because that’s what I go by sometimes.”
The man was still looking at her, his gaze as steady as if he held a sniper rifle. From the plethora of Marine tattoos on his arms, he might have done that at some point in his life. “QueenMod.”
“Yes,” she said, shrinking inside. “It’s probably not even on there anyway. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll just—”
Jeffrey was holding a computer tablet and scrolling, and then he raised one eyebrow. “QueenMod. Like Queen, Mod?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” She should have chosen a less dumb moderator name.
“Well, that can’t be just a lucky guess. You’re on the VIP list, QueenMod, and your cover is already paid. Hold out your arm. This here’s your wristband. Your prepaid food and beverage credit is on the chip in it. Just have the bartenders or waitstaff beep the chip. Looks like you’ve got two hundred dollars to drink tonight, which won’t take nearly as long as you’d think. Eat something with it. They don’t water down the liquor here.”
Holy crap. TwistyTrader really was a whale. Two hundred bucks of free money, and the club’s cover charge was a C-note, too.
Jeffrey the Director of Security continued, “At nine-thirty, present yourself to the desk on the second floor at the back marked Private Rooms. There’s a black stage curtain back there. The desk is behind it. They’ll beep your chip to get back there, too, and they’ll set you up with the paperwork and NDA.” He secured a floppy strip of orange plastic snugly around her wrist. “Show this to my security people at the staircases. That’s how you’ll gain access to the VIP second floor. Third floor is Super-VIPs only, which is not you. Don’t even try. Go right in, Ms. QueenMod-Sailor-Moon-Colleen-Frost.” He turned and extended his hand for the ID of the next person in line behind her.
Colleen scooted inside the club before he changed his mind.
Frigid air enveloped her as she walked through the door, which cooled her off after the hot night outside. Her damp skin prickled.
Inside, strobe lights flashed in the air, and dance music thumped louder as she wiggled and shimmied her way through the crowd.
The crowd was not the cosplay kind.
The dress code looked more suitable for the opera than a nightclub. The men wore black or dark blue suits, either with ties or open at the collar, and the women wore black formals or glittering gowns. They all looked like they’d had professional blowouts and manicures that day.
And Colleen was Sailor Moon, straight out of an anime superhero comic book. Her white-blond ponytails were lined with wire so that they seemed to be whirling in spirals as she moved, defying gravity.
She lifted her chin and stalked on her bright red, high-heeled, thigh-high boots through the crowd because acting like you belonged was half the battle. The boots had stiletto heels and an inch of platform under the toe box, which meant Colleen was an unlikely five-seven instead of pretty dang short.
And yet—
Even though she was dressed as an anime character at an event that looked like a White House state dinner, people weren’t staring at her. They hadn’t even blinked as she’d strode into the crowd.
Maybe sophisticated people minded their own business instead of gawking. That wouldn’t be a bad thing.
But as Colleen approached the bar and waved two fingers in the air to get the bartender's attention and ordered, she noticed that not everyone in the bar was dressed in traditional formal attire.
One guy over at the far end of the bar wore a black leather motorcycle jacket and jeans, although the jeans certainly weren’t Levi’s or Wranglers. The way the dark blue denim clung to every curve of his muscular thighs and calves suggested they weren’t off-the-shelf at all.
A woman standing over at one of the small cocktail tables was wearing a short skirt instead of a long dress, and Colleen could have sworn a fluffy fox tail had swished below the hem of her skirt as she’d turned away.
Two bearded leather daddies were leaning against the wall and talking while sipping from highball glasses. Their black leather clothes were a little more subtle than what you’d see over at Studio 13, the gay bar over on the other side of the Southwestern State campus.
The Devilhouse’s bar was raised above the dance area. The crowd was jampacked down there, arms waving and bodies undulating in the strobe-flashed darkness. She didn’t know anybody and couldn’t have talked to anybody if she had because the beat from the dance music stomped in her ears.
The bartender—a hottie with a mischievous glint in his dark eyes and his dress shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows to bare powerful forearms—handed her a martini glass full of orange liquid. Shouting to be heard above the techno music, he told her, “Mango cosmopolitan, which is indeed sweet and light, made with Belvedere citron vodka from the top shelf, shaken! Enjoy!”
He held up a scanner, and she presented her wristband. The little machine flashed a green light, and he started to move away. “Thanks!”
“Wait!” she called after him and then mimed writing on the bar. “Don’t I have to sign the receipt or something?”
“All electronic!” he yelled back. “We take US money, Canadian, euros, Bitcoin, and CurieCoin.”
“But how do I do your tip?” she screamed just as the music stopped.
Everyone turned to look at the screeching anime character.
Colleen kept her eyes on the bartender and did not crawl under the bar to get away from all the eyes pointed in her direction, but she wanted to.
He grinned at her with straight white teeth. “First time, huh? The Devilhouse pays a living wage. No tipping. Have a nice night.”
Colleen thanked the guy, who moved on with a wink, and she returned to studying the crowd as the music came up, the lights dimmed again, and strobes flashed through the air. She had half an hour before she needed to present herself to the “private rooms” desk upstairs.
A curvy woman stood and talked to people at the tables, her black gown clinging to her body like wet silk. The man she seemed to be with wasn’t talking to the other couple but standing at her side and facing her as if he were intent on her every word. Occasionally, she reached up and stroked the side of his face, and he leaned into her touch. Once, he kissed her palm as she stroked, and her dark red lips curved in a secretive little smile at him before she went back to talking to her friends.
Despite what the bouncer outside had said, the nightclub wasn’t three separate floors, but the layout was a pit for the dance floor and a raised dais that took up a third of the space for the bar and other serving tables.
The second and third “floors” were wide balconies that circled the room. Round dining tables with white tablecloths and flowers crowded the second floor like at a fancy restaurant, an impression amplified by the tuxedo-clad waitstaff gliding between patrons to deliver covered plates or bottles of wine.
The third floor held some dining tables and waitstaff, too, but five large chairs occupied the rear wall with what looked to be a table set in front of them, kind of like the head table at a wedding reception so everybody could ogle the bride and groom. The chairs were empty though, and the table looked like it had a white tablecloth but no place settings.
In the bar, most of the people standing around the small tables or leaning against the railings seemed to be couples, which struck Colleen as kind of unusual for a nightclub in a college town. The pool bar over on Rural Road called The Que was always crowded with roving bands of college students trying to hook up.
The Devilhouse must be more of a grown-up kind of place than the college bars Colleen had been frequenting since she’d turned twenty-one. Considering that she had dropped out of college and was now twenty-three years old, maybe she should be getting on with her life and finding places where she could hang out with adults.
Adultier places, so to speak.
Not that she had the money to go to adultier places. She sipped her insanely overpriced mango cosmopolitan, which was like the sweetest parts of oranges and peaches on her tongue. At least she could pretend she wasn’t a broke dropout for the night.
After a while, she approached one of the staircases and offered her wristband to the guy at the foot of the metal staircase who was gatekeeping. He also beeped the chip in the orange plastic and surreptitiously eyed her anime cosplay outfit.
She gathered up her courage and asked him, “Could you point me toward the private rooms desk?”
The man’s eyes flared, and he mouthed the word, “Oh,” before he pointed toward the rear wall and said loudly, “Head toward the back of the club. The desk is behind the black velvet drapes in the back. The desk you’re looking for is going to be right below the Domina’s chairs up there.”
Colleen made her way over to where the guy had pointed, sticking close to the wall so she wouldn’t disturb people eating their suppers or the waiters charging around, until she found the curtains against the back wall.
As soon as she got near enough, the break in the curtains was obvious. An offset section hung a few feet in front of a lighted opening, so at least Colleen didn’t have to spend five minutes ruffling the curtains like a comic whose act had bombed and was frantically trying to escape while being pelted with tomatoes.
Behind the curtains, a sumptuous lobby decorated in burnished dark wood and fresh red roses surrounded a desk with a pretty woman who wore a dark dress. Her honey-blond hair was sleekly twisted behind her, and her makeup was so flawlessly blended that it looked airbrushed. Her dark eyelashes swept perfectly from her lids to rest on her porcelain cheekbones when she blinked and must have been expensively applied extensions.
The woman smiled pleasantly. “This is the private rooms desk. Do you have an appointment?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Colleen stepped forward and held out her arm with the orange wristband. “The guy at the front said that it was coded into the wristband?”
The lady retrieved one of the ubiquitous scanners from the desk drawer and beeped Colleen’s wristband. Consulting a computer screen beside her, she said, “Yes, Ms. QueenMod. You have an appointment in Playroom Two starting at ten o’clock for three hours.”
“Three hours?” Colleen wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was going to happen in there with TwistyTrader, though she had mentally prepared herself for anything from talking with him over a cocktail to him throwing her on the floor and railing her right there. “Is that a lot?”
The woman turned back and looked Colleen directly in the eyes while she smiled. “Is this your first time here?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Nothing at all to be sorry about. Welcome to the Devilhouse.” She opened the desk drawer again and withdrew a brochure and a clipboard with a pen and several pieces of paper. “The Devilhouse is the only nightclub of its kind in the greater Valley area. We cater to a wide variety of clientele. Since it’s your first time, I’ll need a few more forms, and we should discuss standard operating procedures.”
Colleen was trying very hard not to fidget. “What kind of clientele?”
The woman’s expression didn’t change, but she tilted her head slightly to the side, a gesture that almost seemed like sympathy. “A wide range of discerning clients.”
“Has the guy who booked the room arrived yet?”
“Yes. He’s already inside, making preparations.”
“Has he been here long?”
“He asked for a few modifications to the room, which should be completed by now.”
Colleen swallowed hard. “Can I ask what name the room is booked under?”
The woman’s smile became slightly more rigid. “Do you not know the name of the person whom you are meeting here?”
“Oh, no. I know the guy I’m meeting.” Embarrassed giggles bubbled in her throat. “I mean, of course, I know him. I would never meet a guy I didn’t know at a nightclub and then go into a private room with him, alone, without anybody around. That would be crazy, right? That’s totally something I would never do. I’m not crazy. I am the pinnacle of boring. I was a computer science and finance major before I dropped out of college. I don’t own any fancy high-heeled pumps because I might sprain my ankle and they’re a waste of money, and I run four types of malware protection on my computer plus a black ice firewall and a VPN. I don’t ever do anything crazy. I wore this cosplay outfit because I don’t have any sequined gowns or long black dresses because I never go out to expensive restaurants or the symphony or anything. I get up early and go to my job every day, and I move boxes around and sell high-end computer equipment to gamer geeks. To meet a stranger at an alternative nightclub like this would mean that I’d completely lost my mind, that I was so tired of being broke and sad and grieving and lonely and lost that I’d finally blown a gasket. Meeting a stranger somewhere like this is something a theater major would do, or a pop music studies major, or maybe a psychology student so she could analyze how crazy it was.” Her laugh held a hysterical edge. “I mean, who would even do something like that?”
The woman at the desk had retracted the clipboard and forms to her side of the desk. Her voice was lower and brimming with sympathy. “Ms. QueenMod, honey, are you in trouble?”
“In trouble?” Colleen repeated the question as if she were a felon in a police interrogation room and doing a bang-up job of denying everything. “Of course not. I’m fine. My life is dandy.” A little too much desperate sarcasm there. “I mean, everything’s fine.”
The woman folded her hands on the clipboard, covering the forms. Her pink-manicured fingernails rested calmly on the paper. “Sometimes, people who arrive here are in desperate straits. As this is the place that caters to distinctive tastes, sometimes people make bargains that are unethical and, quite honestly, illegal. The Devilhouse does not condone any kind of coercion, even financial. If you don’t want to be here or have second thoughts, there is a door behind me where I can take you right out the back of the building. I can call you a cab or a BuddiRyde, and we’ll make sure you get in it safely. If you need a place to stay tonight, we work with emergency services organizations. We’ll take care of the person you’re meeting and make sure everything is handled with the utmost discretion.”
“I’m fine. Really,” Colleen insisted.
“Of course. But if there’s a financial situation you need help with, we can make arrangements or phone calls to other businesses, ones that are different from here. Many people who work here full-time are majoring in counseling or other ways to help people. Our business manager, Glenda, has long-standing connections to many of the CEOs of the major corporations in the Valley. I’m working on my master’s degree in social work, and you’d be amazed at the path I’ve taken to get here. I know I am,” she chuckled under her breath. “We can find grants or programs to help you out of whatever is the problem.”
“I’m really fine.”
“Mm-hmm,” the woman nodded, but she didn’t take her eyes off Colleen and stabbed the blank paperwork with one manicured finger. “You are here under an assumed name, and you don’t seem to know the name of the person you’re meeting. You’ve never been here before and don’t seem to know what to expect. You seem rattled. These are all red flags for us. Why don’t you pull up a chair and talk to me about it? Or we can go someplace more private to discuss whatever you need.”
Colleen sighed and stared at her hands. Gray mist gathered around her because she was about to screw this up, too. “I’m really fine. I’m just trying to make some changes in my life. Change can make you anxious sometimes, right?”
The woman’s quiet half-laugh and downward glance sounded like she was scoffing at herself. “I can understand that.”
“But sometimes you’ve got to jump in with both feet or swallow the frog or whatever you want to call it to get to the other side of the problem. I’m here of my own free will. I’m not being coerced in any way, even financially. No one is paying me to be here. I want to be here. I don’t even care what happens to me tonight. I just don’t want to be like I am anymore.”
The woman nodded. “All right, but that offer of the taxi stands for the rest of the night. Just so you know, our rooms are monitored in various ways. If you are uncomfortable with anything that is happening, you just say the phrase not my cup of tea, and someone will immediately arrive to close the session and escort you out. It will be done quietly, with a minimum of fuss, and it happens all the time. We will talk to anyone else in the room for you. It’s no trouble. Do you understand this?”
Colleen nodded.
The woman’s manner became brisker, and she took out a red marker and drew three red lines on the top right corner, marking it with literal red flags. Then she added several more pages to the stack of paperwork and slid the clipboard across the desk.
She said, “I’m going to have you write ‘not my cup of tea’ on the top of this first page and initial it, and then you’ll fill out the rest of the paperwork and sign and date the end. The paperwork states that you are a private citizen, have been neither coerced nor paid to come here, and have no medical conditions we should be aware of. A list of those is on the next page. You have plenty of time to read this paperwork thoroughly. If you need any clarifications, I will do my best to explain. We also have a lawyer and knowledgeable staff members who can clarify any clauses I’m not familiar with. Are you comfortable with that, Ms. QueenMod?”
“You can call me Colleen.”
The woman’s red-lipstick smile warmed. “And I’m Hester Stone. Welcome to the Devilhouse, Colleen.”
Eighteen pages of paperwork later, Colleen was led to a waiting room where she was offered various drinks and refreshments she was too nervous to imbibe. Part of the paperwork had almost seemed like a psychological test with answers that might correlate with psychopathy or depression. She was pretty sure she’d lied well enough to pass.
After ten more minutes of fidgeting alone in the small waiting room and listening to Vivaldi violins wafting from the walls, a large man wearing a black suit escorted her through hallways with soft carpeting underfoot and art in ornate frames on the walls to a large, dungeonesque door.
A coiled cord connected his earpiece to the back of his collar. “You remember your safeword, right?”
“Safe word?” Colleen felt like an idiot again.
“The phrase you’re supposed to say if you get in trouble and want external intervention.”
“Oh, not my cup of tea. I didn’t know that’s what it was called, a safeword.”
“Right,” the guy sighed. “Like a lamb to the slaughter.” He pushed the door and held it open for her.
Inside, Colleen’s eyes took a minute to adjust to the dimly lit room. At first, white light cut cones out of the darkness, and then she saw the center spotlight was occupied by a man sitting on an oversized wooden chair, his knees spread and his hands resting upon them.
The door clunked shut behind her.
The man wore dark suit trousers and a white shirt open at the collar, but a dark vest cinched his waist like he’d been wearing a three-piece suit and taken off the jacket. The vest fit smoothly against his athletic body, and the darkness of the fabric seemed to cut his waist in even farther than it was. Considering his narrow waist and broad shoulders, those clothes must have been tailored for him.
His sleeves were rolled up. Green and blue tattoos coiled over his corded forearms.
Damn, she’d seen right the other night. Wow.
Okay, Anjali was right. Tattooed people were just hotter.
The spotlight shining from the high ceiling glinted on the watch encircling the light tan skin of his right wrist and the bright silver mask he wore.
The mask itself was an inverted pentagon, a flat line across his forehead and along the sides of his face near his ears. The lower edges met in a point in front of his chin. The metal was filigreed with paisleys and petals, almost delicate in design but masculine in appearance. The front rounded over his face, concealing him from ear to ear and from his hairline to his chin like a knight’s visor.
Above the mask, his hair was dark brown, almost black, but mahogany streaks shone in the falling light.
The mask tilted down. “Sailor Moon. Your costume is Sailor Moon. If my thirteen-year-old self could see me now, he would die of jealousy.”
Quick, think of something funny, she told herself. “But if you’d died then, you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Excellent point, and I am very glad I’m here now.” His voice had dropped further to a bass rumble. “And I’m glad you’re here too, QueenMod.”
Same voice, she thought. The same throaty growl of a voice with a crisp British accent. Everything said in a British accent was either charming or menacing. The Devil himself must have a British accent because a proper Englishman could make handing over your immortal soul seem like a smashing idea. “It’s very nice to meet you in meatspace, TwistyTrader.”
So lame. She wasn’t having high tea with the Queen. This was a—
Colleen wasn’t quite ready to admit to herself that she’d arrived at a kink club for a one-night stand. She hung her small purse on a hook beside the door.
He said, “So, you’re an aficionado of anime, then, QueenMod.”
“It’s just an old convention costume.”
“Do you attend gaming conventions, QueenMod?”
“I used to. Do you?”
“Perhaps that’s why you’re so protective of GameShack’s stock. Is it? Because you’re a gamer?”
“GameShack isn’t even a real company. The stores lose money hand over fist. The only part of the company that’s making money is the streaming division, where gamers stream their gaming to other gamers who like to watch gamers game for a share in the advertising dollars. Well, not dollars, CurieCoin. Everything in the streaming division is paid for in the cryptocurrency CurieCoin. I—GameShack? How did we end up talking about GameShack?”
The man wrapped his huge hands around the arms of the throne and pushed himself up.
It must have taken a lot of energy to get all his mass moving. Muscle weighed more than fat, she remembered, and jeez, with that inverted-triangle torso and hulky arms, he must have a very high density.
As soon as he was standing, she could tell he was very tall. He prowled toward her, taking up more and more of the air in the room and blotting out the walls and ceiling as her head tilted back to see him, and he loomed over her. “Call me Twist.”
“Okay,” she squeaked. Her knees quivered in her thigh-high boots, and she pressed her thighs against each other to steady herself, which increased pressure on a certain spot that was becoming sensitive. “Okay, Twist.”
This was going very badly.
Colleen was too dumb to do this right and was just going to screw everything up, and it was all going to go to hell, just like always. Gray mist stole around her mind, dampening her thoughts and deepening the shadows beyond the descending cones of light. She asked, “What are we even doing here?”
Twist ran his fingers under her jaw and lifted her chin to look him in the eyes. “I rather saw this as an extension of our conversation on the video chat, if that’s what you want to happen.”
The way he said rah-thur sounded so very British.
Colleen blurted, “I stuffed five condoms into my bra.”
Oh, God. Talk about sounding like a hick American in front of the sophisticated Euro-guy. Why in the hell had she led with that? She should just leave right then. No good could come of this.
No good came of anything.
Oddly, Twist didn’t laugh at her but merely began walking, circling her like he was analyzing what he saw.
And she would be found lacking, just like always.
From behind her, she heard him whisper, “Hard limits?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hard limits. Boundaries. I need to know what your boundaries are so I won’t go beyond them. Tonight, what is nonnegotiable for you?”
Her mind blanked like the film of her life had broken. “Oh, I really don’t know. I’m fine with anything. Whatever you want.”
“That’s not the way this works, pet. We establish the rules of the game because that ensures everyone is having fun. If there are no rules, it’s not a game.”
Why was he asking her all these questions? What she wanted. Really? What a stupid question. “I wouldn’t even know where to start with that.”
Something light stroked the back of her neck, his fingertips, probably. “Then I’ll teach you how to do this. Let’s start with the obvious, the rules of the Sherwood Forest forum. We will remain anonymous to each other. No names, no identifying information. I’ll keep my mask on, as you will with your costume and makeup, or at least the important parts of it, meaning anything hiding anything identifying like distinctive tattoos or scars.”
“I don’t have any tatts.” Okay, it was good that he understood the importance of that rule. “Of course. Of course, we have to continue that.” Speaking of masks. “That’s a really interesting mask. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He walked around in front of her again. “It’s a Bauta mask. In Venice, people used to wear them to conceal their identities during the Renaissance, especially during Carnival. A nobleman could go anywhere unrecognized in a Bauta mask, and an ordinary citizen could pretend to be a nobleman and gain admittance to places that would’ve otherwise been closed to them. Women wore them to attend social events, art and theater, and gambling venues. Venetian society had strict rules that separated the classes, genders, everyone, really, so people got around the restrictions by wearing masks.”
“It’s really beautiful. The filigree looks kind of like the henna mehndi a friend of mine paints on her hands for Indian weddings. All those flower petals and paisleys look like mehndi. It does an excellent job of hiding your face. I wouldn’t be able to pick you out of a lineup or even begin to describe what you look like.”
“Good.”
“But it completely covers your mouth.”
He chuckled, a dark, sexy sound from behind the black-and-silver shield. “I considered that, but two priorities seemed higher on the list. First, anonymity for both our sakes.”
“Granted,” she said. “It does that pretty well.”
“As for the second, the Venetians managed quite well whilst wearing it. It was a popular design for centuries. The mask does stand out from the lower half of my face a bit, so one can eat or drink with it on. Other than that, I must assume they managed because the Venetians were not known to deny themselves anything at all, especially during Carnival.”
Colleen felt herself smiling. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Her dad used to say that to her, and a pang sped through her chest.
“What else is nonnegotiable for you?” he asked, walking around her again.
Colleen wiggled, trying to dispel the discomfort itching on her skin. “Condoms. Condoms are nonnegotiable. I have five of them, like I said.” Blurted out. Like she’d blurted out.
“I’m also prepared.” His light touch ran down the side of her neck from her ear to her shoulder. “I like it when a woman knows her own mind. Good girl.”
His mouth must’ve been very close to her neck because she could have sworn a puff of his breath caressed the skin of her throat.
Colleen almost leaned toward him but caught herself.
He asked, “What are your safewords?”
“Safe words? Like the guy outside said?”
“A different one, for me. I use two of them. One for a pause so you can collect yourself or discuss what’s going on, and then a different one if you want to stop everything immediately.”
“I don’t even know about this.”
“Traditionally, yellow light and red light serve as common ones.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.”
“What else is out of bounds for tonight?”
The wiggles intensified, and Colleen tried really hard to keep still. “It’s weird to talk about this. Can’t we just, I don’t know, do something and then kind of feel our way through it? Can’t we just do stuff?”
“That’s not how this works.”
His voice was low as if he were explaining something slowly to a child, but he didn’t sound angry, which was weird. Wasn’t he supposed to be angry she was being stupid?
He continued, “We talk first about what is in bounds and out of bounds so that there are no misunderstandings.” His voice dropped lower. “I don’t like misunderstandings.”
“Oh, okay, then. But I don’t think I have any other boundaries.”
“That doesn’t seem like the QueenMod I know from the forum.”
“But I have an official job there. This is different.”
“All right, then we’ll do this the hard way. You don’t seem like a brat, but it’s almost as if you’re trying to provoke me into punishing you.”
Images assailed her, of open palms swinging at her, slammed doors, dark closets, and screaming. The excitement that had been growing in her chest became fluttery, like it was flailing and trying to get out. “I’m not a brat.”
Her strangled voice was weak in the dim room.
“I didn’t think so. Tell me more. Can I touch you with my hands?” He stroked down the side of her neck, over her shoulder, and down her upper arm, a pressure somewhere between a firm caress and massage.
Colleen stretched under his hands, and she almost hummed with enjoying it. “Oh, yes.”
“Do you like that?”
“Yes,” she moaned in her throat.
Warmth flowed from his body onto the bare skin of her upper back because he’d stepped close, and his fingers ribboned around her throat, his fingertips resting lightly on her pulse. His voice was low in her ear. “Can I do this?”
Her whole body fluttered. “Yes.”
His hands moved over her shoulders. “Can I touch you with my mouth?”
“If you can figure out how to do it with that mask on.”
He chuckled. “Can I touch you with my body?”
Her skin trembled like her whole body was trying to break free and wrap herself around him. “That’s the whole reason I’m here.”
“Good girl. Can I be rough with you?”
God, these questions, his demands that she say yes, were drawing pictures in her mind of his hands, mouth, and body moving on her, and then being rough. She could barely flippin’ breathe. “Yes.”
“Can I leave marks on your skin with my hands and my teeth?”
“Yes.” If she said yes, she’d have proof that this wasn’t a dream and that he’d touched her. After the video chat, her nipple had been sore for days where he’d told her to pinch herself. Every time it had rubbed on her bra, her face and between her legs had flushed with warmth.
It had been the most she’d felt in months.
“Yes, please.”
“Good girl.” He caressed her shoulders and arms again.
She let her head drop back, the little bit of alcohol surging in her blood, but it might just have been due to her pulse racing in her veins.
“You like it when I tell you you’re a good girl, don’t you?” He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “That’s why, over the video chat, you would do anything I wanted when I told you that you were a good girl.”
God, the way he lowered his voice into his throat, or even his chest like a lion’s growl, shivered over her skin and made her want—something.
She whispered, “Maybe.”
“Ah, QueenMod, you’re so responsive. I like it. I like you. But what shall I call you?” he mused, his fingertips barely stroking under her jaw and lifting her chin as he examined her face. Up close, his mask looked like a shield of metallic lace, and she could see glimpses of light skin under it as he spoke. “QueenMod isn’t a proper name for what we’re about to engage in. Shall I continue to call you pet?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her breath fluttering in her chest. Because he was looking down at her, the eyeholes in his mask were shadowed, but she thought she’d seen a hint of a light-colored eye, maybe blue or green.
She’d read about things like this, of course. Was he going to want to call her his slut or a whore? She wasn’t sure how she felt about him calling her something like that. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how much of a beating her ego could take, considering everything.
“Or princess, perhaps?” Twist asked, his voice emanating from behind the mask without any visible movement, almost like he was a robot. “Perhaps you’re my little princess.”
“I like that one,” she said, all too aware that she liked it too much.
As she said it, Twist stepped away, and he walked around the side of her as if he was inspecting her again.
She started to turn with him, but he gently turned her back around with both of his hands on her upper arms.
The Sailor Moon costume left her shoulders and upper arms bare, which meant he grabbed her naked skin. His fingers and palms warmed her flesh, and the feeling of his skin against hers sent a zing over the surface of her body.
He must’ve leaned down because his metal mask was beside her cheekbone when he whispered, “Face forward. Let me look at you.”
“I feel like a piece of meat you’re inspecting,” she muttered.
“Not inspecting. I’m admiring.”
The Sailor Moon costume didn’t so much cling to her curves as crease over the rolls around her midsection. “Dude, I’m chubby. It’s been a rough three years, and I’ve kind of eaten my way through it.”
“I think you’re beautiful,” he murmured.
She muttered because she knew she was supposed to say, “I didn’t say I was ugly. I said I was fat.”
He chuckled, but it didn’t sound derisive. Instead, his low laugh sounded like her sarcasm had amused him. “Your skin is butter soft, like silk.” He ran one finger from the cap of her shoulder to her elbow, sending another thrill through her. “The curve of your neck down your spine is entrancing.” Then he traced the tendons of her neck down to the hollow between her shoulder blades. “You are absolutely beautiful, and I’m glad we’ll have this time together.”
Wow, that accent. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
And yet, he had a US passport. “And we’re never going to see each other again after tonight, right?”
He was walking around her other side, his fingertips brushing her upper arms and the tops of her shoulders where her costume left her skin bare. “Correct. I rarely come back to the States. It was just good luck that I happened to need to make a trip after our encounter the other night.”
“And you’ll never contact me like this again, right? This is a one-time deal. No muss, no fuss, no booty calls, no repeats.”
“Correct.”
“And you’ll never tell anyone about us, right? On the forum, this never happened. I don’t want this to mess up my forum status. It’s important to me.”
“Agreed. On the forum, I won’t mention it at all. If someone else were to suspect anything, I will deny ever meeting you. Haven’t I been properly deferential on the boards over the last few days?”
She snorted a laugh. “If anything, you’ve stayed out of trouble more over the last few days than you have for six months.”
“Have I mentioned the moderated status of my account tonight or tried to convince you to remove it?”
Tension trickled out of Colleen’s shoulders. “Not until now.”
“And I won’t mention it again. Considering I’ve been on my better behavior online, you must have some influence over me. Perhaps it’s in everyone’s best interests if you stay, princess.”
God, that voice, and when he called her princess, a zing shot down her spine and straight between her legs. “You aren’t secretly videotaping us and going to blackmail me, are you?”
“Never. I wouldn’t film you without your express consent and participation in any case, and the Devilhouse has strict policies about recording. It should have been in the forms you signed. I wouldn’t be surprised if this place has some sort of jamming devices set up, quite honestly. The chap who used to own it is quite paranoid, though I’ve heard he has cause.”
“Yeah, okay.” She wasn’t mollified. The receptionist and the guy who’d escorted her to the door said they’d be watching.
His thumbs stroked down her shoulders. “Do you have any other concerns?”
“I just want to make sure we don’t break the forum rules about anonymity. I don’t want you showing up at my apartment someday or doxing me on the forum, and then everyone knowing my name, address, and what I look like.”
“Again, never,” he said in a voice so confident that it bordered on dismissive. “I don’t know your real name or your address beyond this city. I would never dox you, and those are my concerns as well.”
“I’m taking way more risk here than you. Physically, obviously.” She fluttered her hand up and down, indicating his height and his strength and just all of him. “I mean, Jesus Christ on a cracker. You have to be six feet tall.”
He chuckled.
“But the point is that I’m an admin there. The forum is an important part of my life. All you killer whales are just dabbling. Even you, Killer Whale King. If you were to tell people we met in real life, I’d be out on my butt.”
Those other mods were her best friends, her only friends, really. She checked their ongoing chat compulsively on breaks at work and first thing when she got up in the morning. If she did something unethical, something just like this, Anjali would probably drop Colleen, too.
Loneliness felt like an icy wind under her costume.
It wasn’t like she had anybody else.
She said to him, “So I’m taking more of a risk. Tell me something about yourself, so I can take you down with me if you narc.”
The mask angled downward again, and the metal became darker with shadow. “Relationships like this are built on trust.”
“This isn’t a relationship. I’m never going to see you again.”
The silver pentagon bobbed to the side. “Fair point.”
“How do I know you won’t rat me out, though?”
He chuckled again. “You’ll have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone, ever.”
“If you can’t trust anyone, how can you live your life? How can you have friends or lovers?”
“They’re all just going to ghost or kick me out, anyway. They don’t have to break my heart, too.”
He’d looked at her again—or the mask did, anyway—and now the downward pentagon tilted. His voice was slow, like he was thinking hard. “Right.”
“Tell me something about you,” Colleen said. “Tell me something, so I can take you down if you narc on me. Mutually assured destruction.”
He shook his head. “No one wins at that game.”
“I don’t want us both to lose, but I have to make sure I’m not the only one who loses.”
He nodded, light glinting off the silver mask in bands, then he rattled off a string of numbers beginning with 480.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“My social security number. With that, you can dox me or post it to a dark web forum, and thousands of people will use it for fraudulent credit card applications.” He walked into the darkness, where there was some rustling, and came back holding a piece of paper. “Here.”
Colleen had a pretty good memory for numbers, a side effect of being a computer science and finance major, and she could tell that the 480 number written on the paper in spiky ballpoint was the same one he’d recited.
She tucked the note into the pocket in her fluffy skirt. Her voice sounded a little chastised when she said, “Thank you.”
And now she felt stupid about it. Mutually assured destruction, indeed.
“So, what happens now?” she asked, her voice weirdly perky. “Is there an agenda? Or do I just lie down on the floor and let you have at me?”
Twist stepped back.
Of course, he did. Colleen drove everyone away. She’d asked for too much.
The overhead lights glittered on his mask’s design as he looked down. The lack of facial features other than eyeholes made it look blank to Colleen. “Princess, is there something you want to talk about?”
“No. Not even a little bit. Let’s just do this and get it over with.”
Twist took another step backward. “Now there’s a red-light signal. Princess, I thought this was a mutually agreeable extension of our play over the video chat the other day. Do you want to be here?”
“Yes.”
“Communication is exceedingly important in agreements like this.”
“We don’t need to communicate. I thought we were here to bang. Come on, Twist, throw me down on the floor or one of those shadowy contraptions peeking out of the darkness over there and rail me.”
He chuckled. “Now that is communication, and I dare say it’s enthusiastic consent.” He crouched, ducked his head, and came at her like a linebacker.
“Whoa!” Colleen lifted her hands to ward off an attack, but Twist barreled into her stomach, flipped her over one of his shoulders, and stood, carrying her like a caveman with her head dangling down his back.
From this upside-down view, Colleen’s nose bonked the back of his vest. In the low light right in front of her face, she saw it was made of scarlet silk instead of the dark suit fabric that fashioned the front.
And she couldn’t help but start giggling.
A sharp slap popped on the flesh of her butt where her skirt had ridden up over her hips and her panties were verging on a wedgie. Her butt jiggled where he’d spanked her a little.
She laughed out loud at that because it didn’t hurt. She’d clapped her hands harder than that at concerts.
Twist carried her through the darkness, and she kicked her feet, not to get away but because it was kind of funny.
He intoned, “That’s the kind of thing I like. Good girl.”
Before she could even catch her breath at Twist’s growl, his shoulder dropped from under her stomach, and Colleen squealed as she grabbed at him, falling. She was flipping through the darkness and landed on something soft and springy, probably a mattress. The cones of light were farther away. Blackness hovered in front of her eyes.
“All right, my little princess, my good girl,” he said, his voice dropping to a growl when he said good girl, and that ridiculous thrill shuddered through her body again. “Tell me you remember your answer to my every command.”
Colleen recited, “Yes, please.”
“You are only allowed from this point forward to say, ‘Yes, please,’ unless it is to utter a safeword. Are we clear?”
“Yes, please!” She laughed as she said it.
“Good girl. And considering that you were such a good girl last time—”
Damn, that voice. She bit her lip.
“—you may also reply, ‘yes, sir,’ if you feel the situation warrants it, but I will take that away if you disobey me.”
This was absurd and bizarre and so freakishly hot. It shouldn’t be hot. It should be weird that this blank, silver face atop that tall, muscular body growling good girl as he scooped her up like she was a cat gave her the horny shivers. “Yes, sir.”
“Take your clothes off. Leave the boots on.”
“You can’t even see my boots. It’s too dark in here.”
As her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark, rising darkness blotted out even the wan cones of light in the distance. His voice was low and menacing when he asked, “What did you say, princess?”
“It’s too dark! You can’t even see my boots. I might as well pull them off.”
His voice was a sinister snarl. “Is that how you’re supposed to answer me?”
She laughed. “Oops.”
“Maybe you are a brat. Stand up.”
Colleen flipped over and struggled on the bed, which was higher than she’d thought. Her stiletto-heeled boots were kind of stiff where they covered her knees, and it took some effort to scoot off the side of the bed and stand.
When she turned around, Twist had moved a few yards away and was sitting on his throne-chair in the downlight again, his knees spread and hands on his knees. “Come here.”
She walked over. “Yeah?”
“What are you allowed to say?”
“Yes, please, and yes, sir,” Colleen repeated.
“And what did you say?”
“I was just saying that you can’t even see my—”
“And that’s where you made your mistake.”
“—Oh.”
“I won’t have a disobedient sub. I like littles and good girls. I break brats.”
New vocabulary, but okay. When he said sub, she didn’t think he meant a sandwich or an underwater vehicle, but she’d just go along with it.
Twist said, “Across my knees.”
Colleen spun around and started to back up, positioning herself to sit on his lap.
His huge hands clasped her hips and gently turned her. “Oh, no, princess. Lie down, ass up.”
And then Colleen got it.
And just like she had for the first twenty years of her life and because the other options terrified her, she went along with it because she didn’t want to get thrown out.
Colleen bent her knees a little and lowered herself across his lap with her ass in the air.
He said, “Pull your skirt up.”
Colleen reached around to the back of her thighs and flipped the royal-blue swishy skirt and crinoline up across her back.
“Panties down.”
Colleen hooked her thumbs in the side of her lacy white panties and pushed them down her thighs, tugging them over the tops of her boots until they reached her knees, leaving her ass bare.
She wasn’t quite sure where to put her arms, so she just let them dangle by the sides of Twist’s legs. As she was staring at the floor with her head hanging, she noticed that Twist’s pant leg had ridden up above his shined dress shoe, and his thin sock was as scarlet as the silk on the back of his vest.
She bet his suit jacket had a matching red silk pocket square and lining, too. Maybe there was even a red tie lying around somewhere.
His voice was low but less sinister when he said, “You should relax.”
Touch on her butt!
She jumped, but it wasn’t a spank.
Instead, his warm hand palmed her ass, rolling the roundness under his hand. “The point of this is not to damage you. It’s meant to sting for an instant, just to get my point across.” His fingers pressed into her flesh, and his voice dropped lower again. “Damn, you have a nice ass.”
“No, I don’t. It’s fa—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “Those are not amongst words you’re allowed to say. Are you asking for a harder spanking?”
“Uhhh—”
“When I say you have a nice ass, you say, ‘yes, sir.’”
“Yes—sir.”
“We’ll work on that. Three spanks for using the wrong words.” His fingers clutched her ass, almost digging into her skin but stopping just short of hurting. “It would be a pleasure to paddle this gorgeous ass until it’s pink all over, pink and sore and you squirm on my knees when it stings, but you’ve only earned three, so far.”
Fuzz engulfed her mind like she’d fallen into a cloud. The way he’d said that, relishing the words and maybe the view of her ass back there, streamed over her like warm water.
The feeling wasn’t the dark grayness that pervaded her everyday life. That oppressiveness ate away at her like an acid mist.
A small part of her heart sang at his words and the way he seemed to enjoy saying that, a sliver that hadn’t dared raise its head for a long time.
The blood must be rushing to Colleen’s head. She was hanging upside down and staring at the stonelike tile on the floor while those thoughts arose.
He continued, “It’s almost a shame to punish this beautiful ass, though I will, and I’ll enjoy it. If I’d had months to train you, I’d shove a piece of peeled ginger in your asshole so you could concentrate on the sting there, and I’d have hours to properly paddle your ass until you were so red and needy for me.” He stroked her butt cheeks like he was smoothing her skin. “Stay relaxed, princess.”
His fingers slipped over her skin, dipping toward her center, and grazed the soft skin of her folds.
Her focus shifted to the sensitive spots between her legs, and she held her breath.
“No, princess. Don’t tense. Relax. Relax everything.”
Colleen draped herself bonelessly over his knees.
“There’s my good girl.” He gently massaged the folds of her pussy.
Her breath rushed in her nose and chest. It must be because she was lying on her diaphragm that she felt like she couldn’t quite breathe, and it must be because her costume was a little too small that the bustline was strangling her boobs.
Her attention was so intense that the rest of the room and the world faded away.
His touch lightened and then withdrew.
Her head spun too hard for her to do anything but breathe and wait for his next touch.
His palm cracked against the skin of her ass, a sharp sting that went away as soon as she felt it.
She gasped, jerking upward.
His fingers stroked the skin of her butt cheek, soothing even that minor burn away, and then they crept over her flesh and settled between her legs, caressing agonizingly slow circles on the folds over her clit.
Heaviness settled in her pelvis, near where his fingers stroked her. She closed her eyes as every press of his fingers ground against her.
Crack, another sharp smack on her butt cheek, but his fingers had never left her folds. She repressed a whimper from her smarting ass and rising need.
He slid his fingers deeper, slipping through her wetness.
She bit her lip and felt her teeth digging in. Every part of her skin sizzled like she was frying in hot summer sunlight as his hands and fingers sent shivers through her.
“You like this. Don’t you, princess?” he murmured.
“Yes, sir,” she gasped, her body beginning to tighten as his slippery fingers glided through her folds, finding hidden spots that zinged when he touched them.
The third slap bit her ass, and then he pressed a finger inside her, a fullness that made her ache for more.
The fuzz in her head sharpened to need.
Somewhere, part of Colleen’s brain was appalled at what was going on, that she was allowing a man to spank her while he fingered her, and worse, she seemed to frickin’ like it, but that squeaky little scold was so far away that her shrouded mind ignored its protestations.
He rubbed inside her, sensual friction that gathered her attention and concentrated it with every languid stroke. Slipperiness spread backward, and a delicate touch spread the slickness over her asshole.
She should have been freaking, she should have stopped him, but she wanted to see what was going to happen next.
He kept stroking her, a long frisson of pleasure and a pop of ecstasy as his hand changed direction to slide back the other way, and the constant naughty insistence as his thumb circled her asshole, suggesting unexplored sensations there.
Sparkles flittered in her mind, and her attention felt knife-edged. For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t merely enduring the passing time as gray darkness cut her off from everyone around her. For those years, she had trudged through a fog-banked limbo, trying to keep going across the wasteland to whatever else there was.
Her fists clenched, knotting the fabric of Twist’s trousers as she clung to his legs and agonized over how she was going to survive this minutes-long anticipatory heart attack. She was tightening, tightening—
Nothing.
Suddenly nothing.
The torturous stroking and spiraling pleasure were gone, and she picked her head up and swiveled to look behind herself.
Twist turned the silver blankness of his mask toward her. “Not yet, princess. You have to be a good girl to earn that.”
Colleen fell off his lap. “What?”
He leaned down with his elbows on his knees, tilting his head. “Did you forget the lesson of the spanking so soon?”
Well, jeez, she couldn’t answer yes to that because then he’d spank her again, but if he did spank her, he might touch her again, but he might stop short and leave her hanging again.
Saying no was worse.
As she sat at his feet on the floor where she’d landed, her frustration came out as a small “Eep,” and she clamped both hands over her mouth and shook her head so hard that her long blond ponytails wove through the air around her like gymnasts’ ribbons.
Twist laughed. “I think you might have learnt your lesson, princess. But are you ready to be a good girl?”
Wait, she could answer this one.
She dropped her hands away from her mouth. “Yes, sir.”
“Now that’s what I like to hear.” He leaned back in his throne and rested his palms on the arms of the chair. “I will warn you that any further punishments will become harsher.”
“Yes, please,” she blurted, her heart in her throat.
Sitting on the chair, Twist didn’t move for a moment, but neither did he glance down like he previously had when he’d seemed to be disappointed or measuring what he had to say. If anything, he seemed to be contemplating his next move.
When he spoke, his voice was again gravelly and deliberately slow. “Since you didn’t want to undress earlier in the dark, undress here except for anything covering identifiable characteristics, and leave the boots on.”
The downward-facing spotlight above Twist’s head cut dark shadows under his jaw, but enough light spilled from the cone that he would be able to see everything if she undressed right there in front of him. Like, he was going to be able to see the place on her thigh where she’d nicked herself shaving.
Humiliation doused her. He would see her struggle with the too-tight costume, and he’d see the rolls of pudge coating her body.
Twist waited, motionless.
It seemed that she had few choices. She could either do what he’d told her or defy him and risk another spanking.
Or she could leave.
Colleen reached around behind her back with both hands, feeling for the top of the zipper just above her bra strap.
“More,” he said.
Colleen had no idea what he was talking about, but she couldn’t just ask because she’d have to say something wrong. So instead, she tried to put all the questioning upward swing into her voice as she asked, “Yes, sir?”
“Arch your back more, and drag that zipper down slowly.”
Colleen straightened, letting the top of her head stretch for the ceiling, and then bowed her body backward to lift her breasts and display them for him as she slowly unzipped the Sailor Moon costume, and it began to slip down her body.
“Good girl,” he growled.
He told her each item of her clothes to take off and directed how she would do it—slower, turned around and bending over, on her knees—and the blank silver pentagon of his mask never wavered from her direction.
Not when she peeled off the long white gloves topped with red bands, not when she let the short blue skirt puffed up by a crinoline drop to her ankles, and not when the white, boned, push-up lingerie she wore underneath fell to the pile of clothes at her feet.
And then she was naked except for the red, thigh-high, stiletto-heeled boots, just like he’d wanted.
He nearly hadn’t moved while sitting on the throne, except tension filled his body. He didn’t look like he was resting anymore, but crouched and ready to spring.
He said, “Turn around. I want to look at you.”
Colleen shuffled in a circle, trying not to look as mortified as she felt.
“God, you’re sexy,” he said.
Even though Colleen couldn’t see his face, she wasn’t looking at him. “No, I’m not. I’m just—”
Twist lifted one finger, and Colleen fell silent.
He said, “I said, you’re sexy. I think you’re a hot, beautiful, sexy woman, and I will brook no argument. It doesn’t matter to me what other people have told you in the past. I don’t care what has caused you to think you’re not. I find you incredibly sexy, the hottest little thing I’ve seen in years, and I will tell you that until you know it is true. What do you say?”
“—Yes, sir.”
“Now, come here.”
Colleen walked reluctantly toward him. Where her thighs rubbed together, she felt mortified at her chubbiness, and yet the friction of her legs rubbing together stimulated her clit that he had massaged so very recently.
When she was quite close to Twist, he reached out with one arm and gathered her onto his lap so that she was kneeling on the seat of the chair with her legs on either side of his thighs. He was so tall that her nose was only a little bit above his, even though he was leaning back in the chair and she was standing on her knees over him.
She was so close that she could see his eyes behind the rippled shadows of his blank mask, and the bright blueness behind the silver was almost shocking.
He ran his hands from the backs of her knees up and over her ass. Her recently spanked flesh stung from the rub of his hands. He rubbed up to her shoulders and then around to cup her breasts. “These are beautiful, and I regret my choice of a mask even more.”
Colleen couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
He looked back up at her, and his blue eyes behind the filigreed silver trained on hers. “What do you say?”
She cast around for an answer, but she only had two choices. “Yes, sir?”
“Better.”
His hands roamed her body, massaging and gently tickling, then pinching and rubbing, until she was clinging to his shoulders, sighing as he slid one finger through her folds and inside of her.
As she lay her forehead on his shoulder and his fingers were buried in her pussy, rolling his thumb around her clit, she turned her head and brushed her lips across his neck. A faint scent of cologne wafted from his neck above his open collar, spicy cinnamon and wood smoke like a campfire verging out of control, and the subtle warm scent of his skin.
She buried her face in his neck, kissing and sucking at the part of his throat she could reach under the sharp silver edge of his mask, and he arched his neck against her mouth. Just under his jawline, the smoothness of his skin was demarcated by a sharp line. A short beard grew above it, rough against her lips. In the shadow of the mask, she couldn’t see what color his beard was, but his hair was dark with an occasional dark auburn glint in the light pouring from above.
His hand quickened under her, concentrating on rolling against her clit and rubbing inside of her, and her breath came faster. She was panting on his neck, whimpering but trying not to let it sound like words, when his touch lightened.
She ground down on his hand, trying to get herself off, but the roughness of his fingers slowed and lightened further, keeping her right on the cusp.
“Yes, please,” she whispered into his skin, the tension swelling in her body and her head. “Yes, please.”
But Twist seemed to know because every time her body wound tightly and was just about to break through, he backed off. Every time her release began to retreat like she might have missed the wave, he increased the pressure of his thumb on her clit, and she was right back to hanging over the cliff again.
Her whisper turned to a whimper, and then to sobbing breaths as he wouldn’t quite allow her to reach the peak.
Finally, his hand dropped away entirely, and her consciousness was suspended, floating, before her arousal evaporated.
She socked him in the shoulder with her fist in frustration as she almost screamed.
And he laughed.
The bastard laughed.
She punched his shoulder with the side of her hand again like a sleepy, tantrummy toddler, but she didn’t say any wrong words.
When he growled into her ear, his voice sounded like he was smiling. “The night is young, princess. Your orgasms belong to me, and I’ll tell you when you’re allowed one, if I allow you one. But now, I’m going to fuck that sweet mouth of yours. On your knees.”
Twist pressed on Colleen’s shoulders, and she slithered to the floor, landing in a heap between his shined black dress shoes.
If she had any inklings of refusal, they were swimming beneath the shimmering confusion clouding her mind.
“As your mouth will be otherwise occupied—”
She could hear his smirk through the mask.
“—if you want to use your safeword, tug on your ears. Do you understand?”
Her neck and limbs flopped as she tried to right herself. “Yes, sir.”
“Let me see you do it.”
Colleen tugged on both her earlobes, feeling the weight of her gold stars-and-moons earrings in her fingers.
“Good girl.”
By the time she regained her composure enough to scoot her legs underneath her, Twist had unzipped his fly and was guiding her face toward his cock. “Hands behind your back, crossed at the wrists.”
She held her hands behind her as if she were tied.
He cradled her skull in his huge hands so that her jaw was resting on his palms. He pushed down on her chin with his thumb. “Open.”
Colleen did it. She did everything he wanted because her mind and body thrummed with an unsatisfied need that occupied her every thought. He’d been so quick that she hadn’t even realized he’d rolled a condom on himself until her lips touched the translucent sheath.
When he fit her mouth over his massive erection, her lips rubbed on the engorged veins as he pressed her down over himself, feeding his thick girth to her slowly before he pressed further toward the back of her tongue.
“Good. Mmmm. Good girl,” he murmured.
He was gentle with her but controlled every instant of her movements. His palms and fingers clasped her head as he moved her mouth and throat over him, slowly, steadily. His muscular legs sprawled beside her shoulders, and the faint earthiness of his natural musk seeped into her nose and lungs as he filled her mouth and throat with each descent over him.
Twist’s breathing had been slow and deliberate, but a hitch in the even rhythm jarred her. His fingers flexed around her ears and on the back of her neck, and his hips bucked a few times instinctively as he held her in place. His solid flesh hit the back of her throat, and Colleen struggled not to gag as he groaned and his body tensed.
His breathing was labored, a grunt at the beginning of each exhale, and his cock pulsed in her mouth and throat as he held her on him. She instinctively swallowed, but there was nothing there.
Okay, she’d thought the condom might be weird, but not having to deal with the splooge was considerate.
Twist lifted her head, removing her face from his erection, and he held her head in his hands while he leaned his head back, the silver mask angled up to the ceiling as his chest expanded and collapsed like a bellows. His voice was rough as he rasped out, “Good girl.”
Some of the fog had faded, just enough that Colleen was vaguely proud of herself for reducing this enormous man to trembling from what she’d done to him.
Twist shook his head and straightened. Pushing lightly on her shoulder as he removed the condom, knotted it, and dropped it in a small trash can she hadn’t noticed behind the chair before zipping up his pants. He said, “Such a good girl.”
“I’m not,” she said.
The silvery mask turned back to stare at her, and Colleen imagined that Twist must be raising an eyebrow behind it.
She said, “I’m not a good girl. And I know that term is supposed to be ironic and degrading—”
“No, it’s meant to make you feel cherished.”
“Why should I feel cherished? The real world doesn’t cherish you.”
“This isn’t the real world, and your partner should.”
“I don’t have a partner. I don’t want someone else to pretend to cherish me or whatever you call it and then break the hell out of my heart.”
“They shouldn’t do that, either.”
“Sure, they should. Maybe I’m a bitch, Twist. Maybe I’m a psychopath. Maybe I wouldn’t know what to do if someone loved me. Maybe I hurt people on purpose. Maybe I break things just to see them break. Maybe I rebelled and made-believe things were worse than they were. Maybe I make them walk away from me. Maybe I’m a drama queen. Maybe I shouldn’t be the way that I am and then someone would love me, but I’m not and I don’t know how to do that.”
“QueenMod, princess—”
“I’m not a good girl. I’ve never been a good girl. Since I was five, I assure you, I have never been a good girl. Just ask my parents. When you were spanking me, that was what I needed. I felt alive. I wasn’t numb from my soul to my skin anymore. That’s what someone should do to me until I am a good girl.”
“I’m not a sadist,” Twist said.
“You said you break brats, so break me. Break whatever the hell is wrong with me so I can fix it. Just do it!”
“That’s not how this game works.”
“I just said all these words I’m not supposed to. You spanked me last time when I just forgot what I was supposed to say. I’m doing it on purpose. Isn’t that worse? So do something worse to me.”
He asked, “What did you mean about being numb?”
“I just am. I stub my toe, and I think, well, that’s just another fucking thing. Something horrible happens on the news, and I think, yeah, the world is a piece of shit and has terrible people in it. Someone says they hate me and I’ve never been what they wanted, and I think, yeah, well, I’ve never been what I wanted, either.”
Twist didn’t move after she finished talking. He sat on his chair like he was judging her behind that gleaming mask, and then he reached up with his hand, holding her cheek in his palm. He ran his thumb over her cheekbone, and he sighed before he said quietly, “I told you that the next time you disobeyed me, the punishment would be harsher.”
Colleen nodded. Of course, it would be. Yes.
“To your left, there is a large, metal frame like a steel rectangle bolted into the floor. Walk over there, take hold of the sides, and hang on. As you are standing in front of it, spread your legs.”
Colleen struggled up off the floor and felt her way over toward the steel contraption in the dark, dragging her toes to feel her way and avoid any unseen obstacles. Other mechanism-looking thingies also jutted corners or stirrups out of the darkness, and she didn’t want to—
Her leg smacked something, and a metallic clatter shattered the quiet of the room.
Panic flashed through her. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that. It was an accident!” She scrambled after the sticks that had fallen out of some sort of metal can. “I can pick them up! Don’t get up. I got this. It’s no problem. I’m such a klutz. If there is something in the room, I will knock it over. I’m just a dumbass when it comes to anything like this.” Her fingertips brushed skinny sticks on the floor that skittered away from her touch. “I’m so sorry. I swear to God, I’m such a nitwit. I’m just a stupid idiot who can’t be trusted with anything, not even to walk across the room without destroying something. I’m stupid and careless, and I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Stop,” Twist said.
“Oh, no. I’m the dimwit who knocked it over, so I’ll clean it up. I’m really sorry. I’m just such a clod. I always do dumbshit things like this. I’m just too pig-ignorant to pay attention to where I’m walking or what I’m doing.”
A vice-like grip wrapped her wrist and spun her around. The bright shape of his mask stared her down, though the eyeholes seemed to be empty shadows. “I said, stop.”
She flipped her other hand at the unseen sticks on the dark floor. “Oh, but I’ll just—”
“Stop talking about yourself that way.”
Confusion. Not the sticks? “What way?”
His voice was so low it was a growl. “You will speak well of yourself in my presence. If I have to emotionally Dom you until the sun rises tomorrow, you will learn not to degrade yourself. What do you say?”
Shock blanked her mind. In the end, all that was left was a reflex that the person growling at her must be correct and she must be wrong again. “Okay.”
“Princess, is that what you say?” His tone was less stern and more instructive.
“I mean—I mean, yes, sir.”
“Leave this trash on the floor and do what I told you to.”
Colleen gingerly made her way through the little sticks lying on the floor, careful to walk with her toes feeling her way through the darkness ahead of her lest her stiletto heels roll off one of them and break her ankle, until she found the frame Twist had referred to. The metal cooled her fingers and palms as she slid her hands over the rails.
She’d thought the contraption would be taller, but the rails curved like the top of a pool ladder.
She felt his warmth behind her before she heard him. He lifted both her elbows and ran his hands down her forearms, smoothing her hands onto the rails. “Reach farther.”
Colleen stepped forward, but her shins nudged some more of the device. “There’s something—”
His hand pressed between her shoulder blades, bending her.
Colleen acquiesced, hinging from her hips and letting her hands slide farther out on the rails. The stiletto heels on her boots made it difficult to balance, and her toes grabbed onto her soles inside her shoes so she didn’t tip forward.
As she descended, her front found a leather pad underneath her, and she turned her head as she rested on it.
Twist ran his hand down her naked spine and over the skin of her butt to her thighs. “Your ass looks amazing in these boots.”
Colleen flexed her fingers and took a tighter hold on the bars.
“What do you say?”
“—Yes, sir.”
“It’s a shame we have to keep the lights down so low. I’d love to see the marks I’m going to put on you. Every inch of your skin with my marks on it belongs to me, princess. Do you understand?”
A tremor ran through her. “Yes, please.”
“What a gift, you are,” he whispered near her ear and then backed off. “Only my words or your safewords, and nothing else.”
“Yes, sir.”
A crisp clack snapped in the air. “Tell me your safe words again.”
“Yellow to pause or slow down. Red to stop.”
“Correct. Your first punishment is that you may no longer say yes, sir. Your only response will be yes, please.”
Colleen nodded. “Yes, please.”
“And your second—”
A sharp snap stung her backside, low and on her left haunch.
She sucked in air through her nose but didn’t make a sound.
“Remember what I told you. Relax.”
Colleen wrapped her arms around the cold railings, trying to relax the muscles of her butt and legs. The sting was narrow and long, definitely not his hand spanking her again. It felt like a small whip, and she wondered if she’d knocked over a pail of riding crops.
“Breathe,” he said.
Colleen did. She inhaled through her nose and out her mouth, and she was so intent on the pattern of her breath that the next stripe on her butt was only a quick burn. She didn’t even gasp.
“Good,” Twist said. “We’ll continue.”
More snaps bit her ass. Some were light pinches, hardly more than a slap. Other blows were harder, scalding her skin and hurting deeper in her flesh.
Colleen took them all. She held the cold rails in her hands, taking them in because she was an empty void he filled with pain, and pain was better than feeling empty.
Several times, he asked, “What do you say?”
A small part of her brain, the bit that was shrieking about what she should and what she ought to be doing and thinking, screamed that he was fishing for her safe words and she should tell him yellow. No, she should tell him red.
Colleen said, “Yes, please.”
He continued. He continued until the flashes of pain bled into each other and faded, and her breath rushed through her nose and out her mouth and the metal was cold under her palms.
The stripes of pain led her through the gray fog, and it parted into darkness.
Sometime later, a metallic clang broke the air as if a copper mixing bowl had dropped onto the tile floor.
A smooth, soft band encircled her head from behind, blindfolding her.
Colleen closed her eyes as the silk settled over her eyelids.
Rough hands grabbed her naked waist, spun her, and tackled her to the floor, holding the back of her skull so she didn’t hit her head. Warmth and sucking caressed her neck and then her breasts as she arched under him. Her mind still floated while he moved on top of her, his lips trailing between her breasts and then down her stomach, coming to rest between her thighs. He sucked and kissed her, his tongue rolling through her folds and finding her erect clit at the top. His hands found the raw flesh of her ass and lifted her hips, pressing her to his mouth as he devoured her like he was stripping the flesh off a peach with his lips and tongue to find the hard seed at the center and suck it into his mouth.
This time, when she tightened, he sucked harder, his fingertips digging into the backs of her thighs where he held her. She was gasping now, her measured breathing forgotten as every stroke of his tongue and caress of his lips drew her farther and harder, the pain from his fingertips on her ass only heightening the intensity.
With each quickening breath she gasped, “Yes, please. Yes, please.”
The empty pit of gray void that she’d been huddled at the bottom of for three years had been filled by pain, which had turned to fire, which was consuming her body and mind as she held onto the bars near her shoulders, and she arched her back as the tightening need detonated into waves of pleasure that coursed up her spine, flowed through her head, and dissolved her into nothingness.
She drifted, riding the waves, gasping.
Then exhaustion.
Movement.
Movement of her arms and her body. Sudden warmth shrouded her, and strong arms cradled her in comfort as the scents of cinnamon and a trace of woodsmoke wove through her.
She was still blindfolded and couldn’t see anything, couldn’t even see the darkness of the room. She raised her hand to push the scrap of silk away from her face.
Twist murmured, “No, no, princess. I had to take off my mask because I couldn’t resist you.”
Colleen gestured at the warmth around her and his arm behind her back and his legs beneath her sore butt. “What are you—”
“This is aftercare, my favorite part of the scene. Just rest now. You’ve been such a good girl, taking your punishment. Now you are my good girl again, my princess. Are you going to be good?”
She whispered, “Yes, please.”
His growl was softer, almost affectionate. “Good girl.”
Colleen laid in his arms for what seemed like forever, basking in his whispered words as he stroked her cheeks with his thumb and told her things she’d never heard before.
He said, “You tried so hard.”
“You did so well.”
“Good girl, princess. Good girl.”
She reached her arms up around his neck, clinging to him, and he held her more tightly to his chest, the silk-like softness of his vest and his shirt under her cheek.
His heartbeat thrummed inside him.
Warmth washed over her.
He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, cradling her head and her body, sheltering her.
Her breathing deepened. Colleen wondered if she was drifting into sleep, but he was still there. She floated through space, her arms clinging to his neck as the moving air brushed her body, still naked except for her boots.
Softness enveloped her.
Fleece blankets brushed her fingertips.
She was warmer, and she snuggled down farther.
Her body moved gently, swaying, as Twist rocked her in his arms. “You’ve been a very good girl, my princess. So sweet, so compliant, so sexy.”
The words buzzed through Colleen’s tired mind, but she was too exhausted to argue with him. She was none of those things. She must not be any of those things because no one had ever said anything like that to her before.
Not that she’d expected him or anyone to say that. People didn’t say things like that to one another.
If people actually talked like that, people would get full of themselves. It was ridiculous to think of telling someone they were sweet.
Or sexy. Really, sexy? No one said that.
It probably wasn’t right that he was saying those things to her, anyway.
He must be trying to manipulate her or something.
Twist whispered, “I know this is over for us. I know we’ll never meet again and will probably never communicate again. Those are the rules we laid down in the beginning, and forum decorum, of course. We’ve flouted the rules enough, and I don’t want to jeopardize your standing there. It obviously means a lot to you.” His lips brushed her forehead. “Are you listening to me, princess, or are you asleep?”
She nodded just a little to show she wasn’t asleep.
“Good, my little princess, my little pet. I worry about you. You said some things that hurt me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered with barely a breath.
“No, my pet. You said some things about yourself after the spanking and when that bucket of riding crops was in your way that were—truly brutal.”
“No, I’m tough,” she murmured. “And I was a total dumbshit idiot—”
“Stop,” Twist said.
Colleen stopped.
“Don’t speak of yourself that way. Don’t even think of yourself that way anymore.”
“But I—”
“And don’t argue with me. I haven’t given you permission to argue with me. Now, tell me what you’re allowed to say.”
“Yes, please.”
“Good girl. You haven’t been taking care of yourself, have you? Answer me truthfully.”
Colleen didn’t have to consider her answer at all. “No, sir.”
“I want you to take care of yourself. Sleep enough, and go to bed at a decent hour. Eat things that are good for you. Say it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Ah, little pet, it drives me mad that you’ll be out there all alone without someone to take care of you, to tell you that you are bright and beautiful and a joy to fuck and bend over my knee to spank.”
The blanket was almost too warm around her, and she must have frowned because he said, “Ah, no, my princess. You deserve to be cherished, and treasured, and loved.”
Tingles shivered deeper into her skin and shook her flesh until she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she whispered a joke. “Would I have to wear the Sailor Moon costume all the time?”
Twist chuckled and rubbed her arm where he was holding her. “Perhaps we could mix things up with a Faye Valentine costume.”
Who was from an entirely different anime. Interesting.
He rocked her in his arms, murmuring to her while the time floated by, and Colleen snuggled in the blanket against his chest and breathed.
For whole moments at a time, safety and comfort surrounded her.
Her hand stole up. Her fingers curled around the open edge of his shirt near his collar, and she held on.
Time drifted with his deep voice rumbling around her.
In another moment, his arms were withdrawing from around her, leaving her lying on the mattress with the blankets tucked around her.
His lips and his breath, just a trace of whiskey amid the mint, brushed her forehead. He whispered, “Ah, my princess, the things I would do to you if you were mine. I’d transform you into a wanton, twisted thing such that you wouldn’t even know yourself. You’d trust me with your body, your soul, and your very life. I’d take you places you’ve never seen and show you the world.”
She could barely breathe and thought she might be only semi-conscious. Surely, she hadn’t heard that right, but she whispered back, “Thank you.”
“It was my absolute pleasure.”
His lips caressed hers, and Colleen tried to kiss him back, but he was already gone.
The door clicked shut.
After ten deep breaths, Colleen roused herself, pushing herself up on her arms. She dragged the blindfold off her face and looked around.
There was a little more light, as if he’d undimmed the lights when he’d left so she could see.
After being blindfolded, her eyes were adjusted to absolute darkness, and she could see the scarlet silk of his tie in her hand.
She was lying on a four-poster bed that was dressed in white sheets and smelled faintly of lavender. Past the footboard, the iron of medieval torture devices shone faintly in the gloom, and the black leather-padded seats were bolted to the bars in inexplicable places.
Twist was gone.
Colleen hugged her knees to her chest, the red faux leather of her tall boots creaking. She was just as alone as before she’d met him, and yet the air around her seemed even emptier.
She finally stood, balancing herself gingerly on her ridiculous boots, and went back over to the door where she’d hung her purse. Inside, her phone read that it had been almost three hours. She dressed and made her way out of the private room, through the crowded tables and bar, to her car.
She drove back to her studio apartment.
Maybe she shouldn’t have gone, but it had been worth it.