Call Me Killer (17 page)

The half-naked chicks and the highly-sexed energy of the place turned me hard as soon as we entered. Damn. I had to keep my wits about me. I hoped we weren’t plunging into some sort of dangerous situation here. I’m not sure what I expected, but I was hyped up and on my guard.

“Pretty much like this, yeah. This place is a lot more classy, though.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking around. “Even the sexy attire is top of the line.”

I wondered how she knew that, coming from her neighborhood. I guess she’d spent the last few years hanging with a different crowd, although I didn’t imagine MIT geeks to be experts on fashion, either. But what did I know?

Most of the other couples were wearing the half-masks, too. I didn’t see anyone whose mouth and chin looked familiar, but why would I? If she’d frequented this club, Hadley had never brought me with her.

I attached a leather leash to the collar I’d made Rory wear, “Come, pet. Let’s explore the dungeon.”

She obediently followed me, which made me even hotter.

Rory

My eyes must have been bugging out, so I had to remind myself to stay cool. I’d had a couple days to prepare for this excursion. Griff didn’t know it, but I’d started planning it right after that encounter with Silas Marks at the restaurant.

Getting the invitation had been a bit of a challenge, but I had better contacts than Griff realized. When my technology connections hadn’t produced any useful results, I’d turned to my brother Jesse. He’d played a lot of gigs in the Boston area, since he’d started his band here. Three of its members were native Bostonians. They were into some weird shit, and they knew people.

After putting my cell phone back together, I’d called my brother. Jesse had teased me with all the condescension of a know-it-all older sibling, especially when he heard what kind of club Reef Hill was. But I didn’t mind. His geniality meant he wasn’t using any hard stuff. I still worried about that. It’s not easy to stay sober with all the pressures of the road.

I’d originally hoped to learn something here. Find something that might implicate the billionaire in Hadley’s disappearance. But I had to admit that was probably just an excuse. I’d wanted to see what people did in a place like this. I’d never even been to a sex club, much less a kinky sex society, or whatever Reef Hill really was.

I knew Griff was into BDSM, and I’d started believing I could get into it, too.

To be honest, I’d always been interested in it. In my fantasies, I mean. I’d just never imagined that any of those fantasies might one day come true.

I considered myself a strong woman, and I’d never been able to picture myself willingly submitting to some whip-cracking dude. Even though I found the idea secretly exciting, I wasn’t going to allow a man to demand my obedience or to punish me if I didn’t follow his stupid commands.

Crawl around on the floor with a ball gag in my mouth? Not this woman. No way.

I didn’t think I wanted to reverse roles, though, and order my partner to crawl around, either. That scenario didn’t excite any dark, secret thrills.

But Griff and I had been talking about it some. We hadn’t done much, although I had allowed him to tie me to his bed. That had been a little scary at first, but once I’d relaxed and stopped resisting, it was amazing.

“If you think about it,” he’d said, “All sex is pretty crazy. The way it takes over your mind. The way it makes you act. Even doing it—the motions, the positions, the sights and sounds, are kinda comical.”

Just the way he’d said this had made me giggle. I’d thought of some of the porn I’d watched on the internet. Yeah, it was comical.

“BDSM is no different. It’s all just acting a part. I mean, for some people I think it’s more than that, but for me, it’s acting. You play a role to turn yourself and your lover on, and you go with it. Then you both come and laugh and go back to being your normal selves until the next time.”

“Don’t some people try to do it 24/7?”

“Yeah, some do. It’s not for me, though.”

“So…you don’t want a girlfriend who’s submissive and obedient all the time?”

Well of course, he started teasing me then. Dragging me down and ordering me to suck his cock—not that I needed the order—and swearing he’d wallop my ass if I didn’t do a good job. But he confessed later when we both stopped laughing that he loved strong women, sassy women, women with a mind of their own.

I think I would have been happy with that, if it hadn’t made me think of Hadley.

I wasn't thinking about her now though because I was being assaulted by so many remarkable sights and sounds. Most of the people present were couples, although there were small groups consisting of more than two people—two men and a woman or two women and a man.

The distribution of male dominants to female dominants seemed to be roughly equal, which I thought was cool. It was easy to tell them apart. The submissives were usually wearing some kind of token, like a collar or cuffs. Some of the male subs were quite elaborately restrained—trussed up with rope and gagged or even blindfolded, led around by a leash attached to their collars.

Griff had wrapped a pair of leather cuffs around my wrists before we’d gotten out of the car. He’d added a collar inside. I didn’t like being paraded around, especially in front of other people. I wanted to stay close to Griff because he made me feel safe, and I understood that we would stand out if we acted too different from the other patrons, but even so, it was a bit much for a newbie submissive like me.

As we entered one of the rooms, I was startled to hear a woman scream. It didn’t sound like a sexy moan at all. She cried out in real anguish. I quickly saw why.

The woman was standing in the center of a large circle of observers. She was naked except for a black thong. Her back was to us as we entered the room. She was wearing a collar and cuffs and her arms were parted and stretched over her head with her wrists attached to ropes suspended from the ceiling. The ropes were tight enough that she was forced to stand on the balls of her feet.

A man was standing a few feet behind her. He had a long implement in his hand that looked like a rod or a cane and he was whipping it slowly against her buttocks. Each time he struck her, she cried out in what sounded to me like unendurable pain. Between blows, she panted and gasped, trying to get her breath and ready herself for the next strike.

There were marks where he had struck her. Long red lines. Plus, her skin looked bruised, on her buttocks in particular. As if she was subjected to this kind of beating regularly.

The man said something to her that I couldn't hear. When she didn't respond, he grabbed a hunk of her hair, which had been tied in a ponytail, and yanked her head backwards. He spoke again. She tossed her head and murmured in return. He let her go with a jerk, stepped back, and delivered another savage blow.

This time when she screamed, I shot forward. I could never stand the sound of a person in pain. A person or an animal—anyone. This did not look like lighthearted BDSM to me—the creep was torturing her and nobody was doing anything to stop it.

But before I had the chance to interfere, Griff grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back against him. When I resisted, he pulled me around and marched me out of the room. A couple of people looked at us quizzically, but we didn’t attract too much attention—the whipping had the other observers transfixed.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You don't ever mess with someone’s scene.”

“I know, I know, but that guy was really hurting that woman.”

His eyebrows went up in a duh expression. “Jeez, Rory, I thought you knew something about this stuff. I wouldn't have brought you if I thought you couldn't handle it.”

“He was beating her with a—” I stopped because I wasn't sure what that thing had been. Not a soft leather flogger, that was for sure.

“A cane, yes. They hurt. They leave marks. Bruises. Maybe he was punishing her for something. Or maybe she just gets off on caning.”

“I thought this was supposed to be safe, sane and consensual!”

“It is. He was very careful about where he struck her. Only where it is safe to do so. He gave her time to recover between each blow. You saw him speak to her? He was probably asking her if she wanted to use her safeword. She shook her head no.”

That kinda stopped me in my tracks. Okay, maybe he was right. I started to feel embarrassed. I understood giving up power and control. Orders and obedience and even bondage or light flogging. But I couldn't imagine how it could ever feel good to be stretched up naked in front of strangers and beaten until I was screaming and tears were pouring down my cheeks.

“That was sadistic,” I muttered.

“Sadomasochism is just another aspect of the lifestyle. As long as it’s consensual and no real harm is done, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

I knew that intellectually, sure. I just hadn't expected to have such a strong gut reaction to the sight of somebody being hurt. “It’s hard to believe she was enjoying that. She was flinching, bucking, screaming.”

“Even so, we can't judge. They had a big audience. They may have been exaggerating, putting on a show.”

I nodded. In fairness, I’d read about whipping and flogging scenes. I’d watched porn…I knew a lot of this stuff appeared to be more brutal than it actually was. And some people really did get off on the pain. I even did myself when I was turned on. Pain didn’t feel so much like pain when it was coupled with strong sexual sensations.

“I’m sorry. I think it’s just instinct for me to go to someone’s defense if I think they’re being hurt. Thanks for stopping me before I made a fool of myself.”

He tipped my face up and looked down into my eyes. I was afraid he might be mad, but his gaze looked tender. “You okay, babe? We needn't stay. That was a heavy scene. Things wouldn't be so intense at a public club, but this place is private and they clearly take their sadomasochism seriously. Want to go home?”

I shook my head. I was not going to be a wimp about this. From what he’d told me, Hadley had taken her sadomasochism seriously, too, so all the more reason why she might have frequented this place.

When we entered one of the other rooms, things were a lot more playful. People were quietly doing their own scenes—mostly light spanking or service submission with the dominants being waited on by their partners. There were several groups of people chatting with one another.

A couple of people came up to us and asked if we were new. I said we were. I was afraid we’d get grilled about who we knew or who had invited us, but that didn’t happen. We were welcomed, and one chatty submissive explained that this was the meet-and-greet area, but that we were welcome to play if that was our desire or just watch and hang out if that made us more comfortable. There were some technique demos going on in one of the adjoining rooms, if we wanted to learn anything new.

I quickly realized that I couldn’t just plunge in and start asking questions about Hadley Allison. The lack of questions about Griff and me made it clear that privacy was considered important here. Most people were wearing the little half mask we also wore, but they were too small and flimsy to provide any real disguise. If I was going to play amateur detective, I’d have to be more subtle about it.

The thing was, though, I wanted to enjoy this rather unique experience with my boyfriend rather than keep wondering what had happened to his ex.

My boyfriend. I like the sound of that. I repeated it in my head a couple times.

I knew it was probably a bad idea to think of Griff this way. But it felt as if we had grown so close in the week we spent together. Even though we didn’t have much in common, we seemed to fit. To suit each other.

Temperamentally, we were good together. Even know I’m kind of weird and geeky, I’m basically a happy person. I take things as they come and don’t get easily rattled. Well, unless someone is being unfairly or unjustly treated—that makes me burn and turns me into a crusader.

Griff’s more serious and a bit more gloomy than I am, but he has reason to be. And it's easy to coax him into a cheery mood, so I don't think he’s really gloomy. He’s cynical, but I would be too, in his shoes.

And despite that rough-tough persona he puts on, he’s a sweetheart. He could be gentle and kindhearted even when he was pretending to be a hardass.

The better I got to know him, the crazier it seemed that anyone could suspect him of being a killer.

Griff

Rory touched my arm, her fingers digging into my skin. “Look who’s up next.” We had just watched a hot waxing demo, which had been both exciting and instructive. Apparently, this was demo hour. She jerked her head toward the area just beside the little stage.

Even with the half-masks, I knew him—that rich guy, Silas Marks.

He was clad, like most of the other Doms, in a simple black shirt and black trousers. No skin was showing except on his forearms where his sleeves were rolled up. As he mounted the stage, his black boots gleamed. They looked like riding boots. Probably cost a fortune.

He was leading a woman dressed in nothing but a black thong and 5-inch black heels. Her arms were secured behind her back. She had a choke chain dog collar around her throat.

He walked quickly to the center of the stage and jerked on her lead when she was slow. Her collar tightened and she moved a whole lot faster to join him, dropping to her knees in front of him, her head bowed.

“I’ve been asked to discuss breath play,” said Marks.

Rory stiffened beside me and my own heart throbbed. Breath play was what Hadley had been into. What she had wanted and I had refused to do.

“You’ll note that this slave is wearing a choke collar,” he said, yanking on the leash to tighten the chain. “Another alternative would be a rope that could be tightened at will. However, depriving a submissive of air is not something I would recommend to a beginner. The dangers should be obvious.”

He pulled harder and the woman’s head lifted. She was grimacing, obviously uncomfortable with the chain digging into her neck. “Some people get high from oxygen deprivation, but you don’t want to kill your partner. Presumably,” he added, which made most of the crowd laugh uneasily.