Divine Solace: 8 (11 page)

Did Noah like being on display while his Mistress was
dominating him? Did Lyda get off on people watching her do that? When she
imagined Lyda binding Noah and doing a wide variety of sexual things to him,
Gen wasn’t sure how she felt about it, mind-wise, but her body obviously had no
problem with the idea.

The thump of music coming from within reminded her that
there was a great dance floor and DJ, according to Chloe. Another clue that the
activities inside weren’t all about the D/s games. It made her feel a little
better, a little less self-conscious. She shouldn’t feel self-conscious,
though. That was for people who cared what other people thought about them, and
she was supposed to be way past that.

Yet this was what happened when a cautious person left her
comfort zone and tried something so freaking brand new it might just change her
entire life. A car horn beeped, startling her back to the here and now. She’d
stopped just short of the curb, the car owner reminding her she was standing in
the flow of incoming traffic. She gave a startled hop up onto the curb,
touching her hair self-consciously and staring at the red carpet leading into
the double doors. Silver lettering slashed across the smoky glass. The Zone.

She propelled herself into motion. The two security people
at the entrance, one female and one male, opened the doors for her with polite
efficiency and watchful eyes. The woman gave her a reassuring look, though,
telling Gen she must look nervous.

Noah had said he’d be watching for her between eight and
nine. It was a few minutes after nine, so she thought she’d have to page him.
Instead, she saw him right away. There was a lounge just beyond the hostess’
station, and he was in a small booth by himself. He rose the moment she crossed
the threshold.

He’d waited for her. One part of her felt guilty for being
late, but the look on his face when he saw her flattered her beyond
description. There was no mistaking the expression of a man who felt every
minute he’d waited had been worth it.

On her side of that equation, he made her pulse accelerate
to the urgent beat of the dance floor music. He was wearing some type of slick
leather pants. No shirt. The silver and black thin braided cord was
double-wrapped around his throat, and the matching ones were back on his
wrists. His long hair was in a sexy tousle, loose on his shoulders, his brown
eyes fastened on hers like a sleepy wolf who’d just woken up.

She was a thirty-something woman who could handle all this
in a mature manner. Yet when she clung to that gaze, she was reminded of a film
she’d watched where a teenaged hero had touched the young heroine’s jaw in a
key moment. He’d stilled her fears by drawing her attention to his eyes, to the
assurance there that all would be well. He’d done it with such surety, making
it clear all his attention was on her care. Their youth hadn’t really mattered.
It was a simple heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul communication, recognized and
desired by all ages.

She followed her more carnal desires now, letting her gaze
course downward. The pants were low on his waist, below his hip bones. He had
the lithe rock-star build to pull off such a look well. From the glances that
followed him when he passed other tables, his ass must look irresistible in the
tight pants. The front view was nothing to be sneezed at, his groin nicely
substantial. Yet he seemed neither self-conscious nor like he was flaunting it.
As he approached, his gaze was traveling over every inch of her. She wanted to
touch him too, and so a breath caught in her throat as he kept coming, right into
the grasp of her eager hands.

He curved a hand alongside her neck, under her hair, and
lowered his mouth to hers. She leaned into him, letting his strength support
her as his other arm circled her waist. Sliding her hands around him, she
hooked her thumbs in the low ride of the pants. Then she couldn’t help herself.
She cupped his ass and found yes, the people who’d sent him covetous looks were
absolutely right. His ass felt awesome. And of course there was nothing under
that thin, slick covering but him. Her abdomen was pressed against the
decidedly firm package of cock and testicles.

He hadn’t kissed her this weekend, and she hadn’t given him
the opportunity when she dropped him off. She wasn’t making that mistake twice.
When she lifted on her toes, he took it as the invitation it was. His tongue
teased her lips open and delved in to play, the pierced stud caressing her
moist flesh as his fingers tightened in her hair. She wasn’t thinking, wasn’t
planning, anticipating, worrying. She hadn’t realized how getting dressed up in
a sexy dress, being in an environment like this, would prep her for a state
where inhibition was clearly less important than letting oneself
feel
.

“You look incredible,” he said against her mouth. “Lyda’s
going to eat you in three bites.”

Sensation shuddered through her, awaking nerve endings like
the sweep of a gusty summer rain. His fingers trailed down her spine, back up,
teasing her bra strap. She tried to breathe, to slow things down, but she
didn’t stop holding onto him. She was grabbing a guy’s ass in the middle of a
crowded place, and no one seemed to think it was unusual, but it was unusual
for her. Trying to prove she could control her own impulses, she adjusted her
grip to his waist, his lower back. He wrapped his arms lightly around her
shoulders. His skin was slightly damp, as if he’d been dancing or exerting
himself some other way.

“Want the tour?” he asked. “Or do you want to grab a quiet
corner and make out until Lyda finds us?”

His eyes were intent, aroused, but playful. He always seemed
to know how to help her handle her mixed feelings. “Yes, to both. But take me
on the tour first.”

“Your wish is my command.” When he tucked her hand
underneath his arm, she clasped his firm biceps. He leaned down to speak into
her ear, so she could hear him over the crowd noise. “Lyda will join us in her
own time. She’s with some other Mistresses right now, probably swapping
favorite CBT stories. Or talking about shoes. Girl stuff.”

She glanced up at him. “What’s CBT?”

“Cock-and-ball torture.” He gave her an apologetic look.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be that blatant right off the bat. Don’t want to scare
you.”

“It would have scared me more if it applied to me. Just
don’t tell me if there’s a version of that which does.”

He grinned, leading her away from the foyer and pointing out
the high points as he explained them. “The Zone has three levels now. On the
top floor, there’s a sound-buffered glass-bottom bar and restaurant where you
can watch the dance floor or public play areas from above and have normal
conversations without screaming. This middle level has a big dance floor with a
perimeter mezzanine to hang out and talk, if you can manage it over the music,
and another couple sections for public play. There are a few sitting areas like
the lounge area where I was waiting for you, and some of them have noise
buffers. The bottom floor has the private playrooms and changing areas.”

As they moved through a wide walkway that split off toward
different areas, she saw a carpeted stairwell leading to the lower level.
Erotic art, chandeliers and elaborate moldings captured her gaze and added to
the ambiance. “Watch the signs.” He nodded toward one. “They tell you where
drinking is allowed. See that archway over there? That’s an extreme play zone,
where they do anything from advanced suspension to heavy pain stuff. The
security guy at that door administers a breathalyzer on whoever passes through,
even if you’re just going to watch. You score over the legal limit, you can’t
go in. There’s a mezzanine viewing area.” He glanced at her. “You want to go
take a look from there? If you start with the scariest stuff, the rest will
seem totally normal.”

She gave a nervous laugh. “Okay. Why not?”

As the crowd heading onto the mezzanine area got thicker, he
slipped his grip to her hand to move single file up the stairs and onto the
walkway. Watching the club lights play over the tattoos on his back, she
reached forward with her free hand and slid her fingers over them. He gave her
another of those sleepy wolf looks over his shoulder.

He found them a small spot at the crowded railing, where she
was secure between his body behind her and the rail in front, such that she
could put her hand on either to steady herself. His breath was on her neck,
voice against her ear to compete with the backbeat of the not-too-distant dance
floor music. “If it gets to be too much,” he said, “Just let me know. We can go
dance or look at some of the less hardcore play. Just remember, everything
happening is consensual and okay. You’ll see staff circling whose job is to
step in if they think otherwise. They’re really good at that.”

When she was a teenager, she’d been the person who liked to
jump in the deep end of the pool and work back to the shallow, as if she was
challenging herself to face the most difficult part first. Tonight she felt
like she was that more daring girl again, and Noah was helping her enjoy that
long forgotten side of herself.

Then she looked down at the floor. She felt her eyes go
wide, her hand dropping to curl around Noah’s on her hip. A woman was suspended
like a spider’s prey in a web of ropes. She’d been bound like a ballerina
leaping, one leg bent beneath her, the other stretched out behind her. Her arms
were up to her sides like a bird, her back arched and held that way with an
array of ropes fastened to a metal circle against the small of her back. The
ropes looked like a sunburst, all the “beams” tied to her thighs, arms and
torso in a way that kept her in that position.

As Gen looked closer, it was clear the Dom in charge of her
suspension had tied her so her joints, while strained from the position, were
bearing none of her weight. Even so, she was completely helpless.

He was a tall black man with dreadlocks, wearing jeans and
black mesh tank. He was in the process of pinching her nipples repeatedly. In a
smooth movement, he added clamps to them. The woman cried out at the
stimulation, writhing as much as the bonds allowed, which wasn’t much. He
stroked her face, her mouth. Gen thought she heard him call her his beautiful
bird. Then he started to attach glittering weights to the clamps.

The weights were metallic colors, so as she shuddered, the
light sparkled off them. The white noise of the crowd swallowed some of her
response, but Gen could still see her lips part with moans at the stimulation.
He’d bound her breasts so they were constricted, her nipples enlarged. Her own
tingled in sympathetic response.

Hearing a raucous shout, she turned her attention to another
scene, a few feet away from the suspended woman. A man was bound on a large
X-shaped upright frame, being struck by a woman with a long whip. Unlike the
women coming in from the parking lot on their slender heels, she wore sturdy
block-heeled boots. Gen surmised it was necessary to maintain the steady, squared
stance as she threw the whip. She placed the popper precisely on his shoulders,
his ass, and the inside of his wide-spread thighs. Her movement was like
continuous ripples on water. His raw groans built with every strike, as if he
was experiencing an overload of sensation. Gen saw red marks on his back, like
straight pieces of straw.

“Did the whip do that?”

“No, she caned him first. Or it might have been a switch.”

Noticing Noah’s voice had a hoarse note as well, Gen glanced
up at him. He was studying the scenario with an intent expression. His fingers
were curled over hers, and the tight, coiled feeling she was experiencing in
her stomach seemed to match the grip he had on her. Was he imagining himself
where that man was, Lyda on the other end of the whip? What about herself?
Which side fascinated her more?

When the Mistress rotated the cross to face another
direction, Gen drew in a breath. The restrained man’s cock was locked in a
steel cagelike device that clamped at the base of that and his balls.

“Is that…CBT?”

“Yeah, one kind. If he starts to get erect, the chastity
cage contains it, makes it painful enough that it subsides.”

Did Chloe do things like this to Brendan? She had no idea
how Marguerite’s submission played out between her and Tyler. Actually, she
wasn’t sure she was ready to see any of them doing these types of things. She
was glad Noah had been sensitive enough to arrange for her to come here on a
night they weren’t present.

Her gaze shifted left, where a heavyset woman was bound
naked over a bench. She had two tattoos, one on either shoulder. One said
“Delia” and the other said “David”. Perhaps her children, because Gen saw
stretch marks. Looking around the play area, Gen realized then there were all
ages and body types, and what was striking was the lack of self-consciousness
by the submissives exposing themselves at their Master or Mistress’s demand.
Only their approval appeared necessary, and what she saw in the faces of those
Dominants suggested the degree of submission was the attraction, not an
arbitrary physical standard of beauty.

Another woman around the same age and body type began
paddling the tattooed woman, landing blow after blow. After a time, she gripped
the bound woman’s hair, lifting her head to kiss her. The submissive kissed her
back with yearning greediness, her hips jerking in aroused response on the
bench. As her hips lifted, Gen saw she had a plug in her cunt, one with a
jeweled base and prongs that spread out and clamped on the labia, pressing into
the skin. Gen tightened her own thighs, her fingers tangled with Noah’s. The
hard spanking, the woman’s grunts of pain, made her flinch, but that kiss did
other things to her.

Needing a break, she lifted her gaze, deciding she’d watch
the people on the facing mezzanine level, see how they were reacting to the
performances. She found herself looking directly across the open area at Lyda.