aggressive. We never want a woman involved in something she doesn’t want to be involved in. So, what will you do in a case like this, Mistress?”
“Step into the hallway, please,” Irina said to him. Kingsley kissed Blaise’s hand, bowed to Irina and walked out. He could guess what they talked about while he was gone. Irina, like the good dominatrix she was, would ask Blaise if she was here of her own free will and fully consenting to this session. Once Blaise assured the Mistress that she was, Irina would ask her a few questions about what she enjoyed in a scene, what sort of pain she liked. Thudding? Stinging? Impact play that left welts and bruises? Bondage? Knowing Blaise, she’d answer “All of the above.”
The door opened and Irina waved him back inside.
“She said you aren’t holding her hostage and forcing her to do kinky things against her will,” Irina said.
“Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow,” Kingsley said, and Blaise winked at him. She’d played his willing victim many a night. She did put up a beautiful fight when they did rape-play. They’d had to establish two sets of safe words because her acting was so good that he hadn’t been able to tell her feigned terror from real terror one night. It might have been the best sex they’d ever had.
“I’m thinking we should give your girl some souvenirs of this night,” Irina said. “What do you think?” She walked a circle around Blaise, looking her up and down. He couldn’t say who looked more alluring tonight—Blaise in her elegant 1940s pencil skirt and blouse or Mistress Irina in her leather corset and boots. They were a sight to behold, both of them. He wished Sam were still with him. He would have loved to tell her about tonight. But she was gone and would stay gone. Five weeks later and he still regretted what had happened. Regretted? No. He’d done the right thing. Mourned. That was the word he needed. Grieved. “Kingsley?”
“Oh, oui, souvenirs,” he said, forcing his mind back to the present. He needed to stay focused for Irina’s sake as much as Blaise’s. “Blaise loves the f logger and the whip.”
“She told me that,” Irina said, gathering Blaise’s hair into her hand and lifting it. She tugged lightly and Blaise’s breath caught in her throat. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good girl. Kingsley, you should undress your girl for me. Let me see what I have to work with.”
Kingsley went to work taking Blaise’s clothes off. He unbuttoned her blouse, unzipped her skirt, stripped her to her stockings, garters and high heels.
“In a session with a client,” Kingsley said, “you’ll do what before you start the play?”
“Make the client or clients undress,” Irina said.
“And why do we do this?”
“It’s a security measure. We’re making sure our clients aren’t carrying hidden weapons.”
“Very good,” Kingsley said. “You can frisk me if you like.”
“I would, but you’d enjoy that too much,” Irina teased.
When Blaise was naked but for her stockings, he took her wrists in his right hand and raised them, presenting her to Irina like a slave for inspection. He was taller than Blaise by half a foot, and she had to stretch to hold the position.
“Beautiful.” Irina placed a hand on Blaise’s chest. The Mistress caressed her breasts gently, carefully—but only at first. She pinched Blaise’s right nipple then—pinched hard—and Blaise gasped. “Turn her.”
Kingsley turned Blaise to face him so that Mistress Irina could see her back. At his command, Blaise hadn’t done kink with anyone in the past week. He wanted her body to be a clean canvas for Irina’s first session.
“Very nice,” Irina said. “Beautiful skin. It will look better when I’m done with it. Put the cuffs on her.”
Irina held out a set of leather cuffs. Kingsley lowered Blaise’s arms and cuffed her wrists and ankles.
“What is the rule with couples?” Kingsley asked Irina as he handed Blaise over to her.
“The couple may touch each other as much as they want,” Irina said. “They can have sex during the session.”
“And you?”
“Dominatrixes don’t have sex with their clients,” Irina said, smiling. “Prostitution is illegal. S and M isn’t.”
“Bon,” Kingsley said. “But feel free to give Blaise an orgasm if you like. If she earns it.”
“I’ll earn it, monsieur,” Blaise said, and Kingsley slapped her hard on the bottom for speaking out of turn.
Irina put Blaise on the X-shaped cross, face to the wood.
“What’s your safe word, Blaise?” Kingsley said.
“Casablanca.”
Safe word established, Irina took a deerskin f logger off the wall. Good size. Good weight. Good heft. It would hurt like fuck, just the way Blaise liked.
“Start slow.” He whispered the reminder.
He watched Irina take a steadying breath. She moved her feet into position, gripped the f logger by the tips of the tails and raised it over her head. Kingsley gave her a nod. And then Irina smiled, a wide, deep, dark sexy smile. She could play aloof all she wanted, but he could tell she was enjoying this scene as much or more than Blaise would. A true sadist— he did know how to spot one. Irina let the f logger go, and it struck Blaise in the center of her back. She raised it, let it go again—another center strike. For the next few minutes she dusted Blaise with the f logger, hitting her again and again— not too hard, not too light. Blaise’s skin turned from creamy white to blazing red. She traded the deerskin for eel skin— a smaller, more vicious f logger. Blaise gasped and f linched as dozens of tiny welts raised on her back. The little f logger struck far more sharply, and soon it looked as if a dozen hands had clawed at Blaise’s back with cruel fingernails.
As Irina rotated through four different types of f loggers, he watched her work. She was sure-handed and dexterous. It was all too easy to aim wrong and hit a bound submissive in the back of the head. But Irina never missed her mark, and soon Blaise sagged in her bonds, panting from the pain and the arousal the pain inspired in her. Kingsley called a halt to it. He could see Blaise was nearing her limit.
“Did you enjoy your beating?” he whispered in her ear as he ran a hand over her burning skin.
“I did,” she said, smiling. Her face was f lushed with triumph. Blaise always looked her most beautiful after a beating.
“Do you think you earned an orgasm?” he asked her.
“Only if you think I did, monsieur.”
“That’s the right answer,” he said, and Blaise beamed. When she was in the mood to submit, nothing made her happier than serving at the feet of a dominant man. Out in the real world, she single-handedly ran a controversial nonprofit group, lobbied the state and federal government and made weekly appearances at important society events to raise awareness of her causes—sexual freedom and other women’s rights issues. But the powerful, competent, dominant Blaise disappeared the second she stepped into a playroom. It was all “yes, sir” and “no, sir” and “whatever pleases you, sir.” And now, what would please him would be to please her while Irina watched and helped.
“I think,” he said, “that you need more pain. A little more. What do you think?”
“I think you know best, monsieur.”
“But I also think you need some pleasure with your pain. What do you think, Mistress?” he asked.
“I’m happy to supply the pain,” Irina said, “if you’d like to supply the pleasure.”
“An excellent idea.” He unbound Blaise from the cross and led her by the wrists to the bed. He laid her on her back, and she winced as her skin touched the silk. “I’m thinking the rope? What do you think, Mistress?”
“Good choice,” she said. “I’m thinking this.”
She handed Kingsley a vibrator. He already knew what he’d do with it.
“She has been very good tonight,” Kingsley said. “Haven’t you?”
“If you say I’ve been good, then it must be true,” Blaise said.
“You’re so good at th
is, chouchou,” he said to her with a wink.
He crooked his finger, indicating that Blaise should stand up again. She obeyed and let him lead her to the center of the room. He positioned her under a large sturdy metal hook that hung from the ceiling. Irina brought over a step stool and a length of black silk rope. She looped the rope through the D-rings on the cuffs and hoisted Blaise’s arms over her head, tying her wrists to the hook.
Now Blaise stood tied in place, her arms above her head and no way to escape unless he or Irina untied her. And they would untie her. Eventually.
Irina stood in front of Blaise and, with deft hands, brought another length of rope around her back. For the next ten minutes, Irina looped and knotted, looped and knotted, until she’d made a corset of the rope, binding Blaise’s chest, torso and breasts tightly.
Kingsley wrapped his arm around Blaise’s hips and lightly pinched her clitoris between his thumb and forefinger.
“Do you have a preference?” he whispered in her ear. “Ass? Pussy? Both?”
Blaise laughed. “All of the above.”
“Why did I know you were going to say that?”
“Because you know me so well, monsieur. Inside and out.”
Kingsley lubricated both her holes thoroughly, and Blaise moaned from the pleasure of his fingers on her and inside her. He rolled on a condom and entered her from behind. As she was standing it took a few minutes to work past the tight ring of muscle that wanted to keep him out. But he pushed in while Blaise pushed back, and soon he was deep inside her. Irina handed him the vibrator, which he slid slowly into her vagina.
“Oh, God…” Blaise gasped—the last two coherent words she spoke for a while. Irina played with Blaise’s bound breasts while Kingsley fucked her standing up. Irina squeezed and pinched, slapped and teased—inf licting pain both sharp and subtle.
He focused his attention on Blaise’s body—the tightness of her around his cock, the smell of her long hair—jasmine— the scent of her skin—Chanel No. 5, Marilyn Monroe’s perfume—the softness of her hips that he grasped, the sounds of her voice as she gasped and groaned and came, not once but twice in a row. He increased the speed of his thrusts and came, too, the orgasm almost painful in its intensity.
With a final kiss on Blaise’s neck, he uncoupled their bodies. A few drops of her own wetness landed on the f loor between her feet when he pulled the vibrator from her. He went into the bathroom and cleaned off while Irina untied Blaise. Like a good and sadistic dominatrix, Irina made Blaise clean up her own mess off the f loor. He returned to find Blaise stretched out on the bed, f lushed and happy, as Irina knotted up her rope.
“A good day’s work,” Kingsley said to Irina. “What do you think?” He pinched Blaise’s toes.
“She’s hired,” Blaise said with a wide grin. Her eyes sparkled and her skin glowed. Was there anything more beautiful in the world than a sated woman? “That was glorious.”
“Did I pass?” Irina asked Kingsley. “Am I ready for the real thing?”
“Your aim is excellent, attitude is perfect and you certainly played the part beautifully. You forgot one very important thing.”
“What thing?” Irina scowled at him. “What did I do wrong?”
Kingsley reached into his pocket and pulled out ten onehundred dollar bills. He held them out to Irina who reached for them. He pulled his hand back at the last second.
“Clients pay in advance.” He put the money back in his pocket and walked out, certain Irina would never forget that detail ever again.
He walked upstairs to his office and collapsed onto the couch by the window. Good session. Great kink. Irina would make a world-class dominatrix. With her and Felicia as his top dommes, every man in the tri-state area who had even once fantasized about feeling a woman’s boot on the back of his neck would come crawling to them, begging to be let into the club. A beautiful dream that might never come true. Fuller still wasn’t budging. Kingsley still wasn’t giving up. This staring contest had gone on long enough. One of them would have to blink.
Before Kingsley could finish his thought, Blaise burst into his office in her bathrobe.
“King—I need you. The cops are here.”
“Cops? Why?”
“Irina. She’s under arrest.”
“For what?” Kingsley grabbed his jacket and pulled it on. He raced down the stairs and found Irina in handcuffs being escorted to a waiting squad car.
“What is this?” he demanded of the officer. “What’s the charge?”
“She poisoned her husband,” the officer said. “So I hear.”
“That charge was dropped,” Kingsley said, standing between Irina and the squad car.
“Looks like they picked the charge back up again. Excuse me. I don’t want to have to arrest you, too.”
“King, it’s okay,” Irina said. “You did your best.”
“I’ll get you out,” he promised her. “Don’t talk to anyone. Not a word. I’ll call our lawyer.”
She put up no fight as the officer shoved her in the car and drove away. He watched them disappear around the block.
“Mr. Edge?” came a voice from behind him. “Kingsley Edge.”
Kingsley turned around and found a bike messenger waiting for him.
“Oui?”
“Delivery.” The boy handed him two envelopes—one large manila envelope and one small white envelope. He rode off before Kingsley could say another word.
He opened the large manila envelope first and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He f lipped through them while he walked back into the town house.
“King? What is it?”
“It’s from the health department,” he said, not believing what he was reading. “They’re shutting down the Möbius for health code violations.”
“Health code violations?” Blaise repeated. “Because of the… you know?”
The sex club in the back. Someone had tipped off the health department. And who worked at the Möbius? Who knew Irina was staying at his house?
Blaise ran her hands through her hair.
“King, what’s going on? What happened?”
Kingsley closed his eyes.
“Sam happened.”
35
“KINGSLEY, ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?” “What is it you do for a living again?” he asked, glancing
around his still-empty strip club. Was there any place in the
world more desolate or depressing than an empty strip club? Maggie glared at him from across the table.
“I’m a lawyer. Specifically, your lawyer.”
“Then, no, I’m not listening to you.”
Maggie sighed and ran her hands through her hair. She
was one of the highest paid and most respected attorneys in
all of Manhattan. But right now she looked like a beautiful if
exasperated ex-lover in a dark red suit. Which she also was. “You remember you’re paying me seven-hundred dollars
an hour for this conversation?” she asked him, the toe of her
red stiletto clicking on the f loor in irritation.
“Now I’m listening. What’s happening to my club?” Maggie capped her pen and tapped her legal pad with the
end.
“Nothing,” she said. “Unfortunately. There is no organization in the city that works slower than the health department.
And that’s on a good day.”
“And this is not a good day?”
“No, it’s not a good day,” Maggie said, ripping off a sheet of paper and tossing it in the air. He did always adore her dramatics. “All the paperwork is ‘in process,’ which is their fancy way of saying ‘we are doing nothing with this case, so sit there
and shut up.’ You must have seriously pissed someone off.” Kingsley stretched out his legs, threw his feet on to the seat
of the chair next to Maggie, and crossed his boots at the ankle. “It’s possible.”
“Oh, I know it’s possible. I used to sleep with you, remem
ber? You’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever met and, considering the only people I know are other lawyers, and I’m