I looked at him, thinking how easily he could become my next pathetic, hopeless crush. He didn’t just set off my Dom radar, he exploded it, smashed it to pieces. I rubbed my wrists in an unconscious gesture that became much more conscious when he looked down at my hands.
One cup of coffee, more time to talk… Who knew what might develop?
No, too masochistic, even for me. I turned away and tugged at one of the bows on my socks. “I’ve already put you to too much trouble, Mr.—what’s your name again? I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. St. Clair. Fort St. Clair.”
“Fort, yeah. Sorry. I can take the subway. It stops right by my place.”
“The subway? You’re sure?” He slid a look over my wrinkled dress and day-old makeup. “So, just reminding you that you don’t have any money, although I can give you money if your heart’s set on the subway…”
Shit. My purse, my phone, my money. I covered my face with my hands. “This is fucked up. Okay, I’ll accept a ride, but I feel so bad about all this.”
“It’s all right. I’ve never seen a plaid rabbit playing a violin before.” He stretched and stood, and I thought, he is too fucking gorgeous for words. “We can leave whenever you’re ready. Oh, and there’s a guest bathroom there if you want to use it. I should have told you that before.”
He pointed to a door on the other side of the room and left.
Okay, Jules, pull yourself together so you can get out of this man’s hair, and maybe make a long-overdue appointment with a therapist.
I got up and limped over to the bathroom, and stepped into a window-walled chamber of sun overlooking the city. Jesus, how high up was Fort’s apartment? He had to live near the top of the Blackwell, in one of the shiny glass penthouses.
I backed away from the view, my stomach churning, and turned to the mirror. I looked awful. Silly, to entertain thoughts of Fort and me, when I was lying in his bed looking like a sad, hungover clown. The eye makeup I’d painstakingly applied last night was smeared up into my eyebrows and down my cheeks. All that remained of my lipstick was an outer lining of uneven burgundy. My eyes were swollen and red, and my curly hair looked like a ransacked bird’s nest.
All of this contrasted with his spotless marble and teak bathroom, making me feel worse. I turned on the burnished gold faucet and used his French-milled hand soap to wash off what makeup I could. My mouth tasted like death, but a timid pull of the nearest drawer revealed packaged toothbrushes and travel-sized tubes of toothpaste. I brushed my teeth and debated taking a quick shower, because the fancy, rainshower spout looked so inviting. In the end, everything was too clean and perfect, and I didn’t want to sully his spotless white towels.
At least I looked slightly more presentable when I walked out of the bedroom and down the hall to his living room. He acknowledged the change in my appearance with a quick once-over. A sign of interest? Should I let him know I was submissive and available?
God, no.
I was finished chasing after cool and unattainable men. Last night was a low point. Waking up cuffed to a bed in a stranger’s home—even if it was a gorgeous stranger and a gorgeous home—was a wakeup call I couldn’t ignore.
“You ready?” he asked. He’d cleaned up too, although he hadn’t shaved off his stubble. His navy sweater and well-fitted jeans almost stole my resolve, but I collected myself and nodded.
“I’m ready. Thank you.”
As I expected, his car was sporty, fast, and loud. A uniformed valet brought it up from his private parking area under the building. Although I worked for one of the preeminent artists in the city, I wasn’t used to such ostentatious displays of wealth. Goodluck was filthy rich, but he didn’t have a car because he lived more like a hobo than a millionaire.
Even if Goodluck had a car, he wouldn’t have driven it like Fort, so smoothly and confidently, his hand working the gearshift in stop-and-go traffic like he didn’t even have to think about it. He kept up a polite stream of conversation about the New York art scene and my experiences as Goodluck’s manager. He told me he worked at his father’s company, Sinclair Jewelers, a global luxury firm. That explained the penthouse and flashy car.
When he stopped outside the Black Wall, we admired the rabbit mural for a moment together, but I didn’t invite him inside or make any overtures to keep in touch. He didn’t make any overtures either, just smiled one last time as I left his car to do my walk of shame to the lobby door. I pulled it closed behind me, letting the clutter and kitschiness of the Black Wall’s communal ground floor surround me.
I belonged here in this colorful, comfortable place. The marble penthouse was a fantasy…and so was Fort St. Clair.
Chapter Three: Fort
I hadn’t told Juliet, but I’d started my kink life in clubs like Underworld. I wasn’t ashamed of it, but I’d quickly moved on to harder places, and harder types of pain. I’d met Devin soon after I graduated college, at a Manhattan munch—I used to go to those, too—and recognized a kindred spirit. Dev introduced me to Milo through a submissive partner they shared, and Milo was the portal for both of us into The Gallery.
Since then, The Gallery was my standing Saturday night date.
The Gallery wasn’t your typical BDSM club. It was a kinky stronghold you could only join through word of mouth, a stone clock tower and dome at the top of the Bridgeport building, which was, incidentally, half owned by Milo’s family, who were famous Italian instrument makers.
The original Gallery owners banded together to buy the undeveloped clock tower when it came on the market, meaning to use it as a private men’s club. They renovated it Versailles-style, did it up with rococo sculptures, fleur-de-lys carpets, and carved, gold-painted doors. A circular staircase twisted up to the dome, into a stone chamber where the early members had established a dungeon-like sex chamber.
Now the whole three-floor establishment was kinky as fuck. There were twenty to thirty members at any given time, as privileged invitees joined or drifted away. It cost a small fortune to become a member, but for me, it was money well spent. Membership was restricted to Dominant males, and each member was allowed to bring in any woman he liked, as long as that woman agreed to be discreet, follow the rules, and adhere to the dress code: exhibitionist lingerie and a collar that marked her as communal property. The Gallery was about as gothic and perverse as a legal, private BDSM club in New York City could be.
So it was strange that I was sitting on the sidelines in the middle of prime time, during the height of screams and scenes, thinking about last night’s encounter with Juliet.
Encounter, was that even the word for it? Why had I noticed her, and felt so strongly that I had to help her? Her ruined makeup and tangled hair had triggered something protective in me, to the point where I’d let her spend the night in my guest room. Yeah, and you brought out the cuffs, even though you had no real reason to think she needed to be restrained.
Fine, I’d had a little fun with her. It must have been because she was new and different. All kinds of women came to The Gallery as guests of their sponsors, but all of them were a certain type—wild, fearless, and masochistic.
They were also all very familiar to me.
As for myself, I hadn’t sponsored any women in a while. The last woman I’d invited hadn’t enjoyed the experience, and threatened to report all of us to the police, which would have been grounds for getting my ass permanently banned from the club. Dev still teased me about it, but it wasn’t funny. My bad taste in subs was becoming a thin
g.
Maybe that was why I’d felt drawn to Juliet last night. Maybe she seemed safe, since she was an Underworld kind of submissive. No risk of entanglement, since she had very little to offer me. The whole Black Wall thing, her artist boss, it made her interesting, but it didn’t make her a hardcore sub. If an Underworld Dom could reduce her to tears and drunkenness, that was a bad sign for our compatibility.
Dev came over and greeted me, interrupting my thoughts. A thin, blonde sub trailed him, preening in her Gallery uniform and leash. We were both in uniform, too—dark suits and ties. Our gentlemanly attire was part of the power imbalance, a contrast to the scanty, slutty garments the slave girls wore.
“Hey, man,” he said, sitting next to me on the couch. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah. Haven’t gotten started yet.”
Across from us, a woman wailed through a flogging, dancing on her toes. In the bench area, a bent-over submissive’s mouth and ass were being plowed by two Doms.
“You never made it to Allie’s last night,” he said over the flogged woman’s screams.
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I just said goodbye to last night’s ‘good deed’ a few hours ago.”
“What? You kept that chick with you all night?” He blinked. “You didn’t sleep with her?”
“Do I usually sleep with drunk, emo subs from Underworld?”
He chuckled, giving me that one. “What was her deal?” he asked.
I looked around The Gallery, and at Hanna, the girl at Devin’s feet, and decided I didn’t want to talk about Juliet here. “She didn’t live in the Blackwell,” I said, summing up. “Turns out she lives in a place called the Black Wall.”
“The Black Wall? Never heard of it, but it sounds awful.”
“It’s an artists’ complex in Fort Greene, built out of shipping containers. I saw it when I dropped her off this morning.”
He gave me a look. “How chivalrous of you to drive her home.”
“She didn’t have any money for the subway. Don’t be a dick.”