Brett got up from Ryan’s lap and asked Eli, “Let me give you a tour anyway.”
“Of…the sex part?”
Ryan chuckled then excused himself. “I need to go wrangle some men. Have a good tour.”
Eli thought it strange, that Ryan was bowing out of the tour that Brett seemed to want so badly. As soon as his huge husband left, he prodded, “What’s really going on?”
Brett laughed and threaded his arm through Eli’s. “You’re smart. I just need you to see what your…employer is up to.”
“I really don’t want to know, Brett. Seriously, I don’t want to know.”
“Sure, you do, whether you know it or not. See, we had to do a background check on you.”
Eli groaned and stopped their progression down the hall. “You did?”
“Yes. Everyone who comes here. We need to know enough about you to hold over you. Yes, it sucks, but…”
“I’m used to it, Brett.” He pulled from Brett and sat on a thick antique wood bench in the hall. “I’m very much used to it. I’ve been tracked, hacked, and held under a microscope.”
As he sat next to Eli, Brett sighed hard and loud. “Most people that come here are under a microscope. That’s one reason so many like it here. Besides the initial check, everything here is private. Anything you do, say, it all seeps into the walls and disappears forever.”
“I find that hard to believe. The owners wouldn’t use what happens here to use against the patrons?”
“Sure, but just coming here is that much leverage. What the clients do in the rooms, the cells or whatever, it’s private, really. So many times, the clients talk. If we wrote it all down, we’d know more than anyone in the world about the ins and outs of leading these countries.”
He could imagine. “I used to ignore so much of what was going on even in my own country. It felt like too much, you know? And what could I do about it? I’m one guy, and I’d use some of the philosophy that I’ve studied to justify that.”
“I was much the same. I got into some trouble for a while, then tried to redeem myself, got thrown in jail because of a family member…suffice it to say, I didn’t have time to look at the bigger pictures.”
“Jail?”
“It came out well, as that was where I met and fell for Ryan. Long story. Anyway, since coming here, I have learned a lot about things I never wanted to know.”
Brett opened a door and Eli was looking down a long set of stone stairs straight down into darkness. “What the hell is this?”
“You’ll soon see. Come on.”
Eli was skeptical, still worried he’d been brought to the compound to be killed, but with the guards, the walls and all, he doubted he could escape unscathed anyway. Besides, possible murderer or not, he liked Brett.
The stairs went on a lot longer than any staircase he’d ever used, but once they got to the bottom, Eli couldn’t believe his eyes. There, under tons of earth, under the impressive compound, was a world unlike any other he’d seen.
There was a huge round room and inlaid in the stone floor were tiles that painted the sun. Eli took another few steps into the room and looked around at the walls that held torches to light the place. In between those torches were arches that led to corridors.
“It’s like the halls all around here are the rays of the sun.”
“That’s what it’s meant to look like. If you could see it from above, that is.” Brett came up beside him, smiling as he pointed. “Each arch leads to cells or rooms for the slaves, the masters, playrooms, dorm style common areas for the slaves and masters.”
“That’s why your husband calls himself the High Master.”
“Yes. It’s an official title here. I’m High slave. I’m above everyone except Ryan.”
“Wow. This is amazing.”
“You should see it when there are a lot of people here. We have some spectacular orgies.”
As casual as he said that, Eli knew he’d become numb to the sexuality of the place, but for Eli, it truly made him blush. He felt the heat breaking out from his face down to his toes.
“Good to know…”