West didn’t listen. “Fifty percent of something is a lot better than a hundred percent of nothing,” he said.
He has an idealistic streak, but West is practical as well. Maybe this will be okay. West and Mel are the two people I value most in this whole damn world. Hopefully, this evening doesn’t implode in my face. “Are you sure?” I persist. “I value our friendship. I don’t want to fuck that up.”
“I’ll be fine,” he says. He gives me a sideways glance. “Worry about yourself. Will you be okay with this?”
I know what he's talking about. When I was eighteen, I walked in on my girlfriend going at it with my best friend. It had been a wrenching betrayal. I’d trusted Ellie and Matthew, and in one stroke, I lost both of them.
But this situation is nothing like that one. Mel isn't cheating. She’s been perfectly straightforward; she wants both of us.
I take a sip of the Aberlour. Mel is walking back from the washroom. I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I guess, on some level, I’d been dreading that she wouldn’t return. “Yes,” I reply to West. “I’m more than okay.”
His gaze is on her too. “We’re going to do this then?”
It appears we are.
Mel comes up to us. She looks nervous. West puts his hand on her arm. “If you want to change your mind,” he says softly. “That’s always your prerogative.”
She squares her shoulders. Once again, her gaze travels from West to me, to West again. Then her lips lift in a small smile. “I’m really looking forward to this tour.”
We do the club tour. It’s all a little new to me too. I’ve been to the Club M on various open nights, but I’ve never picked up a woman at the club, and I’ve never played here. I’ve always come with a date. We’d have a drink or two, get turned on, and go somewhere else to have sex.
Not that I’ve done that in a while either. It’s been a long stretch of celibacy. I haven’t slept with a woman since. . .
Fuck me. Not since Paris.
It’s a good thing my mask conceals my expression, because I’m in shock, and I’m sure it shows on my face. Has it really been that long, and I haven’t even noticed?
The rooms at Club M vary from opulence to bare-bones accommodations. Some are set up like dungeons, others like palaces. There are even hospital examination rooms, for those into that. There’s plenty of bondage equipment: Saint Andrew’s Crosses, Y-frames, spanking benches, tables with convenient eyebolt screws to attach restraints, and sex swings. It’s all here.
“Notice the cameras?” I point them out to Mel. “It’s a Club M safety feature. Security staff monitor everything that happens here.”
I don’t know how I’m expecting her to react to that. I guess I expect her to freak out. But Mel isn’t running away scared. She looks. . . interested.
Fuck me, I’m so turned on I can’t breathe. First, a threesome. Now, maybe bondage? Amelia Ortega is full of surprises.
We enter a space that’s rather fancifully called the Romanov Room. I step in and look around. This is a good space. It’s not too hardcore. There’s a Saint Andrew’s Cross, but there’s also a bed, and of course, everything is spotlessly clean.
I put my hand on Mel’s shoulder. Her dress is strapless, and her shoulder is bare. Her skin is soft, so very soft. Her pulse hammers in her neck, and I graze my thumb over it. She’s nervous, and strangely, I’m nervous too. I don’t want to fuck this up. Whatever Mel’s looking for this evening, I want to give it to her.
“We could go back to the dance floor,” I whisper. My thumb caresses her skin. I can’t seem to stop touching her. “Or we could stay here. I know what I want, and I’m pretty sure I know what West wants. But what matters here is you. It’s your call.”
Under my fingertips, her pulse is beating like a caged bird. But when she speaks, her voice doesn’t tremble. It’s flirtatious, even.
She tilts her head up and flashes us a playful smile. “I guess the two of you are mine tonight.”
West says something to the attendant outside and shuts the door. Perfect silence falls over the room. I can’t hear anything. Not the crowd, not the music. Nothing but the sound of our breathing.
West has been silent during the tour. He speaks up for the first time. “We are, kitty cat.” His smile turns wolfish. “And tonight, you are all ours.”