The Dark Arts

by Kitty Thomas

  8

  He hadn’t specified what he wanted her to wear, so she’d put the jeans and black cami top back on. This time, she added a bra.

  Quill stepped into the gallery looking GQ in all-black business-casual. The natural light grew weak as the sun began its descent.

  He took one look at what she was wearing and shook his head. “No.”

  “I-I’ll change.”

  He stopped her with a hand on her waist before she could go search for something more appropriate—however he might define that. His hands slid up the back of her top and unhooked the bra. He removed it like a magic trick and tossed the offending article of clothing to the ground.

  “No bra. You were happy enough to display those pert nipples earlier in the day, so you’ll display them now.”

  Whatever frenzy had overtaken him, it couldn’t be good.

  “But... where are we going?”

  “Out.”

  That much had already been made clear.

  Quill dug through a box of her things until he found a black skirt. It flared out in a way that was a bit too cute and young for her and ended a couple of inches above her knees.

  “Put this on. No panties.”

  Saskia changed clothes, too nervous to question him. He dug through more of her boxes and found a pair of high-heeled black leather boots that came just over her calves. She hadn’t known what she was thinking when she’d bought those. She’d tried them once with this skirt, but the ensemble just looked too slutty. Quill had caught up with her in Venice before she’d had a chance to return them to the store.

  “And these,” he said, tossing the boots at her.

  “Please, can I wear panties, Master?”

  “No.”

  “What about the bandages?” She would be mortified for someone to see them. He had to let her wear pants or something to cover it.

  He appraised her with a quick once-over and a dark smile. “Where we’re going, I want everyone to know you’ve been on your knees.”

  She didn’t bother asking again where exactly that was.

  He practically dragged her outside to the Bentley.

  Marcus waited next to it. He gave her a quick once-over. The desire in his eyes was unmistakable. “Sir, do you want me to...”

  Quill held up a hand. “No. I’ve got it.” He opened the passenger door for her and got in on the other side.

  The car buzzed with his energy as they pulled onto the main road, leaving Marcus behind.

  “Master, am I being punished?”

  “No.”

  “But where...?”

  They were only a couple of streets down from the house when he pulled onto the shoulder and turned toward her, his face serious as a eulogy.

  “Saskia, do not speak again until you are specifically addressed for the rest of the night.”

  She shrank back as he started the car again and continued to wherever he was taking them. He could say it wasn’t a punishment all he wanted, but it felt like a punishment. He seemed angry, though she wasn’t sure if she could differentiate between anger and simple intensity from Quill. It all seemed to jumble and blend together into one living, breathing thing that threatened to pull her under.

  They left the city. When they moved onto a long patch of lonely isolated road in the desert, Saskia started to cry. Why was he taking her out here in the middle of nowhere? Was he going to kill her? Leave her on the side of the road like an unwanted mutt? In the middle of the desert, abandonment would be a death sentence.

  But surely there was some reason beyond vulnerability and last-minute humiliation that he’d dressed her this way, some purpose he had planned that she still might survive.

  His hand moved to her knee in an odd gesture of comfort. “There is no need for you to cry. I just want some peace and quiet for a while.”

  Saskia nodded and wiped the tears away. His hand resting calmly on her leg, and those few words did inexplicably soothe her, but that was only until they reached the warehouse.

  It was a couple of hours outside the city, perhaps a little farther. The large boxy building couldn’t hide behind trees. There were none. The landscape was utterly barren. A high fence wrapped around the warehouse to obscure the parking lot.

  A sign on the outer gate read, “Mr. Fizzy Pop Bottling Company”.

  Saskia had never heard of any beverage called “Mr. Fizzy Pop”. It sounded like a fake product and a fake company.

  Quill stopped the car just outside the gate and left it running. He got out and entered a long numbered code into a keypad. The gate opened.

  Inside, the parking lot was full. Nice cars. Mostly black. Definitely not bottling company factory workers. Either it was a company that had once existed and the sign had been left, or Mr. Fizzy Pop existed only in someone’s fevered imagination.

  He parked near the front in a handicapped spot that she guessed he wasn’t going to get towed or reprimanded for taking. “Let’s go.”

  The temptation to ask questions or plead with him to take her home was intense. But if she wasn’t being punished now, she was very sure she would be if she spoke when he’d specifically told her to be quiet.

  Quill came around the car and helped her out. He shut the door and pressed her against the side of the Bentley. He pulled her top up, and sucked first one nipple into his mouth and then the other, until they were fully hardened.

  “That’s better,” he said, pulling her shirt back down.

  As if she weren’t already self-conscious with the lack of bra and panties. At least there was no easy way to advertise the missing panties, short of ripping her skirt off—which might still happen.

  He took her hand and led her to the side entrance, the only place with light—a single bare bulb that creaked and swung lightly on the cool desert breeze.

  Sinister clichés abounded tonight.

  A bouncer-looking guy stood at the entrance and nodded. “Kane,” he said.

  What? Who?

  Quill nodded back. “Jace.”

  The bouncer raised a brow at Saskia, his gaze drifting briefly to her bandaged knees, but he refrained from comment. Why the hell had that guy just called her master, Kane? How many aliases did this man have?

  They went inside to a small, dimly lit lobby. Quill turned to her. “I go by many names,” he said by way of non-explanation. “It’s still Master here, to you. So you won’t have to keep them straight. You’re welcome.”

  It seemed he spent his entire life creating bubble upon bubble of carefully wrapped identity so that he could be all the variations of himself he wanted without one encroaching upon another, bringing the whole fragile house of cards down. Whoever he was as Kane must also be a threat to Niche Industries.

  By now, Saskia was unsure if Lachlan Niche was even his real name. Perhaps there was another layer under that layer that she wasn’t privy to. That maybe no one was privy to.

  When you thought about it, his real name sounded kind of invented, too. What were the odds someone who created niche computer communications tech would just happen to have the last name Niche? And Lachlan was a Scottish name. He didn’t look Scottish to her. Though she wouldn’t object if he decided to don a kilt.

  The door that led into the main part of the warehouse burst open, sending loud, deep thrumming music pouring into the lobby. A couple of blonde girls squealed: “Kane!!” They ran to him and practically smothered him in hugs.

  He raised a brow.

  “Sorry,” they said together taking a few steps back and bowing their heads. “Sir.”

  They were about college age and in that Girls Gone Wild phase of life. They wore what amounted to thick black ribbons that wrapped around each of their bodies in criss-crosses, coyly covering them in all the necessary places. Saskia suddenly felt modest by comparison, and let out a relieved breath.

  One of the girls glanced at Saskia, sizing her up. Glossy red lips formed into a pout. “I can’t believe you collared someone!”

  “I wasn’t look
ing,” Quill said. “She fell into my lap.” An obvious lie, since he’d more-or-less stalked her and had been setting her up for this fall for months.

  The blonde batted her eyes at him. “But I fell into your lap that time, and you didn’t put a collar on me.”

  More pouting.

  It actually wasn’t a huge mystery why he never put a collar on her, but Saskia wisely kept her mouth shut. The last thing she wanted was for Kane... um... Quill... Lachlan... whoever the hell he was... to punish her in front of these women. In some weird, fucked-up way, she wanted him to be proud of her.

  “Go on back inside. I’ll play with you both in a bit,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir.” They turned and giggled their way back into the main room.

  Quill’s attention returned to Saskia, as if to survey her reaction. She wiped her face of all expression, not willing for him to know anything she’d just felt.

  In the car all she’d been was terrified. Submissive feelings hadn’t been at the forefront of her brain. But somehow, in this element, things were different. She’d expected to feel like a sideshow in what she was wearing, but now it felt like camouflage. She never would have blended here in normal clothes.

  This was obviously a private club, probably not a lot different from the few kinky parties she’d casually attended with friends in the past. She was almost a hundred percent certain that the people here would think she was with Quill of her own free will—that she’d consented to being his collared slave or pet or sub or whatever language was the current trend.

  There might be rescue here—if she could get away from him long enough. If she could figure out who might not keep Quill’s secrets. But if he went down, she went down. She had no illusions about that.

  “Before we go in,” Quill said, “let me make my rules clear. You will do something with one of my friends tonight. I don’t care what. It doesn’t have to be full-blown sex. But there will be a negotiation, and he will pay me. I have friends here who get a thrill out of paying for it. It’s their kink, and I’m happy to oblige them. You will be, too. Are we clear?”

  Everything inside Saskia felt wound into a tight ball. It was anything but clear.

  “Yes, Master.”

  His lips brushed against her cheek. “Good. Relax, pet. We’re just opening a door and walking through it.”

  Maybe for him that was what they were doing. For her, she was making compromises with her own soul. Did she want him? Yes. Should she? No. Did she want this? This thing that was about to happen? She had no idea, but if she didn’t do whatever was asked of her, it wouldn’t end well. Of that much she was certain.

  But there were so many witnesses. Surely she’d be able to find an ally and escape. But the same ugly question continued to bubble to the surface... escape to where? To what? What kind of life lay beyond his grasp, and did she even want any of the available options?

  Quill had no idea of the conflict that churned through her as he opened the door, his hand resting on her lower back, guiding her through. It made her want to move closer for his protection, even though she felt certain he was about to throw her to some wolves.

  Saskia turned back and gripped his arms. She must resemble a panicked deer. “W-wait... you said I didn’t have to have sex... I didn’t think you could do that anyway at these places.”

  “This is a privately owned space—by invitation only. It’s no different than if I invited everyone to my house. Anyone can have sex with anyone here, but I told you, tonight, you don’t have to go that far.”

  He backed her into the club. Surely someone was going to notice that. But if these were all his friends, there was no way to know if anyone would help her even if she wanted an out. Who was she kidding? She still considered achieving a spot in his bed as some sort of life goal. Being collared by the real life Joseph Quill was like a hot fever dream. Even if she’d had little actual say in the deal.

  “If anything happens that you really can’t handle and you need it to stop, say Red. If they don’t stop, I will stop them.”

  Off her confused expression, he said, “I told you, you’d have limits and boundaries with everyone but myself and Marcus. But you’d better choose those limits carefully. Don’t throw that word around just to flex your limited free will.”

  Translation: it would have to be genuinely traumatic, or she’d be in trouble when they got home.

  The first room just past the lobby was a large, wide open space. It looked very much like the warehouse or factory it had been labeled as. The walls were a corrugated metal. Bare rafters were exposed. But the lighting was more like a dance club. At eye level, a mirrored band about two feet tall wrapped itself around the room.

  The last thing Saskia wanted to do here was look into her own eyes or a reflection of anyone else’s.

  A large conveyor belt wound around the room with enough distance between it and the walls for various restraints and bondage equipment at the edges of the room.

  The conveyor belt moved at a grindingly slow pace, not fast enough to manufacture or bottle anything. It was easily wide enough for a person to lay spread-eagled on—which was what a few were doing as the machine took them on a tour of the room. Others sat at small tables next to the belt, touching those on the conveyor as they passed.

  These weren’t casual touches, but lewd groping that everyone on this fun house ride expected from the moment they got on.

  Restraints were configured into an upper bar that moved with the belt, allowing people to be bound while standing on the large machine.

  A few girls weren’t bound, they’d just jumped on and grabbed one of the upper bars, using it to steady themselves as they swayed to the pulsing beats that seemed to cover the entire warehouse in fuzzy unreality.

  The lush pounding of the music vibrated through Saskia. It wasn’t that it was loud, it was that the bass was cranked high enough that it wasn’t so much a sound anymore as a feeling.

  This building was so far removed from the world she knew, so cloaked in darkness and drumbeats, that it felt like anything that happened here wouldn’t count. And maybe that was what made the space in her mind open up a little to accept Quill’s demands.

  He guided her to another door. “Let me show you the rest.”

  From here, there was a hallway with a black-and-white checked parquet floor. The walls were a striking cherry red. On them hung artistic fetish photographs done in black and white with dramatic lighting shining over each image. It was the only illumination in the hallway.

  Saskia’s heels clicked sharply on the floor as they moved down the hall. The end of the hallway up ahead had another art photo, but it looked as if the hall just stopped in a dead end. Maybe there was a secret panel or something. Anything seemed possible here.

  Quill stretched his arm across the front of her body, blocking her. “Careful. I need to lead you down. With those boots, you might get hurt otherwise.”

  Saskia gripped hold of the concern he seemed to offer. Now that she looked more closely, she could see the hallway didn’t end. There was a large square opening in the floor, that turned directly into stairs that spiraled down to another lower level.

  He went down a few steps first, then reached up for her. She took his hand and let him guide her until she could grip onto the railing herself. The same music piped in down below. The hallway had buffered and muted it, but in the underground space, it came roaring back to full life.

  The lower level appeared smaller than the upper, but the activity was more intense, which surprised her, given the conveyor belt where strangers could grope and finger anyone who moved past.

  There was more extreme-looking bondage equipment down here as well as a long row of large, sturdy wrought iron cages. They looked like giant old-fashioned bird cages. A few were empty, but most of them held a nude woman, each wearing a collar of a different style. Their hands were bound behind them, and they knelt inside their cages, legs spread. They were each blindfolded.

  Others, mostly
men—but a few women as well—approached and stroked them through the cage bars.

  “There’s a bit more,” Quill said, taking her hand and leading her past the bird cages.

  Saskia looked back over her shoulder and saw a man giving money to another man beside one of the cages.

  “Come along, Saskia, that’s none of our business.”

  Surely, if they were doing it out in the open, it was everyone’s business.

  He took her to another door and another hallway. But instead of pictures on red walls, this one was painted solid black and had nothing but doors. “These are the theme rooms.”

  The first door looked like a school room and had paddles and rulers and spanking furniture. Shackles came out of a desk so one could easily be bent over and fucked. In fact, someone was being bent over and fucked. She had dark blonde hair pulled into pigtails with red ribbons tying them in place, a white cropped top, and a short plaid skirt. She wore white socks that climbed to her knees and Mary Jane shoes. A pair of virginal white panties were down around her ankles.

  On the blackboard, she’d written lines: “This girl will be a good slut for Sir from now on.” They were numbered down the board in two rows, to fifty. There was still chalk dust on her hands.

  “Kane,” a well-muscled blond man said, not bothering to pause his thrusting. He looked a bit like a Viking. Did no one here have any shame?

  “I apologize. This door wasn’t locked,” Quill said.

  The stranger laughed. “It’s not locked on purpose. She likes to get caught, don’t you, precious?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said breathlessly.

  The man thrust once more hard into her and groaned as he came. Saskia looked away, too uncomfortable with the display to stare openly.

  “May we?” Quill asked, when the man pulled out of her and zipped up his pants.

  “Be my guest. My slut is your slut.”

  The man stroked her back, and she mewled in response. He stepped away, and Quill led Saskia to the bound woman.

  “Touch her,” Quill said.