by Grant, Livia
Except it wasn’t the third floor. It was the second. A woman stepped in with a small stack of manila envelopes under one arm and her own phone in hand. She gave him a stiff little smile, and then turned to face the doors. There were no moves to punch in another floor after she glanced and saw ‘three’ was already lit up.
He gripped his phone tighter as the car rose again.
The woman’s clothing told him she did not work in this building. Blue jeans—fashionably torn in places—an uncollared blouse, light tennis shoes. She scrolled through something on her phone—a social media site, his discreet glances told him—and shifted her weight from one hip to the other. A mess of sun-bleached blonde hair fell past her waist, under no semblance of control whatsoever.
She didn’t look his way again when the doors parted on the third floor but strode off down the corridor in the opposite direction from his office. His best guess was document courier. Probably got herself a useless art degree and then realized she couldn’t eat the paintings.
Hippies.
Anson shook his head and made for his office. His need to catalog people was something he’d learned at a young age not to do out loud, but it kept him feeling like he had a handle on his surroundings. Like everything was in control.
His space was as he’d left it. Desk clear of papers. Blinds on the window half raised. Computer asleep.
He would not be logging onto a government computer to look at this BDSM club email some more. His chair swiveled under him as he took his seat and woke up his phone screen again before punching in his six-digit passcode.
There was an attachment. A waiver.
Smart.
He opened the PDF and began poring through the tiny text. He’d need to look at this again at home, but he nodded to himself at what he saw so far, lower lip jutting in reserved approval.
Nothing I wouldn’t put in there. Nice and tight. Almost no loopholes.
His phone started buzzing and a contact lit up the screen, taking over from the waiver PDF. ‘Matthew Stringer’, it read.
For the love of—does he already know?
“Morrow.” He answered the same way he always did, regardless of who was calling.
“Well?” Matthew didn’t bother with greetings. Those were for constituents. “Did they tell you yet?”
Anson made a face into his empty office. “You tell me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You pressured me into this thing,” Anson said, “and now here you are, calling me up five minutes after I get the email.”
“Well?” None of his shaming ever deterred Matthew. Not in college, and not twenty years later.
Anson sighed. “They approved me.”
“Fuck yeah, they did.” There was some bang of noise from the other end of the call. Probably a palm slapping some innocent nearby furniture. The representative from Maryland was about as subtle as a fireworks display.
“You better not have had anything to do with this,” said Anson.
“What do I need to have to do with it?” Matthew asked. “You’re a Senior Revenue Agent. They don’t want to piss off the IRS.”
“First of all,” Anson said, turning in his chair to poke a finger into the soil of the juniper bonsai on the windowsill, “I’m not ‘the’ IRS. And second, there are plenty of other members holding influential positions, Congressman.”
“Whatever, man. You’re going to draw a name and find someone to play with for a change, and it’s going to be great. Stop sitting in the corner sipping your lemon water and staring at the rest of us like a fucking sociopath.”
Anson let out a measured breath through his nose. “Remind me again how you ever got into politics?”
“Because I’m a crowd pleaser.” The charming grin nearly blared through the phone. “Speaking of which, I have an interview in about ten minutes. I’ll call you back.”
“Enjoy.”
The two men ended the call, and Anson woke up his computer. Logged in. While he waited for everything to load, he reached into one of his lower desk drawers and retrieved a bottle of water. With a careful hand, he trickled a small measure around the roots of the juniper and assessed the arrangement of tiny branches. Nothing needed pruning today. He put away the rest of the water in its spot next to the copy of How to Stop Worrying and Start Living—yet another ‘gift’ from the eternally optimistic Matthew—and shut the desk drawer.
Bonsai were the opposite of the chaos that was people. He allowed himself this one in his office, but he had another dozen or so at home. All different species of tree. A big ficus. A delicate Japanese maple. They accepted his guidance and care. They grew in a slow, quiet beauty that never ran wild or piqued his anxiety like so much of the rest of the world.
Like this coming Valentine’s Day was about to do.
As he opened the software for his work email, the yellow sticky note hanging from the lower left edge of his monitor caught his eye.
‘Do one thing every day that scares you,’ it read.
Just because it was probably right didn’t mean he had to like it. And this Roulette night ought to count for several days’ worth of things that scared him. Or a month.
It was still over a week away. Plenty of time to talk himself out of it.
Chapter 2
Anson
There were luxury chain stores on 31st, but none of them would have been candidates for agreeing to host a back door into a sex club. That honor fell to an occult bookstore next to an alley.
Neon in the front windows touted the availability of psychic readings—Past! Present! Future!—and the crowded display cases and shelves bristled with all manner of superstitious paraphernalia. A soundtrack of some quiet mountain stream mixed with soft piano notes came piping into the over-scented space from hidden speakers, and it was about the only thing Anson found tolerable as he made his way to the curtain in the back.
People loved relying on little totems. Little charms to bring them ‘luck.’ When unpleasantness happened, they could blame it on ‘energies’ they should have ‘cleansed’, or the stars, when the reality was, they had no idea what the causal factor was, and this made them feel out of control. And the idea of luck could help them relinquish some of that desire for control without having to manage uncomfortable feelings about it.
Anson Morrow did not believe in luck. That wasn’t how probability worked. If a coin toss didn’t go your way nine times, it wasn’t any more likely to do so on the tenth, no matter what special crystals a body wore or candles they burned.
And so, what’s the probability you’ll get paired with someone who won’t safe word after just talking to you for five minutes?
He already had his card out to show the big man named Luís, who checked memberships just behind the curtain. Had anyone ever tried to get past him? Would anyone dare? Anson kept fit enough, but he was nowhere near the size of this guy.
The man shined a small UV light over his card and nodded as he handed it back. “Mr. Morrow.”
Anson nodded back and tucked the black plastic rectangle into a pants pocket as Luís pulled open the door to let him pass through to the stairs. The smell of patchouli left him behind, and Anson breathed deep.
The tunnel running under the alley and back toward Black Light was a concrete chute propelling him from the sterile world of corporate tax returns and trading activities audits toward all the sticky strobing and grinding of raw human desire of which Anson sat on the periphery.
He thought he knew what he wanted but had too much anxiety to go hunting for it. Not in any real sort of way. It was always too much risk. Too likely it would end the same way it had the last time he’d dared to play, and that had been six years and four months ago.
She’d left in tears. In the weeks that had followed, Anson had started snapping at his only friend more than usual. Matthew had gotten him drunk—one of only two times in his life, both of which, his friend had been responsible—and dragged the more pertinent details out of h
im. Tried to assure him it hadn’t been his fault. ‘She just wasn’t ready. You did everything right; there’s no point in going into a shell over it.’
It hadn’t mattered. For someone who refused to buy into superstitions, he’d also done a great job of refusing logic.
Just because you had a problem with one partner, doesn’t mean you’re going to have a problem with every partner.
He tried not to let Matthew’s words make him sour as he approached the second door that led to the locker room. The man was right. Anson just didn’t like that the whole thing was trying to make him have emotions, which were rarely useful. Emotions were always a mess. Numbers he could put in columns and understand.
The only way he’d get through tonight would be to keep the things he could control at the forefront of his mind. He could control himself, including his reactions to people and events. And to some degree, unless the wheel paired him with a real brat, he could control his sub for the night.
You know you can’t control other people, Anson.
He pulled open the door and stepped into the dim lighting of the locker room. Even through the walls, he could already hear music thumping from inside Black Light proper. If this didn’t count as doing ‘the one thing that scared him’ today, he didn’t know what would.
“Mr. Morrow.” The security guard, Daniel, was already greeting him, even as Anson shrugged his way out of his coat. It did not fail to impress Anson that the man was able to remember so many different members’ names.
“I see you’re on the Roulette list tonight.” The guard’s tone as he looked down to consult some reference atop his podium was far warmer than the more serious Luís back at the first door.
“So it would seem,” said Anson, handing over his membership card for a second time, along with his driver’s license.
Daniel verified both and handed them back for Anson to slip into his wallet for the night. “Locker forty-six, and there’s a two-drink max for Roulette participants this evening.”
Forty-six. Not great. Not terrible. Prime, if you divide in half.
“Noted.” Anson cracked a dry smile as he folded his coat down to where it would fit in the locker. The security guard might remember his face from this room, but he clearly hadn’t watched Anson inside the club: he drank water and that was it, no matter what Matthew tried to push on him.
His phone went next into the locker. The club took extensive measures to ensure member privacy, but it made Anson shake his head every time he left his phone out here. He had no interest in taking pictures of anyone or anything inside, no. The disparity just always struck him at the level of worry people reserved for the possibility anyone would discover their kinks, when what should really terrify them was other people discovering the wild bullshit listed on their tax returns.
But Anson Morrow did not have the same sorts of worries as other people.
He shut the locker.
“Good luck in there tonight!” said Daniel, unfazed as always by Anson’s spartan responses.
“Thank you.” It was the proper thing to say. People didn’t appreciate him being a pedant about things like ‘luck.’
A wall of music hit him in the face when he opened the final door to the club. Or at least, more music that he was used to, which was none. There wasn’t a live DJ yet—Anson was half an hour early—but the sound system throbbed and skittered a suggestive trance over the glass and neon of Black Light, all the same.
Bodies packed the space already; far more than an average night. He scanned the high-top tables, seats at the bar, even the chairs in front of the stage—every place to sit was occupied. People stood clustered around groups of dungeon furniture, drinks in hand, laughing, talking. Sizing each other up. There were subs who already knelt, Doms already trailing fingers in their hair. Up on the stage, the roulette wheels gleamed in place, a conspicuous pair of new additions for the evening.
“Excuse us.”
Anson snapped out of his cataloging of the space at the sound of a male voice behind his shoulder. A couple had come through the door from the locker room, and he hadn’t made it more than five steps into the club.
“Sorry.” He moved to one side and let them pass, still unsure in this crowd where he was going to find a place to—
Someone was waving at him from a high-top. Making familiar eye contact.
That someone was Matthew.
And he’s here early? Sign of the apocalypse.
Anson made his way over to the congressman, his mouth firming up into a line as he had to squeeze and sidle past shifting bodies. There was enough room at the small table for him to stand, but if there had been additional stools, someone had nicked them already.
“You can’t seriously be here to watch me,” Anson said over the music.
Matthew tilted a tumbler that was now mostly ice at him and grinned. “I’m here to watch you show up, son. Make sure you don’t panic and back out.” He downed the last of the liquid just as a server materialized, tableside.
“Another, sir?”
“Absolutely.” Matthew flashed her his politician’s smile with a keen edge of flirtation and slid the glass toward her on its little black napkin. She retrieved it and turned to Anson.
“And for you, sir?”
“Water,” he said, before his friend could try to jump in and liquor him up. “With lemon, if possible.”
“I’ll bring those right back for you.” She let her eyes twinkle on Matthew again before bustling off.
“Well, I didn’t back out.” Anson stated the obvious. “I’m here. And if this isn’t the stupidest thing you’ve ever talked me into doing...” He slipped his right hand into his pants pocket to touch the comfort of nitrile gloves, there if he needed them.
And if the night continued as intended, he would. He’d been wise to bring more than one pair.
Matthew shot him a derisive puff of air. “I talked you into way stupider stuff in college. This isn’t even”—his eyes turned up to scan his own memories—“top five.”
“Yes. Well. We were both in our early twenties.”
“Listen. You keep playing the same games, you’re gonna keep winning the same prizes, man.” The representative from Maryland leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Tonight is perfect. You’re going to get paired with someone who—at a bare minimum—is motivated to play, with a stranger, and only has a handful of hard limits. The world is your oyster.”
Anson humphed, watching the crowd. “And you’re going to irritate a pearl out of me before the end of the night.”
“That’s my jolly tax man!” Matthew slapped his arm, jostling him, just as the server returned with their drinks. His friend offered a bill between two fingers to the woman, only to pluck it back with a wolfish grin when she reached. She snagged it on the second try with a musical laugh, and Anson imagined from the way she switched her hips on the walk away, she’d be topless in the congressman’s limo before tomorrow morning.
“Do me a favor,” Anson said. “Just don’t come stare at me during my scenes, will you? Find somewhere else to be.”
“Don’t worry, I’m trying.” Matthew’s eyes still followed the server around the room.
“You know,” said Anson, taking a sip of his water, “there are plenty of people to play with here who aren’t employees.”
“You worry about you, my friend. That young lady wants to get spanked by a congressman, and who am I to get in the way of her dreams?”
Anson made a face. “You need help.”
“You need help.” The other man took a draw from his second drink and set it back down. “That’s why you’re getting on that stage tonight. Come on. What did you put down for hard limits?”
If Matthew thought to jar him, he was off track. Why should Anson’s preferences embarrass him? They were mere facts. “Water sports,” he said. “Blood play.”
“Pff. Obvious.”
Anson shrugged. Those two would be obvious to anyone who’d known him more than a day
. He finished the list: “Role play.” The club had allowed up to four, but those had been the only choices to make his teeth grind.
“Role play.” Matthew’s brows popped up. “Really.”
A seed had descended from the lemon wedge to the bottom of his glass. Anson swished it around and contemplated fishing it out. His lip curled without his permission. “I don’t need to be someone else,” he told his friend. “It’s enough of a struggle just to be me in a scene. I can only keep so many plates spinning.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky and your sub’ll have a thing for socially aloof sadists who are anal enough to have white carpet in their house.”
“Remind me why we’re still friends.”
“Because you’d never do a damn fun thing without my bad influence,” said Matthew.
One of the dungeon monitors turned sideways to slide past their table—a huge man, for whom Anson had overheard the apt nickname ‘Muscles’ during previous visits—his hand only just touching a petite woman’s shoulder as he pointed toward the roulette setup on stage. She nodded, a waterfall of hair rippling down her back, lit purple and pink from the neon. The tasseled ends led his eye to the short hem of a dark skirt, out from under which hung a long foxtail. Anson had no doubts as to the means of its anchor.
He took another sip of his water.
“There’s the problem,” he said to Matthew. “I think your idea of ‘fun’ things and mine are on different planets.”
His friend gave a smug chuckle. “Whatever you say, fox hunter.”
Anson snapped his gaze away from the woman still asking the monitor questions.
A younger man had stepped up onstage and was making precise adjustments to the sound equipment. He scooped half a pair of bulky headphones up to an ear while his other hand danced between a laptop and some other interface Anson couldn’t see from his vantage.
It was almost time.
Others had seen the DJ turned MC and were congregating around the stage. Anson’s tongue stuck dry to the roof of his mouth, and he polished off his water in an icy gulp.
