by Jessica Love
“Somebody leak? Or ask you for my references?”
“Remember when I was late to talk to you after the Daddy Williams fiasco?”
“You were having a drink with Max Moore.”
“Moore wanted to talk about a merger of firms, under his letterhead but I would come in as full partner,” Tony said.
My heart sank. That would mean I would be at the same firm as Mark. And I knew that would create problems, even if I didn’t yet know how. The thought of Max Moore disquieted me, too.
“What did you tell him?” I asked, tensing.
“That I was honored, that I would think about it,” Tony said.
“And?”
“I’m offering you a greater percentage of what you generate,” he said. He drained his beer just as Sami put a fresh one on the table, and she cleared the empty as if this were a well-practiced routine.
“I don’t get the connection,” I said.
“For the longest while I couldn’t figure it out. Moore doesn’t need my book of business. Yes, I do pretty damn well, but merging would cost Moore as much or more than he could get training another pack of his own dogs. I didn’t see his self-interest, and Moore doesn’t make stupid mistakes.”
“And the conclusion was…” sometimes I just hated this game of Tony’s, making you ask for the next piece of information, the connection between dots he so reluctantly doled out.
“Max Moore doesn’t want me. He wants you. He wants the business you’ve created, the reputation you’ve made in the community.”
Tony’s eyes hovered over the beer at his lips, but those eyes were locked onto mine. I was being read, and Tony could read anybody.
“Really,” I said. I relaxed. As soon as I did, Tony did too. Nonverbal communication is bred into us by millennia of social evolution.
“What?” Tony asked.
My turn, Tony, I thought. I was going to make him wait. Finally he smiled, knowing exactly what I was up to. “Okay,” he said, “What?” with just enough plea in his voice.
“I don’t want to work at Moore and Associates. My husband works there. I would be lost in his shadow. I would be lost among all those lawyers, all of whom have more prestigious degrees than I do, fancier names, bigger egos. I like what I’m doing, and I like where I’m doing it.”
Tony grinned from ear to ear. He knew I was telling the truth, and with the additional money he just put on the table, he knew I would be very happy to stay right where I was.
• • • •
It was late summer, a Thursday. Mark and I had gone out to dinner, which we did far more often than we ate at home. Both of us can cook, but neither likes to do dishes. We had been talking about taking Friday off, which is the reason I remember that it was a Thursday.
Hell, I have lots of reasons to remember that day. A Thursday.
Somewhere between standard Seattle cuisine of organically grown romaine lettuce and a Dungeness crab-stuffed Copper River salmon, Mark looked out over the water and asked, in the most unbelievably nonchalant voice I have ever heard, “Would you like to go to that SASSA place after dinner?”
“You bored with me, sweetie?” I asked, and was only half-kidding.
Mark and I never talked about our sex life, especially our pasts. I’d not told him of my previous experiences, and he hadn’t offered to discuss his. We were both healthy young adults with history. I guess we each assumed that if there were anything to say, it would be said.
Yes, I had my fantasies, and I assume he had his. But that’s just normal. Talking about them would make it seem… less normal.
Our sex was still good, though. Very good, by most standards. But by that point in our relationship, we could anticipate what the other would do next. Most often we looked forward to that next thing, too.
But routine is routine. I think we probably took the same amount of time, more or less, each night we made love. Most often that’s good. But it’s still… routine.
“Of course not,” he said, tracing the vein on the back of my hand with the tip of his index finger. “I was just curious. I saw an article about the place the other day in the The Sound and it reminded me. Just thought I’d ask.”
Source of the Sound, the local “alternative” newspaper. You could pick up a copy anywhere. Leftist, proud if not arrogant, often full of anger about other people’s money, it came out every week. But it was a fun read, especially when it took on Seattle’s elite, and the classifieds were a hoot.
A bald, one-legged, subterranean goat-wrangler with halitosis could find a date in the classifieds of The Sound. She wouldn’t even have to spell “goat.” Mark and I both enjoyed reading it at lunch and often brought a copy home.
We’d even argued light-heartedly over the editorial point of view. He thought The Sound’s series on the “Secret Samaritan of Pike Place,” was over-done and disagreed with the paper that whoever was providing food to local homeless was doing a community service.
“It’s harming an important heritage,” Mark said.
“Even the poor have a right to be in public places when they want to be,” I countered.
Source of the Sound also had articles about the Seattle “scene,” straight, gay, alternative, weird. So I wasn’t surprised there would be an article about SASSA.
But it was very unlike Mark to be tentative like that. Which made me curious about what he was thinking. The truth was, I’d been curious about SASSA too, ever since I’d first heard about it from Linda Williams while trying to put her defense together. And for the other, obvious reasons, that I’d pretty much buried since college.
To put Mark at ease, and give my own curiosity a little cover, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun. But I want another glass of wine first.”
SASSA was in an industrial part of town, not too far from the water and under one of the overpasses for the freeway. The sign was nearly invisible. It seemed creepy right on the face of it, but we had made our decision and neither one of us wanted to be the one to chicken out, I think.
We pulled open the steel door and walked into a tiny alcove surrounded by black velvet curtains. There was a small desk with a very large man sitting at a computer. The music from the other side of the curtain was loud and pounding.
“ID?” said the man.
“We didn’t bring ID,” said Mark, who thought it would be better if we left all our valuables locked in the car. Plus, we didn’t really want to be leaving a fat, wide paper trail of our attendance.
“Well, I can’t let you in without ID,” said the man, not really frustrated, but not entirely patient.
Mark and I went back to the car to get our ID. When he opened the trunk where we had stashed my purse, he asked, “You still want to do this?”
“Sure. I don’t know. Do you?” I gave back a non-answer as I pulled out my driver’s license.
“I don’t know. I guess. We’re here,” was his nearly equally noncommittal reply. He got his license from his wallet that he’d left in the door of my Porsche, the car we had taken to dinner because it was more fun to drive than his Audi.
Back at the alcove, the large man looked at my ID, then at Mark’s, and typed into his computer.
“You’re members, right? You aren’t coming up on the list.”
I’d forgotten that SASSA was a members-only club. “Can we join now?” I asked.
He sighed in a way that made it clear that what would follow was an oft-repeated conversation. He picked up a cordless phone and hit a button. “Hey. Got Newbies.” Pause. “Yeah.”
“Wait here,” he said.
“That’s okay, we can…” Mark started to say.
“Just wait,” said the man. He still had our IDs so we didn’t bolt, as I think we were both ready to do.
Just then the outer door opened and a couple about our age came in. There was just barely room for all four o
f us in the alcove. I was somewhat reassured by their quality clothes, and they were nice-enough looking. I was less reassured by the handcuffs hanging from the strap of her purse, and how she looked at Mark, who was at least a head taller than her date.
Her date looked at me with a smile that seemed very friendly, or ravenous, I couldn’t say at the time. He was somewhat handsome, not really my type but not unpleasant.
The large man behind the desk said, “ID?” to them, and they gave him their licenses, which he typed into the computer, then he said, “$100.” The man gave him his credit card, signed the tab and they slipped through the curtain. I tried to get a peek inside but all I got was a flash of color.
Less than 30 seconds later a heavy-set, very pretty woman came through the curtain where the couple had disappeared.
“Welcome! My name is Elizabeth. You’ve never been to SASSA before?” she said in the warmest, “would you like some cookies?” voice I have ever heard. Somehow, my nervousness dropped to half, and I could tell Mark’s did, too.
We both shook our head. “Well, let’s take five minutes to get to know each other, I’ll give you a quick tour, and you can decide if you want to join!”
“They still need an orientation,” said the man behind the desk.
“Yes, Mike, I know the rules,” said Elizabeth, in a tone clearly indicating who made the decisions. “Come with me,” she said to Mark and me.
We walked through the first curtain into a “hallway,” defined by more heavy curtains. Elizabeth stopped after a few steps and turned to us. “Mike’s a volunteer. He’s very dedicated, but sometimes gets a little officious,” she said. I don’t know why, but I was surprised to hear her use the word “officious.”
“Are you members of any other club? Do you have any experience with the lifestyle?” she asked.
Mark and I shook our heads. I was confused by what she meant by “the lifestyle.”
“You ARE newbies!” Elizabeth said with a big smile. “Come on then.”
We walked to the end of the curtain corridor and out into a main room. There weren’t very many people there. The couple who had entered while we were in the outer room were getting a drink at the bar. There were warming trays along the wall with food, a half-barrel with bottled water on ice, tables with chairs.
There were a few couples sitting on couches talking, a small stage directly in front, with several doors out of the room.
“Where is everybody?” asked Mark.
“Oh, honey, it’s still pretty early,” said Elizabeth. She glanced at a huge watch with a white band on her large wrist. “It will fill up in about 45 minutes.”
“This is the couples area,” she said, walking through one of the openings next to the bar. Inside the large room were alcoves, not unlike the little cabanas you see around swimming pools at fancy hotels. Each was not much bigger than the double bed it contained, with some pillows and gauze curtains separating one from the next.
“Single men aren’t allowed in here,” said Elizabeth, “but you can bring another man in with you if you like. Or you can join another couple.”
Mark looked around the room. “Does it ever fill up?” he asked.
“Oh hon, on weekends it’s standing-room-only. You’d be amazed at how many bodies you can get on one of those beds.”
“And if we want to have sex on one of those beds, just the two of us?” Mark asked.
“No one can join without an invitation. That’s the second rule. No touching without asking.”
“What’s the first rule?” I asked.
“No means no,” she said with a smile.
“And if someone breaks that rule?” asked Mark.
“They don’t. Oh, it’s happened, and will surely happen again. But it’s very rare, and when it does, that person is invited to leave and never come back. Most don’t want to lose the privilege.”
Elizabeth took us back to the bar and then into the next large room.
“This is for those who have more… intense tastes.” She flashed another smile.
In the middle of the room hung a swing made of nylon straps. A ten-by- ten foot section of chain-link fencing was fastened on the opposite wall. A giant X-shaped frame with rings fastened to the arms sat in one corner.
A chrome wheel used for something I couldn’t even imagine rested on the floor. Work-out benches with chains hanging off them were scattered about.
“Oh my,” I said.
“It can get a little noisy,” Elizabeth said with her perpetual smile.
“What happens if someone wants to stop? I assume saying ‘no’ or ‘stop’ can be part of the game. But what if someone really goes too far and the other wants it to be over?”
“We have what we call ‘safe words,’ and everybody acknowledges the safe word before play begins. It has to be something that would never be said in the context of the game. A particular color, for instance, or just an obscure word.”
The last room was just a small movie theater for about thirty people. An erotic movie, two women playing with tongues showed on the screen.
“Some people come in here to watch, some like to share,” said Elizabeth. “Come on, we’ll have the official talk, I will comp you tonight’s visit, and you can decide if you want to join.” She took us into her office on the far side of the dance floor from the bar. Inside, a large one-way mirror looked out into the main area.
One wall had a row of monitors that featured every conceivable angle of the rooms we had just been in.
“Marketing materials?” asked Mark.
“To keep you safe,” Elizabeth shot back. “We take privacy very seriously.”
“The talk” included the basic rules of SASSA permission and other strong recommendations such as to use the clean sheets and towels that were stacked everywhere and the condoms that filled large fish bowls on every flat surface. She also filled us in on the very few sex practices that were banned “in the interest of essential cleanliness.”
Use of cameras and cell phones was banned. “That’s what gets most people in trouble,” she said, “and even then it’s usually because someone got a call or a text and didn’t use the head on their shoulders.”
While we were in her office, SASSA began to fill up. Many of the people seemed to know each other, and there were many hugs exchanged, and a lot of laughter. Some people stood at the bar, others had gotten a plate and were eating at one of the tables in the dining area.
“Would you like to stay? It’s fine if all you want to do is watch,” she said.
I looked at Mark; he looked at me. I think we both shrugged and nodded at the same time.
I hoped my act was convincing. I was afraid they could hear my heart pounding, my libido standing on a chair in my brain screaming “Hell YES we’d like to stay! Bring it ON!” I was glad I’d chosen to wear panties because my vagina had already decided it wanted to participate in something.
Elizabeth took us back out to the front alcove. When there was a break in the stream of people now coming in, she pushed back through the curtain to the first chamber by the front door.
“Go ahead and let Mike enter your information,” she said to us.
“Mike, log them in as out-of-town guests under my name,” she said to him.
“But they live here in Seattle,” he said.
“Mike, I know where they live,” she said. Without another word, Mike took Mark’s license and then mine, typed notes into the computer and gave them back.
“Enjoy,” Elizabeth said. “If you have any questions, ask anyone with a SASSA shirt on,” and pointed at the bartender who was wearing a black shirt with SASSA embroidered in red.
We wandered over to the bar.
“What can I get you?” asked the bartender. Mark ordered a brandy. I asked for Kahlua on the rocks just to have something to sip.
“What
do you think?” Mark asked, again in that nonchalant voice that indicated he was being guarded.
“I think it’s going to be an interesting evening,” I replied, my voice every bit as noncommittal as his, but with a desire not hidden as much as I intended.
“What if we get seen by someone we know?” he asked.
“Well, my guess is that they are here for the same reason we are, and not likely to talk it up all over town,” I replied. I wasn’t totally convinced by my own answer, but it sufficed, given everything else I was feeling at that moment.
People began to dance after a while, just like any other bar in the city. Except sometimes women danced with women a little more suggestively, sometimes kissing deeply. Men danced behind women, hands cupping breasts, sliding necklines down to expose breasts, or sliding up thighs and dragging a skirt with them until panties were completely exposed. If panties were worn.
We had moved from a table to one of the couches where we could see over to a corner of the room where a woman had begun to dance with a brass stripper pole, surrounded by couches where men and a few couples sat. She earned applause after every dance, every time another piece of clothing came off.
Finally, her beautiful body was naked and after that song, she sat on the couch between two men, lifted a leg over the knee of each so that she was completely open, and kissed one full on the mouth while the other explored her with his hands.
Mark had been gently fondling my shoulder, and then I felt his hand at the zipper at my neck. I didn’t move while he unzipped my dress to my waist. I did nothing except feel my body throb with excitement. Mark played his hands over my shoulders, then slid his hands under the straps of my dress and again played with my shoulders.
He and I both knew what was going to happen as the fabric slowly moved down my arms.
When the straps fell to my elbows, I could feel his body stiffen. I didn’t move. I had my right hand on his leg, my left around my small drink, which I set on a nearby table. I pulled my left hand free of the fabric, then my right, and the dress completed its fall to my waist.
I sat there, looking around the room, the thrill of being half-naked with people all around us. Then I leaned back and put my mouth on Mark’s. I felt his right hand come around and cup my breast, then caress my throat, then down to my vagina, then back up.
