R.S.V.P.

by Madeleine Oh

  Sassy lowered her eyes, so he couldn’t see her expression. There was no way she could afford a three carat diamond collar, not when she only ate dinner out if the newspaper was picking up the tab for a restaurant review. But her heart beat faster at the thought of that much glittering jewelry surrounding her neck.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Ah. You’re a submissive. Do you have a master yet?”

  “No.” Sassy was still talking to her shoes. This submissive routine was easier to fake than she’d expected. You just had to be mortally embarrassed.

  “Well, when you get one, have him see me and I’ll give him the name. I’m Carl.”

  “Alexandra.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Alexandra. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  The man and his two slaves retrieved their flowers and moved away, and Sassy stepped forward to trade her invitation for her own corsage. The expected white rose was flanked by sprays of baby’s breath.

  The woman who handed her the flower smiled at her. “I see this is your first Briar Rose party. Welcome. Dancing is on the patio. There are hors d’oeuvres and a bar in the dining room. Role-playing and costumes are allowed in the living room, but all scene play must be confined to one of the two designated play spaces. The scheduled scenes will be occurring in the den, and are all public. Impromptu scenes may be staged in the bedroom, and may be either public or private. A sign-up sheet has been posted by the door. The second bedroom is reserved for participants in the scheduled scenes. Do you have any questions?”

  Sassy shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  She stepped away from the welcoming table and into the penthouse proper, pinning her corsage to her dress as she went. Idly, she wondered where the women in the leather bras had attached their flowers. They wouldn’t have put a pin through the leather.

  One of them strolled by, carefully carrying three drinks from the dining room to the living room. Her white rose, trailing the silver ribbon that indicated she was in a relationship, was attached to the strap of her bra with a pair of safety pins. Their master had obviously come prepared.

  Drawing upon her long experience as a club reviewer, Sassy made her first pass of the party. The trick was to get a quick overview of the tone and feel of a place, then identify the hot spots where something interesting was liable to happen later.

  The dining room was crowded with over two dozen people collecting drinks or tiny plates of snacks, their clothes dramatic accents against the white carpeting, white walls, and stark white furniture. She spared a glance for the snacks, half expecting the hotel to have supplied all white foods, then stopped for a better look. They were all sexually explicit. The breadsticks were shaped like penises, the rolls shaped like breasts, and cubes of cheese and fruit were arranged to form an erotic mosaic. The avocado dip was innocuous, although the carved avocado gracing the bowl left nothing to the imagination. And the chocolate-covered strawberries were painted in tiny bondage outfits. The rest of the foods, such as the asparagus and oysters, were well-known aphrodisiacs.

  She picked up a bondage strawberry on her way past the table, closing her eyes briefly to savor the exquisite flavor. The chef had used first quality table chocolate and ripe, sweet berries. She went back and grabbed a second berry before continuing her survey.

  Most of the people at the mirror-fronted bar waiting for drinks wore white roses, although some dominants were carrying multiple drinks back to where their submissives waited. The clothing ranged from barely there leather and chain mail, through elaborate Victorian costumes and skintight PVC catsuits, to modern designer clothes. Sassy’s practiced eye counted four Armanis, two Versaces, a Vera Wang, and a Moschino.

  Faint music drifted through the French doors leading to the patio, and she followed the sounds to the dance floor. A DJ was spinning an eclectic dance mix of salsa, reggae, and swing, at an unusually sedate volume. Swaths of white draperies tented above the patio blocked the worst of the Miami sun during the day, and now illuminated the dance floor in the gentle twinkle of white fairy lights strung among the fabric.

  Another dozen party guests lined the waist-high wall of the patio, swaying gently to the music, but only two couples were on the dance floor. The first, a nubile woman wearing a costume of leather straps connected by chains and a man wearing a futuristic quasi-military costume, were doing what would have been considered a $50 lap dance at most strip clubs. The other couple, dressed in a scarlet Vera Wang gown and a navy Versace suit, were dipping and sliding gracefully in a well-choreographed swing dance that would not have been out of place at the Governor’s Ball.

  Fascinated, Sassy studied the dancers’ expressions, finding the same combination of intense concentration, pleasure and arousal on them all. The moves differed, but clearly the intent was the same, and sooner or later both couples would be dancing horizontally.

  The guests lining the walls seemed evenly mixed between those enjoying the music, and those enjoying the show put on by the dancers. Judging by the bulge in the front of one man’s Armani suit, he was enjoying the show quite a bit.

  She wandered back into the main party, snagging another of those delicious bondage berries as she passed the hors d’oeuvres table. This time, she headed for the den, and the promised staged scenes.

  Somewhere between thirty and forty guests congregated around the walls, their attention toward the center of the room. The furniture normally provided by the hotel had been removed, and replaced with pieces of leather and wood that defied Sassy’s ability to identify them, although one looked a bit like one of those horses used in gymnastic competitions, and another seemed like the sort of rotating platform that circus knife throwers used as a target. The only thing recognizable was a portable black leather massage table currently in use.

  A woman, naked beneath a partial covering of dried wax, was strapped to the thickly padded leather table. Looming above her, a man in full Victorian garb of deep purple velvet frock coat and top hat dripped candle wax onto her already colorful body to the muted strains of the overture from The Phantom of the Opera. He was surrounded by tall candelabras sporting a rainbow of half-melted candles, from which he chose the instruments of his torture.

  Hot wax splashed onto the woman’s already colorful breast, and she gasped, her eyes closing as her body arched against the restraints.

  Despite her best intentions, Sassy found her journalistic objectivity deserting her. She stared in frank bewilderment.

  Obviously the woman was enjoying herself. Given the rapidly escalating pitch of her gasps, the next well-placed blob of wax would send her over the edge into an orgasm. And the candle artist’s eyes gleamed with fervor as he chose and applied drips of wax, covering her body with colored drips, splashes, splatters, and pools.

  Sassy glanced at the crowd surrounding the couple. Some guests watched avidly, their rapid breathing and surreptitious licking of their lips indicating they were enjoying the performance nearly as much as the participants. Other guests watched with near clinical detachment, murmuring softly to each other as they discussed the finer points of the artist’s technique. She recognized many of the faces from the jaded Monday after-midnight crowd at Tantra.

  Her attention was caught by a pair of vivid gray eyes. Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t watching the couple in the center of the room. He was watching her.

  The man’s dark hair was pulled back with a leather band. Lean and about six feet tall, he showed off his pale gray Armani suit to good effect. The deep purple of his unadorned rose stood out in stark contrast to the gray of his lapel.

  His lips curled upward in the hint of a smile as he nodded to her, acknowledging her appraisal of him. Slowly, he slipped through the crowd of guests to reach her side.

  “I’m Michael,” he said, his low voice pitched softly enough that his words would not disturb the scene unfolding before them or the interested crowd around them.

  “Sass— I mean, Alexandra.”

  The gasps of the woman
undergoing the wax treatment reached a fevered pitch, until she gave a final cry of satisfaction and subsided into limp quiet. The man in the frock coat dripped a little more wax onto her, whether to try and rouse her again or to complete his artwork, Sassy wasn’t sure. His partner made no more sounds, and the man eventually blew out his candles, switched off the CD player, and bowed to the assembled guests. They applauded enthusiastically, including the man beside Sassy.

  As the guests began filing out, she glanced over at Michael. “Why is everyone leaving? I thought all the scenes were in this room.”

  “They are. But it will take some time to clean up from this scene and set up for the next one. Have you tried the hors d’ouvres yet?”

  “The chocolate-covered berries are excellent.”

  “Then allow me to offer you another serving.”

  “Okay.” Sassy grinned at him, the delicious thrum of sexual attraction tingling through her bones, and jumped into her role with abandon. Flicking her gaze over his flower, she added, “You’re the boss.”

  His lips curved again with that hint of a smile, and he put his arm around her to guide her out of the den and back to the living room. She could feel the heat of his hand against her hip, the strength of his forearm braced against her lower back. Instinctively, she curled into his touch. He responded by tightening his grasp, pulling her tight against his side and spreading his fingers over her hip.

  His fingers flexed, drawing up the skirt of her dress a barely noticeable quarter of an inch. Her breath hitched, her imagination filling with the image of him tugging her skirt up all the way, then sliding his hand between her legs to feel her growing hotter and wetter for him, until he pushed his fingers inside her. He’d be a three-finger man, she was sure, forcing her to stretch to accommodate him, making her tremble and clench his unfamiliar breadth.

  “What are you thinking of?” Michael murmured in her ear.

  “Of you lifting up my skirt and putting your hand inside me,” she answered truthfully.

  “And you’d like that?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  They passed a slender blonde woman, with a variety of silver pins and studs piercing her nose, eyebrows, and ears, lounging on the plush white couch and chatting with another dominant. A pair of men in loincloths and steel armbands knelt on the floor at her feet, thin steel chains running to the rings piercing their nipples. More chains hung from the nipple rings, disappearing beneath their loincloths. She didn’t want to know what the other ends were attached to.

  Sassy realized with surprise that one of the men was a well-known real estate developer, and the other was an accomplished chef currently negotiating for his own show on the Food Network. Michael’s insistent pressure against her back moved her past the tableau to an empty pair of chairs flanking a small round table.

  “Sit.” He released her, and gave her a slight push toward one of the chairs. “And while you’re waiting for me, I want you to clench and release your inner muscles, over and over again, as if my hand was really inside you, and you were trying to climax.”

  Sassy sat, sinking into the soft white chair, and obediently clamped her legs together. She tightened her vaginal muscles, then released them. Tightened again, feeling her ass muscles clench as well this time, then released. When she tightened them the third time, a tremor rippled through her, and her breath escaped in a shaky exhale.

  Michael stroked her cheek with one finger. “Good. Keep it up.”

  Her gaze remained glued to him as he strode over to the buffet table, collected a plate, and filled it with strawberries. All the while, she continued clenching and releasing, trying to draw his imaginary fingers deeper inside her. Her panties grew damp, and her breasts began to ache.

  She could stop at any time, and let the fierce need building within her dissipate. Her burning gaze tracked Michael’s movements through the room as he left the buffet, waited in line at the bar, and eventually returned with a tall glass filled with ice and an effervescent clear liquid. At first, he’d glanced her way frequently, but the looks had grown further and further apart, until she hungered for his attention nearly as much as she hungered to have him inside her, and feel his mouth on hers.

  That thing with the wax? That she didn’t get. But this? Oh God, yes, she understood the appeal of this.

  Michael’s softly worded instructions had her trembling with eagerness, anticipating the moment when he would fulfill his implied promise to touch her that way in real life.

  Michael pulled the second chair next to hers and sat down, placing the glass and the plate of bondage berries on the table before them. His gaze skimmed her body, before returning to her face, and he smiled at her.

  “You’re flushed, Alexandra.”

  “I’ve been doing what you told me to.”

  “Very good.” He picked up one of the berries and held it to her lips.

  She opened her mouth, and Michael teased her lower lip with the chocolate-coated berry. He rubbed it back and forth across her lip, sliding it in and out of her mouth in tantalizing mimicry of the joining she still ached for.

  He paused, the berry pressing lightly against her lip, the sweet taste of melting chocolate awakening her tongue. “Did you like following my instructions?” Michael asked.

  Sassy nodded. Closing her lips around the berry, she watched his reaction as she sucked lightly, pulling it from his loose grasp. His eyes darkened, his breathing deepening as he reclaimed the stem of the berry.

  “Bite,” he ordered.

  Obediently, she closed her teeth on the berry with a sharp snap. Michael’s quick inrush of breath echoed hers. He reached for another berry, and held it just out of her reach.

  “What else would you like?”

  “You. Inside me. Between my legs, between my lips, everywhere.”

  “Show me.”

  He held out the berry, and Sassy loved it with her mouth. She licked the smooth chocolate coating, running her tongue around the base of the strawberry, and flicking the cleft at the bottom. She heard Michael’s sharp intake of breath, and teased the cleft again, tickling it with her tongue, as if she really was probing the slit of his cock.

  “Oh, that’s good,” he whispered. “What else?”

  Sassy kissed the melting chocolate of the berry, then slid it into her mouth. Working her lips around the stem, she brushed his fingers. Then she started licking and sucking the berry in earnest, the sweet chocolate even sweeter as she imagined it was his cock filling her mouth.

  Reluctantly, she let the now wet and glistening red strawberry slide over her lips. Playfully, she bit off the very tip of the chocolate-free berry.

  Michael groaned softly. “Wait here. I’m going to see when the bedroom’s free.”

  Chapter Two

  Michael dipped his fingers in the glass of club soda, rinsing the chocolate from his fingertips, then wiped them on a napkin. Sassy watched hungrily as he rose and made his way through the party to the bedroom of the penthouse, to reserve them a time slot.

  What the hell was she doing? She was supposed to be reviewing this party, not screwing one of the guests.

  Without Michael’s charismatic presence inspiring her, her body began cooling down, rationality reasserting itself. She was here to work. But she couldn’t review the party without taking part in the total party experience.

  She clenched her vaginal muscles again, quickly restoring her aching need for Michael to fill her. By the time he returned, she was panting softly, her panties wet and the flesh between her legs hot and pulsing.

  “Good news.” Michael reached down and drew her to her feet. “There’s a spot open now. I signed it out for private use.”

  Trembling, Sassy clutched his lean, muscled arm as she followed him on unsteady legs. She wanted him so badly, she could hardly see. The sounds of the party around them faded into the background, no more meaningful than a gaggle of squawking geese.

  Then he was pushing her into the penthouse bedroom designated for party use a
nd closing the door behind him. A black leather massage table identical to the one in the den contrasted with the white fur-covered bed and the stark white dresser between which it was positioned. The flowing white draperies, descending from a fabric-covered ceiling, fluttered in the draft from the hidden air-conditioning vents, alternately revealing and concealing a wooden pillory erected on the other side of the bed.

  Michael’s hands touched her again, and she lost all interest in her surroundings. He hiked up the skirt of her dress, skimming his hot palms over her bare thighs. Sassy moaned with desire.

  He ripped her panties off her, dropping them to the floor and exposing her to his touch. One hand slid between her legs. His fingers slipped over her hot, pulsing folds, and found her wide-open entrance. He thrust three fingers inside her, stretching her opening just the way she’d imagined, then flexed his fingers, stroking the inner walls of her vagina.

  Sassy moaned, trembling, and clutched his broad shoulders. She couldn’t take much more of this, but it felt so good she never wanted it to end.

  “Take off your dress,” he ordered, his voice low and hoarse.

  Sassy jerked the dress over her head and threw it away, bucking her hips to ride his hand as she did so. God, his hand felt so good inside her.

  He moved so that he was directly in front of her, his back braced against the door. Thrusting the hard muscle of his thigh between her legs, he trapped his hand against her wet, hungry flesh. With his free hand, he cupped her ass, nudging her forward until she straddled his leg, driving his fingers deeper inside her.

  Sassy shuddered, and moaned again.

  He leaned her backward, arching her over his arm and lifting her breasts to him. His mouth closed over the thin white satin of her bra, tonguing and sucking on her nipple in time to the movements of his fingers until the bra was as wet and her breast as aching as her pulsing core.

  His fingers flexed within her as he bit lightly on her nipple. Sassy gasped, rocking her hips to urge him deeper and arching backward almost to the point of pain, lifting her breasts as high as she could.