Chapter 9
I hopped a cab to Columbia Heights, my stomach aflutter. I’d never set foot in a sex club in my life. I didn’t even know what went on inside sex clubs, to be perfectly honest. Of course I knew that sex went on in such places—but what kind of sex, I had absolutely no idea. And I wasn’t exactly going to a sex club as a customer. I was going as a spy.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling the slightest bit hot between my legs as the cab bumped along the city streets to Columbia Heights—an old, shabby part of town that I seldom ventured into. The fact that a clandestine sex club was located in Columbia Heights was no surprise to me. The area was full of seedy shops, low-rent buildings, and shady-looking people. I made sure to keep tight hold of my purse and cell phone as the cab crossed into ever-danker and dingier territory.
The cabbie stopped the car in front of the nondescript graystone townhouse located at 73 Brentwood Way and turned around. “Pardon me ma’am,” he said. “I know it’s none of my business, but I was just wondering what a nice-looking lady like you would want to be doing in a neighborhood like this.”
“Just taking care of some personal business, is all,” I said curtly, and paid the fare.
The cabbie handed me his card. “If you need a ride back, give me a call and I’ll come get you right away. You usually can’t hail a cab in this neighborhood, and I have a feeling you might decide you want out of here in a hurry.”
“That’s thoughtful of you. Thanks.” I took the card and headed for the townhouse.
The plain black wooden door had no knocker or bell, so I pounded on it with my fist. To my surprise, an unseen bell chimed twice, and the door whisked opened automatically.
A tall, willowy blonde woman appeared in the doorway. She wore a 1960s-style short, sleeveless sheath dress and white go-go boots. She also wore a fresh white daisy tucked behind one ear. “You must be Jasmine,” she said, her voice light and whispery. “We’ve been expecting you.” She placed a bone-white hand on the small of my back and lithely guided me inside.
I didn’t quite know what to make of this; how could I spy on Senator Grayle here if everyone at the club already knew I was coming?
As if reading my thoughts, Daisy said, “Don’t worry, the only person who knows who you really are is me. I’m Daisy, and I do some work for Rodney Doyle on the side. I’ve taken the liberty of creating a persona for you to use at the club. Nobody else here will know your true identity. We keep everything anonymous and discreet here at the House of Flowers.”
“The House of Flowers?” I said, trying not to giggle. “That’s what this place is called?”
Daisy smiled softly. “Yes, the name is kind of a throwback to an earlier era,” she conceded. “Once upon a time, this building housed a florist shop that was a front for an old-fashioned bordello, with the resident prostitutes using flowers as their stage names. We’ve hung on to some of those old traditions in the way we run things here at the club.”
Daisy led me down a narrow, twisting corridor that opened into a large, sumptuously decorated marble waiting room. Vases of fresh flowers were everywhere, and one wall was covered with a large mural that depicted beautiful nude women with flowers in their hair. One of the women in the painting closely resembled Daisy. “So is Daisy your real name or your stage name?” I asked.
“Both,” she said. “My parents named me Daisy, and I call myself Daisy for clients, too. But I’m the odd one out. Most of the men and women who work here choose to keep their real selves a secret from everyone, even the owner.”
“Who’s the owner?” I asked as Daisy gestured for me to take a seat on a luxurious red-velvet chaise lounge.
Instead of answering, Daisy just gave me a mysterious wink and held her finger to her lips. “I believe you’ll find the person you’re looking for right now in our Blossom Submission Chamber,” she said. “Would you like to participate in that guest’s activities directly, or as a secret voyeur? We can accommodate both choices.”
“Um, secret voyeur, I guess,” I stammered. I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to spy on Senator Grayle out in the open.
“Of course. Right this way.” Daisy led me down a dark hallway and into a tiny room. The room’s only furnishings were a small wooden chair and a coat rack. She opened a closet door and took out a black silk robe and matching slippers, which she handed me. “Undress and put these on,” she instructed. “You can hang your clothes on the rack there.” She reached into the closet again and took out a silk eye-mask of the style worn to masked balls. It was trimmed with rhinestones and dyed-black marabou feathers. “And put this on, too. It’ll help keep your identity a secret while you’re here.”
Daisy stepped back into the hallway. “I’ll just be right outside,” she said, and shut the door.
I fingered the silk robe. The fabric was of the highest quality—finely woven, satiny smooth. The diagonal jacquard silk weave reflected the light in delicate waves, and as I slid my fingertips over the fabric, the sheer sensuality of the cool, slippery cloth against my skin sent a little shiver up my spine. In an instant, any doubts I might have had about disrobing in this strange and mysterious place melted away.
I slid out of my suit and pulled on the robe. The sheer silk fabric was like a liquid caress against my naked skin. I let out a deep sigh and my groin muscles relaxed unconsciously; the Chinese balls shifted slightly inside me, sending out their tinny little chimes. My whole lower half warmed up into a pleasant slow burn.
I slipped on the mask and checked my reflection in the tiny dressing-room mirror. With the mask and robe, no makeup, and my hair pulled back into its severe bun, I was unrecognizable. I’d never been a voyeur onto someone else’s sex play scene before, but the very notion that I was wandering a top-secret sex club incognito was insanely erotic. I felt my pussy grow hot and slick between my naked legs, felt the butterflies of anticipation pick up pace inside my belly. I was about to become a deep-undercover sexual spy, and it was hot. Way hot. The fact I was about to go play top-secret spy on my paunchy, sixty-seven-year-old boss didn’t even phase me. I didn’t much care what I was about to watch, in fact. It was the mere act of watching that had me so turned on.
The fact that I would be working undercover to gather potential sex-scandal fodder clad in nothing but the finest silk only made my crotch feel that much hotter. I knew I had to record what I’d be seeing somehow, so I slipped my cell phone into a pocket I found on the inside of my robe. My cell phone had a discreet camera function; perfect for capturing dirty photos on the sly.
There was a soft rap on the door. “Are you all right in there?” Daisy asked, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I called back. “Great, in fact.” I made one more slight adjustment to my mask and stepped out of the room. Daisy gave me a quick once-over, and smiled her approval.
She led me further down the hall to a narrow spiral staircase. “The submission rooms are downstairs,” she said. “You’ll be in a voyeur room adjacent to the Blossom Submission Chamber. There’s a one-way mirror that looks out onto the chamber. You can see everything going on in the submission chamber, but the bondage participants can’t see you.”
“Participants?” I asked. “As in, more than one?”
Daisy laughed out loud at my ignorance. “Of course there’s more than one, Jasmine. It’s hard to engage in bondage play by yourself, after all.”
I felt my cheeks flush. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s all right, Jasmine. We all have a first time.”
I followed Daisy down the spiral staircase and into the viewing room. There were several empty chairs in front of the darkened one-way mirror, but it appeared I would be the only “secret voyeur” that day. I strained to hear what might be happening on the other side of the mirror, but could hear nothing.
“The submission rooms and the viewing rooms are separated by a soundproof wall,” Daisy explained. “You’ll hear what’s going on through an intercom once I
turn it on. Are you ready to begin?”
I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Yes,” I whispered.
Daisy motioned for me to take a seat, then handed me something that looked like a remote control. “If at any time you want to stop watching, press the red button. If at any time you want to join the participants in the submission chamber, press the blue button. And if at any time you need my assistance, press the white button. Do you have any questions?”
“Umm, no.”
Daisy turned to leave, then stopped short. “I almost forgot to tell you what your persona is whenever you’re in attendance here at the House of Flowers. When you put on that mask and robe, you cease to be Jasmine Rand, and you become Hyacinth Slaughter.”
Hyacinth Slaughter? What kind of name was that? It sounded exotic and sexy, yet violent.
“Enjoy yourself today, Hyacinth,” Daisy purred. “It’s your first time with us, and first times are always special. Today, you’ll be observing Mistress Violet and her favorite Slave, whom I think you might recognize.” Daisy flicked a couple of switches on the wall, then slipped away.
Something inside the one-way mirror changed, and suddenly I could see everything that was happening in the Blossom Submission Chamber. It seemed that Senator Grayle was indeed in there, although like me, he wore a black silk robe and a black mask. The only thing I recognized about him physically was his silver hair and the tiny bald spot at the very top of his head. He was crouched down on the floor in the “prisoner of war” position, with his arms tied behind and beneath him with studded leather straps, his head and torso thrown backward and upward. His black silk robe was open at the front, leaving nothing to the imagination. A masked woman with long raven hair and clad in studded purple leather stood over him, brandishing a cat-o-nine-tails. The cat-o-nine-tails’ streamers were five feet long at least, and each one was a different color, making the whip into a waving rainbow every time Mistress Violet flicked her wrist. Each streamer ended in highly polished, spined brass bells that both rang and scratched skin with each blow, giving the recipient sensual stimulation of three separate types—sight, sound, and touch. Mistress Violet whacked Senator Grayle with her whip three times across the chest—the bells ringing one, two, three—leaving marks. The paunchy old man shivered with ecstasy at each blow.
And even if I hadn’t recognized my boss physically, there was no mistaking his voice, which I could now hear through the loudspeaker. “Give me more, please Mistress Violet,” Senator Grayle begged in his trademark North Dakota drawl.
Mistress Violet shook her head. “No, Slave, I am afraid you do not deserve any more pain today. You have been a very bad boy.”
Senator Grayle’s face contorted. “Please, Mistress—“
“Silence!” boomed Mistress Violet. “Slave, you must now perform a task of penance. Get on your hands and knees.”
I watched transfixed as my boss—a powerful senator from the nation’s tight-laced, ultraconservative heartland for more than thirty years—groveled half-naked at Mistress Violet’s feet. “Please, Mistress Violet,” he begged. “Please!”
“Silence, slave!” Mistress Violet cried, and cracked her whip against the wall.
Senator Grayle bowed down even lower, until his forehead touched the floor and his face was buried in the carpet. His silken robe slipped off his wrinkled body, revealing his flabby thighs and sagging buttocks. At one level, I felt sorry for him. But at another, I was thrilled at the sight of a powerful government official begging and pleading for mercy at the feet of a violent female temptress.
It was probably the most arousing sight I’d ever seen, in fact.
And it was only fair to preserve it for all posterity.
I took my camera phone from my inside pocket and snapped a photo, making sure that Senator Grayle’s face was clearly visible. My temperature rose and my breath quickened when I saw the perfect result light up my phone’s digital viewfinder. Excited, I stood up and started moving around the viewing room, snapping photo after photo of the pathetic-looking senator from all different angles until I had almost a dozen of them saved in my phone’s memory. To my surprise, I was no longer frightened or nervous, even if I was taking blackmail-quality photos of my boss in the basement of a secret sex club. I was euphoric, drunk on that unique kind of arousal that only comes from one thing—power. With those photos, I had plenty of power. Power over Senator Grayle, power over Rodney Doyle for as long as I withheld those photos from him, and power over myself, Jasmine Rand, for as long as I wore the secret mask of Hyacinth Slaughter. My face got hot, my pussy got wet and puffy. I was more turned on that I’d ever been before, and nobody had even laid a finger on my body.
Damn.
Who knew watching somebody else get humiliated could be so much fun?
Ever since my first college boyfriend tried unsuccessfully to get me to watch a porn video with him once before sex, I’d never understood why so many men got sexual thrills from going to strip clubs, watching peep shows, reading girlie mags, and renting dirty movies. The whole scene had just disgusted me. But perhaps that was because the main attraction in all those products was scantily-clad, surgically modified blonde bimbos gyrating their hips and shaking their plastic boobs. There was no style, no substance, no subverting of gender roles or blurring of power codes in old-fashioned, male-oriented porn. But this was different.This was one of our nation’s most powerful men reduced to sexual slavery by a beautiful woman in a skintight purple leather corset that hugged all her natural, voluptuous curves. There wasn’t a dash of silicone anywhere in sight—just skin, leather, and expensive silk.
Here at the House of Flowers, true eroticism dwelled in elegance. There were beautiful silken robes, feathered masks peppered in faux crystal diamonds—style, mystery, and intrigue. Even the whips here were fashion-forward. And the show couldn’t be beat. My crotch was begging to see more.
Maybe there was something to this whole voyeurism thing after all.
Senator Grayle trembled as Mistress Violet held him at bay, flicking her cat-o-nine-tails against the floor just out of his reach. “Are you prepared to do my bidding, Slave?” she boomed.
“Y-yes, Mistress,” Senator Grayle warbled, his voice barely above a whisper.
Mistress Violent leaned down until her elaborately made-up face was just above the shaking senator’s. “And you know the penalty if you fail, don’t you?”
“Y-yes, Mistress.”
Mistress Violet slapped the handle of her whip against the palm of her hand. “What is the penalty, Slave?”
Senator Grayle muttered something unintelligible.
Mistress Violet cracked the cat-o-nine-tails against the wall; the combination of slapping leather and ringing bells was deafening. “Slave, SPEAK UP! Or you will be punished further.”
Senator Grayle was shaking so hard now he could barely keep from falling over. He spoke, and this time his voice was a bit louder, but still barely audible. “M-Mistress, the penalty for failure is that I will be denied my right to orgasm.”
This did not satisfy Mistress Violet. “Say it again, Slave! LOUDER this time.”
“M-Mistress, the penalty for failure is that I will be denied my right to orgasm!” Senator Grayle shouted this time, his voice breaking as he began to weep. I felt a slight tinge of pity for him, but that melted away when I saw how huge his erection had gotten. No matter how much he might tremble and cry with fear, Senator Grayle was enjoying this—the proof was in plain sight.
Mistress Violet seemed pleased. “That is correct, Slave,” she said. “So let the act of penance begin. Since you have redeemed yourself, I will make it an easy one. Today, you will lick all the dirt and mud from the soles of my boots. You will lick the soles of my boots clean, and eat anything you find on them. When the soles of my boots are shining like the diamonds on your mask, then and only then will you be given the satisfaction you desire. Do you agree to carry out this penance, Slave?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
&nbs
p; Mistress Violet smiled. “Will you savor each and every second you spend licking my boots, Slave?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Mistress Violet ran a finger up and down Senator Grayle’s spine; his whole body vibrated with pent-up desire. “And once your penance is done, will you be a good Slave and withhold your orgasm until I give you the command of release?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Mistress gave Senator Grayle’s shoulders a light squeeze as a reward. “You are a good and obedient Slave,” she said. “Let us begin.” She unhooked his wrists from the restraints, but the old man still didn’t move—obviously he was waiting for permission to do so.
Mistress Violet climbed onto a large, high wooden chair that left her booted legs dangling just above the floor. “Assume the position, Slave,” she said.
Senator Grayle lay flat on his back underneath Mistress Violet’s chair so that his face was just underneath the soles of her boots. Mistress Violet offered him her left foot first; he took it into his hands and held the shoe over his mouth, lapping the sole of the boot with his tongue like a cat cleaning its paws. It was clear from the slow, careful way Senator Grayle was licking his mistress’ boots clean (not to mention his giant erection) that he loved every second of it. After a moment or two of watching this strange sight, I felt a low thrum starting to build between my legs. I shifted in my seat, and the Chinese balls moved inside me, intensifying the vibrations in my body even further.
I glanced upward at Mistress Violet and was stunned to see that she’d spread her own legs wide, revealing that her purple leather catsuit was crotchless. Her pussy was red, swollen, and glistening. She was clearly enjoying the game just as much as Senator Grayle was. Her hand strayed to her sex and she gently began to stroke herself in time to the rhythm of Senator Grayle’s lapping of her boot soles. Her strokes became harder, longer, and faster, until her body began to seize and tremble. She didn’t let herself go over the edge, though; she seemed to be saving her orgasm for something bigger later on.
Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set Page 8
