by Sasha Grey
Max brought me here himself, so maybe that can be considered my invitation.
“I don’t believe there are people here with nothing at all to hide.”
Bundy tilts his head. “It’s my experience that people see what they expect to.”
That sounds like a challenge, so I slide off my stool and head off to find another room of the club to explore.
Did we all heed a call to get here?
Are these people just like me on some level?
I find a door that’s puffy and black, quilted vinyl with a large 3939 on it. Here’s as good as any other.
I push inside. It’s a large room, but the ceiling is low so it feels more intimate than it should. The walls are a dark forest green, and it smells smoky and sweet, like someone’s smoking strawberry tobacco in a hookah, but the air is clear and warm. Fat white candles are lit on low tables that circle the perimeter, giving the only light, but it’s enough to see everything.
It’s quite a show.
A man’s body is decorated with ropes, and he kneels with his arms bound behind his back, tied with more ropes in intricate knots and loops while a tall black woman—a dominatrix, based on the height of her heels and the leather outfit—slowly circles him like an affectionate predator toying with her meal.
A few people are gathered around watching, so I move closer and realize it’s a side-by-side bondage demonstration. Next to the man, there’s a woman, also in the process of being tied, but with delicate white silks. I can’t help but notice that the man isn’t tied up with anything that comfortably soft, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Naked, his cock juts up toward his face, stiff and aggressive.
A man loops the silk around the woman’s arm, and the domi-natrix stops him, adjusting the rope a little higher on the woman’s bicep. “You’ve got to watch out for the arteries. We want to apply pressure, but not cut off blood flow or do damage.” She twists the material and pulls tighter in the new spot, and the woman gasps.
The dominatrix addresses the group watching. “Keep in mind that if you suspend your submissive after this, the ropes will pull tighter in places. Adjust as you go along, but it’s better to leave a little slack and tighten—you won’t be able to give slack once they’re in the hooks.”
She calls over a couple of people to help her submissive guy up and into the suspension. He groans and shivers, a drop of pre-come glistening on the tip of his cock. Does it really feel that good?
Ropes and air and pressure. That’s it. Is it the eyes of the people watching that makes it hotter?
Sex is in the mind before the body. The idea can turn us on as much as the touch, and when the dominatrix invites us forward to look at the rope marks on the skin of a woman she has tied up on the floor—a different woman, hidden from my view behind the crowd—I step forward to trace the marks on her body.
I’m not the only one. We surround her almost clinically, reaching out to feel where the ropes were. She shudders beneath our hands, eyes rolling back into her head, come leaking from between her legs onto the floor.
“She’s in subspace,” the dominatrix explains. “Every touch is overwhelming, no matter how light. Her body is trapped in a place where everything is good. Don’t be fooled—not everyone who gets suspended reaches this place. For a while it hurts a lot. But if you gain their trust and do it right,” she continues, trailing her hand over some indentations on the woman’s thigh—the woman gasps and arches off the floor, labia quivering—”you can make them come without fucking them.”
How erotic would it be if Jack tied me up like that, got me to that place and touched and touched and touched my body, bringing me higher and higher? Screw touching, how would it be if he fucked me while I was quivering at his every nudge?
I squeeze my thighs together, feeling how wet my panties are. I wonder if this woman does private instruction and how much she’d charge, but laughter flutters over to me from an open door on the other side of the room, and I head that way, curious.
What do people here find amusing?
The smell of sweat hits me just before I reach the threshold and step inside, gently fighting my way through the crowd to get to the center of the room where the action is—where everyone’s eyes are.
A man—a titan, really; he’s got to be pushing three hundred pounds—is tied to a huge pole in the middle of the room, his hands suspended above his head.
Every inch of his naked body glistens, with sweat or something else, I don’t know, but around the gag in his mouth, he pants heavily.
A tiny blonde domme steps forward and grabs the base of his cock. It’s so swollen, it’s an angry purple shade. His legs shake and his eyes roll back in his head.
She leans in and whispers something the rest of us can’t hear, but he frantically nods and moans.
She laughs and slowly strokes his cock—then stops and walks away from him, winking at the crowd.
“What’s going on?” I ask a man in a suit next to me.
“Orgasm denial.”
“Oh.” Well, that seems tame.
He leans closer. “For the last four hours.”
Oh. The poor guy. And yet, the warning “If You take this medication and suffer from an erection that lasts for more than four hours… “ flits through my mind, and I smother a laugh. The man next to me smiles as I turn back to the show.
The woman dances around the man, alternately stroking his body and his cock. She stops and fingers herself in front of him, and his eyes blaze, but he’s completely helpless. All turned on and no way to fuck.
She grabs his cock and fists it hard and fast, but just when I’m sure he’s going to come, she viciously pushes his cock towards his feet and punches him in the thighs, and he whimpers and tears stream down his cheeks.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Anticipation is one thing, but this has got to be torturous.
My cheeks hurt from smiling at this teeny little woman completely dominating this huge guy. I bet he’d do anything for her right now if she asked.
She starts rubbing his balls again, and a long line of drool strings from his mouth and hits the floor. He’s vacant, nothing more than a body, nothing more than a need.
The tiny domme prances around him and asks us if she should reward him for being a good little slave.
We clap and cheer, most of us as desperate to see his relief as if it were our own.
It doesn’t take more than ten seconds before thick spurts of come explode from his body.
I’ve never seen so much come, and we clap as the submissive cries with relief. He sags as she removes the gag and whispers in his ear, maybe congratulating him, praising him as the audience starts leaving.
A hand lands on my arm and I stop, turning to look up at the man in the suit.
“Want to try that?” He’s tall and attractive in a wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of way, and he’s looking at me as though I could do to him what the dominatrix did to the other guy. He’s looking at me as though I’m someone with power—and not just the privilege that comes with my job. I like that feeling more than I can say, but I decline, and I leave the club without another word.
Looking is one thing; participating is another. I love Jack and don’t want to compromise our relationship, despite the heady temptation throbbing through my thighs with every beat of my heart.
FIFTEEN
GENA PACES, TREMBLING, FROM ONE room to another, even more brittle than the last time I saw her a few months ago. It’s as if, because of the impending election, they’ve decided to lacquer her up and make her as shiny as they can. She was never going to be the relatable First Lady, comparable to William’s Kate or Charles’s Diana, even if age was on her side. She’s not the type of woman who hangs out with the average woman trading parenting advice or witty jokes. In fact, she’s not a woman at all—she’s a lady, which actually makes her perfect for the job of standing around looking fashionable in photo-ops.
So, the team has gone in the complete opp
osite direction, making her as plastic as a doll.
It’s a show of unrealistic perfection in the way only Southern belles understand. Fake tits, fake hair, fake smiles—and real claws beneath the fake tips. Because if there’s anyone who will survive anything thrown at her, it’s a girl from the South who has had to keep her poise and stay pretty no matter what life throws at her. Her purse matches her shoes, her feelings are always appropriately smothered, and she’s unflaggingly supportive of her man, never overshadowing his accomplishments with her own, but complementing them.
There’s a different tiny dog from the last time we were here. A constant rotation of dogs with brains the size of chickpeas have dragged their asses on the antique carpets of Gena’s heart in the last four years.
I can’t stop thinking about now juxtaposed with then.
Seeing Bundy did that to me. Even the ignominy and embarrassment of being exposed on national television apparently couldn’t stop Bundy. He’s been given another chance, a second act in his career as a disreputable scumbag, through the patronage of Maximilian Gold, who has given Bundy his own club to run in the bowels of the hotel. But why? Bundy was a laughingstock, a nobody, a shell of his already pretty low self. What was it about him that Max took pity on—or is it more? Bundy is a survivor. He’s not altruistic; he’s always going to look after himself. Maybe that’s what you want in someone working for you.
Make him a part of the business, and that part of the business connected to him will always thrive.
Self-interests are the most strenuously protected—and Bundy has this way of being endearing, making you want to sit back and watch the show even when sometimes you think you should cringe. Now that I think about it, he could have been a temporary sacrifice for reasons unknown.
But what’s the connection between Bundy and Max? Max and Inana?
Everything is mashed together like butter inside a French pastry dough, the two pressed up against each other and ironed together.
Jack called me away from the hotel to have dinner at Bob’s house, but he’s running late, leaving me with the past clinging to me like I’m wearing it as a toga. He’s never late. I can’t even make him late with a surprise blowjob before a meeting. Something’s going on, but I can’t figure out what. I didn’t want to come back here, but I missed Jack, and he wanted to have dinner with Bob and Gena. Now I’m frustrated and fidgety, and I wish Jack had met me at our place and fucked the tension out of me before coming here together with me.
It’s not just seeing Bob that bothers me. I’m irritated at going back to being Catherine. At not getting to stay immersed in Inana’s life. It feels like my authenticity, my depth of understanding of her is being stripped away with every minute I stand around in the uncomfortable clothes I’m forced to wear here because of Politics.
And this isn’t where I want to be.
Not now.
Last night I was in the VIP club, immersed in things that most people will never see outside of a computer screen. I watched a ninety-five-pound dominatrix deny an orgasm to a guy three times her size until he was a crying, drooling mess, begging her for release.
It was amazing. When I walked in, I hadn’t thought much of it except to think, “How the hell is this tiny woman going to overpower him?”
It was an amazing show of power—true power.
Seeing something like that every day would do wonders for the world we live in. Not just about what women can do, what we’re capable of, but about the power of letting go and giving in to experiences to truly be present in them.
That’s what Inana was trying to say with her art.
I was living it for a few short days, and now I’ve been snatched back into my own life.
At the best of times, my patience for Bob is on a very short leash, but right now, now that I’ve been living Inana’s free life, living inside her head, seeing the way she does things, it makes it all that much worse.
The situation chafes at my skin like the tag on a shirt, rubbing, poking, distracting me. I want to tear it off and rub it better.
I want to go back to reading Inana’s diary, tracing the words she wrote, focusing on the things she saw, staying inside La Notte to see what else is happening underground.
“Can I get you another glass of wine, Catherine?”
I’m surprised to see I’ve drained my glass. “No, thank you,” I answer Gena with a smile. It’s been twenty-eight fucking minutes. Where’s Jack?
“I’ll just nip to the kitchen and open another bottle for when Jack gets here, let it air out. He likes white, right?”
“Yes,” I say, since she obviously wants a reason to drink. Airing out white wine? I guess it’s the one socially acceptable vice to have, and she’s going to milk the cork’s teat for all it’s worth before the election.
Can’t say I blame her. Her every move will be on camera. Every smile, every frown, every outfit.
Every flaw and misstep.
It’s exactly how I feel when I come to their house and make small talk.
It’s worse now that I’ve seen Bundy again.
With Bob’s political career about to go to the next level, I suspect he’ll need another “event” like the last one they attended together. Considering how far he needed to go for stress relief last time, I wonder what he’d need to do now to feel better about everything.
The tinkle of ice hitting the bottom of a heavy crystal tumbler announces Bob’s presence in the room. “I have it on good authority that you’ve recently started a new job,” he says to me.
Why would Jack tell Bob about my new job? “No, still working at the paper.”
“We both know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bluff, turning to where he stands near the bar, tumbler in hand.
His smile is bland. “Sometimes reporters get in too deep. Go native, as they say. Some stories hit close to home. It would be a shame if Jack found out what you’ve been up to.”
“Excuse me?”
His eyes flick to the security guard standing in the doorway. “You heard me.”
But there’s no point lowering my voice. I’m sure his guard knows that Bob isn’t just the typical sleazebag lawyer-turned-politician, and men like that know it’s better to keep your ears shut, because the less you know, the better. “What I’m doing is exactly none of your business, Bob, and I can assure you that Jack knows—and any details he isn’t aware of are harmless and insignificant and none of your business.”
“Oh, but it’s very much my business.” His fake smile goes as brittle as Gena’s, only it lacks the blurry softness of her eyes, and he walks over to me, a shark in a suit. “You’re connected to Jack, who’s connected to me. That makes everything you do my business. Especially in light of certain events.”
I force my hands to stay at my sides, relaxed. “Nothing I do is your business.”
How does he know—what does he know? I’m not stupid enough to admit to anything.
“Don’t think your latest…obsession has gone unnoticed,” he says. “I have reach you’ve never dreamed of, friends higher up—”
“And lower down?”
“—than you could imagine. People like you disappear all the time, Catherine.”
Instead of shrinking back when he invades my personal space, I force a smile, hoping it’s as cold as my hands suddenly are. “Yeah? Should I be flattered that you’re so obsessed with me, even after all this time?” It’s occurred to me that I never revealed anything about Bob, but he also never took action against me, despite my knowing all about his proclivities.
Maybe that wasn’t just out of fear.
The thought is chilling, and goosebumps form on my skin.
His gaze lands on my throat. “Maybe you’re the one who could never forget about that night.” He takes a sip of the amber liquid in his glass, grimacing at the burn.
“Did you forget what happened? Only, I seem to recall that one of us nearly d
idn’t get back up. Who was that?” I tilt my head.
“I wonder what Jack would say if he found out about that.”
“It’s Jack’s reaction you should be worried about, not mine.” It’s the truth.
He grins, the first genuinely pleasant expression he’s made tonight. “Jack? I think you’ll find out that the one he’s closest to as of late isn’t you.”
What the fuck does he mean by that? I keep my cool. “Don’t flatter yourself into thinking you’re more than what you are to Jack. You’re his boss, not his father, Bob. I’m Jack’s priority, not you.” I take a step toward the table and settle into my seat, fussing with the napkin like I don’t want to stuff it deep in Bob’s mouth until he chokes on it. The truth is, lately it does feel like Bob’s more important to Jack than I am.
“And what about you? What am I to you?”
I don’t know. “Inconsequential.”
His eyes darken, and he moves close to me, looming over the back of my chair. “We both know that’s not true, and so do our friends in the Janus Chamber.”
My mind flashes to the image of the coin in Inana’s diary. A full -on body shudder claims my bones as Bob places a hand on my shoulder, so lightly I think I might have imagined it, because when I look up, his hand isn’t touching me.
“The Janus Chamber?” Part of The Juliette Society, or something deeper, darker? “In Gold’s hotel,” I say, realizing. “That’s what it’s called.” It makes sense now, the drawing of the Janus coin.
He nods. “Do you like it there?”
I keep my mouth shut, refusing to give him anything to work with and twist into being something it isn’t. Of course I like it there. Part of me feels like it’s home. “Do you like it there?” I counter.
“What’s not to like?” He takes a sip of his drink and exhales, the alcohol sweet on his breath.
“What is the Janus Chamber?”
He looks me hard in the eye for a moment. “Whatever you want it to be. It’s the place where desires are born and inhibitions go to die.”
Has he been there recently?
Bob takes a step closer to me. “People like us naturally find places like that, Catherine.”
