by Q. Zayne
A rough-looking guy eyed me, but not in a good way. I rushed away from the park, leaving the happy cries from the swing sets and the merry-go-round behind. My reflection in the florist window caught my eye. I filled out my largest dress, my curves pushing at its confines. I was beyond a fashionable size. The good men didn’t even look. The florist didn’t stop his work as I stumbled over the uneven paving. He was a handsome, bearded man making a bridal display. Everything seemed set to torment me for being single.
I tossed my hair back and put it out of my mind. Plenty of women had good lives on their own. This was a new era. I could be fulfilled without a husband and children. I’d take up sculpting or pottery, take a night class or something. I didn’t have to be lonely. With that resolve, I slowed down and admired my surroundings. I was as good as anyone else. I didn’t need a man to make me happy. An old man took his wife’s hand ahead of me and they crossed the street in step. I was fine.
After several uplifting blocks of admiring gardens and fancy houses I couldn’t afford, a bin of books outside a small shop lured me to browse. A glance at the window told me the treasures were inside. Books with embossed covers and even a scroll sat on display in a case designed to protect the ancient books from the sun’s destructive rays.
I waved at the bespectacled white haired man reading a book at the desk. He nodded, no doubt understanding I didn’t feel like talking. I went right to the back of the store, as though I knew where I was going.
For fun, I stuck out my finger and pointed. I sighted along my nail. There. A handsome book with a dark brown spine and gold lettering. A chill went through me. I had to look.
I opened the book to where it wanted. The pages lay flat to reveal a map, and old map with serpents in the sea. It felt like a dream, inevitable and portentous.
I pointed again. Third time’s a charm.
I poked the page and landed in the ocean.
Wind whirled. My hair flew around my face. My dress blew up exposing my thong. The shopkeeper gasped.
I landed hard, falling and sliding, right at the feet of someone wearing giant scuffed boots with cuffs at the calves. The floor tilted. I grabbed the boots. They were warm.
I tasted salt on my lips. A man with a mop stood near the man with the big boots. His mouth hung open, and his pants tented. I scrambled to pull down my dress. The crazy tilting turned to rocking. I got my hair out of my face, but didn’t dare stand up.
What the fuck? Blue sky, a mast, cannons—cannons?
It was a ship. What was going on? Did the old bookstore owner run some kind of hologram trip? Maybe he’d been into Hollywood special effects. But this was too good. A gull swooped down to the deck and scooped up fish guts. A black cat hissed. The guy with the mop hadn’t moved.
Big hands scooped me up. Sure as hell, this felt real.
He had the most beautiful dark brown eyes. They looked as clear as the cenotes near Maya ruins in Mexico. I couldn’t speak. I hung in his strong hands, gaping like a fish. He smiled. He eyed me up and down. I swallowed. Black hair blew back from his face. He had burnished skin, broad, high cheekbones, a powerful nose, and those deep eyes. Because the Caribbean was my main point of reference for sea faring, I wondered if that’s where he sailed.
“Ho ho,” he said a lot of sounds, but that first exclamation was all that registered. After that, part of my brain was trying to recognize his language. I had no clue. Which country was he from, and where was he sailing?
I shook my head. For a moment, I was accepting craziness, that I somehow walked across the city, into a bookstore—and what? Fell into a book? Fell into the past? The ship looked like no contemporary vessel, unless it was a good reproduction. The sails billowed with wind. They were worn and mended. The masts showed gouges and gashes that made me imagine sword fights. A pair of cuffs hung from the mast near me, an ominous reminder of punishment. Did they walk the plank here, too?
“Excuse me, would you put me down now, please?” I pointed to the deck and looked at it, hoping he’d understand.
He grinned and raised me higher.
Damn, he was strong. I wasn’t so sure I wanted him to put me down.
He tossed me over his shoulder. My dress blew up, revealing my entire ass with nothing but my thong covering my crack. His hand came down on my butt with a smack. The men hooted and hollered. The chorus of voices made me aware I was on a ship alone with many, many men—with my naked ass over a giant’s shoulder.
He wasn’t exactly a giant, but damn big. Amid the voices I caught what sounded like a Jamaican accent, and so many others my mind couldn’t sort them out. I grabbed the man’s shirt.
“Please, please put me down.”
He smacked my ass again and called something to the men. Raucous suggestions and laughter rose from them. I saw a few gestures that made me blush. That’s how I guessed they were making suggestions as to what he should do with me. I hid my face against his hard back. His boots thudded across the deck. His trousers clung to his thick thighs. The man was built like an Adonis. If I wasn’t more than a little freaked out, I’d have to admit he was hot. Nothing like being man-handled by a gorgeous broad-shouldered hunk with the face of a chief. He looked like a leader of men. It struck me he was probably the captain of the ship, if not the leader of a nation as well. He strode with ease, as though having a woman slung over his shoulder was a usual thing. Glassy, frothy waves crashed over the bow. He carried me like I weighed no more than laundry, effortlessly striding half the length of the deck to a cabin. He opened the door, tossed me on the bed, shut the door, and pulled off his shirt.
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Preview: SOLD ~ BDSM Interracial Group Erotica
Dear Reader: This is the opening of Sold, the first episode of The Billionaires Club, my popular interracial BDSM series with gang action. It’s set at an exclusive island sex club for billionaires, and each episode features the experience of one heroine. Some of the heroines have curves, but this isn’t specifically a curvy girl series. The first three episodes are shorts, and the rest are novellas. I fell for Gabe. This is the beginning of the book, so there are no spoilers.
SOLD
Brittani Serves Black Men at The Billionaires Club
It was over. I ran out of the night club and down the sidewalk. I slipped in a puddle in my high dancing heels and pinwheeled my arms to keep from falling. A guy holding a newspaper over his head against the downpour elbowed past and knocked me against the wall. The rain soaked my red mini dress and plastered my gold hair down my back. Blinded by tears, I groped along the wall, feeling for a doorway to duck into. Pedestrians rushing on their lunch hour almost knocked me over.
My shift wasn’t over. I never left work before my shift was over. But Frank fired me. I couldn’t believe it.
My hand gripped something soft and dry; it felt like cashmere. I couldn’t stop in time. I collided with a tall, broad-shouldered man. He reached out and steadied me, with the same care he might use to keep a priceless vase from falling over. A gentleman’s touch, not a creep’s. I’d had a lot of practice telling the difference.
“Here, share my umbrella. My name is Gabe.” He gave me his arm and led me into the shelter of a hotel’s awning.
I lowered my face, watching my red patent leather shoes splash along the pavement. Shop lights and the sky reflected from the water. Rain water sluiced down my long, smooth leg over a constellation of small moles by my knee. I tugged at my skirt, it clung tighter and rode up more from being so wet, almost exposing the cheeks of my ass and my thong.
“I’m Minx.” I’d been using my dancing name so long it came out. Ordinarily, I’d still be on duty, still be Minx. My other name was for college and official papers. This stretch of sidewalk so near the nightclub where I’d been dancing for more than a year was Minx’s world.
“A pleasure to meet you, Minx.” He had a low, warm voice and his gaze warmed me, too.
The man handed me a clean handkerchief from inside his fine black suit
jacket. I stared at it. I hadn’t known a man to carry a handkerchief since Dad. He was dead. That’s how I’d ended up an erotic dancer. I cried harder, embarrassed to be losing it in front of the handsome stranger. The man had a strong, masculine face, glints of silver in his hair — and even covered in a coat, his physique was impressive.
“Take your time. I noticed you came out of the club. I was about to go in there.” He gave me a smile. “This is better. Let’s talk here. Are you all right?” His brows furrowed and he looked right into me with bright eyes.
He looked far too well-off and refined to be seeking converts, so I figured there was no harm in talking. And I had a nodding acquaintance with the hotel’s door man, so it was a safe enough place to take a break from the rain until I decided what to do. What was I going to do? I realized I was still clutching his handkerchief. I dabbed my eyes with it. It came away smeared with mascara and taupe eyeshadow. My face felt too hot. I glanced at him again. He looked like a good man. And sexy as Hell. I didn’t usually spill my guts, but I needed to talk with someone. I was shocked.
“I just got fired.”
“What happened?”
“They fired me for accepting a customer’s proposition.”
“That’s rough. Seems a funny place to have a morals clause.” He arched a brow.
His take on it made me smile, but inside, panic demons started work. I was in trouble. Without that dancing job, my whole plan for getting my degree might be shot. And I didn’t want the dazzling man to think I was a whore.
“I’d never done that before. Never. My rent went up. My school fees went up. My textbooks came to $300 for this term. I was desperate. The guy was old and fat, but he seemed nice, like it would be easy to please him. He just wanted a private show and a hand job at his hotel, one of the best hotels in town, so I figured that was safe. He said he’d send a cab for me at the end of the shift. Maybe one of the other dancers overheard and reported me. Prostitution is against the rules. No selling services or items of any kind . Right after I got hired, they canned a girl for selling her panties. Used panties, of course. It’s one of the things men like. She danced in them and sent them to the customer via one of the club’s runners, who took a cut for his service. And also got fired. Probably there are hidden cams all over the place. So, I knew the risks, but I had to have the money. If I didn’t pay my rent, I’d lose my room and I had no place to go. My room’s a rat hole in the Tenderloin, but it beats ending up on the street.”
“I understand.”
He looked at me with such gorgeous blue-green eyes, with no judgment whatsoever. My embarrassment ebbed away, I felt absolved, like the good stuff I hoped for from religion when I was a kid but never got.
“Thanks.” I looked at raindrops making round splashes in the puddles beyond the awning’s shelter. People hurried by, all the downtown workers rushing through the shortest hour of the work day.
“How did you end up as a dancer, if you don’t mind my asking?” He didn’t stare at me, just glanced out at the crowd as though he was content to pass the time in the rain people watching.
I liked him. I didn’t want him to go away. Once I stopped talking, I’d have to figure out what to do about the mess I’d just made of my life — alone in San Francisco with no family, no savings, and the prospect of losing my home. I talked.
“My life’s straight out of a sleazy day-time talk show. I had the classic molester step-dad and the tough knocks of a runaway, complete with textbook PTSD symptoms and an alcohol problem. I made the predictable career choice of stripper, or erotic dancer, as the ad called it.” I glanced at him. He had the serene face of a Buddha, if the Buddha looked like a hunk with chiseled good looks from Hollywood’s golden era. I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t a loser. “On the positive side, I evaded being raped at home, I stopped drinking, and I took the California High School Proficiency Exam. I took junior college courses to make up for my academic deficiencies and I applied to universities. U.C. Berkeley declined, but I made it into San Francisco State and tried for every grant and scholarship available. I made it through my freshman year, but the rising expenses are too much. Really too much.” I mauled his handkerchief between my hands, wringing it as hard as I wished I could wring the manager Gino’s neck for firing me.
“Yes. The academic fees keep going up, taxes, rent, food and transportation expenses keep going up, but the job opportunities and wages aren’t matching what people need to live here, except for at the top.” He nodded.
He had a kind face. He looked interested and didn’t seem to think I was just a complainer.
“I’ve been working six days a week shaking my naked ass. I nod off in classes. I take caffeine tabs but I’m irritable all the time and have trouble concentrating enough to study. I feel tired all the time. I’m 22 years old and I wake up tired. My grades are falling for the first time. If they go one point lower, I lose my one merit-bases scholarship and I won’t be able to cover next year’s fees. My college plan will be over.” I stopped, afraid I was talking too much, worried that he’d think I was hopeless, a mess.
“You’re not bad. You just did what you needed to under the circumstances. You got caught and the club fired you. There was probably nothing personal about it. If they got caught with girls turning tricks out of there, their business could come under fire. They’d probably lose their liquor license just for starters. It’s rough on you, but what happened doesn’t make you a bad person.” He had a warm, persuasive voice. We’d never met, but he seemed to get what I was feeling. “The big picture is what matters. There’s nothing wrong with what you’re trying to do. It’s valiant. You’re refusing to be a statistic, another young woman who drops out, goes down the alcoholic or drug-user road to numb pain, and opts out of choosing her life. You’re different.”
His words helped me so much. Tears ran down my face. I turned away and tried to repair my makeup with his hankie.
“I want to help you, but I don’t want you to do anything that’s bad for you.” He paused, waited for me to look at him. “Given your history, what I’d propose might be difficult for you. Yet you’re a warrior, and if you want to give it a go, we’ll take good care of you. You can stay at the island after the show. We’ve got therapists and a doctor on staff, bodyguards,” he smiled, “Excellent security. We can give you a safe home. You can finish your degree via an online program and I’ll pay for it. It’s not the same as the experience of attending college, of course, and I’m sorry about that, because I do look back on my college years with fondness. But San Francisco has changed since that time. It’s become a much more harsh place for the have-nots. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I wouldn’t want my daughter living in your crime-ridden neighborhood and taking public transportation to school here. And the rising rates of college rapes is a national disgrace. There are parts of the world where young women can live alone in a city and get a college education without being treated as prey by criminal men, but this area is not among them. I can give you a way out.” He spread his hands, hesitated. “The thing is, I’ve been recruiting for my private club for months, and you’re different. There’s something about you. And I’m not sure if this is the right opportunity for you.” He smiled again, making me weak in the knees. “I’d like it to be.”
“Let me decide. Just what are you proposing?” Given his discomfort, how we met, and his delicate reference to my history, it must be something sexual. But no one as hot as this guy needed to recruit a mistress. Maybe he was kinky. The girls at work told stories of all kinds of johns. Some of them turned tricks before turning to dancing as a less dangerous line of work, free of disease, beatings and the risk of johns who injured girls or tried to take what they wanted and not pay. None of them wanted to report being raped.
So I knew about George, a lawyer who liked to be pelted with grapefruits by a girl wearing vintage lingerie including a girdle holding up silk stockings, while standing there in the kind of thick-heeled shoes modeled by WWII pinup models
. The outfit was as crucial to his satisfaction as the grapefruit-lobbing. And Ryan, a banker who liked to nurse, cooing like a baby while pretending to breastfeed. His needs required someone with a large cup size. My big girls were about his minimum, Shelley told me. And Conrad, a dry cleaning mogul who couldn’t get off unless a girl with long red nails spanked him on his peter and called him a bad boy. Jason, a CEO, liked to dress up as “Diane,” complete with wig, makeup, falsies, crotch-flattener, butt-and-hip-pad panties and a business women’s suit. Once she got him dressed, his paid date took him to a dive bar where “Diane” tried to pick up a man. If he succeeded, the girl went with them to a hotel, because Jason felt better about giving a blow-job and getting reamed with a woman watching. The stories went on and on with fetishes and sex acts beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Guys who liked to be trussed up and hang in imaginative bondage, guys who liked to wear diapers, guys who liked their cocks and balls squeezed and ground under a high heeled shoe.
The main point that emerged was that many high-powered men were submissive or fetishists — not sadists, not dominants, not the kinds of men who starred in women’s fantasies, except those of the probably small number of women who would engage in those men’s fantasies without being paid.
I read part of a popular BDSM novel and howled. I laughed so hard I cried. I couldn’t finish the book. When the giggles died away, I felt sad. I grew up wanting to be a princess. And look how that turned out. So many women wanting a wealthy, improbably dominant man to see her as super special and seduce her into doing naughty, naughty things… That could never happen.
Unlike most guys I’d spent time with, Gabe didn’t need to fill every silence by talking about himself or working toward getting me out of my panties. He let me think. I looked right into his eyes.
