I felt Natalie beside me. The man was looking at her now, slipping a different mask just over her beautiful eyes. The action of him gently masking us was so decidedly intimate.
James opened a door and stood off to the side.
“Enjoy,” he said, giving us both a formal bow.
We walked through and I felt very nervous. We could be doing anything. Perhaps it was a formal costume ball?
We walked down a long dark hall with large candles lit on either side. They were thick candles, abundant ones, like we might somehow be in the 1800th century here. They were the type of candles that would adorn a large castle with many servants but one master who didn't like to go away.
As we got near another door I could hear some strange noises. There was the thumping of ethereal music beyond but then something more, something human. A chorus of voices, only they weren’t singing and they weren’t together in any pleasant array. If I was hearing correctly, there were people moaning in there.
“I’m a little scared,” I said, looking over to Natalie. It suddenly seemed like a haunted house to me. Would I be okay with whatever was inside?
“I gotchu,” Natalie said, she was helping me walk and holding my hand so I knew she was right with me.
We approached the door and a black blazer servant, like James, opened it up without word.
As soon as the door opened, the music became VERY loud and my eyes were caught by several things. It was this open space with a whole lot of people inside. Some dressed, some not. Some in costumes, some just like us in formal wear.
I heard moaning, laughter, and screaming coming from pretty much every inch of every square. I heard a lot of things all at once. Sensitive, my mind was pierced by it all. I tried to find the sources.
“Shit,” I huffed, taking it in. Two near-naked men on all fours had collars around their necks and were being led around on leashes by what seemed to be a woman with a riding crop and a look of power about her stare. Her breasts were free to the air, leather straps were her only ornaments. Just her stance was impressive. I instantly liked her. She impressed.
“It’s a dungeon,” Nat whispered, right into my ear. She had her hand around my waist and she’d been watching me. “People pay to come here and play.”
“People like us?” I asked, looking over at her. Were we going to have to play?
“Sort of,” Nat said, walking me over to a room on the right. The whole place was set up sort of like a circle. There were all these side halls and side rooms you could enter. Some had signs on them and closed doors and some did not. I didn’t have time to really see much before Nat pulled me to the nearest enclosed space.
This room had an open door.
As we passed the opening I saw a hanging sign that read: Please watch. We like when you watch.
There was a naked woman inside. Well, she was almost naked. My eyes were glued to her instantly. She was sort of stuck to the wall somehow. There were black cuffs on her ankles and her midsection and her wrists.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, unable to keep it inside.
Nat lift her eyebrows at me.
There was odd talking. A topless woman and a bottomless man were both standing near the pinned woman and they had these odd long sticks in their hands. It was almost like a role-play. It was certainly real and still it felt like a show.
I wondered if they worked her night after night. Was this practiced? Or were these people like Natalie said, people who had paid to come and play, people who liked to be watched.
Natalie and I both stared quietly as the topless woman stepped close and ran her hand along the pinned woman’s neck. There was a moment of tenderness and I wondered why the pinned woman seemed out of breath. Then the topless woman stuck the end of her stick into the pinned woman’s thigh. I realized just then that the sticks were electric. My body jumped and Nat squeezed my hand to comfort me. The shock was felt by me as the woman vocally cried.
Quick and effortless, Nat pulled me out of the room and walked me near a vacant wall.
“We can leave,” she said carefully.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. I was just surprised. I’d never been anywhere like this.
I looked over to the center of the room. Several people were standing around this sort of altar where two people were just openly having sex.
I’d noticed them when I walked in but I’d been discombobulated and kept my eyes from sticking there. Now, I saw. There were other people standing close around them and watching. One man was obviously playing with himself while he hungrily stared.
“This place is…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I wondered how long those people had been at it just there. The woman’s eyes were shut and she had a mask on like mine. Her whole body shook and she seemed dangerously close to an orgasm. I wondered how long.
Nat pulled me toward the next room. I heard a familiar sound and then saw. There was a man bent over a desk with his pants down and his knees tied. A woman in a nuns havoc was spanking him hard with a paddle. He was mumbling and apologizing to her.
Nat walked us around the room. More than one person was getting a spanking. It was a whole room for just spanking. I scoffed out a laugh. It was incredible.
I understood now. There were different conditions, different couples, different scenes. The whole place was filled.
As the woman hit him hard I watched the man’s face as he took it. I watched and I knew what he was feeling.
He was crying but he felt relief.
I heaved a heavy sigh and felt strange. That was what Nat and Avery had seen from me… It was an odd thing to see.
Calculated and intuitive, Nat walked slowly through the room and down the connecting hall to another space. There was a clear thick coffin-like plastic box sitting ontop of a large table. It was huge and it had several softball sized holes in it and an oiled yet naked person appeared to be locked up and laying inside.
The man inside wore a blindfold so he couldn’t see. As I got closer I could see he was also held down with white Velcro straps not that he was trying to get up or leave. Off in the corner some woman was just standing and watching and I wondered what for, it seemed almost official, her there. They seemed to have these silent guards everywhere. For some reason, I didn’t think she was paid.
I stepped close with Nat at my side. “You can touch,” she said. There had been I sigh I missed and she pointed to it.
“Oh,” I said, noticing. I realized there was a hole in front of me. Nat had walked me right to it as if sensing what I might want to see.
Several people had their hands on this smooth blindfolded man. A woman at the end of the table had been putting a feather through a hole and tickling the bottom of the man’s foot. A man in the center had his arm further inside the box and he was carefully stroking the man’s cock with this almost painful slowness, I instantly wondered how it would feel to be the man in the box.
Natalie and I were right near the trapped man’s chest. I looked up at his face and wondered.
I slowly reached in and rubbed his breast, I felt his muscles and watched his mixed expression as he felt so many hands all over him all at once. My hand made it’s way right over his heart and I felt it quickly beating with a steady force like a very fast kick-drum. I thought of that strange thing Avery had said once about wanting to have more hands to feel me.
On accident, I let out a soft whine.
This place was amazing.
I suddenly realized though that I was going to have to tell Avery about this whole night and that scared me enough to wake me up and give me an almost unwanted sober feeling.
I slowly pulled my hand out from the box and moved to leave, hurrying out of the room. I thought of the faceless woman in Avery’s dreams. I thought of a lot of things she’d said and I wondered if there was a room in here for a person like Ben… If I found that room I knew I’d be locked inside it for a very long time. That room would call to me. Curiosity was a dangerous thing. Often I wanted to know w
hat she had really felt. Now though, I knew, I should be grateful that I’d never have to know.
To the right of me, off in the distance, I could distinctly hear that one woman’s shaky breath, it’d been several minutes and she still hadn’t found the release she so desperately needed.
Moans and words came from so many rooms, they surrounded me.
I wanted to see them. I wanted to know. I wanted to study the faces so that later on I could remember what did what for who and when.
Thinking of Avery, I felt sick with myself.
I kept thinking of things Susan Sontag quoted and wrote in Regarding the Pain of Others. Things about witnessing pain and finding protest with we. Mostly she was talking about war and photographs and perspectives but it all somehow applied to how I was feeling right now.
I couldn’t be here without taking into account Avery’s war and my own obvious otherness and distance from that.
“There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching.” ~ Susan Sontag
This place fractured me. It made me feel othered from my one true love, which I honestly was and probably would always be.
“Livia?” Natalie came up behind me and caught me by the waist.
“Come on,” she said, leading me to the nearby bathroom. There was a large stall that had a bench across from the toilet so people could watch while you went. She dragged me inside and sat us both down on the bench. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I gasped, sorta lying.
“What is it?” She was genuinely worried.
“I dunno,” I said.
“We can go. I wasn’t sure if you’d like this or not. It was a hit or miss.”
“I like it, I do. I just…”
“Baby,” she said, like she used to, brushing my hair back from my face and locking her eyes with mine. “Tell me.”
I couldn’t say no to that.
“It feels like cheating,” I said, looking up at her rather serious.
“Oh sweetie…” Regret was painted all over her face. She felt completely remorseful, all it took was an instant. “I’m so sorry, really.” She stood up and held her hand out. I took it and she pulled me up.
There were no more questions. I didn’t need to say anything else, Nat just knew. I felt her helping me to walk as we slowly made our way back out of the mysterious space.
When we got to the car she still took care to help me in and buckle me.
On the drive home I felt sort of bad like I’d ruined the good night.
We’d been driving a while and neither of us had said anything.
“Nat… I’m-”
“Shhhhh,” she said gently, moving her hand to mine and lovingly holding it. I felt her thumb rubbing on my skin.
“If Avery was with me it would’ve been fine but-”
“Livia,” she said, looking over at me with a stern sort of stare. “If it felt wrong it felt wrong. You don’t have to explain. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I said, still feeling off.
The rest of the night had been more than perfect. For whatever reason that last thing was just a little too close to what I would like. Thinking about the possibility of there being a room for a person like Ben has just about broken me. If I had gone into that room and I’d volunteered to feel what she felt, Avery would never forgive me. She wouldn’t see me the same.
“Do you want to go somewhere or do anything else?” The way she asked told me that she already knew the answer.
“No,” I said. It made me feel so sad for her. Why’d I have to end the night like this after everything?
“Okay,” she laughed it off, using her thigh to steer the wheel down the empty street as she brushed a stray tear from one of her eyes.
“Can I ask you something?” I moved my knees in so I could better face her.
“Always,” she said.
“Why’d you take me there?” I wasn’t sure what was meant.
“I dunno, I guess… I thought you might want to do something there. Last free night.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Any of it,” Nat said. “Bachelor parties are for big mistakes and last minute flings.”
I realized heavily that I really didn’t want to do any of that. At least, not with anyone who wasn’t Avery.
“That place though… Have you ever-”
“No,” Nat laughed, amused. “That’s not really my thing.”
“Right,” I said, realizing how much thought she put into every single part of this night. “You really only did that stuff with me, huh?” I asked.
“I really only did,” she laughed, a small amount of tears finding her while she smiled through them and made great attempts to dodge her makeup and keep her face clean.
“I guess I just thought: if Avery’s getting a lap dance, Olivia might want a spanking.”
“You’re right,” I laughed. “But I couldn’t even take a lap-dance right now. I’d feel too guilty, really. I couldn’t enjoy it.”
“Oh,” Natalie smiled. We’d parked at a red light and she took extra-long to look at me and touch my face with the fingers on her right hand. I moved my face into her hand and held her fingers with mine, shutting my eyes and feeling her skin.
“Thanks for tonight,” I said. “I know the end kinda sucked but… You mean a lot to me Natalie.”
“I know,” she said.
She probably didn’t know though. How could she know? She was right, I had dumped her.
“I just wanted to make sure you were ready,” she said.
“I am,” I nodded, sure of it. I wanted to be with Avery more than anyone else. Every day I wanted that, every second.
“That’s good,” Natalie softly smiled, turning back to the road as the light turned and she had to move.
We didn’t speak again until we got to the house.
Nat parked the car and we both sat there in the dark with the lights off.
“Thanks for letting me do all this,” Nat said.
“Are you kidding? Tonight was amazing,” I said, looking over at her.
“I’m just really glad I got to have you on your last night.”
“I’m glad too,” I said.
She leaned over the console and hugged me.
It was kind of sad but kind of perfect.
I sunk into the hug and breathed her in generously. We’d done a lot of things in a very short time. That could be said of our night just as well as our relationship. I heard her moving away before I actually felt it.
“Okay,” she said. “Get out.” She laughed.
“Okay,” I laughed back a little too loud. I was definitely still a little too drunk.
I moved to open the door but couldn’t find the handle.
“Jesus Christ!” Natalie said, pushing herself out of the car and walking around to open the door and help me. “You’re like a toddler, I swear.”
“So what,” I teased, hitting her collarbone with my hand as she helped me to my door.
The door in front of us opened and I saw Avery and stopped in my steps. Just the sight of her after all that took my air.
“Okay,” Natalie chuckled. “Avery, can you come get her please I don’t think she can stand.”
Avery came running, taking my arm and my weight from Natalie.
“Thanks, Nat,” Avery said. “For getting her home safe and for… Well, everything.”
“She’s all ready for you to make an honest woman of her,” Nat smiled, handing me over.
“Night,” I said, looking back at her as Avery held me.
“Night, Babe,” she smiled simply, like it had just been a normal night and this weekend would just be a normal weekend. Nat was good at that stuff, pretending things were okay and not shattering.
I felt Avery’s arms holding me and I wanted to cry with how good she felt.
“Oh Baby, do you even know how good you feel right now?!” I was touching her chest and her body. Naturally I was ins
tantly whining. Natalie was right. I was a toddler.
I felt Avery’s arms around me and rolled into her, taking her face in my hand and kissing her needily. I was drunk and stupid. I’d done idiotic things. But all I wanted was for her to be touching me right now. That’s all I wanted all night and it hadn’t happened. I needed it now. I needed my girl.
Chapter 12
Avery
Paper Dolls Page 20
