The Club

by Lauren Rowe

  The Club Copyright © 2015

  Published by SoCoRo Publishing

  Layout by www.formatting4U.com

  Cover design © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review

  Chapter 1

  Jonas

  Name?

  I inhale and exhale slowly. Am I really going to do this? Yes, I am. Of course, I am. The minute Josh ever so briefly mentioned “The Club” to me during our climb up Mount Rainier four months ago, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be sitting here on my laptop, filling out this application.

  “Jonas Faraday,” I type onto my keyboard.

  With this application, you will be required to submit three separate forms of identification. The Club maintains a strict “No Aliases Policy” for admission. You may, however, use aliases during interactions with other Club members, at your discretion.

  Yeah, okay, thanks. But the name’s still Jonas Faraday.

  Age?

  I type in “30.”

  Provide a brief physical description of yourself.

  “Extremely fit. 6’1. 195 lbs.”

  Wait a minute. I’ve been working out like a demon this past month. I walk into the bathroom and stand on the scale. I return to my laptop.

  “190 lbs.”

  With this application, you will be required to submit three recent photographs of yourself to your intake agent. Please include the following: one headshot, one full-body shot revealing your physique, and one shot wearing something you’d typically wear out in a public location. These photographs shall be maintained under the strictest confidentiality.

  Jesus. Am I really going to send my personal information and three photos of myself to who-knows-where to some unknown “intake agent” for a dating service/sex club I know nothing about?

  I sigh.

  Yes, I am. I sure as hell am. Even if it’s against my better judgment, even if doing this flies in the face of rational and analytical thinking, even if my gut is telling me this is probably a horrifically bad idea, I’ve known I was going to do this since the minute I heard Josh talk about The Club four months ago.

  “It’s incredible, bro,” Josh said to me, getting a foothold on a boulder and stretching his hand toward a nearby crag. “Best money I’ve spent in my life.”

  The best money my brother had ever spent—and this coming from a guy who drives a Lamborghini? It was an endorsement I couldn’t ignore. In fact, thanks to Josh’s intriguing recommendation, I’ve thought of little else since our climb. Even when I’ve been smack in the middle of what should be an epic fuck with a hot kindergarten teacher or state prosecutor or barista or flight attendant or personal banker or dog groomer or graphic designer or court reporter or waitress or hairdresser or pediatric nurse or photographer, all I can think about is what I’m probably missing out on by not belonging to The Club.

  “It’s like a secret society,” Josh explained. “You can find members anywhere you go, anywhere in the world, on a moment’s notice, and the members matched to you are always ... uncannily compatible with you.”

  It was the “uncannily compatible” part of that sentence that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go, not the part about being able to find other members on a moment’s notice anywhere in the world. Because God knows I can find a sexual partner virtually any time I want, anywhere I go, on my own.

  I hate to be blunt about it, but women throw themselves at me, I guess based on my looks (so they tell me) and money (so I surmise) and, sometimes, thanks to the Faraday name (which, believe me, ain’t such a prize). Young, old; married, single; hot, mousy; blonde, brunette; bookish, badass; full-figured, heroin-chic. It doesn’t matter. It seems I can have anybody I want, as easily as ordering “fries with that” if I’m so inclined. And, yes, over the past year or so, I’ve become increasingly, incessantly, obsessively so inclined. And I’m beginning to hate myself for it.

  Before anyone gets all up in arms and starts righteously listing off all the women I could never bed—“Well, you could never fuck Oprah or Mother Theresa or Chastity Bono before she became Chaz”—let me be crystal clear about what I’m saying here: I can bed any woman I want to. No, not literally every woman on planet earth. I fully acknowledge I couldn’t nail a nun or Oprah or an eighty-year-old great-grandmother or a pre-op-transgender-lesbian. Nor would I want to, for Chrissakes.

  What I’m saying is that if I, Jonas Faraday, want a particular woman to be naked and spread-eagle in my bed, if that’s what I want, if a woman turns my head and makes me hard, or, hell, makes me laugh, or think about something in a whole new way, or maybe if she can’t find her sunglasses and then chuckles because they’re sitting on top of her head, or if her ass is particularly round in a snug pair of jeans—oh, yeah, especially if she has an ass I can really sink my teeth into—whoever she is, she will, eventually and most willingly, float onto my bed like the beautiful angel she is, spread open her silky thighs and, after a only a few moments of mutual bliss, beg me to fuck her.

  I wish I could say “end of story” right there, but, unfortunately, I can’t. Because sex is never the end of the story when it comes to me. And that’s why I need The Club. I can’t keep going to the same pond with the same fishing rod, dipping my rod into the same waters—no matter how warm and inviting those waters happen to be—and just keep bringing up the same goddamned tilapia, regardless of how moist and delicious. I just cannot do it anymore.

  If I keep doing the same thing I’ve been doing, over and over, the same way I’ve been doing it, then I’m going to go completely insane—which is something I’ve already done once, albeit a lifetime ago and under completely different circumstances, and I’m not willing to do it again. What I want is something different. Something brutally honest. Something real. And if the only way to get what I want is to ignore my better judgment and shell out an enormous monetary sacrifice to the gods of depravity, then so be it.

  Please sign the enclosed waiver describing the requisite background check, medical physical examination, and blood test, which you must complete as a condition of membership.

  No problem. I’m relieved to know every member gets rigorously vetted. I sign where indicated.

  Sexual orientation? Please choose from the following options: Straight, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, other?

  “Straight.” That’s an easy one. Just out of curiosity, though, what the fuck does “pansexual” mean? I Google it. “Pansexual: Not limited or inhibited in sexual choice with regard to gender or activity.” Ah, okay—anything goes. Interesting concept, solely from a philosophical perspective, but it most definitely doesn’t describe me. I know exactly what I want and what I don’t.

  Do any of your sexual fantasies include violence of any nature? If so, please describe in detail.

  “No.” Emphatically, categorically, no.

  Please note that your inclination toward or fantasies about sexual violence, if any, will not, standing alone, preclude membership. Indeed, we provide highly particularized services for members with a wide variety of proclivities. In the interest of serving your needs to the fullest extent possible, please describe any and all sexual fantasies involving violence of any nature whatsoever.

  Hey, assholes, I answered honestly the first time. “None.”

  Maybe I should move on to the next question, but I feel the need to elaborate. “There is nothing whatsoever I enjoy more than giving a woman intense pleasure—the most outrageously concentrated pleasure she’s ever experienced in her life. Now, granted, if I do my job, her pleasure, and therefore mine, is so overwhelming, it blurs indistinguishably with pai
n. But, no, my fantasies do not tend toward violence or infliction of pain, ever. I find the entire idea repulsive, especially in relation to what should be the most sublimely pleasurable of all human experience.” What kind of sick fucks do they let into this club, anyway? My gut is churning.

  Are you a current practitioner of BDSM and/or does BDSM interest you? If so, describe in explicit detail.

  “Never,” I write, my fingers pounding the keyboard for emphasis. A distant memory threatens to rise up from its dark hiding place, but I force it back down. My heart is racing. “My extreme disinterest in bondage and sadomasochism is absolutely non-negotiable.”

  Payment and Membership Terms. Please choose from the following options: One Year Membership, $250,000 USD; Monthly Membership, $30,000 USD. All payments are non-refundable. No exceptions. Once you’ve made your selection regarding your membership plan, information for wiring the funds into an escrow account will be immediately forthcoming under separate cover. Membership fees shall be transferred automatically out of escrow to The Club upon approval of your membership.

  What did my father always used to say? “Go big or go home, son.” Oh, how he’d laugh heartily from his grave to know the son he derisively called the “soft” one is harkening back to his father’s mantra to choose a sex club membership. “I guess you’re more like your Old Man than I thought,” he’d say. I can hear his ghost laughing wickedly in my ear right now.

  It’s not the amount of money that gives me pause. I could buy either membership plan multiple times over and never hear so much as a peep from my accountants—but I don’t throw money away, ever, in any sum. Regardless, though, if I’m going to do this, which I am, doesn’t it make the most economic sense to join for a full year? My hands hover over the keyboard. My knee is jiggling.

  All right, fuck it, yes, I admit it—it’s crazy and irresponsible to spend this kind of money on a club, or dating service, whatever the hell this is, especially sight-unseen. I’m Jonas, after all, not Josh. I’m not the twin who buys himself Italian sports cars on every whim or who hired Jay-Z to play his thirtieth birthday party (which would have been our joint birthday party if I’d bothered to attend). And yet ... I sigh. I know damn well what I’m about to do here, no matter the cost or how loudly the voice inside my head is screaming at me to retreat.

  “One year membership,” I write, exhaling loudly.

  Please provide a detailed explanation about what compelled you to seek membership in The Club.

  I close my eyes for just a moment, collecting my thoughts.

  “I love women,” I type. I take a deep breath. “I love fucking them. And most of all, I love making them come.” I smirk at the stark boldness of the words on my computer screen. There is no other context in which I’d ever make these crude statements to anyone.

  “Perhaps what I’m supposed to say is, ‘Oh, how I love the smell of a woman’s hair, the softness of her skin, the elegant curve of her neck.’ And, yeah, all of that’s true; I’m not some kind of sociopath. Yes, I’ve been known to lose my composure over a woman’s sharp mind and wit—and that’s not sarcasm, by the way; when it comes to women, the smarter the better—or her husky voice or raucous laugh, or, yes, even a flash of genuine kindness in her eyes. Yeah, that’s all sexy as hell to me. But in my view, a woman’s hair only smells so damned good, and her skin is only so damned soft and inviting, and her laugh is only so infectious all as a delicious prelude to one thing—the most honest and primal and fucking awesome thing our bodies are designed to do. Everything else is just prelude, baby, glorious prelude.”

  I take a deep breath. I’ve never articulated these thoughts before. I want to get this exactly right—otherwise, what’s the point of filling out this application?

  “From as early as I can remember, I’ve always particularly admired women. As I grew up, that translated into a powerful sexual appetite, but nothing I couldn’t control. I could take a woman to an art gallery or concert or movie or candlelit restaurant and pleasantly ask her about her work, her passions, and even her beloved Maltese Kiki over a bottle of pinot noir and not even once feel compelled to blurt out, ‘I just want to fuck you in the bathroom.’”

  I stare at the screen. I’m pretty sure I sound like an asshole right now. But it can’t be helped. The truth is the truth.

  “And then, everything changed. About a year ago, I went on a typical date with a very pretty woman, and when I fucked her after dinner—and not in the bathroom, mind you—she did something a woman had never done with me before. She faked it.” I grimace. “She fucking faked an orgasm. It was so obvious as to be insulting. And it pissed me the hell off. Sex isn’t supposed to be about humoring someone or being polite—it’s not high tea with the goddamned Queen. Sex is supposed to be the truth, the most real and raw and honest and primal expression of the human experience. And orgasm, by its very nature, is the height, the very culmination of that honesty.”

  Jesus, after all this time, I still get riled up about this. My chest is heaving. My cheeks are flushed. I can’t think straight. I need music. Music is the thing that calms me when my thoughts are racing and my pulse is raging. As a kid, my therapist taught me to use music as a coping mechanism and it still works for me. I click into the music library on my laptop. I choose “White Lies” by Rx Bandits and listen for a few minutes. Quickly, the song soothes me and clears my head, opening a window for my bottled thoughts and feelings to fly through. I listen for several minutes, until I’m calm again.

  “I couldn’t understand why she’d lied to me,” I continue. “Why would she prematurely and artificially end a damned good fuck (or what I thought was a damned good fuck) and thereby exclude even the possibility of her actually getting off? Was I that big a hack at fucking her that she preferred ending the intolerable tedium to at least trying to come for real? I was beside myself.”

  I inhale deeply and exhale slowly.

  “One night, as I was tossing and turning and thinking about it, the truth grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I suddenly knew she’d lied to me precisely because, yes, indeed, I was just that terrible at fucking her—because she’d thought getting off with me was so hopeless, that I was so hopeless, why even bother to try?

  “It might have been enough to send me to a very dark place, a place I’ve been before (and it ain’t pretty), except for one thing: I knew down deep that I hadn’t really tried to get her off, not like I knew I was capable of doing. I’d concentrated solely on my own pleasure, not hers, and assumed that whatever I was experiencing must have been mutual. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became—she’d given me exactly what I deserved. And I was ashamed of myself.

  “It was a watershed moment. From that instant, I became a man obsessed, singularly focused on fucking that woman again—only excellently the second time around—and making damned sure she came for real and harder than she ever had before. I wanted to teach her a lesson about truth and honesty, yes—but even more than that, I wanted redemption.

  “Well, of course, she agreed to see me again—she actually seemed excited to accept another invitation from me, despite my apparent hopelessness—but this time, when I fucked her again, I was a new man, a man possessed, a man enlightened, you might say, singularly focused on her pleasure and nothing else. And the result was mind-blowing. Her entire body convulsed and undulated against my tongue from the inside out, slamming open and shut violently like a cellar door left open in a tornado. And the noises that came out of that woman were fucking amazing, too, the most primal, desperate sounds I’d ever heard—nothing at all like the hollow bleating she’d tried to pass off the first time around. She was a fucking symphony. Of course, women had come with me before then—but never like that. No, no, no, never, ever like that. I’d held her in the palm of my hand and pushed her over the edge, at my will, and into another realm.”

  My heart is racing. My cock is hard.

  “And the best part—the true epiphany—was that getting her off like that got me off.
Holy fuck, did it ever. In fact, pushing that beautiful liar into untethered ecstasy, making her surrender to the truth, to me, to her pleasure, turned out to be the most epic fuck of my life—a high like nothing I’d experienced before. After that, I wanted that high again and again (though not with her, of course—never again with her)—and ever since, I’ve been chasing that high like a horse running to the barn with blinders on.”

  I take a deep breath.

  Has any of this babbling answered the question? Shit. I don’t know. But this is the best I can do.

  “And that’s what’s brought me to The Club.”

  I stare at my screen. I shrug. That’s all I got.

  Please provide a detailed statement regarding your sexual preferences. To maximize your experience in The Club, please be as explicit, detailed, and honest as possible. Please do not self-censor, in any fashion.

  My hands are trembling over the keyboard. The question I’ve been waiting for.

  “Some guys say fucking a beautiful woman brings them closer to God. But, really, they should aim higher. Because when I make a woman come like she’s never come before, when I make her surrender and leap into the dark abyss, I don’t just get closer to God, I become God. Her god, anyway, for one, all-powerful, fucking awesome moment.”

  I stare at the screen. My dick is straining painfully inside my jeans.

  “Making a woman come, at least the way I’m talking about, is an art form. Every woman’s orgasm is a unique puzzle, a treasure locked away by a secret code. Almost always, the best and most reliable way to crack a particular woman’s code starts with licking and kissing and sucking her sweet spot, but even that seemingly ‘sure thing’ only works if, as I do it, I pay close attention to her body’s special cues and adjust accordingly as I go. I can’t just lick her—I have to learn her. Usually, after only a few minutes, though, I’ve got her figured out.

  “I always know I’m on the right track when she suddenly and involuntarily arches her back, thrusts her hips reflexively into my mouth, and spreads her legs as wide as they’ll go. That’s when I know her body’s preparing to give in to me, that I’m breaking down her defenses—that she desperately wants me to unlock her secret code.”