by Ward, Deena
In all, I thought he was noncommittal, and I suspected he didn’t want to influence my decision. He certainly succeeded, if that was his goal. I had no idea what he would prefer I do.
We were on the road for over an hour before we exited the interstate and Lawson weaved his way through busy streets to eventually stop outside a large, dark building.
“We’re here,” Gibson said. “I’ve got this for you, if you’d like to wear it.”
He opened up a cubby under the cushion in the center of the seat and pulled a pretty, silver mask. It was small, discreet, just covering the area surrounding the eyes.
He handed it to me and I studied it quietly. “This is a special, private club that we’re going to,” he said. “It’s called ‘See.’ It’s not a BDSM club. It’s more a place where people go to lose their inhibitions, to be seen, and to see. You’ll understand once we’re inside.”
I slipped the mask over my head and adjusted it. “If the idea is to be seen, then what’s with the mask?”
“They’re not required. Some wear them, some don’t. It depends on how thoroughly someone might want to reveal themselves. As for you, I thought you’d be more comfortable if you wore one, so you can relax, not worry.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Where’s yours?”
“I don’t need one.”
“Hmm. You’re making a point, aren’t you?”
“You’re too clever. Let’s go.”
He opened the door and the waiting Lawson helped me out onto the sidewalk. The building reminded me of Private Residence, being completely unadorned. You would never know it was a club, the only sign being a capital letter “C” printed in gold on the door.
Gibson gave Lawson some instructions then escorted me to the door. He knocked loudly and it was quickly opened by a bored-looking, older man.
He gave us a look that said he was unimpressed. “What do you want?”
Gibson pulled a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to the man.
The man sucked his teeth and studied the writing. “This ain’t what you think it is.”
“I think it’s nobody’s business,” Gibson said.
It was an odd exchange, and I assumed these were pass phrases. How delightfully mysterious.
The man gave Gibson one last suspicious look and opened the door. “Go on in.”
Gibson put his hand on the small of my back and guided me inside, through the vestibule and past another door which entered onto the actual club.
It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior. The place was a study in black. Black walls and floors, black bar, booths, tables and chairs. Differences in texture, pattern and shine set one object apart from another. The only color was in the dim lights, the candles on the tables and the liquor bottles behind the bar, and all tended toward red tones.
There was a stage at one end of the room, with a cleared area in front of it, the dance floor. A small band played on the stage, a jazz ensemble. I remembered how Gibson favored jazz, how he played it in the condo we shared that memorable weekend.
The band played a sultry tune, the saxophone providing a sexy guiding melody to the piano, bass and drums. A handful of couples glided over the dance floor. People at surrounding tables watched them lazily, or not at all.
I guessed there to be over a hundred people scattered around the room. It wasn’t crowded by any stretch, but it didn’t feel empty either. It was early still, not yet nine p.m., and it was a Tuesday night. Seemed unlikely there would be a huge crowd, regardless.
I noticed other people wearing masks. Two masked women and a masked man undulated in a large round cage in a corner of the room. They were scantily clothed, and they touched one another freely, but almost as if in passing, as if there were no deliberate attempt to arouse spectators.
And there most definitely were spectators, maybe ten or so people, casually hanging out around the cage, watching the show.
A different cubby of the room had soft-looking couches and reclining loungers, drawing people who lay around and about one another. I half expected to see a hookah in the middle of them, and these masters and mistresses of relaxation puffing away at some exotic drug. Decadent, that cubby.
Gibson took me over to a table near the dance floor and a barmaid quickly arrived to take our drink order.
I kept my voice low. “I don’t think I get it. What’s going on here?”
“You never know, or that’s what I’ve been told. It seems it all depends on the night’s clientele.”
“So you’ve never been here before?”
“Once, several years ago.”
“And what happened that night?”
“The most memorable thing was that a large group of people took over the cage area and played a rousing game of Simon Says, the risqué version.”
“How risqué? Are you talking orgy?”
“No. It only goes so far here. There’s an expectation that a certain level of decorum should be observed. Entry is by invitation only, so the owners can pick and choose, make sure the club stays what they want it to be.”
I took another look around the room. “I’m intrigued. What will happen tonight?”
“We’ll find out soon enough. In the meanwhile, we’ve got this excellent quartet to entertain us. I’ve never seen them before.”
He chatted on for a while about the band and what was special about their music, and it was interesting, but not as interesting as studying the other people in the club and wondering what some of them might get up to.
Unlike the training facility at Private Residence, the club had a rich atmosphere of latent sexuality. I felt it in the customers, saw it in their eyes, in the way they leaned in to one another. It was in the employees, too, in the way they spoke, in their half-lidded, sleepy eyes. It was as if entering the premises somehow slowed the speed at which people moved and thought, inviting a leisurely sense of carnal expectation.
Sex. All around me. Not the kind that made your heart race and your breath quicken, but the kind that made you languorously sultry, made you want to stretch your limbs in preparation, offer a seductive warm-up.
Above all, this was not a place where it was considered impolite to stare. No, everyone watched everyone else, openly, blatantly. It was invited. Slow, meticulous visual inspections of strangers abounded. I felt their eyes on me as soon as we entered the bar, and even now, their inspection wasn’t yet complete.
I contemplated a trip to the bathroom, to give them an opportunity to see more, if they wanted. And they would want. I knew they would. I stayed put, however, and observed my observers.
I drifted on the soothing tones of Gibson’s voice which blended with the sensual saxophone, the complex rhythm of the bass. It was remarkable how rapidly I was being absorbed into the atmosphere of the place.
These people were, as a whole, uncommonly attractive and it wasn’t so much their physicality that made them so, as it was the alluring air they possessed, a assured appeal from having given themselves over to whatever might come.
I watched a couple cuddle on a sofa, the woman’s hands stroking the sides of the man’s face, his arms locked around her waist and their legs tangled together. There was nothing lewd in their actions, nothing of a performance, and yet they knew they were being watched. They could not but know it.
In the cage area, the masked threesome was joined by an unmasked fourth, a man with closed eyes who brushed up against them, his body adding supple motions to the group dance. He was both unto himself and part of the trio, all at once. The other three showed no reaction to the addition of a fourth, simply continued undulating.
They had lovely bodies, those four, slender with slim hips and graceful long arms and legs. They were young, younger than me. I doubted they could be much beyond the legal age to be allowed in the club.
They seemed like four free spirits, reveling in motion, in the simple act of movement and the lushness of an unleashed human form.
I licked my lips, too
k a drink, looked at Gibson. He wasn’t talking anymore, but instead intently observed me. He watched me lick my lips and a shiver ran up my spine.
We’d been in the club maybe half an hour and more people had arrived to better fill the space. They amplified the sense of wakening sensuality.
“It’s strange. There’s nothing really going on here, but it feels like there is,” I said.
He gave a sexy grin. “I feel it, too.”
“Do you think they’ve drugged our drinks?”
“Doubtful, but it’s an interesting theory.”
I eyed the dance floor. There were five or six couples dancing at the moment, dapper pairs who easily followed the music’s complicated beat.
“Would you like to dance?” Gibson asked.
Chapter 11
I had no feelings of discomfort in this place, the mask providing a confidence I hadn’t enjoyed in weeks. And while I wasn’t a particularly good dancer, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be held by Gibson.
He led me out onto the dance floor and pulled me into his arms. I placed my hands on his broad shoulders and let him guide me in the dance, take me where he wanted to go. My body, already on full alert from the club’s provocative ambience, responded instantly to Gibson’s touch. His hands on my hips set off a low-wattage electric buzz through my system.
He guided me with effortless simplicity, making it easy for me to follow his steps. It wasn’t long before he pulled me tightly against him, and I pressed my cheek against his chest, closed my eyes, gave myself over to his lead.
Gibson’s hands stroked over my back, down my arm, caressed a hip. He set off an avalanche of shivers across the surface of my skin. I played light fingers on the nape of his neck and felt a responding twitch of muscles in his stomach and chest.
The dreamy eroticism which simmered so close to the surface in the club, flowed through my limbs and set into the flow of my blood and the intake of each breath. Gibson’s hands traveled over me in time with the music, a beat that was fed by and was part of the dream.
He cupped my hips, squeezed then moved lower, over the tops of my thighs, around to the back, stopping and stroking just under the lower curve of my ass. I sighed, pushed my hips against him.
Then I felt his fingers working the fabric of my skirt, gathering it up, tiny bit by tiny bit, holding it under his palms. Soon, air kissed the backs of my thighs as he maintained our slow groove across the dance floor. The tips of his fingers found the sensitive skin at the tops of my thighs, micrometers from the edge of my panties.
I could resist the urge no longer, and opened my eyes, lazily surveyed my surroundings. The other dancing couples orbited Gibson and I in loose revolutions. Were they watching us? Oh yes, they were watching, and they touched one another as they watched Gibson touch me. Their eyes asked the same question: how much higher will he go?
Beyond them, at the tables, the spectators eyed the scene with appreciation. They could spy us in the gaps between the other couples, in swirling glimpses and measured peeks.
I grabbed a long shuddery breath. Gibson’s fingers teased near the inside of my thighs. Then one of his hands rose to take me by the nape of my neck, to turn my head up to him, and he leaned down and kissed me, a long, deep and hungry kiss.
I moaned and opened for him. He was demanding, his breath hot, and I returned his passion until I gasped for air and my heartbeat thumped a staccato accompaniment to the wail and hum of the saxophone.
Gibson broke our kiss, lowered my skirt and pulled my hands away from his neck, then in a smooth motion, turned me around. He snugged my back against his chest and stomach, my ass pressed against his thighs and groin.
He guided my hands where he would have them go, and I understood that where he put them was where he meant for them to stay. He raised up one of my arms and wrapped my hand around the back of his neck. The other, he kept low, and gently bent it around his waist, flattening my palm against the plane just above the swell of his ass. Mmm, I contemplated lowering that hand, but restrained myself.
And when I was where he wanted me, his hands began to move over me and he bent down to nuzzle at my neck. His hands slid over me in time with the music, the band setting the pace of his strokes.
Yes, I realized, as Gibson ran his hands over my stomach and scrunched up the fabric of my skirt, even the band was watching. They were the directors, the dictators, as if we danced for their pleasure more than they played for ours.
The saxophone trilled a high, wavering note and Gibson’s hands stroked upward, tracing the contour of the undersides of my breasts, around the sides and over the tops. He tugged at the edges of the neckline of my shirt in concert with the staccato key strokes the piano player offered. A tease only, a temptation.
I arched my back, looked at the people, the band, their eyes on my body, on my breasts, on Gibson’s big strong hands and the promise of what they offered.
The saxophone gave a loopy, swooped note and Gibson allowed the fingers of one hand to steal underneath the fabric. Because this was a wrap shirt, and I hadn’t worn a bra, it was an easy access situation that had my brow and upper lip growing moist from the heat between us.
His other hand wrapped around the base of my throat as he nibbled at my ear lobe. And farther and farther his fingers reached under the fabric of my shirt, gliding over the top of my breast, sliding down the side. I looked down, noted my nipples were pronounced under the thin, stretchy fabric. More and more of his hand disappeared beneath the shirt.
Our hips swayed together and the saxophone and piano together demanded more action with a forceful run, an obvious squeeze. Gibson obliged, and his hand closed over my breast at long last and clenched around my flesh. I groaned aloud, tightened my grip on his neck.
God, to be held like this, to be shown without showing, to arouse and be aroused. It was a lifting away, both giving and taking at once.
While the saxophone held a high, pulsing note, the piano shifted to a lower register and the bass pushed its way forward. Gibson lowered the hand which caressed my neck, stroking down over my other breast, going lower, down my body. He pressed against my belly, mashing me against him, demanding a motion, an undulation, our hips moving in tandem.
The sax played a deliberate, hard-stop cadence and Gibson found my nipple, thumbed over it, then squeezed it and twisted. He sent friction jolts straight down into my core, between my legs, into my clit. And his hand on my stomach, pressing ever closer to the center of what I craved, was a delicious torment.
It wasn’t only Gibson touching me in tune with the band. It was my fellow dancers, too, and the spectators at the surrounding tables. They touched me with their gazes, some lazy, some smoldering, some lewd and some pure appreciation. Those spectators played an accompaniment to this concert which was all their own, adding their beat and flavor to the sensual music that played over and through me.
Gibson’s warm exhalations tickled my ear and neck, and his breathing grew nearly as ragged as my own. I pushed my ass harder against the solid evidence of his arousal. Part of the tease. All part of being tantalized.
And I was ready for this tease to end. I practically whimpered with want, wanting his hand to pull up my skirt, wanting release.
But no, that wasn’t his plan, and the band demanded he work my breast and nipple harder, and that he smooth my skirt and dip his fingers under the waistband. I automatically sucked in my stomach, hoping to give him more room, allowing him to go farther, dive deeper.
And he did, and I shivered in anticipation. Closer and closer his fingers crawled down my stomach, under the skirt, closer and closer to the top of my panties.
And then he was under my panties, and I sighed, pushed my hips outward, pressing against his palm. Yes, lower. Lower. The piano was a deep thumping sound, contrasting beats with the bass and the trilling sax. Gibson pinched my nipple, pulled, twisted.
Then the tips of his fingers found my clit and I writhed against him. He made a low sound in my ear and bi
t my ear lobe, a sharp, fleeting pang. I gasped, looked around.
Everywhere eyes. Some looking elsewhere. Some at my breasts. Some at my skirt, at what moved under the fabric. Others at my face. And some even met my gaze.
The couples dancing around us were a vision themselves, in different poses from Gibson and I, hearing diverse commands in the music, but the touching, the tease, the desire, was one and the same. We were part of the whole, this sexy concert.
One touch. That was all I needed. One touch in the right place. The music, the beat of the drums, the soulful wail of the sax, soared ever higher. And Gibson’s fingers stole ever lower, petting my labia, then slipping into my folds.
No one could see what he was doing under there, but everyone knew all the same. He gathered up my natural moisture and swirled it around my clitoris. My body’s intense reaction, the tensing, tightening, preparation for what was coming, held me poised, stiff.
Then Gibson whispered in my ear, his voice gruff and deepened with his own need. “Will you come for them? Have they earned it?”
A curious question. Once more I scanned the audience. Once more I enjoyed their attention, their desire. I looked to my fellow dancers, so involved in their own dance, and yet appreciating the others, mine. They too were close to release. So close. Lastly I turned to the band, the four men responsible for this orchestration. They were the most avid watchers of all, the demanding ones, the creative force.
“Yes,” I answered in a breathy voice.
And Gibson growled his own assent, his fingers circling my clit with more force, then stretching down to push just inside my pussy, not far, just enough to make me want more, to clamp down.
The music swirled as we swayed and I mashed myself against Gibson. He worked my clit in earnest, pinched my nipple until I gave a small cry, the twinge of pain shooting straight down my body and cresting inside my pussy.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the spectators, this moment for me alone, for Gibson, who was making this happen. His lips pressed hot kisses over my neck and jawline.
