She looked around the house. Her house, almost paid off. Another six months and she would own it free and clear.
She had time for a work out. She changed clothes and cranked her music loud on the stereo before tackling the elliptical machine for an hour. By the time she finished she was drenched with sweat and her legs trembled.
In the shower, she rested her head against the cool tile and let the water run over her and tried not to let her mind wander. Over the years she’d gotten a lot better at not thinking about her past.
Two men sat in a dim corner of the club. They’d arrived nearly an hour earlier. The Master, Landry, sat on a leather sofa and watched players on various pieces of equipment. The other sat on the floor at his feet, his head bowed.
“Closer” by Nine Inch Nails thumped on the stereo. “You see anyone you know?” Landry asked from the sofa.
The man on the floor shook his head without looking up. “No, Master.”
“No one at all?”
“It’s been over five years.”
“True.”
They sat and watched people play.
Ross led Loren by the hand into the club’s entryway. “Tilly coming tonight?”
“Yes, Sir. I talked to her this afternoon. She’s bringing her boy, Bob.”
He looked surprised. “She must be serious about him. That’s like the third time she’s brought him to the club.”
Loren snorted in amusement. “Um, yeah. I don’t think so. This is Tilly we’re talking about. He’s her best client. She wanted to reward him, that’s all.” She remembered herself. “Sir.”
He overlooked her little bout of sarcastic tone and checked them in. Shouldering their gear bag, he led Loren inside the dungeon play area where they found a place for their gear. Before they could make a run at the buffet table, their friend Ed shuffled up and pulled them close.
“Guess what I heard?” His voice sounded a little muffled because of the black leather hood he wore, but they recognized him from the red stiletto heels and ankle shackles his wife made him wear.
Ross grinned. “Scientists finally found your nads?”
“Asshole. No. Scuttlebutt is Cristo was spotted at the club in Ybor last night.”
Ross and Loren exchanged a look. “That’s not funny,” Ross said.
“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Not that they could tell one way or the other with his hood.
“They said he was there with some guy. Get this, the guy was his fucking Master and topped him in a pretty heavy scene. They got really intense.”
Loren snorted. “Okay, now I know someone yanked your chain besides your wife. Count
Craptastic being topped? By a guy? No fucking way.” Count Craptastic was only one of the many nicknames Loren had come up with for Cristo over the years, and it was one of the nicer ones.
It was the only PG-rated one.
“I’m serious!” Ed insisted.
“Who’s your source?” Ross asked.
“Kim and Kylee.”
Ross and Loren froze. “What?” Ross asked, certain he’d misheard. “No shit?”
“Yeah. And Kim and Kylee knew him.”
“Did they talk to him?” Loren demanded. “Ask him anything? Oh like, maybe, what the fuck?”
Loren’s face reddened in anger.
“They didn’t talk to him. They weren’t sure it was him at first. Not until the guys were scening, but Kim and Kylee had to leave because they rode up there with someone else. They saw his tat. They said they’d swear it was him.”
“Who else knows?” Ross asked. Kim and Kylee couldn’t make it to the club that night because of work.
“No one. They wanted me to tell you because they couldn’t find your phone number.”
“If you fucking breathe a word of this to anyone, especially to Tilly, I’ll fucking crush your nuts myself,” Ross threatened.
“Dude, I’m not brain dead. Kim and Kylee wanted you to have a heads up about it. So you could, you know, keep an eye on Tilly.” He shuffled away, mindful of the short chain joining his ankles, to rejoin his wife.
Normally, people within the scene didn’t usually talk about others. One of the unwritten protocols.
However, everyone in their small circle of friends remembered how fragile and broken Tilly had been at first. They’d witnessed her transformation into who she was today.
They all wanted to kill Cris for abandoning her, even this many years later.
Loren looked at Ross. “What do we do?”
He shrugged. “Nothing we can do. We don’t even know for sure it was him, despite what they said.” His face darkened. “If he does show up, I’ll deal with him. He’ll wish he’d never come back.”
The slave sat at Landry’s feet and watched. Ross and Loren talked with another man in the far corner. Then Ross looked angry for a moment before he regained his composure.
Loren, however, appeared homicidal for several minutes.
He cringed. Perhaps simple paranoia, but maybe he and his Master had been spotted at the Ybor club the night before.
Landry leaned forward and stroked his hair. “Talk to me. Who do you see? Do you know them?”
“Yes, Master.”
Landry tightly fisted his hand in the slave’s hair and wrenched his head back painfully. “Who?”
He told him who they were.
“So we chose well tonight. Good.” Landry released his grip on the slave’s hair.
“May we please leave?”
Landry laughed. “No. I can’t believe you’d even ask.”
The slave lowered his head, hoping he wasn’t seen or recognized. He felt badly enough.
Landry sensed his thoughts. “You brought this on yourself, slave. Had you told me the full truth in the beginning, we wouldn’t be here now.”
The slave remained silent and felt grateful for his long hair. It fell to his shoulders, and when he kept his head tilted down, it hung along his cheeks, hiding his face. He kept his eyes on Ross and Loren, praying they didn’t walk over.
Ten minutes later, a couple entered the dungeon play space. With their backs to the slave, they were far enough away, and the lighting dim enough, that he couldn’t tell if he knew them or not. The woman held a leather leash clipped to a collar around the man’s neck. The man carried a gear bag. With her trim, borderline gaunt but lithely muscled body, he guessed her to be a long-distance runner. Her short, spiked hair had been dyed the color of a bright copper penny.
When she made a hand gesture, the man obediently dropped to his knees next to her. She stood and talked with Ross and Loren for a few minutes as she twined her fingers in the man’s hair. He leaned in and rested his head against her thigh, his body relaxing in a content way he himself knew all too well.
Landry watched too. “Do you know her?”
There was something familiar about her, but the slave couldn’t get a good look at her face. Her purple corset accentuated shifting highlights in the fabric of her knee-length green skirt. “I’m not sure.”
“The man?”
“No.”
Satisfied, Landry sat back and watched.
The woman, her back still to them, tugged on the leash and urged the man to his feet. She led him across the room to a St. Andrew’s Cross. There, she had him strip, affixed leather cuffs to his wrists and ankles, then hooked him to the structure. After a few minutes of warming him up by spanking his ass with her bare hands, she started in on him with a stingy flogger. She was vicious, a true sadist with very little in the way of sensual play in her style. She paused after a few minutes, checked in with the man, then switched to a riding crop. Red welts appeared on the man’s backside and thighs.