Hunting Truth (5 page)

Angel and Chad soon disappeared to her
room leaving me and Scott alone.
The squeals and moans that followed soon made sure
we knew they were making up for lost time. Scott asked me whether I
missed Lucas. I shrugged and said it wasn’t an issue, as I ignored
the ache in my chest. He asked me what it had been like, having
such an intense relationship—spending so much time together—albeit
only for a short period of time. We began to have quite an open
discussion. I think it might have been the wine that had flowed
freely that made our tongues do the same.

I plucked up the courage to ask Scott
about his antics on the tour bus.
This led to a discussion on kinky sex. I owned up
to having engaged with my submissive self with Lucas. Scott’s face
was a picture. “You? Miss Sassy Confidence? Submissive? Oh my God,
I’ve heard it all now!”

I
stuck my tongue out and said I’d only been exploring, but
then I confessed to wanting to know more.

It turned out that Sc
ott was a member of a BDSM club called
Odyssey across the city. I was astounded and teased him about the
saying that you have to watch the quiet ones because they’re the
worst. He laughed and the next minute I’d accepted an invitation to
accompany him to the club the following evening to satisfy my
curiosity. I remembered Lucas’ reluctance to take me to one and his
insistence that I only went with him.
Oh well, he can’t expect to hold me
to that now.

*

That night
I had some very strange dreams about the goings on
in a BDSM club. Lucas and Scott were there and I don’t know what
happened. I couldn’t recall the events properly but I knew it
wasn’t good. I felt anxious and unsettled when I woke.

I showered then
arranged for anything that I’d done for
mini-Dakota to be couriered to Daniel. I spent the day trying to
find decent office space and drawing a blank. I also had to amend
my contact details on my website and all my professional listings.
I had no open contracts so I decided to get ready early for my
evening out with Scott.

We’d agreed not to tell Angel or Chad
where we were going. Just two friends going out together for the
evening. I showered then realized I didn’t have a clue what to
wear. I had no idea what anyone wore to those clubs. Yes, I knew
the stereotypical image with all the bondage clothing, but I had no
idea if that’s what people actually wore. And if they did, I had
nothing like that. A quick phone call to Scott reassured me. He
recommended wearing my usual black rock chick gear and said I’d
blend in well. He also said that I’d need ID.

By the time he called to pick me up, I was
in such a state of nervous excitement that Angel was eyeing me
suspiciously.
Chad had
arrived earlier and the two of them kept exchanging glances and
smirking. I paced backwards and forwards, retouched my makeup, and
drank a couple of glasses of wine. I tried to ignore them. But they
knew something was going on. Scott and I never went out alone and I
was never usually this nervous about a night out.

I was so worried that
they
’d ask awkward
questions that I shot out the door the second he arrived. He too
was dressed all in black—a tight fitting tee shirt that emphasized
his muscular torso and arms, black jeans and black combat boots.
His dark blond hair looked lighter against all that black and his
blue eyes were enhanced. Black was obviously his color, although he
rarely wore it.

As we drove
across the other side of the city, I managed to
get my nerves under control. Scott refused to answer any more of my
questions, saying that I’d see soon enough. We drove down a road
that looked pretty disused and parked next to an office block.
There were vertical blinds at all the windows, most of them
partially open, but it didn’t look as though many of the offices
were in use. I reasoned that they wouldn’t be at that time in the
evening. There were no other buildings nearby, although there was a
large car park that was surprisingly busy and surrounded by grassy
fields.

I saw Scott smirking at my obvious
confusion and vowed not to ask the question he was waiting
for.
Instead, I smiled
and told him to lead on. He chuckled as he held his arm out for me
to slide mine through, then we advanced toward the office block. We
entered a reception area that had a huge oak desk but looked
deserted, and I saw two security cameras mounted in the corners of
the room. Scott walked up to a door and looked up at the camera
above. He then waved a key card over a pad mounted discreetly next
to the door. A green light flashed, a beep sounded, and the door
clicked open.

We walked through into another bright
reception area but this one was manned by a stunningly beautiful
raven
-haired woman
wearing a black corset and black leather pants. Scott was greeted
warmly as he signed in. He asked for my ID and passed it over to
the woman behind the desk; she nodded and he asked me to sign in.
My hand was shaking so much that my signature didn’t really
resemble my real one at all. Scott passed me my ID back, I put it
in my purse and then he held out his hand.

As we left the reception area, I looked
into another room that led off it.
The whole far wall was a bank of CCTV screens and
security guards sat monitoring them. I don’t know whether it was
the thought of being observed or whether it was the knowledge that
such security was needed, but my mouth was suddenly very
dry.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I
saw next.
We went
through a heavy steel door and the sound of loud music, throbbing
with bass, hit me. The immediate area was quite dimly lit but
across the room there were various brightly lit stages. Men and
women in various stages of undress were engaging in different
sexual acts in the glare of the spotlights. There was lots of
different equipment in use from tiny hand-held objects to large
items of furniture, including stocks—most of which I couldn’t begin
to describe, never mind name. The whole place reeked of
sex.

Some
couples or ménages were on beds or couches on the stage,
some were suspended by ropes and chains above the stage—there were
even two women locked in a large suspended cage, I quickly turned
away when I realized that they were engaging in cunnilingus in
front of the crowd. I prided myself on not being a prude and on
being open-minded, but I wasn’t used to blatant sexual acts being
committed in public. In my mind, sex was a private act. I found
myself looking down at my feet.

Scott
led me to the center of the enormous room. I noticed there
was a large bar with various types of seating all the way around
it. That looked better. Safer. We reached the dimly lit bar and
Scott advised me that most people didn’t drink alcohol here. He
explained that it was either because they didn’t want to dilute the
sensation of pleasure with alcohol or because it could have safety
implications, depending upon the activities they engaged in.
Therefore, drinks were logged so that if you wished to engage in
some of the more risky activities, you could prove how much alcohol
you’d consumed, if any.

As we weren
’t planning on engaging in any kind of activity,
Scott bought us both a drink and we sat on a sofa near the bar that
afforded a good view of the room. Within minutes, I realized that
this area that I’d thought ‘safer’ was in fact, not. On the sofa to
my right, a man was resting his feet on the back of a woman who was
prostrate on the floor while another woman gave him a blow
job.

And right in front of me was a woman that
I think would best be described as a
dominatrix. She had a man wearing a collar and
leash and nothing else licking her shiny black boots as she hit him
with a riding crop. Sometimes she lashed it across his buttocks,
sometimes she slid it against his scrotum or flicked it at his
erect penis. He grew visibly more excited every time she touched
him with the crop.

Scott sat
quietly sipping his drink and allowing me to take
in all there was to see. I was too embarrassed to let my eyes
linger anywhere. Just about everybody was engaging in sexual
activities and nobody seemed to be bothered that there was a room
full of people around them. Mind you, most people seemed to be
engrossed in their own pleasure and not taking much notice of
anyone else. The people on the spotlighted stages seemed to be
drawing some attention but I guess that was why they were there.
Two men who’d been leaning against the bar kissing when we got our
drinks now began to have sex against the bar—very noisily and very
aggressively. The barman shouted for them to go get a room and then
laughed loudly when one of them flipped him the bird without
breaking stride.

I turned to Scott and widened my eyes. He
laughed. “So,” he said. “Was this what you were
expecting?”

I shrugged. I hadn’t known what to expect.
“I hadn’t expected it to be so . . . out in the open. People acting
out their desires and fantasies in full view of everyone else. I
thought there’d be private rooms.”

“
Oh there are—upstairs. You can hire rooms
that are equipped for different purposes. I’ll take you on a tour
in a little while but I can only show you the rooms that are
unoccupied unless people have left their doors open. I’ll also show
you the dungeon.”

My mouth gaped and I closed it
hastily.
“The dungeon?”
I looked at the floor. “You mean . . .?”

He nodded. “Yep. Down there. Underground.
That’s where the more hard core acts take place. There’s a communal
area but most are private rooms. They’re insulated a little but you
can still hear people’s cries and screams sometimes.”

I wasn’t altogether sure that I wanted to
hear people screaming. Scott saw my face and took my hand. “Don’t
worry, Issy. Anyone who’s down there is there of their own free
will, engaging in practices that are entirely consensual. There’s a
fine line between pleasure and pain and many people find pleasure
in pain. I don’t necessarily mean severe pain, although there are
many masochists who come here. Pain can be as little as a light
pinch to a nipple, a gentle nip of the teeth, a scrape of a nail,
through to serious pain like caning. People only do what they want
and what they like. Some people have to feel or inflict pain to get
aroused. So don’t judge until you’ve seen for yourself.”

I nodded, absorbing his words.
Then I had a very educational
half hour or so whilst Scott described what various people were
doing, what the equipment was called, and what it was used for. My
eyebrows rose steadily higher and higher. I’d had no idea that most
of this existed. I gradually relaxed and found myself deliberately
seeking out dominant males with submissive female partners and
discreetly watching what they were doing. I fleetingly pictured
myself here with Lucas. He’d promised to take me to one of these
clubs after all, but I chased the image from my mind.

I was totally entranced by some of the
things I saw upstairs.
Some of the rooms were occupied and the doors closed. Some
were unoccupied and I had a good look inside a few. Some were
pretty much like ordinary bedrooms or hotel rooms, but I noticed
that the bed frames were always sturdy and suitable for attaching
cuffs and other objects to. Other rooms were for particular
fetishes: I saw one couple galloping around engaging in pony play,
according to Scott.

I saw a few kittens, complete with ears
and tails
—the tails were
attached to butt plugs apparently. That triggered a few memories.
As did a large cross like the one Lucas had tied me to, which Scott
informed me was called a Saint Andrew’s cross. I saw several
threesomes, some same sex, some mixed sex. Everyone seemed to be
having a very pleasurable time using a range of different clothing
and equipment. And I got the general feeling that this floor was a
mostly playful one.

Next
was the dungeon. To get into it, Scott informed me that we
had to go back into the reception area as access was strictly
controlled and monitored. Scott told me that if I wanted to leave
at any time, I just needed to squeeze his hand and we’d leave. That
was reassuring, given the thoughts that were running through my
head, mostly thanks to his mentions of pain and
screaming.

We passed back through the heavy steel
door and into the reception area.
As we passed the security monitor room, I noticed
Scott peer in. He then quickly steered me away towards the
desk.

“
I think you should give the dungeon a miss
tonight,” he said. “You’ve seen most of what the place has to offer
and you look like you’ve had enough.”

I felt a little relief at the avoidance of
any possible visions or acoustics from painful activities so,
although I was a little confused by his sudden change of mind, I
didn’t question it. He signed us out then deftly released the
security door and propelled me outside. I drew in welcome lungfuls
of fresh air and welcomed the lack of noise as we walked to Scott’s
van.

As we were pulling out of the car park, I
noticed a black Lexus SUV that looked like Lucas
’. I could only see the end of its
registration plate but felt sure it matched. I asked Scott to stop
so I could peer more closely at it but he appeared not to hear me
and continued to drive on to the lane.