The Inner Room (3 page)

“And you like to be shown off,” Marissa observed. An associate at a large midtown law firm, Dana was always conservatively dressed for work, but, knowing Dana as she did, it was no real stretch to imagine the self-proclaimed sub girl dressed in something skimpy and provocative at a private club.

“It pleases my Master, and that pleases me,” Dana said simply.

“Oh,” Marissa breathed, Dana’s words resonating somewhere deep inside her. Again the daydream of belonging to another in the deepest sense of the word threatened to engulf Marissa, and she felt herself drifting to that dark, secret place.

There was a soft knock at the door, and the sound released Marissa from the erotic spell she’d been falling into. “Someone at my door. Gotta go,” she said. “See you tonight.”

“See ya!” Dana sang into the phone.

Marissa took a moment to compose herself. She touched the plastic rectangle above her breast that read
Dr. Roberts
. Feeling centered again, she called out, “Come in.” 

The door opened and the handsome new nurse stuck his head into the office. Marissa was glad the lab coat covered her still perking nipples. “Yes?” she said in her best professional doctor voice. “Cam, is it?” As if she didn’t know. As if he weren’t the primary topic of conversation at the nurses’ station whenever he wasn’t around.

“Yes, Dr. Roberts. If you had a minute, I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Santana in room two thirteen. I have some suggestions that might be useful.” He stood just inside the door, looking like some kind of GQ model for hospital scrubs, a chart tucked underneath one of his tan, muscular arms. His eyes really were remarkably blue, especially in contrast to his dark brown hair. And those lips. What would it be like to kiss those lips?

What the fuck? He was a nurse, for crying out loud. Not some sex object for Marissa to ogle. Embarrassed, she gestured toward a chair in front of her desk. “Please, have a seat.”

As Cam sat across from her, Marissa couldn’t stop herself from staring into those deep, kind eyes. Something about the man was so compelling she had to physically restrain herself to keep from leaping over the desk and into his lap. Jesus H Christ, she must be farther gone than she realized. Now she was lusting after gay guys.

Okay, stop it this instant. You’re an MD. A professional. Act like it.

Marissa leaned forward and held out her hand for the chart. His fingers brushed hers as she took the chart from him, and though she knew it was all in her mind, the electric spark that passed between them shot straight to her pussy. It was all she could do not to gasp, and she prayed her voice would come out steady.

She lifted her chin, reminding herself she was the doctor here. “Tell me what’s going on with Mr. Santana,” she said crisply.

When the taxi pulled up to the curb of Marissa’s apartment building, a man in jeans and a black T-shirt beneath a sports jacket climbed out of the backseat. “Hey there, you must be Marissa. I’m Tony. Great to meet you at last.” His voice was deep and seemed too large for the rest of him.

“Oh, hi. Nice to meet you too.” Marissa took the man’s offered hand. She had always envisioned Tony as a big, burly man in black leather and black army boots, like Master Mark on her favorite videos. It took her a second to readjust her mental image of Dana’s Master/husband. He was looking her over as well, his eyes moving with an appreciative gaze from her face, to her breasts, to her legs and back up again. Normally Marissa would have taken offense at a man regarding her with such brazen scrutiny, but somehow with Tony it didn’t offend. She found herself hoping instead that he was pleased with what he saw.

After much deliberation and the trying and discarding of a number of outfits, Marissa had finally settled on the first thing she’d pulled from the closet—a simple sleeveless black dress she had spent too much on, but which hugged her curves in all the right places. It was lower cut than what she usually wore, but she was going to a BDSM sex club, after all, so why not? Judging from Tony’s appreciative gaze, he approved.

Tony waved toward the open car door. “After you,” he said. Marissa preceded him into the roomy backseat of the old-fashioned yellow cab.

“Hey, girlfriend!” Dana, already seated, enthused as Marissa settled herself between the couple. She would have preferred to be on Dana’s other side, rather than separating the pair, but neither of them seemed the slightest perturbed by this.

As the cab pulled away, Marissa turned to her friend to see what she was wearing, but a light spring coat covered her outfit. Dana’s auburn hair, usually pulled back during the workday, fell in a shiny curtain to her shoulders. Unlike the conservative makeup she wore while practicing law, Dana’s eyes were heavily made up with eyeliner and mascara and her lips were painted a deep, shiny red.

Dana leaned back against her car door as she appraised Marissa. “I love the dress,” she said. “Though it would look even better without a bra, don’t you agree, Tony?”

Tony slid his arm over the back of the car seat. “I do indeed. Perhaps a punishment is in order for daring to harness such luscious breasts.”

Marissa stiffened with embarrassment and felt her face flush. What the hell? Dana might belong to Master Tony, but Marissa sure as hell didn’t. She barely knew the guy! She opened her mouth in protest, but before she could speak, both Dana and Tony laughed, and Dana reached for Marissa’s hand. “We’re just teasing, silly. I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive our sense of humor.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, still chuckling. “We’re so used to hanging out with other folks into the scene, we sometimes forget to take the tender feelings of newbies into account.”

“Newbies, huh,” Marissa countered, trying to put a cocky edge into her tone. “So you two do this a lot? Find young innocents to corrupt?”

“As often as we can,” Dana quipped.

“Seriously, though,” Tony added. “We do regard it as a kind of sacred duty to help people who are curious about the lifestyle to find their way. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about BDSM. Did you know you can still go to jail or lose custody of your children in some states, just for practicing consensual BDSM sex in the privacy of your own home? Even though BDSM has moved more into the mainstream over the past few years, there’s still a lot of confusion about consensual power exchanges, and the passion and commitment that’s required. Sometimes it seems like we take two steps forward and one step back when it comes to freedom of sexual expression in this country.”

“You got that right,” Dana added, her tone suddenly dark. “Certain distribution websites that shall remain nameless have even started censoring BDSM erotica, if you can believe it. That’s one reason we love The Power Exchange. It’s a safe place to practice our kink with likeminded people who
get
it.”

“I really appreciate your including me tonight,” Marissa said. “Though I’m kind of nervous. I won’t, you know, like, be expected to
do
anything, will I?”

Dana laughed and squeezed Marissa’s leg. “Only if you want to.”

Marissa thought about this as the cab wended its way through city traffic toward the lower west side of Manhattan. A sudden vision of herself naked, her arms extended high over her head, her legs spread and chained to the floor by shackles around her ankles, flashed into her brain. She felt a tingle in her pussy as Master Mark appeared behind her in the video now playing in her overactive imagination. He was holding a heavy flogger, and it cracked against Marissa’s skin with each stinging stroke. He moved closer behind her, nuzzling his mouth against her neck as he reached around with his free hand to squeeze her breast.

Marissa sat up straighter and glanced at Dana and Tony, suddenly afraid her lusty little daydream was somehow apparent to them. But they were both looking out their respective windows at the lights of the city passing by. Marissa smoothed back her hair, which she had worn loose for the evening, and blew out a cleansing breath.

After about ten minutes, they pulled onto a dark street that contained a row of what looked like abandoned warehouses. The cab pulled to the curb and the cabbie twisted back. “This the place, Mac?”

“The very one,” Tony replied with a smile. He handed some bills to the cabbie and opened the car door to step out onto the sidewalk. Wearing heels higher than she was used to, Marissa gratefully accepted Tony’s offered hand as she climbed out of the car.

He helped out Dana as well, who, in her heels, stood a good three inches taller than her spouse. Finally he opened the front passenger door of the cab and pulled out a large black leather messenger bag, which he slung over his shoulder.

As the cab pulled away, Tony walked toward a metal door and pressed a buzzer beside it. Dana and Marissa stood just behind him. “This is the club?” Marissa said quietly to her friend, unable to keep the skepticism from her voice. The place looked like a dump. The images she had earlier of a dank, stone dungeon with manacles protruding from the walls resurfaced with a vengeance in her mind. What in god’s name had she signed up for?

“Not to worry,” Dana said as if reading her mind. She reached for Marissa’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s much nicer inside.”

A voice came over the intercom asking them to state their business. “Master Tony, slave Dana and guest,” Tony said in his deep voice.

Slave Dana
.

The words sent a shiver down Marissa’s spine. Would she ever be someone’s sex slave? Did she want to be?

No,
her mind insisted.
No way.

Yes,
her body whispered fervently.

The door buzzed and Tony pulled it open, gesturing for the women to enter ahead of him. A set of wide stairs led downward, and the clacking of the women’s heels echoed against the concrete walls. Marissa held tight to the metal railing as they descended. There was a second door at the bottom of the stairs, which was pulled open as they approached.

A wiry young man with short blond hair dressed wearing only black leather pants and a slave collar ushered them inside. He was holding a clipboard, and he checked something off and looked at them with a smile. “Welcome, Master Tony,” he said, not even glancing toward Dana or Marissa.

“Good evening, Steven,” Tony replied. Marissa noticed Steven’s nipples were pierced, small silver barbells gleaming against his smooth chest.

A young woman with long dark hair hanging loose down her back appeared. She was wearing a sheer white dress made of a kind of stretchy lace fabric that did little to hide the fact she was completely nude beneath it. Her feet were bare, and she wore a thick metal chain around her neck. “Lovely to see you, slave Jade,” Tony said.

“Good evening, Sir,” the girl replied in a quiet, respectful tone. An involuntary shudder moved through Marissa’s frame and her nipples poked hard against the lace of her bra as her mind replaced Jade’s name with her own.

The young woman led the three of them to a table at the far side of the room, and as they walked, Marissa took in her surroundings. She was quite impressed with the opulence of the place, especially considering the façade of the seemingly rundown building in the nearly deserted neighborhood that housed it. Instead of a medieval stone dungeon, the space looked more like a posh Westchester County country club. The lighting was softly muted, the walls painted a warm, creamy beige, the thickly piled carpeting a soft tan. Instead of iron manacles, oil paintings of lush landscapes and plump, nude women lounging on velvet settees were hung along the walls. Leather sofas and deep, plush chairs were scattered throughout the room in conversational arrangements, and half a dozen small tables were set up near a long bar of polished wood and brass. Soft classical music filled the room, though Marissa couldn’t see evidence of any speakers.

That was where the comparison to a country club ended, however. Large circles had been cut into the carpet in various spots around the spacious room, and equipment Marissa recognized from the online BDSM training site was set up in each circle. These included whipping posts, medical exam tables, large X crosses and spanking benches.

“Those are the punishment circles,” Dana explained, following Marissa’s wide-eyed gaze. “That’s where people do public scenes, as you can see.”

Marissa could barely keep her mouth from hanging open as she struggled to process everything going on around her. As Dana had warned, there were both women and men in various states of undress. A rather large woman brushed by Marissa as they walked toward their table. She was wearing a black leather bustier cinched in at the waist, her ample breasts spilling out over the top. There was a guy in his forties who was completely naked, save for a small cage fitted over his genitals. His hands were loosely cuffed to a thick leather collar around his neck, and he was being led on a leash by a tall, imposing woman with impossibly high heels wearing a full-length black velvet gown.

A man with a black hood covering his head and face was kneeling on all fours between two seated women, both of whom were resting their stiletto-heeled feet on his bare back and talking over him as if he were no more than a piece of furniture.

A naked woman was bound to a whipping post in one of the punishment circles, a black blindfold over her eyes, her ass bright red and mottled with bruises. Another woman dressed in a very short black leather skirt and a sheer white silk blouse stood just behind her, smacking the woman’s ass with a long-handled purple riding crop.

A woman was lying face-up an exam table, her wrists and ankles buckled down at the corners with leather restraints. Four men were gathered around her, each holding a lit candle. Her naked body was covered in splattered red wax, especially her pubic area and breasts, and she whimpered softly each time more droplets of melted wax scalded her skin.

Neither Tony nor Dana seemed the slightest bit perturbed by any of this as they wove their way through the small crowds clustered around each scene. It was all Marissa could do to keep moving beside them, when all she really wanted to do was stop and stare.

Once they got to their table, Tony pulled out chairs for both Marissa and Dana. He stood behind Dana and helped her remove her coat. Beneath the coat, Dana wore a dark green satin corset cinched tightly at her long, slender waist. Her small breasts were pushed high in the bodice of the corset, which was cut so low the top half of her pink nipples were showing. She wore a skirt of matching green leather that barely covered the tops of her slender thighs. Marissa knew from seeing her in the gym locker room that Dana was shaved smooth, and she found herself wondering if she was wearing any underwear. Though Dana had a killer body, still Marissa marveled at her friend’s apparent ease and confidence at displaying herself like that in public.

Yet she had to admit Dana looked spectacular, the effect far sexier than if she’d been merely naked. The deep green of the corset set off her green eyes and auburn hair, and her breasts looked like perfect, ripe peaches, bunched together and just waiting to be tasted.

“You look stunning,” Marissa breathed, feeling dowdy in comparison in her black cocktail dress.

“Thank you.” Dana smiled brightly. “Master Tony brought home this lovely corset this afternoon.”

Tony stroked his wife’s arm, and Marissa could see the love in his eyes. “A gift for my slave girl,” he said. Turning to Marissa, he added, “She’ll earn it tonight.” Leaning down, he reached for the messenger bag he’d set on the floor beside his chair and opened the flap. He pulled out a black plastic container and placed it on the table.

At that moment, a young woman wearing nothing but a black satin apron with a huge bow at the back appeared beside their table, a small order pad and pen in her hand. Her chest and arms were covered in an elaborate series of tattoos and large gold hoops dangled from her nipples.

“The usual, Sir?” she asked Tony, not even glancing at Dana or Marissa.

Tony turned to Marissa. “Do you drink champagne, Marissa?”

“Yes. I love champagne,” Marissa said, though she was a little confused by the question.

Tony turned back to the nearly naked waitress. “Yes, Stella,” he said with a nod. “Three mimosas over crushed ice.”