The Submissive's Last Word (The Power to Please #4) (12 page)

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, took 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 bit 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.

The pressure mounted and I didn’t want to hold it back, to
make it wait. The music demanded now. The time was now. I was ready, and so I
let it crash over me, the rolling thrill of climax.

My cry was lost in the howl of the sax, the triumph of the
piano and the throbbing beats of the bass and drum, the final crescendo. And in
the groan of my lover, my beautiful, beautiful lover, who held me as I trembled
and supported me when my knees went weak.

Then the song was over.

Silence.

The only sound in the club was the combined rhythm of ragged
breath from the band and the dancers, even perhaps from the spectators too.

Nothing but breath. The release, released.

Gibson turned me around to face him, wrapped his arms around
me and held me tight against his chest. He laid his cheek on the top of my
head, and I squeezed him hard, my hands clasped around his waist.

We breathed.

Together.

And then, as if nothing at all extraordinary had just
happened, the band began to play again, a light, breezy tune, upbeat and
pleasant. Happy. A satiated expression.

Gibson steadied me on our way back to the table. The
waitress, wearing a nonchalant expression, delivered a pair of fresh drinks
which she said were on the house. I took a long drink of the tangy concoction
and enjoyed my warm afterglow.

Gibson leaned back in his chair and took slow sips of his
own drink. He was losing himself in the music again, I knew. I marveled at his
control, was more than a little surprised that he didn’t haul me out to the
town car and take care of matters.

But no, that wasn’t Gibson’s way.

It occurred to me that he had gone above and beyond in more
than one way that evening.

“So, how was that?” I asked.

He opened his eyes and looked at me, his expression content.
“You’re perfect, as always.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You doing what you did. That
was something you don’t usually do, wasn’t it? You don’t like public displays.”

“I generally don’t like being in the limelight. But Nonnie,
no one was looking at me out there.”

I smiled. “You’re wrong. Really, though, I hope you don’t
feel like you have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, just because
I’m ... whatever.”

“I don’t. I thought it would be good for me, trying
something new.”

“And how did you like it?”

“I think you know the answer.”

I did. I let him be, allowed him to fall back into contemplation
of the music. I savored the moment, myself. Returned to watching the crowd.

New people were on the dance floor and in the cage now, the
others having disappeared into the crowd somewhere. Current focus appeared to
be settled on the people stretched on the couches and loungers. There was a big
bowl of assorted fruit set on a central table, and the people appeared to be
having something of a sexy eating contest.

At the bar, small groups of people chatted and flirted idly.

I looked at Gibson, proud of him for pushing his limits. I
knew he did it for me. I respected his gesture, and considered giving him one
of my own.

Why not. I was ready, I thought. And it was time, wasn’t it,
in these days of letting go.

I made my gesture. I reached behind my head and untied the
mask, catching it as it fell away.

I laid it on the table, fluffed my hair into place. Touched
my cheeks. Asked myself if I was okay. And I was.

I looked around the room again. No fears. The worry only a
small, insignificant thing that was easy to bully away. No one looked at me any
differently than they had before. Except Gibson. He met my gaze, smiled at me.
Nodded.

And I knew he was proud. A warm sensation bloomed in my
chest. I smiled back at him.

I was going to be okay.