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“Yes, mistress. Mr. K. brought me in a few weeks ago.”
“King always did have good taste,” Nora said, eliciting a blush from the beaming young woman. “Have you made it to the floor yet?”
“No, mistress,” the girl said, her voice aflutter with nervousness. “I’m so sorry. It’s just…I’m such a fan.”
Zach smiled at the girl. “You should enjoy her next book, too. It’s coming along very well.”
The girl looked puzzled.
“You write books too, mistress?”
Nora laughed but didn’t meet Zach’s eyes.
“You’re adorable,” Nora said to the girl. “I’ll talk to King about getting you on the floor.”
“Thank you, mistress,” the girl breathed. She seemed to remember herself and said with a more professional tone, “Can I get anything for you, mistress? For your guest?”
“A white scarf, please. And my case. The black one.”
With another curtsy the girl left and promptly returned with a plain white handkerchief and a small box that looked like a flute case only much longer.
Nora took the white scarf and wrapped it around his bicep.
“What on earth—”
“The Circle revived the flag and scarf signal system from the old guard leather scene,” Nora explained. “We revised it quite a bit to suit the specific clientele that comes here. The scarves are signals or advertisements. Here white means you’re an S&M virgin who only wants to observe. Should keep the wolves at bay.”
“Should?” Zach asked skeptically. “I really need a stop signal? A simple ‘no, thanks’ wouldn’t do?”
“Trust me, as gorgeous as you are, Zach, you would be in big trouble down there without a little armor on.”
“Wouldn’t red make for a better stop signal?” Zach asked, not wanting to be labeled as a “virgin” anything.
“A red scarf would signal you were into blood-play.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Could be worse,” Nora said as she finished knotting the scarf around his arm. “It could be a brown scarf.”
“And brown means?”
The young woman and Nora gave each other conspiratorial glances.
“Keep the wolves at bay…should I be nervous, Nora?”
Nora didn’t answer. She snapped open the black case and took out a riding crop, black with white braiding and quite professional-looking. She took a step back and twirled the crop with stunning expertise. With a quick flick she struck it against her own leather-clad calf. The sound echoed down the hall like a gunshot.
“Kingsley Edge was the first person who put a riding crop in my hand. It was like Arthur with Excalibur.” She winked at the girl and the girl could only smile in awe. Zach tried not to roll his eyes. Disheartening to think Nora had better luck with women than he did.
“Come, Zachary,” Nora said, tapping her leather-clad calf with the crop.
“Yes, mistress,” he said, with minimal irony.
Nora started to turn but stopped in midstep.
“Tell me your name,” she ordered the girl.
“Robin,” she replied.
“Ah, a little bird,” Nora purred. She reached out and caressed the girl’s burning cheek with the back of her hand. “I’ll remember that.”
Nora lowered her hand and stepped away. She pushed the down button on the elevator and the door slid open. They entered and Zach saw there was only a down button inside.
“This elevator only goes down?”
“Apparently so.” Nora held the handle of her crop in her right hand and the tip in her left. She held it, he discovered with a jolt of recognition, like a scepter. Even her posture, usually intimate and conspiratorial, had transformed. She held herself like a queen, her chin high, her back straight. She wore the hauteur well.
“Then how will we get out?”
Nora looked at him as if the thought had never occurred to her.
“I suppose we won’t.”
“That girl worships you but she doesn’t know you’re a writer. How did she know you, Nora?”
“Down here everyone knows me. Oh, and to answer your earlier question,” she said as the elevator slowed. “Yes, you should be nervous.”
He heard the muted grinding of the elevator coming to a shuddering stop. The doors opened. Nora turned her face to the dark outside the doors, and in a low voice said, “Let the wild rumpus begin.”
Nora stepped forward and across the threshold. Zach called her name as she disappeared into the dark. Her hand reached back; Zach grasped it and let her pull him across blindly into the abyss. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. Zach stepped back when he realized he now stood teetering at the top of a steep staircase. But Nora stepped forward and went down, and he had no choice but to go down with her.
He felt the music before he even heard it. It beat into his chest, a pounding, visceral symphony of violence. Nora descended the staircase, and he had to trust her since he could barely make out his own feet below him. As they reached the middle of the staircase a deafening roar erupted as the throngs below recognized Nora. When they reached the bottom step a horde of near naked bodies congregated to throw themselves at Nora’s feet. She brushed past them, kicked some away, and swatted a few dismissively like flies with her riding crop. The more viciously she dealt with them, the more they groveled.
Looking around, Zach saw sights his eyes could process but his mind could not. Above him hung bodies hoisted high on suspension harnesses. A woman in leather dragged a man to a cross and lashed him to it. A line of people queued up to take turns flogging him. A naked woman was tied spread-eagle to a large spinning wheel. A huge bear of a man whipped her as the wheel turned and turned. Another woman strapped to an X-Bar volunteered her services to a man covered in head-to-toe vinyl except for the part of him in her mouth.
Into all this wet, red hell Nora strode without blinking, without flinching, without missing a step. She floated light and buoyant across the black waters, her eyes burning like flags afire. Zach imagined they could be seen for miles.
She pulled him through the herd of admirers toward an open wrought-iron elevator shaft at the other side of the floor. Guarding the elevator was a man roughly the size of a house wearing chaps and a spiked dog collar. Nora transferred her riding crop from her right hand to her left, and with her free right hand delivered a slap so fierce to the man’s face that Zach winced.
Zach moved forward ready to take the brunt of the man’s retaliation, but he merely smiled, bowed to Nora and stepped aside.
Nora stepped into the elevator and Zach followed.
“What the hell was that?” Zach demanded, referring to the slap.
“The password,” she called back.
No doors closed on the lift as it started to rise. Zach huddled near the back wall for safety, but Nora stood at the very edge and blew a kiss to the howling, cheering crowd below.
The elevator brought them three stories up to an old world bar. Tables of black lacquer sat everywhere and at the center of each pale yellow candles burned and dripped wax over the shiny surfaces. Behind the bar hung a huge mirror and every sort of alcohol one could conceive of. The din of the crowd was still audible but distinctly subdued. A portion of the bar opened like a balcony. Zach could see the chaos still raging below.
Nora brought him to a table near the center of the bar. She stood by her chair and waited. Seconds later a dark-eyed, well-muscled young man wearing low-slung leather pants came up behind Nora and pulled her chair out for her.
“Have a seat, mistress,” he said. “If it pleases you.”
Nora laughed and turned in her chair to face him. He knelt at her feet and waited with a smile.
“Griffin Randolfe Fiske,” she said in delighted recognition. She put the tip of her riding crop under his chin and forced him to meet her eyes. “What the hell are you doing down there, you dirty Dom?”
“Just seeing how the other half grovels,” Griffin said, running his hand through his near-black hair. Even on the floor on his knees, it was obvious to Zach Nora’s friend was no submissive.
Zach guessed Nora’s friend was in his mid-twenties. Handsome and tan with armband tattoos around both biceps, Griffin appeared to be a close friend of Nora’s—very close.
“Who’d you piss off this time?” Nora flicked the little silver tag hanging off his collar.
“The usual.”
Nora shook her head.
“You know Søren has the right to revoke your key, Griff,” she warned, casually twirling the riding crop in her nimble fingers.
“Yes, but you like me so he won’t.”
Nora gave him a sidelong glare with a smile underneath.
“I don’t like you. I tolerate you.”
“Yeah, you tolerated my brains out in Miami two months ago.”
Nora scoffed. “I was feeling unusually tolerant that day.”
“Weekend,” Griffin corrected. “Who’s blue eyes over here?”
Zach started as he realized Nora’s friend was now sizing him up.
“Master Griffin Fiske, meet my editor, Zachary Easton,” she introduced them.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Zach reached forward to shake Griffin’s hand. But Griffin kissed the center of his palm instead. Zach yanked his hand back.
“He’s gorgeous, Nora. Hot accent, too. Fucked him yet?”
Nora shrugged. “Just a blow job.”
Zach had the sudden urge to throttle Nora.
“Blow job on a British guy?” Griffin asked with some concern. “You’re a braver bitch than I. No offense,” Griffin said, turning to Zach. “I have a foreskin phobia.”
“Zach’s Jewish.”
Griffin nodded his approval. “Mazel tov.”
“Griffin, are you going to get our drink order anytime soon or will I have to report you to a certain someone for dereliction of duty?”
“Drink order, mistress. Give it to me.”
“Zach, do you want anything?”
Did he want anything? He wanted to get back in the Aston Martin right now and head straight for home. He’d thought he’d lived a wild life before he and Grace married—dozens of lovers, sex in cars, in parks, once with the maid of honor in the bathroom during a wedding reception, twice with the daughter of the dean of his college…loads of drinking, carousing, wild nights followed by tired but happy next mornings. But nothing he’d ever done compared to what was going on right in front of his eyes. A girl no more than twenty-five was being dragged by her hair past their table by a man about his age. He pushed her onto the elevator floor and put his foot on the back of her neck. Nora and Griffin barely even glanced in their direction.
“Anything that will put me into a coma,” Zach decided.
“No comas tonight. The Circle’s got a two-drink maximum,” Nora said.
“Two-drink maximum?”
“Griffin, explain,” Nora ordered.
“You see, blue eyes,” Griffin said, still kneeling on the floor. “This place doesn’t actually exist. No one knows it’s here. Not the cops, not the IRS, nobody but members, and the guy who runs this joint has so much blackmail shit on every member that we don’t breathe a word about this place to outsiders. So to avoid any unnecessary scrutiny, we play it very safe down here. No drugs, very little alcohol and safe words, safe words, safe words.”
“So, two-drink maximum,” Nora finished. “Better make it a good two.”
“Gin and tonic,” Zach said, picking the first hard drink that came to mind.
“Just mineral water,” Nora said.
“Oh…” Griffin said, his dark brown eyes turning gold with mirth. “Sounds like somebody wants to play tonight.”
“Up. Go,” Nora ordered and Griffin jumped straight from the floor to his feet in kip-up—a move Zach had only seen in the occasional kung-fu movie.
“Such a punk,” Nora said, watching him walk away. “Thinks he’s a sex ninja.”
“Friend of yours?” Zach asked.
“Kink buddy. But he talks too much so I have to gag him every time we fuck. Cute, isn’t he?”
“Delightful. He’s…” Zach didn’t complete the question.
“Bisexual. Very.”
“Was it absolutely necessary to tell him that we—”
“I blew you. You liked it. Get over it,” she said as a naked woman wearing only a tail feather held in place in a way Zach didn’t want to think about sashayed past their table. Nora didn’t even bat an eyelash at her. “Ever heard of John Fiske?”
“Of course. Chairman of the stock exchange, isn’t he? He’s your friend’s—”
“Yup, that’s Junior,” she said, inclining her head in Griffin’s direction. “The Fiske family is new money, old money, money money. Griff is New York’s biggest trust fund baby. He drives Søren up the wall. Søren’s very dignified. Griffin…not so much.”
“So who owns this club?”
“Kingsley Edge—he’s Søren’s best friend. Best friend when Søren isn’t trying to kill him that is. King runs the place but Søren’s top Dom here so he calls the shots when he’s in attendance. He can order anyone to do anything and they have to do it. Here all the Dominants are ranked by experience and level of dominance. Griffin’s lucky number seven.”
“Who’s number two?”
Nora leaned back in her chair, snapped her fingers and pointed at herself.
“I am.”
Zach’s eyes widened in shock.
“You are?”
“Zach, this isn’t a game, you know. I don’t just write it. I live it. I’m a Domme, a female Dominant. There aren’t a lot of us around. Most Dominants are men. Technically I’m Switch since I can top and bottom, but if I show up on your doorstep, get ready to say ouch. I’m not good at it—I’m amazing at it. So good at it that I’m as famous down here for my skills with a whip as I am in the straight world for my skills with a pen.”
“My God,” Zach breathed.
“No need for that. You can just call me ‘ma’am.’” Nora winked at him. Zach looked at her and knew she spoke the truth. He knew she was kinky but he never dreamed before now she was some sort of legend. No wonder she’d scared him from the moment they met—she really was dangerous.
“Your G&T.” Griffin returned to the table with their drinks. “And your mineral water, mistress. Anything else?”
“Yes,” Nora said. “Kneel.”
Griffin knelt again on the floor at Nora’s feet.
“Zachary, Griffin is demonstrating for us the attendant slave posture. Kneeling, hands resting on knees, thighs—” she said and put a foot on Griffin’s inner thigh and pushed “—wide-open. Very good, slave.”
“Thank you, mistress.”
“Slave, please recite for my guest the first rule of S&M here at the 8th Circle.”
“Hurt, but do not harm, mistress.”
“And the second rule.”
“Respect the safe word always, mistress.”
“And the third rule?”
Griffin looked at Zach before answering.
“No vanilla sex allowed…mistress.”
Nora broke into a wide grin. “Good boy. You are dismissed for the moment. But stay close.”
Griffin rose to his feet and leaned over.
“I’ll stay so close you’ll think I’m inside you,” he said in a stage whisper meant for Zach to hear and nipped at Nora’s neck. Zach tried to ignore it.
“Hurt but do not harm?” Zach asked. “What’s the difference?”
“Hurt is a bruise on the outside.” Nora sipped her mineral water delicately. “Harm is a bruise on the inside. If you’re a masochist, pain feels like love to you. Not being hurt is what hurts.”
“Are you a masochist?” Zach asked, fascinated despite himself.
“Not exactly.” Nora smiled almost shyly. “Not everyone who practices S&M is an actual sadist or masochist, not in the pathological sense anyway. With Søren, I loved submitting to pain. I loved the submission, though, not the pain itself. There are a handful of actual masochists down here, though, if you want to meet one. Fair warning, they can be almost as dangerous to play with as the sadists.”
“Warning taken. You don’t seem like those people down there.” Zach nodded toward the pit.
“Those people down there are doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, politicians, you name it. If I’m not like them it’s only because I don’t have a real job. And I have played in the pit before, I’ll have you know. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah down there sometimes. Tonight’s Monday so the play’s a little tame.”
“You say ‘play’ like this is all a game. But people are actually getting hurt down there, Nora.”
“I have one word for you, my uptight English editor—rugby.”
Zach winced. Rugby—the sport as rough as American football but without all the padding.
“A lot of people think we’re crazy, Zach. Some even think we’re evil. But I’m a Switch so I’ve seen both sides of the whip. I know you can’t imagine it, but this is love to a lot of us. When Søren hit me, it was because he loved me, because that’s how we loved each other.”
“Sounds horrifying.”
“Horrifying is the last thing Søren is. Dangerous, yes. I’ll give you that. But S&M’s only dangerous if you play with someone you don’t trust or if you forget your safe word.” She stopped, looked up at the ceiling and smiled. He could see something like a memory flash across her eyes. “Trust me, whatever you do, Zach, don’t forget your safe word.”
“What’s a safe word?”
“A safe word’s your last out. That’s the dark secret of S&M—the submissives actually have the final say. And your safe word can be anything—popcorn, barn owl—whatever as long as it’s not a word you’d use in a scene. If you need to tell the person topping you that you have to stop completely, you end it by using that word.”
“You can’t just say ‘stop’?”
“A lot of submissives enjoy feeling overpowered and truly dominated. God knows I did. ‘Stop’ doesn’t mean ‘stop’ in S&M. It’s just part of the scene. You should have a safe word down here. Everyone does. Except Søren, of course.”
“Why is he exempt?”
Nora smirked and rolled her eyes.
“Because Søren doesn’t get topped. Go ahead. You can pick anything—the street you grew up on, your favorite food, the middle name of the long-lost love of your life. Got one?”
“Sure, fine,” Zach said, picking the first word that came to mind. “Calais.”
“The city in France?”
“Oui.”
“Bien. I’ll remember it. If I start to push you hard enough you need to really get out, just say that and everything will stop. Saying ‘no, Nora, I don’t think that’s such a grand idea’ doesn’t always work on me.”
“I’ve noticed.” Zach took a sip of his drink. “So my writer is the most famous Domme in New York.”
Nora grinned. “Zach, I’m the most famous Domme—” she began and then closed her mouth. Her ears seemed to perk up. She tilted her head sideways.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
Zach listened.
“I don’t hear anything.”
Nora inhaled and exhaled slowly.
“Fuck.”
Nora jumped to her feet and raced to the balcony area of the bar. Zach ran to join her.
“What is it?” Zach asked.
Griffin came to stand behind them. Zach heard him chuckling.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one—a priest, a rabbi and a griffin walk into an S&M club…”
“This is why I gag you during sex, Griffin,” Nora nearly growled.
“You brought a date to the Circle,” Griffin chided. “What did you expect him to do?”
“I expected King to keep his mouth shut.”
“You know King answers to a higher power.”
“Nora,” Zach said with exasperation, “please tell me what’s going on.”
Nora turned to face him. He saw real fear in her eyes.
“Søren.”
“Søren?” Zach repeated and looked down. A man stood at the top of the staircase where he and Nora had entered. Zach couldn’t make out any of his features at first. All he noticed was the man’s commanding height, his incredible presence. All play below had ceased at his entrance. He strode down the staircase slowly, imperiously. The world stopped for him. The chaos on the floor fell silent. Everyone everywhere, Nora included, seemed to be holding their breath.
Zach narrowed his eyes at the sight of Nora’s former lover. He noticed something strange about the man’s clothes.
“Zach, I should have told you. There’s a lot I should have told you.”
“Søren…” Zach said in utter shock. “He’s a priest?”
“My priest.”
19
A hundred whispers and hints from conversations over the past few weeks came back to Zach in an instant. Nora Sutherlin’s former lover who still haunted her like the shadow of a ghost was a Catholic priest. And if it weren’t for the fear in her eyes and the dread in his stomach he might have laughed.
“Zach, look at me,” Nora ordered, and Zach wrenched his eyes away from the scene below.
“It’s all right,” Zach said, trying to reassure her.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “He’s here for a reason and it’s probably not a good one. If he wants me, I have to go with him. I won’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Zach said.
Nora shook her head. “Not down here. House rules. Griffin?”
“Yes, my Mistress in Distress?” Griffin said, clearly taking great pleasure in Nora’s extreme agitation.
“I’ll need you to stay with Zach if you can. Just don’t let him out of your sight. That’s an order.”
“I’m all over it. And him, too, if he’ll let me.”
“He won’t let you,” Zach said, and Griffin grinned at him.
“And Griffin.” She reached out to take Griffin’s face in her hands. “For God’s sake and for the first time in your life, keep your mouth shut.”
Zach expected one of Griffin’s witty retorts but the young man merely nodded. Zach saw something pass between them, some sort of secret understanding that he was apparently not to be privy to. He’d already seen Nora’s former lover was a priest. What else was left to shock him?
“He’s coming,” Griffin whispered and Zach’s heart beat hard in his chest.
Zach sensed a presence behind him. He turned and found himself face-to-face with Nora’s former lover. Almost face-to-face. Although Zach stood six feet tall in bare feet, Søren dwarfed him by at least two or three inches. It wasn’t only his height that was so formidable. Strikingly handsome, he was in his mid-forties but while his lean and angular face looked younger than that, his eyes held aeons in their steely depths. On rare occasions Zach had encountered members of England’s lingering aristocracy. But in his simple black clerics, this man appeared more aristocratic, more imperious and commanding than any baron, any duke, any prince he’d ever glimpsed. Now Zach understood the source of Nora’s fear. If God himself was intimidated by this man, Zach wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Eleanor,” Søren spoke first. “Would you care to introduce me to your friend?”
Zach heard the remnant of an accent in his voice. With the name Søren, Zach might have expected a Scandinavian accent and with his impeccable blond hair and steel-gray eyes, Søren certainly looked the part. But in the echo of his inflection Zach heard the slightest trace of something more familiar, the faintest English accent.
“Søren—” Nora’s voice fluttered. “This is Zachary Easton, my editor. Zach, this is Søren, my…”
“Priest is the word Eleanor is looking for, I believe.” Søren spoke with authoritarian hauteur. “You are her editor, Mr. Easton, so I believe helping her find her words is your job, yes? I don’t believe I see a red pen on your person. Are you off duty tonight?”
“Nora just wanted me to help with her research for her book.” Zach sensed Søren weighing him. Zach had an inkling that no matter what he did or said, he would be found wanting.
“Research?” The word seemed to amuse him. Nora stood silent next to Zach; her skin flushed and her hands gripped her riding crop handle with white-knuckled force. “Yes, Eleanor is quite thorough in her research. Eleanor, accompany me please. I need a moment with you.”
“Actually, we were about to leave.” Zach stepped between Nora and Søren.
Søren raised his chin and gazed down on Zach with an expression of ironic detachment. His eyes took in the white flag around Zach’s arm and he raised an eyebrow in apparent amusement. Zach stared at the white collar around Søren’s neck before meeting the priest’s eyes again. But Søren seemed untouchable—no guilt, no embarrassment, not even the slightest hint of shame haunted his eyes. Søren slowly raised his hand right next to Nora’s ear. He snapped his fingers, and Nora flinched at the echoing sound. Søren pointed to the floor at his side, and Nora stepped out and stood where Søren had indicated. Zach wanted to pull her back and run with her as far and fast away from this man as they could. But Nora met his eyes for the briefest moment, and he saw someone he’d never seen before reflected back. No one handles Nora Sutherlin, J.P. had said and Zach had begun to believe it. Now he knew he’d met the one man who could.