Page 52 of His Keepsake

I let him run on, pretending fascination with Emme. It wasn’t all a pretense as I imagined sinking into her and plowing her balls-deep, rocking the sofa, while she squealed and cried.

“One of these people?” My stomach tightened at this second dark suggestion of Axl’s. He seemed to be running off at the mouth about doing illegal things in a way he never had before.

Unless it was just me skewing the situation? No. It’s him.

“Of course. They’d do it happily. A bit of training and—”

“No.” It was unlawful, but I didn’t bother saying that.

At this stage, that point seemed moot. Axl knew it. I knew it.

The question was, how did he leap to suggesting this so effortlessly?

I had thought I was daring and black-hearted, but here I seemed to be Snow White in a den of thieves.

Some of the guests passing us greeted Axl, as if they knew him. We went up the stairs to a darkened room with voices booming from a sound system. I expected a movie but it was a live stage show, where two men were whipping and fucking three girls—two hung from the ceiling by a shibari arrangement with their hands tied behind them. Ropes around their breasts took much of the weight. The ropes ran up to the ceiling. Unsafe? Possibly. The third woman was simply trussed and being passed around like a convenient cock-sucking device.

There was only one long row of chairs. Men sat watching with women at their feet. Several of those were blindfolded. One had her head in a timber box with her hands shackled to the sides of it. Another wore a gimp mask with the eyeholes closed. We sat at the left-hand end of the row. Once Emme was on her knees beside my chair, Axl gestured at the stage.

“That’s free for anyone to use. The only rule here is that it has to be public. No closed-off rooms. If you want another man’s toy, you ask. If he says yes, you use whatever protection he asks for.”

I stared at him.

“Got that?”

I was wary of ruining our friendship. After all, we shared everything. Or we had, until now.

“Just one question.”

He waited.

I ran my gaze along this row of seats where servants moved along offering drinks and cordon-bleu snacks. Without the show up on the stage and minus the silent, kneeling women, this might have been a movie theater. A few of them had fluoro-pink tattoos or stamps between their shoulder blades that, as far as I could tell were identical: CNC Fraternity. Painted on, I decided. It would be too obvious otherwise, outside this house of sin.

I read the text aloud, “CNC Fraternity?”

“That’s what it says.”

I glanced down at Emme, who might not be able to see much but could hear. Would his answer to my next question be truthful?

“How many of the women are here voluntarily?”

He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and pretended to be absorbed by the cries of pain and lust coming from the spectacle on stage. “All, as far as I know, though maybe it depends on your definition of consensual nonconsent.” He nodded at Emme, who was staring at the carpet.

“I guess it would.” I had a hunch I was not the only one bending the definition.

I leaned back too but with my hand resting on top of her head. It was leather there with the kitty mask in place, but I slipped my fingers southward to brush across her real human ears.

“I want to make it clear, now, since I knew nothing of this sharing arrangement before I arrived—nobody gets to mess with her. Nobody. Including you. Is that understood?”

Without shifting his feet from where they were crossed at the ankle, or his gaze from the stage goings-on, he nodded, his mouth curving up at one corner. “No spit-roast?”

“None. Not ever, actually. I’ve decided to keep her just for my dick. It’s simpler.”

“Simpler.” After a few seconds, as if an afterthought, he added, “Okay.”

We sat watching the show for another five minutes before he rose to his feet, unfolding like some lanky, IKEA version of mankind.

“Let’s go talk somewhere more private.”

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