Lily shrugged. “You’re in luck. I think he’s doing a spanking demo.”
She pointed to the back corner. I swallowed a dry lump in my throat. “Thanks,” I said.
“Come by later, if you can,” she said.
“Or don’t,” Kiley added.
The furniture was spread out with enough space to easily walk through and avoid flying whips and fists. My mind wandered as I walked, thinking about the different stories I had read. How O wore a mask on that last night, her final offering to Stefan, how he branded and pierced her. He had broken her down into her basest form, the primal animal within, an object with no other function than to submit. It was hard for me to understand it, beyond the words on the page. Were there people here who had been branded and pierced for their masters?
I drew closer to a man in black slacks, a black dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up, showing off toned biceps, bent over a display of instruments on a table. A few people were standing around, as if waiting for a show, and before the man straightened, I knew it was him.
Dr. Evans stood from the table and turned towards the small crowd. His shoulders flexed when his eyes landed on mine. Those eyes, light blue and steely, burned through me. Did he recognize me? I knew I had come on strong, but I knew I wasn’t the only student who had confronted him in that capacity before. But he held me, urging me forward with that gaze, and the whole world, everything around us, the whips, the moans, the frightened screams, the thrash of impact on skin, in those eyes, the world was silent around us.
One of the people in the crowd got his attention, and he turned towards them, breaking our gaze. He smiled at the person, engaging in what looked like a pleasant conversation.
Dr. Evans was smiling? How was it that being in a dungeon full of twisted fantasies being played out, the thing that surprised me most, was that Dr. Evans was smiling?
He turned to the audience, which had developed into a sizable crowd.
“A promise is a promise,” he said, and few chuckled. First, he was smiling, and now he was joking? He gestured at the collection. “I’m not one to do introductions about this kind of thing. Some give a dull, thuddy pain, and others hurt like hell.” He looked around, his eyes glossing over mine, then returning to the center of the audience. “Any volunteers?”
A few people chattered and raised their hands, and before I could change my mind, my hand shot up too. I had a feeling he would find a way to avoid me if I didn’t make myself known. I was here. It was no accident. He tried to dismiss me before. I wasn’t going to let him do it again.
“Pick her!” Lily said. I hadn’t realized she was next to me. She raised my hand higher. “Nate! Pick her! She’s new. You can break her in.”
Break her in?
“Yeah, give the newbie a shot,” someone else added.
“Spank the fresh meat!”
The crowd parted ways, making room for me. Dr. Evans was cold, his gaze beaming down like a spotlight, making me feel vulnerable. I stood still, waiting for him to tell me what to do, but Lily shoved me forward, and suddenly, I was next to him, close enough to feel the heat coming off of his body. His seductive smell of sandalwood enveloped me. I looked up. His face had the scruff of facial hair, but it was neatly trimmed, and a few strands of hair around his temples were silver. He had to be older than me by a few decades. In his forties, maybe. But being right next to him, like this, was different. Attractive didn’t do him justice. He was alluring. There was something about him that made me okay with being this close.
But why? Why was I okay with this? Why had I come here in the first place? It was hard to keep track of my goal.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said.
“Of course I do,” I said, “I volunteered.” Those words rattled his distracting sex appeal from my mind. It was irritating to be questioned like that. Did he think I was too young to do something like this? “We’re both adults. It’s not a big deal.”
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. When he opened them again, he had the expression of practiced patience on his face.
“What would you like to try?” he said, his voice low and guttural.
“This is a spanking demonstration?” I asked. I looked back at Lily, who gave me a thumbs up. “Can we do hands? Your hands?”
He stared at me for a moment, as if I had said the wrong thing. Dr. Evans was all business when it came to his work at the university, and apparently, all business when it came to spanking demonstrations too.
“And then?” he asked.
“And then…” I looked at the display, but I hardly knew the difference between the objects. It didn’t matter, did it? “Dealer’s choice.”
“Dealer’s choice.”
He motioned towards a bench. I leaned on the leather cushions, the crowd watching.
“We’ll warm her up first,” he said to the crowd. Someone snickered.
Wham!His hand, more like a damn baseball mitt than a regular-sized hand, rode into me, shaking me to the core.
