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I belonged here in this colorful, comfortable place. The marble penthouse was a fantasy…and so was Fort St. Clair.
Chapter Three: Fort
Ihadn’t toldJuliet, but I’d started my kink life in clubs like Underworld. I wasn’t ashamed of it, but I’d quickly moved on to harder places, and harder types of pain. I’d met Devin soon after I graduated college, at a Manhattan munch—I used to go to those, too—and recognized a kindred spirit. Dev introduced me to Milo through a submissive partner they shared, and Milo was the portal for both of us into The Gallery.
Since then, The Gallery was my standing Saturday night date.
The Gallery wasn’t your typical BDSM club. It was a kinky stronghold you could only join through word of mouth, a stone clock tower and dome at the top of the Bridgeport building, which was, incidentally, half owned by Milo’s family, who were famous Italian instrument makers.
The original Gallery owners banded together to buy the undeveloped clock tower when it came on the market, meaning to use it as a private men’s club. They renovated it Versailles-style, did it up with rococo sculptures, fleur-de-lys carpets, and carved, gold-painted doors. A circular staircase twisted up to the dome, into a stone chamber where the early members had established a dungeon-like sex chamber.
Now the whole three-floor establishment was kinky as fuck. There were twenty to thirty members at any given time, as privileged invitees joined or drifted away. It cost a small fortune to become a member, but for me, it was money well spent. Membership was restricted to Dominant males, and each member was allowed to bring in any woman he liked, as long as that woman agreed to be discreet, follow the rules, and adhere to the dress code: exhibitionist lingerie and a collar that marked her as communal property. The Gallery was about as gothic and perverse as a legal, private BDSM club in New York City could be.
So it was strange that I was sitting on the sidelines in the middle of prime time, during the height of screams and scenes, thinking about last night’s encounter with Juliet.
Encounter, was that even the word for it? Why had I noticed her, and felt so strongly that I had to help her? Her ruined makeup and tangled hair had triggered something protective in me, to the point where I’d let her spend the night in my guest room.Yeah, and you brought out the cuffs, even though you had no real reason to think she needed to be restrained.
Fine, I’d had a little fun with her. It must have been because she was new and different. All kinds of women came to The Gallery as guests of their sponsors, but all of them were a certain type—wild, fearless, and masochistic.
They were also all very familiar to me.
As for myself, I hadn’t sponsored any women in a while. The last woman I’d invited hadn’t enjoyed the experience, and threatened to report all of us to the police, which would have been grounds for getting my ass permanently banned from the club. Dev still teased me about it, but it wasn’t funny. My bad taste in subs was becoming a thing.
Maybe that was why I’d felt drawn to Juliet last night. Maybe she seemed safe, since she was an Underworld kind of submissive. No risk of entanglement, since she had very little to offer me. The whole Black Wall thing, her artist boss, it made her interesting, but it didn’t make her a hardcore sub. If an Underworld Dom could reduce her to tears and drunkenness, that was a bad sign for our compatibility.
Dev came over and greeted me, interrupting my thoughts. A thin, blonde sub trailed him, preening in her Gallery uniform and leash. We were both in uniform, too—dark suits and ties. Our gentlemanly attire was part of the power imbalance, a contrast to the scanty, slutty garments the slave girls wore.
“Hey, man,” he said, sitting next to me on the couch. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah. Haven’t gotten started yet.”
Across from us, a woman wailed through a flogging, dancing on her toes. In the bench area, a bent-over submissive’s mouth and ass were being plowed by two Doms.
“You never made it to Allie’s last night,” he said over the flogged woman’s screams.
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I just said goodbye to last night’s ‘good deed’ a few hours ago.”
“What? You kept that chick with you all night?” He blinked. “You didn’t sleep with her?”
“Do I usually sleep with drunk, emo subs from Underworld?”
He chuckled, giving me that one. “What was her deal?” he asked.
I looked around The Gallery, and at Hanna, the girl at Devin’s feet, and decided I didn’t want to talk about Juliet here. “She didn’t live in the Blackwell,” I said, summing up. “Turns out she lives in a place called the Black Wall.”
“The Black Wall? Never heard of it, but it sounds awful.”
“It’s an artists’ complex in Fort Greene, built out of shipping containers. I saw it when I dropped her off this morning.”
He gave me a look. “How chivalrous of you to drive her home.”
“She didn’t have any money for the subway. Don’t be a dick.”
“Wait, let me get this straight. You kept the sobbing Underworld refugee at your apartment all night? She slept there and everything?”
“Yes, in my guest room. She passed out.” I didn’t mention that I’d slept beside her after cuffing her wrists to the headboard. Dev was the type who’d never let something like that go. I changed the subject. “You and Milo had fun with Allie?”
He picked up the new topic of conversation with gusto. “You missed out, my friend. She was in high spirits. Nothing we did to her was too much. All she wanted was pain, and for us to hurt her pussy.” Dev’s eyes sparked with perverse pleasure. “Milo got out that thin cane she likes and used it on her fucking clit.”
