Pain Slut Read online

  In the car, I asked him about his day, his week, his opinion on the new Burrito in a Bag location opening next month . . . as though if I didn’t keep the conversation going, we’d descend into an intolerable laconism and discover we had no reason at all to spend time together, ever.

  But eventually I relaxed and let him ask some questions too. Which gave me time to sneak glances at his hands, his hair, his profile. He was so tall he had to hunch slightly to keep his head from brushing the ceiling, and for some reason my cock found this a compelling reason to harden. I wondered how I was going to spend an entire evening with this man in a building full of BDSM equipment without nurturing an extensive and painful erection.

  He looked around as we parked. “Where is it?”

  “Above that creepily papered-over storefront. When we knock on the door, a slot opens and a man’s eyes appear, and we’re asked for the password.”

  He reached over and pinched my thigh. “You’re a dirty liar.”

  I jerked back in surprise. Turned to him.

  He burst out laughing. “Do you not have any brothers or sisters?”

  “I have a sister.”

  “You just act so startled whenever I tease you.”

  Please don’t talk about teasing me.

  Strapped to the exam table, his hand on my cock . . .

  I undid my seat belt. “I’m told I’m wound a bit tight.”

  “Mmm.” He grinned. “Well, let’s head into this sex dungeon and I’ll loosen you up.”

  “Okay, but we’re not—” Playing. Tonight. Are we?

  He was already out of the car.

  I followed him to the papered storefront. We rang the buzzer for the second floor, and after a moment, we were admitted into a narrow, musty stairwell. “Hold on,” he said, as I started briskly up the stairs. He glanced around. “This stairwell is spooky. Seems like the sort of place you might get accosted by creatures of the night.”

  “Oh really?” I struggled to keep my tone dry as my heart rate picked up.

  He stepped to where I was, grabbing my wrists and pinning them over my head as he kissed me. It was a rush—he towered over me, and the kiss made me so dizzy I was afraid I’d plummet down the stairs.

  “There are cameras,” I whispered.

  “Ah.” He kissed me again. “So there’ll be a record of you getting accosted?”

  “I just meant people can see us right now.”

  “Yes, I’m sure the people who run the kinky dungeon have never seen a kiss before.”

  I laughed as he pushed me harder against the wall. His coat smelled like rain and the outdoors, and he smelled like something dark, raw, and sweet all at once. I sighed as his cock rubbed mine through layers of fabric. He moved against me until I was painfully hard, then he squeezed my groin and said, “Come on.”

  We pushed open the heavy door at the top of the stairs, and then we were in an exposed-brick lair of dubstep and naked people.

  “Whoa.” Drix nearly had to duck to get through the door. “So there really is no dress code.”

  “Nope.” It was still early enough that the club wasn’t too crowded—hardly anyone was in the lounge. We stopped at the counter. Regina, one of the regular DMs, hooked Drix up with the guest waiver.

  “This is like a tome,” Drix said.

  “Yep.”

  “Do I have to read the whole thing?”

  I shrugged. “If I were you, I’d just initial and sign. I can tell you if you’re breaking any house rules.”

  “Ooh,” he said, initialing the pages. “Miles is gonna make me follow the rules.”

  I gave the belt of his coat a yank. “Damn right I will.”

  He grinned, still looking at the waiver. He signed and dated. Showed Regina his ID. Paid the guest fee. And then we were in.

  “So this is Riddle,” I said.

  “It’s very . . .” He moved his arms to the beat of the music. “Thumpy.”

  “The owners have an inexplicable admiration for Skrillex. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  I led him past a trio of clothespin-titted French maids and into the largest of Riddle’s three rooms, Chaos.

  And stopped dead.

  There was a line of people winding through the room. Hell, it even extended into the next room. At the front of the line, I could see the top of a narrow chamber.

  The dildo iron maiden.

  “Um.” I turned to Drix, backing him out of the room. “I forgot they added a new piece of furniture recently. So, we might want to steer clear of Chaos.”

  “Good life advice. What’s the furniture?”

  “It’s a . . . a dildo iron maiden.”

  “Sweet. Are we gonna use it?”

  “Well, not tonight, since it’s nine thirty and the line is already ridiculous. But yes, someday, if you decide you like BDSM, perhaps we will have a dalliance with the DIM.”

  I led him toward the second room, Refinement, where the music was softer, the furniture more elegant. Drix stopped at the fishbowl full of condoms and grabbed a couple. I pretended not to notice. “So, Chaos is where all the major furniture is. Cages, horses, chain spider webs—”

  “Dildo iron maidens.”

  “Exactly. But this is Refinement. It’s a little more boudoir. It has nice suspension bars.”

  “Suspension bars?”

  “For rope play.”

  He looked around. Pointed. “Those bars?”

  “Yep. And note all the hooks in the walls.”

  “Ooh. Yeah. Lots of hooks. What’s that?” He nodded at a piece of furniture by an alcove.

  “Spanking bench. You’d get up on your knees here.” I patted the knee surface. “Then you’d bend over this taller part.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “I would? Or you would?”

  I grinned and rolled my eyes. “I do not get spanked. I have no patience for it. I get whipped. Beaten. Flogged. Spanking is juvenile and ineffective.”

  “Ooookay, then.”

  We came to Tranquility next. The smallest of the three playrooms. There was a velvet rope across the doorway, and a sign instructing us not to enter if other players were doing a scene. The bench that Hal had died on stood in one corner. Every time I saw it, I expected it to look less ordinary than it was. I stared at it for a long moment.

  “This room’s, like, legit pretty,” Drix said.

  The walls were dark red, the lights were dim. There was erotic art throughout the club, but unlike Chaos’s in-your-face images of people plugged and chained and clamped, the photographs here were elegant. Men and women in deep bondage, their eyes closed. I hesitated only a second, then told Drix, “This is a smaller, more private room. Really nice atmosphere. It’s, um . . .” It’s where my best friend spent his last moments. “It’s peaceful.”

  “I’d love to do something in here.” Drix gazed around. “It looks sort of like the Room of Shadows. That’s where the Dark Ravens have our ceremonies when someone moves up in the ranks.”

  Comments like that were beginning to faze me less. I led Drix back to the lounge area, where we laid claim to a sofa next to a shelf of kinky books and magazines. I straightened a copy of Carrie’s Story. “So let’s talk.”

  “About what?” He was too tall for the couch. He looked like a teenager trying to ride a drugstore coin-operated pony.

  “I wanna play Ask a Vampyre.”

  “Can I play Ask a Masochist?”

  “Sure.” I saw the looks he was getting from others in the club, and I felt a mix of pride and possessiveness.

  He seemed oblivious to the stares. “What do you want to know?”

  “Where’d you go to school?” I asked. “As a kid?”

  “Did you seriously bring me to a dungeon so you could talk to me about my childhood?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I think you’re just scared that I might want to put you on that spanking-bench thing and give you a juvenile and ineffective spanking.”

  I blushed. Pressed my
legs together and tried not to squirm. “I just feel there’s a lot I don’t really know about you. So I wanted to talk.”

  “I went to Drummond Montessori. Grades one and two. But I got kicked out.”

  “You got kicked out of Montessori school? I thought they let kids do whatever they want there.”

  “You’re still not supposed to throw things.”

  “You threw things?”

  “Not at people! I just loved throwing. It was, like, this unstoppable impulse.”

  I laughed. “I never would have guessed.”

  “Oh yeah. I was a thrower. My mom signed me up for baseball early, hoping I’d become some major league pitcher. But I sucked at sports.”

  “Are you close with your mom?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Total mama’s boy.”

  I fell silent, not sure where I wanted to take that.

  “My turn,” he said. “Would you rather sleep on a bed of cow dung, or suck the dick of someone who hadn’t showered in two months?”

  “What kind of question is that? The dick sucking.”

  “If I didn’t shower for two months, would you suck my dick?”

  “No.”

  “Awww.”

  “Maybe.” I wanted to suck his dick right now.

  He smirked. “Your turn.”

  I thought for a moment. “Were you always a vampire for Halloween?”

  “Never. I was a dog.”

  “A dog?”

  “Mostly. I loved 101 Dalmatians. So my mom made me a Dalmatian suit and painted my face so I had a patch over my eye.”

  I shook my head. “There is nothing hard-core about you at all, is there?”

  “I beg to differ.” He reached out and took my hand. A casual move that created utter chaos inside me. He held it while he asked, “Who was your childhood best friend?”

  I hesitated. “I sometimes played with a kid named Kevin West. But I didn’t really have close friends until after college.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I was quite the loser.”

  “I can’t believe that.” He continued holding my hand, staring at me with a soft smile. “But you have friends now?”

  “A very, very close group.” Should I tell him about Hal?

  “I remember you talked about Kamen. The one who sings Bob Seger.”

  “Yes. It’s pretty much a package deal. You hang out with me, and you end up hanging out with Kamen, Dave, and Gould too.”

  “Gould?”

  “It’s his last name. I don’t know why he goes by it. I’m not even sure what his first name is. Robert, I think.”

  “You should ask him sometime.”

  “It doesn’t seem too important. Okay, my turn: Is it hard being that tall?”

  “Ha! It’s fine, mostly. I think the worst part is I end up feeling guilty. Because, like, women cross the street when they see me. Especially at night.”

  “Well, you are a ruthless bloodsucker.”

  “Prana sucker,” he corrected.

  “Yes, see? They can tell you’re trying to feed on their energy.”

  “I think sometimes I let my voice get extra gay when I’m around women, just so they feel more comfortable.”

  “But it must be awesome sometimes, right? Like, you could beat up anyone.”

  “Yeah, sometimes it’s fun. But it kinda hurts my feelings when people run away from me.”

  “Aww.” I scooted over and put an arm around him. I wasn’t as smooth as he was, but he immediately leaned against me, and I was suddenly warm and giddy and afraid to move and ruin it. Why was it that every time I touched him I felt like the luckiest fucker in the world? “I see a children’s book: The Loneliest Vampyre.”

  He laughed. “But you probably know what I mean, right? It must be hard for you when people—” He stopped and drew back. Clapped a long, bony hand over his mouth. “Oh my God. I was just gonna say something probably really awful.”

  I racked my brain for what he could mean. I grinned suddenly. “Were you gonna say—?”

  He dropped his hand to his lap, shaking his head. “Nothing. Nope, nope. Dumb moment. Moving on. Loneliest Vampyre, what?”

  “Were you going to say you think people cross the street when they see me because I’m black?”

  He looked so guilty I almost laughed. He straightened and hunched away a little. “I soooo should not have assumed that.”

  I couldn’t hold back the laughter then. “It’s totally fine. The cardigans help. People don’t typically cross when they see black men in business suits or dressed like Mr. Rogers. But yeah, every now and then I get a crosser.”

  “A crosser. Nice.”

  “My dad actually has a big thing about how it’s important for black men to be good role models and represent the community positively. I’ve never felt that way. Like, I don’t see black people as a ‘community.’ Just a diverse group of humans who are under no obligation to like or support one another. However, my friend Dave thinks this is funny because technically the kink community is the same way. Yet I talk about that community like it’s a homogenous group in need of better representation and better leaders. So . . .” I shrugged.

  “I haven’t heard about your dad yet. Just Scientologist mom. And you mentioned you had a sister.”

  “She was once arrested for stealing manhole covers.”

  “I like her already.”

  “She said the metal industry was booming. Apparently she only stole—helped steal—two, but she made a lot of money off them. I’ve tried to guilt-trip her about the innocent children who probably fell into the sewers because of her, but she has no regrets. Except getting caught.”

  “And so your dad . . .?”

  “Trucker. He’s away a lot. Which is a shame, because he’s the most normal person in the family. A really great guy.” I wasn’t terribly interested in digging deep into my I-miss-my-dad issues right now. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

  He laughed. “Uhhh. I won’t be a private investigator. I’ll be a healer. Not a super spiritual, mystical healer. Just, I want to be doing something that helps people feel better. Also, I’m gonna have a juicer.”

  “Ambitious.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Your question.”

  He stroked his chin exaggeratedly. “Do you actually like the way pain feels? Or do you just like how it feels to know you can take it?”

  An impressively perceptive question, and one I’d asked myself often in my early twenties. “A little of both, I guess. I wouldn’t want some random person to punch me in the face. But with someone I trust, I really like how pain feels. What about you? Do you actually like causing pain? Or do you like the control?”

  “I guess it’s probably similar to your situation. I don’t see a random person on the street and want to punch them in the face. But when someone’s, like, getting something out of the pain—I think it’s such a deep connection. You know? It’s a shared experience. It’s not about control—I wouldn’t say that.”

  Before I could say anything else, a woman in a corset and fairy wings came over. She had short black hair and tattoos of keys all over her shoulders. So many keys.

  “Heeey, Miles.”

  “Hey, Girltoy.”

  She patted my shoulder. She was a toucher. “Long time, no see.”

  “You doing well?”

  “Yeah, man. I just got a good dickin’ in the iron maiden. Can’t complain.” She put up her hand for a high five. I obliged.

  “Was it everything you dreamed and more?”

  “I mean, it was a chamber full of dildos. So yeah.” She glanced at Drix. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Drix. My, uh . . .”

  “One of Miles’s many lovers,” Drix supplied.

  My face heated. “Right. Um, Drix, this is Girltoy.”

  Girltoy checked Drix out. “You play with Miles?”

  “A little.” Drix gave me a quick smile. “And I hope to more often.”

 
“Miles is insane.” Girltoy rocked back and forth. “All we talk about around here is how insane Miles is. He does shit where even I’m like, ‘Yeeeeaaaaahhhh, no thanks.’”

  “Thank you, Girltoy.” I shook my head. “By all means, scare Drix off.”

  “Oh. Oh, oh.” She was still looking at Drix. “You should be scared.”

  Drix laughed. “Miles seems so mild-mannered by day . . .”

  “One time he was letting this guy burn him with cigarettes in Chaos. Set the fire alarm off.”

  Drix raised his eyebrows at me.

  Le sigh. “I was younger. I wasn’t as self-conscious about public play. I really wanted to experience being burned.”

  “I haven’t seen any burn scars,” Drix said. “And I thought I’d looked at everything.”

  Seriously, could I just sink into an abyss where shame was a distant dream? “They’re somewhere kind of hidden.”

  “I know where they are.” Girltoy jostled me. “Hey, you see who’s here?”

  “Who?”

  She nodded toward the door. “Michael Bublé.”

  I looked where she was indicating and felt a moment’s cold recognition.

  Michael Balby—aka Bublé. The DM who’d been on duty the night of Hal’s death. He had faced a pretty serious inquiry into whether he could have prevented what happened, and had been absolutely devastated after that. I’d assumed he wouldn’t ever come back to Riddle. But then, I’d thought the same thing about Bill Henson. “He’s DM-ing?”

  Girltoy nodded. “He’s back in the game. And good for him, I say.”

  I agreed. It was hard not to be pissed at everyone involved in that disaster. GK and Kel, Riddle’s owners, for letting a notoriously ignorant dom like Bill play here. Michael for not spotting that something was wrong. Hal for choosing to play with questionable partners just for the thrill of it. And even Dave, who had been here that night and had left Hal alone after they’d had an argument. But I knew Michael wasn’t a bad guy, and my experience with him had always been that he was a fairly sharp DM.

  “Who’s Michael Bublé?” Drix asked. “Besides the ‘Feeling Good’ guy?”

  “He’s a dungeon monitor,” Girltoy said. “His name’s actually Michael Balby. I’m sure you heard all about Hal from Miles. But Michael was on duty that night.”

  Drix looked questioningly at me.