Chloe and Cy Pt. 03

I had amused myself the first hour with a few of the club's talented performers. Opting for the best of both worlds, a hot young stud of about 25 in black leather chaps and vest. To compliment him, a lythe Asian woman whose primary selling point was dark brown almond-shaped eyes and innocent-looking mouth.

As I shrugged on my white blouse over the custom red leather Obsess Harness. My black and gray pinstripe slacks and the matching vest went over the top.

My fun with the talent I had planned as a palate-cleanser for the real deal. The Boss never lingered long with vanilla encounters on nights when we had our standing appointment at VICE.

I worked for him for several months before he began attending the exclusive Boston swinger's club. At first, I waited out in the car while he engaged with the talent or with other BDSM inclined women he'd made contact with over the years.

The idea of an intrapersonal relationship was out of the question, of course. Emotional entanglements between employer and employee were unprofessional. By the fourth time he'd attended the club, I realized he was in no way passionate about the activities or the partners he used for them. This knowledge led me to flash my credentials at the door and enter to observe discreetly on that occasion.

VICE had strict rules concerning comportment, which older members and the management enforced through voyeurism. Observation was a requirement of all activities for "new" members for a probationary period of six months, I would later learn.

Alcohol was not allowed on the premises. Nor were any forms of open flame, including cigarettes, cigars, or heated implements, that could cause burns or scars. All talent and members were required to wear protection and keep records of medical screenings on file with the management. Private rooms were available for reservation by "established members" only. But even then, when talent was employed, strict rules were firmly enforced.

His fourth visit, the first one I had observed, was early in his "sponsorship." Van Meer had joined the club on the recommendation of a high-profile financer who had since lost his position with the club after indictment on several counts of trafficking underaged "talent."

That first night, as I watched him in his leather mask and matching chest harness, I noted what I would learn were his preferred patterns.

The Boss liked to begin things as the Dom, usually employing a youngish woman with red or strawberry hair, invariably pulled back from her face into braids or a ponytail. There were, of course, restrictions with the talent. One could not mark or injure them. Hard limits were set by the club proprietors and soft limits by the talent, many of whom treated the sexual acts like elaborate theater.

That first night, seeing him stripped to the waist, watching him use a riding crop on the young woman until she had used her "out." I had felt my shoulders tensing at the sight, knowing that had I been in her position, I would have allowed things to progress much further. This realization came with the observation that her call to be unbound and allowed to leave the "performance." Caused a subtle annoyance to play across Mr. V's features.

Although even then, I felt no romantic feelings for him, Van Meer was an attractive man. He had a body he paid the best personal trainers to keep trim and toned.

Upon the young woman's departure that first night, a more sturdy woman appeared. I could not help but notice that her height and build were similar to mine, with close-cropped dark hair and solid muscular limbs. The talent, whom I would learn later, went by Zora. She would enter in a harness of black leather, and Van Meer would take the Sub's place atop the table.

The boss would accept restraints and a cloth gag before allowing himself to be subjugated, beaten, and finally whipped past a point most wouldn't have stood for. He did not make a fuss about marks being left, and so long as he took them and never left them, the management never complained.

"New Member Sessions" were limited to one hour. Van Meer was untied at the end of this, and the voyeurs left, except for me. I lingered, making sure he saw me as he redressed in his Savile Row double-breasted suit by John Phillips.

When he joined me back at the car, sitting beside me and popping his cuffs to adjust the blue sapphires that held them in place, I directed the driver onward to his hotel, closing the partition.

"The girl was soft," I said.

He considered my observation. "Too soft," he said. "But nonetheless, one must respect boundaries. How did you recognize me?"

I touched the signature ring on his left pinky. "You took it off," I whispered. "But the little patch of pale skin was unmistakable."

I reached over to feel his growing firmness.

"Naughty naughty," I whispered. "What would your father's executors say?"

"Blackmail?"

I gripped him through his carefully tailored trousers.

"No," I smiled, dropping to my knees and unzipping his fly. "A story I need to tell you. And as I do, you're going to give me your full attention."

I sucked and edged him as I told him the truth, and when he finally came down my throat, I took every drop, licking him clean and then tucking his cock away, taking my seat and reapplying my lipstick.

"Boundaries," I nodded. "Like the boundaries between a man of power and his subordinate."

"You consider yourself subordinate, Ms. Veidt?"

"Until you deem the truth prudent and of benefit to us both, Daddy."

The ensuing conversation lasted the car ride to his suite of rooms at his hotel. I walked him up from the car, and at his door, he passed me the card key. "If you care to stay?"

That first night we'd gone hours together. In his home, he had his own assortment of harnesses and implements. I learned each of them by name in that one night, the two of us forgoing condoms as he assured me he had undergone a vasectomy as a younger man. I likewise employed my own means of birth control.

There had been a safety word, but by the morning, I had held my own, not once flinching as boundaries were crossed. At 3 A.M., he helped me from the bed to the large whirlpool tub in the bathroom and quietly bathed me. The fire and menace of his frenzy became tender caresses with a sponge.

Once I was cleaned and the places he had broken my skin were treated and bandaged, he helped me out of the tub.

"Tomorrow," I managed, a bit dizzy from the lingering adrenaline as he helped me into a robe. "You get your turn."

I finished buttoning my blouse and vest before donning my shoulder holster and sidearm. I shrugged on my suit jacket and fixed my own obsidian cufflinks. Since those first nights and his subsequent sponsorship of my membership at VICE, Derek had never missed our standing Friday appointment.

In three years, though he had often been delayed a matter of a half-hour or so, he had never failed to show.

Though we held no affection for one another, the Friday Nights at Vice served as a release of tension for the week to both of us. We were both established members now, and when talent was dismissed, we often bent the rules for one another in the private rooms.

"Some people play squash," he once joked, tracing his fingers over my abdomen after a somewhat enjoyable game of Snake and Mongoose.

I left the room and walked briskly through the club to the private exit where my own car waited. I slid into the driver's seat, tipping the valet, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and I dialed the home office.

"Booth," a thin-lipped British voice answered.

"Status report on The Boss?"

"Sound as a pound," Booth reported. "Driven home by Visitor just after twenty-three hundred. Tucked in for the night with do-not-disturb engaged."

"He seemed normal?"

"A bit tiddly," Booth chuckled. "But otherwise amorous and alert."

Booth was former S.A.S. He had applied for the same position I had. I often felt he resented being given the second-tier situation despite having a priggish, almost puritanical demeanor.

"I'm coming in," I said.

"If you like. But all is well. Boss can't get a little strange once in a while?"

Something wasn't right.

"I said I'm coming in. Send me intel on this Visitor."

I rang off.

In another instant, I received an e-mail notification. Attached was a rudimentary dossier on the woman Derek had apparently taken to his bed, complete with photographs.

Christine Du Maurier. She scowled at how little information there was beyond the name of a reputable real estate firm and a few references.

She was older than his usual dalliances, perhaps in her later thirties or early forties. Attractive though, with the shade of strawberry hair I had often affected through the use of a wig.

I read through her credentials, drawing out a cigarette from the case I kept in the dash.

After one puff, I ground the cigarette out in the ashtray.

I shook my head. Perhaps I was just paranoid? So he'd missed a session. It was bound to happen. So he hadn't called. Big deal. He didn't owe me anything.

Or perhaps I was, despite my best efforts, beginning to feel things for Derek Van Meer?

Petty jealousy was definitely unprofessional.

Still, it was frustrating not to have my weekly catharsis.

I shook my head, shifting my F-Type Jag into gear.

It doesn't hurt to take a look.