Repercussions

"I'm leaving the party... there's company around that table I'd rather keep my distance from," the male dressed smartly in an impeccable dark grey suit offered on an accent she could not quite place. His accent possibly Spanish but his appearance she noted as she stepped closer to him was a little more South American than Mediterranean.

"So, what can I do for you?" Ari enquired.

She knew very little of her fiancés shadowy business dealings and was immediately wary. Marco's hijacking all be it a small corner of the club had not been welcome tonight, especially in the presence of the Willoughby Fairclough private gathering. Marco had assured her that proceedings would be discreet and short-lived. An hour in she did not have the desire for an argument to protest, not least as in fairness to no one from the larger private party had brought exception to the presence of Marco's collected ensemble of strangers.

"Can you send over two bottles of Champagne to their table with my compliments ...when I'm gone," he stated slipping a gold credit card from his wallet. "I insist on paying."

Ari took the card from his grip, sensing that to refuse his payment would create more of an issue than the perceived disrespect of taking payment for beverages that should be complimentary, there was a gesture to his actions that she did not want to impede on. Turning on her heels she stepped to the register behind her and rung up two bottles of Veuve Clicquot.

"Need a receipt Mister..." she turned the gold card in her hand to read the surname embossed upon on it, "...Salazar."

"Not necessary," she heard him state before she turned and handed him back the card.

"I'll send them over when you're gone," Ari offered on a sincere little smile.

"I assume that you're the fiancée," the slightly greying male offers on slipping the credit card back into his wallet.

"For my sins," Ari offered a little cautiously, still not knowing let alone fully appreciating who it was that she spoke to.

"I assume then that you're well aware of the bed in which you sleep Arabella" he offers, the use of her full name despite the lack of introduction between the two of them catches her off guard.

Ari simply nodded in response. Something in both his expression and his tone minding her to pay attention.

"Be wary then... his recklessness is not becoming... I fear it will be his undoing along with his temper," his eyes dark eyes fixed on hers drawing only a further nod from her as she swallowed discreetly on an increasingly dry throat. "His Father would not approve of such behaviours... I assume you never met Gio?"

"I wasn't fortunate enough," Ari offered sincerely.

"Well, we've met Arabella... but I won't remind you of the circumstances." The stranger intriguingly offered. "Your life appears to have moved on since then."

As Ari's mind raced she could not recall his tanned face, once more intrigued gripped her as from his wallet he took a magnolia-coloured business card and slid it across the surface of the bar towards her.

"With discretion..." he offers, "...Should you ever need to make contact... for any reason."

Ari placed her hand over the business card, suddenly acutely mindful with no due reason of the likelihood of their interaction being witnessed. Casting her eye over his shoulder she could see though that Marco was deep in conversation with a large set sweaty looking beast of a male, the balding male sat next to her fiancé was jacket less and wearing a shirt that was undone at the neck. Something about his appearance just made him look obtusely sinister.

Ari remained silent as she scraped the card into the palm of her hand.

"Hector Salazar," he offered as he stepped back and then away from the bar.

Ari watched as Hector Salazar stepped away without further comment, she followed his path with her eyes alone as he headed without looking back in any direction through the club, noting how he walked with an air of assured confidence. As Hector departed into the gloom his figure briefly was silhouetted in the doorway as he was joined by another slightly shorter male who must have been hidden in the shadows as they left through the main doors into the clubs' reception area.

Ari took a deep breath of uneasy contemplation as she glanced back to the table at which Marco sat with two others and the beast of a man who wiped his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. A shiver running up her spine as she turned and walked away leaving them to conduct whatever ever illicit business they had to discuss.

With a little under an hour until the agreed closing time for the venue she made her way back towards the Willoughby Fairclough gathering.

Halfway back along the bar she looked down to the business card in the palm of her hand. The card embossed with two words 'The Collective' on one side, turning the card she read the name he had just stated 'Hector Salazar' it sat just above an eleven-digit mobile number.

Ari tucked the card into a rear pocket of the tight-fitting trousers that matched her black tailored jacket.

Her unease palpable on the briefest of exchanges that stirred a fear within her, a conflict-of-interest wither fiancé that she knew she otherwise blissfully ignored.

**********

Jason Palmer stood in the doorway of the emergency exit that led out onto a bleak alleyway at the rear of the venue.

Pressing his phone to his ear he heard the first two dial tones, before the call was answered.

"Was beginning to think you'd gone AWOL on us Mister Palmer," were the first heavily sarcastic laden words he heard form the familiar gruff male voice.

"Not at all..." Jason offered. "...Just been caught up with work and..."

"How are your family?" the recipient cut across his explanation.

"They're... they're fine," Jason nervously uttered.

"I suspect this isn't a social call Jason ...cut to the chase... so long as it's good news."

"It is..." Jason stated pausing his response as he placed a cigarette to his lips and lit it, "...one more girl and I'm out we agreed yeah?"

"One more," the call recipient stated coldly.

"Then I've found you the perfect farewell gift... a blonde... I...I might need some time to arrange at my end, but I'll call you when we are set."

"A blonde?" was the only response received.

"Platinum blonde," Jason confirmed.

"Intriguing... Call me when you know more."

Jason Palmer heard the phone line drop moments before the electronic bleep indicated he had been hung up on. Taking a deep lungful of cigarette smoke into his lungs he flicked open the photo album of his phone. Scrolling through the surreptitious photos he had taken of her as she had stood behind the bar.

In the darkness he attached the best resolution photo that captured her stunning beauty to a WhatsApp message and forwarded it to the same number of the call he had just made.

Moments later as he finished his cigarette and stubbed it out under his foot he received a message in reply.

A single thumbs up emoji.

**********

"What was it?" Ari asked.

"A little celebration," Marco offered on a devilish grin as he pressed his lips back against hers.

Pressed up against one of the many pillars throughout in the centre of the Dark Star Ari melted into the passion of the kiss, breathlessly meeting and returning his passion as his hands left her hips to peel the lapels of her jacket down over her shoulders.

"We're doing this here are we?" She offered on a delicious grin of her own as she broke the kiss. Without response he turned her around and pressed her face first to the pillar as he hurriedly dragged the jacket down her arms before discarding it with an abandon across the carpeted floor of club.

"Perhaps one of the private rooms might be in order" Marco whispered harshly into her ear as he pressed himself against her.

"You've barely touched me since you got back from Italy" Ari playfully offered whilst attempting to teasingly break free of his grip as he slipped her left arm up her back.

"Which rooms the Pillory in" Marco offered ignoring her attempt at both goading and resisting him.

"Room five..." Ari offered as her free hand slipped between them and over his more than obvious arousal, "...but we've our own playroom to christen at home."

"I can't wait" Marco offered.

The Dark Star had not long emptied, but the main doors had been locked and she had been preparing to go home before he had struck, as she cranes her neck back over her left shoulder she could see the dark desire etched across his face. Letting go of a deep held breath of her own desire she prepared to let go, to surrender to his mercy.

"You're in control" she offered softly, her mind still dwelling on the tablet pressed into her mouth on their first impassioned kiss, the tablet willing swallowed that now slowly dissolved in her stomach.

"What did you give me?" She softly enquires once more.

"A taste of my... our fortune," Marco ambiguously offers.

Moments later bodies entwined the pair of them crash through the unlocked door of private room five. Pressed up against the wall of the room once they were barely through the door of the room Ari looked across the room as Marcos heavy kisses fell across her exposed cleavage and then along her neck.

Her eyes fell over the steel frame of the black pillory bolted to the floor that sat before the expansive floor to ceiling window that faced out over the dance floor of the nightclub. She could only begin to imagine the sense of wonder at being placed into the device hidden through the mirror glass that faced out on to the dance floor were it packed with weekend revellers, momentarily her mind passed to someone who would know of such an experience, albeit if he would be the one locking a female into the medieval looking manner of restraint.

"Let's get you in" Marco stated into her left ear, pulling her away from the wall her legs feeling weak beneath her as she stumbled in her high heeled ankle boots,

"What... what did you give me Marco?" Ari begins to panic a little at the unsettling feeling that seems to rapidly spread throughout her body.

"A bluey..." he offers up honestly, "...a kind of ecstasy that my new Russian friend has just agreed to supply me with."

Ari's head swam as she tried to concentrate on what he said, his words barely registering on the growing confusion of her own mind.

"It'll heighten your senses... make you feel as you've never felt before." Marco continued as he stepped around her to swing open the top bar of the pillory she now stood before. His face blurring in and out of focus as he spoke.

Moments later she felt his hands upon her waist, with an arm across her bare stomach he pressed his hand over her neck and bent her forward into the Pillory. On her unsteady balance she reached her hands toward the cold steel frame of the Pillory.

"Just how I need you" she heard Marco state.

Moments later barely aware of her circumstances she felt the cold steel device fall across the backs of her wrists and neck, the click of the lock mechanism causing her to gasp as she fully appreciated the inescapable grip he now held her body in.

Ari's own breath appeared to echo in her ears as she stood bent double in the device feeling Marco position her boot clad ankles and then draw the ankle restraint locked shut. Her legs now firmly attached and held widely apart to the steel frame of the device, her body all but completely restrained as she tried to calm her breathing.

"You know how this feels already don't you Ari?" Marco stated.

Her senses heightened as she breathed heavily from both her desire and her sense of unease at his words.

"I'm not the first to discover you like this," she heard him state through her increasingly addled mind.

Ari felt his hand under her jaw, her head tilted upwards.

Attempting to clear her vision as she looked up at him before he crouched before her.

"Marco," she uttered.

A fresh pair of hands fell upon her waist. Hands even in her confusion she knew could not be his as he still crouched before her.

Clumsy hands unfastened the trousers sat around her waist. Ari attempting to break her body from the sensation of the grip he held over her waist as her trousers were unceremoniously stripped from her waist down the backs of her legs.

Ari's body locked rigid with fear at the unexpected turn of events.

"My associate asked for something with which to secure our business relationship with Ari..." Marco stated, his words unerringly cutting through the confusion of her mind, "... I was only too happy to accommodate."

"Marco..." Ari uttered "...Marco."

"Perhaps you'll enjoy yourself as much as you did with the Carpenter" Marco coldly offered. "Word of advice you stupid bitch... if you're going to fuck men in our home... turn off the CCTV cameras."

Ari's mind could barely process what he implied, all the while her sense of panic gripped her, but she could do very little to react physically or emotionally, she was conscious of her circumstances but could do little to react due to the intoxication of the drug that held the ultimate control over her body.

"She's all yours..." Marco offered looking up over her head as he stood and stepped around her restrained body, "...enjoy my fiancée Sergei."

Marco Mancini could not bring himself to observe what Ari was about to endure, stepping from the private room he left the door open though as he stepped back into the main room of the nightclub he aspired to own but knew his Wife to be would never permit given her history and connection to the venue that had caused his own family nothing but hardship and grief since their lives had become entwined with the establishment.

Approaching the table on which a sports holdall containing two thousand of the little blue pills he had fed his fiancée barely fifteen minutes earlier, he unzipped the bag and took out a clear polythene bag of the blue speckled tablets. The heavily sought after tablets that he had aspired to purchase for months now. Tonight's transaction had cost him a family friend and long-term business associate. The street value of the narcotics far outweighed any current fiscal association with Hector Salazar though and for too long now Hector Salazar had held too much control over the supply of the potent little pills. The cost was worth the sacrifice.

From behind him through the open door he heard the strained cries, a mix of pleasure, pain and unbridled passion as Sergei Golgacev used Ari as she was held restrained within the confines of the steel pillory.

Her sacrifice was worth it.

**********

Ari's eyes squinted as he pulled open the floor to ceiling curtains allowing bright sunlight to flood the master bedroom of 'Casa Vigna.'

Unashamedly naked Marco Mancini crossed the space between the window and the bed in silhouette as he approached her as she stirred from her sleep, lay across the four-poster bed.

He reached out, and she did not oppose him as he drew the white cotton sheets from the bed exposing her slender naked body in the process.

"What do you remember of last night?" He asked as crawled up the bed and supported his own body weight on his elbows as he lowered himself over her.

"Fractions... blurs... Who?" she uttered uncertainly.

"Shhhh," he softly offered as the forefinger of his left hand fell across her lips.

His eyes looking up across her left arm as he took it in the grip of his right hand and stretched her arm up towards the ornate headboard of the bed. His eye-line coming to rest on the underside of the engagement ring nestled tightly around her ring finger as he pinned her wrist.

"After recent events..." Marco quietly offers as his eyes come back to meet hers, "...I think we need to address the terms of our open relationship."

Ari set her eyes on him, feeling her leg's part beneath him as he pressed his erect dick gently to the lips of her labia as his left hand stretched her right arm out above her.

"Do you agree?" Marco insisted.

Ari nodded her head slowly, closing her eyes as she craned her neck back, arching her body from the bed as she felt him slowly penetrate her. Without hesitation she wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs as he impaled her body.

"Do you agree?" Marco reiterated.

"I do" Ari offered on a whisper as she felt him fully penetrate her before they slowly made love, their bodies entwined and writing upon the bed that was drenched in sunlight.

**********

~ Two weeks later ~

Pain tore through every muscle in her slender body as she ripped the white leather corset open and dropped it to the floor.

With her hands immediately dropping to clutch the sink in the ensuite bathroom Ari looked into her own bedraggled reflection from the wall mounted mirror over the sink.

Her hair matted and tangled, her make up smeared hideously across her face she barely recognised herself as she looked into her raw pale blue eyes on finally being able draw her focus away from the bruises that strung around her slender neck.

"You stupid cunt Arabella..." she said to herself, "...You stupid... stupid cunt."

Behind her the shower ran on full flow slowly filling the room with a heavy mist of warm condensation. She forgot the need to cleanse and smooth her aching body, straightening despite the sear of pain that lanced across her spine she pressed away from the sink and hobbled back towards the bedroom. The excruciating pain that wracked her body no less now than when she had made her way slowly from the front door up the stairs minutes earlier. She could barely stand, let alone stand straight such were the spasms that the slightest movement brought to her back and shoulders.

Collapsing across the bed she reached for the handbag that she had discarded onto the bed only moments earlier. Turning the handbag over she tipped the contents onto the bed, seizing her mobile from the scattered contents, it was all she could do to prise the phone from the pale blue leather case in which it sat.

Dropping the business card hidden behind her phone onto the surface of the bed, she typed the eleven digits into her phone before tapping her thumb against the green call button.

Trembling as she rolled onto her left-hand side she pressed the phone to her ear, not surprised given the ungodly hour to hear a voicemail message immediately answer the call.

"It's... it's Arabella" she uttered on a frail voice broken by emotion and laden with the physical pain her body endured once the recorded message ended.

"I... I need your help."

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Details of Ari's lost night will be revealed in 'A Taxi Drivers Tale - Barbie Girl'

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