Claimed Harder by Em Brown
Chapter 6
BRIDGET
Past
Is this what Felipe was hesitant to talk about? I wonder as I stare agog at a naked woman tied down to a table in the middle of the floor. On her nipples, she has clamps connected by a thin chain. An equally naked man is thrusting himself into her while tugging on the chain. She groans and grunts, “Please, Master, please let me come.” A minute later, he tells her to come, which she does, her whole body trembling as her head falls back with a thump against the table.
A different type of music throbs low in this part of the building. There’s no DJ that I can tell. Instead, I see, in a darker corner of the room, a dominatrix wearing a dark purple mask over her eyes pegging a man bent over the back of a chair. He thanks her repeatedly. A few patrons, some dressed in club attire, others more scantily clad, lounge on sofas or at tables, taking in the activities around them. Looking up to the second-floor balcony, I find two women kissing each other. I feel like I shouldn’t be watching all this, but these people don’t seem to mind onlookers.
Deciding I’m definitely in the wrong part of the club, I take a step back and bump into something.
Darren.
I flush, even though he should be the one embarrassed that I’ve discovered the secret side of The Lotus.
“Now you’ve seen the whole club,” Darren remarks with nonchalance.
“Yeah,” is all I can come up with.
Behind me, I hear a woman cry, “Yes, fuck me, please!”
I turn around, an instinctive reaction to someone screaming. A very flexible woman lies upon a rug, holding both her legs to her chest, while another woman wearing a dildo penetrates her. I watch as her lips purse and pleasure fills her face.
Turning back to Darren, I ask, “This go on every night here?”
“Some nights are quieter, others louder,” he replies, his gaze boring into me.
“It’s hard to imagine louder,” I reply as the woman on the rug shouts at her partner to go harder.
Darren takes me by the elbow. “Let’s sit down.”
What? He wants us to stay here?
He leads me to a small dining table. I take a seat tentatively. A server wearing a leather teddy and over-the-knee boots comes up and asks if we would like something to drink.
“There are no alcoholic drinks on this side of the club,” Darren says, “but that’s not really an issue for you, is it?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. Felipe made me a Shirley Temple just a few minutes ago.”
Darren tells the server to bring us some water. “You waiting until you’re officially twenty-one to graduate to adult drinks?”
“I like my kid’s drinks, and Felipe makes a mean Shirley Temple.”
He chuckles while shaking his head. He makes a comment, but I’m distracted because I’ve spotted the woman from the restroom in an alcove beneath the second-floor balcony. Only now she’s naked, her wrists tied above her to a wooden post, and she’s covered with clothespins matching the one I found.
Darren follows my gaze. “Something the matter?”
“She dropped one back in the restroom,” I reply, showing him the one I hold.
“Return it to her Dom.”
I look at the beefy man with a hood over his head standing before the woman wearing nothing but clothespins. I’m not exactly eager to interact with the patrons on this side of the club, but I should return the clothespin. Getting up, I walk over.
Holding up the clothespins, I say to the hooded man, “I think this might be hers.”
“Thank you,” he says in a surprisingly cordial manner.
I don’t know why I assumed a man in a hood wouldn’t be well-mannered.
He accepts the clothespin. His other hand holds the end of a string that seems to run through the other clothespins.
“Would you like to do the unzipping?” he asks.
I wave “no” with both my hands. “I’m just here to return the clothespin.”
Quickly, I make my way back to the table and take a good guzzle of the water that has just been placed there. Maybe I shouldn’t wait till I’m actually twenty-one to try alcohol.
“What did he say?” Darren asked.
“He asked me if I wanted to do the unzipping?” I reply.
“You didn’t want to?”
“I don’t even know what he’s talking about.”
“Watch.”
The man applies the clothespin I gave him by pinching the flesh of her belly. He asks the woman a question. She nods. A second later, she’s screaming as he yanks the string and pulls off all the clothespins.
“Oh my God,” I gasp.
Darren stares at me. Hard. “This your first time in a BDSM club?”
I turn my widened eyes to him. “Um, hell yeah.”
How many people does he know who can answer that question negatively? This is crazy. Darren is casually sitting here like we’re in a coffee shop. What made him think I had any experience with BDSM whatsoever?
“You know anything about BDSM?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“You must have read about it. I’m told it’s a popular genre for women.”
“I don’t get around to reading a lot of fiction. Even if I did, I don’t think I’d pick up a book with BDSM in it.”
“Why not?”
“Because…why would I want to read about pain?”
“Because it’s sexy.”
I cock a brow to show my skepticism.
“Why else do you think people do it?” he returns.
“I can think of better ways to get off than resorting to pain.”
“How do you know until you’ve tried it?”
“It just seems…wrong.”
“Part of its appeal.” He leans over the table. “I won’t say there aren’t people who play for the wrong reasons, people who have deep psychological wounds that they’re reliving through BDSM, but for the rest of us, it’s just fun.”
My breath catches in my chest. “So you’re a…participant of BDSM?”
He gazes intensely into my eyes, like he’s trying to dig up something. “Not just a participant. I’m a hardcore fan.”
“Oh.” As I process how I feel about this revelation, I ask, “How long have you, um, been a participant?”
“Since college. There were these girls in my dorm who were nuts about Fifty Shades, so JD and I looked into it.”
“JD is into it, too?”
I think about Amy and how she hurts easily. She says that’s why she never did sports, too much potential for injury.
“Not lately,” he replies.
I breathe a sigh of relief for Amy before asking, “And has this always been a part of The Lotus?”
“Yes.”
He’s serious about this BDSM stuff. I really don’t know how I feel about that. I watch as the hooded man jams a vibrator between the woman’s legs. She comes in less than a minute.
“Pain can jack up adrenaline,” Darren explains, “making orgasms more intense. Couple that with the endorphins from arousal and you can get a pretty amazing high.”
Still skeptical, I say, “I’ll stick to plain old sex for now.”
He smiles as he sits back in his chair.
“What?”
“I like how you said ‘for now.’”
I probably should have followed that up with saying that I would never give BDSM a try, but for some reason, the idea is not as horrifying as I would have thought. In fact, I’m curious about it.
The woman tied to the post is having another orgasm. Already.
