Ball in her court.
“I don’t…” But she stops.
“You don’t what?” My question is harsh.
“You can watch, then.” she says. “But that’s it. If I follow your rules, you follow mine.”
“That’s your only rule? Watch, but don’t interfere?”
She turns her head to look at me. Opens her mouth. Pauses. “Yes.” It comes out soft. Not what I was expecting. It makes me hard, the way she just gave in like that.
“Are you lying?” I ask. “I get that this is a power play. I like it, OK? I do, or I wouldn’t be here. But I need honesty, Nadia. Or it won’t work. It won’t be fun. If you’re lying—”
“I’m not,” she says. “I like things my way. Tonight it’s my way.”
“And tomorrow?” I ask, hint of a grin on my face.
“Tomorrow we can do it your way.”
I squeeze the leather-clad steering wheel and imagine taking her to New Year’s Eve. “Tomorrow I get to play my way and you can’t interfere.”
“You can’t fuck them, either. If I can’t, you can’t.”
“Why would I need to fuck them when I have you, Nadia?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t interfere.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say. “I can’t wait to see you in action.”
Her grin is twisted.
But I’m not worried. Twisted is my default setting.
The parking at the old tire factory is disorderly and comes with no instructions. In my head I’m thinking, Don’t leave your car here. When you come back it will be on blocks, tires gone, parts stripped.
But it’s either this or turn back, and I’m not turning back. I never turn back. So I park the car on the street, the thumping of music already in my ears, even though we’re two blocks away.
I look around as we start walking towards the party. Nadia’s hand is there, so I grab it. Partly to make her feel safe in this run-down, dangerous neighborhood. But mostly to make her feel owned.
She’s mine. No matter what happens tonight, she’s mine. It’s not a claim, just the facts. Cold as they are.
There are some people walking up to the impromptu club with us, but not many. A few more lingering at the massive garage door that’s acting as an entrance.
I’m curious more than anything. What is this place? What kind of people come here? What do they do? How will the night end?
I crane my neck a little as we approach. There is no one taking names or stamping the backs of hands. No bouncer, no authority.
So different than Turning Point Club where the door is always open but access is usually denied.
We pass through the door of the industrial version of my own secret sex palace and find the party.
The dance floor—though it’s not a real one, just bare concrete—is filled with half-naked bodies glistening with sweat, even though it’s a cold night. We came with coats, but I don’t see a coat check. The thought almost makes me laugh. This place is so far away from coat checks, it might as well be Mars.
Nadia’s body begins to sway with the music as she heads towards a table on the far side of the warehouse, leading me, since I’m still holding her hand. We get to a booth upholstered in green or tan crushed velvet. It’s hard to tell in the blinking multicolored strobe lights. There are a lot of booths, mostly empty, all lined up against the back wall like a restaurant, but not. How they got here, and who is paying for all this, is beyond my comprehension.
Nadia sheds her coat and drapes it over the side of the booth, the glow from a portable heater enough to keep us warm. I do the same, mostly out of habit, and then she slides into the half-moon curve of the seat, giving me room to slide in beside her, and raises her arm in the air, just as I settle.
It’s not as cold back here at all. Almost too warm. Like the bodies on the dance floor are generating heat and forming a wall of insulation against the outside world.
A server—dressed in a strategically ripped leather corset that bares her nipples to me, and nothing but garter straps and fishnet stockings down below—appears, presumably from Nadia’s waving arm, but I’m not sure about that. A bottle of Louis XIII in a limited-edition decanter and two snifters are placed in front of us.
“Who’s paying for this?” I yell over the music.
Nadia smiles at me, leans into my ear, and whispers, “You are.”
OK.
This is not my kind of place. At all. But I can’t help but take it in. Everyone is young. Young men—boys, really. And girls, not women. Even the server looks too young to be serving.
Nadia’s age, I realize, suddenly feeling old and out of place in my five-thousand-dollar suit. They are holding red Solo cups in their hands, splashing beer and whatever else onto the bare concrete floor that will quickly become sticky.
Nadia pours the drinks. About five hundred dollars’ worth of alcohol goes into each snifter. I take it from her offering hand out of habit and sip. It’s good. Good. Something I’d find waiting for me on the top shelf of Smith’s bar.
I’m not missing the dichotomy of the illusion. We are separate from the crowd. Wholly and utterly separate.
Nadia’s hand is on my thigh, caressing her way towards my cock. She grabs it, holds it in her hand. Squeezes as I grow from her touch. Her body is pressed to mine and I realize—she’s got power over me right now. She’s taken me out of my world and flung me into hers. This is her kingdom, not mine.
So I let her touch me. She is, after all, in charge, I guess.
“How long?” Nadia says, leaning into my ear. Purring the words. I can smell the fruity brandy on her breath. I turn my head and kiss her, unable to stop myself.
“How long what?” I ask back, my tongue reluctant to leave her mouth as I speak.
“How long since you’ve been to a party like this?”
I pull back and look into her warm brown eyes. The flickering strobe effect of the lights makes them green, then yellow, then brown again. “College, probably.”
“Hmmm,” she says, leaning in for a final kiss before turning her head to watch the crowd.
College parties with Smith and Quin. We were just beginning to play our game back then. Smith wasn’t even in college, but was, at the same time. I envied him back then—and still do now—because he never had any responsibilities he didn’t ask for.
And Quin. With his good-natured-all-American looks and upbringing. He did everything right and still came out like the rest of us. Deteriorating even as we rose in status and stature. I liked Quin more than Smith back then.
He was easier. Simpler. Honest. We almost fucked once. Back then when everything was new and exciting. Just the two of us sucking each other’s cocks one night in front of a girl. We did it to turn her on and it worked. We fucked her afterward instead of each other.
A momentary lapse, maybe. Or entirely deliberate. I never understood that night. Don’t even understand it now.
Two people are grinding on each other not far away, the boy’s hands on the girl’s ass, lifting up her skirt to reveal the fact that she has no panties on, giving everyone a peek. He looks at me, watches me watch him as their bodies sway together in the thumping music, then bends her over so I can see her pussy. His hand rests on the small of her back and then slides down between her ass cheeks, fingers reaching even before they enter her pussy, making it glisten in the lights. She’s wet from his touch.
I drag my gaze up to his and he smiles while I sip my brandy.
“Do you want to dance?” Nadia asks, pressing her body against mine. We’re already sweating. Already hot and we haven’t even started yet.
“What do you do here?” I ask her. “Just party? That’s it?”
“No,” she says, leaning in to kiss me again. “I do more than party.”
“Show me,” I say. We are reading each other’s lips mostly. The music is so loud. And it occurs to me that this is a very different kind of intimacy. Conversation that depends on watching the lips of your companion and not hearing the actual words that come out of her mouth.
“Let me out and wait here,” she says, her request mixing with the thumping beat.