The Denim Dom

Chapter Six

During dinner, the sun had dropped into the Gulf. The last vestiges of purple light struggled to maintain a tenuous grasp on the landscape despite the holes being punched into the deep shadows here and there by streetlamps. For the return drive to the dungeon, Tony once again insisted on sitting in the backseat with Shayla. In the darkened interior of the car, she felt safer looking at his face, comforted by the illusion of insulation provided by the shadows.

He was a man who smiled readily, the corners of his eyes marked with lines attesting to that fact. He listened intently when people spoke, and had a warm laugh that he shared with friendly ease.

He also didn’t strike her as a man who demanded other people defer to him, or who was an attention whore. He seemed relaxed, settled in his place in the conversation and holding his own when the situation allowed, but also content to sit back and listen to others.

He wasn’t a pushy, overbearing, arrogant idiot. She didn’t know what he was like with a submissive, but he certainly was blowing her preconceived notions out of the water even better than her earlier conversation with Loren and Ross. Sure, it was fine to find a couple who were happy doing…this, but Tony seemed the kind of man to validate their claims that the average person in “the lifestyle” was just that—an average person. From what little time she’d spent with him, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.

And other than his earlier question about what her boyfriend might think of her outing, he hadn’t approached discussing anything personal about her other than how long she’d been in Florida, how she liked it there, and questions about her job.

In fact, he stayed remarkably clear of any kind of personal questions.

Then again, maybe he’s just not interested in me. She knew he was single, because Loren, Tilly, and Leah had all, at some point during the dinner conversation, made mention of it to Shayla.

If Shayla didn’t know any better, she’d think the women were trying to hook them up together.

There were considerably more cars in the parking lot when they pulled in and parked. Before emerging from the car, Loren asked, “Did you bring your toybag, Tony?”

“It’s in my trunk. But I doubt I’m playing tonight.”

“Could you bring it in and show Shayla the ropes?” She giggled.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Ha, ha. Like I haven’t heard that one a million times.” His light tone belied his words. “And no, I don’t mind bringing it in.”

“If it’s going to be trouble,” Shayla said, “it’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

They climbed out. “No, no trouble. I’m just parked over there.”

She waited with Loren near the club’s door for Ross to get their things from the trunk of their car while Tony removed a large, black rolling suitcase from the trunk of his. Inside, since they already had Shayla’s information on file, she didn’t have to fill out another form.

She discovered however that entry wasn’t guaranteed as she pulled out a twenty and prepared to hand it over.

A different woman manned the front desk. She was older, with closely cropped blonde hair, a black corset squeezing her ample breasts up and nearly out of the confining garment, and had freshly lacquered, deep red nails and makeup done to perfection. Shayla felt frumpy just looking at her.

“I see you’re not a member yet,” the woman observed as she looked Shayla up on the computer. “Who is your sponsor?”

“Um, sponsor?”

“Yes. You can’t become a member without a sponsor. Classes are open to the public, but to come to play sessions you have to be a member.”

Loren and Ross had both started to speak up when Tony stepped forward. “I’m her sponsor.”

The woman’s carefully plucked eyebrows sailed skyward. “Really? I was under the impression Valerie was here with you tonight.”

From somewhere behind them Shayla thought she heard Leah mutter, “Crap,” before she darted through the doorway into the play area.

Before Shayla could process that, her attention immediately returned to Tony and the Hydra at the desk. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous tone.

“Unless I personally tell you someone is with me, Lydia,” he said, “you do not assume anything. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

The woman’s eyes widened. Shayla wanted to laugh as she watched the woman swallow, suddenly not as sure of herself as she was a moment earlier. “Yeah. Uh, sorry.”

He straightened and handed her a twenty of his own. “You’ll see I have three membership credits on my account. Apply one to Shayla for her membership. And since this is her first play session, I believe she gets in free tonight. Correct?”

The woman’s red lacquered nails flew across the keyboard. “Yep, sure, you’re right. Sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to… I just thought—”

“Are we done here?” he asked.

She blinked up at him. “Yes. Of course. No problem. Go on in. Have a good night.”

Shayla still stood there, trying to process what had just happened, the twenty for her fee still clutched in her fingers. Tony grabbed the handle of his rolling bag with one hand and with the other gently caught her elbow and propelled her along with him.

“I’ll explain inside,” he softly whispered in her ear. They headed to the door, which he grabbed first and held open for her.

Upon walking through the door, the music, barely noticeable in the well-insulated office, soared to near anti-conversational levels. At least twenty-five people were scattered throughout the large space, some at the tables and some near equipment.

He steered her toward an alcove where several couches were grouped. “Sorry about that,” he said.

Shayla began to wonder if she’d liked Tony too soon. I should have Do Not Trust People tattooed on my wrist as a reminder. “What the heck was her problem? And I take it Valerie is a girlfriend of yours?” At that moment she spotted Leah speaking with a woman on the far side of the club.

“No, she’s not a girlfriend. I just met her this week at dinner at Leah and Seth’s house. But Lydia, the lady out on the desk tonight, is a self-appointed social director with a huge-ass chip on her shoulder when it comes to single submissive women.”

“Huh?”

“She got burned big-time by an asshole. Now she’s hypervigilant about anyone she worries might get taken advantage of. Including inserting her nose into business where it not only doesn’t belong and wasn’t invited, but, as in this case, with completely wrong assumptions.”

Leah was leading the woman over to where Tony and Shayla stood. Shayla thought Leah looked extremely relieved and wondered what piece of the puzzle was glaringly missing from the picture.

“Shayla, this is my friend Valerie.”

The woman’s warm smile certainly looked genuine. When she extended her hand to Shayla, her grip felt friendly.

“Hi,” Valerie said. “Nice to meet you.” She offered Tony an apologetic smile. “Honestly, all I told Lydia was that you said you might be here tonight. I swear I didn’t tell her we were playing together or anything else.”

Tony dismissed her apology with a wave. “It’s okay. I put her in her place. Again. I’m going to have a talk with Derrick this week about permanently taking her off desk duty. She needs to get her head on straight. She’s going to piss off the wrong person some night and get her ass kicked.”

“She needs to get her head out of her ass is what she needs to do,” Valerie said. She returned her attention to Shayla. “Seriously, everything’s copacetic. Leah told me you’re a reporter. I think it’s very cool you’re doing a story on BDSM.”

“And Tilly said feel free to ask Landry to play, if you want,” Leah offered.

“Oh?” Valerie turned to look at where Tilly and her men had set their bags on the far side of the area, closer to the play equipment. “Hmm. I might just take them up on that.” She smiled at Shayla. “I hope you enjoy tonight. Tony’s a really nice guy. You couldn’t be in better hands.” She waggled her fingers at them and headed off, apparently to go talk to Landry.

Tony, however, still seemed to look concerned. She caught him watching her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to get embroiled in a dungeon drama.”

“Sorry about that,” Leah said.

Loren walked up at that moment. “Everything okay? Did Lydia strike again?”

“It’s all settled,” Tony assured her. He turned to Shayla. “I’m all yours for the evening.”

Because they were still full from dinner, they skipped the buffet offering laid out along the far wall in the table area.

“Since it’s not busy yet, let me take you on a tour,” he said. They started up in the loft area, where no one was playing yet. As they climbed the stairs, he explained the club’s rules as well.

“No pictures can be taken in the club without permission from the DMs first. And even then only if no one else is in the background. No one touches people or their things without permission. If someone says red, their play stops immediately unless they’ve talked to a DM ahead of time and arranged a different safeword if they’re going to do edge play. Violating those three rules is the easiest and fastest way to get kicked out and banned.”

“Seems pretty straightforward. Is that a problem, usually?”

“No, not normally.” He turned to her when they reached the top of the stairs. “But in a lot of the BDSM fiction out there, one of the favorite tropes vanilla writers use is the innocent female submissive who somehow accidentally stumbles into a club and then some big, bad Dom slaps a collar around her neck and starts to play with her despite her protests.”

“Really?” She thought about Lydia the gatekeeper in the lobby who nearly didn’t let her in. “Just accidentally stumbles in, huh?”

“You wouldn’t believe how many newbies honestly worry that might happen to them. Sure, if you go to a fetish night held at a bar you might get hit on like you would anywhere else, but someone tries to grab you against your will, you just scream and bouncers take care of them. In all my years in the lifestyle I’ve never seen someone forced to play in public against their will with no one helping them. Now I have seen asshats get grabby and get kicked out. Helped escort a few of them out when I’ve been DM’ing. But it happens far less frequently than you’d believe if you read the fiction.”

“But you have seen some people forced to play?”

“No. One time I saw a scene where the bottom called red and the Top didn’t stop. DMs stepped in to end the scene. If some douche doesn’t respect a safeword and doesn’t stop when a bottom calls a scene, that’s not BDSM. That’s assault. And it’s prosecutable.”

From up in the loft area, they could view the entire space. She also realized Loren, Tilly, and Leah had disappeared. “Where did they go?”

“They probably went to change out of their street clothes. Unless they’re coming straight here from home, they usually change after they get here.”

She looked at him, dressed as if going to work. “Do you change clothes?” she asked.

“Nope. This is what I wear.”

“I thought Doms like to wear leather and stuff.” In fact, several of the male Dominants in the club were dressed in either leather pants, a leather vest, or both in some cases. Many of them were dressed either all in black, or in some combination of black and red.

He nodded. “Some do, yes. But leather is hot and hard to move around in and I’m more comfortable in my jeans and a regular shirt. I’m not a leather kind of Dom when it comes to practicality.” He smiled. “I’m much more a denim kind of Dom.”

Shayla arched an eyebrow at him. “A denim Dom, huh?”

He nodded. “Better than a sweating-my-ass-off Dom.” He let her go down the stairs first. “Any questions so far?”

She gave silent thanks for opting to wear flats and not heels tonight. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of questions. I just have no idea where to start asking.”

“This is why, as you can tell, I’m not particularly fond of most BDSM fiction,” he said. “Not if it’s written by someone who hasn’t done plenty of research first, or who isn’t in the lifestyle. I’ve had several women approach me this year with completely unrealistic expectations based on their choice in reading material. One of them actually got pissed at me when I laughed at her.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Shayla turned to him. “Why’d you laugh at her?”

“She informed me that I would help her duplicate a scene from one of her favorite books, and that if I was a ‘real’ Dominant, I would do it.”

“You didn’t like that, huh?”

He grinned. “I suppose no one had told her that while subs might set the limits, the Doms make the rules. She spent the night kneeling on the floor while I talked to friends. When she got pissed off at me for not doing what she wanted, I laughed and told her she must not be a ‘real’ submissive then.” He smirked. “The irony was lost on her.”

He showed her around and explained the different equipment to her. Some she recognized from her online research, and some she didn’t.

Some of it looked more dangerous and painful in person than it had on her computer.

He also introduced her to quite a few people. Everyone was friendly and more than a few offered to answer any questions she might have. She accumulated FetLife IDs and e-mail addresses at an incredible rate.

I can see I’m going to have to join that site.

This seemed to be the magic hour, because the slow trickle of people arriving turned into a flood as several dozen entered the space within about fifteen minutes. Tony led Shayla back to the area with the sofas to retrieve his bag.

“Come on,” he said, leading her toward one of the far tables in a corner. He laid the bag flat on the floor and unzipped it. When he opened it, she realized it was completely full of different implements. Paddles, floggers, riding crops, canes, even what looked to be a whip or two.

And other things, like vibrators.

She shivered.

“I normally carry my canes and riding crops in a blueprint tube,” he said. “I didn’t bring it with me tonight, though. I left most of them at home.”

“How many canes do you need?” she asked.

He laughed. “As many as it takes.”

Tony watched her face as he showed her everything, explaining each item’s use and the differing sensations it provided.

“What is this?” She held it up.

“That’s a silicone tasting spoon.” He took the dense, double-ended orange cooking implement from her and smacked the cupped side against his palm. Its deceptive heft always surprised people.

She frowned. “Tasting spoon? As in something you cook with?”

He smiled. “Yep. Get some of my best toys at a cooking supply store at the flea market. This baby might not look like it’d hurt, but if you use the convex side of it and hit hard enough with it, it’ll put bruises on a person.” He rummaged around in his bag and found a pair of long, bamboo spoons. “These are great as a matched set.” He tapped out a rhythm against his thigh. “You can drum with them.”

That got a smile out of her. “Sadistic drumming, huh?”

“The best kind.” He laid those aside and picked up another matched pair of items.

“And what the heck are those?” she asked as he handed the metal objects to her. A little less than a foot long each, the handles branched out into lots of wire arms topped with metal balls on the ends.

“Cooking whisks. You know.” He mimed mixing something in a bowl.

She tested them in the air, a look of doubt on her face.

“Go ahead and try them on your leg.”

She did. “Doesn’t seem like they would hurt very much.”

“They won’t. Unless you hit someone wrong with them, like smack them on the nose or poke them in the eye or something. Not every implement is meant to inflict pain. Some of them are meant to create a certain sensation. These are great along the back and shoulders, or along the arms. Because they are so light, you don’t have to worry about damaging someone’s spine or shoulder blades. And if they’re cold, it’s another sensation. Or they can be used in a transition phase of play, either stepping up or down the intensity. Or even just as a massage.” He took them back, stood, and stepped behind her. “May I?”

“Okay.” She turned a little in her seat to give him access to her back and shoulders.

He gently drummed up and down her back and across her shoulders. He stopped when he noticed her eyelids slowly dropping shut. When he stepped away, she reacted almost startled, as if she’d really been enjoying it. “Like that.”

She blinked, looking up at him. “That felt pretty good.”

He put them away and noted how she looked moderately disappointed. “Like I said, not everything is meant to induce pain. There are plenty of implements that, depending on how they’re used, can bring pleasure or pain. That’s another common misconception, that all Tops are heavy sadists, and all bottoms are masochists.”

“So you’re not a sadist?”

“Oh, I’m absolutely a sadist. But the person I’m playing with has to want that kind of play. Or want to take it to please me when I’m topping them. I have no desire to force someone to do something against their will. That’s sociopathic behavior, not sadism. I can grab a cane and the heaviest pain slut in the room and probably have them code after three hits. Is that a good thing? No. But I can just as easily get my sadistic jollies by making someone dress up in something they hate to wear as I can by topping them in a scene. A scene is like a dance. There are many different steps, many stages. Everyone has their own way of playing. What might look like a vicious beating to the uneducated is most likely a carefully choreographed routine on the part of the Top.”

“That makes sense.”

“A good example is Landry over there. When he plays with Cris, he beats the ever-loving crap out of him. And it’s not that Cris is a masochist, either. But Landry is a heavy sadist. Cris derives satisfaction out of pleasing Landry. He also takes pride in pushing himself physically to the limits of his endurance. So while he doesn’t enjoy the pain, he enjoys the act of taking it.

“Now Tilly, when she’s in her Domme mode, watch out. She’s pretty sadistic herself. On the other hand she’s not a masochist, but she will sometimes switch with Landry and let him top her. When Landry plays with her, which they don’t do a lot of in public, you’ll see a completely different side of Landry. The tender Dominant topping his wife with a lot of sensual and sensation play as opposed to sadism.”

“I guess that’s a good thing for Valerie’s sake if she’s going to play with him, huh?”

Tony nodded. “Landry is one of those people who enjoys being a service Top. He won’t play with everyone, but he can play with someone with far less of an emotional or mental connection than some Tops can. He’ll also play with men or women.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you a service Top?”

“Not really. I prefer a much deeper connection with a person. If I’m not in a dynamic with someone or know them very well, the first couple of times I play with them I’m really holding back and making sure I’m not going too far.”

“I thought Doms liked to push their subs.”

“True, but if someone is just bottoming to me and they’re not my submissive, I don’t feel I have a right to push them unless they’ve specifically told me what they want done.”

“That’s confusing. I thought you said the Dominants made the rules.”

He laughed. “Welcome to the irony inherent in the lifestyle.”