Not Quite Juliet: A Club Imperial Novel (Silver Soul Book 1) (2 page)

Go Lisa!

“Do I need to discipline you?”

She looked over to me and took a deep breath before she answered. “You won’t ever discipline me again, Dominic. We’re done. I won’t let you near me. You left me last night.”

“It was discipline.”

“It was torture!” she screamed Her anger suddenly blew to the surface. “I called the safeword, you sick fuck! Twice! And you left me there to go play with some other poontang!”

Holy shit, hold up. She’d called the safeword? That was a doozie of a detail to leave out.

“I didn’t hear it.” His tone was disingenuous.

“You didn’t hear me scream
Godzilla
twice?!”

Godzilla?

“The music was loud.”

“You’re a jerk!” she yelled at him. “A bone fide jerk! Give me the key!” She jumped off the chair, walking toward him with her hand out.

“You’re just making your discipline worse”

She started pounding her fists on his chest. “Give me the key!”

Domenic grabbed her wrists and tried to push her away. “Stop it.”

I walked up and removed his hands from Lisa’s wrists. “Key, Dominic.”

“You really think I’m done with you?” He stared straight at Lisa, fury in his eyes.

I stared at him. “Oh, that’s brilliant. You’re threatening her now.”

“What the hell do you know, fatty?”

Any good humor I had about this was instantly erased by that statement, and Lisa knew it by the little gasp I heard her let out. I stepped right up to Dominic, right into his face. “Key. Or I’m calling the cops. And if you say one more thing to contradict me, I’m not going to go to the cops. I’m going to pull out my cell phone and call Franz.” I cocked my head. “Do you know what Franz does to Doms who step out of line?”

“Enlighten me, Shamu.”

I reached over and grabbed my phone, quickly texting our boss at the club, and then putting it back down on the counter. Dominic continued to stare at me, waiting for an answer. A moment later, his phone rang and he gave me a dirty look. He reached for it, and I was able to pull Lisa away from him and around to the other side of the breakfast bar. I poked her and pointed to her phone on the counter.

She reached for it, and saw the message on there. I had copied her on it.

MorganaLeFey:
Franz- like we said. Please call and cancel Dominic.

FD:
Calling now

She looked at me. “You knew?”

“That he was being an asshole? Yeah, for about month now. That’s why I wanted you to–”

I was cut off by Dominic yelling into the phone. “You can’t do that!” If he could’ve shot daggers from his eyes at me, he would have. “You cannot. You know that–I don’t–I–Fine. You know what? Fuck you, fuck your club, and fuck all the little whores you have working there. No. Drop dead, asshole.”

He stabbed the ‘end call’ button, and shoved the whole thing back into his pocket. He took something out of his pocket and threw it at us. “Fuck you both.” Grabbing the box of stuff next to the door, he marched out of the kitchen, slamming the door.

I ran over and put the chain lock on as fast as I could. My guess was right because before I could get the door knob locked, Dominic was trying to get back in. He growled through the crack.

“No,” I said. “Leave. We’ll mail you anything else we find.”

“Let me in, fatso,” he growled.

“Leave.”

He cursed at me and his hand suddenly reached through the door, trying to grab me. He missed and instead pointed at Lisa. “You’re mine”.

I kicked the door hoping to slam it into his arm. He howled in pain, and withdrew. I slammed the door again, and threw the deadbolt. He banged on the door, but I backed away and let him scream in the hallway.

Lisa showed me her phone without a word.

LusciousLi:
Thank you.

FD:
I’m sending Dunham over to change your locks.

LusciousLi:
You don’t have to.

FD:
The day pigs fly, Li. Don’t leave until he gets there.

LusciousLi:
You’re the bestest boss ever. M is here.

FD:
Good. Starting tomorrow, you’re going to karate
.

I laughed. Franz’s first instinct to protect his employees was always to send them to martial arts classes. Which was better than sending his protectors to stand guard. The last thing Lisa and I needed were two hulking guys standing outside our door. Our neighbors were already too curious.

Dominic was still banging on the door when Lisa hopped off the stool with a look of amusement on her face. She held up her finger in a ‘eureka!’ moment, and ran to her room, returning with something in her hand. “Unlock the door. I know how to get him out of the building. For good.” The grin on her face was blinding.

I flipped the dead bolt open. The door slammed on the chain lock and Dominic’s angry, bright red face was stuck through the crack immediately. It was like ‘The Shining’ and this guys was flat out nuts. “Let me in, you bitches. Let me in. You aren’t going to get away with this.”

“Back off, Dominic,” I bit out. This guy was going to break the door if he kept this up.

With more bravery than I knew she had, Lisa walked up to the door and pushed Dominic out into the hallway, away from the door. She stuck her face into the open door and screamed at the top of her lungs. “You forgot your Swedish dick pump!” She threw what she was holding at him through the doorway. “Maybe some other little girl will get off on pumping you up!” She grabbed the door out of my hand, slammed it and threw the lock.

My jaw was hanging open. Lisa put a hand to her chest and slumped back on the counter, to hold herself up. There wasn’t another sound from the hallway, except the sounds of someone beating a hasty retreat. I started laughing and Lisa joined me a minute later.

“He needed a penis pump?” I gasped.

She was laughing so hard she couldn’t answer me. Instead, she raised her hand, pinched her thumb and index finger together, then pulled them about an inch apart. She stared at the offering for a moment, then moved them even closer together.

That was the end of us until Durham finally arrived to change the locks.

––––––––

W
orking the bar at Club Imperial as a non-participant was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. It was why I hadn’t given it up when I’d started getting more and more court clerk assignments. Club Imperial was the premiere kink club in the Pittsburgh area—which was something of an oxymoron. Still, even the rust belt had its share of people who were into the whips and chains, and this was the place to get a fix without breaking laws. The credo, once you were in the door, was: see nothing, hear nothing, know no one.

I loved working there and it more than paid the bills. I hoped that Franz would always keep me on the payroll so I could pick up a shift here or there once I did get my juris doctor.

Tonight was no different from any other night at the club. That is to say, all the wannabe kinksters had bought their way into the main room wearing as little as they could get away with. It was gross, actually. None of the wannabes seemed to understand that BDSM wasn’t about how much you could show of your cleavage or ass—it was about finding the right person who shared your kink and you could have fun with.

I much preferred it when I could catch a shift upstairs. It was quieter and there was a schedule to follow. Amaryllis liked her White Russian just before she had a client. Jemma wanted a beer twice an hour. Vanity liked to have someone bring her a martini and her client a drink of choice half way through any session she had—especially since what had gone down with Tessa a few months before. Amoray wanted an Irish car bomb to start off the night and then he switched to red wine. And, all the employees would slip me a twenty at the end of the night.

More than once, I had gotten more than a twenty—particularly when I’d been unable to go in on a dinner call-out because I had to pay a bill. No one was more generous than the men and women who worked the upstairs at Imperial.

At the same time, no one was more quirky, peculiar and kinky than they were either.

Which included me. Not too much on the kink, but that wasn’t to say I hadn’t been curious. Or dated the utterly dashing Darcy L’amour—real name Peter Hartman—for several very interesting months. I was entirely too bratty for his tastes, but he was too much of a gentleman to dump me on my ass. We managed to morph our D/s relationship into a wonderful friendship.

He was also the very first bedroom partner who hadn’t made me feel like I was a beached whale. Or a trollop. Or a hussy. Or any other SAT words for ‘fat slut’ that could be drummed up.

“Hey, Wisconsin,” Vanity called, walking up to the bar.

“What are you doing down here?” I was confused. Downstairs wasn’t usually to her tastes.

“Oh, I needed a break.” She hopped up on one of the stools. “I had a shit of a client the other night, and Franz took me off upstairs and told me to come down here and play a bit.”

I grabbed a martini glass and mixed up her favorite. It was early yet and there wasn’t much going on. Later, I’d be swamped, but the delight of a Sunday was that it was slow enough for me to mostly close the bar down at eleven and leave my night tender on their own. “I’ll make it extra dirty if you dish.” I offered, holding up the shaker.

“Extra dirty,” she started and we chorused, “Just the way I like it.”

“That joke is getting old,” she mused. “I need a new one.”

“Something about squeezing a pimento in the hole?” I offered.

She snorted. “That has potential.”

“So, tell me what happened?” I pushed the glass with the finished drink in it across to her.

“Well, I’m in the room, all ready, right?” She  pulled the glass over. “This guy comes in and first thing I notice? He’s naked. He didn’t state that in his intake survey. He immediately demands that I get naked.” Vanity snored. “As if. I say no. He gets all bent out of shape, but I finally manage to convince him to put his pants on. Then he puts on the cuffs, and they are
way
too tight. He doesn’t check them, and the things are digging into my wrists. I might like the SM part of this, but that was just...no. He just fastens me to the wall, and starts feeling me up. So gross.”

She paused to take a sip of her drink before racing on. “He leans against the wall next to me, and asks if I like it rough. Um, duh?” She rolled her eyes. “You’re in a BDSM club? So he picks up the heaviest flogger and just starts whaling on me.” I gasped, and she waved me off. “Not even close. He had no idea what he was doing. He was just swinging it and there was no snap, no thud, no sting. Totally lame. And he does this for like five minutes and, with no breaks no care, no count, nothing. I’m facing the wall, and I’m yawning and rolling my eyes.”

“Only you.” I laughed.

“You know how I like it when I’m bottoming,” she said.

“Rough,” I supplied.

She laughed. “With guys who have a clue.” She took another sip of her drink. “So, Mister Limp Switch is going at me and finally leans against the wall, looking all exhausted and shit. I rolled my eyes, metaphorically of course, and he asks me if it was good for me. I mean, this poor guy looked beyond beat. I wanted to offer him a bottle of water and a cigarette. I answered him, ‘of course, Sir, thank you’ and just made a mental note to have Tessa mark him down as a ‘never again’.”

She took another sip, and I waited. This was all pretty typical; people paid a huge tribute at Vanity’s level to get in a private room with a sub or a Dom, and half of them had no idea what they were doing. They didn’t seem to realize that BDSM stood for bondage, dominance, submission and masochism. There was usually pain involved with this, but waving a cat o’ nine tails or a flogger around didn’t qualify. Vanity was into hard core pain when she was subbing. Her favorite flogger, made of light steel chain, wasn’t even
allowed
on the premises. This douchebag may as well have been tickling her with a feather for all he did.

Vanity took another long, slow sip as she watched our boss, Franz, saunter in with a satisfied smile and slip up the stairs. She smirked and looked at me. “Damn shame he wound up swinging the other way. I would have loved a chance with that fine ass.”

“Vanity! Finish your story.” I washed out another glass to keep from smacking her. Franz was taken, happy, becoming domesticated, and it suited him.

“Oh, right.” She shook off her last comment. “So, he leans against the wall and then leans into me, and says, ‘So. How much for a happy ending?’”

I dropped the glass loudly in the sink. “He did
nawt
.”

“Completely did” She confirmed it with a nod. “So I turned and looked at him, and said, ‘we don’t have egg rolls here’.” I snorted. “He instantly gets angry and says, ‘Come on, bitch, don’t toy with me.’ I tell him, ‘This is not a massage parlor, there are no happy endings.’ He grabs my arm and says, ‘There’s always a secret menu. What’s the price?’ So at this point, I’m just waiting for the second drink to come in. I’m thinking I’ll have whoever appears end the session, refund half and get me the hell away from this dingbat. I tell him that if he’d read his contract, there was no sex allowed at the club—at all, whatsoever for any reason. I have no secret menu.

“And here’s where I hope Martin is early with the drink. He grabs my hair and pulls it back like he’s punishing me, and said, ‘All you whores have a price. I want yours because I want to beat you senseless and fuck you hard. That’s what I paid for, that’s what I’m going to get.’”

“Wow.” I was astonished and wondered how this guy even got in the door.

“Right? So, I do what any self-preserving woman is going to do: I agree to it. He does the stupidest thing possible then.”

“He untied you.” I grimaced.

She smiled. “You know it.”

“How many stitches?” I asked.

“After they put in the five pins in his shin? Forty.”

“What did you do?”

“He really tried to come after me, and my self-defense mode kicked in.” She  shrugged. “I kicked him.”