Step Beast Read online

  And of course, Frankie, as usual, had dove right in, while Tilly was wading in the shallows, afraid of sharks.

  No one’s going to hurt you, Tilly, she reminded herself. Then she remembered the waiver. Holy hell, what, exactly, had they signed? Had they given Erich permission to put them into one of those cages or on one of those X’s, for example? She sure as hell hoped not!

  But even as she covered her flaming face with her hands in an attempt to cool her shame, her bottom, naked on the toilet seat, tingled with memory. She couldn’t help thinking about what it had felt like to be spanked. She’d been humiliated, aghast, appalled—all things she was feeling now—but something else, too. The orgasm she’d had, alone in her bed that night, had been so explosive, it left her ears ringing for a long time afterward. She couldn’t remember coming that hard, not in a long, long time.

  She didn’t understand her body’s reaction, but even as she sat there and did her business—which, it turned out, she actually did need to do—she realized that she was wet.

  So very, very wet.

  Suddenly, from two stalls down, just as Tilly was in mid-stream, a throaty woman’s voice reached her. “Unnh, you little bitch. You like that don’t you?”

  There was the pained gasp of a higher woman’s voice, obviously in protest.

  “Oh no,” Tilly whispered to herself, glancing down and talking, strangely, to her pussy, as if it might hear and obey her commands. It was surreal, like she was dreaming. “Hurry up and pee and let’s get out of here.”

  The throaty woman spoke again. “Slut. This’ll teach you to look at another mistress, my little slave.”

  There was another high pitched gasp from somewhere down the line of stalls.

  Tilly thought of Beast.

  He was here somewhere—she was sure of it. But what in the hell could he possibly be doing? Had he been down here when he’d locked her in the office yesterday? Just what had Beast gotten himself into?

  Tilly finished, leaving the stall to go wash her hands. She touched her washed, wet hands to her cheeks to cool them. Her cheeks were red, but the rest of her was deathly pale. It made her freckles stand out, in spite of all the make-up Frankie had applied to cover them. Tilly ran a finger under each eye, cleaning up her eyeliner, trying to make herself a little more presentable.

  She heard the bathroom door open and she held her breath, afraid to look. But curiosity got the best of her and she glanced over as a woman in a long, flowing leather skirt came in, followed by a naked woman on the end of a leash.

  Was the woman in the skirt a “mistress?” She’d heard the term spoken just a few moments ago from a stall still standing closed behind her. And was the naked, crouching women her “slave?”

  Tilly was shocked, but utterly fascinated.

  This was, in some ways, even scarier than what she had seen outside of the bathroom, because here it was quiet. Just the three of them—aside from whoever was in the closed stall.

  She didn’t know where to look. There was a rampant air of sexuality about the pair that threatened to overwhelm Tilly. There was an intimacy here, alone in the bathroom, that wasn’t apparent when she was out there, among the crowd—no matter how strange and shocking that crowd might be.

  The woman looked at Tilly sidelong for a moment, and Tilly smiled nervously. She felt as if she’d been caught staring at someone who was special needs or disadvantaged, and a heat filled her cheeks. Propriety told her that she shouldn’t be looking at this. She should definitely not be just standing there, staring, as the woman took her slave to one of the long, luxurious couches that lined the wall, and sat down there.

  As schooled as Tilly had been in the world of manners and etiquette, as well as she knew the unwritten rules of high society, she was completely lost here. She had no idea what the protocol might be. She was shocked, but fascinated, and desperately wanted to know what would happen next. She couldn’t take her eyes off the pair of women, and the growing tension and dampness between her legs belied her interest.

  Would her attention be welcome? Could one participate as a voyeur here, unquestioned? Or would her staring, thunderstruck, be seen as an intolerable breach of privacy?

  The woman spread her legs under the large skirt and then raised it to the waist, exposing herself. Her pussy was shaved down below, with just a strip of dark hair up top. Her wetness glistened.

  “Lick my pussy,” she commanded.

  The naked woman immediately situated herself between the tall woman’s knees and did as she was told. Tilly wanted to run. Her first instinct was to bolt. Whatever the protocols, she knew she should err on the side of caution. But a deep, dark fascination held her there against her will.

  For a moment, she literally couldn’t move. She told herself it was okay, because the woman sat there, face smiling at the ceiling, eyes closed. She didn’t know Tilly was still there, watching. She couldn’t see between the woman’s legs—the naked woman’s fair head was in the way—but the look of pleasure on the clothed woman’s face was intoxicating. It made Tilly lick her lips, her own pussy contracting involuntarily in response, closing down on nothing.

  Aching for something.

  Then the woman opened her eyes and tilted her face down to level her archly smiling gaze directly at Tilly.

  “She’s new. Clumsy and a little stupid, but eager to please. That’s the main thing.” The mistress stroked the busy slave’s head affectionately as she worked away between her legs, head moving back and forth, side to side, up and down, all very enthusiastically. “She’s got a... ooohhh... a nice, soft tongue. Once I train her how to use it, she should be quite entertaining.”

  “I see,” was about all Tilly could manage.

  “Want to join us?” The woman smiled wickedly. Tilly could tell the invitation was sincere, and guessed it could lead to—God only knows what.

  “Er, nuh-no.” She shook her head vehemently, rushing to the door. Just as she reached it, she added, “Thank you!” over her shoulder, afraid of being impolite.

  Tilly scolded herself for being such an idiot as the woman’s throaty laughter followed her out the bathroom.

  She desperately needed to splash water on her face a second time—and on other fiery parts as well, for that matter—but she didn’t dare go back into the bathroom.

  She saw Erich and Frankie at the table, drinking and talking. Frankie tossed a shot back in a way Tilly had seen her do before, a kind of bugle call just before a charge. Those two women in the bathroom wouldn’t be the only ones getting lucky that night, if that was any indication. Tilly knew that look in Frankie’s eyes.

  If she went over to the table, no matter how hard Erich and Frankie tried to be nice and include her, she knew it wouldn’t matter. Her role tonight was clearly as third wheel. She didn’t know why this made her so mad. While she hadn’t come here for the sake of Frankie’s love life, she knew she didn’t have the right to stand in her way if that was what Frankie wanted. Tilly had been the one looking to solve the mystery of Beast’s connection to this place. Frankie had come looking for adventure, and clearly, had found it.

  So Tilly didn’t go back to the table. Instead, she wandered, feeling like a dumbstruck tourist at some kind of weirdo sex zoo. Who were these people and where had they come from? Some special part of town she’d never been in? She realized with a shock that while she recognized nobody here, and probably wouldn’t even if all the masks and hoods and horse heads were removed, any one of these men and women might be somebody she had seen but never noticed as they bicycled through a park or loaded groceries into their car in a parking lot.

  Any one of them could even be her brother, under the masks.

  But no. She couldn’t believe it.

  He must be security here or something, she reasoned. Or maybe, strange as it might seem, he was there on secret military business. Maybe it was drugs. Some sort of drug ring. Or a crime family? Was Erich part of the mafia? Tilly squinted at him from across the room. Frankie seemed to l
ike him—but Frankie had chosen Dante, and he’d turned out to be a Grade-A douchebag. So maybe her judgment couldn’t exactly be trusted, especially when she was doing shots.

  She considered going over to the table, telling Frankie she didn’t feel well, that she wanted to go home, but the light in her friend’s eyes stopped her. Just because Tilly had certain suspicions about this place, these people, didn’t mean any of them were rooted in reality. Frankie was having a good time. Tilly wasn’t going to spoil that.

  But everywhere she went, she felt out of place. It was like recess at a new school where you didn’t have any friends—a very odd, carnal sort of recess. She wandered around, trying not to look too conspicuously alone.

  Everywhere she looked, people wore leather, latex, or were simply, unabashedly naked. Black was the color of the day, but there was no small amount of red mixed with other colors like bubblegum pink or decidedly gaudy purple. A woman in a bright purple latex cat suit slinked up to the bar. She gave Tilly an unmistakable look over her shoulder, her gaze sweeping over Tilly’s tight purple top—not quite gaudy but almost. Tilly pretended not to notice and turned away, ears burning.

  But her pussy was on fire, too.

  The room smelled of sex. And it was no wonder, because while she might have believed the sexual activity would be confined to the restrooms with their long, comfortable couches, there was actually more sex going on out here among the crowd than she ever would have encountered, even if she’d spent the whole night hiding in the bathroom.

  And nobody seemed to think that was strange or unusual.

  There was a man in a leather biker’s cap sitting on a bar stool while a naked man on a leash kneeled before him, sucking his cock. There was a naked woman up on one of the Xs, firmly strapped to it by the ankles and wrists. She had nipple clamps on, with weights attached. Her pussy was bare, tattooed and pierced. Between her legs was some sort of machine that a shirtless man in leather pants was controlling.

  The man’s demeanor was meant to convey something cool and professional—a man doing a necessary job and doing it well—but when Tilly looked at his face more closely, she thought she could detect a gleam of pure pleasure there, underneath the business-like exterior.

  But it wasn’t the man who really drew her toward the scene. It was the woman. The look on the woman’s face, an expression caught between pleasure and pain. Tilly found herself drawn closer and closer, less concerned than before that she would be rejected as a busybody, a voyeur. This lessened concern was due in part to the fact that another man, drink in hand, was watching the spectacle as well—entirely without any self-consciousness. Audiences, it seemed, were allowed, even welcomed, in this place.

  It was just like watching the big screen at the sports bar.

  As Tilly sidled closer and closer, eventually finding herself standing next to the man, she wondered if her own face had ever looked like that. The woman on the X cried out, and it was hard to tell if it was from pain or pleasure. Maybe both? She didn’t quite understand the expression, not fully—but she strangely envied it. She was drawn to it, enamored by it.

  “First time?” she heard in her ear.

  “Huh?”

  It was the man with the drink in his hand. Tilly could hardly take her eyes off the nearly-climaxing woman as she replied with a nod.

  “Your face.” He smiled when she glanced at him again, really seeing him for the first time. Thick, dark, curly hair, big brown eyes. Not naked. At least that was something. In fact, he was very casually dressed for this place, just jeans and a light blue button-down. Normal looking. “That was me, the first time I came here. Sometimes I still can’t believe places like this exist.”

  He downed the rest of his drink. “We do live in interesting times.”

  Tilly couldn’t take her eyes off the woman and the machine as the dildo end of it buzzed inside of her. It was like some kind of gynecological nightmare turned into a dream. The dildo not only vibrated, but pumped in and out of her, faster and faster. The woman screamed, throwing her head back, body sheened with sweat.

  “What is that thing she’s on called?” Tilly asked aloud, tracing the shape of the X with her finger. “Does it have a name?”

  “They call it the Saint Andrew’s Cross.” He seemed bemused by her question.

  “And that?” Tilly pointed to the machine.

  “That’s just a fuck machine,” he grinned. “Makes you want one all your own, eh?”

  Tilly just nodded, murmuring, “I need a drink.”

  “Sure.” He led her over to the bar and the man introduced himself as Mark.

  He said he was a dom, and she had an idea of what that was, although only a vague one. He bought Tilly two shots, which she downed quickly as he looked on in apparent admiration. The shots burned, but not unpleasantly, and Tilly suddenly found herself far more able to handle the insanity around her.

  Alcohol! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Such a simply solution.

  “Dante’s Inferno” came to mind as she surveyed the scene from the bar. She’d read parts of it in high school. Surely it was something like this?

  It was so much easier to carry on a conversation down here than it had been upstairs. The music here didn’t drown out everything else. That was one thing Tilly couldn’t stand about nightclubs—you usually couldn’t talk much because of the noise.

  Mark was talking, although she was only half-listening. “Call it what you like. I’m sure some people think it’s perverted. And actually, I agree.” He smiled. He had a nice smile. “But in a good way. We just call it the lifestyle. People in the know understand. Whenever people talk about S and M—”

  “Sadomasochism?” Tilly interrupted, visions of the Marquis de Sade dancing through her head now. She’d seen that movie, Quills, with Kate Winslet.

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “You’re awfully cute, if you don’t mind me saying so, but kind of naïve. I like that.”

  Tilly didn’t answer him. All she really knew about “S and M” she’d learned from Frankie reading out loud to her from Fifty Shades of Grey. That had been a hoot—the girls had dissolved into giggles over most of the scenes, although there were parts that had piqued Tilly’s interest, she had to admit. But it certainly hadn’t properly prepared her for this.

  “I know it can seem strange at first,” Mark went on. He was watching her, watching the woman. The man controlling the fuck machine had added more weight to her nipple clamps and the woman was sobbing in pain. Or… pleasure? It was so hard to tell. “Contradictory, even. I remember asking myself, what the fuck am I doing? Am I crazy? But most people realize, they’ve been fantasizing about it in one way or another for a long time before they ever do anything about it.”

  “Fantasizing,” she repeated, feeling her sex clench in response as the woman on the St. Andrew ’s cross climaxed. Or at least, it sure sounded and looked like it.

  “Have you ever fantasized about it?” Mark asked, leaning an elbow on the bar. He was standing very close, but Tilly didn’t move away. She shook her head, glancing at him, meeting his eyes. They were bright, curious, but she wasn’t about to reveal her sexual fantasies to a complete stranger. “Never?”

  She shook her head again, denying it.

  Not until recently.

  “To each their own.” Mark shrugged. “You know if it’s for you. It’s something primal. Never mind if it makes sense. And we weed out the real freaks here. Everything’s strictly consensual.”

  “That’s consensual?” Tilly blinked at the woman whose nipples were being tortured by weights, whose pussy was being pounded by a fuck machine. “I mean… I keep seeing people on leashes, like pets. It’s…”

  “It’s consensual,” Mark assured her. “Trust me. Everyone here has agreed to everything that you see happening. No one’s here against their will. Are you?”

  “Well, no,” Tilly admitted. Granted, she hadn’t read the “terms and conditions,” but she’d signed it anyway. And it wasn’t like there w
as anyone stopping her from leaving, if she wanted to. “But I still don’t understand. I mean… doesn’t it… hurt? It seems so…”

  “Contradictory?” Mark asked, nodding. “Human nature is contradictory. We often enjoy things that, on another level, shouldn’t really be all that enjoyable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take Shakespeare, for example.” Mark laughed at her look of surprise. “The man wrote more tragedies than I can count. Yet people still go to see those plays. And they do it for fun. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Now there’s a horrible love story. Everyone you care about is dead in the end. It’s fucking tragic. And everyone knows how it’s going to end, right? I mean, we all know it ends in a bloody mess.”