Page 1 of Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué)

ChapterOne

Taryn Tanita Trent, Trinity, as she was known to all, both in and out of work, took a good look around at the buzzing activity of the club where she was the assistant manager.

Club Risqué - this new, East Coast manifestation - was really quite different from the original club, a thousand miles away on the south coast. The place where she had first learned about the BDSM lifestyle, earned her submissive stripes, and progressed on to bar manager.

The original club had an old school, exclusive 'men's club' vibe - all sedate luxury and sumptuous extravagance.

This new club, on the other hand, had been born from the ashes of the kink club Perversions, when Joel and Jake Blackwood, Logan Thornton and Connor Griffin, the co-owners of the South Coast club, had bought the struggling, mismanaged nightclub, and revamped it into its current guise.

The Club Risqué name might be the same, but this place was just as far apart in character as it was in distance. This incarnation had a young, starkly industrial vibe and a unique two-tier membership system.

On the ground floor was a nightclub with a bar and a dance floor like no other. The heavy beat of grunge music might blare out just like any other disco, but the similarity ended there.

Above the sea of undulating bodies on the main floor, which seemed to ripple and surge rather than dance, hung an array of multi-level, suspended platforms. Enacted upon them was an eye-opening plethora of enticing, X-rated displays, depicting every kind of BDSM and kink fuelled fantasy you could imagine. From bondage to sadomasochism, to straightforward pole dancing, to explicit sexual acts.

Right now, overhead, there were six different platforms in play, all in a different location, at a different height. Each was picked out in a luminous ball of light to showcase the scene taking place.

Looking at the closest, Trinity watched two subs, dressed as kinky schoolgirls, being caned, simultaneously, over the top of their stockings and suspenders by a bare-chested 'headmaster' wearing a pair of tight leather trousers and a mortar board.

To her left, a far more intense scene was playing out. Two naked submissives were on this platform, one male and one female, along with a Domme dressed in figure hugging PVC and thigh high black boots. The girl had her arms stretched high above her head, fastened to a chain. There was a ball gag in her mouth, and her ankles were attached to a spreader bar.

On his knees in front of her, the male submissive was feasting, his scrotum and cock trapped in an uncomfortable looking cage by the Mistress who targeted random slaps on each of them with the riding crop she carried.

The sound system was cleverly rigged so that the erotic sounds of moans and screams, slaps and lashes, were pitched distinctly above the blare of the music, creating a subliminal, erotic music of their own.

It was all here for anyone to enjoy; for a price, of course.

And that was just for the voyeurs. Down here was just a bit of fluff, a nice little earner and maybe an entry level taste of the true lifestyle that took place behind steel doors, stringent biometric security, and thorough membership checks.

The upper level was where you would find the serious lifestylers, in amongst the multitude of themed rooms and the open plan area filled with spanking benches, St. Andrew's crosses, and all manner of other apparatus of the finest quality. The playroom was fondly referred to by everyone as the 'dungeon', despite the fact it was upstairs.

Satisfied that everything was running smoothly down below, Trinity made her way up there now. The lower level had a bar manager and a second assistant manager of their own, solely for that floor. Trinity, herself, oversaw both levels, but most of her responsibilities rested on the upper floor, under the watchful eye of the club's executive manager and psychologist, Micah Flynn.

And therein lay the difference between this and most other clubs—the fact that they had a head shrink on board, and every member had to undergo a psych evaluation before their membership was approved.

Of course, besides their name, there was one significant factor that united the two clubs, regardless of their outward differences, and that was the owner's commitment to the tenets of 'Safe, Sane and Consensual' and R.A.C.K—risk aware consensual kink. They weren't just buzzwords and slogans, they were the embodiment of a sacrosanct belief in the protection and enrichment of the alternative, often misunderstood, lifestyle they held dear.

Upstairs, Trinity took a quick look around the dungeon floor, just to satisfy herself that everything was in order. Her staff was dedicated and thorough, but Trinity liked to have her finger on the pulse. She smiled as she watched Master Storer stalk across the dungeon floor…if it was actually possible to 'stalk' in an all singing, all dancing wheelchair. But even if he was technically gliding, stalking was most certainly his intent. A disproportionate dwarf with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Master Storer was a distinctive and popular character amongst club members and a poster boy for physical diversity within the lifestyle.

This was truly a place where you could say with complete honesty, 'anything goes.'

There was no judgement here, no body shaming, no discrimination. It was a place where those whose desires might be seen as taboo in the outside world could come together to play and relax without fear of retribution, knowing that privacy and security was assured.

Trinity checked in with all the Dungeon Monitors, those dedicated men and women who kept their fingers on the pulse of each and every encounter and scene within the club. Checking to ensure that nothing ever went too far, and skirting the shadows in the unlikely event that somebody safeworded because a scene was getting out of hand.

Or the opposite, a sub who didn't use a safeword—a specifically designated word designed to call things to a halt—when they should.

It wasn't unheard of. Most subs felt strongly about not wanting to let their Masters or Mistresses down, so occasionally they endured more than they should in a misguided effort to make them happy.

It was a false positive, though. No Dom wanted a sub who placed themselves in jeopardy, whether physical or emotional. That was likely to disappoint them all the more.

So far, Trinity had never seen it happen here, though.

All of the members here had to undergo a meticulous and thorough Dominant or submissive training program before they were allowed to participate. It was one of the things that kept incidents to a minimum.

A good Dominant instinctively knew just how far a sub could be pushed without stepping over the line. And a good submissive understood the importance of negotiating limits and knew when to slow things down before it all went wrong.

It was a different kind of dance, one of responsible accountability by both parties, and the trust and belief that each participant would honour their commitment to the concept of the power exchange. Therein, the submissive, by mutual agreement, gave over some degree of authority to the Dominant in exchange for the Dom taking some degree of responsibility for the sub.

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