Page 17 of Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué)

ChapterTwelve

True to her word, Trinity packed up her job, her life, and her little flat, and scurried back home with her tail between her legs.

Well, maybe that was a little melodramatic, but that's what it felt like.

Four years on the east coast and she had absolutely nothing to show for it except a broken heart and a self-imposed isolation which had come from devoting all of her time and efforts to a single family who didn't want her anymore.

Her fault again, of course.

She was tempted to leave behind the dozens of exquisite gowns that had been purchased for her escort duties, but common sense prevailed through her angst and resentment.

The gowns were immaculate and expensive. So instead, she decided to sell them all and put the proceeds into her college fund. She was pleasantly surprised at how much they made. Enough, in fact, for an entire year's tuition. It seemed fitting, somehow.

Wasting no more time she enrolled in business classes, taking an expedited course that monopolised her time, left her exhausted, and without the opportunity to dwell too much on what was lost.

The only concession she made to the life she had left behind was to look into the BDSM kink scene.

She didn't know quite what it was that prompted her to do it. Maybe it was just a natural quirk of human nature to want to know what it was that made her less appealing than someone else.

She stoically avoided looking up Bianca on any social media, but BDSM had a different kind of draw. Maybe because of the feeling that she’d been superseded by the lifestyle more than the woman, although that probably wasn't really fair to Bianca. Not that she was particularly interested in being fair to the woman.

It was rare, but Taryn could be a bitch if she felt like it. It was just that, for the most part, what made her happy was helping people. Being bitchy pretty much opposed that aspiration, so it simply didn't have a place in her life.

The thing that really drew her attention was a small section on a local club's website, offering insights into the many different types of characteristics that knitted together people in the lifestyle.

There was far more to it than just Dominants and submissives.

There were sadists and masochists, of course, but there was also a whole host of divisions in between. From brats to littles, to Daddies, and on to Masters, who were experts in a particular methodology like Shibari or suspension.

And it was there that a few short lines caught her eye and brought about another huge shift in her ideology, changing all of her perceptions.

Service Submissive.

Taryn googled everything she could possibly find on those two little words and therein lay her epiphany. A few lines on Wikipedia which completely summed up her life and how she had devoted it to Christian…

In human sexuality, Service-oriented is a term used in the BDSM community to refer to a relationship dynamic where the focus is on how the submissive can contribute resources to the dominant partner and provide for some of their needs or advance their goals. These relationships may also include romantic feelings or sexual activity, depending on the specific relationship dynamic.

Realising that her desire to serve made her vulnerable to being taken advantage of, Taryn signed up for a membership to Club Risqué, using the last of her savings. Then she enrolled in one of their submissive training courses, hoping to find an outlet for her desires which would help her avoid situations like the one which had developed with Christian.

And that's when Trinity was born.

To mitigate the expensive club fees, she volunteered to do bar work at the club and as she gained experience within the lifestyle, she was promoted to Club Submissive. That role encompassed many things and offering her services to others fulfilled a need within Trinity.

Within a relatively short time, she became committed to the lifestyle.

She still helped with the bar work, so when the opportunity had arisen, she’d applied for the proper paid position of Bar Manager, determined to put the business degree she had finally earned to some use.

Fortunately, her roles within the club and her eagerness to serve had not gone unnoticed, and this time they had garnered the right kind of attention. Trinity had become friends with a lot of the patrons, but more importantly, with the four men who had purchased Club Risqué not long after she joined—Joel and Jake Blackwood, Connor Griffin, and Logan Thornton.

Businessmen themselves, they had recognised that her skills were underutilised within what was a niche industry.

It was difficult, after all, to appoint a manager to a club who wasn't involved in the lifestyle, but, also, equally difficult to find someone within the lifestyle with the right kind of qualifications. It was for that reason, when the new club on the east coast opened, they’d asked her if she would take on the role of assistant manager.

Trinity had mixed feelings about returning to the east coast, but the new club was in a different area to where Christian was based. And besides, she’d have been a fool not to accept the very generous package they were offering.

It was time to start living life without the shadows of the past dictating her every move. And for the first time in her life, she felt as if she was actually utilising her skills.

The club was also her ideal environment. Trinity obtained a huge amount of pleasure just from the day-to-day functions of her job. Getting paid for it was almost just a bonus.

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