Page 41 of Wanted
“Why would he mention it?” she whispered, once they were far enough into the tunnel for their voices not to carry back to Luis’s station.
“I used to play here,” Marcus told her. When she only blinked, still wondering how that fit or why it would matter, he added, “I used to play hard. I’ve scened with Paula on the stage once or twice. With his consent, of course. Hers too, for that matter.”
She couldn’t imagine him scening with anyone without their consent. “Does he want you to help with his scene tonight? Was that a hint?”
Sighing, he paused at the door they came to right before the final security checkpoint and, with his hand on the latch, said, “The last time I scened with them, I did the whipping and he manned the vibrator that got her off. We joked if we ever did it again, we’d swap places.”
“Do you want to?” She swallowed past the immediate second-best lump that rose in the back of her throat. Stuffing it way down deep inside her, she knew she had no business feeling this way with him. “Because you can… if you want to…”
“I don’t,” he told her flatly and opened the door. He motioned her to precede him.
He didn’t because he didn’t want to, or he didn’t because she was there?
She started through the door, but turned back to him halfway through. “I-I don’t mind if you—”
“Marcus!” Danny called from the check-in desk. “Long time, no see!”
Marcus raised his hand in a brief wave, though he didn’t return the smile. Cutting the wave short, he clapped his hand onto her throat and pulled her right back out into the dimly lit tunnel. The next thing Pony knew, the cool wall was at her back and he had her pinned against.
“I don’t want to,” he told her sternly, “because I. Don’t. Want. To. It has nothing to do with you, and I don’t need your permission. You can be nervous, Anna. You can ask me any questions you want, but when I give you the answer, that’s it. It’s not open for interpretation or argument, and you don’t get to ride my ass. Got it?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Satisfied, Marcus let go of her throat, opened the door and again they went into the club.
“Marcus,” Danny greeted again, still smiling although this time his voice was tinged with amusement. His gaze fell on her, but if there was any recognition for her without her pony gear on, she didn’t see it. “How you doing tonight?”
“Fine, you?” Marcus asked, signing them in.
“Can’t complain.”
The loud thump of the music through the next door was polarizing. Try though she did to wait patiently while the two men settled in for small talk, she found herself drifting closer to take that first long-awaited peek into her old playspace. She wouldn’t go inside, she told herself. She’d just look and see who else was here.
With two fingers, she pulled the door open. The night was still early and no one was playing on what few stations she could see from here. But she could see into the bar and that was fairly crowded. The lights were low, the ambient music beckoned. Klara at the bar was hopping, passing out drinks to the submissive wait staff. The shadow of dungeon monitors could barely be detected. Carlson Garvey might be in there; she knew he worked here. Spencer might be up there too, and the thought of seeing him made her mouth run dry. To date, she hadn’t had a lot of happy run ins with him, although from everything Marcus said, she knew she had him to thank for her rescue. Without him, it was entirely possible she would now be living on the street somewhere. Or worse, in the home of another dom. Maybe better, possibly worse than Ethen had been.
“Excuse me,” a woman said from just behind her, and Pony jumped. She also quickly got out of the way. She should have moved back, but too late she realized her feet had carried her forward, right into the room. The bar area was sprawling out to her left in the distance, and the play area was dead ahead.
“I love play night,” the woman giggled at her, as if sharing her exuberance before she took off, dressed in a scarlet and lace negligee and with a play bag slung over her shoulder. She headed out onto the floor, leaving Pony lost amid all the familiar feelings this place had once inspired in her.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the bad feelings she remembered from her last few times coming here, when Ethen had come for the express purpose of humiliating Piggy and then Kitty. It was the feelings from before now building inside her, from that time when this had all been so exciting and new. When Friday nights had been the happy goal that got her through the work week because she knew she was going to start her weekends with a sexy, kinky scene at one of these stations.
She should wait for Marcus.
But her feet drew her deeper into the shadows of the club. Every breath she took was tainted with the smell of leather and oil, liquor, and whatever cleaning solution they used to wipe things down between customers.
She could see all the way into the back of the play area now. Only two scenes were in progress. Two men and a woman were on the stage, her bound wrists hoisted above her head to an attachment in the ceiling. The man behind her was playing with her nipples. She was arching, moaning through her gag, while the man kneeling before her slowly worked his whole hand into her pussy.
A naked man in a sensory hood with his arms bound behind his back was bent over a spanking bench. His dominant lover was standing right behind his already bright red ass, pants undone and lubing up his cock. The Dom gave his submissive’s ass a no-nonsense slap and without any further preparation or gentleness, in he went. It might have been a punishment. The submissive’s strangled shout certainly indicated it hurt, but his dom only grabbed his hips and rode him furiously. And even from where he was, Pony could see the red ball the submissive held clutched in his bound hands—the safeword for someone gagged. He writhed and wailed, but didn’t let it fall.
She’d missed this. All the sights, smells and sounds. Submissives being alternately tormented and taken care of by those who topped them.
The sound of shattering glass startled her, and Pony snapped her attention back to the bar to find herself standing not ten feet away from Puppy, of all people.
Vague memories of being forced to come here with Carlson Garvey just before… the unthinkable had happened… before losing Ethan. He’d helped Puppy get a job bussing tables at Black Light. She never dreamed Puppy would be able to hold down a job.
That was Pony’s first ungracious thought. Her second was even darker: would Puppy even want her here? Because of all the menagerie girls, it was Puppy she had wronged the most. What had she done these last eight months while Ethen was in prison, except ride Puppy, bully her, forcing her again and again to visit their abuser because she herself couldn’t bear to go alone? Or to be seen by him as disobedient. She’d slapped Puppy, right across her face and for no better reason than because she’d been so wrapped up in her own unhappiness, her own unrequited love for a man incapable of ever returning such an emotion. There was no way Puppy would want anything at all to do with her anymore, and she had earned that.
Pony almost took a step back, ready to put that separation in between them so it wouldn’t hurt quite as much when the inevitable rejection came, but then Puppy’s face changed from wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock into one of ecstatic glee. She screamed a happy squeal, throwing out her arms and practically flinging her tray as she leapt through the crowd to throw her arms around Pony’s shoulders.
