Page 43 of What About Love

Val and Eric shared a look before she answered. “Elaine is bubbly and sweet. Marilyn hung with her husband exclusively until they went through their recent rough patch. Felicia is a lot like Elaine, but I don’t think she was seriously interested in a relationship, although she played a lot. Alisha is the most outgoing of the group. I wouldn’t say she’s a brat. Fun loving, more like it.”

“They all had one thing in common as submissives,” Eric put in. “They liked attention and played on the main floor only. None of us recall any of them playing in the theme rooms upstairs.”

“So our perp would have had plenty of time to watch them,” T concluded.

“Yes, and as I told Cap this morning”—his eyes shot to Val and then transferred to T—“there is one thing they all did, which not all of our submissives care to take part in.”

“Exhibitionism?” Angie guessed as three sets of eyes keyed in on her.

“Yes,” Eric confirmed, “but that’s not all there is to it.”

“Carousel,” Val whispered.

“Carousel?” Angie parroted back, although croaking more like a frog than a bird.

“No,” Val stated firmly. “We can’t ask that of her. She’s new to all this and not really into the lifestyle. I’ve been here almost a year and haven’t done that.” She glanced over at her dom meaningfully. “Nor do I plan to.”

“Can someone please explain exactly what carousel is?” She imagined a merry-go-round with naked subs riding plastic horses. How bad could that be? “If all the missing women did something, uh, special, I suppose I will have to as well, to lure him in.”

She studied the intense frowns on Val and Eric’s faces before turning to T. His expression had darkened, his mouth set into a hard line, and his gaze had turned as stormy as a troubled sea. Uh-oh.

She swallowed her dread. “Okay, lay it on me, whatever it is.”

“I think you’ll have to see to get the full impact,” Eric offered grimly.

“That’s exactly what T said.”

“He wasn’t lying, Angie,” Val soberly stated, her voice barely above a whisper.

Her glance took in the Master Dom’s grim expression. Abruptly, an image from De Sade’sJustinepopped in her head. In it, the female lead was strapped to a wheel of torture. Following that, intense scenes from the other books she’d read to prepare for her role, including theStory of OandCrash Into You—the latter specifically because the heroine was an undercover submissive like herself—flashed vividly before her eyes.

“T,” she whispered.

He stood and grabbed her hand. “Come on, I’ll show you the carousel.”

***

AS ANGIE GOT HER FIRSTlook at Decadence LA, T watched her reaction. He’d warned her it was edgier than their club back home, but she probably wouldn’t get a feel for how much so until the doors opened two hours from now.

Yes, it had a bar and lounge like San Antonio, with live entertainment separate from the play areas. There were similar theme rooms upstairs and a second-floor observation area, called the crow’s nest, where eager observers would soon line the railing, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the action taking place on the main floor below. Voyeurs abounded at both clubs, but here, the exhibitionism was on a whole other level.

The massive room he led her into was horseshoe-shaped, and except for the few employees who scurried about making last-minute preparations for members and guests, they were alone.

“Take it all in while you can. When the club opens, it will be shoulder to shoulder, even on a Thursday night.” Although he said it softly, his voice echoed in the cavernous room.

He tried to put himself in Angie’s shoes, remembering the first time he’d seen the LA club. As part owner, he’d been involved in the planning and design, but he hadn’t quite grasped the concept or the impact it would have from blueprints and drawings. It took seeing to believe.

The play area was like no other dungeon or BDSM club he’d ever seen. Laid out in four concentric circles, like a dartboard, each ring was designed for a different activity and defined by different flooring and colored ceiling lights.

The outer ring contained elevated U-shaped booths, forty-two in all that lined the perimeter of the room and allowed a perfect vantage point for observation. Curtains were available for privacy, but from his recollection, the free-spirited members rarely used them, going full throttle in the booths as they would on the main floor. In fact, he’d never seen more than a handful of the drapes drawn at any given time.

The next ring was really a wide walkway where members could mingle while taking in the action all around them. Bordering “the circuit” was the next circle where roped-off play stations were set up. Each one contained a different piece of bondage equipment, ranging from the everyday spanking bench to custom-made, one-of-a-kind, sensual torture devices made specifically to spark the wildest imagination. Finally came the innermost circle.

Glancing at his wide-eyed newbie, he saw she’d focused on the activity in the center of the room where two male attendants were setting up the carousel.

While it took shape, he pointed out another feature in the room. “You’ll notice the wall at the far end is flat. It’s nicknamed ‘the wailing wall.’ The heavy equipment that requires wall mounting for safety and support is located there, plus a few larger areas where a dom can safely wield a whip without taking out the eye of an unsuspecting passerby.”

Angie glanced at it briefly without comment, but her focus returned immediately to the center of the room and stayed glued there, clearly preoccupied with what awaited her.

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