Arranged love

THREE HOURS LATER, Bones pulls up to the back of a red brick building. Exiting the car, I can hear music pounding from inside the club. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this is not it.

I start to walk to the right, but Bones goes left. Jasmine takes my hand and pulls me after him. A black door opens, and a man dressed in a three-piece suit steps out, holding it open. He lifts his right hand to his ear. “They’re here, boss,” he speaks. Then smiles. “Bones!” He shakes his hand and pulls him in for a man shake/hug. “How’re you doing, man? It’s been a while.”

“Busy. As usual,” Bones answers.

I frown, and Jasmine leans into my ear, whispering, “Bones is a member.”

My lips make an O shape. My eyes drop to his shiny Hermes shoes and run up over his black dress slacks and his dark gray button-up. He’s got the sleeves rolled up his tatted forearms. His shoulders are pulled back, and his hands are tucked into his pockets. I can see Bones demanding total submission from a woman. He just seems like someone who has to be in charge all the time, of every aspect of his life.

“Well, he’s inside waiting for you.” The man steps to the side, keeping the door open for us.

Bones grabs Jasmine’s hand, and she continues to hold on to mine. Bright, flashing lights momentarily blind me. I reach out my right hand and find a wall. It vibrates from the bass of “Buttons” by The Pussycat Dolls. Bones continues to pull us down a long hallway until we enter an opening. Looking up, I see the crowd of people. I’m not surprised to see it’s packed. But it looks like any other club. Nothing special or kinky to it. We walk past the bar and a dance floor to the other side of the club, down another long hallway. A man stands guard of a door at the end.

Bones reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. He holds up a card, and the guy looks it over, then to us. His eyes sweep over Jasmine and me in a way that makes me question why I even agreed to do this. But then he steps to the side and opens the door.

It’s a dimly lit staircase. We follow Bones down it, and he opens the door at the bottom. Fuck, it’s a maze. Is this the only way to enter? Or is this the only way they are allowing us to get in? We walk through the door, and my mouth drops while my eyes widen.

The lights remain dimmer down here than the flashing neon lights upstairs. Soft music plays, unlike the blaring noise above us.

Men and women are in the center of the room on a dance floor. Most are dressed in leather outfits. One man is crawling on his hands and knees while another leads him around by a leash. A guy walks by us dressed in what looks like a red latex one-piece.

Kink-makes total sense to me now. It’s like night and day compared to what I just saw upstairs. This place is hidden? But why?

“Bones!” A man dressed in a white three-piece suit approaches us, and Bones releases Jasmine’s hand to shake the guy who said his name. “Ladies.” He nods to us, placing his hands behind his back. And I wonder why he didn’t shake ours.

Jasmine pulls her shoulders back, obviously noticing it too. “Hooke,” she acknowledges him.

His name is Hooke? That’s gotta be a fake name, right? Maybe a last name? He looks young. Maybe not my age, but late twenties, early thirties at the oldest.

“Bones, you’ve been here enough to know how it all works. But let me show you ladies around.” He turns, giving us his back.

Now that I know Bones is a member, I understand why Jasmine brought him in. He knows the ins and outs. But my concern is what kind of restrictions they have with a member buying in?

The man takes a right at the end of the dance floor, and we come to a hallway. Nothing but glass. You can see into the rooms on either side. You can see the people inside the rooms having sex. So many props. One that looks like a cross with a naked man strapped to it. Another that looks like a black leather bench-a woman bent over it.

One room we walk past has two men and a woman in it. She’s bent over a table, her hands tied behind her back, legs spread wide tied and restrained. One man is behind her, the other in front of her.

“This is heaven,” Jasmine says excitedly.

He takes us into a room that has a black leather couch and two chairs. A coffee table sits in the middle with a stack of papers. Not a single window on the walls.

Jasmine still holds my hand so when she sits down on the couch, I plop down beside her. Bones takes the chair across from us, and Hooke unbuttons his suit jacket before sitting beside him in the other one. “I’m not going to lie; I was excited when you called me, Bones. I think Kink will be great for you. We’re honored to have a Vegas location.”

I’m not much of a fan of this Hooke guy already. Jasmine said we needed Bones, and the more he talks, the more I understand why. I hate sexist pigs.

“It was Jasmine’s idea.” Bones looks at her, giving her the credit. “It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass.”

“Yes …” He lets out a long breath. “Well, Kink is thrilled to have two women partnering.”

Liar. Even I could hear the sarcasm in his voice. Like someone is forcing him to let us in. I wonder if Bones is that person? It makes me want to do this even more.

“I’ve done some research,” I say, finally speaking. “And I find it interesting that you have twenty-five locations worldwide and not a single woman owns a Kink. Why is that?”

Hooke lifts his right leg to place his ankle on his left knee and settles back into his seat. His eyes meet mine. “Look around Kink. Most of your dominant participants are male. Women choose to follow, not lead.”

Jackass.

“And then, of course, men are more reliable. More dominant in the business field …”

“Excuse me?” Jasmine asks, sitting up straighter. “What does that mean?”

He looks at her. His eyes drop to her cleavage before returning to hers. A smirk grows across his face as if he’s imagining tying her up in one of those rooms we just passed. “Women prefer the family life. Babies. They have responsibilities at home that keep them permanently tied there. Whereas men choose to devote their lives to their careers.” He reaches his hands out wide. “The statistics back up those facts.”

“That-”C0ntent © 2024 (N/ô)velDrama.Org.

“We’re getting off topic,” Bones interrupts Jasmine.

“Look …” Hooke places his foot on the floor. Adjusting his suit jacket, he obviously has more to say. “We’re thrilled to have you two joining Kink, but I’d be lying if I said I’d be sitting here with you ladies without Bones.”

Even though Jasmine had already told me we needed Bones, Hooke’s words still piss me off. How dare this motherfucker tell us what we can do with our lives? With our money. Women are capable of anything, but we’re looked at being weak because we carry a child for nine months.

A silence falls over the room. I can feel Jasmine’s stiff body next to mine. She wants to say something. Hell, I want to say more, but the look on Bones’s face is telling us both to shut the hell up. Maybe Hooke wants us to take his words personally and make a scene-then he’d have a reason to turn us down when we lash out at him. He’s probably recording us at this very moment.

I run a hand down my black dress. “How many members do you have?” Screw this guy and what he thinks he knows of us. I’ll show him how committed I am. I’ve read the paperwork.

“A little over five hundred at the moment,” he states proudly.

I almost choke on fucking air. Five hundred? The contract said the member buy-in is fifty grand a person. Each year. At fifty thousand a pop, it’s twenty-five million dollars. That’s insane.

“Are the memberships your only source of revenue?” I ask. The contract didn’t state anything other than the original buy-in for the members.

He shakes his head. “The fifty thousand per membership only gets them in the door. If they bring a date, it costs them. If they want bottle service, it costs them.” He gives a cruel smile. “If you want a room …” He holds his hands out wide. “Well, you get it. Everything costs you here.”

“Forgive me for being skeptical, but why would they pay for this?” I ask.

He looks at me. “Men like to show off what they have.”

“You mean to parade their sex slaves around,” I counter.

He chuckles softly. “If being a slave is your kink, then yes.”

“So, all of your members are men?” Jasmine asks.

“Not a hundred percent of them. But the majority, yes.”

“Why is that?” I go on.

He gives me a smile that makes my skin crawl. I wish men like him could be a woman for one day to know what it’s like. “A man will come five times a week and bring a different woman each time.”

“Getting his money’s worth,” I say with disgust.

He goes on as if I didn’t speak. “A woman will come ten times a year and bring the same man. So, it’s hard for a woman to justify that kind of … commitment.”

He means financially. He’s already said men make more money than women.

The door opens, and a woman enters dressed in black leather pants with a red crop top. She has her jet-black hair up in a tight bun. “Hooke, may I see you for a second?”

He stands and buttons his suit jacket. Bones stands as well and shakes his hand. “Thanks for taking the time to meet with us.”

“Of course.” He turns and nods to us just like before. “Ladies.” Then he exits the room. The door softly closing behind him.

I fall back onto the couch and let out a long sigh.

“Well, that actually went better than I thought it was going to,” Bones says, sitting back down.

“He’s a fucking prick,” Jasmine spits out and turns to face me, taking my hands in hers. “But it doesn’t change what I said, Alexa. Just give me the word, and we will show him how wrong he is.”

I search her green eyes. I trust Jasmine, and she trusts Bones. I have no doubt that she will devote her entire life to this club. She wants it to be a success. And I want that too.

Fuck Hooke and his view on women. We can be dominant and rule over men. “I’m in.”