“Stay still,” Onyx barks.
Amethyst takes my other arm with shaky fingers. She’s nervous in my presence. Perhaps she’s been told that I’m dangerous. Maybe they have woven some sort of tale to make sure everyone stays on full alert.
“Sorry about this,” Amethyst whispers as she moves my leg farther out. My ankle is strapped down, first one, then the other. I will have no idea what’s coming at me when a client arrives.
But I can guess.
“You should’ve at least bought me dinner first,” I say to the girl.
“Gag him,” Onyx says. “He talks too much.”
Amethyst’s fingers touch my back lightly in response. She doesn’t seem like a fit for Club Y, but I suppose shy virginal girls are just as popular as the feisty ones. Perhaps more so. There’s no telling what her story is.
While she fits a ball gag to my mouth and straps it around my head, I think back to Emerald. Her eyes had been perfectly green. Maybe too green. Probably contacts. I sigh around the ball. I should let that memory go. Since then I’ve lived a life of call girls, hoping one would live up to her.
Until Jade. She had done it. But I had no idea if she would ever see me again.
At the moment that’s probably a good thing.
Onyx’s voice cuts through the quiet. “Your name is Zircon now. You will wait here for your first customer. Not every jewel at the club will receive a client each time, but generally when there is a new jewel, someone will want to come visit.”
A shuffling of steps tells me they are leaving the room. The door clicks shut, and the faint buzz means it has been electronically sealed.
Time to get to work. I test the limits of my range of motion in both my arms and my hands. Maybe an inch. I cannot get my two hands anywhere near each other. Ankles are the same.
Hell of a thing I’ve gotten myself into, strapped to a bondage table, ass up. I ignore the illegalities of what they’ve done. We’re criminals. I steal for a living. They can get away with whatever they want.
Think. If the staff has been warned about me, someone may have figured out that I’m here. Someone somewhere is going to recognize me.
Not that they would help. For all I know Elliott is in on this thing. Club Y is a contingency I definitely had not planned for.
I work my forehead back and forth against the bench until the scarf falls away. I’m about to move the blindfold, when a buzz and click tells me that someone has opened the door.
Antony, checking to make sure I’m ready for my punishment?
Or a client already?
The footsteps are heavy, with a striking clomp sound. Boots. Cowboy boots, possibly. Not Antony.
A client. Male client?
This is not ideal.
The footsteps stop to my right, where the wardrobe is. Something slides off a hook.
I brace myself for a smack or pinch or worse.
A rectangle the size of a playing card slides along my back. It flexes as it makes its way up.
The motion makes me think of a moment from my childhood. I remember going to the circus, and my brother dragged me over to the fortune teller. He paid her a dollar, and she turned over a tarot card with a smooth glide, making the card flex across the table as it moved.
It’s the same as this motion on my back.
I still remember the card, of course. Seven of Swords. The woman told me that I should take care if I planned to deceive someone. But later, my uncle told me that the card meant I was destined to be a thief.
But this isn’t a card on my back. I consider the usual inventory of bondage toys. Then I have it.
A flogger. I can picture the flat end moving up my spine.
