SWNOVELS Chapter Twisted Devotion: Prologue
Discreet. Exclusive. Indulgent. Worth every penny.
Masks were club policy at Delirium, but I wasn’t fooling anyone with mine. I could cover my face, but I couldn’t cover the tattoos. Not with each finger on my left hand inked down to the first knuckle and bold black lines carving up my neck to touch my throat. Even in the suit I wore, they were impossible to hide.
Anonymity was paramount for the survival of the club but each and every person here knew my name. Knew that I answered to none of them.
Only upon the word of a current member and a direct invitation from me could they be allowed the honor of entry to my kingdom.
The constraints of our members’ real lives didn’t matter anymore the instant they stepped foot on the property. They paid handsomely for that illusion. To become faceless, nameless avatars that lived for pleasure. Our waitlist rivaled Ivy League colleges, and annual membership cost as much as tuition.
The top brass of society were the main clientele. Trophy wives, fuck boys, and mistresses weren’t enough for them. They sought more. Something darker. Dirtier. They wanted taboo. And I gave it to them in fucking spades.
When the owner of the city’s biggest telecom company liked to spend his weekends getting whipped on a St. Andrew’s cross, he needed somewhere safe and private to do that. When the revered city priest needed a place to come to be drilled in the ass by a massive cock, I welcomed him.
I pulled my mask down, tying the ribbon strands behind my head. The filigreed gold covered half my face, leaving only my jaw visible. I slipped my tie off my neck, popping the button at my throat, revealing more ink-blackened skin.
Taking the central staircase down two floors to the ground level, I strode across the high-ceilinged foyer. Nobody walking into the estate would suspect that half of the gothic mansion was a sex club patronized by the most powerful people in this city.
Not until they opened the doors.
The original eighteenth-century locks were just for show. Popping the lid off of the hidden security panel, I scanned my retina, opening the private entrance.
If you entered the club through the other side, the first thing you went through was the security check and cloakroom. No phones or any recording devices allowed, no exceptions.
Footage of what went on here could sink political aspirations and ruin careers. Not to mention end a few marriages.
Resonant, bass-heavy music and haunting vocals played just loud enough to conceal conversations, but not so that others in attendance couldn’t hear the animalistic sounds of passion and pain.
The air hung heavy with the sinful, thick energy of bodies and unbridled desire. The sultry interior provided the backdrop for another world. One brimming with desire, fetish, and kink.
Masked patrons in various states of undress looked over, watching me enter, before returning to their partners. Talking, fucking, indulging in everything they were too cowardly to take anywhere else.
Ninety percent of our clients were men. Politicians, businessmen, the occasional artist or actor, and of course all the old money degenerates who had memberships at places like this wherever they happened to own property.
Their dates were pre-approved before they were allowed into the club. Models mostly. Escorts. Mistresses. Rarely wives. All of them having signed non-disclosure agreements. And then of course there were my women. The ones well trained in every sexual artform, willing to give and take in equal measure.
Many walls from floor to ceiling were painted flat black, others coated in the richest damask wallpaper in darkest shimmering red. Dampened lighting set off the color, making it glow as if painted with fresh blood. Candles on brass holders and gothic carvings garlanded the entire space.
I nodded to one of my girls as she passed me in the narrow corridor between private rooms that led to a great hall. Her naked tits bounced with each step and she lowered her head in respect as I passed.
The main hall opened to semi-private rooms through carved archways. Clients drank, gambled, and fucked on velvet coated tables to voyeuristic audiences. In the main hall, couples and groups lounged on luxurious sofas. A large fire roared all night in the grand, carved fireplace.
Two staircases, one on each far corner of the hall led to the mezzanine style second-floor, where the private VIP rooms were located.
Besides beds obviously, the rooms were stocked with anything guests could imagine. High-quality leather whips, restraints, wooden paddles, candles, gags, vibrators, dildos, the list was endless. Anything we didn’t have, which was rare, we special ordered in.
This bounty could be enjoyed for the small annual membership fee of $80,000.
To be fair, that was the cost of the highest membership level. That came with free use of my provided pussy.
There were cheaper memberships as well, going down to $40,000 for the less discerning of our patrons. Out of all the rackets I ran, Delirium was the most lucrative.
And not just financially.
Knowing scandalous personal details about some of the most powerful men on the east coast, in the entire country, came with its own priceless reward.
These men wrote the rules but I was above all of them. The masked king. A secret whispered in the night. The boogeyman in a closet that they wanted to keep shut.
My chest swelled with pride looking over my kingdom. The hall heaved with activity tonight.
People spilled in and out of the semi-private rooms. Couples and groups scattered on sofas and seats throughout the open ballroom. In the middle, a raised platform nicknamed the altar would inevitably become the center of attention.
Late enough every night, one enterprising couple would start fucking on it, often turning the hall into an orgy of heaving, sweaty masked bodies.
Moans and screams pierced the ambient din of music and conversation and I stepped to the side as a naked man in a minotaur mask crawled collared on his hands and knees, led by a woman in lingerie so skimpy, she might as well have been naked.
Peering into one of the rooms, I was greeted by the sight of a rope-bound woman being shared by three men. Her guttural moans were music to my ears.
I stayed semi-cocked whenever I came in here but I didn’t touch. Delirium was their space, not mine.
My tastes were beyond the scope of the clientele here. Better enjoyed in private.
I moved to head up the stairs to watch from the mezzanine when I felt a gaze on me. Close to the fire, an older man swirled a glass of scotch. His companion, a woman in black lingerie, couldn’t have been more than three years out of college.
The woman, draped over the man’s lap, sank to her knees before him with a grace not often seen within these walls. She folded herself almost as though in prayer, bowing to the altar of his cock as she clasped it between her palms and fed it deep into her throat, drawing a groan from the man’s lips.
The man stared at me through his veiled masquerade mask, a slight upturning of his lips as she continued to do God’s good work on her knees.
I wandered closer, wanting to get a better vantage point as the girl choked on his cock, gagging loudly, but never ceasing, barely coming up for air.
The semi in my pants raged closer to a full hard on, and I clenched my teeth as it pressed into my pants, constricted when it should’ve been free.
“You like her?” the man asked, drawing my attention back to him.
I raised an eyebrow. The girl sucked the tip of his cock before popping her lips free to glance over at me. She was long and thin, with a firm ass and minuscule waist I bet I could join my hands around. Not one of mine. An approved escort I’d never seen here before.
“Take her,” the man offered. “My treat.”
The girl’s lips parted in a silent gasp, but looking between her date and me, it was clear who she would rather be servicing.
“She seems busy,” I purred and the little vixen went back to her work, languidly stroking the man’s base as she swirled her tongue around his tip, bringing him back to fullness.
“She’s yours if I can watch,” he said.
I scoffed, shaking my head.
“I don’t play.”
Public sex wasn’t one of my kinks. I watched, but I didn’t care for an audience.
The man’s mask covered most of his expression but his lips pursed. He was probably hoping to get cucked tonight. He still could be, it just wouldn’t be with me.
“What do you like to do?” he asked.
“I’ve never met anyone who could talk so much with their cock in a beautiful woman’s mouth.”
He chuckled, nodding his head.
I inclined my head, leaving the man to his desires.
Going up the stairs to stand in the center of the mezzanine platform, I watched the scene below.
Heels clicked against the floor behind me and I knew without turning who I’d find.
The young woman from downstairs leaned over the railing next to me, her tits pushed together, her lower lip between her teeth.
“Hi,” she said coyly and I smirked.
“Can I help you?”
“I think maybe you could.”
“Does your date know you’re here?”
“Yes. He encouraged me to come,” she insisted.
“What’s he paying you?”
“Two thousand.”
Escort, as I’d already assumed.
“This your usual work?”
Her cheeks turned pink. “First time.”
Fuck.
Under the hazy light, the smooth planes of her body made her look like a statue. Something that might break if you dropped it.
…and how I longed to watch her fall. Shatter.
“How’s he going to feel about me fucking you on his time?”
“It can be your time if you want.”
I did.
My desire reared up, surprising me. It’d been a few weeks since I’d taken a woman. I didn’t fuck anyone twice, which made finding new conquests a challenge.
I crooked a finger at her to come closer. She did, taking the invitation to put her arms around my neck and try to kiss me. I stopped her with a finger against her swollen lips.
“You have to do everything I ask you to.”
“Anything you want,” she promised, eager.
I leaned in.
“I said everything,” I repeated, allowing her to see the meaning in my eyes, the darkness that roiled within, mere inches from the surface at all times.
She flinched and her black-rimmed eyes fluttered, but she maintained eye contact. I ghosted my fingers over her nipples and they hardened under my fingertips.
“No safe words, no limits. You do not tell me no,” I said, speaking every word as clearly as possible, so there was no way she might misunderstand me.
Her breathing hitched as I twisted a nipple between my fingers, testing her pain tolerance.
“Do you understand?”
“I understand,” she said, her voice reduced to a timid squeak.
“The masks stay on. When we’re finished you will never return to Delirium.”
That got the cogs turning. Her blue irises shifted back and forth as she considered how much she wanted me to fuck her; whether it was worth losing out on long-term income.
“Fifty thousand,” I added. “That’s my offer.”
Her eyes widened. “For fifty thousand, you can do whatever you want to me.”
I grinned wickedly and released her, motioning for her to follow me toward the entrance, out to the security and cloakroom area. My men disregarded her, looking to me. Waiting for orders.
“Have her sign my personal NDA. Make sure she pays special attention to the list. Then have her brought to the courtyard. Blindfolded,” I instructed.
The girl paled. “Why do I need to sign something? I already signed the NDA to enter with Mr. Haggerty.”
“This is a different kind of contract, love,” I told her. “Protects us both.”
Her brows furrowed. “In case of what?”
“Lots of things.”
…accidental death among them.
My men nodded, taking her by the arms to lead her to the little office where she’d sign away her soul to the devil for one night.