Inside the club it was crowded, noisy and dark. The pounding music made Jessica feel as though they’d stepped inside the body of a living animal, the bass line of the music its heartbeat, the people the rushing tide of blood cells. It was a familiar scene to her, and yet it wasn’t. While some of the trappings were the same, there was a different tone she managed to identify, enough to latch on to it and use it to bolster her courage.

“Everything you are seeing is consensual.” Amara’s reminder, spoken loudly in her ear, was as if the woman had read her mind, and maybe she had.

Past the foyer, they stepped into a wide corridor, lined with St. Andrew’s crosses. It reminded her of a life-sized paper doll chain, like the ones she’d cut in grade school, trying to remember where to make the snips so she didn’t cut the chain apart. The crosses were in use, a place for Masters and Mistresses to restrain their slaves and display them for the touch of others if they chose.

Amara’s fingers stroked hers, soothing and anticipating.

Jessica did feel the fear rising, held by the thinnest of leashes. But Amara and Enrique were here with her, and somewhere in the crowd was Mason, his presence as much a thrum through her body as the pounding music.

She’d been the kind of child who hated to be afraid. She was the first to climb the too-tall tree, run her bike up the makeshift ramp to do the wheelie that could crack her skull. She’d take any schoolyard dare, not because the dare was issued, but because if it caused her a scrap of fear, she was determined to eradicate it. Facing the fear let her see past it, to what mattered.

Whenever too much of the animal in Mason came to the surface, he denied himself to bring it in check. While there was wisdom to that, because she did understand the savagery in his nature, she wanted to face his beast. She needed to know the unique nature of it. Otherwise, she was back in the schoolyard again, denying herself a wondrous mystery if she didn’t stand before it, slay her fear and embrace that beast.

The thought gave her the courage to plant her feet and stare down her fear, hovering over this corridor. She held the word consensual in both hands, willing herself to believe what Mason and his servants had been telling her for over two months. After all, it was the primary rule of the club, posted clearly in each section, illuminated by black light. Consensual play only. Guests who violate this rule, in the opinion of management, will be escorted from the premises and their membership revoked. No exceptions.

So bolstered by internal and external reassurances, she gave herself permission to look. Really look. On the first St. Andrew’s cross a woman had been stripped naked and spread wide, facing the crowd. Her Master was teasing her sex with fingers glistening with her juices while her head thrashed. Her mouth opened, releasing cries lost in the noise, but that didn’t make them any less potent. Her fingers clutched against her bonds, and when he stepped onto the dais provided to reach her face, she sought his mouth eagerly, taking the kiss he awarded her, his hand cupping the back of her head.

On the next cross, a male slave was manacled and facing away from the crowd, his Mistress caning him with brisk strokes, leaving red stripes on his tight ass and upper thighs. But then she had water brought and gave it to him herself, stroking his throat as he swallowed. Her fingernails scraped over his erection, an impressive reflection of his pleasure in serving her.

Because she’d been conditioned to arouse and climax against her will, under extremes of humiliation and pain, Jessica knew the difference in what she was seeing. The next four were similar to the first two. One Master had chained his sub upside down and was having her deep-throat his cock, his thighs and testicles pressed flush against her face. He’d opened his trousers but not dropped them, so as a Master he was not on bare-assed display before observers, but his sizable organ, revealed when he withdrew and pushed back in, was slick with her saliva as she worked him. As his buttocks clenched rhythmically with his thrusting, her breasts quivered with her enthusiastic efforts. Jessica drew an unsteady breath, remembering the night she’d wanted to go on her knees, put her mouth on Mason there.

When she at last nodded, indicating she was ready to move on, Amara squeezed her hand, a flash of approval in her eyes. The next visual was a glass wall, behind which different scenes were played out in rooms where the Dominant wished the activity to be viewed. A Victorian maid being spanked by her irritated Master, a Roman gladiator taking control of his Christian slave, who was more than willing to do anything to save his life . . .

She was doing well. However, like the night on the beach when she’d tried the somersault before her body was ready, she realized her mind and body were giving her signs of overload. Her heart was pounding erratically and she was getting dizzy. She was becoming more aware of the attention of passing men, the crawl of their gazes over her flesh. It really was too crowded in this viewing corridor. A shudder, a need to move faster, swept through her.

Easy, habiba . Amara and Enrique will take you to the dance floor now.

He was here, and as usual, he spoke just when she needed to hear his voice. But damn it, she could handle this. She dug her heels in, determined to stare at the next brace of female submissives, tied together in elaborate Japanese rope bondage and suspended, blindfolded and at the mercy of whatever their Masters inflicted upon them. She would confront that overwhelming feeling, rooted in a past she was determined to make the past. However, Amara and Enrique were implacable, their hands firm, Enrique’s strong arm taking her waist. They were too well linked with their Master, and she couldn’t stand against all three of them.

They emerged on the upper catwalk above the dance floor. As she blinked at the wholly different environment, she lost her irritation. “It’s something, isn’t it?” Amara shouted in her ear.

She realized the area through which she’d just passed had essentially been the foyer and entrance corridor of a much larger club.

The dance floor was astounding. The main floor was broken into lighted, colored squares like a graduated stained-glass window. In those lighted blocks beneath people’s feet, bodies were moving on a lower level, twisting beneath the thick glass. Naked and sometimes bound slaves, a tinted mural of erotic undulations from pane to pane. The dancers moved over them, looking down to enjoy, or giving the submissives pleasurable views in return, because Jessica was sure she wasn’t the only one without panties here.

The dance floor was flanked by scaffolding, a massive erector set crisscrossing up to the fifty-foot-high domed ceiling, an impressive feature of the club’s architecture she’d seen from the parking area. People danced along the wide scaffolds, some suspended on bars like trapeze artists, only spread-eagled, bound in secure cuffs overlaid with twisted ribbon. As they were pushed by the dancers across open space, the ribbons flowed. One woman with red hair that fell to her waist had her wrists and ankles bound on the top and bottom of one ring of a sphere of interlocking rings. She was oscillating, the hair and ribbons twining as the sphere drifted across space, up and down, like a randomly floating bubble, only on wires. When she came close enough to the scaffolding, the dancers reached over the railing and touched her freely, giving her a push to send her on another flight.

At other places on the scaffolding, where metal bars crossed, gagged and blindfolded submissives were crucified with manacles, some with vibrators strapped into their bodies so that they trembled and climaxed into the hygienic chastity belts they wore. Passing dancers were allowed to tease and fondle them. However, in every case of a bound slave, she could search the nearest bystanders and find a carefully watching Master and Mistress, or an assigned security person, attractive and discreet, but obviously there to ensure the safety of the bound and helpless person in the dense crowd of aroused, dancing clientele.

Watching it all, Jessica realized she was wet, her thighs slick against each other as she walked, her body taut, eager for . . . something. Focusing so hard on how she’d handle the club without falling apart, she hadn’t anticipated her own body’s reaction to the stimulus. Trying to accept and understand that response was almost as harrowing as trying not to fall apart. Since she hadn’t survived Raithe by rationality, she suspected it would be best to make it through tonight without it as well. Analyze later, she reminded herself.

“Want to go out and dance?” Amara had slipped her arm around Jessica’s waist, holding her securely. Enrique pressed close behind them as well, a twofold reassurance of warm, protective bodies who meant her no harm. Who would allow no harm to befall her. And in her consciousness was one who’d sworn he’d tear apart anyone who tried. Who reinforced his presence with the collar on her neck, the bracelets on her wrists. But what if she was her own worst enemy? How did she fight herself?

Jessica looked up at Amara, the dark eyes shining with pleasure and anticipation. Amara wasn’t afraid. She wore a collar, subjugated to two men. She was cherished, loved, strong. And she’d said she admired Jessica.

Jess swallowed. Nodded. “Let’s dance,” she called out.

Needing no further invitation, Amara took the lead, tugging her out into the disconcerting fray. However, with the grace and confidence of a professional dancer, she carved out a place for them in a matter of seconds. Enrique had stayed behind, but Jessica saw him take a position on the upper scaffolding where he could watch them both and secure a drink from a waitress. She wondered where Mason was in all of this. She wished the geographical locater mark was two-way, but for now she had to settle for knowing he was out there.

Amara had them dancing on a translucent blue square of glass. Beneath it, Jessica saw a slave with a muscular build. His cock was in a harness, the organ so in need of release it was almost plum-colored. He stared up at them, held in a steel and nylon suspension system. Something was fucking him from behind, obvious from how he kept pressing himself against the glass in a rhythmic manner.

His mouth was open, gasping, the eyes bright and fierce with lust. It stimulated her as well, as Amara fell casually into the pleasure of further goading him, straddling his face with her heels, shimmying her hips in those complicated belly-dancing moves that were so easy for her. She swept her hair across the square and then worked her way down into a lithe squat, swinging her hips low, giving him a close-up of her tightly encased ass and what was between her thighs.