Affairs Of A Wicked Heart

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

“Diva, I don’t know that I can.”

“Honey, you can’t miss this one. I’ve had him personally, can vouch for his character. You’ll love him.”

Not the way I love that other man, she thinks to herself. “It’s just not a good time. Armando has this family thing I really should do with him. He gets lonely.”

Diva’s annoyed. “Why do you stay with him,” she drones, “that’s what I don’t understand?”

Lana shrugs with the phone crooked between her cheek and shoulder while she tugs on a pair of stockings and attaches them to the black garters dangling off her hips. She’ll wear her short grey skirt and a pink silk blouse with a black bra underneath. Armando will approve of the modest look and so will his relatives.

“He keeps me sane. And I really do love him. I do.”

Diva chuckles. “I don’t really understand you. You don’t have the heart to be a good w***e…”

“I’m not a w***e. I just meet men…”

“That want to pay for what you give them.”

“But it’s not s*x. It’s scenes,” she pauses, rethinking her last several assignments. “It’s normally not s****l, but that really doesn’t matter. Why are you upset anyway? You’re getting your cut.”

“You sit on the fence, Night-Myth, a little too choosy for this business.”

“That’s just the point. I don’t do it because I need the money. I want the thrills.”

“Yes, we have argued the point before. But all this is off the subject. You have to see this one, darling. It’s a dinner arrangement. You won’t be disappointed.”

“I can’t, Diva.”

“Yes, Lana, you can. You will.” There’s a determination in her voice that Lana rarely hears. It speaks to the submissive woman in her soul. An order. A command. The definitive word that suddenly turns her body robotic, ruled by things outside her, by Masters and Mistresses and their ruthless power aimed to control her. Her body flames, the passions start.

“Just dinner?” She feels her resolve unwind.

“Dinner at six. You can be out of there by seven-thirty. It’s a different assignment, but you’re the only one I trust to pull it off.”

Lana is surprised by the trendy, fast-paced restaurant; it hardly seemed a choice for the kind of activity she expects. She enters without a clue about what will happen. That is not unusual; in fact, that is the norm for these kinds of things, unless she knows her clients from previous scenes. But Diva hasn’t given her anything more than the name of the restaurant. That was all she needed, her Domme told her.

If someone had told her three years before that she’d be moonlighting with S&M favors for aspiring Masters, she would have laughed in their faces, or blushed crimson from the thought…

She discovered S&M and other tawdry s*x acts quite by accident, while thumbing through the Personal Ads in the local newspaper. Looking for some titillation in her life, she chose what sounded like a decent man, looking for a decent time. He was reasonably attractive, but relatively non-descript in character. She hardly remembered him the day after their meeting, just his name, Gary; but she’d never forget what their simple date inspired. After dinner, they spent an hour walking through a quaint city neighborhood, revealing the pertinent details of their lives in casual conversation. A little restless from their dreary attempts to be interesting, they stopped at a club, Bella’s Underground, a semi-trashy, semi avant-garde bar frequented by the after-theatre crowd and the leather community. Dressed as if they were at a church social, the pair stood out like Brad and Janet in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Regardless of the unspoiled picture they created, Lana was inexplicably drawn to the leather—the smell intoxicating, the feel of one man’s leather pants against her leg made her cream her cotton panties. Gary bought drinks, one round after another, no doubt hoping to ‘get lucky’, while Lana won the attention of a burly gentleman brute named Clever. She moved off with him, leaving Gary befuddled by her surprise defection.

CleverHeHeHe kn

, a renowned Dom in the b**m scene, knew good submissive material from miles away, which made unsuspecting Lana the most genuine he’d seen in some time. She was even more attractive to him dressed in her simple black skirt and draping pink blouse than she would have been in typical scene clothes. A novice. An authentic neophyte, so green to S&M that she wouldn’t understand whips and floggers, St. Andrews crosses, the terminology of bondage and suspension, or the meaning of service, subspace, Dommes and ponygirls. Without preconceived notions or fantasies ripping her insides apart—perhaps she had the fantasy, perhaps not, but he was willing to guess that she was unaware of the scene he played in—she’d be fresh fruit ready to be plucked and served up for this pleasure, a tiny piece at a time until he had the entire meal of her—Lana at his feet in chains.

Clever was himself a ‘scene’ anomaly, who chose to dress ‘old guard’ in suits and tuxes. He had become a fixture in the underground community, and easily fit into the fringe groups and establishments from which the community drew its converts. Bella’s was a favorite haunt, just two doors down from a public dungeon—public only because there was S&M scene play going on at all hours with an audience welcome. The entrance requirements, however, were stringent and the general public was hardly invited en masse. When he suggested to this ‘find of the season’ that they move on, a slightly drunken Lana took off with him to the dungeon, despite Gary’s belated objections when he met her at the door with the intention of planning to reclaim his date. He had reasonable concern for any woman running off with a stranger, but that did not dissuade Lana Desmond. Gary was as strange to her as the gentle man in the designer suit, and he wasn’t half as appealing. She knew nothing of the world she’d enter, but she knew that there was something waiting for her, teasing, savory and sensuous.

Two blocks down, they entered the building through a sliding warehouse door. The façade of the aging structure was black—and even inkier was the murky darkness beyond it. Feeling woozy, Lana clung to Clever’s arm as they descended a steep flight of steps. He almost carried her at his side, being sure and steady himself in this atmosphere. She was taken care of by him as if he were a bodyguard, though Clever showed her only a tiny part of the underground caverns and none of the s*x play. They entered into the lounge where the leather and chains crowd sipped cokes and 7-Up and coffee, while deciding when and if and with whom to play. The activity spun senseless around the novice. Too inebriated to understand what she was seeing, she assumed the party was just another, little more kinky version of the one at Bella’s Underground. Despite that, she was aroused, her body afire and her mind racing to understand what she was seeing, yet easily getting sidetracked because she couldn’t concentrate. After another drink, she moved with Clever into a private room, where she met Diva, aka Debra Reno.

Diva was all decked out for play, wearing a long skin-tight leather skirt that opened at the back, mid-buttocks. Enough of the Domme’s crack showed to lure any eye to the awesome picture. Above the waist, she wore a leather halter with zippers at the n*****s, which for that night remained tightly zipped.

“What have you here, your little sister?” she cooed at Clever, while running the long red nail of her index finger down Lana’s cheek.

“She’s from Bella’s.”

“Humph, even Bella doesn’t do girls this saintly.”

“She was on a date.”

“I see.” The haughty raven-haired mistress looked at her with startling eyes, dark as midnight piercing her heart. Her swept back hair made her small face look severe and threatening, her eyes and red lips prominent and unavoidable. Lana stared, unmoving, sobering a little more with each second that passed, though Diva was only half as intimidating as her appearance suggested. There was a delicate softness around her eyes, tiny lines that spelled her age, and honest affection coming from them. “What are you planning to do with her?”

“Train her,” Clever replied.

“Really.” She looked directly at Lana. “Did you want to be trained?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“I didn’t think so. Go sit down over there while I talk to your man.” She pointed to a stool by the wall.

Unthinkingly, Lana obeyed. Objecting was the last thing on her mind, and she was still too drunk to appraise the situation rationally.

While the pair conversed, Lana waited. Then they turned to her, Diva speaking, “You have no clue why you’re here or what we do, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Then you wouldn’t know if you like what we are.”

“I’m only confused,” she answered meekly.

“That’s an honest reply. What if I told you this was all about s*x?”

Lana felt a hot blush rise on her cheek.

“That it’s about power, submission and kinky things like bondage, whips and canes?”

“I don’t know,” she spoke softly, responding honestly.

“It’s pretty ballsy of Clever to pick you out of a crowd without telling you want he wants. Don’t you think?”

Clever remained smirking off to the side, pacing, waiting for Diva to say her piece.

“Most guys eventually want s*x,” Lana replied. “I already know that. I’m not a prissy church girl if that’s what you think.”

“What if I were tell you that right through that door,” she pointed behind her, “there are men and women stripped, gagged, blindfolded and tied up so they can’t move. They are tortured, whipped and f****d in the ass?” She waited but there was no immediate answer from the stunned Lana. “What if I were to tell you that these surrendering souls think of themselves as slaves—that they thrive on humiliation, wet their pants over the chance to bare themselves before a crowd of voyeurs and demonstrate their humility? Would that turn your stomach, or excite you, girl?” Diva waited. “Well? What would it do to you?” she prompted her impatiently, as Lana tried to form some intelligent response.

“Probably both,” she finally said.

Diva smiled, warming her austere face even more. Her eyes lighted with greater interest.

“And you like Clever?”

Lana stared up at him. Beginning to float out of her drunken stupor, she looked more critically at the man who’d led her away from Gary. “He seems nice enough. Interesting.”

“Oh, but he’s not a nice man, little one. He’s a hellish brute in love with pain sluts. He says he wants to train you? He’d like to start by caging you for a week to make you humble. Depriving you of food, making you toilet through a hole in the floor, crawling everywhere on collar and leash as if your feet were unable to carry you. Still interested?” She posed the question with eyebrows gloriously raised to great heights on her high forehead.

“I might be,” Lana answered evenly.

Diva turned to Clever. “Impressive. You might have a real subbie here. She’s pretty too, and that body. Damn, I’d like to sell it.” She turned back to Lana, swaggering and sure of herself. “Humph. You don’t belong here, princess. You go home now where it’s safe. I’ll call you a taxi,” she said, looking despondent. “Forget this place, forget you ever stepped foot in this neighborhood. Think of our little haven for the decadent as a nice adventure for your scrapbook, honey. In time, you’ll hardly remember you were here; it’ll be just some vague memory to haunt you every now and then. That’s the way it should be.”

Lana didn’t understand her. Her head was nearly clear, but her body was raw, almost painful with pent-up s****l feelings.

“You forget us, forget Clever’s mistake…” she paused, her lips becoming a tantalizing smirk. Caught in Diva’s imperious gaze, Lana couldn’t look away. The woman mutated fast from dismissing her to a seductive come-on…“that is unless you can’t forget,” even her voice becoming more sensuous. “That might just happen. Your memory might not be vague at all. What you feel could be vivid and scary, but something you can’t avoid. If it’s like that, honey, you call me.”

Diva moved to her side, grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. Escorting her up a short flight of stairs to the street, she handed her a card and then pushed her toward a waiting taxi that seemed to have stopped just for her. “Just forget, darling,” Diva continued her in her sensuous singsong as Lana closed the door, “just forget.”

Clever dropped out of sight shortly after that night, but Diva took Lana under her wing. It was only days, not even a week before the novice was calling her to ask about Bella’s and the underground dungeon and all the warning messages she’d been given. Lana rocked on her hands m**********g what seemed like hourly, to the extreme images as her head swirled with remnants of that night. She had to go back because nothing made much sense to her. She had pictures in her head, but had no idea if they were the right ones, or what the right ones were. With her computer hard drive crashed there was no getting on the Internet for answers or pictures or explanations she knew were there, locked inside pages and pages of smut she’d avoided, under the assumption that they were for perverts. She thought she understood what Diva told her, but the information was so vague, so fragmented that it rattled around in her head, leaving her dazed, driven by what she couldn’t comprehend.