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As first dates go, it was hands down, best ever, and it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized he hadn’t made another date with me, nor had he said a word about ever calling me again.
Chapter Five
Spoiler—he didn’t call.
I called Billy, who hadn’t heard anything from him, and said his Dom hadn’t either. He had a million questions for me about how it went, but I tried to dodge them. I didn’t think Michael would want me to talk about it. He had my number, so I hoped he might text again, but I didn’t hear from him. Every time the phone dinged over the next few days I ran to check it, but it was never him.
And that, as they say, was that.
Fast forward six months and Billy quit the restaurant to live with his boyfriend full time. As people do, we promised to keep in touch, but we didn’t. I left school at the end of that semester. I lost my job at Gio’s when they hired a new manager who thought I looked young and asked for my birth certificate. Since I was too young to work as a bartender, I just went home “to get it” and never went back.
But I was out of money, and I hated the idea of taking out more student loans. I had bounced around way too much, trying first one major and then another, and I discovered there wasn’t much I could do with my credits at that point. I’d have to stay in school another two years before I could graduate, but I was so deeply in debt I couldn’t. I was tired of it all, so I finally gave up and decided to just get a full-time job and start my life.
I was sick of school to be honest. My friends told me I’d never go back if I quit. My friends told me I should never have skipped around taking all those unrelated classes. My friends were just full of advice, it seemed, but none of it helped one damn bit.
I decided to ignore all of them and follow my own plan—to work a while and maybe earn enough to put a few dollars away for things like tuition later on. I’d developed the really bad habit of eating regularly too, so I had to find a job pretty quickly. I wanted a job I’d enjoy and that I didn’t dread going to every day if I could find one. And I made the decision to do all that near a beach somewhere, if at all possible, because that was my favorite place in the world, and if I had to work anyway, I might as well work in paradise.
I got a job for the next few months in a grocery store, just enough to barely get by. Finally, my birthday rolled around and I decided to make my move.
It wasn’t that major a move, really, since I already lived in Florida. I went online on various websites to search for jobs in south Florida, where my favorite beaches were, and luckily, I found just the kind of job I was looking for, tending bar in a nightclub in Ft. Lauderdale. I quickly applied, and the manager who contacted me through Zoom for an interview told me the salary, which was good, and the tips, which were great. He told me straight up that they’d had some trouble finding experienced bartenders and then keeping them in the position in the past.
The reason may have been the kind of bar it was. Lucifer’s Den in Ft. Lauderdale was an impressive place on the inside and out, but it was also a gay nightclub and had multiple floors—the job I was specifically interviewing for was in the huge basement that was set up like a dungeon.
It was strictly a BDSM club. There were lots of gays in South Florida, but I could see why the management might have had trouble finding just the right person in the current political climate all over the state. The managers didn’t want any sightseers or people who might be there for the wrong reasons. That’s what the bar manager told me anyway.
The club was quiet on the day I went for my in-person interview. I had pulled the plug and loaded up my stuff in my buddy’s car and paid him to drive me to Ft. Lauderdale. I figured I’d fully commit to this and hope the universe saw it my way.
I found a cheap motel that you paid for by the week well off the beach and took the bus to the club. The club was right across the street from the water, and it was really upscale and nice. I took a deep breath and went in. The interior of Lucifer’s Den was dark and decadent and definitely modern. The first thing I noticed on the day I went there was that people in the Den were already in various stages of undress and it was only late afternoon. There was a lot of bondage gear and leather shorts that were barely even worthy of the name. And if that was how it was at this time of day. I thought it must get a little wild later on, after dark.
The manager came out to greet me when I arrived and showed me around. At the very front of the club was a small reception area where guests were checked in, and anyone who wasn’t a member of the club was limited in their ability to see what was happening inside the main room. The bar itself had tables and chairs, as well as lounging areas out in front so people could sit and talk, and it was totally separated from the “play areas” which had all the BDSM equipment you could ever imagine. There were also private dungeon rooms, with dungeon masters in charge, monitoring various screens to make sure everything going on inside the rooms was safe and consensual.
As to what that might be, it generally depended on the theme for that night. There was even a large loft area that had an entrance off the reception area and belonged strictly to the Littles. It had solid walls to protect privacy, and no one could see into it unless you climbed the stairs. There was a large window overlooking the floor below that had curtains you could pull. Eventually, the manager told me, someone always came over to pull the curtains over the glass on the front door too. I was fascinated by that room.
The manager at the club believed in cross training where possible, though no one but experienced Doms were allowed to fill the Dungeon Master positions. People like me, though, were asked to work an occasional shift at the front desk, checking people in, or in the other rooms, keeping them straightened up after someone had been using them. I might even be expected to valet park some evenings. All that was fine with me, and the bar supervisor, Toby, seemed to like the way I looked. He told me I’d probably do pretty well in tips.
He showed me around and took me inside the Littles room, which was empty—he made sure before he let me in—and it was large and spacious, with plenty of soft lighting and big sofas and cushy chairs scattered around. There were rugs on the floor near some toy boxes and even a large screen TV. Off the main room was a smaller one with a couple of big, padded tables and some lockers against the walls. I assumed it was the changing room, maybe even literally. I was curious about it, but it made me a little uncomfortable to be in there. Maybe it was too close to home.
It wasn’t the idea of Littles. I had my own kinks when it came to that. But I kept mine strictly private. I think it could have been that some aspects of what went on in that room seemed way too appealing. The dressing up and the toys and the coloring looked peaceful and soothing. And having a Daddy taking care of you…that was everything. I also knew it was something that would never happen for me, so I just tried not to dwell on it.
As for the other BDSM sections of the club, I didn’t mind them, though I didn’t have any interest. Despite my one experience with Michael—something I still thought about from time to time—I didn’t think that lifestyle was my scene. Michael had been the big draw for me that night and not what he’d done to me. I still didn’t like pain.
Anyway, it was a well-run club from what I’d seen, and I thought the job would work out great for me. Not only did I really need the extra cash from the tips, but I was also as gay as a pride parade. Not kinky, or not in the same way, but at least I’d tried to be once. And I admit I was still fascinated by a lot of it.
I spoke to the bartender who was working, and he said that some guys stopped in after work for a drink or just to have dinner. As for the bartender himself, he wore dark pants with the club logo on the front pockets. No shirt, but I didn’t mind that. It was an extra incentive for me to keep eating healthy and keep my tan going.
The manager gave me the job and I was thrilled. I thought maybe I would finally be able to get my life going.
Over the next week or so, I found a tiny, cheap apartment a few blocks from the beach, and started work at the Den. I loved it from the start.
I spent a lot of my free time during the day and my days off in the sun. Every morning, I ran on the beach and then went for a swim in the ocean and let the sun dry me off. It was like living in paradise, just like I’d thought it would be.
If you didn’t mind the sketchy section of town my apartment was in, it had its perks. It was small, so I didn’t have a lot to do at home. It was on the bus line, and considering I didn’t know the streets all that well, and I sure wasn’t used to the high volume of traffic, I used the bus to get back and forth to my job every day and saved money on a car.
I was a little lonely, but then again, my interests had always been pretty much a secret from my friends, requiring me to maintain a little distance.
After I’d been working at Lucifer’s a few months, I came to realize that people liked all kinds of things I’d never even imagined, and that was okay. My kink didn’t have to be somebody else’s, and vice versa. But still, I couldn’t shake the idea that my particular quirk was a little out there on the fringe, and I was embarrassed by it. Then one night I had to go upstairs with a mop to clean up a spill in the Littles room and I discovered that what I had thought of as so weird was actually kind of mild in the Littles world.
There were guys there wearing diapers and drinking out of bottles. There were also guys I could identify with more, who wore pajamas like the ones I’d ordered off Amazon and had teddy bears and were playing with toys.
