Page 26 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

I stared at the screen. My heart was already going too fast.

I put the phone in my purse and went downstairs to wait for Janice.

She pulled up right on time wearing a deep red wrap dress, Jeep idling at the curb. I almost turned around twice on the short walk from my front door to her passenger seat. My legs felt wrong, like they were receiving instructions from somewhere that wasn't fully committed to this plan.

"You look gorgeous," Janice said as I climbed in. "Are you nervous?"

"Terrified." My fingers wouldn't cooperate with the seatbelt. I tried twice before it clicked. "I keep thinking, what if someone expects something from me? What if I see things I can't unsee?"

She patted my knee once. "Breathe. This is just a night out with your favorite bad influence. No expectations, and nobody is going to jump you. If it gets to be too much, we walk right back out the front door. I've got you."

The drive felt too short and endlessly long. Streetlights slid across the windshield in long amber streaks. Every red light made me want to ask her to turn around. Janice talked about a client who had sobbed through every session for three months and then tried to ask her out, which under any other circumstances would have made me laugh, but I could only half track it. My mind was imagining the possibilities. People staring at my outfit. Someone assuming I was there for more than watching. Someone touching me without asking. The door locked from the outside.

Stop it, I told myself. You're a doctor. You know how to be in uncomfortable rooms.

When she pulled into the small lot behind the club my stomach clenched so hard I pressed a hand against it.

The building was ordinary. Dark brick, unremarkable, no signage from the street, just a discreet black door with a small silver plaque. Private Members Club, 21+. No neon. No line of people in leather. It looked like a high-end speakeasy, or a private dining club, or any number of things it might plausibly have been.

Then I noticed the people arriving ahead of us.

A woman in a sheer black slip that left the shape of her body completely visible. A man in leather pants, bare-chested. A couple where the woman's top was, as far as I could determine, a few strategic straps performing the function of a top without quite being one.

I looked down at my midi skirt and blouse. "Are they going to laugh at me? Am I dressed completely wrong?"

Janice stopped and took both my hands. "Nobody cares what anyone is wearing. People come in jeans, people come in corsets, people come in full suits. It isn't a fashion show. You look beautiful and you look safe. That's exactly right for where you are tonight." She squeezed my hands once. "Now come on, before you talk yourself out of it, you adorable chicken."

Ricardo was waiting beside the entrance in a charcoal suit with no tie, dark hair swept back, hands easy in his pockets. He looked good. His being there should have steadied me. Instead it spiked my nerves higher, because he was the reason any of this was happening, and his presence made it real in a different way than Janice's did.

He smiled when he saw me. "You came."

"I came," I agreed, not certain I wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

"We're on the list," he said, nodding at the door. "Janice's name gets us in fast."

He pressed the buzzer. A camera lens glinted above the frame. A moment later the lock clicked and the door swung inward, releasing a current of warm, bass-heavy air and the faint smell of perfume and leather.

As we stepped inside I caught, behind the hostess station, a silver sign reading Second Circle, and then, so quick I nearly missed it, devil horns and a tail flickered in neon red above the O and were gone. A joke for people paying attention. My mouth curved despite everything.

The hostess was a woman in her late thirties in a black corset dress, with a sleek ponytail, and a professional smile. "Evening. Names?"

"Janice Patel-Campbell, plus two."

She checked a tablet and glanced at each of our faces. "Welcome back. ID check, please."

We handed over our licenses. She compared them, nodded, and reached beneath the counter.

"Rules are posted inside. No phones in play areas. No means no. Respect the space. Enjoy your evening."

She handed Ricardo and me plain black wristbands. Janice she waved through without one, and I saw why a second later in the foyer light. She wore a slim red bracelet at the wrist, matte, unmarked, the kind of thing you would never look at twice unless you knew to.

"Guests get the wristband for the night," Janice said, low, as we stepped through the curtain. "The bracelet's the members' mark. You don't ask for one. You get it when you decide you're one of us, and they decide they'll have you. And of course when you pay the outrageous fee." She tipped hers so it caught the light. "No pressure. The wristband does everything you need tonight."

I looked at the plain band on my wrist. "The wristband's fine."

The foyer was small and dim, lit deep red, black velvet curtains on three sides, a coat check to the left. The music came through the walls, slow and heavy, a bass line I felt in my sternum more than heard.

I had expected chaos. Bodies. Immediate, unavoidable, in-your-face evidence of what this place was.