With his juiced-up fingers, he spends an idle moment or two twiddling Kiki’s nipples while she strains piteously against her bonds.
‘Now, Kiki, you’ve gone and disgraced yourself in front of our audience again, getting horny when you’re meant to be informing and educating. Tut-tut. I guess that means I’ll have to whip you. Now, I’m going to untie you, then you turn around so I can fasten you again, OK?’
She can hardly argue with him, mouth stuffed with silicone, but she seems happy to comply, turning obediently when her buckles are undone.
As the dom fiddles with straps, I hazard a shy glance up at Dimitri, whose eyes have darkened in fascination. His hand appears to have come to rest on my hip and he is closer to me, almost holding me against him, like a lover would.
He breaks his gaze and swivels it in my direction. ‘What do you think?’ he asks.
‘What do I think? What do you mean?’
‘This is interesting to you? You feel it makes you hot?’
I laugh nervously. The ambient temperature of this dungeon is rather cold, but I hadn’t noticed until he mentioned it. ‘It’s interesting, of course. Hard not to be interested in girls strapped to crosses getting flogged. It’s like an old Hammer horror movie.’
‘But it don’t make you hot?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Really? You think?’
He grimaces, as if I’ve mortally offended him, and his attention reverts to Kiki, whose plump rounded arse now faces us. Another stranger’s bare bum in my sights – how many more can I expect to see tonight?
The whip is applied to back and bottom, covering her skin with fascinating line drawings until the lines begin to fill and she is a mass of raised welts.
She doesn’t utter a single cry.
‘Why is she so quiet?’ I ask Dimitri.
He shrugs. ‘Well training, I think. Is nice effect with the whip, I like.’
The dom steps back and drops the whip. ‘Now, this particular cross,’ he says, somewhat hoarsely, ‘has a special extra feature.’ He puts a hand on the external wheel and spins. Kiki’s body performs one whole revolution. ‘It spins. My colleague Ricardo and his submissive Jared are going to show you how you can utilise this to best effect – I’m not quite the expert with a bullwhip I’d like to be, so I’m handing over to him now.’
Unexpectedly, the spinning bullwhip demonstration provides an oasis of relief in my desert of squirmy arousal. It’s too circus-act-like to turn me on and my clit returns to normal dimensions, breath speeding from my lungs as if released from long incarceration. All the same, it’s fascinating to watch and I bite my lip on Jared’s behalf, watching the welts rise across his pale flesh.
‘Would you whip men as well as women?’ I ask Dimitri. ‘In your new career?’
‘Sure, why not? An ass is an ass, right?’
‘And would you offer sexual favours too?’
‘No, I don’t offer sex. Just domination, right? Maybe I fuck somebody with a dildo, who knows? I think this thing through later.’ The succession of ‘th’ sounds nearly ties his tongue and he stumbles over the words, but I get their sense.
Fair enough.
We watch the show to the bittersweet end.
Jared, released from the cross, falls on to all fours and pushes his arse up for his master, but Ricardo just laughs and swats it.
‘No way, baby,’ he says. ‘Nearly time for Share a Slave, and you’re on the list, boy.’
Amid applause, he collars Jared and leads him, every inch the proud owner, out of the dungeon.
‘Share a slave, huh?’ Dimitri raises an eyebrow at me. ‘You think we can watch?’
‘Only one way to find out.’
Chapter Three
The crowd begins to turn and flow out of the dungeon, heading back up the stairs.
‘Where’s this boudoir then?’ I wonder, but obviously there is no need to ask – they will lead us there.
Many people spill back into the café but others ascend to the upper floor, where the handsome barista presides with a clipboard in front of a door plastered in flock wallpaper and decorated with obscene cherubs.
‘Sorry, guest list only,’ he tells us. ‘Our multi-partner events are limited to thirty ticket holders. There’s another one next month, if you want to sign up.’
‘Is some kind of orgy?’ Dimitri asks.
‘Some kind of.’ The barista smiles. ‘The café is still open, with a licensed bar, if you want to carry on socialising.’
‘OK, thanks.’
‘So that’s that,’ I say, once we are back in the café. ‘Kinky Cupcake in a nutshell. Or a cake wrapper.’