AtHerCommand (3 page)

Dom followed her mentor down the staff hallway to a set of
wide double doors. Tori made no effort to open them.

“These lead to the loading dock,” the girl said in a low
voice.

Dom nodded. This was where the shipments of drugs arrived
and were stored until they could be distributed. Once Tori was safely away from
the Xecutive Branch for good, Domino would check out the loading dock. If she
located a drug shipment, she’d plant a tracking device in the crate and hope it
would lead her to the next link in the drug chain.

With Tori in the lead, they continued the journey around to
the main corridor and past doors opening onto several massage rooms. There were
also a number of private hot tub areas and a theme room or two—for those
customers who desired a detailed setting and special props.

Tori pointed out that all the club’s client rooms had two
entrances—the door off the main corridor through which the customers passed and
the one at the back of the room that led into a staff corridor. The employee
doors were designed with two-way mirrors, so staff members could monitor the
rooms from the outside.

“Sometimes, if we’re nervous about a new customer,” Tori
said, “we ask one of the bouncers to watch through the mirror to make sure the
guy’s not violent or unstable.”

Domino hid her dismay.
Violent and unstable customers?
As if dealing with murderous drug smugglers wasn’t enough.

“There are microphones in the room as well, so you’ll be
able to sit outside my room and listen to as well as watch my sessions this
evening,” Tori continued. “Then, starting tomorrow night, you should be ready
to take on a couple customers by yourself.”

Domino wanted to protest but clamped down on the words.
She’d never be truly ready for what this job required so she might as well jump
in with both feet. It wasn’t as if she were expected to sleep with her
customers after all, just to put them through their paces, so to speak.
Besides, this petite coed was handling the job, even after being grilled by the
D.C. cops most of the morning. She admired Tori for sticking to the DEA plan of
keeping mum about the drugs with the local police.

The girl stopped in front of a door marked with a large
brass number five.

“This is S&M Room Five.”

As Tori spoke, she opened the door to a submissive’s chamber
of wet dreams. Domino trailed her into the spacious room with its
leather-covered props and ominous black cabinets. Several chains dangled from
the ceiling and a wooden X-frame dominated the left wall. It looked more like
the Spanish Inquisition than a sexy fun-and-games place to her.

The room’s lights were bright but Dom spotted dimmers on the
back wall by the staff entrance. The lights would probably be lowered for most
sessions. There were also white taper candles set about the room.

Tori strode over to one of the six-feet-high cabinets and
threw open the doors. Dom gasped at the wicked assortment of whips and paddles
hanging on hooks within. She’d read about these instruments of punishment, but
the photos hadn’t prepared her for the stark reality. Walking closer, she
examined the leather implements. There were rods, crops, canes and stingers.
There were paddles with brass studs and straps with metal-trimmed cutouts.

Damn.
What had she gotten herself into? She could
just imagine a conversation with her fellow agents over a couple of brews after
she wrapped up this case.
So, Domino, how’d you hide your Glock under the
catsuit? Couldn’t without creating a telltale bulge so I had to make do with
the weapons at hand—a fraternity paddle and a cat o’ nine tails.

Shaking her head, Domino leaned closer and examined a
particularly ornate bullwhip. People actually enjoyed being on the receiving
end of these vicious implements? Reaching into the cabinet, Domino lifted a
crop off its hook and flicked it experimentally against the cabinet door. The
sharp crack made her flinch.

“You’ve got the wrist action right but your wincing ruins
the effect,” Tori joked. “You’ve got to maintain that cocky attitude the
customers expect. Tonight when you get home, practice smirking in the mirror.”
She took the crop from Domino’s hand and hung it in the cabinet. “And don’t
worry about these. There’ll be time this afternoon and tomorrow for you to
practice with the whips. But first I want to go over the rest of the room and
the toys.”

Tori opened the second black cabinet, revealing shelves of
gel, rubber and leather sex toys. Thanks to an evening spent perusing S&M
videos, Domino recognized cock rings and cages, nipple clamps and ball gags.
There were bondage toys galore, from handcuffs to leather hoods. But her eyes
were drawn to the colorful assortment of vibrators and plugs—many in improbable
shapes and implausible sizes.

Domino picked up a vibrator in the shape of a tree trunk
with a squirrel attached to its side. Flipping the switch, she watched the tree
vibrate while the squirrel’s long tongue circled in slow motion.

“Is this for nature lovers?” Dom asked.

Tori laughed. “You think that’s bad, what ’til you see their
new endangered-species line.”

Shaking her head, Dom turned off the toy and returned it to
its spot on the cabinet shelf. She scanned the rest of the toys, amazed at the
variety.

“Why so many types?” Domino wasn’t looking forward to
learning the different uses for this arsenal of sexual pleasure. Whatever
happened to good, old-fashioned, toyless lovemaking?

“Some of the customers want the same things every time but
most want to be surprised. So we need an assortment of S&M props,” Tori
said. “We keep detailed files so we know what we’ve used in the past and what
the customer wants. I’ll go over the files of my regulars with you.”

“Uh, how do you know…?” Domino hesitated, uncertain how to
phrase it. “When do you know the guy’s had enough?”

Tori smiled at Dom’s discomfort. “That’s easy. We assign
them a safe word, something the customers only use if they’re reaching their
limit.”

“Can’t the customer just say ‘stop’?”

“Actually most of them beg us to stop, but that’s part of
the game,” Tori explained. “I have my customers say ‘yellow’ if they want me to
slow down and ‘red’ if they want me to stop.”

Domino walked over to a large throne-like chair and sank
onto the soft cushion. “I feel as if I’ve fallen through a wormhole into a
parallel universe.” Domino rubbed her hands over her face. “Beam me up,
Scottie.”

Tori laughed. “It’s pretty bizarre at first but you’ll get
the hang of it. The best thing to do is try to think of it as providing a
medical service with a twist.”

“Yeah, right. Just call me Doctor Domino, the sex
therapist,” Dom said. “Okay, I guess you better finish showing me this room
before your first appointment arrives.”

Tori walked to the chair. “Well, I use the chair you’re
sitting in for my foot fetish customers.”

Domino jumped up as if the chair were scalding hot.

Tori giggled. “They don’t sit there—I do. I like being
comfortable while they worship my toes.”

Domino groaned. What had she done to deserve this
assignment? Did she really want the assistant director job this much? Sure, her
career was everything, but toe worshipping?

“The ladder-back chair over there is for my spanking
customers,” Tori continued. “My four o’clock is one of them.”

Tori walked to the staff door at the back of the room,
opened it and took a file out of the bin attached to the outside wall. She
carried the file back and showed Domino the contents.

“I nickname my clients so I can keep them straight. My first
appointment is Baby Bob,” Tori said. “He brings his mother’s silver hairbrush
and wants to be spanked and diapered.”

Domino had an overwhelming urge to put her hands over her
ears and hum
really
loud until Tori was finished with her recitation.
Instead she simply groaned again.

The girl stopped talking and looked at her. “Hey, he’s one
of my easier customers.”

“I have to diaper a grown man?”

“Yep, complete with baby powder,” Tori said, grinning at
Dom’s disgust. “But if he asks to suck your breasts, just tell him he’s been a
bad boy and give him his bottle instead.”

Dom swallowed the hysterical urge to giggle. While her
coworkers were out infiltrating street gangs, she’d be playing surrogate mother
to some wealthy deviant with an infantile obsession. That would make for an
interesting tale the next time she was swapping war stories on a stakeout.
Did
I ever tell you how I broke up a multimillion-dollar drug ring with a bottle of
baby powder and an adult diaper?

Tori walked over to a piece of leather furniture that
resembled a well-padded sawhorse. Dom noticed hand and ankle cuffs attached to
its widespread legs.

“This appropriately is called a horse.” Tori stroked the
padded surface. “We use it a lot. It comes in real handy for whippings as well
as other customer favorites.”

Tori’s words conjured up vivid images from Dom’s S&M
moviefest. How could people think these things were sexy?

“Pony Paul,” Tori continued, “one of my regulars, likes to
wear a bridle—”

Dom held up her hand in a traffic cop gesture. “Please tell
me you gave that client to one of the others,” she begged.

Tori grinned. “I figured some of the padded horse work was
probably a little more ‘up close and personal’ than you wanted to get. So Angi
and Ellen are handling the regulars with those kinks.”

“You have my eternal gratitude.” Dom’s relief was palpable.
Then she pointed to the black futon in the corner. “What’s the futon for?”

“Well, some customers try to earn the right to pleasure
their counselor,” Tori began. “If they perform well, you can reward them by
allowing them to…well, orally please you.”

“What?”
Dom didn’t want these crazies touching her
with their hands, much less their tongues.

“Don’t worry,” Tori hurried to reassure her. “Just make sure
you find fault with their performance. That way, they never earn those rights.
If you feel like rewarding any of them, let them masturbate at the end of the
session.”

“Oh. My. God.” Dom moaned, wishing she could sit down but
unwilling to touch any surface in the room now. What type of nightmare karma
had resulted in her being the agent on this case? Had she broken a hundred
mirrors in a past life? Pissed off a guardian angel? Rankled some genie?

“The stainless steel table is for customers who like the
nurse examination fantasy,” the girl said. “Many of our customers are into
role-playing of some kind. You’ll get to see some of them this evening. You can
also check out any of Angi’s and Ellen’s sessions.”

Domino’s mind swam. Could she call in sick her first week on
this job?

“These items are for hanging or tying the customers before a
whipping.” Tori pointed out the X-frame and the dangling chains.

Domino nodded, thinking these were the most straightforward
furnishings in this Marquis de Sade-decorated chamber. She prayed that tomorrow
when she stepped into Tori’s shoes, she’d be able to satisfy her customers with
a little time on the X-frame or the chains. Maybe she could apply the KISS
method—Keep It Simple, Submissive.

Tori glanced at her watch. “I better get masked and gloved.
It’s almost four o’clock.”

Domino walked to the employee entrance and opened the door.
The chair placed outside the entrance would afford her a clear view through the
two-way mirror.

With an “A-okay” sign to Tori, Dom closed the door and
settled into the chair. Hell, she’d just told her first sign language lie. She
was far from A-okay. She might never be A-okay again. But she had too many
years invested in the agency to let some pain-loving perverts force her off
this case. She straightened her spine and stared resolutely through the mirror.
Let the games begin.

Chapter Three

So Many Deviants, So Little Time.

The plaque hanging over the coffee machine in the Xecutive
Branch’s employee lounge failed to make Domino smile. In ten minutes she was
due in S&M Room Five for her first solo session with a submissive and her
stomach was doing cartwheels. She told herself this was just another undercover
job, but how often did a DEA agent dress like a Frederick’s of Hollywood model?

Refusing to look down at the leather dominatrix getup
hugging her body like a second skin, Dom leaned back on the lounge’s sofa and
tried some deep-breathing exercises. Less than two days’ apprenticeship with
Mistress Tori wasn’t nearly long enough to prepare her for the club’s warped
clientele. With her luck, she’d probably get a real challenge for her first
solo client.

Would it be someone like Baby Bob? Domino shuddered. Or
maybe Whiny Wayne, who wanted to worship his mistress’s feet? She glanced at
her spike-heeled, patent-leather sandals and her red-polished toenails, visible
through the sheer black stockings. Thank goodness she’d let Tori talk her into
a pedicure. If she had to have strange men touching her feet, her toes might as
well look good.

Beginning to hyperventilate, Dom attempted the
stress-reduction visualization she’d learned during her DEA torture training.
She tried to picture herself relaxing on a beach with a pina colada and a
muscle-bound male admirer. Instead, she flashed back to that horrible day in
third grade when as a walk-on in the school play she’d forgotten her lines in a
fit of stage fright and thrown-up on the lead actor. For years afterward,
several of her classmates had called her “Vominique” instead of “Dominique”.

“
Dammit.
” With a surge of self-disgust, Dom shot off
the couch and paced the room.
You can do this. You’re not an eight-year-old.

Sure, this wasn’t her typical assignment, but she was a good
agent. No matter what she had to do—or wear—she was going to bust this drug
operation wide open. And since she couldn’t search for the drugs if she were
fired from the club, she had to suck it up.

Okay, poor choice of words but it was time to get serious.
She wasn’t going to let the agency down, even if it meant she had to whip a few
wimps or grind a few submissives under her heel. Teeth gritted in
determination, she pulled on her elbow-length leather gloves and headed to
S&M Room Five. Mistress Bella was going to kick some ass.

* * * * *

“I’m sorry, but Counselor Tori is no longer with us. Can
someone else help you?”

Dalton looked at the reserved young woman sitting behind the
glass-and-chrome desk in the elegant reception area. At first glance, both the
furnishings and the receptionist looked as if they belonged in an affluent law
firm, not a D.C. sex club. But given the Xecutive Branch’s rich and often
famous clientele—from politicians and diplomats to the upper management of
local high-tech and defense firms—Dalton shouldn’t have been surprised by the
opulence of the décor.

In fact, he’d designed his own cover story—introducing
himself as the owner of a thriving security firm—to fit the expectations of the
club’s screeners. And they’d accepted his application and his check with few
questions. As Jason’s beneficiary, Dalton had been able to pull together enough
cash to pay the insane amount they wanted for annual dues. But if it led him to
Jason’s killers, the twenty-five grand would be money well spent. He couldn’t
let the murderers get away.

The receptionist awaited his answer with a sweet, patient
smile. It was hard to believe this petite blonde with her professional attitude
was scheduling customers for sexual appointments with the club’s “counselors”.

Dalton cleared his throat. “My friend told me to ask for
Tori. She’s…he said she was the best.”

The receptionist’s smile broadened. “I’m sure you’ll be
pleased with any of our counselors, sir.” She checked her desk calendar.
“Counselor Bella is taking Tori’s appointments.” Looking up, she reassured him,
“Although she’s new, Counselor Bella has been schooled to meet your every need.
And she’s the only counselor able to take you tonight without an appointment.”

Unwilling to postpone this first hurdle in his mission to
find Jason’s killers, Dalton nodded. “Counselor Bella will be fine. Thank you.”

Despite his years working undercover for the Metro Police,
Dalton had to fight down the dread threatening to twist his gut into knots.
This wasn’t exactly his typical case, he mentally rationalized, as the
receptionist buzzed for an attendant to take him to S&M Room Five.

The baldheaded body-builder in the white uniform who arrived
resembled a nightclub bouncer. Sparing him a cursory glance, the attendant
accepted a clipboard containing Dalton’s club application then silently led him
down the carpeted hallway past several numbered doors. Dalton couldn’t hear
anything from these rooms, which were probably sound-proofed.

Despite the air-conditioning, he was sweating by the time
they stopped in front of Room Five. Using an electronic card, the attendant
opened the door and gestured for him to follow. Once inside, the man closed the
door and muttered, “Wait here.” Turning, the body-builder crossed the room and
left through a rear entrance. Dalton was alone.

The room was everything his partner had described in his
journal and worse—a stainless steel table with stirrups, a wooden rack, a
padded sawhorse and two open cabinets displaying whips and sex toys Dalton
didn’t want to contemplate. He focused instead on a journal passage about the
pleasure Jason had received in this room.

Jesus, I’m getting hooked on Tori. It feels so good to
give up control, not to have to be the tough guy for once. At the end of the
session, I’m finally allowed to climax. It’s an orgasm so intense, so
prolonged, it’s indescribable.

How could the whippings and other abuse Jason had described
be pleasurable? Sure, Dalton was curious about the whole scene, but no way in
hell would he have sought out Mistress Tori to satisfy that curiosity. Men were
meant to be dominant and no macho cop worth his salt would willingly give up
control. But he’d do whatever it took to avenge Jason.

I’ll treat this as if it’s a big joke
, Dalton
decided. Some campy fun with a stranger
.
After all, he’d been beaten-up
by gang members, shot by a robber and even “interrogated” by a drug dealer. He
could handle a little kinky role-playing. No matter what Mistress Bella did,
he’d stay focused on the job. All that mattered was finding Jason’s killers.

* * * * *

“Holy cannoli.”
Domino spit out her Italian
grandmother’s favorite curse when she saw who awaited her. From her spot
outside the employees’ entrance to S&M Room Five, she observed her first
client through the two-way mirror. The guy was huge. He looked like a refugee
from the World Wrestling Entertainment, not some wimp who got his jollies being
dominated.

A nervous laugh escaped her. Heck, she’d need a stepladder
to “top” this man. With trepidation, Dom watched the intimidating client stalk
around the room, examining the different bondage machines and discipline
instruments.

He had to be close to six-five with the impressive shoulders
and chest of a linebacker. There was an arrogance and overt maleness about this
man that had been lacking in the clientele she’d witnessed as Tori’s
apprentice.
Damn.
The butterflies in Domino’s stomach were now competing
with sexual appreciation.

She could count the number of lovers she’d had on one
hand—okay, three fingers—but she was a sucker for large, muscular men.
Get a
grip.
If this man was here as an S&M client, he couldn’t be her type.
Besides, she wasn’t exactly free to walk up to him and say, “I’m not really a
dominatrix, you see, but your friendly, neighborhood DEA agent. Would you like
to do dinner sometime?” So Dom ignored her instant attraction and took an
objective look at her client.

The man stopped in front of the cabinet holding the
vibrators and other sexual paraphernalia. A daunting scowl darkened his face
and made it difficult to determine if he was as attractive as Domino had first
thought. The fleece-lined handcuffs in particular seemed to capture his
attention.

He appeared to want to touch the items but kept his large
hands curled into fists at his sides. Hmmm, self-disciplined. In a few minutes,
she’d take over that job.
Right.
She was supposed to dominate this
hulking male? Suddenly Baby Bob didn’t seem so unappealing.

Concentrate. You can do this.
Domino forced herself
to start the process she’d been taught, beginning with the clipboard the
attendant had handed her. The client was a company president identified as
“Dalton C.” An initial versus a last name was the club’s way of protecting the
not-so-innocent. According to the paperwork, this session was the man’s first
time at the club so his specific “needs” had yet to be established. Apparently
Mr. C. wanted a walk on the wild side.

She glanced through the mirror again. The man, who looked in
his mid-thirties, was now studying the arm and leg restraints attached to the
padded horse. Light eyes, possibly a steely blue, stared out of a granite-jawed
face that needed a shave. His crooked nose had seen a few punches in its day,
she’d bet, and his full lips were unsmiling. Conservative, expensive clothes—a
short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants—accommodated his build but he’d skipped
socks with his loafers. A dichotomy, professional and rebel, from his toes to
the reddish-brown hair that seemed too shaggy for corporate America.

As she watched, Dalton C.’s perceptive eyes swept the room
before focusing for several long beats on the two-way mirror. Dom froze. He
couldn’t see her but still she held her breath. A shudder of something like
recognition coursed through her.
It’s him.
Logically, Domino knew she’d
never met the man but her soul clamored to contradict her. She felt a pull that
went deeper than physical attraction.

Her mind flashed on a memory from her lonely teen years. Her
grandmother had ladled out advice with her pasta sauce, reassuring a dateless
Dominique that her time would come. Nonno Petracelli had sworn her
granddaughter would know her
sconosciuto cara
—her soulmate—when she
found him. Dom shook off the memory.
Sentimental nonsense.

She leaned closer to the mirror and tried to recapture her
objectivity. Dalton C. was simply a client. Domino couldn’t see any jewelry on
him, including on his ring finger, but that didn’t guarantee there wasn’t a
Mrs. C. somewhere. And what did it matter if this man were married or not?

So what if he looked like a poster boy for testosterone. He
was just a company executive with kinky fantasies. But this guy looked more
like an enforcer, someone who broke knees for a loan shark than a CEO.

Dom’s insecurities resurfaced but she forced them down. It
was time to practice a trick of the trade—the Principle of Displacement. To
maintain the necessary cruel and domineering attitude, Tori had explained,
simply think of every slight, every injustice, every injury you’ve ever
received at the hands of a male coworker or boyfriend and displace them onto
the customer. Take your displeasure out on him. That’s what he wants and what
he’s paying for.

Domino’s school years as a motherless tomboy with few
friends and even fewer dates had furnished plenty of deep resentments toward
the male sex—a malice reinforced by her chauvinistic fellow agents. Imagine the
grief she’d get from her coworkers if she couldn’t pull off this assignment.
Some already thought she was frigid, others considered her asexual, just one of
the guys. If she couldn’t manage the undercover role of a sex club worker,
she’d never hear the end of it.

So for now, instead of working out her frustrations on the
kick-boxing bag at home, Dom would simply channel them in a new direction, at a
live and very willing target.

Show time.
Adopting the confident stance and arrogant
smile she’d practiced endlessly in her bathroom mirror, Mistress Bella opened
the door and strutted into S&M Room Five.

Damn.
Forgetting his submissive role, Dalton stared
at the woman who’d stepped through the back door. Like a dark siren from a lewd
dream, Mistress Bella was clad in a metal-studded leather getup that screamed,
“Don’t fuck with me”. His body ignored the warning however, and thrummed with
sexual interest.

She was obscenely fascinating. Her outfit’s strategically
placed cutouts revealed glimpses of her hips and waist, while cone-shaped cups
pushed her full breasts high. The way the supple, black cowhide caressed her
curves made Dalton wonder if he harbored a previously unrecognized leather
fetish.

Captivated, he let his eyes travel over her killer body. No
anorexic waif, this was a woman built for nights of rough and raw sex. In those
mile-high sandals, she was close to six feet tall. Her endless legs were
encased in dark stockings that stopped mid-thigh and clung there in defiance of
gravity. Man, he loved long legs.

The smooth skin above the stockings led his gaze northward
to the high-cut edges of her dominatrix gear…a merry widow, he remembered from
his research. He couldn’t see her ass yet but he’d bet his last dollar it was
round and firm…a nice handful for the right man. The leather corset cinched her
waist, molding her body as it traveled upward to support and separate that
mouth-watering rack.

His visual examination was temporarily arrested by the
straps of leather that criss-crossed the swells of her breasts. A connoisseur
of the female anatomy, Dalton recognized a world-class set when they were
staring him in the face. He ran the back of his hand across his mouth to ensure
he wasn’t drooling.