Page 23 of Hushed

Kenzie turned at the voice and smiled. The man wore a leather vest with a lanyard around his neck, making him look some kind of official.

“First time,” she shouted back.

“I’m Chris. Can I buy you a drink?”

She shook her head. “No thank you, Chris. I’m not drinking tonight. I’m just here to see what it’s all about.”

He pointed to her wrist. “You won’t get the full experience wearing that thing.”

She frowned. Was he really pressuring her to change her wristband? Red flags waved again, but she gave him a jerk of her head. “I only want to watch tonight.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself, sexy. I can give you a tour if you like.”

Kenzie glanced at his lanyard again. “Do you work here?”

His shoulders straightened, and he puffed out his chest. “Sure do. I’m the lead dungeon monitor.”

Dungeon monitors. She flipped through the catalog of kink research in her head. The title was sometimes shortened to DM, and they were there to make sure everyone was playing safely and not ignoring safewords or otherwise violating consent. That theoretically made Chris safe to talk to. And it would be a faster way to get the lay of the land.

“Sure, Chris. I’ll take a tour.”

Chris waved his arm around the room. “This is kind of a social area. We don’t allow play here. To have real fun, you have to go upstairs.”

Kenzie’s gaze followed his hand as it pointed upward. The second-floor walkway was visible, with a wrought-iron railing all the way around the room. A set of stairs on the other side of the bar led to it.

She followed Chris to the stairs as she took in the crowd. At the top, he paused and leaned against the railing to look down. “It’s fun to stand up here and watch people come in. Scope out your options if you catch my drift.”

Was this guy for real?

Before Kenzie had time to react, Chris led her through a wide doorway, and she froze as they stepped into the room. A fewfeet from where she stood, a man was thrusting his cock into a woman’s mouth as she gagged, and makeup and tears ran down her face. To her eye, the woman looked like she did not want to be there, but she wasn’t going to make assumptions or yuck anyone else’s yum.

Two couches that had seen better days were covered in bodies as some sort of orgy took place on the other side of the room, and two unpainted crosses had naked women strapped to them, with their partners standing in front of them with various implements. The floor looked as dirty as the bar downstairs, but somehow, she suspected the fluids coating the hardwood up here were a lot worse.

It wasn’t quite what she was expecting based on what she’d read about Exposure in D.C. and Midnight Tower in New York. Those clubs looked classy, and she doubted she would step in questionable substances at those places. But she’d never been, and their websites could be false advertising. The website for The Cage had certainly been misleading.

A voice in the back of her head told her to run, but she stubbornly stayed put, determined to learn what she could about whether or not this lifestyle was for her. So far, it wasn’t looking good.

“There are two more private rooms on the other side of this floor, and bathrooms upstairs and down,” Chris said. “What do you think?”

Kenzie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Looks like people are having a good time.” It was the politest answer she could think of.

“You sure you don’t want to have a good time with someone?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Pushy much? I told you I’m here to watch tonight, nothing more.” This guy didn’t know when to quit. It seemed like a poor quality in a DM.

Chris held up his hands. “Sorry. We don’t get too many people who only want to watch. It’s a foreign concept.”

The Cage wasn’t the club for her, but she stuck to her plans to stay and see if anything caught her attention.

For the rest of the evening, Kenzie wandered through the small play spaces, watching, and listening. A spanking scene held her attention for several minutes, and a man who seemed skilled with rope was interesting to watch, but overall, she was uncomfortable being there alone. Several people approached her and introduced themselves, but as soon as they caught sight of her red wristband, they quickly lost interest and found someone with a wristband that indicated they were looking to play. She didn’t entirely blame them, but a sense of guilt for not putting on a different wristband bloomed in her chest, and she didn’t like it. Didn’t guilting people defeat the purpose of the wristband system?

An hour and a half into her visit, Evie came to stand beside her. “What do you think so far, Kenzie?”

She smiled at the woman. “It’s interesting. Not quite what I was expecting, but I’m not sure what I expected.”

“Have you ever been to a club like this before?”

Kenzie laughed. “No. I tried to get a friend to take me to the one he owns in D.C., but he refuses.”

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