She shrugged a little. “I’ve been around. Look, brother, I know it comes as a shock that I’ve taken to the lifestyle, but we need you here. And can anything be worse than my coming out? Mom nearly had a heart attack because I had disrupted her perfectly good plan to marry me off to the doctor next door. You know how a really good plan can slip up, don’t you, Anthony?”
Yeah, and he was out of practice. He needed to save the questions about her past for the condo because he was supposed to be her big brother here. And a nasty, badass Dom. He had the temporary tats to prove it. Kristen turned out to be quite the artist with the airbrush. “Yes. Well, I’ll have to make some plans for this place because that equipment looks like shit, and it’s going to get worse if it isn’t properly taken care of.”
“Well, that’s what I’m hiring you for, isn’t it, Master A?” The door to the office had opened and a man with a medium-sized build and a longish, dark ponytail began to walk down the stairs. He was dressed in a T-shirt and running pants, his sneakers squeaking on the metal stairs. A heavy gold chain hung around his neck. Alex pegged his age at fortyish, though it was obvious he was trying to look like he was twenty-one and fresh off the Jersey Shore.
“I wasn’t aware you had hired me at all yet.”
His heavy Jersey accent flooded the room. “Hey, any family of Kris’s is family of mine. Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”
Kristen gave him a bubbly smile. Yeah, she looked like the perfect picture of innocence. “You know that’s true, Chazz. We’re all one big freaky family here. Anthony, I told you the interview is a formality. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing at all. We’re very happy to have you, Master A. I’m afraid we’re trying to find our feet.” Chazz looked him over as though sizing him up. “You’re a big guy. Did Kris tell you I might need you for some bodyguard work as well as being our resident expert?”
The bodyguard work was something he was terribly interested in. According to Kristen, Chazz went off on mysterious meetings at least once a week and took some of the bouncers with him every time. She’d tried to talk to a couple, but they were all closed mouthed about what they were doing. Then there was the night once a week where the club was supposed to be closed, but she’d seen the lights on and cars in the parking lot. She’d tried to get in, but found security on the doors, security she didn’t recognize. “I’ve done a little muscle work in my time.”
“Yes, you have. A very impressive résumé. So you’ve worked in a couple of clubs?”
According to the résumé Adam had created, he’d worked in clubs in New York, DC, and Houston and was a trained security guard. The résumé had been uploaded to the web, and to the casual viewer, it looked like Anthony Priest had been looking for work for about three months. He had résumés at several websites, a FetLife account, and all the various footprints he would naturally leave behind in cyberspace.
“I’ve worked in actual BDSM clubs. This is my first experience with a nightclub.”
Chazz nodded. “I need to get myself a membership to one of those clubs.”
Alex didn’t bother to mention that the private clubs tended to screen out idiots like Chazz. “So what exactly do you expect from me?”
“Kris here had a great idea,” Chazz explained. “She thinks instead of just having themed tables and cocktail waitresses, we should differentiate ourselves. We want to run actual scenes. You know for entertainment and shit.”
He forced himself not to shudder. “And you expect me to use this equipment? On my sub?”
“I have a whole collection of whips and paddles and some canes and stuff. I got them secondhand. They’re all over the walls, just like a real dungeon. All you’ll have to do is walk up to one and pluck it down, my man,” Chazz argued.
Chazz wouldn’t know a “real” dungeon if it bit him in the ass. It was obvious Chazz either didn’t practice or didn’t care about his subs. “Secondhand? And they just sit on the wall? I’m not using those. They have to stay purely decorative. Humans sweat and bleed, and there are various other bodily emissions I won’t even get into. You’re going to get your ass sued. I’ll bring my own kit and I’ll make sure everything is sterile.”
“Whoa, so we’re like infection central here,” a deep voice said. “I always knew it.”
Alex turned and saw a young man, probably somewhere around twenty-five. He was wearing a muscle shirt that showed off a single tat on his arm. Army.
“I don’t need your sarcasm, Jesse.” Chazz shook his head. “I swear if he wasn’t so good with a gun, I would have fired his ass a long time ago. That’s my lead bouncer, Jesse Murdoch. He also functions as my bodyguard and I haven’t died yet, so he’s not a complete idiot.”