CHAPTER 4

* Thalia Beckett *

Ford puts his signature on the document and tucks it back into his desk drawer without asking me if I want a copy. I don’t… but it would have been a nice offer.

I slowly wipe my palms across my denim-covered thighs, hoping it’s a casual enough move that Ford doesn’t know they’re sweating. Even though I’m relieved to know Jayce will consider the loan paid at the end of thirty days, I am quite nervous about working in a sex club. It’s not for the reasons one would think, though. I have an adventurous sexual spirit, and I believe the few men I’ve had sexual relationships with have felt I was more than sufficient in the sack. There is no shame in working in a place that indulges in fantasy, kink, and fetish. Free world and all that stuff.

My concern is more personal.

I’m worried I’ll want to experience this fully and I should be concerned because I liked what I saw last night. The grotesque displays of debauchery are going to affect me, but I’m not sure how. My fear is it will turn me on.

Draw me in.

Make me curious.

“You ready to get started?” Ford asks as he stands up from his chair.

I take a moment… a brief one. One where I can check him out under the guise of merely holding conversation with him.

Standing slowly from my chair, I give him a confident smile that I’m not feeling and say “Sure.”

As I’m doing that, I take the measure of the man before me while we’re in the bright lights of his office. He’s insanely tall. I bet he tops out around six-six. He’s built and the tailoring of his dress shirt is so precise I can see the shape of his biceps under the silk material. So yeah, Ford has the body. But what makes him so striking is his face. His eyes are the first thing I notice, and I have a tough time looking away from them.

Crystal-jade green.

Amazing.

Pair that with his midnight-black hair, which includes perfectly slashed eyebrows of almost the same color and thick lashes, his eyes become hypnotizing. That hair is something to behold. It looks like he walked straight out of a fashion magazine as it is cut in various layers. It’s not too short, but not too long, and it looks like he did nothing more than run his fingers through it to style it. Finally, he wears a five o’clock shadow well. It’s dark and gives him a rough-and-tumble look, which is very contrary to the stylish way he dresses.

He gives me a curt smile as he walks out from behind his desk, and my inspection is over. I watch as he opens a closet door and pulls out three hangers, each holding a different outfit.

He holds one up to me. I immediately recognize it as the bartending outfit. For the females, it’s a black miniskirt that’s not too obscenely short—I’ve worn shorter—and a camisole that’s sexy but not too revealing.

“Here’s your bartending uniform,” he says as he hands it to me. “You brought black heels as I instructed, right?”

I nod, because it is the only thing he said I needed, so I’d grabbed one of only two pair I had. These had a modest heel of only three inches, with a pointed toe and a thin silver chain around the ankle.

Ford holds up the second hanger, which also holds black clothing. “This is the uniform of a cleaner. I still want you in heels, though. You’re not meant to be seen but if you are, at least the heels add some sex appeal.”

The uniform looks very concealing, but very tight. Black stretchy pants with a slight shimmer and a small, extremely tight-looking black turtleneck with long sleeves. I suppose covering most of the skin in black is to camouflage the cleaners so they could be discreet when they swooped in to clean up the vinyl.

My eyes slide to the last hanger in his hand and there is a tiny scrap of flimsy silk folded over the bar. He hands it to me and says, “This is your uniform for the condiment tray. It’s brand new.”

My hand shakes as it takes the hanger from him. I swallow hard and ask, “And which job will I be performing tonight?”

Please don’t be the thong. Please don’t be the thong.

My breath comes out in a massive rush when he says, “We’re going to start you easy tonight with cleaning duty. I’m going to be the one to train you.”

My jaw drops open and my stomach flips at the thought of spending the evening with him in the midst of people having wild monkey sex. Talk about awkward and scintillating at the same time. My voice is raspy when I ask, “Why would you even bother training me?”

Ford laughs, and there’s no mistaking the taunt in it. “Relax, Thalia… It’s not because I think you’re special or anything. It’s just that you’re a temporary employee and you’re specifically working for me since I’m personally loaning you the money. I’m not going to waste any of my other staff’s time to train you when it won’t benefit the club in the long term.”

It made sense. I guess.

Ford turns toward his office door and issues a curt, “Come. Follow me.”

“Please,” I mumble softly under my breath so he can’t hear my backhanded rebuke for not being polite. I turn around and jog to keep up with him, clutching the three hangers to my chest. From his office, we turn left. Stopping, he points to a door that says Locker Room.

“It’s unisex, but I have dressing rooms in there that are private,” Ford says. “Go get dressed. You can put your stuff in a locker. They have programmable digital locks. I’ll wait here for you. We’ll get started after that.”

Ford leans back casually against the wall and doesn’t give me a second glance. I watch for only a moment as he pulls his smartphone out of his breast pocket and starts working it.

Not eager in the slightest to get started, I still make myself turn and walk into the locker room, my nerves humming with nervousness and some other emotion I can’t quite put my finger on, but it’s making me feel like I’m walking on a razor’s edge.

***

I had thought cleaning semen and other fluids off the furniture would be a completely humiliating task. What I found out, however, is that no one watches the people who do the cleaning. It’s ingenious how the rooms are set up to accommodate that. For example, here in The Debauch Room, there are a multitude of beds and lounges covered in black vinyl and set into black acrylic and chrome frames. They sit low to the floor and are spread around the room in what appears to be a haphazard design. The floor is made up of large, square, frosted panels set into steel supports and run at a diagonal across the room. The colors change from a dusky rose to a cream color, which can enhance the mood of the music playing. From the ceiling, massive silk lampshades colored ice blue and formed into quirky shapes hang down. There are dozens of them, some wider and some longer, giving a very multidimensional look. The lampshades are fitted with muted lightbulbs to keep the atmosphere intimate but not completely dark. People definitely want to see what’s happening in this room.

What isn’t visible among the multitude of the lampshades hanging from the ceiling are very small but very bright lights that are aimed in a critical fashion on the beds and chaise lounges to provide a spotlight on any action that might occur there. When a couple or group is done with that piece of furniture, the light goes out. It indicates to the staff that the furniture needs cleaned. My job is to sweep in like a ghost to sanitize and dry the furniture. When it’s clean, the spotlight is turned back on and it’s opened for more fucking.

I’d asked Ford about this last night as my curiosity was going to kill me. I was surprised about the semen. I mean… it’s a public sex club and I assumed people would wear condoms. To his credit, Ford didn’t laugh at me. He explained that many of the couples here don’t swing. Their pleasure is either having sex with others present or doing fetish stuff and as such, they didn’t use condoms because they were monogamous. But he assured me the bulk of people suited up for protection, which meant I was mostly cleaning up sweat and perhaps lipstick if a woman was pushed facedown or something.

At least, that’s how my imagination works.

But more importantly, no one watches the people who are cleaning the vinyl because they’re busy ogling each other or other couples having sex. It becomes quickly apparent to me I am virtually unnoticeable in this job position, and I am freaking so grateful for it. Grateful to Ford that he gave me an easy, inconspicuous job on my first night.

On the flip side, it’s not a job that keeps me busy at all times. When there’s nothing to clean, I have to stand at the perimeter of the room in the shadows and just watch the action. Looking away isn’t an option because I have to be ready when a spotlight goes out. I make a mental note to myself to bring extra panties tomorrow.

Ford has not left my side all evening, even though I’ve pretty much got the job down pat. Let’s face it… it’s not that hard to squirt the cleaner to get the nasty stuff up, and then wipe it away. I carry two towels. One to wipe the cleaning solution up and the other to dry the vinyl. When these towels reach their maximum usage, I go to the supply room and I restock. And thank God latex gloves are provided because otherwise, I would’ve had to politely decline this position.

I’m cleaning up other people’s spunk and sweat and while it is not the most humiliating job in the world, it’s certainly not something I would ever aspire to do for the long term. It makes me wonder why the other cleaners in here are doing this job, and I can only figure they are in desperate times or something.

Ford and I enter The Debauch Room. We’d spent a fair amount of time in The Luscious Sin Room—with its circular pool and platform in the center where people can have sex while a waterfall pours from the ceiling down onto them—as well as The RedTag—with its acrylic see-through floor that gives the illusion of walking on air—before coming here.

So far tonight, I’ve been able to keep my wits about me. I try to concentrate on the fact that this is just a job. I’ve been pretty much able to tune out the noises, and I try not to keep my gaze focused anywhere for any length of time. Not only would it feel weird to stare at some of the things going on, but I don’t want to inadvertently get drawn into it.

Let’s face it… this club is filled with scenes that most people never see in their lifetime. I honestly can’t imagine a more provocatively interesting place to people watch. While I’m currently single, I do wonder what it would be like to come with a serious partner. I would never consider coming as a single woman, but the thought of being with somebody I trusted in this environment has me curious. It’s simply fascinating to me that many of the members here are in committed relationships with each other and this is a normal part of their sex lives.

I follow Ford over to a far wall in The Debauch Room. We stand against it, taking an initial assessment of the activities. Ford casually leans back against the wall, clasping his hands in front of him. Throughout the night, he has been approached by no less than a dozen different women trying to get him to join in their fun. It didn’t surprise me. Ford is one of the best-looking men I’ve ever seen, and I would imagine he partakes of the benefits of his club quite frequently. But he merely shook his head and politely declined, saying he was training the new employee. Of course, eyes would then turn to me in appraisal. Once they saw I was nothing more than a lowly cleaner, I was forgotten.

While Ford remains casually posed, I stand ramrod straight, almost at military attention. Armed with a spray bottle of bleach in one hand and a towel in another with my drying cloth hooked into my belt, I’m locked and loaded.

My eyes scan the room and I estimate there are at least thirty pieces of furniture scattered about for people to use. On closer inspection, I see some padded benches and something that looks like a pommel horse in addition to the beds and lounges. There are also areas that are nothing more than an array of large stuffed pillows covered in a special type of vinyl that seems to be very lightweight and silky. Ford assured me it could be cleaned with my solution.

It’s starting to get busy. Probably half the furniture is in use. As I learned in The Luscious Sin Room, when a couple—or threesome or foursome or however many people can fit on a piece of furniture—take residence upon it, the spotlight shining down leaves nothing to the imagination.

I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear Ford’s voice near my ear. He’s leaned over and although he’s not actually touching me, I swear I can feel his lips move as he murmurs, “Tell me the difference between this room and The Luscious Sin Room.”

I turn my head slightly to look at him and every time I connect with his eyes, I feel a sizzling warmth go through me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Ford drawls as if I can’t understand the English language. “What is the difference between the two rooms?”

“Um…” I stammer as I shrug my shoulders. “One has water and the other doesn’t?”

“That’s a naïve answer, Thalia,” Ford says softly. “This is a sex club. Tell me the difference you have observed between the two rooms.”

For the first time tonight, I allow myself a very slow perusal of the room. I had spent almost an hour in The Luscious Sin Room and while I didn’t think I was paying that close attention to what was going on, I apparently absorbed more than I realized. Because as I look around The Debauch Room, an immediate difference is clear.

Within The Luscious Sin Room, there is a much more apparent social aspect to the activities that go on in there. I’m not sure if it’s because there is a pool where many of the patrons just lounge while sipping cocktails and talking, or the fact there are U-shaped seating areas that invite social intimacy. I realize there was less sex going on in there than in The Debauch Room.

From where I stand now as I look around the expanse and take in the activities, I am hit with the blatant realization that this room is for people who just want to fuck. No one is engaged in conversation, and the only sounds are of moaning, screaming, groaning, and flesh slapping.

Turning my head to face Ford, I can feel my skin flush when I see how intently he is looking at me, waiting for my answer. My voice quavers when I tell him, “This room is only for sex. There’s no socialization.”

I want to look away, but his gaze has me absolutely locked in place. He stares at me a moment before giving a slight nod. Then he pulls back and leans against the wall. I turn around and keep my eyes rotating around the room for the next spotlight to go out and call me to my duties.

But Ford isn’t finished with the conversation. He’s not leaning toward me, but he doesn’t speak any louder when he says, “That’s a very good observation, Thalia. It’s why it’s my favorite room.”

I’m embarrassed that a full spinal shiver occurs from his words because if I had any doubts as to whether Ford participated at The Sinful Night Club, that has been dispelled. However, the shiver is more than likely because I can now picture Ford on one of those pieces of furniture doing all kinds of amazing, kinky, and orgasmic things to women.

Over the next thirty days, I wonder if I’ll observe him doing that… and if I’ll ever be able to get those images out of my head afterward.