Page 9 of Salt Kiss
“Who?”
“Everyone” is the reply as the elevator comes to a stop and the doors open.
I’m doubtful as I follow Mark down a glass-walled corridor. After spending the day in the back seat of a car and standing outside two different doors—one of them at an office for a company that sells weighted blankets of all things—I’m already settling into being a nearly inanimate shadow, and I find the idea of being the subject of anyone’s curiosity faintly ludicrous.
I suppose if they knew who my father was, there might be the tiniest flicker of interest—at least for any DC natives familiar with the minor leadership in the American military, or for any international guests who might benefit from leveraging such a connection.
Even though he can’t see my frown, Mark seems to know which way my thoughts are tending and says over his shoulder, “I suppose I should have asked this earlier, but would you like to work here under a pseudonym? On account of your father?”
I think a moment. “No, sir.”
I’m not famous, and in the world of generals, my father barely ranks as anyone of note. And if Mark can stride around his club with everyone knowing he used to work for the CIA and that his twin sister currently does—well, I can handle the tiny chance that someone might connect Tristan Thomas to General Ricker Thomas.
“As you wish,” Mark replies, and then we walk through a secure door to the titanic central hall at the heart of the club. The ceiling, a few stories above, is a pitched tent of glass and steel. During the day, it gave the space the feeling of a cathedral. At night, it’s a canopy of purple-streaked clouds and whichever stars are bright enough to burn through the city’s glow. It stretches over the space as if to say,yes, night children, the time for sinning is now.
And sinning they are, dancing, drinking, probably more, judging from the amount of skin I see. I flick my eyes quickly over the crowd on the floor, seeing nothing dangerous, and then return my attention to the balconies. Above us are two more levels and then a floor with windows overlooking the space—the upper story of the club, where Mark lives. Our own balcony is made up of nooks, some filled with chairs and some with leather-upholstered booths.
I follow Mark to the largest one, in the center of the balcony, with an unobstructed view of the stage and a black leather armchair surrounded by other chairs, these armless. By some sort of architectural genius, the nook is not nearly as loud as the hall itself. When I take my place at the back, several paces behind Mark’s armchair, I can hear Goran’s genial tones in my earpiece clear as day.
“Well, kid? What do you think?”
“It’s busy, sir,” I say, using our new stationary position to more carefully take in the room and the club’s guests.
“Yeah, and it’s only a Tuesday. Just wait until the weekend.”
“I can’t imagine.”
I really can’t. The place seems full to bursting now. It must be a zoo then. A nightmare to continually assess risk in. I think of the parades and rallies I had to work in Carpathia while doing diplomatic escorts, and anxiety flicks hotly across the skin of my nape.
“Don’t worry about it,” replies Goran easily. “Club duty will be a piece of cake because no one is suicidal enough to take on Mark Trevena on his home turf. It’s mostly just reminding the people wasting his time that he’s invulnerable.”
“Wasting his time?”
“You’ll see,” Goran says, and then the line clicks off.
Dinah, the club manager, joins us soon after, wearing not the tailored pantsuit I saw her in earlier but a strapless leather jumpsuit, tight and corseted, baring her gleaming shoulders. When she sits next to Mark, I hear Mark say, “Well?”
“He’s mollified for now,” Dinah says. With the nook the way that it is, I can hear them easily, even while standing behind them. “But we need to tread carefully. If he’s recognized...”
“I’m aware of what he’s risking. We’ve given him every allowance Lyonesse can offer. Does he think he needs more privacy than the president of the United States?”
The president of the United States...I’m glad no one is looking at me just now because I’m certain my expression is betraying my shock. I think about how long Lyonesse has been open, and then I have to wonder which president came here—the late President Maxen Colchester, who died in a Carpathian terrorist attack two years ago, or the current president, Embry Moore, who married Colchester’s widow.
From behind them, I can only see Dinah’s hand lift, palm upwards, as if in a shrug. “He seems to think so.”
Their conversation is cut short when they’re joined by three more people—Andrea the treasurer, still wearing what she was wearing earlier today, and a suited man I don’t recognize with dark olive skin and long hair leading a shirtless man on a leash. He sits next to Mark, greeting the others, while the leashed man sinks to a graceful kneeling position next to his chair.
I blink a moment. Despite the fetish clothing on the dance floor tonight—and the nonzero amount of nudity—this is the first time I’ve seen someone explicitly...submitting. Even after all the research I had to do to get through Mark’s consent forms, it’s jarring to see a grown adult, a man tall and layered with muscle, allowing himself to be led around like a dog.
After eight years in the army, and the four before it at West Point, the very idea is taboo. Strength and pride—they run as rigidly through my concept of masculinity as wrought iron, as sharp as barbed wire.
And yet I think of the army. Of standing at attention, of marching in straight lines. Of the sweet relief of being told where to go and what to do there, even if it was only dropping to the ground and busting out push-ups until our arms gave out.
I shake it off.
It’s entirely different.
But as Goran’s predicted time-wasters begin coming to the nook, I find my eyes returning to the kneeling man over and over again. To the broad frame held in perfect docility, the muscled limbs quiescent, his head bowed with long hair covering his face like a curtain. He’s larger than the man who leashed him; he could easily stand up and wrench the handle of the leash from his partner’s hand. But he never does. There’s no tension in his frame, no stiffness in his shoulders as his partner reaches over to stroke his head. On the contrary, the minute the suited man does so, the kneeling man melts pliantly into him.
