Page 110 of Nash
The first room on the right has its door open. Dim light, a large bed centered on the floor, sheer curtains creating a boundary. It's empty.
"Exhibition room," Nash says. "For couples who want to be watched."
My face burns. "People just... watch?"
"If the couple consents to an audience. The curtains can be closed or open."
We move on. The next door is closed and has a red light above it.
"Occupied," Nash says. "Red means do not disturb. Green means the couple is open to observation."
A sound drifts through the closed door. Low, rhythmic. I press my lips together and keep walking. My pussy clenches under my dress.
The third room is larger with its door open. Inside, padded surfaces, restraints mounted to the wall, a low bench. A cabinet along one side with drawers.
"Impact room," Nash says. "Floggers, paddles, restraints. For couples who negotiate that kind of play."
"Have you—"
"Yes."
"With the previous—"
"Yes."
"Okay. Okay. Processing. Filing that under 'things that are making me equal parts nervous and wet.'"
His thumb circles on my bare back. "There are private rooms at the end. Soundproofed. No observation unless requested. That's where we're going tonight."
We round a corner and nearly walk into a couple coming the other direction. The man is tall and broad with dark hair. He's dressed in all black. The woman beside him is small, has longblack hair that falls past her shoulders, and her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Her eyes are down.
"Nash." Victor extends his hand.
"Victor." Nash shakes it.
I've seen Victor at the clubhouse a dozen times. Laughing with East. Arguing with Knox about security protocols. Grilling burgers at cookouts with his sleeves rolled up while Olivia sat in a lawn chair giving him shit about the char marks. But Victor at Vesper is a different man. His posture, his gaze, the way Olivia stands beside him with her eyes down. Everything about them has shifted.
"Olivia," Victor says. He speaks a single word to the woman at his side.
Olivia lifts her eyes. They find mine, warm, bright blue, and she smiles. "Hey, Ruby."
"Hey." I smile back. "I love that dress."
"Thank you." Her voice is soft and genuine. Her hand stays on Victor's arm.
Victor and Nash exchange a few words about the security rotation, about Arden's schedule, and I watch Olivia while they talk. She's calm, present, her body oriented toward Victor even while she's looking at me. When Victor finishes speaking, Olivia's eyes drop again. Smooth, natural, practiced.
She spoke to me because Victor told her she could. She spoke only to me.
My eyes catch on the necklace at Olivia's throat. It's a delicate gold chain with a small pendant resting in the hollow of her collarbone. She wears it everywhere. The clubhouse. The cookouts. Every gathering I've ever seen her at. I've seen it a hundred times and never thought about it.
It's a collar.
Olivia has been wearing a collar in front of all of us for months. I never saw it because it looks like jewelry and they never brokecharacter. Victor and Olivia have a full-time dynamic. Every cookout, every dinner, every gathering where Olivia sat laughing with us. The necklace was always there.
The thing that hits me, standing in this hallway watching Olivia's eyes drop with practiced ease, is that the dynamic didn't make Olivia smaller. It made her bigger. I think about the Olivia I met when I first came to the club. Quiet. Careful. A woman who held herself like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. She barely spoke above a whisper. She flinched when people moved too fast around her.
That Olivia is gone. The woman wearing that gold chain now laughs louder than anyone at the cookouts except me. She argues with Sloane about baby names. Trash-talks Knox during poker. Even threw a dinner roll at East's head last month because he called her cooking "adequate" and her aim was perfect.
