The Inner Room Read online

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” Marissa said firmly. Over my dead body.

  She closed the door and moved toward her chair. Marissa would have to talk to Nancy about letting unaccompanied people into her office. The idea of Phil Mitchell being in her private space sent an unpleasant shudder of distaste through her.

  She sank down into her chair, her mind whirling back over the disastrous happy hour the week before. The IT company the hospital was using had arranged a “meet and greet” for medical and administrative staff most affected by the software changes. They had reserved a room at a nearby restaurant and had provided hors d’oeuvres and an open bar.

  Marissa had decided to attend, part of a promise to herself to be more social at hospital events. She’d barely eaten over the course of the day and made the mistake of having two Bay Breeze cocktails in a row, which slid down way too easily and then went straight to her head. When Phil Mitchell had appeared beside her at the bar with his blond good looks and ready smile, she’d been friendlier than she might have been without the lubricant of alcohol.

  He was maybe a little too full of himself, but what the hell, he was young, single and seemingly captivated by her. She could admit now in retrospect, she’d been flattered by his attention and apparent interest.

  Still, she had been stunned by his move when she came out of the women’s restroom toward the end of the event. The restrooms were located at the back of the restaurant in a darkened alcove. Without a word, he’d slammed her against the wall, pressed his mouth against hers and tried to force his tongue between her lips while grinding his erection against her body.

  She’d shoved him hard, sending him sprawling backward. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” she’d demanded, breathless with shock.

  He’d looked confused for a second as he righted himself. Then a flash of pure, venomous rage had flickered over his features before being extinguished by a conciliatory smile. “Hey, come on, baby. What gives? The way you were flirting with me back at the bar, I thought—“

  “You thought wrong,” she’d snapped, still taken aback by the guy’s nerve.

  “Hey, Doc, no hard feelings. Just crossed wires, huh?”

  Embarrassed by the whole situation, Marissa nodded. “Okay. Yeah, whatever.”

  She was still angry, not only him, but at herself for letting liquor momentarily affect her better judgment, and had decided it was time to leave. While saying her goodbyes to Fred Hession and the other top brass, she had felt Phil’s eyes on her. She’d glanced toward him, disconcerted by his cold, hard stare. Marissa had shuddered, glad she hadn’t made the horrible mistake of actually going out with such a creep.

  She’d managed to avoid him over the past week while he worked all the bugs out of the hospital’s computer systems. As he moved around the unit, he flirted shamelessly with the female staff, and most of them seemed to eat it up, giggling and batting their eyelashes at the handsome young computer technician. He hadn’t apologized to Marissa for his behavior, and she’d told herself it was just as well—she would put the whole sorry event behind her. It was over and done with, and soon, thank god, he’d be gone.

  Marissa got paged almost as soon as she’d shooed the unwelcome Phil out of her office. It was nearly five o’clock before she had a chance to respond to Dana’s text. Flopping into her desk chair, she tapped a message onto the screen. Hey, Dana. Crazy day. What’s up?

  A moment later her phone buzzed with an incoming call from Dana. Swiveling in her chair to face the tiny window of her cramped office that looked out over the vista of the Manhattan skyline, Marissa took the call. “Hi,” she said, trying and not quite succeeding to censor the image of Dana’s naked, welted body from her mind. “What’s up?”

  “Open invitation night, that’s what,” Dana said cryptically.

  When she didn’t elaborate, Marissa said, “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s open invitation night? Are you inviting me over to watch Master Tony in action?” As soon as the words tumbled from her mouth, she wished she could grab them back. She’d only been kidding as she said it, but what if that was what Dana was offering? Did she dare accept? Would they expect her to participate? Did she want to?

  Dana laughed. “Even better. You know that BDSM club we belong to? Once a month we’re allowed to bring guests and prospective members to see what the place is about. Tony asked me if I’d like to bring you and—”

  “Tony knows about me?” Marissa blurted, not quite sure how she felt about that.

  “Sure. I tell Master Tony everything, you know that. He’s always interested in anyone who’s curious about the scene. He’s got this personal mission to bring BDSM to the world.” She laughed and continued, “He’s suggested before that I bring you around, but I was pretty sure you weren’t ready. Then after I saw the way you were looking at me this morning, your tongue practically hanging out, your eyes so full of longing I thought you were going to cry—”

  “What?” Marissa exploded, embarrassed she’d been so transparent. “I never did any such thing.”

  Dana’s voice was kind. “Hey, Marissa, honey. I’m sorry if I’m pushing buttons. I do tend to just blurt things out, you know. Master Tony says that’s what gags are for.” Again she laughed. “Anyway, seriously, can you honestly tell me you weren’t, if not turned on, at least intrigued about those cane marks?”

  When Marissa didn’t respond, Dana went on, “You’re thirty-two years old, right? In the three years I’ve known you, I’ve watched you date the occasional guy and lose interest in like five minutes, no matter how nice or good-looking or rich or hung or whatever the dude might be. You’ve talked before about wishing you could find a guy you connected with, but that it’s virtually impossible to meet anyone, given your schedule and the dwindling supply of decent single guys in the city.”

  “Yeah,” Marissa admitted, though she knew the issue went deeper than mere availability of single men. Several times over the course of the day, Marissa had found herself falling into a daydream in which she was the cherished and adored sub girl, lying in the arms of her Dom after an especially intense play session, as Dana called them. She didn’t just want any available guy in the right socio-economic bracket. She wanted what Dana had.

  Dana continued, unwittingly giving voice to Marissa’s thoughts. “Every time I talk about the scene, or you witness the latest evidence of Tony’s and my delicious games, you look like a kid with her face pressed up against the glass of a candy store. Yet, as far as I know, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the only thing you’ve done to find out if the lifestyle is for you is masturbate to BDSM porn videos, am I right?”

  Marissa’s ears felt hot, and she was glad this was a phone conversation, instead of face to face, as she knew she was blushing. “Oh, I, um,” she stammered, though Dana had in fact hit the nail on the head.

  “Want to know what I think?” Dana continued, thankfully not pressing Marissa for a more coherent response. “I think you’re just not looking in the right place. I think it’s time for you to take the bull by the horns. Stop acting like a little girl and find the courage to explore your true feelings and desires. The Power Exchange is opening its outer room to guests tonight, and I’m inviting you.”

  Dana had mentioned The Power Exchange before—a private BDSM venue for folks who were seriously into the BDSM lifestyle. Dana and Tony engaged in what Dana called public scenes, which Marissa surmised from Dana’s occasional descriptions included whips, chains, rope, gags and lots of naked bodies. Marissa imagined something out of a gothic horror film—whipping posts, torture racks, manacles protruding from crumbling stone walls, everything cast in a blood-red light, the only sound that of cracking leather and anguished cries.

  Marissa felt the heat rising in her crotch. Her breasts ached and she reached her free hand into the cup of her bra to tweak the suddenly distended nipple. She shifted in her chair and pressed her thighs together in an effort to ease the ache in her sex, glad her office door was closed.


  “Marissa? You there?”

  “Yeah,” Marissa said hoarsely. She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “So, how about it? You ready to stop being the kid with her nose pressed to the glass and step on inside? Shall we come by your building at nine o’clock to pick you up?”

  Dana was right. Marissa’s excuses all her life about why she had no time for a relationship were pretty worn at this point. She was done with medical school. She was done with residency. She had a good staff position at a well-respected city hospital. She understood intellectually there was nothing wrong with being a sexual masochist. Was she ready, at last, to finally begin her own erotic exploration into BDSM?

  Marissa was silent for a long moment. She felt as if she were poised on the edge of a high dive. Closing her eyes, she took the leap. “Yes, nine o’clock sounds good.”

  “That a girl,” Dana said approvingly.

  Marissa felt almost giddy with excitement, but she managed to keep her tone calm as she asked, “So, what do I wear to this place?”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’ll have to strip at the door anyway.”

  There was a beat of silence while Marissa struggled to process this latest information. “Wait, what?” she finally managed. “Are you serious?”

  Dana laughed. “Just kidding, silly. You can wear jeans, a dress, whatever you want. But I should warn you, there will be some folks there who are naked, or nearly so. I figure you can handle that, being a doctor and all.”

  Marissa thought about this and decided that yes, she could handle it. “What about you? What’re you wearing?”

  “Whatever Master Tony lays out for me. Probably something short, tight and low cut. He likes to show me off.”

  “And you like to be shown off,” Marissa observed. An associate at a large midtown law firm, Dana was always conservatively dressed for work, but, knowing Dana as she did, it was no real stretch to imagine the self-proclaimed sub girl dressed in something skimpy and provocative at a private club.

  “It pleases my Master, and that pleases me,” Dana said simply.

  “Oh,” Marissa breathed, Dana’s words resonating somewhere deep inside her. Again the daydream of belonging to another in the deepest sense of the word threatened to engulf Marissa, and she felt herself drifting to that dark, secret place.

  There was a soft knock at the door, and the sound released Marissa from the erotic spell she’d been falling into. “Someone at my door. Gotta go,” she said. “See you tonight.”

  “See ya!” Dana sang into the phone.

  Marissa took a moment to compose herself. She touched the plastic rectangle above her breast that read Dr. Roberts. Feeling centered again, she called out, “Come in.”

  The door opened and the handsome new nurse stuck his head into the office. Marissa was glad the lab coat covered her still perking nipples. “Yes?” she said in her best professional doctor voice. “Cam, is it?” As if she didn’t know. As if he weren’t the primary topic of conversation at the nurses’ station whenever he wasn’t around.

  “Yes, Dr. Roberts. If you had a minute, I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Santana in room two thirteen. I have some suggestions that might be useful.” He stood just inside the door, looking like some kind of GQ model for hospital scrubs, a chart tucked underneath one of his tan, muscular arms. His eyes really were remarkably blue, especially in contrast to his dark brown hair. And those lips. What would it be like to kiss those lips?

  What the fuck? He was a nurse, for crying out loud. Not some sex object for Marissa to ogle. Embarrassed, she gestured toward a chair in front of her desk. “Please, have a seat.”

  As Cam sat across from her, Marissa couldn’t stop herself from staring into those deep, kind eyes. Something about the man was so compelling she had to physically restrain herself to keep from leaping over the desk and into his lap. Jesus H Christ, she must be farther gone than she realized. Now she was lusting after gay guys.

  Okay, stop it this instant. You’re an MD. A professional. Act like it.

  Marissa leaned forward and held out her hand for the chart. His fingers brushed hers as she took the chart from him, and though she knew it was all in her mind, the electric spark that passed between them shot straight to her pussy. It was all she could do not to gasp, and she prayed her voice would come out steady.

  She lifted her chin, reminding herself she was the doctor here. “Tell me what’s going on with Mr. Santana,” she said crisply.

  Chapter 2

  When the taxi pulled up to the curb of Marissa’s apartment building, a man in jeans and a black T-shirt beneath a sports jacket climbed out of the backseat. “Hey there, you must be Marissa. I’m Tony. Great to meet you at last.” His voice was deep and seemed too large for the rest of him.

  “Oh, hi. Nice to meet you too.” Marissa took the man’s offered hand. She had always envisioned Tony as a big, burly man in black leather and black army boots, like Master Mark on her favorite videos. It took her a second to readjust her mental image of Dana’s Master/husband. He was looking her over as well, his eyes moving with an appreciative gaze from her face, to her breasts, to her legs and back up again. Normally Marissa would have taken offense at a man regarding her with such brazen scrutiny, but somehow with Tony it didn’t offend. She found herself hoping instead that he was pleased with what he saw.

  After much deliberation and the trying and discarding of a number of outfits, Marissa had finally settled on the first thing she’d pulled from the closet—a simple sleeveless black dress she had spent too much on, but which hugged her curves in all the right places. It was lower cut than what she usually wore, but she was going to a BDSM sex club, after all, so why not? Judging from Tony’s appreciative gaze, he approved.

  Tony waved toward the open car door. “After you,” he said. Marissa preceded him into the roomy backseat of the old-fashioned yellow cab.

  “Hey, girlfriend!” Dana, already seated, enthused as Marissa settled herself between the couple. She would have preferred to be on Dana’s other side, rather than separating the pair, but neither of them seemed the slightest perturbed by this.

  As the cab pulled away, Marissa turned to her friend to see what she was wearing, but a light spring coat covered her outfit. Dana’s auburn hair, usually pulled back during the workday, fell in a shiny curtain to her shoulders. Unlike the conservative makeup she wore while practicing law, Dana’s eyes were heavily made up with eyeliner and mascara and her lips were painted a deep, shiny red.

  Dana leaned back against her car door as she appraised Marissa. “I love the dress,” she said. “Though it would look even better without a bra, don’t you agree, Tony?”

  Tony slid his arm over the back of the car seat. “I do indeed. Perhaps a punishment is in order for daring to harness such luscious breasts.”

  Marissa stiffened with embarrassment and felt her face flush. What the hell? Dana might belong to Master Tony, but Marissa sure as hell didn’t. She barely knew the guy! She opened her mouth in protest, but before she could speak, both Dana and Tony laughed, and Dana reached for Marissa’s hand. “We’re just teasing, silly. I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive our sense of humor.”

  “Yeah,” Tony agreed, still chuckling. “We’re so used to hanging out with other folks into the scene, we sometimes forget to take the tender feelings of newbies into account.”

  “Newbies, huh,” Marissa countered, trying to put a cocky edge into her tone. “So you two do this a lot? Find young innocents to corrupt?”

  “As often as we can,” Dana quipped.

  “Seriously, though,” Tony added. “We do regard it as a kind of sacred duty to help people who are curious about the lifestyle to find their way. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about BDSM. Did you know you can still go to jail or lose custody of your children in some states, just for practicing consensual BDSM sex in the privacy of your own home? Even though BDSM has moved more into the mainstream over the past few years, there’s still a lot of con
fusion about consensual power exchanges, and the passion and commitment that’s required. Sometimes it seems like we take two steps forward and one step back when it comes to freedom of sexual expression in this country.”

  “You got that right,” Dana added, her tone suddenly dark. “Certain distribution websites that shall remain nameless have even started censoring BDSM erotica, if you can believe it. That’s one reason we love The Power Exchange. It’s a safe place to practice our kink with likeminded people who get it.”

  “I really appreciate your including me tonight,” Marissa said. “Though I’m kind of nervous. I won’t, you know, like, be expected to do anything, will I?”

  Dana laughed and squeezed Marissa’s leg. “Only if you want to.”

  Marissa thought about this as the cab wended its way through city traffic toward the lower west side of Manhattan. A sudden vision of herself naked, her arms extended high over her head, her legs spread and chained to the floor by shackles around her ankles, flashed into her brain. She felt a tingle in her pussy as Master Mark appeared behind her in the video now playing in her overactive imagination. He was holding a heavy flogger, and it cracked against Marissa’s skin with each stinging stroke. He moved closer behind her, nuzzling his mouth against her neck as he reached around with his free hand to squeeze her breast.

  Marissa sat up straighter and glanced at Dana and Tony, suddenly afraid her lusty little daydream was somehow apparent to them. But they were both looking out their respective windows at the lights of the city passing by. Marissa smoothed back her hair, which she had worn loose for the evening, and blew out a cleansing breath.

  After about ten minutes, they pulled onto a dark street that contained a row of what looked like abandoned warehouses. The cab pulled to the curb and the cabbie twisted back. “This the place, Mac?”

  “The very one,” Tony replied with a smile. He handed some bills to the cabbie and opened the car door to step out onto the sidewalk. Wearing heels higher than she was used to, Marissa gratefully accepted Tony’s offered hand as she climbed out of the car.