Meeting an old friend

The next twenty-four hours are a blur of fucking, showering, eating, and fucking some more. There's some sleep in there, too, although Aden can't sleep longer than a few hours without waking up. If Tommy notices, she keeps it to herself. Neither of them talk about their past, or whatever this relationship is. He wants to bring it up, but at the same time there's a certain comfort in NOT discussing the complicated realities. In between marathon bouts of sex and catnaps to restore their energy, they curl up on the couch, watching TV. He learns that Tommy is very sexual, very open-minded, and very trusting. He also notices some tell-tale bruises on her thighs and back, the signs of her recent beating. What bothers him more is the faint scarring on her back, the barest hint of old healed whip marks. He keeps that quiet for now as well, and they pass the day and night waiting for their flight out in a pleasurable haze.

They wait until the very last minute to go, Andre rushing a taxi for them to make the flight. There's a moment at the gate when they're going through the Homeland Security checkpoint where they get some very odd looks. A TSA agent insists on doing a pat-down on Tommy, unconvinced she's not hiding something under her cock. Aden's pretty sure the guy just wants to cop a feel, but Tommy laughs it off and submits. Then it's his turn to cause issues; there's still enough shrapnel in him that he has to get a strip search to get through. It's the same agent doing it, and for the rest of their two-hour flight, Tommy keeps riffing on what it would have looked like if the agent had done both of them at the same time. "I think you'd be the top, baby," she laughs, stroking his finger with her palm like she's giving him a hand job.

The arrival is a lot easier, and they find a nice hotel close to the address Kate left him. Tommy ribs him again when the concierge at the new place DOESN'T know him by name. "You're slipping, sugar daddy," she whispers to him in the elevator, pressing close to his side, his arm around her. The fact she's able to joke about that idea, that he's bought and paid for her time, makes him feel oddly comfortable.

Like two teenagers who've just discovered their bodies, they barely get inside the door of the suite before they're tearing each others' clothes off again, fucking hard and fast there on the tile floor by the suite door, then again over the living room couch, then a third time in the shower. Even after a shower, they both still smell like sex, and each other. In a quiet moment, while she's getting dressed and reapplying her makeup, he takes the time to dial Kate's number, the sweet smell of his girl's body on his fingertips. The phone rings once.

"Lover, it's about damn time you called me back," Kate says, her voice deeper and fuller than he remembered it.

"I was busy," he mutters, not really upset.

Her tone changes immediately. "It's not work, is it?"

"No."

She pauses. "You wouldn't tell me if it was, would you?"

"No."

"Fucking bastard. You know I will do anything I can to help you, right?"

He laughs. "You couldn't help me if they called me up. What are you going to do, pick up a rifle?"

"I could use a whip," she snarls, playfully. "Where are you?"

"Uptown at the moment," he answers.

"Seriously? You already flew in? Are you available now?"

He looks up and sees Tommy glide over to him and drop to her knees in front of him, leaning under his hands to place her cheek on his thigh, her hands sliding seductively up toward his belt. He suppresses a laugh. "It depends what you mean, and how complicated the conversation would be."

"Excuse me?" Her voice is curious. Tommy lifts her head and shuffles forward a little further so her lips can reach his crotch. With her teeth, she grips his zipper and begins pulling it down. Even though they've been fucking non-stop for 24 hours, he's hard as a rock again.

"I met someone." He barely manages not to groan as he feels Tommy's digits encircle him again.

"Someone?" Kate's voice goes from curious to intrigued. "Boy or girl?"

Tommy can hear the question, and playfully chirps "Both."

Kate pauses, then laughs. Her voice is silky smooth as she answers. "Sounds fun. When you're done with your hijinks, look up an old hotel called the Cambridge, and then get your ass over here. I'm going to make us rich."

"I'm already rich," he grunts, his eyes locked on Tommy's as she sucks on his cock, her tongue swirling around him again.

Almost two hours later, they're finally in a taxi heading to the address of the Cambridge. While he strokes her hair, Tommy curls up beside him on the passenger seat, and looks up the history of the Cambridge.

"Cambridge Hotel, originally designed and built by Angus Desmond in 1920, in the Victorian Gothic style," she reads, her eyes darting across the screen. "Fourteen stories, twenty rooms per floor, owned and operated as a hotel through the first fourty years. Known among a select few architects and design fans as a modest example of Desmond's work, but nothing exceptional. In the sixties, as the city fell on hard times, the area around the hotel declined, and the hotel stopped getting rich guests and became a low-price temporary lodging house."

"Wonder why Kate is interested in the place." Nick rubs the back of her neck, then kisses her shoulder.

She giggles. "I'm getting there, darling. You're so impatient." She's tickling the inside of his thigh with her toes, her shoes sitting on the cab floor. "A perverted rich guy bought the place in the seventies, and it got a rep for being a **** den and underground sex club. It went on the market again in the nineties, and was empty for almost twenty years. It finally reopened three years ago as a BDSM club for members only. The website talks a lot about the decor and the privacy."

"BDSM. Well, that explains why Kate is there."

Tommy spins to look at him. "Really? You have a friend who works in a sex club?"

He smiles at her, tracing a fingertip down her back. "I have friends in weird places."

"Is that how you make your fabulous wealth?" she jokes. "Are you a pimp? Or a rent-boy? Because I can probably scrape together a few bucks for a nasty fuck."

He shushes her. "Anything else?"

She shrugs. "The neighborhood has apparently gentrified, so it's not a bad location. But when I ran the address, it also comes up with an unpaid tax bill and a pending foreclosure."

The taxi pulls up in front of brightly colored yuppie-centric buildings, and the Cambridge is tucked in between two taller professional office buildings. The front is drab, but there are pale shadows of former beauty. The front doors are recessed, and a small brass sign simply says THE CAMBRIDGE in flowing script. If someone didn't know to look for it, the place would be invisible. The doors are brass and gold, with two large picture windows; they are covered by red curtains trimmed with gold braid which has seen better days. As Aden pays the cabbie, another over-tip, Tommy approaches the doors and tries to look through the curtains. She takes in the dust and discolored brass, the peeling and faded paint. "Well, it's definitely seen better days."

He tries the handle, the door opening with a creak of age. Inside, there are some old lamps, the lights flickering, and a flight of stairs leading up to the upper landing and the lobby of the hotel. Taking Tommy's hand, he leads the way up, his nerves click-click-clicking. The monster isn't happy with this at all, seeing the decay of the place. It's like walking through the bones of some sickly dinosaur. The lobby isn't much better. The lighting sucks, the carpet has water stains, and the front desk has grafitti carved into its front panels. There's a tired and disinterested young man behind the desk, popping bubble gum and flipping through a glossy porn mag. When they walk up, the man looks up and huffs as if annoyed by their presence. He's thin, with badly died blonde hair and brown roots, several piercings through each ear and his nose. His shirt is red, with a peeling gold applique announcing "Cambridge Hotel Owners Association."

"We're closed for an event today," the man says, looking back down to his magazine. "Members only."

"We're here to meet with Kate Mitchell. I'm expected." He feels the monster getting riled up, Bored Guy's rudeness triggering him. Aden restrains the urge to reach over the counter and pull the magazine out of the guy's hands.

If the name or the introduction mean anything to him, the guy doesn't respond. "Don't know where she is, and no one told me she had guests." He doesn't even look up to say it.

Tommy coughs politely. "Couldn't you check where she is for us? I see there's an intercom over there." She points to it, smiling her best and most pleasant smile.

The guy looks up, and frowns, checking them both out. He eyeballs Tommy, and makes her, sneers. "Listen, sweetie," he vamps nastily. "I can't think of anything we need with a thug and a barely passable queen. Fuck off out of here before I call the cops."

There's a loud bang as Aden reaches across the counter, grabbing the man by the neck and yanking him down so his forehead slams into the counter. Leaning in close, he can smell stale beer and old cum on the man's breath, hears the panicked squeak as the nastiness fades out of the guy's eyes to be replaced by terror. Aden leans in close, still holding the man down, and gets close. "We are here to see Kate," he murmurs directly into the man's ear, the monster watching the man's skin shiver. "We are not here to be talked down to by a shitty little boy who thinks he has some weight."

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," the man blubbers, welling up with tears as his nose drips red red blood onto the countertop.

"If you call my girlfriend anything nasty again, I will be **** to bury you somewhere." The tone of his voice is plain and matter-of-fact.

"Could you please let go of Cecil, darling?"The voice brings back twenty years of memories, and he lets go of the frightened idiot and turns to see Kate standing by the side of the lobby. Unlike the Cambridge, she's in perfect shape, her long black hair tied back and her already impressive breasts pushed forward and up by the black lace and leather boustier she's wearing. Black panties which only barely conceal her, and long black leather boots with six-inch heels. She's inspecting both Nick and Tommy, appraising them, her smile deepening. She looks over toward Cecil, who has retreated back to the corner and is trying to block the blood from his nose.

"He hurt me!" Cecil complains.

"You shouldn't have pissed my friend off if you didn't want to get hurt," she answers, sweeping up in between Aden and Tommy, grabbing their arms and pulling them away from the counter and down a side hall. "Clean yourself up, and tell Tara to come to the green room. Chop-chop!" Without waiting for the man's response, Kate leads them down to a non-descript thick wooden door, the paint so badly faded its barely identifiable as green.

Pushing the door open with her foot, Kate motions for them to go inside. "Welcome to Hell, lovers," she intones.