Friday, June 28, 2013

Stronghold Teaser

Ok, so a lot of people have been asking about Stronghold =)  Which is great!  I'm so excited that so many of you are interested in the Stronghold Doms and the new series that's going to be spinning off of the Venus Quartet!  I am focusing more on getting Dealing With Discipline out as soon as possible, but I am also doing some work on Stronghold so that hopefully there won't be too big a time gap between Discipline's release and Stronghold's release.

In the teaser on the Stronghold page and at the end of Venus Transcendent, we got a peek at Adam Rawn and the other Doms checking out Chained, a club closer to Rick Winter's area of the woods.  I figured for the second teaser I should give you the point-of-view from the female side... meet Angel:

Going into the club was the hardest thing Angel had ever done in her life.  
She'd deliberately chosen Chained because it was a new club and it was in Virginia, much farther away from her home than the club that she really wanted to join, Stronghold in DC.  There was slim chance of anyone from Stronghold being at Chained, regulars anyway, because once people became comfortable in a space they tended to stay in that space.  Even kinksters who liked to push boundaries.  Maybe especially kinksters, since they had to be able to trust the people they were with. 
This was the second time Angel had ever been to a BDSM club, the first time was when she had been in college up in New York City.  Since then she'd realized that she was submissive but she didn’t have any friends down here who were in the scene.  Actually, other than her best friend Leigh she didn’t have any close friends who were female and just contemplating the idea of talking to one of her guy friends about her kinky desires was enough to make her blush, so she was making this difficult journey alone.  It was absolutely terrifying. 
Getting out of her car Angel smoothed her hands over the long embroidered jacket she was wearing.  She'd dressed very carefully tonight because she was going to be doing something way outside of her comfort zone - she was going into a club as a Mistress.  It was dishonest, which rankled her, but she had done her research and she knew exactly how dangerous it could be for a new sub entering public scening, so she'd decided that until she garnered some more experience in the public setting that she would go to Chained and present herself as a Mistress. 
She taught her students all the time that the first step to keeping themselves safe was not to put themselves into dangerous situations.  To her, putting herself in a position to be tied up and at the mercy of someone else was a pretty much her description of a dangerous situation when she had no one to watch her back and her only information about these clubs was second hand. Eventually, once she was more comfortable in the club and felt more confident about her ability to keep herself safe, she would go to Stronghold as a submissive.  No harm done to anyone and she'd have a nice and easy introduction into the world that she'd been fantasizing about ever since she first heard about it.  
Fervently she wished she had a friend that she could do this with so that she didn‘t have to pretend to be something she wasn’t.  Angel was an inherently honest person, although she also loved doing theater as a hobby and knew herself to be a good actress, and if she'd had someone to go with her to the club then maybe she could have just started off at Stronghold without any of the lies.  Unfortunately she didn’t have anyone she felt comfortable asking to go with her, even though her best friend Leigh would probably have come because she was a really good friend, she would have wanted to leave the entire time.  Not to mention that there was no way her boyfriend Michael would approve.  And Angel didn’t think she’d feel like a very good friend for having forced Leigh into such an uncomfortable position. 
Twenty five years old she’d only ever had two serious relationships, the second one had ended over a year ago and since then she hadn’t dated anyone seriously.  Neither of them had been able to give her what she craved, had been able to make her feel the excitement that she got reading a BDSM book.  Sure she’d had orgasms when they had sex, but it always felt like there was something missing and eventually that had led to the end of each relationship.  And sure it didn’t help that most of her closest friends would guys, but she figured someone confident enough to be a Dom would have be secure and confident enough not to mind that she had a lot of guy friends, right?
Lately she realized that she wanted a man with that confidence, that security, one who was sexually controlling in the bedroom… at the very least she needed to try it out, to see firsthand whether or not this was a lifestyle for her.  And if it was, then maybe she could find someone into the lifestyle that she could have a real relationship with.  
Tonight she was dressed in thigh high leather boots with 6" heels that she'd originally worn as part of her Halloween costume this past year, with leather shorts and a brocaded green skin tight top that was boned like a corset but had an Asian inspired mandarin collar and little capped sleeves.  It covered her upper body completely except for a wide swath between the neck of the collar and her bust, showing over a generous amount of cleavage.  She'd straightened her hair and worn it loose, letting it flow over her shoulders to swing halfway down her back – almost two inches longer than when she let her natural curls play.  Black lace gloves and the embroidered jacket completed her look, although she'd take her jacket off when she got inside.  It was a damn sexy outfit and she was pretty sure that it fairly screamed 'in charge.'  Which is exactly what she wanted to be for tonight. Had been practicing to be. Tilting her chin up haughtily she strode towards the steel door of the concrete building.
When she signed in at the front desk (pseudonyms were allowed although when she'd filled out her form for the guest pass she'd had to give her real name and the pseudonym she planned on using) she put her name down as Mistress Angela before handing her coat over to the girl behind the desk, a sexy blonde wearing a naughty secretary outfit.  The irony wasn't lost on Angel and she gave the girl an approving smile, which made her flush happily as she took Angel's coat.
"Welcome to Chained, Mistress Angela," she said. 
"Thank you dear," said Angel, sliding into the role that she'd assigned herself.  She'd never wanted to pursue theater as a career, it was too volatile and not very stable financially, but that hadn't stopped her from pursuing it as a hobby in her free time.  Even though she'd only moved to the area a few months ago she'd already been cast in a show at a community theater.  Which was where she’d heard about Chained in the first place.  Tonight was going to be the performance of her life because she wasn't on stage.  Acting was so much easier when you knew your cues and lines. 
Still, she could feel her nerves humming the way they did when she was standing in the wings, waiting for the curtain to go up.  And that's exactly where she was right now; this lobby was the wings and as soon as she stepped past the hulking (and kind of hunky) bouncer through that door then she'd be center stage.  Well, not quite.  She'd be surrounded by the other players, but she assumed many of them would be very good at reading body language.  At least that was always how it seemed in the books that she read.
Hopefully her acting training would be enough to cover all that up. 
The lobby was tastefully decorated in dark reds and grays with hardwood floors, giving it the feeling of a boudoir almost.  When she walked into the main area of the club she was surprised to realize that she found it rather overwhelming, almost tacky.  The space was bigger than she'd expected, with a dance floor to her left, a bar straight ahead of her, and a wall lined with little alcoves for playing to her right.  Chandeliers flickering with multi-hued lights hung from the ceiling, red velvety curtains were tied back at the edges of the alcoves - obviously you could use them to create a more private area for yourself if you desired, and the dance floor had neon lights blazing over it, creating patterns on the floor.  Everywhere she looked the walls were covered with either bondage equipment or artwork (and there didn't seem to be a theme to the photographs and paintings or any attempt at arranging them in a way that would be pleasing to the eye).  The bar in front of her was decorated to look almost like a tiki bar.  Seriously?
It was like whoever owned the place couldn't decide what they really wanted the space to be about and so just threw together a bunch of ideas from different walks of life. And the music was pounding loudly enough that she could barely hear anything else.  Yeah, this place was obviously new.  There were people walking around, some of them involved in scenes, some on the dance floor and some at the bar, wearing all sorts of interesting and revealing clothing.  Angel's found herself examining a small group of men at the bar, four of them, all extremely attractive and wearing various amounts of leather.  
Dominants, definitely.  She could feel the wash of heat straight through her body as she saw their self-assured movements, their predatory eyes flickering around the room.  But she didn't show any of that on her face, leaving it a careful blank.  All four of them were handsome, attractive, but it was the blonde one that looked half-Viking, half-Pirate, facial hair making a neat frame around a sensuous mouth, that caught her attention.  Or, rather, he caught her gaze in his and she found herself struggling not to lower her eyes immediately from the sheer force of his gaze.

That's what a submissive would do though and that’s not what she was tonight. Struggling to maintain her expression, Angel gave him a careful nod, very slight and without taking her eyes away from him, acknowledging him as an equal.  He gave her a nod back and smiled.  The hard look in his eyes made her want to melt.  Or get down on her knees and beg him to tie her up, spank her and fuck her.  Instead she straightened her spine and curved her lips in a small smile back.

4 comments :

  1. Oh the tease!! I cant wait for it to be published!!!

    Love it!

    M.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You tease.....MORE, MORE, MORE!

    ReplyDelete