Chapter Text
Dan wasn’t sure if it was the bass of the music or his frantic heartbeat that made the blood in his veins vibrate. He had lost PJ in the crowd of bodies minutes ago. PJ, who was the reason that Dan was now stuck at a BDSM club, the last place he ever wanted to be at ever again. The club was packed with people, the music too loud for his liking and if he really concentrated on it, Dan could hear the sound of whips coming down on human skin. He wanted to ignore that noise, but the more he tried the more prominent it seemed to become.
The Dungeon club was London’s most popular BDSM nightclub. Located in the heart of the city, it was a place with a very good reputation in the international BDSM scene. Despite its name, the dungeon looked like any other nightclub with the additional St. Andrew’s crosses, cages and a stage that offered shows on special days. There was a dancefloor and a hallway that led to the private rooms for playtime, should the playing area be too public. Safety was important at the Dungeon. Dungeon monitors always roamed the area. Alcohol and any kind of drugs as well as smoking were forbidden inside the club to offer both submissive and dominant a safe space for playing and giving consent.
Spotting a Dungeon monitor standing at the bar, Dan made his way over there with his eyes turned to the ground. He knew that people were staring at him and probably whispering behind his back. After some shoulder bumping and jostling with strangers, Dan came to a halt in front of the bar. The tall man wearing a brightly glowing orange safety west that identified him as Dungeon monitor briefly smiled at him before turning back to the person he was having a conversation with. A walkie-talkie and an orange satchel filled with safety supplies were attached to his belt.
One of the barkeepers, a girl with fire-red hair that was bouncing in locks from her shoulders, came over to take Dan’s order. Alcohol wasn’t sold at the club, the only thing that could really calm Dan down at the moment, and so he settled for some water, requesting a still closed bottle. He could feel the curious glances of the barkeeper. He knew her from his time as a regular at the club. She was friendly and looked good in leather, but as far as Dan knew she wasn’t into the scene. Dan gave her the money and thanked her quietly when she handed him the bottle, too quiet for her to hear. He turned around, his back pressed against the bar now and scanned the crowd in the hopes of finding PJ again, avoiding looking to the St. Andrew’s crosses and cages. With unease he realized that the Dungeon monitor had left his place next to Dan and he drew up his shoulders a bit further, hunched over and tried to make himself a smaller visible target.
Even if Dan wasn’t freakishly tall he knew that he would draw enough attention with his simple clothing. His black jeans, black t-shirt and grey cardigan were a stark contrast to the latex and leather that most people around him wore. He looked like a newbie, someone who accidently went into this club and couldn’t find his way out anymore.
With shaking hands Dan opened the bottle of water. His palms were wet and he didn’t know if it was because he was sweating or because of the condensed water on the bottle. He took a small sip and felt the cool liquid run down his dry throat, his eyes still roaming over the dancefloor in hopes of finding PJ. He was the one that brought Dan here tonight and he was also the one holding the keys to the car that would bring Dan home at the end of this night. Dan screwed the cap on his bottle again, unsure what to do or where to go now. He didn’t want to get on the dancefloor as there were too many people there already and he also didn’t want to venture to the darker side of the room, the one that held the St. Andrew’s crosses and cages, the swings and the chains and the corridor that led to the private rooms. All options considered, Dan thought that maybe going back to the entrance room, the one with blue and pink neon lights and the security guards and the lockers and attached changing rooms for switching into other outfits was the best place to be for him at the moment.
Pushing through more people, the bottle of water still tightly clasped in his hands and his eyes mostly lowered to the floor, Dan abruptly stopped when a pair of black shoes and sinfully tight leather pants crossed his way.
“You look like you could need some fun. I can help you with that”, a deep voice said over the loudness of the music.
Dan looked up at a person almost as tall as him and stumbled back in surprise, knocking into someone behind him. He could hear the person behind him swear, but his throat was too clogged up to bring out words of apology and his attention was fixed on the man in front of him. His eyes quickly roamed over a pale face with sharp cheekbones and an ebony-coloured fringe that nearly hid the blue – was it blue? The colour was hard to make out under the brightly-coloured lights of the club- eyes.
Dan lowered his eyes to the ground again and his breath hitched as he moved to his left to walk by the stranger and noticed that the man mirrored his movement and cut off his escape route. Dan could see the chain-wristband wrapped around the man’s left wrist, a sign of the club that identified the man as a dominant.
“You must be new here, because clearly you are not very disciplined. When someone talks to you, you don’t ignore them. I could teach you a thing or two if you want to.”
Dan heard the words but the only one that stuck with him was discipline. He swallowed harshly. “I’m not interested, but thank you.” His words were quiet but he hoped that they were loud enough to be heard by the dominant.
A hand on his shoulder made Dan jump but then he heard the familiar voice of PJ and tears of relief burned behind his eyelids.
“Leave him alone”, the other man growled in a voice that Dan had never heard PJ use before. His friend was a submissive, just like Dan used to be, and usually soft-spoken and gentle.
“What are you, his watchdog?” the dominant asked amused.
“I’m the one that tells you to back the fuck off. Come on, we’re leaving.” The last sentence he directed to Dan, but Dan wasn’t even listening anymore. He just felt a palm pushing against his right shoulder blade and guiding him through people that parted for them to walk through.
In the entrance hall the touch left his back and Dan blinked, only now realizing where he was.
“It’s alright, Dan. Let me just get changed real quick and then we’ll be out of here.”
Minutes later the cold air of a night in the middle of March hit Dan’s skin and raised goose bumps on his arms. He let PJ guide him to his car and slid into the passenger seat without complaining. PJ was apologizing to him over and over again for losing him out of sight while he drove them back to his flat, but Dan didn’t listen. The only words he could hear in his mind were not very disciplined and I could teach you a thing or two. Those dreaded words made him shiver. PJ turned the heat up in the car when he noticed, although he knew it wasn’t the cold that made his friend shake in the passenger seat.
___
Phil rolled his shoulders and winced at the cracking sound the movement caused. He watched as the last parents led their children out of the room. Gladis, the woman with white hair that always had the Wednesday evening shift, already started stacking up stools.
“Gladis, I told you enough times to leave tidying up to me”, he said into the silence of the room and grabbed the chair that was nearest to him.
The old lady smiled at him. “Thank you, Phil”, and scurried away. She had enough work to do with cataloguing books and helping customers as well as keeping an eye on the place, because many kids these days didn’t seem to understand that a library was supposed to be a quiet place.
Phil’s head hurt and he sighed as he stacked one chair onto the other and lined them up neatly by the wall, leaving them there until they would be required for next week’s meeting. It had been an exhausting day at work and his boss had been in a bad mood, letting it all out on him. He was tired and couldn’t wait to get home and slip under the covers of his bed after watching some more TV.
He left the children’s section of the smaller library. The main hall, filled with tall modern bookshelves and providing tables and stools that were quite uncomfortable to sit in, was nearly empty. A woman was browsing through the shelves, seemingly looking for nothing in particular. What looked to be a university student was frantically searching through a shelve on the other side of the library and Phil watched as Gladis made her way from the help desk over to her to offer help. A man with red hair and a bowl cut was leaning over a book on one of the tables and taking notes, his hand flying over the paper so fast that Phil thought that his handwriting must be unreadable. The last person in the room was a brown-haired boy who was also leaning over a book on a table on the other side of the room, but instead of taking notes his eyes roamed over the page of a book as he chewed on the end of his pen.
Phil did a double-take. The young man chewing the pen looked oddly familiar to him, but he couldn’t remember where he had seen him before. Phil watched as the stranger moved his left arm and took a water bottle out of his backpack. With that object the specific memories kept coming back from last Friday night at the Dungeon about a man with a water bottle in his hands and a pretty face and his friend the watchdog. What even were the odds of meeting the man ever again, let alone at the library Phil visited once a week every Wednesday?
The young man was beautiful. He had chestnut-coloured hair and Phil still remembered the details of his face from the club. He was quite tall and wearing a small leather bracelet around his right arm that had been provided by the Dungeon to identify him as a submissive. His clothes had clearly screamed that he was new to the scene. No piece of leather covering his skin, no dark eyeliner or other type of make-up showed that he had no experience with the crowd he had surrounded himself with. His friend however, the watchdog, hadn’t worn a shirt and only leather pants, which meant that he must have been part of the scene. Phil hadn’t seen him at the Dungeon before and wondered if he was the reason why the beautiful man had gone there.
Showing newcomers the world of BDSM was one of Phil’s favourite things to do as a dominant. The hesitant looks but also the trust that they showed him by agreeing to let him tie them up, giving themselves to him fully for the first time; it was a type of power to hold that could easily be abused. Phil prided himself in the fact that all the submissives he introduced to the scene for the first time had enjoyed their time together and often returned for more. He would have loved to show this brown-haired and wide-eyed young man a good time. He looked like he would be a vocal one and Phil shifted at the thought of that, trying to hide the hardening bulge in his jeans that the pure thought gave him. Within seconds he made a decision and with long strides bridged the distance between him and the stranger.
“Didn’t think I’d see you ever again”, he whispered in the quiet of the library.
In front of him, sitting by the table, the young man’s head shot up in surprise and he let go of his pen, which fell to the wooden surface of the dark table noisily. Phil could see the gears in his head turn as he looked up and when it finally clicked, the man’s breath hitched noticeably.
Phil was used to this type of reaction when meeting someone in public that he had met at a BDSM club before. Often they would blush heavily, refuse to meet his eyes and try to get out of the conversation that Phil tried to have with them as quickly as possible. They felt embarrassed by what they liked and wanted to cut ties with the kind of life they led after darkness had fallen over the city. This particular stranger seemed to be no different. His mouth opened and closed but no words came out.
“You know the offer to teach you in the art of submissiveness still stands”, Phil went on in a low voice, the one he used when chaining people to the wall to have some fun with them. His posture changed from slightly slouched over to perfectly straight, a transition he went through whenever he slipped into the role of the dominant that lied within him and came out so naturally if he allowed it.
He did not expect the reaction that he received. The stranger grabbed his notepad, pen and bottle and through them in his backpack. He stood up from his stool and it screeched on the grey linoleum floor.
“Leave me alone!” he snapped. “I don’t want anything to do with that disgusting lifestyle of yours.”
Now this right here, this was what Phil hated the most. He understood that people might have problems understanding the scene he was a part of, but coming to a club and then talking bad about it was something he would not accept.
“Listen up you little shit”, Phil growled and took a step forward. They were face to face now and the few other people in the room lifted their heads to watch the scene, except for the man whose wrist had to fall off soon from all the words he wrote down. “You came into my scene on your own free will and it is okay if you didn’t enjoy it, but do not talk bad about BDSM. It’s a lifestyle, one you will never understand but if I ever hear you say one bad word about it ever again, I will lock you into a cage and teach you discipline.”
Of course Phil would never do that, not without consent from the other person involved at least, but he did not take having his lifestyle called disgusting well. “Do you understand?”
Eyes wide as saucers, the brown-haired stranger took a step back.
“Is everything okay here?” Gladis walked over to them with a worried expression on her face.
Phil turned to her and plastered a smile on his lips. “Yes, everything’s fine Gladis. I cleaned up the children’s area and was just on my way out. See you soon.” He looked back at the stranger one more time with a look that could kill, before leaving the library quickly. His headache was still strong and he really needed a good cup of tea.