2. TAYLOR
For months, my friend Gabriel had been begging me to visit a new club in town. He praised it for being underground. It didn’t have a name, but all the boys dressed in maid outfits, kitten ears, makeup, and some of them had butt plugs with tails. I knew that’s where Asher worked.
After he’d cleaned the classroom and I filed a report for a new classroom laptop, I headed to my apartment. I couldn’t keep his face from my mind. He was a jock, and a menace. He’d played many pranks in the classroom. I felt humor in the current situation.
Whoopee cushions, laser pointers, thumb tacks. He was a man child. He was twenty-two. I looked up his age on the system. I was twenty years older than him. Being his teacher should’ve put me off wanting to think about him in that dress with the lace and those stockings.
I couldn’t stop myself; I didn’t want to stop myself. I’d fought off several erections as I tried to concentrate on grading essays. Every pause from the page, Asher’s smug face reappeared, taunting me, mocking me, begging me to see him at that club.
—Gabriel. What do you have planned for tonight? I texted. He might’ve already had plans, but if I knew Gabriel, he’d have been willing to change them if I agreed to go out.
—Wow. He’s alive! You haven’t messaged in days. I almost came to your college and asked people if they knew this gray-haired nerd.
—You’re hilarious. No. I want to go out. That place with the kittens.
—You’re not ready for that.
—Take me.
—Taylor, I’m saying this as a friend, you’re not ready for everything a little kitten gives.
I wasn’t ready. He was right, but I was ready to satisfy my thoughts and see Asher dressed up. He was a swimmer, and I’d probably seen him in his tight Speedos in one of the trophy cabinets, but I’d never thought about him or his body like that until I learned about his taste for lace and silk.
—I’m ready! Take me tonight. I need to blow off some steam.
—Fine! But don’t dress like you’re constipated. And by that, I mean, don’t dress like a teacher.
Noted.
—I’ll be over in an hour. We’re taking your car. It’s nicer.
I didn’t mind. This was the right amount of excitement my body and mind had been looking for, and tonight, I was about to satisfy both. Ensuring I’d have enough material in my mind to play when I got home.
My closet was filled with teaching clothes. I taught most of the year. There was a little section for swimwear during breaks by the beach.
“Tragic,” Gabriel’s first words to me as I opened the door to him.
I dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with a white vest and a pair of beige cargo shorts. I thought I looked good enough. This was the casual clothes for summer, especially on a night out. “What’s wrong with it?”
He shook his head, peering over the top of his sunglasses. “No.”
“I don’t know if there’s a dress code, or anything,” I grumbled. “What do you think I do all week, go to these underground sexcapades?”
“Obviously not,” he grumbled, raising a single brow. “But we’ll sort you out. You look like an undercover cop, Tay.”
I knew that was obviously bad. I nodded. Listening to Gabriel was sometimes a bad thing. There wasn’t a kink that man hadn’t met he didn’t like, at least from what I was aware anyway.
He combed a little wax putty through my hair, sticking it up slightly. Making comments about how I’d let it get so gray. I dressed in a more leather jacket and a t-shirt, with a pair of dark blue jeans. All things I had in my wardrobe, but these weren’t exactly screaming me, plus, I didn’t think it was a leather bar. I had that jacket specifically for a leather bar, on Gabriel’s orders.
“You need to look cool, not like you haven’t been laid in fifteen years,” he snickered.
“You know that’s not true,” I told him. “The last time I got laid was just before Christmas, and it was the guy you set me up with, but I already told you I wasn’t biting.”
He looked me over, I knew that look. He was such a judgmental queen. I hadn’t even told him about the real reason I wanted to go there, I knew if I did, it would only be a matter of time before he was forcing me into a taboo relationship or listing out all the ways in which it was a mistake. Luckily for me, and Gabriel, we both knew he’d do both. So, I kept quiet about the entire thing.
Sprayed with cologne after trimming down the facial hair on my cheeks, I was ready to see what all this fuss was about.
It really was in the middle of nowhere. Gabriel drove my car. It was twenty minutes away from my apartment, and along a highway road, but before you turned off to leave, there was a second exit to a place listed as ‘Gable Manor’.
“We’re going to someone’s house?” I asked, as we entered a road surrounded by thick trees on either side of the road. Up the road, there was a thick wrought-iron gate, and behind it, cars lined up. The house itself was alive with lights and a water feature.
Gabriel chuckled. “It’s Gable Manor,” he said.
“I can read.”
“Then you know who Gustav Gable is,” he continued. “This man was obsessed with cats. He died like forty years ago.”
“Wait.” I pulled my face taut. “Is he still in there?”
“No, no. But his legacy is. I could spend days here. Which is why I’m surprised you wanted to come after all this time,” he said. “It’s owned by some other eccentric now; he basically uses it as his own private club.” He patted a hand on my shoulder. “But don’t worry. I’m a member, so you can be my guest today.”
Apparently, I had a lot to learn, which was strange considering I was here because one of my students was refusing to learn from me. I wanted to know what made this place to special that it kept his attention over mine.
Gabriel gave his name at the gate, and it opened for us.
Once inside, we parked up in a long line of other cars and walked towards the grand entrance on top of the stairs with a huge porch. No sound coming from inside as we walked toward it. There was light coming from inside, and spotlights shining on the house from the garden outside.
“You’re gonna love this,” he said. “These boys get all dressed up. It’s like Playboy, except cats, and people aren’t at the whim of some old man.”
He was right. This was just like that. A boy dressed in the black and white maid's outfit opened the door. He wore furry kitten ears over his shaggy black curls, and his face was dusted with sparkling pink blush with eyeliner whiskers on his cheek and highlights contouring his face. “Welcome.”
I was in awe. All this was happening right beneath my nose.
Other men, dressed in silk robes, and nearly nothing else as they walked around and chased after the boys. It was one huge playhouse.
“This is it,” Gabriel said, removing his jacket to reveal a glossy black harness hug at his body. “I’ll leave you here. If you want to leave, come find me, but try to last a few hours, at least.”
I had my foot in the door, now I just had to see what this place was all about. And by that, I was looking for Asher.
“You’re new,” the boy said. “I’ll give you the rules.” He wrapped an arm around my arm as Gabriel left. “There isn’t a list of rules, but they’re things we all agree on. No phones. Don’t take pictures, videos, and don’t answer it to talk to your wife or girlfriend.” He shook his head and sighed. “Such a turn off.”
“Oh—ok.” I reached into my pocket for my phone. It was always on silent anyway. “What else?”
“Go with the flow,” he said. “The Manor is equipped with many rooms, but Lyle, the owner, he said if you use those rooms, it must be consensual, and money can’t exchange hands. He’s never here, so that’s not really followed, and one thing we all love is a great, big, huge tip.”
We paused in front of a doorway.