Three other people, two women and a man, also entered the lobby while she was filling out the form. They had to go through the same procedure with their IDs and forms.

Shayla felt comforted that all three also looked as nervous as she felt.

Inside the club she found close to ten people, all but one of them women, gathered in a cluster of round tables at the far corner of what turned out to be two of the warehouse suites. In front of them stood a middle-aged woman with her long black hair in a braid. She wore a plain, black blouse over a colorful peasant skirt that nearly swept the floor.

Shayla felt relief when she spotted Loren. Loren turned and waved her over. “Hi! I saved a chair for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Ross dropped me off. You can ride with us to dinner, if you want. That way we’ll have more time to talk.”

“Sure. That’d be fine.”

Once everyone was seated, including yet an additional two women who arrived just before the start time, the instructor began the class. She used a laptop computer attached to a projector, which shone on a whiteboard behind her.

“Thank you all for coming. I’m Maria. On FetLife my screen name is Eggmans_kinky_pet.” Her information appeared on the board behind her for everyone to see. “Feel free to friend me on there if you haven’t already. We have a reporter with us today, Shayla.” She pointed out Shayla in the group. Shayla felt compelled to force a smile and wave and wished she could slump down and hide. “She’s here today to observe and learn. Please don’t worry about your anonymity. She’s already been briefed about our privacy rules, and she will not do anything to out anyone here. She’s just here to learn like everyone else.”

Shayla gave her a thumbs-up and hoped she wouldn’t be asked to stand and speak.

Maria turned out to also be a married slave. In her day job, she was the accountant at her husband’s legal firm. “It makes life easy when we know we don’t have to worry about being fired,” she explained. “But we still keep this part of our lives separate from our vanilla lives, for obvious reasons.”

One surprise was the implements Maria laid out and invited the class to pick up and try out if they wanted. Shayla even let Loren smack her on the back with a leather flogger. She actually found the thuddy impact a pleasant sensation, not unlike a massage. Shayla suspected hard strikes from some of the canes and riding crops against bare flesh might hurt like hell, but Maria talked about how and where each implement should be properly used.

I wonder of OSHA has safety rules covering this? Shayla barely kept her silent snicker to herself.

Another topic Maria emphasized, especially to her female students, was how to spot and avoid predators in the lifestyle. Shayla found it particularly eye-opening. While Shayla had seen mentions of it in some of the sites she’d already explored, it hadn’t accurately transferred over to a real-world concept in her mind.

A lot of the advice was common sense, but, especially, tips on how to spot red flags while negotiating hard limits and scenes made more sense explained in person with examples.

By the time the class ended, Shayla once again found herself with the conundrum of knowing way more than she had when she walked in, but having still more questions about a lot of what she’d learned.

And feeling like she knew even less than before, considering the depth and breadth of the topic.

Shayla frowned as she flipped through her notebook and nudged her glasses up a little, making a few addendums here and there to her notes. Loren must have spotted her consternation.

“It’s like getting tossed down a rabbit hole, isn’t it?” Loren asked. “That’s the way people commonly describe it.”

“That about sums it up.” So far, contrary to what Shayla originally thought going into the assignment, instead of finding herself disgusted or completely disassociated from the information she learned, she found herself intrigued.

Which unsettled her in a way.

These weren’t a bunch of freaks. Well, maybe some of them were. But the people sitting around the tables this afternoon, some drinking coffee or water from Styrofoam cups, could have easily been members of a book club get-together and not a class on the basics of kink.

“I feel woefully ignorant,” Shayla admitted to Loren. “Like I know more and understand less than I did when I started.”

“Don’t worry. We can talk plenty at dinner tonight.” Loren turned and raised a hand to a man who’d just walked in from the lobby area. “In fact, there’s Tony now.”

* * *

Tony didn’t see either Ross or Loren’s vehicles at the club when he pulled up, but suspected that meant Ross had dropped Loren off earlier. He recognized the young woman working the front desk.

She waved him through. “Loren’s inside. Class just broke up. Go on in.”

“Thanks.”

He continued through the door leading from the lobby into the main area. Over half of the dungeon consisted of equipment and play areas, including a couple of smaller rooms in the back, curtained off for patrons to change or do more private play. And upstairs, an open loft area visible from the lower floor held play spaces for more specialized activities, like wax play, electrical play, and other things, to keep them out of the more heavily trafficked downstairs play areas.

The other downstairs half of the space contained tables and chairs for patrons to sit and socialize. It also did double-duty as classroom and meeting space when the dungeon wasn’t open for play. And it’d even hosted a wedding or two, such as when their friends Tilly and Landry got hitched.

He spotted Loren just as she raised her hand in greeting. She was sitting at one of the tables with the woman he suspected was Shayla Pierce. He walked over.

He’d Googled Shayla Pierce the night before and found her byline on many articles from The Plain Dealer, and a few on Sunshine Attitude Magazine articles, but not much info other than that.

He’d located her profile on Facebook, but she’d set her privacy so you had to be a friend to see any updates. Her LinkedIn profile listed her college degrees and her time spent at the newspaper. Based on her college and work experience, he guessed her age around thirty-two or thirty-three, because she didn’t have her birthday or age listed.

And that was it. She didn’t even seem to have a Twitter account.

Nice to see she doesn’t splash her life across social media.

Loren stood to hug him. The other woman stood and turned to face him. He sucked in a breath and prayed she didn’t spot the erection that suddenly strained against the front of his jeans.

As he’d suspected from the picture he’d seen on the magazine’s website, she looked guarded, sad despite the practiced smile she immediately fastened into place when Loren introduced her. Her hazel eyes looked hidden behind her glasses.

“Shayla Pierce, this is our friend, Tony.”

He extended his hand. “Tony Daniels. Nice to meet you.”

Her grip felt light, but not weak. “Nice to meet you, too. Ross gave me your name and e-mail. I’m sorry I didn’t contact you this week, but it’s been busy.”

He offered her a smile. “No worries.” He longed to figure out whatever it was that happened to her. She didn’t just look sad. It was an invisible cloak surrounding her. Something she used as armor against the world, he suspected, from the way her arms immediately crossed in front of her, hands clasping her elbows, as if to both comfort herself and throw up a barrier between herself and him. And the way she kept nudging the bridge of her glasses with her index finger.

Unconscious nervous gestures, if he had to guess. “Loren tells me you’re going out to dinner with us?”

She nodded. “I really appreciate you all talking with me. As I told Ross and Loren, I won’t give away any personal or identifiable information unless you specifically okay it. I’m going to let those mentioned in my articles read them first before I turn them in, just to make sure I don’t get anything wrong.

“Appreciated.”

Together, they walked out to the lobby just as Ross walked in. “Ready for dinner?” he asked them.

“I know I’m starved,” Tony said. He extended his arm, indicating for Loren and Shayla to go first while Ross held the door for them.

Admittedly, he wanted to get a rear view of Shayla’s sweetly rounded, plump ass. Her dark blue denim jeans were a blessing and a curse. They showed off her curves perfectly.

As he followed the group to Ross’ car, Tony realized he no longer cared if this was a setup or not.

He wondered how much hands-on learning Shayla might be up for that night.

* * *

Shayla blinked and quickly cut her gaze away from Tony’s green eyes as she released his hand. Something about him drew her to him in what she knew could be a dangerous way. Dark brown hair with a little grey along the temples, and a full goatee and moustache neatly styled and trimmed. A few inches taller than her, probably around six feet. While not a ripped gym rat he appeared to be in shape. He wore jeans over black motorcycle boots, and a light blue short-sleeved Oxford shirt.

He had an air about him of quiet confidence. If she’d met him in any other place under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t mind chatting him up for a phone number. He looked like Joe Anybody.

Albeit on the pleasing end of the scale.

As she followed Loren into the parking lot to their car, Shayla mentally smacked herself. Duh, he’s a Dom. He’s probably married or dating or whatever. Loren had a slim, trim figure Shayla knew she could never compete with. While a few of their fellow students in the class had larger builds than Shayla did, the majority of the women were younger, prettier, and thinner.

I look like a frump compared to the rest of them. She’d opted for jeans to be on the safe side, and a black, long-sleeved, button-up shirt open over a royal blue cami top.

At the car, Loren immediately headed for the backseat, but Tony stopped her. “I’ll sit in back with Shayla,” he offered.

“But my legs are shorter,” she countered.

“I don’t mind.”

Shayla didn’t miss how Loren looked to Ross for a ruling. He tipped his head toward the front door.

Without further argument, Loren opened the front passenger door and climbed in.

Tony opened the back passenger door for Shayla and held it while she got in. One more misconception blown to hell. She was glad to see being a Dominant didn’t conflict with gentlemanly manners.

He walked around the car after closing her door and slid in behind Ross. “So how did you enjoy the class?” Tony asked her.

She swallowed, silently cursing herself for letting her gaze dart away from his green eyes again. Normally she didn’t have problem maintaining eye contact with someone. She nodded. “It was good. Enlightening. Lots of information to digest.” She quickly opened her notebook, as if to browse through it. “I’m not sure where I’ll start my first article because there’s just so much to cover.”

“How many articles are you planning?”

She shrugged and made herself look at his face again. What the hell’s wrong with me? She focused on his chin. “I don’t really know. I don’t have a word count limit. Since it’s a web series, length and space aren’t an issue.” She closed the notebook and wrapped her fingers around it to have something to do with them. “My publisher gave me free rein. There’s a big fetish convention in Tampa in a few months. All the articles sort of lead up to that.”

“FetCon,” the others said at the same time before laughing.

She blinked. “Oh. You know about it?”

Loren turned as far as her seat belt would allow, a smile on her face. “It’s an annual tradition with our gang,” she said. “They have a huge vendor floor.”

“Lots of fetish models,” Tony added.

Shayla felt a little ill and shoved a memory back into its hole. She wouldn’t let thoughts of her experience with James spoil what had been an otherwise nice experience so far. “Models?”

Tony shrugged. “Not my thing. They have to make a living though, I guess. I go for the vendors, sometimes the classes, and the dungeons at night.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Loren said. “Tony usually teaches. And I think Seth and Leah will also be teaching this year, too. You’ll meet them at dinner.”

Shayla was still trying to process and interpret Tony’s dismissive, yet not derogatory comment about the fetish models. “What do you teach?”