Gamagoori Ira scuffed his feet nervously on the gray pavement as he stared across the sidewalk at the nondescript-yet somehow still imposing- dark wooden door of Club Red Thread. Ira had been working up the courage to go into the club for months since he'd found out about it via an ad on a kink site he frequented. He'd rushed to the club's website and filled out their lengthy application for the exclusive club almost immediately, but when it came down to actually visiting, he'd lost his nerve tens of times. Right now, loitering shiftily across the street, was the farthest he'd ever gotten.
Ira took a deep breath and steeled himself. Get a grip, he thought. You can do this. On shaky legs, he walked across the street and rung the small doorbell that sat innocuously next to the thick dark wooden door of the club. Almost immediately, the dark wood swung open, revealing a pale blonde woman in a slinky black dress and matching heels who had doubtlessly just pulled the heavy door open for him.
"Welcome to Club Red Thread," she said, smiling at him. "My name is Hakodate Omiko. Are you currently a member of our club?"
"Oh, um, yes- I-," he stammered. He silently cursed himself- he wasn't even in the actual club yet, and he was already letting his nerves get the better of him! He was better than this. He knew better than to behave this way.
"Very good. And your name?" she asked gently, interrupting him before he could babble on and make a fool of himself.
"Um-Ira. Gamagoori Ira," he stuttered out.
She paused to look his name up on a sleek computer sitting behind a large desk in the lobby. "It says here on your application you're a sub. Is that correct?"
"Um- yes," he blushed. Get a grip, he chided himself. You're in a BDSM club. Nobody cares whether you're a sub or not.
Hakodate reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a thin blue plastic adjustable band. This she placed in Ira's large hand.
"This marks you as a submissive. Red bands are Doms, green is switches." She waited for him to fasten the band on his wrist before continuing. "We have a main area for meeting people as well as play rooms if you so decide. If you're lost or have any questions, just look for someone with a Club badge- they can help you with anything you need. Got all that?"
Ira coughed out an affirmative, and Hakodate smiled at him and gestured to another equally imposing set of doors. "Entrance is that way. Have a good time."
Ira smiled weakly back at her and walked through the second set of doors into the main area of the club.
Ira walked into the club's main area and nearly gasped out loud. The space managed to be both opulent and understated at the same time, with dark wood and black leather everywhere. In the center of the room sat a large stage, upon which a man clad in nothing but leather pants had a slender girl tied in intricate red shibari knots. Ira felt his cock twitch in his boxer briefs as he watched the man caress his sub's back with a thin black flogger before landing a stinging hit along the curve of her spine.
He tore himself away from the arousing scene before him to visit the club's bar. He fumbled his way through ordering a drink, not entirely sure what he would be getting as he couldn't stop glancing around him in awe at the other patrons long enough to concentrate on the drinks list.
The bartender slid a bright pink cocktail across the smooth, dark wood of the bar top to him with an almost predatory smile. Ira studied it for a moment, noting the vivid color and the strawberry gracing the rim of the glass, then took a sip. He grimaced at the taste of strawberries that greeted him. Definitely not his flavor.
"First time?" he heard from his left. He turned to see a muscular man with a red Mohawk scowling down at a beer. "Is this your first time?" the man said again.
"Um- yes. Yes it is," he stammered.
The man smiled crookedly at him. "You don't have to be nervous. Nobody here bites- unless that's your thing, of course."
Ira managed a weak laugh. "I'm not- I'm not nervous."
"Come on," the man chuckled. "You're obviously nervous. Seriously, though- don't be. Everyone here is nice to subs." At this, Ira startled, suddenly realizing that the other man had noticed the blue band around his wrist.
"I'm-," he began.
"Talking to other men, Tsumugu?"
Ira watched as his seemingly stoic bar companion blushed at the question posed by a slender, shirtless man with obviously dyed blue hair, who was quite clearly a Dom. He realized belatedly that Tsumugu was wearing a blue band, just like him.
"No, sir," Tsumugu protested.
"Oh? Well, who's your friend then?" Tsumugu's Dom smirked.
"He's a sub too," Tsumugu pouted.
The Dom chuckled. "All right, Tsumugu. I'll stop teasing." He turned to Ira. "Hi, I'm Mikisugi Aikuro, and this boy here is my sub, Kinagase Tsumugu. You are?"
Ira blushed at the pet name exchanged between the man and his sub. "I'm Gamagoori Ira, sir."
"You don't have to worry about the sir part, Gamagoori. I only make my pet call me that," Mikisugi winked, acting as if he and Ira were part of some private joke.
"Stop that...!" Kinagase whined pitifully, his face red from embarrassment.
"What do you call me, Tsumugu?" Mikisugi asked him sharply.
"Sir...," Kinagase said softly, obviously embarrassed at being reprimanded in front of a stranger.
Mikisugi rubbed his sub's bare shoulder. "You're not in trouble, baby," he said to Kinagase gently. "You just need help minding your manners sometimes."
Ira tried not to stare at the two men. He couldn't help but wish that he had somebody to chide him and call him baby too...his mind conjured up a dim picture of himself, kneeling naked at the feet of a nameless woman while she petted his hair and called him her boy...
"Gamagoori?"
And as abruptly as the fantasy had arrived, it was gone. He surfaced from his daydream to find both Mikisugi and Kinagase staring at him curiously.
"Are you all right, Gamagoori?" Mikisugi asked him.
"Oh- um, yes. Sorry."
"I was asking you if you'd like to join us in some play this evening?" Mikisugi questioned.
"No thank you," Ira replied politely. "I'm not into men."
Mikisugi smiled back at him. "That's all right. Do you want us to find you someone else to talk to? I know some very nice Dommes who would be willing to ease you into play here."
"No thank you," Ira declined, as politely as he could.
"All right then," Mikisugi said. "We'll excuse ourselves then. It was very nice to meet you, Gamagoori. Say goodbye, Tsumugu."
"Goodbye, Gamagoori," Kinagase muttered shyly from where he was now tucked snugly under his Dom's arm.
Gamagoori waved them goodbye and watched as the pair made their way over to a curtained door that he guessed was the entrance to the club's play rooms.
He knocked back the rest of his now lukewarm drink, then ordered another one, this time bright blue in color, and sat at the bar nursing it for another half hour, then he left alone, without talking to anyone else. He wasn't quite sure whether to consider his night a success.
He came back the next weekend, and the next, until a month of short and largely unsatisfying visits had passed. Sometimes he saw Kinagase and Mikisugi, but he didn't talk to them much. Most of his time was spent nursing drinks at the bar while watching the stage demonstrations with hungry eyes. He watched the shibari demonstrations jealously, wishing that it was him up there, wrapped snugly in nothing but red rope for the entire club to see. A few other people, mostly male Doms and female subs, had tried to engage him, but he rebuffed them. He hated being a tall muscular man- people either thought he was gay or a Dom, or both.
It was on his sixth visit that his luck changed.
He was a half hour and two blue drinks in, and he was considering leaving already. He would go home, he thought, and jerk off to his fantasies of being tied up, then shower and go to bed disappointed again. Same old, same old. He pushed his half-full glass across the bar and went to stand up.
"Gamagoori Ira?" asked a man with a red Club badge from behind Ira.
"Yes?" Ira asked, startled.
"Kiryuin Satsuki would like to see you. Would you come with me, please?"
"Oh- um, sure," he said, and turned to follow the nameless man through the crowds of people in the club to a door Ira had never seen before in his admittedly short time visiting the club.
"Through there," the man motioned.
He swallowed his sudden nerves back roughly, opened the door, and entered a small, well-lit room. It had soft-looking white couches arrayed in a semicircle in front of him. There were five people on them-four women sitting down, one man kneeling on the floor who looked very much like-
"Sanageyama?" Ira blurted out.
Sanageyama Uzu, one of Ira's closest and only friends, grinned up at him from his position kneeling comfortably at the feet of a slender pink-haired woman.
"Hi, Gamagoori, " he said. "Nice to see you here."
"Quiet, Uzu," the woman, presumably Sanageyama's Domme, reprimanded him, and nudged him sharply in the ribs with the toe of one of her pristine white high heels. Sanageyama winced and fell into a sullen silence.
"Gamagoori Ira?" asked the woman sitting in the center of the semicircle. Ira looked back at her, and nearly fell over in awe. She was beautiful, with pale skin and long dark hair. The white dress that she wore made her look ethereal. Ira wanted to fall at her feet and never leave.
"Yes- Yes madame?" he stammered, the title slipping past his lips with more awe than he had meant.
The beautiful woman smirked slightly at him from her seat across from him. "You're a well-mannered boy, aren't you?"
"I- I try, madame." he fumbled. He wrung his sweaty hands nervously. What did this mystery woman want from him?
"My name is Kiryuin Satsuki," she began, "I own this club."
Oh god, the owner, Ira thought, the beginnings of panic tugging at the edges of his thoughts. What have I done that would make her want to see me personally?
"Are you enjoying your membership here?" she asked him, her abrupt question breaking him out of his thoughts. "I've heard from Hakodate and some others that you haven't been playing much since you joined."
"I'm sorry," he offered weakly. "I-"
"Ssh," she cut him off. "I'm not upset with you. I merely want to keep an eye on my newest members."
Ira could barely concentrate on her words. His brain was demanding that he kneel at Kiryuin's beautiful feet. He couldn't focus on anything else except for how inviting the patch of carpet near her slender legs looked, and how much he'd enjoy sitting there on his knees like a pet.
He dimly heard her sigh, quiet and delicate. "Kneel, Gamagoori," she commanded, her voice soft but steely. He had barely processed the order before his knees were hitting the carpeted floor beneath him. From behind the pleasurable fog in his mind, he registered himself crawling on his hands and knees to sit on the floor at her feet. Only when he could feel the warm weight of her calf on his torso did he realize how presumptuous he had been.
"I'm so-" he choked out, ashamed at his undisciplined behavior.
"Ssh, pet," Kiryuin gently chided him. "Stay right there."
A breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding escaped him in a long,almost painful exhale, and he relaxed further against the warm strength of Kiryuin Satsuki's legs. In a small part of him, he realized his desperation for touch was more than a little pathetic, but he pushed that part of him back down and relaxed into the fugue of subspace that was quickly bubbling up inside him like a warm bath.
"Gamagoori?"
He blinked his eyes open slowly, his surroundings swimming fuzzily into view.
"Huh?" he slurred sleepily.
"Gamagoori!" Sanageyama repeated impatiently. Ira blinked. Where was he? Where did Sanageyama come from? What-
With a flash, the memories of the night came flooding back to him. He blushed brilliantly, hot all the way down his neck, as he remembered crumbling to his knees and crawling at the feet of Kiryuin Satsuki after just one gentle order. God, she must think I'm pathetic, he moaned internally.
"Gamagoori! Wake up!" Sanageyama repeated a third time. "Lady Satsuki wanted me to pass on some messages to you, and if you want to hear them, you have to wake up."
"All right," Ira said, rolling his eyes. He stretched his arms, then stood up shakily on sore legs. "What does- what does Lady Satsuki have to tell me?"
"Wellllll," Sanageyama said, stretching out the syllable in mock suspense, "She's sorry she had to leave, but she and the others had things to take care of."
Ira looked around, noticing for the first time since he'd surfaced from his subspace-turned-slumber that he and Sanageyama were the only ones still remaining in the small private back room.
"Where did they go?" Ira asked, almost afraid of what the response would be.
"Well, Ryuko and Mako decided to go home soon after you fell asleep. I think Lady Satsuki and Nonon had to take care of some club business. They left me here to watch you, because Lady Satsuki didn't want to wake you up," Sanageyama smirked. "It was really obvious when you fell asleep, Gamagoori. You slumped right over on Lady Satsuki's leg. It was kind of embarrassing."
Gamagoori felt his face heat up for what had to have been the tenth time that night. "I've been, um- tired- recently-"
"Relax!" Sanageyama interrupted. "She also wanted to give you her private number. She said she looks forward to seeing you here again, and she'd like to have some private play next time." Sanageyama whistled. "Gamagoori, she really likes you."
"That- that's impossible," Ira protested. "I can't be of any interest to her. That's definitely not right."
"No, Gamagoori. You don't get it. I've never seen her that interested in anyone before. I can tell you that you're the first sub she's ever let fall asleep on her leg, man."
Ira coughed and blushed, the red flush spreading down the back of his neck underneath his tight white T-shirt. Sanageyama stifled a laugh at seeing his tall, normally stoic friend so embarrassed, and pressed a slip of paper into Ira's hand.
"Her number," he explained needlessly. "She said to contact her whenever you were ready."
"Ready for what?" Ira inquired, but Sanageyama just smirked at him, like the Kanto native was privy to some joke that Ira didn't understand.