Hi, it's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about that. I'm hoping to update more often in the future, but things have been a bit tricky recently. Anyway, on we go.

Small note - I don't know if anyone's reading this who hasn't read the original story, but we occasionally make references to events that happened in that one that we didn't necessarily recap here, so you may find the odd thing… confusing.

Feel free to review, I always appreciate your comments.

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Dear Diary

Last night we broke into the Diamond Club…

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"How do we get back to the records room?"

"I don't know! I was just running away."

"Crap. We're not going to have much time. If she wakes up, we're screwed."

"Do you think she's all right?"

"I don't know, Tori! Do you want to go back and find out?"

"No!"

"Then let's go."

They retraced as much of Jade's route as she could remember, turning this way and that, but the labyrinthine layout of the upper floor seemed designed to thwart them.

"We've been here."

"Damn it! Are you sure?"

"That's where you punched the wall last time."

"Fuck."

"This way."

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"Do you think she was the only guard?"

"How should I know? Maybe they come in six-packs."

"There's no need to be snappy."

"Well I think there is."

"Sorry, Mistress."

"Okay, look, you're off the clock now. Seriously. Knock it off. We could be in trouble here."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. And don't look at me like that. It's just...if anything happens to me, I don't want to go to meet my maker knowing the last thing you called me was 'Mistress'."

"But I... That's kind of sweet, really."

"Yeah, I'm all heart. Now come on."

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"If we find the balcony maybe we can rappel down to the hall."

"Not real ninjas, Tori."

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"How big is this place?"

"I don't know, you've been here more than... ooh, stairs!"

"What? Where?"

"There!"

"Flashlight."

This staircase made the one they'd come up look like the Spanish Steps, and gave the impression that they hadn't so much found a way to the ground floor, as stumbled upon a disused service entrance to Hell. They slunk down it, feeling the groan of the rotten wood beneath their feet.

"Where do you think it comes out?" Tori whispered.

"We'll be lucky if it comes out anywhere," Jade muttered. "Mind that step, it's cracked."

Although in their imagination the staircase got narrower and narrower as it went down, it finally ended in a normal-sized door. Jade tried the handle, and found to her relief that it was unlocked.

"Look, Tori," she said. "I don't know what's on the other side of this. It could be the corridor, it could be the parking lot, it could be anything. So just... be prepared."

"Yes, Sensei."

"Tori!"

"Sorry. Have you got your scissors?"

"Why?"

"In case there's anyone out there."

"I'm touched by your faith in my ability to take down a platoon of bondage storm-troopers using only a pair of scissors, Tori, but it's not going to happen."

"Well at least you've got something! I'm not even armed."

"Armed? Jesus, Tori. This isn't Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We're not going out there guns blazing. If we see anyone, we run back up these stairs. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good." She took a deep breath and cautiously opened the door to find...

Curtains. There was a large pair of curtains in front of them.

"What the..."

"We're in the main hall!" Tori said, gleefully. "This is the stage."

The stage. Of course. Jade had never seen the stage used - their skit had been performed in the center of the hall - but even standing on it gave her a unpleasant sense of foreboding as she tried to imagine what kind of spectacle it might host. The gaudiness of the drapery suggested club singers and third-rate comedians, the heavy steel rings bolted to the floor suggested something else entirely.

Tori peered through the curtains. "It's empty."

"Thank God for that." Jade joined her.

"Now what?"

"We'll try the main door."

They crept across the floor of the hall. There was no one to be seen, but Jade thought she could detect a faint susurration from somewhere across the hall. It faded as they raced jubilantly across the lobby to the front door, until it was gone, replaced by the stillness of disappointment.

"It's locked."

They stared at the door. They'd passed through this door in misery, they'd passed through it in triumph. But they weren't passing through it tonight.

"Have I ever told you, Tori," Jade began, quietly, "how much I hate this place?"

"Well, I guess I can understand-"

"No, you can't, Tori. You can't understand at all," she said. "I hate this place. I hate this place with a passion you can only dream of. I hate this place more than I've ever hated anything in my life. In fact, I hate this place more than anyone has ever hated anything, ever. I hate every brick of it. Every inch. Every piece of gin-soaked carpet. Every splinter of wood."

"Jade..."

"Every grubby, foul little corner of it. Every greasy leatherette seat. Every tacky 'erotic' picture. Every tasteless ornament, every crappy pot plant, every frippery and fuckery. Every 'special' room with its stupid fucking contraptions and secret doors, every filthy washroom. Every rivet, every stud. Every buckle and strap. Every molecule of rubber and plastic. It stinks, Tori. All of it. It stinks of sweat, and lubricant, and despair. But most of all," she said, kicking angrily at the woodwork, "I hate this door."

Tori stayed silent, head down, until something occurred to her. "What do you mean, 'secret doors'?" she said.

"What?" Jade was busy jabbing her scissors into the wall.

"You said, 'every special room with its secret doors'. What do you mean?"

"I..." Jade's voice tailed off, as she mentally shifted gears into reverse, replaying the last time they'd been there. "Tori, you're a genius!"

"I am?"

"Yes, you are!"

"Well, great, but-"

"The Red Room! There's a back way out from the Red Room!"

Tori's brain tried to process this. "How do you know that?"

"I don't know, I..." Jade floundered for a moment. "Your mom!" she said, suddenly. "Your mom said we could leave from there without going through the hall. It must connect with the corridor."

"But-"

"Come on!" She grabbed Tori's hand, and they made their way out of the lobby and across the hall. There was still no sign of the security guard, and the hall's emptiness seemed oppressive, threatening. They reached the door to the Red Room, and the sound that Jade had heard earlier grew louder. She couldn't quite make it out, but it reminded her of a badly-tuned radio, or a TV left on in another room.

The door was locked. "Did I ever tell you-" she started.

"Yes, you did. Now what?"

Jade thought for a moment. "The dressing room!" she said. "There's a connecting door."

They slipped down the side corridor and into the dressing room. Memories flared up, and Jade wondered if her missing tooth was still in here somewhere, caught in the pipes, destined to forever be a part of the building. The noise was much louder in here, coalescing into something more recognizable - voices, laughter, but underneath it all, a long continuous groan, punctuated only by a sharp crack.

She crept towards the connecting door and very, very carefully opened it.

The sudden increase in volume startled her. Of course. These rooms were sound-proofed, that's why they couldn't hear it from the hall. She put her eye to the slim gap.

"Sweet Jesus."

"What?" said Tori. "What is it?"

Jade let the door fall shut, leaning her back against the wall and sliding down to the floor. "There are people in there," she said, quietly. "Lots of people."

"Dang it!" said Tori. "My mom said sometimes the seniors get to use the place for private functions." She went to the door and prised it open slightly. "Maybe if we wait long enough they'll...Oh."

"Yeah," Jade snorted. "'Oh'."

"Oh, my God."

"Is that what you had planned for me, Tori," she said, coldly. "Once you had me properly broken in? A little 'private function'?"

"What? No!"

"Maybe that could have been my next anniversary treat. Invite the whole gang round, Cat, Kyra. Your mom. Everyone gets a turn."

"Jade!"

"Or maybe you could rent me out for private parties. That's how it works, isn't it? Swap 'em, sell 'em, trade 'em on when you're done? We're only cattle, after all."

"For God's sake, Jade, don't be ridiculous."

"That's what your mom said."

"What? When?"

"Before we came here the first time! She made a whole show of it in her little fucking speech. Do you have any idea what it was like, Tori, to have to stand there and listen to that? To hear my prospective mother-in-law tell me that my new status in life was basically livestock?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"It was exactly like that! And you just stood there with a rod up your ass and said nothing!"

"And you just stood there, laughing your ass off at us!" Tori said, hotly. "I've heard the tape, Jade. What was the phrase? 'The world's shortest, saddest chorus line'? I didn't say anything because I didn't think she was talking about us!"

"Then who did you think she was talking about?"

"I don't know, I'd never been there before! For all I know some of them are... into that kind of thing!"

"And you're okay with that, are you?"

"It's not real, Jade! I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the box, but even I know you can't 'sell' someone. I mean, how? How would that even work? You might as well talk about 'selling' a love affair, or a friendship. They're not actual slaves, I'm pretty sure your 'loyalty' to your mistress is going to evaporate pretty damn quickly the second you find out they want to trade you in for a better model. What would you have done if I'd told you I was going to 'sell' you to Marla?"

"I'd have broken your legs."

"Exactly! I might have been deluded about some things, Jade, but I never for a minute thought you wouldn't have something to say if I pushed it too far."

"So why would your mom say it at all?"

"I don't know!" Tori said, exasperated. "Maybe it was all supposed to be part of the illusion, part of the game. I don't know why my mom does anything, anymore. I don't know why she spends all her time running round after Marla when she hates the woman. I don't know why she thought you were into this in the first place. I don't know why she dragged me into it. But please, Jade, my whole life's already been one long farce, you're the only sensible thing in it. Don't let's get into this again. You said yourself I could only do the things you let me do, and the same must go for those girls in there."

"But does it? The problem with your mom and these guys is that they're not proper 'dommes' at all, they're just bullies. God knows what Caroline must have made of it all."

The sudden swerve took Tori by surprise. "Caroline?"

"Sally's domme. The woman we just found on the card. Come on, Tori, keep up."

"I know that! But what makes you think she was any better?"

"Because Sal used to talk about her a lot. She always pretended she didn't give a crap about anyone, because that's how she was, but underneath you could tell there was a lot of respect between them, that they cared about each other." Jade nodded towards the Red Room door. "It was a million miles away from what's happening in there," she said, bitterly.

"Don't start that again! Just because they do it differently-"

"It's not about doing it differently, Tori. It's about doing it right."

"And who are you to say what's right? I know it looks bad in there, Jade, and believe me, I wouldn't want it for either of us," Tori said, "but they must have given consent-"

"Consent?" Jade looked up. "Consent?" she said. "Did you see their faces, Tori? Did you see their eyes? They didn't even know what day it was! They were in no fit state to give consent to anything!"

"But-"

"No. This won't do at all. There's something wrong here, Tori. Can't you see that? Something very wrong. And we're going to stop it."

Tori's eyes widened in terror. "Whoa! We can't go in there! We'll get caught! We're supposed to be getting out of here."

"And so we will."

"So what... Why are you sniffing those coats?"

Jade was, indeed, sniffing the coats and bags hung in the dressing room. "One of these has got to be a smoker."

"You're having a cigarette?" Tori said, confused.

"Aha!" Jade withdrew her hand from a bag, with a silver lighter clutched in it. "Right." She stood on one of the benches, and pulled out the crumpled map from her pants.

"What are you doing?"

"Killing two birds with one stone." She held the lighter and map aloft. "We're getting out of here, and we're going to screw up their little party."

"But how?"

"I am about to violate the principle of free speech, Tori," she announced dramatically, sparking the lighter into life and touching it to the map.

"What?"

She grinned. "I'm going to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater."

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The sprinkler burst into life before the map was burnt through, Jade jumping from the bench just too late to avoid its spray, and for a moment it seemed that she'd achieved nothing except a soaking. And then they heard it, sweeping through the building from room to room - the fire alarm.

"Yes!"

"Is that... good?"

"I hope so. Right, get your clothes off."

Tori re-ran this instruction through her brain to see if made any more sense the second time. "What?"

"Clothes!"

"I..." Her instinct to obey kicked in and she began pulling off her sweater and mask. "Why are we doing this, exactly?"

"Because we're dressed like cat burglars, Tori!"

"Ninjas."

"Whatever! But we're going to stick out like a couple of butt-plugs in a nun's handbag dressed like this. Come on. Just down to your underwear."

There was the sound of panicked movement from the room next door, voices raised, the clank of someone struggling with restraints.

"What if they come out this way?"

Jade thought. "Put your balaclava back on."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it."

They both put the masks back on. Jade pulled Tori close to her, face to face. "Hands behind your back."

Tori did as she was told, and Jade rested her head on the other girl's shoulder, pulling Tori's head down to rest on hers. She put her own hands behind her back.

"What are we doing?"

"Looking like naughty subs."

The door opened almost immediately. "What the hell are you two doing in here?" a shrill voice said irritably, as though the sight of two semi-naked subs in gimp masks leaned up against each other was a minor inconvenience. "Can't you hear the alarm?"

"Sorry, Miss," they mumbled together, like a couple of naughty schoolgirls. The woman tutted. "Where's your mistress?"

"Told us to wait here, miss."

"Well you'll have to get out. Follow the others."

"Yes, Miss."

"Yes, Miss."

The woman gave them one last look, and disappeared. "That's our cue," Jade said. They pulled off the balaclavas and slipped through the doors, heads down, hair over their faces, mingling with the bodies pressing through the door at the back of the room, which they recognized as the one they'd seen at the end of the corridor where they'd come in. The back exit was wide open now, people piling through it into the parking lot. Had anyone thought to look, they might have noticed that two of the subs were wearing sneakers and combat boots, and trailing a large rucksack behind them, but no one did. They reached the fresh air, part of a milling crowd of confused and half-dressed patrons, the dommes impatient and angry, the subs blinking and staring as though unsure of where they were. "Easy does it," Jade murmured. "We just slip away quietly." They sidled along the wall towards the corner of the building. "Just keep walking, just keep walking..."

Behind them they heard the same petulant voice they'd heard in the dressing room. "Hey, what happened to those two-"

"Now run!"

They rounded the corner at a sprint, heading along the flank of the Club back towards the car, crashing into the side of it laughing and panting. "We did it!" Tori said, breathlessly. "We broke into the Diamond Club!"

"And broke out again," Jade said. "I really thought we were in trouble there, for a while." She paused. "We still could be, if they work out who it was."

"Pfft!" Tori scoffed. "What are they going to do? Nobody messes with us. We're ninjas!"

"For the last time, Tori..." Jade finally gave up. "Okay, we're ninjas. We're totally ninjas."

"Yay!"

"Now get your naked ninja ass into the car and get dressed before someone sees us."

They climbed into the car, struggling to dress in the confined space, giggling and slapping each other until finally they were in some semblance of decency. Jade sat behind the wheel and reached for the key. "Tori?"

"Mmm hmm?"

"Why did you come back for me?"

Tori turned to her, incredulous. "Did you seriously think that I wouldn't?"

"I told you not to!"

"I know you did. But I had to make a choice. This is what you were getting at when we talked about the skit, remember? Should you do the right thing, or what you were told? Well, now you know what my answer would have been. I love you, Jade, and I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you no matter how many 'clicks' it gets me." She paused, and bit her lip. "Are you going to click me?"

Jade hesitated. "Under the circumstances," she said, carefully, "I think... not."

"Good." Tori settled back, satisfied. "Anyway," she said, "I couldn't have left you in there even if I'd wanted to."

"Why not?"

"We're an army of two, Jade," she said, as if it was obvious. "We don't leave our commanding officer behind enemy lines." She held a lock of hair across her lip as a moustache, and adopted a clipped, military tone. "It's terribly bad for morale."

Jade snorted with laughter, and started the car. "You are one crazy loon, Tori," she said, "but I love you. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready."

"Then let's go home." She revved the engine. "Punch it, Vega."

Tori grinned and hit the stereo just as Jade hit the gas, and they screeched out of the parking lot, music blaring through the open windows into the night.

"Breaking the law, breaking the law!"

And this time Tori joined in, at the top of her voice.