Bodhi Read online

  BODHI

  A.R. Hadley

  Copyright © 2018 by A.R. Hadley

  Published by Chameleon Productions

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission from the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  ISBN: 978-0-9996527-6-3

  Cover Design: Najla Qamber http://www.najlaqamberdesigns.com/

  Cover Images: Deposit Photos. Used with permission.

  Editor: Monica Black http://www.wordnerdediting.com/

  Proofreading: Devon Burke https://www.joyediting.com/

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Also by A.R. Hadley

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Kate — both of you

  "Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see." — 2 Kings 6:17

  1

  “She’s only had two?” a man asked the bartender as he tipped his head in the direction of Audrey.

  She fiddled with the hem of her black A-line dress and the celery in her drink while taking a quick glance at his reflection in the mirror.

  Shaved head.

  Stubbly beard.

  Average height.

  His eyes … she couldn’t quite make out their color, and she didn’t want to seem like she was trying.

  And he was correct.

  Audrey had ingested two drinks.

  The maximum amount allowed.

  One of the things clearly listed on the sheet of “rules” posted at the entrance. Maybe two drinks had even been too many tonight. But they’d also been food. Everyone knew a Bloody Mary functioned as both dinner and recreation. Tomato juice plus olives and celery. Duh. Liquid sustenance mixed with the few shots of courage she needed to follow through with whatever the evening had up its sleeve.

  “Yeah,” the bartender replied to the man, seeming not fazed by him in the least as she gave Audrey a smile and a wink.

  The bartender’s name was Darcy. She had shiny blue hair. And nipple rings she didn’t bother disguising. They’d already properly met and shaken hands — the women, not the jewelry. Kate had introduced them. Kate had said she knew practically everyone at Bodhi, but Kate had disappeared — off to a private room with a tall, mysterious, somewhat dark-haired man named Peyton.

  Mysterious to Audrey anyway. In the few weeks Audrey had known Kate, she’d told her very little about Peyton.

  He likes belts. Has a thing for them. He’s my Dom. He’s fucking gorgeous.

  Well, maybe Kate had mentioned a few things.

  “Tell her to finish up and then call an Uber,” the man said, pressing his damn hands into the bar top, the slightest dusting of dark hair on his knuckles grabbing her attention as he leaned forward and scanned the shelves.

  The impertinent man still hadn’t so much as turned his head when speaking to Audrey — no, about her — as he eyeballed everything around her and beside her and across from her.

  “Excuse me?” Audrey perked up and stopped fiddling with the items she'd made into props and looked at him.

  After pushing her long, dirty-blonde hair behind her shoulders, she hoped she also tossed him an eyeful of gumption. She would no longer tolerate this third-person bullshit.

  Darcy smirked — Audrey was satisfied she’d amused someone — and made her way down the long, lonely stretch of bar. Ornate stools with armrests were tucked under the countertop. Several antique mirrors of various shapes and sizes hung on the walls. Wrought iron hooks were placed studiously by the double doors, ready for coats, rain jackets, or umbrellas.

  The action Kate had spoken about obviously happened somewhere else. This area was a ghost town. And it had been empty when Audrey first entered, nervous and out of her element but ready for a night of observation. An evening to learn how to loosen her grip. Every third Saturday was free and open to the curious public.

  “Have you had the tour?” the man asked as he released the death grip he had on the bar top.

  He stood tall — yeah, about six feet, but not fucking average — and swung his shaved head in her direction.

  “Have you watched yet?” He eyed the red ribbon tied about her bicep.

  In addition to the coat hooks near the door, there was also a bouncer-type dude who sat behind a desk, gathering information and handing out and overseeing a selection of ribbons.

  Black: Dom looking for a sub.

  White: sub looking for a Dom.

  Gray: Switch looking for a play partner.

  Red: Looking. Only looking, observing. No touching. No propositioning. No playing.

  The man who asked all the questions finally settled his gaze on Audrey’s, meeting her chestnut eyes.

  Full on.

  Without flinching.

  And she wished he hadn’t.

  She wished he’d kept his stare confined to the wall, Darcy, the full bottles of alcohol. She even longed for the impolite third-person conversation.

  Instead, she locked onto the blue of his eyes. The color matched her favorite pencil. The one she kept in stock for projects — a whole selection of blues she’d bought that came in one of those fancy artist’s tins. Prismacolor claimed it, but this man owned it, created it, sharpened it.

  And she couldn’t remember the fucking name of it…

  “No,” Audrey said in reply to his former question. Under the thumb of his sharp gaze, her voice became subdued. She no longer felt a trace of a buzz, not from the alcohol anyway.

  The man cocked his head and studied Audrey, looking her over as though she were a sculpture in a museum, examining her shapes and ridges, her imperfections and advantages, while he ran a hand over his scruff. It was dark and sprinkled with a few shards of almost-camouflaged gray. Maybe a few days of stubble. Maybe less. She loved the feel of a man’s unshaven face against her cheeks, her thighs.

  It had been a long fucking time…

  Maybe being at a sex club — shit, not a sex club, a dungeon — wasn't such
a stellar idea.

  "Who brought you?” he asked with a leftover curtness in his tone she continued to find herself attuned to. Every nerve in her body vibrated like a perfectly plucked instrument whenever he spoke.

  Darcy reappeared and took Audrey’s glass even though it still had a few delicious drops of Bloody remaining. Darcy also answered for Audrey, because the cat — or the man with the blue eyes and intense stare — had gotten her tongue.

  And the pencil … it’s Copenhagen blue! The color of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

  “Kate,” Darcy answered for Audrey, gifting them another wink, her violet eyes shining through the lenses of her Buddy Holly glasses.

  “Come with me,” he said, gesturing toward a set of doors.

  His black T-shirt couldn’t conceal the heft of his arms, and Audrey wanted to run her hands across his biceps or press her nose against the outline of muscle there. Probably not what he had in mind at this kind of club. Unless his kink was noses pressed against muscle or he had a hand or nose fetish.

  After glancing at Darcy, Audrey shifted her gaze to the anything-but-average man with the shaved head, scruffy face, and colored-pencil eyes. The bartender nodded her approval, but Audrey still hesitated.

  “I don’t know your name.”

  “Gavin,” Darcy replied with another fucking wink as the man scowled.

  He managed to look both innocent and dangerous — a beautiful combination.

  Unable to keep a smile at bay, Audrey stood and followed but remained glued to his side as he led her through the large, wooden double doors and past two open areas where all kinds of decadent things were happening…

  A few women and a couple men were being used as footstools and drink holders. Several were sucking cocks. One woman sucked multiple cocks, one after another. People watched the cock sucking while talking amongst themselves. And there was surely a host of other activity Audrey wasn’t able to observe — or maybe she only noticed what interested her most. And then there were the crosses: St. Andrew's Crosses.

  Two in the first open room. Two in the next. Two empty. Two with people strapped on being beaten and touched, slapped and tickled. Tools were being used Audrey didn’t have time to label.

  Screaming and moaning and the scent of arousal permeated the air — other things Audrey managed to absorb on the brisk stroll to God knew where as they window-shopped for things she couldn’t have even dreamed up.

  And then they stopped in front of a door. The first of what looked like six at the start of a wide hallway.

  She could hear Kate’s beautiful moans.

  Kate Tracy. Audrey’s new friend and accomplice, the one she’d recently met online who’d brought her into this forbidden world of fetish. And despite thinking otherwise for many, many months, now that the moment had arrived, Audrey wasn’t sure she was ready to watch. The blood-red ribbon on her bicep indicated she was there to watch but not participate. It meant she was possibly a BDSM virgin, when, in fact, she wasn’t — not totally — but she’d never watched.

  Not in the flesh.

  She’d imagined it but was now terrified the reality of seeing her friend naked, splayed out, maybe bruised, maybe having an orgasm — she was afraid the reality might crush the dream.

  The door had a magnetic dry-erase calendar affixed to it. Kate and Peyton’s time slot were written in red. Gavin tapped a code on the panel of numbers to the side, and when the heavy, white metal door opened, the man inside paused and looked over his shoulder.

  Once Peyton saw it was Gavin, he only smiled and continued as if nothing had occurred — as if people weren’t in the room with them now … Kate nude and hanging from a contraption attached to the ceiling.

  Gavin brought his fingers to his lips, indicating Audrey not speak, and then he pulled her aside near a wall — to watch — holding her back against his chest as he wrapped an arm around her neck. It wasn’t a romantic overture or means to snuggle.

  His grip looked like a chokehold — without the choking.

  It was clearly a gesture meant not only for Audrey, but for the man beating Kate and for the onlookers who stood scrunched at the outside of the windows — the people who appeared drunk on expression, hazed and dazed with the anticipation of an orgasm — theirs or his or hers. It didn’t matter.

  Kate was blindfolded. Her coal-black hair was tied in a high ponytail. The man, Master Peyton, continued to strike her with an ornate leather belt folded in two. Dark tan, long and thick (the belt), and engraved.

  Kate was already covered in bruises. Her ass and thighs were welted, red, tinged with superficial wounds. She openly sobbed, though quietly. Tears cascaded down her cheeks, past her mouth, from under her blindfold. She seemed unaware there had even been a disturbance in the room.

  After several more lashes, the man holding the implement of destruction and appropriation inserted three fingers inside Kate and said, “There’s a man watching you.”

  Peyton had spoken hypnotically, as if he were waking Kate from a dream. Maybe she’d fallen down the rabbit hole and he’d reached an arm into the dirt to pull her out.

  “Kate,” Peyton whispered. “Kitten.”

  “Mmm,” she moaned.

  “There’s a man watching you,” he repeated, the same sinister delight in his tone, a devious smile playing across his lips.

  “Men at the window,” she mumbled.

  “No, Katy Kitten. The men at the window are outside. He is in the room with us.”

  Kate sucked in a breath, and as she did, Peyton removed his fingers and struck her again. This time, she cried out, but she didn’t ask him to stop.

  “You will come,” he grunted, fully clothed, an erection straining his blue jeans. His brown bangs — the color appearing to have been kissed by a burnt sunset — lay matted across his sweaty forehead.

  “Yes,” Kate replied without reservation, adding the word sir after a slight pause. A smile formed on her pretty pink lips. She licked at the leftover tears that had rolled down her cheeks.

  The grip Gavin had on Audrey’s neck tightened. He nipped at her ear, breathed against her skin and hair, causing her knees to buckle, then he pulled her taut again.

  “Shhh,” Gavin whispered, and Audrey relaxed into him, her body shape molding to his as though they’d taken this position a million times.

  His voice felt and sounded full of a foreign but welcome sensuality. It had weight and depth — a much needed rain. She could feel his dick against her back and his breath on her nape.

  Peyton took a toy from the table beside him, switched it on, and inserted it into Kate’s heat. As he fucked her with the vibrator, he belted her ass with renewed courtesy, alternating the deeds. The sounds she made bled into a symphony.

  “Please. Please. Please.”

  “Please what, Kitten?” Peyton said as he paused.

  “Use me,” she whispered.

  He increased his ministrations without missing a beat, keeping the toy on and the belt poised, rumbling toward a spastic conclusion.

  “Come,” Peyton demanded, speaking with such richness Audrey thought she might also release.

  Her vicarious position, Gavin’s hot breath on her skin — his dick against her back, his arm about her neck, clutching her superficial sensitivities — made it a distinct possibility.

  “He’s here?” Kate asked between pants.

  “Yes.” Peyton swatted her one final time.

  The belt made a loud noise as the stainless-steel buckle hit the floor, and Kate made an even louder noise as she freed what sounded like a mind-blowing orgasm. Audrey could feel the convulsions without seeing Kate’s eyes, feeling her friend’s pleasure wash over the room like a gentle wave kissing the shoreline.

  Peyton unbound Kate, kissed her cheeks, and praised her over and over. “My good, Katy Kitten. Good. Good. Good.”

  2

  After exchanging quiet words with Peyton while Kate kept her blindfold on, Gavin led Audrey out and down the hall.

  Th
e new room they entered was much like the one they’d just left. Not much decoration, no fuss. The size of a small hotel suite. But this room was windowless, darker, colder. It had a bed in the center, tools hanging on the walls, and two other closed doors, not including the exit. Perhaps a bathroom and a closet. The only bold colors came from the black leather furniture and the beautiful black-and-white quilt — embroidered with what appeared to be fertility symbols — lying atop the king-sized bed.

  The room had been created for a purpose.

  Gavin told Audrey to take a seat on the small couch. He retrieved a bottle of water from a mini fridge, instructed her to drink it, then made his way to the door.

  Instead of sitting, Audrey followed him, but as he turned and caught her eye, it was clear she wasn’t meant to do so. He indicated the couch, utilizing only a stern look in the drowning blue of his eyes.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  He stood inches from her. It was the first time she picked up on his ethereal scent without competition from the bar and the sex and the sweat in all the other parts of the club. She detected cedar and leather and shadows.

  “Of all the things you could ask, and you want to know where I’m going?” He stroked a single finger down her cheek.

  Audrey had no doubt he was aware of the power he already held over her. A chill passed through her from head to toe.

  “I have on a red ribbon.”

  “Yes.”