Author's Note:
This is but a small part of a much longer tale. If you're not versed in Jack so far, I recommend reading the previous chapters. If it's tags that have brought you to my little corner of the Literotiverse, this may seem a bit wordy for the reward. In any event:
Welcome to the Playground...
o
THE DEVIL
Jack arrived at the club twenty minutes before midnight. He parked in the employee lot, even though he didn't work there. Walking around to the front of the nondescript warehouse, he admired the utter plainness of its whitewashed exterior, its forgettable blandness. He could feel the heavy beat of high-energy rave music pounding through the thick walls of stone. The surrounding neighbourhood was an industrial district, filled with warehouses and self-storage facilities, and at this time of night lay dead silent.
Before the heavy steel entrance doors stood a single doorman, a thin, wiry-looking fellow of about six feet in height and decked out entirely in black leather, from toes to fingertips. A leather mask enveloped his head and face, sealed by a zipper in back, the front painted with a devilish visage in hues of crimson and coal. A pair of polished black nightsticks hung from his hips.
Jack nodded to the bouncer as he approached, who nodded back without a word as Jack passed and pulled open the heavy doors.
Beyond the double doors lay a small square room, twenty feet on a side with a low ceiling, entirely painted black and tattooed with white spray-bombed graffiti of all descriptions. On one side stood the coat-check counter, behind which stood a tall, solidly muscled blonde woman in black lace and stiletto heels that Jack suspected would turn out to be a man upon closer inspection. Across from the Amazon with the Adam's apple were several dark-curtained change rooms, all currently unoccupied. Black light neon tubes lit the room, clinging helter-skelter to the walls and ceiling. The whole place thumped.
Jack acknowledged the Amazon with another nod as he passed through to another pair of heavy steel doors opposite the entrance. She appeared not to notice him. Pulling open one of the big doors, Jack strolled into The Devil's Playground.
The interior of the club assaulted him like an electronic tempest. The thump of the energetic music crashed like an electrical storm through his skull as his eyes were blinded by streaking, strobing, sequencing lights of every colour flying at him from every direction. The entire place shifted and swam, a tumultuous ocean of people, and the lights trancing to the music lent a surreal, vertiginous quality to an already unreal scene.
The Playground was a fetish club, and tonight was packed wall to wall with a teeming throng of exotically and erotically dressed human beings. Vinyl stroked rubber, lace caressed leather as the pack of people moved, most jumping and dancing to the music. Jack waded into the sea of bodies, the smell of perfumed perspiration rising from the sweaty half-naked throng as he made his way across the cavernous club.
He knew better than to come here in street clothes, and had changed into a pair of snug leather pants and matching black boots before paying this visit on Alexandra. On his hands he wore a pair of black leather gloves.
He was caressed and finessed all the way across the club, hands groping his naked torso, fingers pinching his leather-clad ass, and felt no compunction about doing a little fondling himself. It took a leisurely fifteen minutes to cross the crowded club, and when he finally reached the unmarked door he was heading for, he had to admit, he was more than a little aroused. Jack liked this place, and not just for the atmosphere.
It was here that he had first met Alexandra. It was in the secret depths of this pleasure palace that he had somehow convinced her not to kill him.
The music muted somewhat as Jack closed the door behind him, another heavy steel job, and passed out of the club proper into a small lobby area, carpeted lushly in crimson beneath walls of polished black marble. The room was deserted save three unmarked elevators, polished steel doors pressed into the marble. Jack walked to the centre pair of doors and pressed the solitary call button.
The elevator arrived almost immediately, and when the doors parted, Jack was presented with a buxom blonde beauty standing utterly without clothing in the lift. She wore a simple chain necklace of gold, hung not with any pendant, but instead two small keys: one gold, the other platinum. She made no attempts at modesty as she greeted him.
"Mr. Action," she cooed, a coy smile lighting her lovely lips. "A pleasure to see you again."
"And you, Alicia."
Jack smiled his greeting as he entered the elevator, his eyes roving over the stunning woman's voluptuous figure. Alexandra had excellent taste.
"Going down?" she asked provocatively. She had no doubt already been instructed where to take him.
Jack only smiled wider as she pressed the appropriate button. She then set about removing her necklace. Jack watched in silence as she presented the platinum key to a slot beneath the button she had pressed, inserted it, and turned. The elevator began descending.
Jack waited patiently as the elevator fell. Alicia replaced her necklace and adjusted the fall of the keys between her ample breasts. She looked Jack up and down, her eyes floating along the chiselled lines of his muscles, lingering on the pronounced bulge at his crotch.
"I like your pants," she said slyly as the elevator came to a stop.
Jack looked her up and down as the doors opened.
"I like your outfit more," he replied, and then exited the lift, leaving her smiling after him as the doors slid closed.
Jack found himself on a small landing laid with velvety crimson carpet, before a wrought iron banister overlooking darkness. A single dim bulb shone from the wall of stone anchoring the elevator door in the blackness, casting a weak globe of light around the landing in defiance of the indefinable murk encroaching from every direction. Carpeted stairs led down on either side, disappearing into limitless shadow after a mere seven steps. The brief hum of the elevator ascending its shaft died out, and Jack was alone in silence on the lonely landing.
He stepped to the rail and leaned gently on it, peering out into the nothing. He could feel the immensity of the room, but his eyes could not penetrate the blackness. He had been down those steps before, however...
"Hello Jack," a voice purred in his ear.
Jack started at the closeness of the sound, his head snapping round. He was sure the landing had been deserted, and yet there, standing directly behind him, he now found a statuesque, raven-haired beauty clad in a black lace body stocking of considerable reveal. Her pale skin and sharp, regal features were accentuated by thin, arching brows over her dark eyes and black lipstick coating her full lips.
