Nice Girls Finish Last by Sparkle Hayter Page B

on the floor by the white leather sofa.
    Anya then sat down, took off her spiked Prussian helmet, and smoothed down her short blond hair. With a different personality, she would have been quite sweet-faced. Her face was round and catlike, with big brown eyes and a heart-shaped mouth, but the cold, controlling aura she projected removed all gentleness from her.
    â€œI’m ready now,” she said, imperiously.
    I showed her the photograph and said, “Did you know this man, Dr. Herman Kanengiser?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. I’m not sure. I don’t recognize the name at all,” she said. “At least, not by that name. But understand that people who aren’t yet completely comfortable with their sexual identity take new names when they enter our world. And many come incognito, in leather masks, for instance. ‘Put a mask on a man and he’ll be honest.’ That’s Oscar Wilde. ‘Put a whip in a woman’s hand, and she’ll be honest.’ That’s me.
    â€œI will say that a great many physicians, lawyers, judges, and other professionals, even policemen, are members, unofficially, of our society. We have quite a few clients from Wall Street in particular. If this doctor had a matchbook from Anya’s, it means he probably visited the club.”
    â€œHe doesn’t ring any bells?”
    â€œNo,” she said, without even glancing a second time at the photo.
    â€œNone at all?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œJust out of curiosity,” I said. “Where were you the night before last?”
    â€œAt the club, as I am most nights,” she said, with clear annoyance. “I understood from Mr. Spurdle that I was going to get a chance to talk about the society.”
    Well, if Mr. Spurdle said it was so, who was I to quibble? I didn’t know what else to ask her, so after that I just let her roll with her spiel about the Marquis de Sade Society and S&M—also known as B&D, for bondage and discipline.
    I already knew rather more than I wanted to about S&M. You see, my most devoted fan, Elroy, is a masochist who fantasizes about me hurting him. In his last letter, he had listed the many things he was willing to do to win my heart. For example, and I quote, “I would shave my body with a dull razor and then sit in a vinegar bath just to win the privilege of licking the sweat from your feet.”
    Creepy, yes. But what harm had he actually threatened to me, other than to give my feet a good licking, an idea more disgusting than dangerous?
    â€œLove and sex and pain and punishment are all inextricably bound up together,” Mistress Anya was saying. “We’re just more honest about it than most people, and more economical in the way we express it. Love needs rules, it needs a leader and a follower. Our love is about trust. The slave trusts me and gives me complete control, and I love him and punish him accordingly.”
    â€œHow long have you had Charles here?”
    â€œA month and a bit,” she said. “So far, he’s been a very good boy.”
    If Charles had had a tail, it would have been wagging.
    â€œIs there longevity in these sorts of relationships?”
    â€œOf course. I was with my late husband for eight years, until he passed away. Before Charles, I had Werner for three years.”
    â€œWhat happened with Werner?”
    â€œI had to ask him to leave,” she said shortly.
    The “slave” Charles was looking up at me with that same needy look a dog has. It was so weird that he was acting like a dog. Mike must have been thinking the same thing because he whispered in my earpiece, “Is he allowed up on the furniture?”
    This was a challenge. Whatever turns your crank, as they say. It’s not that I have anything against kinky in theory, if you know what I mean, but when I’m confronted with it in real life I have a hard time keeping a straight face.
    â€œWhy did you ask him to