1
Camille
Tugging on the bottom of her corset, Camille tried to feel like the powerful woman she had once been and not the beaten-down wreck she felt like right now. It wasn’t easy. She’d thought putting on the clothing would help her get into the right headspace, but instead, she felt like an imposter. Like a kid playing dress up rather than an adult getting back in touch with herself.
Was it possible for someone’s personality to fundamentally change?
“You look fabulous. Stop it,” Julie said, elbowing her in the side. The petite Asian Domme barely came up to Camille’s shoulder with both of them in heels, but that didn’t stop her from trying to boss Camille around. It wasn’t personal. Julie tried to boss everyone around.
“I feel like a poser,” Camille muttered but let go of the corset, if only to keep Julie from elbowing her again.
The look she got back from her friend was steely. The kind of look Camille had once been capable of bestowing. She wanted to give back as good as she got, but she didn’t think even her best effort would match Julie’s. She didn’t really feel it. Her glare felt fake, and therefore was weaker, which made her feel even worse.
Woman, snap out of it. You are spiraling.
“You are not a poser. You’ve just… lost your way a bit. That’s why you’re here tonight. To find a sexy man who will worship you and remind you of who you really are. Who you were before you took that damn job.” Julie’s tone sharpened.
Camille knew Julie didn’t approve of her working for the Donaldson Law Group, but they’d been hiring and paid well enough for her to keep her mom in the expensive nursing home to get the care she needed. Dementia was a nasty disease. As an only child, with her dad gone, and her mom’s sister also not in the best health, it was up to Camille to take care of her mom. The job was the reason she’d slowly lost her confidence, not to mention her personal life, over the years.
All issues that she really didn’t want to think about tonight.
“I thought I came here to forget about my job.” She raised her eyebrows at Julie, attempting to put a little more ‘oomph’ in her eyes. It must have worked. Julie smiled and nodded in satisfaction. Camille just wished she felt it more.
Fake it till you make it.
“Good. Let’s get started then.” Julie opened the door to the room she’d reserved for Camille… well, the inner door. The bedroom connected to a themed kink room—the Dungeon Room—which let out into the hallway. They were on the second floor of Marquis, a popular restaurant in downtown D.C. The regular patrons didn’t know above the dining room there was what basically amounted to a kinky hotel.
There were erotic shows on the second floor as well, but she wanted to be a participant in a scene, not a voyeur. Julie wasn’t wrong about the beating her mental state had taken since she started working for Donaldson. Handling divorces all day long was difficult enough, but Donaldson’s clients tended to be grade-A assholes, and the partners were all cut of the same cloth. She knew money didn’t necessarily turn someone into a bad person, but Donaldson’s partners and clients were among the worst examples of of snobbish entitlement.
She’d worked there for almost five years and felt as though she’d completely lost her way in life. Lost sight of the things she wanted for herself. Lost who she was at her core.
Julie had finally convinced her to come to Marquis to try to reconnect with her old self. She’d even reserved a room in Camille’s name, so if she met someone she wanted to scene with, she could. If nothing else, it was nice to have a place to change, so she didn’t have to worry about running into anyone she knew out on the street.
Sure, her coat would have covered everything, but she would have known what she was wearing underneath, which was very little.
The light green corset dress she’d chosen complemented her dark skin, which pushed her breasts up to impressive heights, and there was a lot to push up. The corset pulled in her waist, and it had been a bit of an adjustment remembering how to breathe in one, but she did feel more comfortable now. The hem of the skirt flared out from her hips and flirted around her thighs.
She’d let her curls do their thing, and they’d actually cooperated, the tight coils standing out around her head, as if they were enjoying their freedom rather than the ruthless smoothing she usually did when she pulled them back into a bun for work. It really did help her be more herself.
Taking a deep breath—well, as deep as she could with the corset—she followed Julie through the dungeon portion of the hotel room into the hallway, down the stairs to the first floor of Marquis. The restaurant had been shut down for a ‘private event,’ which was only open to the kinky members of Marquis and its sister club, Stronghold. The room was already packed with people, drinking, eating, and generally having a good time.
The curtains were tightly drawn across the front windows, and while no one was in full fetwear, she wasn’t the only one in a corset, and there was an awful lot of leather on display. The smell went right to her brain, and she felt some of her muscles untense as good memories washed over her.
She’d only had one serious kinky relationship, but it had been a good one until Jay had decided he wanted to go deeper into kink. Not that she wasn’t deep, but a twenty-four seven power exchange wasn’t for her. Despite her sadness at losing him, she’d wished him well and sent him on his way, then played more casually until she’d started working for Donaldson.
Moving herself and her mom closer to D.C. when she started work had been the end of her playing. Driving out to the house parties in Baltimore was just too much effort at the end of the day, and the idea of making new friends in D.C. had been too daunting. At least until Julie had moved here and decided to drag Camille out of her house for the New Year’s Eve party at Marquis.
Julie was a good friend.
“Okay, let’s get ourselves a drink, then I’ll start pointing out possibilities to you,” Julie said seriously, crooking her finger in indication that Camille should follow her. A drink sounded good, though it would only be the one if Camille did find someone she wanted to scene with.
Alcohol and kink did not go together well.
After being introduced to the bartender, Shane, Julie pulled Camille through the crowd, introducing her to a few people along the way before they finally ended up with a small group of Julie’s Dominatrix friends. The two couples were warmly welcoming, happy to meet any friend of Julie’s, and their immediate acceptance made Camille feel both better and worse. Better because they were treating her like one of their own, and worse because there was still a part of her that didn’t feel like she deserved it. That didn’t feel like she belonged.
“Oh, look, Sam and Q are here! That turned out even better than I expected,” Olivia said. The redheaded Domme was apparently also the manager of Marquis, and Julie had called her ‘bossy but fair.’ Which in Julie speak meant that when Olivia spoke, Julie actually listened. Not an easy task to accomplish.
Turning her head, Camille looked at the couple who had just walked through the door, along with everyone else. The handsome black man had his arm around a curvy blonde who was nearly as tall as he was, and from the way they were looking at each other, they were completely smitten. Her heart melted a little at the sight, the same way it had been all evening when she’d seen happy, kinky couples.