Help Wanted (3 page)

Steph explained the pay grade, and though the salary wasn’t great for a neophyte, it did scale sharply to much larger, enticing amounts. Then they spent half an hour on security measures before Steph asked whether she wanted to continue on with the testing that evening. There was always room for shadows at the club. She’d have to hurry through hair and makeup, but they could manage if she wolfed dinner and didn’t waste time putting any of her belongings away.

Amanda agreed eagerly, and was escorted to a private and quite tiny cabin three rows back from the lake shore. Though small, it was clean and had all the necessities, and she could still see the water from her front window.

Steph then dropped her at the back door of the club where someone named Kara took over, who did hair and makeup for the everyday and special events, and didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. She bullied Amanda into the shower, informed her that shadows provided titillating background for club-goers, and performed in various costumes. Hers would be a wig, mask and makeup. Other performers would rotate in and out during her shift as they themselves rotated between other duties.

Performers were not allowed to speak while in the shadow box, nor were they allowed to interact with the audience. The key was to pose, provoke and provide atmosphere.

Kara explained all this while gathering jars and bottles and a powdered wig, as fit with the Victorian theme. Amanda stood naked in the middle of the room, waiting. She would wear a lot of glitter on her breasts, back, chest and buttocks. The wig, too, along with a red sequined mask and a choker necklace of huge fake stones.

Kara couldn’t have been more clinical about the process. She airbrushed some sort of primer lotion on Amanda’s breasts and ass with no more interest than a groom showed a racehorse. This was followed by a powder that made her skin look perfect and pale and glittery. Her nipples got rouged to turn them a deeper red.

It came as a bit of a relief when the wig went on and it turned out to be a lot lighter than it looked. The mask hid everything from hairline to the tip of her upper lip, and the red pumps Kara selected weren’t too terribly uncomfortable.

“Hurry and get up there,” Kara said. “And remember you’re still in testing, and that anyone could be testing you. Make sure you do exactly as you’re told. Nothing more, nothing less.”

With that, Kara led her out into the hall. Amanda followed after, fighting nerves as the red patent leather pumps tapped on the backstage linoleum. She’d studied a little ballet and wasn’t completely hopeless, but she’d never done anything like this. She couldn’t even imagine what might await her ‘up there,’ whatever that meant, nor what sort of test she might encounter.

They turned a final corner and the hallway came to an abrupt halt at a black door.

“Just walk through the door. You’ll go up a short flight of stairs and come out behind the blind.”

“The what?”

“Blind. It’s a wall at the back of the box. Clients can’t see behind it. Gives performers room to tweak costumes and swap props. Got it?”

She nodded and did exactly as Kara had said, following the short, black-painted hallway up a short flight of stairs into the blind. There she found a small landing. More black wood shielding a small entry way with a sink and what looked suspiciously like a dishwasher.

Outside the blind was a twelve-by-twelve glass-walled cube. There on the black-carpeted platform was another girl, clad in much more elaborate costume. She too wore wig, mask and high heels, but also a black and purple corset that pushed up full, bare breasts with large rouged nipples. Garters held up black silk stockings and left her ass completely exposed.

Amanda watched for a while as the other girl, who was taller and more sinewy worked with an oversized peacock plume, tracing it slowly, enticingly, up flank and across nipples, then back down again. Then she switched sides, playing to a different side of the shadowbox.

The space inside the box was mostly open, save for two poles, one in the center that stretched from floor to ceiling, and another that rose only a third of the way. Amanda was wondering what that might be for when the other girl caught her eye. Her shoulders sagged a little, her head tilting in a clear expression of ‘it’s about time you showed up.’

Turning away for a moment, the other girl gave a nod at something hidden from Amanda by the blind. She couldn’t figure out what she was meant to do, but then realized the nod hadn’t been meant for her as someone else, a man this time, stepped forward. He was fully clothed in a highwayman’s costume, face also hidden behind mask and hat. Sun-bleached blond hair curling down over his collar gave the only hint to his identity, and Amanda watched as he approached the shorter of the two poles and fitted something over the top. When he stepped away once more, a padded platform a foot square listed sideways on a ball hinge that would allow it to tilt and rotate freely.

The other girl beckoned her forward and Amanda, remembering that she was being tested, obeyed. She stepped out into the box and looked over to see where the man had gone, to find him standing off to the side in the unmistakable stance of a security guard, or in this case, their observer. Nice build for it. He was tall and thick through the shoulders but narrow through the waist and hips. Not as beefy as most observers she’d seen on the grounds, but nicely athletic.

He watched her in return, dark eyes assessing through the mask, but no reaction marring the sharp, straight jawline, no smile touching a firm, sensual mouth. Not a fraternizer, clearly, as the man gave a meaningful nod toward the girl whom Amanda had mentally named Corset.

The club lighting made it difficult to see outside the glass, but from Amanda’s angle, she could see a number of tables close to the glass. Maybe thirty people milled around, though how many were guests and how many staff, she didn’t know.

A subtle guiding motion of the other girl’s hand drew Amanda closer to the platform.

Yet another sizzle rippled over her nerves at the thought of what came next, but she wasn’t given time to worry. Corset took hold of her wrist and drew her closer to that mysterious platform, making a big show of walking Amanda to stand in front of it, leaving her back to the audience.

Dangling from the floor-to-ceiling pole was a long, gold silk rope that Corset wound artfully through and around Amanda’s wrists until the soft cord formed silken restraints, and when Corset gave the rope a sudden and firm tug, Amanda was pulled toward the platform. When the bottom edge connected across her hip bones, its purpose became clear: the platform was for comfort, to help support some of her weight while she was bent forward, restrained, probably for a long period of time.

Any worry was quickly replaced with arousal. Bent forward this way, restrained, Corset would be able to do just whatever she liked, and with the platform propping up her hip bones, the audience would have a clear view of anything happening between her legs.

She realized then that she, or more specifically her nude body, was merely a prop in Corset’s show. There would be no coaching or teaching, which ignited the worry again, but only briefly. Restrained this way, there was little chance she could interfere or make a mistake, aside from trying to pull away from the restraints, and she was hardly likely to do that.

Her nerves were at once soothed and reignited as Corset began the show, using the plume to tickle down Amanda’s spine and over her right buttock, then sweeping up the back of her left thigh. The act continued on that way for quite some time, with Corset smoothing the feather over her flesh, almost hypnotizing her into a state of easy relaxation.

Nothing jolted her from that state or her plateau of hazy arousal as the act progressed onward and the plume was replaced with a soft black leather riding crop. Again Corset used the prop to tease and soothe.

Minutes passed before Corset gave the first gentle smack with the crop. When it happened, it didn’t surprise Amanda at all. She’d been expecting it since the props were switched, and there was no sting to the gentle blow. Not until the second flick of Corset’s wrist did the crop have any real force behind it, and even then, when the leather flap struck her right buttock, the sting of it was exciting and pleasurable.

Three more playful smacks came about thirty seconds apart before Corset changed course again, dragging the crop all the way down her spine and continuing between her buttocks. Amanda instinctively pushed her hips forward, tilting her ass farther up into the air, parting her buttocks for Corset.

The other girl rewarded her almost instantly by tracing a hand over the sensitive juncture between her left thigh and buttock, then dealing a spank with her palm. Such a sharp impact after all that playing left Amanda’s eyes wide, and she let out a soft cry of pleasure.

Corset responded with another spank, then stood close to Amanda’s side, facing the audience and rubbing both buttocks in an exaggerated, circular motion. Every time her hands met in the center, Corset’s thumbs would trace deliberately over her slit, bringing forth moans of tortured delight. She could feel her own wetness begin to seep out, cooling her aching, exposed cunt.

The show progressed even further, then, as Corset, quite without warning, let her fingertip travel higher to press against her anus. Her body reacted with an electrified springing sensation. She had never been penetrated anally before, at least not with anything but her own finger during masturbation. She’d often fantasized about it. To have someone else playing there, teasing, almost melted her thigh bones.

Corset rubbed and pressed for a while, but never penetrated. Then she leaned over to press her tongue there, wet and warm and intimate, and when she stiffened her tongue and pressed the tip hard against the pulsing, delicious sting, Amanda let out a long, guttural moan of pure pleasure.

She was disappointed when Corset drew back to use her hands once more, never relieving the sensations she’d alighted, but cupping her buttocks and rubbing until she was at the point of screaming. She needed relief, penetration, Corset’s gentle warm hands slathering pleasure everywhere they touched.

She did get the penetration she craved not much later, but not the way she’d expected. Corset had disappeared for a moment, her purple-sequined pumps reapproaching. A second twinge of disappointment was quickly replaced with startled delight as something solid and warm and vibrating pressed hard against her cunt. It paused just at the opening, Corset no doubt giving the audience a good tease as the club music grew louder, pulsing the floor beneath Amanda’s toes.

She had her own well-used vibrator at home, and was accustomed to its size. Corset’s version, however, was something different. She was so wet now that at first, when Corset finally relented and pressed the vibrator into her aching pussy, it slipped in so easily and she was so relieved she didn’t notice the difference in size. But Corset kept pressing, the much wider shaft filling her much more completely, and alighting the first electric impulses of orgasm.

She knew instinctively that she shouldn’t come yet, and breathed deeply to suppress the sensation, glad that she had when Corset changed course. Amanda didn’t understand at first what was happening when Corset nudged the platform with her hip. It forced Amanda to lift up, then felt something close firmly around her waist. A strap of some sort, or harness. Its use became clear a moment later when she realized Corset was no longer holding the dildo in place; the harness kept it from slipping out, allowing Corset to take their act to another level.

Amanda felt a tug at the restraints and then she was free, if only for a moment while Corset turned her around and the highwayman replaced the platform with a longer, broader one. Corset gently pressed her up against it and the highwayman supported her shifting weight until she could feel the new platform, this one solid and set at an angle so she could lie back comfortably and lift her feet from the floor.

Corset lifted her arms once more, tying the restraints again to hold her arms up and out of the way. She noticed they were tied more firmly this time, allowing no slack, her position forcing her breasts up until high relief. The angle of the platform gave her no choice but to raise her knees and spread her legs wide.

Now looking at the plain black ceiling of the shadowbox, Amanda still couldn’t see the audience and whether anyone was watching or paying attention.  Never in her life had she felt so completely powerless. Normally that might bother her, but here, in this shadowbox, Corset and the highwayman gave her little to worry about other than being driven completely mad with sexual pleasure. She had no idea what might happen next, but understood that this act they were putting on was not for her benefit, but for atmosphere. The thought that Corset might or might not relieve her arousal only added fuel to the torturous flames licking away at her throbbing core.