Black Light: Roulette Rematch
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We Will NOT Lose
Elijah
Black Light West
Tuesday Afternoon, February 2nd
“I have some bad news,” Tyler reported the minute Elijah Keaton walked in the office of Black Light West.
Of course, he does. That’s the only kind of news these days.
“I haven’t taken my coat off yet,” Elijah groused, noticing a new stack of paperwork on his desk that hadn’t been there when he’d left late the night before.
“Sorry, I wasn’t aware your ears didn’t work with your coat on.”
On a good day, Elijah actually appreciated the good-natured bantering he shared with his right-hand man, Tyler Darden.
Today was not that day.
Life wouldn’t be good again until the day after Valentine’s Day. Twelve days. That’s all the time they had left.
I can’t fucking lose to Spencer Cook. Not again.
Already exhausted and his day was just beginning. Elijah threw his leather jacket over the pile of boxes lining the wall under a huge whiteboard before collapsing into his desk chair. He lurched to his left as the seat tipped sideways, reminding him that the chair was just one more item on his long list of things that needed to be repaired in the BDSM club.
Setting the pile of papers aside, he reached for the keyboard to sign-in as he asked, “How bad is it?”
Tyler’s cheery, “We’ve had worse,” helped keep his blood pressure down long enough to login.
“Lay it on me.”
“The one and only gay dom we had sign up for Roulette is backing out. Says he has some business trip or some other bullshit. We have a long waiting list of gay submissives, but we’re short on gay doms.”
Okay, all things considered, this wasn’t the end of the world. With the huge popularity of the event, he was sure he could con another dominant into participating.
“Go through the membership files. See if you can find anyone identifying as bi-sexual and dominant. Maybe we can find someone new to approach that way.”
“Will do. Oh, and Madison called. She’s gonna be late.”
That was worse news.
“Dammit, we’re so fucking behind! Against my better judgement I gave in and gave everyone yesterday off, but why the hell is the parking lot empty? This is a workday.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but I suspect it’s only because you don’t want me to fire your ass.”
Tyler grinned, chuckling. “I’m not worried about that. You need me too much for Roulette.”
While his second-in-command was right, Elijah also noted, “Roulette ends on the fourteenth. You hoping to be employed on the fifteenth?”
“Jeez, you can’t even take a joke. You’re a real dick to be around lately.”
Elijah countered, “At least I only get this way for a few weeks in February. How’d you like to work for Spencer? He’s like this year-round.”
“True facts. I talked to Owen over the weekend. He says half the DMs are ready to string him up.”
Elijah let his imagination run wild, picturing his counterpart, Spencer Cook, trussed to the St. Andrew’s Cross at Black Light East with his dungeon monitors whipping him. Now that would be a scene he’d pay good money to see.
“Well, if everyone doesn’t step it up around here, I may do my own stringing up. No one’s taking how behind we are seriously,” Elijah complained.
“We aren’t that far behind where we were last year.” Tyler walked to the closet to start pulling boxes down from the shelf.
“Let me remind you. We fucking lost the bet last year. What the hell are you doing, now? We need to go through our to-do list and prioritize.”
Elijah could barely hear Tyler’s response from deep inside the walk-in closet. “I’m pulling down the roulette wheel supplies and the signage. Remember, we were going to go through the kink list and order the new signs so we get them in time.”
Shit. He was right.
Once Tyler was done in the closet, Elijah hit him up with his next question. “When the hell is Jaxson gonna tell us who he picked to do the judging this year? Have you heard anything about who they are looking at?”
A lot of their fate in the competition was going to rest in the hands of random judges that his bosses, the owners, chose to do the judging.
When Tyler didn’t answer, Elijah sighed, looking up to find Tyler glaring at him with concern instead.
“What?” Elijah prodded, clearly missing something.
“He sent us an email with the judging details three days ago. Didn’t you read it?”
Fuck. No.
Reaching for his mouse, he dug into his email, looking for the missing email while making what was becoming his go-to lame excuse, “I’ve been a little busy.”
He almost had to ask Tyler to forward the mail before finally finding it in his trash folder. Not only had he not read it, but he’d somehow managed to delete one of the most important emails he’d been waiting for.
Double fuck.
Elijah quickly scanned the brief message, hoping he wouldn’t hate the judges that Jaxson had picked.
“Shit. So, the overall winners from East last year are coming here to judge us and Jax picked Jack Tanner and his sub from last year’s competition here at West to go out East. Not sure how I feel about this. I was hoping he’d have Cash or maybe Covington judge this year. Either of them would be a friendly for us.”
“Yeah, well Chase told me they wanted to keep things as even as possible so having previous roulette pairs flip flopping clubs helped keep things even.”
“What the hell do we know about this guy, Elliott Wallace? Master Elliott?”
“I pumped Chase for what he knew. He didn’t say much, just that the guy is really into fire play and is a pretty experienced Dom.”
Elijah couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. He switched gears. “When was the last time we saw Jack Tanner in the club?”
He didn’t like the sour look on Tyler’s face. “I don’t remember, which isn’t good.”
Elijah agreed. He didn’t even have to voice his next thought because Tyler had already pulled his phone out of his pocket, adding, “I’m texting him now. Inviting him to come in next weekend cuz we miss him.”
“Don’t lay it on too thick,” he warned, knowing the private investigator wasn’t stupid. He was gonna figure out they were gonna try to woo his support in his upcoming voting.
He changed the subject, “Did the construction crew get here on time today?”
He had to wait for Tyler to put his phone away and answer. “They were here when I got here.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
Tyler looked away sheepishly. “How the fuck would I know? I only got here about twenty minutes before you did.”
Rather than saying something he’d regret, Elijah stomped out of the office, headed out to inspect the two construction projects they had underway.
First stop, the theater. He was relieved to hear the pounding underway right up until the minute he walked into the small space.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Sure, they’d needed better seating for the Roulette pairing ceremony, but what the hell had he done? The room was gutted. Completely and wholly empty. The only thing remaining in the previously elegant theater were piles of rubble from the torn-up walls and flooring. Even the drop ceiling had been removed, exposing plumbing and electrical pipes.
“Who’s in charge here?” he called out to the three men working.
No one spoke up. Not a good sign.
“You,” he pointed at the nearest guy holding a sledgehammer. “Where’s Oliver?”
The guy just shrugged his shoulders and kept tearing up the far wall.
Elijah walked out of the noisy space to the empty bar area before calling the owner of the construction company. After five rings, the call went to voicemail.
“Hey, this is Elijah Keaton over at Black Light and I need you to call me right away. Your crew is completely demolishing the theater. This is not what we discussed. I’ll remind you that we have our biggest event of the year the night of Valentine’s Day and we must have the theater in perfect condition. Call me.”
He had no more than hung up when his phone rang. He answered it on the first ring. “Talk to me.”
“Hey, I’m running late, but I’ll be there soon.” It was Avery, the club chef.
“Christ, not you too. Everyone’s late.”
“Sorry, but we normally have Tuesdays off. I had a hair appointment.”
“Fine but bring down the menu and purchasing orders as soon as you get here. I want to go through everything to make sure we have it all ordered.”
“Relax, this isn’t my first rodeo you know.”
He hung up. He didn’t want to talk about hairdos and rodeos, dammit.
The ping of an incoming text came as he was halfway to the sauna at the back of the club.
It was a text from Madison: On my way. Do you want me to pick up anything on the way?
Elijah tapped out a quick reply: Punctual ppl.
Madison replied almost instantly with a brief: Ouch.
Groaning, Elijah tried to text while he stomped through the curtain to the play area: Gt ur ass here or u’ll have smthng 2 cry bout.
Madison’s next text was so damn sassy he could practically hear her voice: Your texts are getting worse. See you soon.
Despite complaints from his employees, his texts were just fine, and as he tucked his phone away Elijah met the sauna repair guy coming around the pool.
“Get it fixed?” he asked expectantly.
“I wish. The fan’s motor is burned up. I’m gonna have to see if I have a replacement in my storeroom. If not, I may need to order one from the manufacturer.”
Fucking great.
“How much is that gonna set us back?”
“Depends. You have a pretty old system. I think the manufacturer is in the EU. Could take a few weeks.”
“Bullshit. We gotta have the sauna working by Valentine’s Day at the latest. It’s one of the…” He cut off his sentence. The contractor wasn’t a member, and although he’d signed the standard NDA before being allowed in the top secret BDSM club, he didn’t need to know the details. “Just get it fixed before then.”
“I’ll know more when I get back to my shop. Call you later.”
After the guy left, Elijah stood in the middle of the empty club, glancing around at the place that now felt like home rather than work. As hard as he tried to tell himself that the bet he’d made with Spencer wasn’t that important in the wide spectrum of life, he couldn’t push down his anxiety. Not only was he competitive, but he couldn’t stand the thought of another year of staff meetings where the asshole in D.C. snuck in digs and insults over their win the year before.
We won’t lose. Not again.
Elijah
Black Light West
Tuesday Afternoon, February 2nd
“I have some bad news,” Tyler reported the minute Elijah Keaton walked in the office of Black Light West.
Of course, he does. That’s the only kind of news these days.
“I haven’t taken my coat off yet,” Elijah groused, noticing a new stack of paperwork on his desk that hadn’t been there when he’d left late the night before.
“Sorry, I wasn’t aware your ears didn’t work with your coat on.”
On a good day, Elijah actually appreciated the good-natured bantering he shared with his right-hand man, Tyler Darden.
Today was not that day.
Life wouldn’t be good again until the day after Valentine’s Day. Twelve days. That’s all the time they had left.
I can’t fucking lose to Spencer Cook. Not again.
Already exhausted and his day was just beginning. Elijah threw his leather jacket over the pile of boxes lining the wall under a huge whiteboard before collapsing into his desk chair. He lurched to his left as the seat tipped sideways, reminding him that the chair was just one more item on his long list of things that needed to be repaired in the BDSM club.
Setting the pile of papers aside, he reached for the keyboard to sign-in as he asked, “How bad is it?”
Tyler’s cheery, “We’ve had worse,” helped keep his blood pressure down long enough to login.
“Lay it on me.”
“The one and only gay dom we had sign up for Roulette is backing out. Says he has some business trip or some other bullshit. We have a long waiting list of gay submissives, but we’re short on gay doms.”
Okay, all things considered, this wasn’t the end of the world. With the huge popularity of the event, he was sure he could con another dominant into participating.
“Go through the membership files. See if you can find anyone identifying as bi-sexual and dominant. Maybe we can find someone new to approach that way.”
“Will do. Oh, and Madison called. She’s gonna be late.”
That was worse news.
“Dammit, we’re so fucking behind! Against my better judgement I gave in and gave everyone yesterday off, but why the hell is the parking lot empty? This is a workday.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but I suspect it’s only because you don’t want me to fire your ass.”
Tyler grinned, chuckling. “I’m not worried about that. You need me too much for Roulette.”
While his second-in-command was right, Elijah also noted, “Roulette ends on the fourteenth. You hoping to be employed on the fifteenth?”
“Jeez, you can’t even take a joke. You’re a real dick to be around lately.”
Elijah countered, “At least I only get this way for a few weeks in February. How’d you like to work for Spencer? He’s like this year-round.”
“True facts. I talked to Owen over the weekend. He says half the DMs are ready to string him up.”
Elijah let his imagination run wild, picturing his counterpart, Spencer Cook, trussed to the St. Andrew’s Cross at Black Light East with his dungeon monitors whipping him. Now that would be a scene he’d pay good money to see.
“Well, if everyone doesn’t step it up around here, I may do my own stringing up. No one’s taking how behind we are seriously,” Elijah complained.
“We aren’t that far behind where we were last year.” Tyler walked to the closet to start pulling boxes down from the shelf.
“Let me remind you. We fucking lost the bet last year. What the hell are you doing, now? We need to go through our to-do list and prioritize.”
Elijah could barely hear Tyler’s response from deep inside the walk-in closet. “I’m pulling down the roulette wheel supplies and the signage. Remember, we were going to go through the kink list and order the new signs so we get them in time.”
Shit. He was right.
Once Tyler was done in the closet, Elijah hit him up with his next question. “When the hell is Jaxson gonna tell us who he picked to do the judging this year? Have you heard anything about who they are looking at?”
A lot of their fate in the competition was going to rest in the hands of random judges that his bosses, the owners, chose to do the judging.
When Tyler didn’t answer, Elijah sighed, looking up to find Tyler glaring at him with concern instead.
“What?” Elijah prodded, clearly missing something.
“He sent us an email with the judging details three days ago. Didn’t you read it?”
Fuck. No.
Reaching for his mouse, he dug into his email, looking for the missing email while making what was becoming his go-to lame excuse, “I’ve been a little busy.”
He almost had to ask Tyler to forward the mail before finally finding it in his trash folder. Not only had he not read it, but he’d somehow managed to delete one of the most important emails he’d been waiting for.
Double fuck.
Elijah quickly scanned the brief message, hoping he wouldn’t hate the judges that Jaxson had picked.
“Shit. So, the overall winners from East last year are coming here to judge us and Jax picked Jack Tanner and his sub from last year’s competition here at West to go out East. Not sure how I feel about this. I was hoping he’d have Cash or maybe Covington judge this year. Either of them would be a friendly for us.”
“Yeah, well Chase told me they wanted to keep things as even as possible so having previous roulette pairs flip flopping clubs helped keep things even.”
“What the hell do we know about this guy, Elliott Wallace? Master Elliott?”
“I pumped Chase for what he knew. He didn’t say much, just that the guy is really into fire play and is a pretty experienced Dom.”
Elijah couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. He switched gears. “When was the last time we saw Jack Tanner in the club?”
He didn’t like the sour look on Tyler’s face. “I don’t remember, which isn’t good.”
Elijah agreed. He didn’t even have to voice his next thought because Tyler had already pulled his phone out of his pocket, adding, “I’m texting him now. Inviting him to come in next weekend cuz we miss him.”
“Don’t lay it on too thick,” he warned, knowing the private investigator wasn’t stupid. He was gonna figure out they were gonna try to woo his support in his upcoming voting.
He changed the subject, “Did the construction crew get here on time today?”
He had to wait for Tyler to put his phone away and answer. “They were here when I got here.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
Tyler looked away sheepishly. “How the fuck would I know? I only got here about twenty minutes before you did.”
Rather than saying something he’d regret, Elijah stomped out of the office, headed out to inspect the two construction projects they had underway.
First stop, the theater. He was relieved to hear the pounding underway right up until the minute he walked into the small space.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Sure, they’d needed better seating for the Roulette pairing ceremony, but what the hell had he done? The room was gutted. Completely and wholly empty. The only thing remaining in the previously elegant theater were piles of rubble from the torn-up walls and flooring. Even the drop ceiling had been removed, exposing plumbing and electrical pipes.
“Who’s in charge here?” he called out to the three men working.
No one spoke up. Not a good sign.
“You,” he pointed at the nearest guy holding a sledgehammer. “Where’s Oliver?”
The guy just shrugged his shoulders and kept tearing up the far wall.
Elijah walked out of the noisy space to the empty bar area before calling the owner of the construction company. After five rings, the call went to voicemail.
“Hey, this is Elijah Keaton over at Black Light and I need you to call me right away. Your crew is completely demolishing the theater. This is not what we discussed. I’ll remind you that we have our biggest event of the year the night of Valentine’s Day and we must have the theater in perfect condition. Call me.”
He had no more than hung up when his phone rang. He answered it on the first ring. “Talk to me.”
“Hey, I’m running late, but I’ll be there soon.” It was Avery, the club chef.
“Christ, not you too. Everyone’s late.”
“Sorry, but we normally have Tuesdays off. I had a hair appointment.”
“Fine but bring down the menu and purchasing orders as soon as you get here. I want to go through everything to make sure we have it all ordered.”
“Relax, this isn’t my first rodeo you know.”
He hung up. He didn’t want to talk about hairdos and rodeos, dammit.
The ping of an incoming text came as he was halfway to the sauna at the back of the club.
It was a text from Madison: On my way. Do you want me to pick up anything on the way?
Elijah tapped out a quick reply: Punctual ppl.
Madison replied almost instantly with a brief: Ouch.
Groaning, Elijah tried to text while he stomped through the curtain to the play area: Gt ur ass here or u’ll have smthng 2 cry bout.
Madison’s next text was so damn sassy he could practically hear her voice: Your texts are getting worse. See you soon.
Despite complaints from his employees, his texts were just fine, and as he tucked his phone away Elijah met the sauna repair guy coming around the pool.
“Get it fixed?” he asked expectantly.
“I wish. The fan’s motor is burned up. I’m gonna have to see if I have a replacement in my storeroom. If not, I may need to order one from the manufacturer.”
Fucking great.
“How much is that gonna set us back?”
“Depends. You have a pretty old system. I think the manufacturer is in the EU. Could take a few weeks.”
“Bullshit. We gotta have the sauna working by Valentine’s Day at the latest. It’s one of the…” He cut off his sentence. The contractor wasn’t a member, and although he’d signed the standard NDA before being allowed in the top secret BDSM club, he didn’t need to know the details. “Just get it fixed before then.”
“I’ll know more when I get back to my shop. Call you later.”
After the guy left, Elijah stood in the middle of the empty club, glancing around at the place that now felt like home rather than work. As hard as he tried to tell himself that the bet he’d made with Spencer wasn’t that important in the wide spectrum of life, he couldn’t push down his anxiety. Not only was he competitive, but he couldn’t stand the thought of another year of staff meetings where the asshole in D.C. snuck in digs and insults over their win the year before.
We won’t lose. Not again.