“Let’s go home.”
Blake and Corey thread an arm through each of mine.
“No way,” Corey says. “You dragged me out here. We’re all going to go in there and have fun tonight.”
The gate is already open. We walk up the drive together, arms still linked. When we go through the second gate into the garden, Corey and Blake pull me to a halt.
“Fucking hell,” Blake says. “You didn’t tell us your new boss works in a fucking mansion.”
“It’s an old water tower, not a mansion.”
“Close enough.”
“This place is seriously impressive,” Corey agrees.
“Hi.”
We all look up the garden. A really normal-looking guy with a warm smile and kind eyes comes to meet us. He’s wearing blue jeans and a polo shirt and is only a couple of inches taller than us. He gives Corey and me a cursory once-over before looking at Blake for infinitely longer. As he stares, his eyes light up with adoration. He must be Gabe.
“I hope you found the place okay,” he says. “You weren’t late.” He smiles, an amused expression on his face.
He barely knows Blake but has already picked up on the fact that Blake is always late for almost everything.
“Archie—” Blake begins.
I cut him off by digging my elbow into his ribs.
He scowls at me. “Archie is great at navigation.”
"And timekeeping," Corey adds. "We're never late if we're with Archie."
Oh, great, they’re making me sound like the most boring man alive. Not that I care about impressing Gabe, but still.
“I’m Corey, by the way,” Corey adds.
Gabe extends his hand to Corey and then me. “I’m Gabe. Shall we go inside?”
We enter through the front door. There’s a bouncer, who I wasn’t expecting. Okay, so Hamish can arrange stuff without me if he needs to. The bouncer obviously knows Gabe, so he waves us all up the stairs.
I've never been upstairs. I'm not allowed. Gabe leads us to the top. All the doors into the main building are closed as we go up to the first and then the second floor. I'm disappointed not to get to peek at Hamish's life beyond his kitchen and office. When we get to the second floor, which is as high as the staircase goes, Gabe takes us into the main building. Not that there’s much to see. We’re on a landing, with a closed door ahead of us and a ladder leading up. Another bouncer stands by the door, and music and chatter spill down from the hole the ladder disappears into.
“We’re going up,” Gabe says, flashing us a grin. “Into the tower’s former tank.”
He climbs up the ladder. Blake is quick to follow. Corey and I shrug at each other, and he motions for me to go next, probably so I won't chicken out and slip off home before they notice. I climb up. There's a couple of rungs where I'm passing through a hole in the thick floor, and then it opens up into a double-height room with soft flooring and white walls. There are arrow-slit windows above our heads, sealed with glass.
Another bouncer sits next to a table that has some shallow bowls on it.
“Hey, Gabe,” he says. “You’ve brought guests?”
“Hi, Harry. This is Blake, Archie, and Corey.” He gestures to each of us, getting our names right.
“Triplets,” Harry says. “Fun.” He hands the three of us a piece of paper. “Those are the rules. Read them. Memorise them. Follow them. If you break them, you’re out on your ear.”
I read the rules carefully. They're pretty straightforward, nothing I wouldn't expect from a kink party. We already knew we had to come and go fully dressed. There's to be no consumption of alcohol or drugs. No touching without consent. No non-consensual acts and nothing that would be considered illegal. No interrupting play scenes or aftercare. No kink or body shaming. No photos. The house safewords—a simple traffic light system—have to be used. Clean equipment after we've used it. Condoms must be worn for oral and penetrative sex. I raise my eyebrows at that. Not all kink parties—especially those in clubs—allow penetrative acts or sex on the premises. Many of them don't even allow full nudity because of licensing laws. But this is a private house, so I guess anything goes. The final rule makes me frown: wear your wristband at all times.
“Wristband?” I ask, looking up.
Harry picks up a bowl and offers it to us. It’s full of black rubber wristbands that fasten with a metal popper. Gabe plucks a wristband out of the bowl and then wanders over to the table and takes two coloured loops out of it, one red, the other yellow. He slides them both onto the band and then fastens it around his wrist.
