Slow Seduction (Struck by Lightning) by Cecilia Tan

several societies, dozens maybe. Some were more secret than others. The Freemasons aren’t secret at all these days. Our particular society was built for those who were sexually excited by power but who didn’t want to have to abuse their power. At least, that’s how I imagine it came to be. One moment.” He got up from his chair, went to the other room to retrieve his jacket, and then showed me the red satin glove in his pocket. “Did Vanette explain this?”
    “Not exactly. She told me the society has no name, but it’s pretty obvious to me you use the crimson glove as some kind of signal or calling card.”
    He nodded and sat back down. “Now, imagine you lived in a society where to get your kinky needs met, consensually that is, you couldn’t reasonably speak to anyone about it without fear of being exposed. If you met a woman you wanted to tie up, spank, and fuck until she cried, how were you to ask her if she was willing to do such a thing? After all, she doesn’t dare admit aloud to her desires either.”
    “Well, couldn’t you meet at the club?”
    “I believe we’re speaking of a time before the club building was established,” Damon said. “Say you met at a polite function of some sort. Perhaps you even flirted a little. The story goes that the man would say to the lady something like, ‘Oh, I happened across this. Is it yours?’ And if she was in the know, and willing, she would reply, ‘Yes.’ If she was in the know and not willing or not able to take up his offer, she would say, ‘Oh, I don’t believe that will fit me.’ Or many other variations. The woman could initiate it, asking if the man had perchance seen a glove she had lost. And so on. Once the actual calling card came into fashion, of course, it became as simple as what we do today, merely flashing the token as the card is handed over.”
    “I see.”
    “Of course, today one can also go down to a fetish nightclub that advertises in the newspaper, pay the cover charge, and go in and mingle like any other singles bar, except everyone’s in black.”
    “If that’s so, then why is the society still secret?”
    “Ah. Well. As you say, there are some people who still have a problem with it. Many of our members are politicians and the like.”
    “And rich people.”
    “Why, yes, and rich people,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s always been so. That’s how we came to have five town houses connected together for the club. And society members live in the adjacent buildings and most of the other buildings on that cul-de-sac. It was quite the expensive neighborhood at the turn of the last century, and still is today.”
    “Makes sense. Back then, though, couldn’t a man with, er, perverted tastes go and beat up a whore if he wanted? That’s what all those terrible books make it sound like.”
    “I’m sure many did,” Damon said. “And those are not the type we admit. I thought you knew that.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “But what? Is it so hard to believe that decent but kinky men—and women—might have banded together to do it in a way that their morals of human decency could accept, yet kept them safe in the eyes of polite society? And what about the man who doesn’t want that companion for a night, but for a lifetime? It has worked marvelously in that regard for generations. And for a rich kinky fucker like myself?” He grinned. “All the willing, prime-grade ass I can spank.”
    I laughed. “All right. It makes sense to me.”
    “I pity the poor sods who can only get off if they’re actually forcing someone,” he said as he stood and yawned. “They’re the truly perverse. Trapped in a world of lies and coercion and sickness. You see it all the time. That CEO in Georgia who was fucking his secretary all those years, made her do all kinds of nasty things, but she turned around and sued him the second she had saved enough to put her mother in a home? Otherwise we’d never know about him. That one here who had been