Gmork returned to her, and she went inside and switched on the lights. She held the door open for Cyrus.

“Holy shit,” he said.

“Welcome to my dungeon,” Nora said, smiling. “Like it?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cyrus blinked, blinked again, turned a slow circle. The walls of the room were blood-red. Hanging from what seemed like a thousand hooks was every kind of torture instrument he’d ever heard of and a few he now wished he’d never seen.

Floggers and whips, ropes and canes. But also lots of weird-looking metal objects and sitting in various spots on the floor like demonic gym equipment was a big metal cage, a medical table with leather straps hanging off it, and some kind of crazy-ass wooden throne with steel hooks in it.

“When you said this was a dungeon…you meant it.”

Nora laughed as she put the tea things from their talk with Doc into a sink on the far wall. A sink? Yeah. A sink. Right next to a toilet. Not a bathroom. Just the toilet.

“I don’t want to know,” he said, pointing at the toilet.

“Puppy play,” Nora said. “Dogs drink out of toilets. I make my puppies drink from the toilet. Nobody ever uses it as, you know, a toilet.”

“Puppies?”

“Human puppies. Men who like being treated like dogs.” Nora opened the cabinet door under the sink and took out a small bottle of Dawn.

“And the sink?”

“For washing up stuff,” she said. “All this equipment touches human bodies. You don’t want to spread infections or anything. This room used to be the company’s break room. Sink, counter, coffee machine, half bath. I had everything taken out except for the sink and toilet.”

“I just don’t even know what to say,” Cyrus said.

“You don’t have to say anything. Promise. Make yourself at home. Watch what you touch, though. Some of the equipment is dangerous.”

“You don’t say.”

While Nora washed her dishes, Cyrus roamed the room, trying to make himself as narrow as possible to avoid brushing up against something he didn’t want to brush up against.

So many whips. So many floggers. Enough rope to build a bridge from here to his apartment. He came to a stop in front of a red curtain, the old-fashioned kind like what they hung in front of movie screens. It even had golden tassels, the sort you pulled to raise the curtain.

“Do I want to know what’s behind the curtain?” Cyrus asked.

“My bed,” she said.

“Just a bed? Like a normal bed?”

“Normal bed. I’ve been known to nap between sessions with clients.”

“Oh,” Cyrus said. “Makes sense.”

“It’s also for Sheridan.”

“Who’s that?”

“My little girl sub. She’s not into dungeons. Prefers being beaten and fucked on beds. Spoiled little brat.”

Cyrus glanced over at Nora, thinking she was yanking his chain. No. Not chain-yanking. She was, in fact, drying the dishes.

“I also keep the scary stuff in there under lock and key,” she said.