Taking Chances: Volume Eight: Alicia's Bet

By BE Thalia

Alicia’s Bet is the eighth volume in the continuing series Taking Chances. In the stories of Taking Chances contemporary women make a wager for reasons sound or unsound, impulsive or considered that, win or lose, will have far reaching impacts on their life and their relationships. In Volume Eight Dani and her housemates - Alicia, Monica, and Gloria - (Taking Chances - Volume Three: Dani’s Bet) have come to Chicago for the wedding of Dani’s older sister Emily (Taking Chances - Volume Four: Emily’s Bet) to Ian. During their stay they meet Ellen and David (Taking Chances - Volume Five: Ellen and David’s Bet), and Martina (Taking Chances - Volume Seven: Martina’s Bet) and are introduced to the BDSM club Leather & Lace. During their stay the club will hold its annual Medieval Faire. During the Faire one unlucky club member is chosen by random drawing to play the part of a medieval lawbreaker who will be jailed, tried, and punished for their crimes. Others are chosen to play parts in the drama: magistrate, bailiff, sheriff, deputies, witnesses, and the executioner who will carry out the punishments to which the lawbreaker is sentenced. Every member understands the intense, painful, humiliating public punishments that were applied to lawbreakers in Medieval England: whipping at a cart’s tail, the pillory, the whipping post, and other dreaded penalties. But they cannot stay to witness the spectacle - and play one of the principals or the part of a medieval villager - without participating in the wager and taking the risk of being chosen as the unlucky criminal. Alicia has just completed an undergraduate degree in Sociology. Her coursework included learning about the social structures of Medieval Anglo-Saxon society, including crime and punishment practices. She anxiously looks forward to the Faire. She is willing to take the chance of losing her bet and being chosen by merciless Fate as the unlucky victim of Medieval justice for the opportunity to be an eyewitness to an as-close-as-possible twenty-first century view of the criminal punishment practices she has learned about in her classes. Taking Chances - Volume Eight: Alicia’s Bet is a novel length story of about 82,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BE Thalia
• Release date: Nov 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780984008476

BE Thalia

B. E. Thalia is the pen name of an author who lives and writes in Alaska.

Book preview

Thank you for your purchase of this book.

There are too often three problems with adult fiction: shallow characters, rickety or non-existent plots, and a narrow focus on presenting mere narratives fixated on a particular sexual practice, orientation, or fetish. It's easy to find 'bondage stories', 'shape-shifting lesbian vampire stories', 'shape-shifting gay male werewolf stories', 'cross-dressing stories', 'exhibitionism stories', and the like. But what about readers of erotica who want general literary stories that just happen to have a high degree of sexual and erotic content?

That's why I wrote these stories. I wanted to write literary tales that are not just narratives about a particular sexual or erotic area of interest.

These stories are written and presented to you with the idea that there are readers of erotica who want intelligent, literary stories with strong, complex, deep, and developing characters; involving plots; and a focus away from the intense fixation on a particular practice or fetish. That being the case, you will find in the stories of Taking Chances an immense range of sexual and erotic subject matter and themes: from the tenderly romantic to the boundaries of kink.

I also wanted to find an original premise for erotic stories, and I believe the idea on which the stories of Taking Chances are based suits that purpose. The stories are about contemporary women who for a variety of reasons - sound or unsound, impulsive or considered - make a wager that, win or lose, will have far-reaching consequences in their lives and relationships.

I can't promise you'll find your sexual or erotic 'thing' in these stories. But I can promise you'll find memorable characters, engaging plots, and a deeply literary approach to telling erotic stories.

Happy reading.

B. E. Thalia

Chapter One

We were sitting on the couches and love seats in the middle private room at the BDSM club, Leather and Lace. ‘We’ was most of the attendees from last Sunday’s dinner party: me, Gloria, Monica, Andrea, Viivi, Ellen, and David. Missing was Dani, but Martina and Lenny, who had not been at the dinner, were with us now. Since the dinner party, Emily and Ian had their city hall wedding on Thursday. They and Dani and all the parents had flown to Wales on Friday.

Now on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, our talk mostly centered around the simple and heartfelt wedding most of us had attended two days before, and Emily and Ian’s plans for when they arrived in Wales. The big, traditional Welsh wedding was in two weeks. Then they were going to honeymoon for three weeks, traveling around Scotland, staying at B&Bs, and taking day hikes on some of Scotland’s spectacular trails. It sounded heavenly.

If you have read Dani’s story of her risky bet with Ed and Mac, then we have met after a fashion. I am Alicia, one of Dani’s housemates. All four of us – including the other two housemates, Monica and Gloria – had been in Chicago for more than two weeks. Dani had finished her first year of graduate studies in the first week of May, and the three of us had finished our senior years. Dani had hung around for our graduation the second Sunday in May, the 8th. Then we had driven up here, mostly for Emily and Ian’s wedding, but also just to spend some last time all together as a quartet. Gloria was leaving. She wanted a taste of the work world before deciding on further studies. We three would be back at school in the Fall. Dani would begin her second year of grad school. I and Monica would begin our first. We had been together as housemates for three years, and we were going to miss Gloria something fierce.

Then Dani gave us the news some months ago that her big sister, Emily, was going to marry her guy, Ian, in May in Chicago. It did not take long for us to realize this could be a short reprieve. So, we explained to all our families that we were going to take a few weeks of girlfriend time. We left for Chicago together the day after graduation, Monday the 9th.

A loud brass fanfare interrupted our conversation: about fifteen seconds of a stately and warm, medieval-sounding musical flourish played by two harmonizing French horns.

And that is? I asked.

That’s Lenora and Andrew, Andrea said. She was wearing her maroon vest, indicating her status as dungeon master for the day. "They happened to discover some years ago that they both play French horn. They wrote that little fanfare together and play it every year. It’s the summons to Botany Bay for the drawing.

And, indeed, the few people in the middle room with us were walking to the door, and in the hallway a stream of members was flowing toward the club’s rearmost room.

Hot dog! This was the moment I had looked forward to for almost a week! We were at the BDSM club, Leather and Lace, and just minutes away from the start of its annual Medieval Faire!

Chapter Two

Leather and Lace’s Medieval Faire was just one of the firsts for me during our time in Chicago. The Saturday after we arrived, the 14th, we – us four housemates, and Emily and Ian - went to see the Cubs at Wrigley Field. My first Cubs game, even though I grew up near Chicago. The San Francisco Giants shut out the Cubs 3 to 0. Although, the game was cut short. The sky grew darker and darker all afternoon, and the rain finally came at the end of the 6th inning. After the better part of an hour, the umpires called the game. But with six full innings in the books the game was official. Ryan Vogelsong was the winning pitcher for the Giants, giving up seven hits, one base on balls, and striking out seven.

Chapter Three

The next day, Sunday the 15th, found us at Lenny’s excellent Italian Bistro for an early dinner. It was the four of us and Martina. Lenny was too tied down in the kitchen to join us.

So, I’m curious, Dani said to Martina, as we enjoyed dessert. "Emily said to be sure to ask you about the club? She said maybe you’d show us around. Said we might find it more interesting than Adler Planetarium."

Martina smiled. Well, I think she’s right on both counts. I’d be happy to show you around, and I think you’ll definitely find it more interesting than the planetarium. Plenty of moons out. What did she tell you?

Not one word. I’d told her we were going out to dinner tonight with you. She just said that and to ask you, and then wouldn’t say another word.

Well, I guess I have to say something. Otherwise, how will you have any idea about whether you’d like to see the place. It’s called Leather and Lace. And it’s a private BDSM club.

I felt my face heat and noticed all my housemates’ faces flush to one degree or another.

Ellen, the lady me and Emily work for, had something of an experience early last year. I’m not going to tell you about it. It’s her story to tell if she wants.

Of course, Monica said. Don’t tell us anyone else’s secrets. She smiled. But any of your own you’d care to share, we’re all ears.

Martina smiled. Well, let’s see how things go. But let me tell you about the club. Ellen and David found it and introduced Emily and Ian. Then I got sucked in last year on Fourth of July weekend. And I in turned sucked Lenny in. Basically, it’s a private club. People, mostly couples but also some single women, pay a pretty hefty annual membership and they can go anytime they like.

Single guys are out of luck? asked Gloria.

Pretty much, Martina answered. The club would probably be flooded with single guys who can’t handle an actual relationship but just want to gawk or try to hook up. It’s the way my nudist resort runs, too. She immediately looked chagrined, and her face reddened too.

Now it sounds like you might have some juicy secrets of your own about that, I chirped, feeling clever.

Martina’s smile faltered and her gaze dropped to the tablecloth. The life seemed to leave her. Yeah, I definitely have some stories I could tell about that, she said, sounding distant. I was beginning to get the idea I had just stepped in it when she seemed to recover from whatever funk she had fallen into and was back to her chipper self. So, the club. You know, it’s just your standard BDSM club. I guess.

I can’t imagine, Gloria said.

Well it has rooms and equipment, and people go there to play, Martina said.

Something along the lines of a health club, I guess, Monica said. We have one of those on campus.

Sort of, Martina answered. But instead of a stair stepper they have a pillory, and instead of a nautilus they have a whipping post.

As in… Monica began.

Well, you know. As in a floor to ceiling post a couple of feet thick. And someone gets attached to it by any number of different straps or cuffs or restraining whatnots. And they get whipped with any number of different devices. A single tail whip. A cat o’ nine tails. There are all kinds of possibilities.

And someone is bound to this thing and gets whipped by choice? Monica asked.

Absolutely, Martina answered. Nothing happens at the club that isn’t completely consensual. Different strokes for different folks.

Pun intended? I asked.

Yeah, I guess so, Martina said. Anyway, a lot of people just have different ways they like to play.

So, sign me up, I said.

Monica smiled at me. For the pillory or the whipping post?

For a tour, I said.

Yeah, me too, Monica said.

Gloria raised her hand by way of assent.

Dani had not said anything since the conversation about the club had started. I assumed maybe she had gotten at least the basics from Emily at some point and was a little more informed than she had let on. Perhaps she had brought the subject up to steer our conversation to this conclusion. But I knew this would be the outcome. From the moment Martina had said BDSM club I knew we were going. I knew from the slight reddening in Dani’s face, the deeper shade of Monica’s features, and Gloria’s fair, pale face seeming to imitate a tomato ripening in mere seconds. I knew they were not embarrassed by the subject but that, like me, the subject had some appeal.

I had no clear idea what the appeal might be for me, or how deep or superficial. But I was going to find out. All four of us had had at least one experience with this sort of activity.

Back to Top

Chapter Four

If you remember Dani’s story, you will recall we had to make a video to convince Ed and Mac that Dani was involved in a swinger/BDSM club that used wagering to decide roles. We needed some footage of Dani, naked, bound tightly, and on her toes hanging from an O bolt in the ceiling, getting her ass whipped. My sweetie at the time, Dave, did the whipping with one of our belts, but he had never done anything like that before and was far too timid and hesitant. A whipping from him was not going to fool anyone, at least not without some training. So, I took my jeans and underpants down to my knees, leaned on the dining room table and had Dave whip my ass, coaching him toward harder and harder lashes. I took twenty or so before Dave was flaying my skin hard enough to make it real. The pain was immense. I had never felt anything like it. Hard, throbbing agony from my ass, hot, and sinking deep into my skin. I told him he had it and he stopped. But then I wanted more for some inexplicable reason.

I told him to give me a few more just to make sure he had it down. And when the leather flayed my ass again the pain was no different - hurt just as much, made me dread the next lash - but something new was under all the pain. I could feel the stirring of sexual arousal. I thought about the scene I was presenting. My housemates, my boyfriend, Gloria’s boyfriend, all of them seeing what they’d likely never witnessed before: a grown woman, pants at her knees, bare ass hanging out, deep red wheals adorning her skin, getting her ass lashed, and hard. The next stroke was as screamingly painful as all that had come before, but with it I felt that sexual tingling ramp up an order of magnitude. Dave hesitated, and when I did not tell him to stop, he lashed my ass again. The pain was just as terrible, but this time I had an almost uncontrollable urge to reach between my legs and put pressure on my clitoris. How good that would feel! I did not think I would come immediately, but it would not take much. I stayed my hand, though. There was no way I could play with myself without everyone in the room knowing it. I told Dave we were set, straightened, and pulled my clothes back into place.

We made our video, carefully orchestrated: I and others just at the edges of the frame, unidentifiable; Dave lashing Dani’s ass but only his leg and arm in the frame. For the purposes of the video, Dani got about ten lashes. The video was calculated to show three things: Dani trussed up very uncomfortably, that others were present, and that her ass was getting hit hard by leather. Dani knew that would not be enough though. She had to have an ass to show that would tell the right story. After we had gotten the house back in order and the boys had left it was time to go into Dani’s room. She took her jeans and underpants down, hiked up her top to the middle of her back and draped herself over a pile of pillows on her bed. I started in. I swung the belt hard. Dani had her face buried in a pillow. I remembered how the pain had accumulated exponentially for me. My couple of dozen had come in the space of a minute, my wanting to get Dave trained quickly so we could proceed to the main event. I had felt how lashes applied quickly could build to mind numbing pain. I took my time with Dani and ended up whipping her ass for about five or ten minutes. I think I applied another thirty or forty, and by the time the job was done Dani’s ass truly did tell the tale of a very unpleasant and painful experience.

That night I was delirious with lust and the need for release. I was glad Dave was not there, as I would have felt embarrassed for him to see me in such raw need. I came half a dozen times that night, falling into deep, deep sleep between each orgasm before starting awake with my hands between my legs. I have never felt orgasms that deep or intense or lavish or lengthy.

I was not up until midmorning the next day. And in the days that followed I tried to sort out for myself which side of the experience had set me off in such a frenzy to find orgasm after orgasm: the getting, the giving, the combination? I never got anywhere in that exploration. I have never had those experiences again, and I think that is what is needed to sift out the answer: repeated exposure.

I thought Dave might be happy with this new hyper-sexualized me. And we proceeded happily on with our relationship. We were both on campus that summer, and we just fucked and fucked and fucked. It was great for both of us, to a degree. But as the new school year approached Dave, who was a pretty emotionally perceptive guy, began to understand that all the sex, all the lust I poured out, all the straining on my part to jam my vagina as deeply as possible on his cock had more to do with erotic energy gleaned from our experience in the Spring and less to do with him. I came to realized that Dave was a great guy, but that my scorching lust was less about him. During our grind sessions my mind was always on swinging a lash or feeling it on my ass, not on him.

Some tearful conversations ensued, in which Dave told me that such activities were not truly for him. Our relationship petered out. Truth be told, it likely would have died months sooner without my need for physical stimulation to accompany my fantasies. Such is life.

Chapter Five

That is how three days later, on Wednesday the 18th, we four ended up spending an evening with Martina wandering through the halls and alcoves of Leather & Lace, four sets of eyes staring, making the transition from incredulous to accepting, and Martina entertained by the spectacle.

Believe me, she said, my reaction was the same as yours. I sorta kinda knew places like this existed, but I’d never pictured myself in one.

You’ve been coming here for a while? Monica asked.

Getting close to a year now. I’d been working for Lenny for two and half years, and we just, I don’t know, sort of finally discovered each other. We were just starting into our relationship. The five of us were sitting around on a grouping of couches and love seats in the front private room, drinking sparkling cider.

So, what interests you here? I asked

Martina’s face took on a distressed look. I, um, I guess I sort of…

Hey, Martina, Gloria said, don’t tell us anything that makes you uncomfortable. It’s just that I haven’t known you long, but I’ve never seen you at a loss for words.

Yeah, Monica said. All this interests me in some way. I’m not sure yet just how. But you shouldn’t be sharing anything you’re not comfortable sharing.

No, Martina said, it’s okay. I’ve never talked about it much except with Lenny. But it’s a part of me. I’ve become comfortable with accepting it. And, hey, Emily’s little sis and her buds. You guys are okay by me. I should be able to at least tell you a little bit, although maybe a fuller rendition of the tale might wait for another time, she said, smiling at her eloquence. I just had some experiences when I was growing up that sort of got me thinking about all this. You know, the dominance and submission thing. Not thinking really. Those things got me feeling about all this. But I had no idea if it was the dominance or the submission that I was attracted to. When I came here for the first time, I felt really at home. I was finally able to start sorting out those feelings.

How’s that coming, if you don’t mind my asking, I said.

I don’t mind you asking at all, Martina said. No, I finally got that sorted.

And? Gloria asked.

Well, let’s put it this way: you really wouldn’t want to lose a bet and find yourself with your bare butt hanging out around me with a paddle in my hands.

Yikes! Monica said.

Yikes, indeed, added Gloria.

That’s interesting, I said. Thanks for the warning. After the video thing Dani got a big helping of this sort of thing with the two date rape pieces of shit, Ed and Mac.

I know. Martina said to my surprise, and especially to Dani’s. I don’t know much, but Emily has mentioned it. Nothing more than mentioned. And I’ve seen a few pictures. With that she let out a loud laugh. Some really interesting pictures.

Chapter Six

This might be a good time to give you a tour around the club - give you a sense of place and setting – since we will be spending some time here later in my story.

The club was in a building about eighty feet wide and a hundred and sixty deep. It was huge. Over twelve thousand square feet on one floor. The rearmost thirty-two feet of the building rose to an open second story. The building was quite old. From growing up around Chicago I knew it was in an area that would have once, a century ago, been on the outskirts of the city.

There was a paved parking lot in front. The front entry was offset to the left of center. Immediately inside the door to the left was a small open alcove for coats and other outerwear. Next to that was a twenty-foot by twenty-four-foot enclosed office. That room contained some lockers for storing street clothes and valuables, as well as storage space for some club-owned sex toys. There was a small stove for heating water to boil toys after use, a washer and dryer, and cleaning products.

The rest of the front of the club, back to about thirty-two feet, was an open area that, with the space of the coat area and office subtracted, was about sixty feet wide. Near the front right corner of this area was a short post set into the floor, about thirty inches high and a foot in width, rounded at the top, with a two-inch-wide hole that seemed to be drilled through it right down to the floor. The post had leather straps to bind a kneeling person’s wrists, arms, thighs, and ankles.

There was a twelve-foot-wide hallway offset to the right of center that led deeper into the facility. Along this hallway on the left were three open alcoves, each about forty feet deep, half the width of the building. The first was about twenty-four feet wide. This alcove contained a whipping post at the center of the area. The post went from floor to ceiling (and the ceilings were twelve feet high – another feature that dated the building as quite old) and was about two feet thick. It had numerous straps, rings, chains, and the like for binding a person in various ways.

The next recess had an opening on the hall about thirty-six feet wide. Along the back wall of this alcove was a foot-high stage, and at the front center of the stage was a pillory. Unlike the sort of pillory that might be found at a straight Renaissance Faire or at Colonial Wherever, where a pillory would have huge openings that one could stick a head or hands through without difficulty, this pillory was for business. The circular cutouts were made to hold stout necks and wrists tightly, but without cutting off circulation or respiration. And there were rigid inserts that could be easily set in place to make the openings smaller for those with more petite necks and wrists. Once the top was in place and latched on the side, the person in it was held inescapably. On either side of the pillory were stocks. One on the right held feet, again firmly, in front of a bench for the victim to sit on. That stocks were made to accommodate two prisoners. There were two sets of stocks to the left of the pillory. Both trapped the ankles. One also had a horizontal pillory so the victim’s neck and wrists could also be held immobile as they sat. The other stocks had a footboard that trapped the ankles and the victim’s wrists a foot above. This arrangement left the subject bent forward in what had to be an exceedingly uncomfortable position. No instruments exactly like these would ever be found at a medieval village square or crossroad, where every pillory and stocks was weather ravaged. These were made of lustrous, gleaming wood, well maintained, with shiny hinges and other metal parts.

The last open recess was the same size as the one before it. This one contained an eight-foot-deep, twenty-four-foot-wide, one-foot-high stage on the left as a person entered. At the back of the stage was a Saint Andrew’s cross, also made of polished wood with gleaming metal attachments. The stage had various ropes and chains. These could be used to bind a person standing or in a strappado position. When not in use they were gathered to one side. In another corner of the alcove were three gibbets: small, medium, and large. These cages were just big enough to place a person in with almost no room to move.

The walls in all these alcoves were covered with every imaginable type of implement, from whips of every conceivable description, size, and length, to floggers, to cat-o’-nine-tails, to canes, to crops, to straps, to tawses, to binding instruments, and on and on. It was dazzling to my uninitiated eyes.

At the end of the hall was a wall that closed off the last room: thirty-two feet deep, the full width of the club, and two stories high. Double