Susan went rigid at the mention of the renegade operations.  She and Marilyn had worked hard, together with other club owners, to provide reliable space for safe, sane, consensual experiences for the BDSM community.  Anyone who threatened that safety was barred, not just from one club but from all, and often the ban spread to other clubs in LA and beyond as the word filtered out through the community. 

Jo had once asked Susan whether she even had any rules, because Jo had her own set of rules she lived under.  The answer was yes, of course.  But in the past, adhering to the rules, enforcing them (making herself the only exception) was self-serving…word spread very quickly about a club where people could be hurt against their will.  It was simply good business to encompass yourself as well as your club. 

Lately, it had become more, and she wasn’t really sure how that had happened or why, but it had.  She found herself starting to actually care about her customers, and her staff; she’d even hired a bar monitor.  Even though the subs took and filled orders, they were required to tell the monitor who the drinks were for and how much they’d been served so that out-of-control behavior didn’t have an opportunity to grow out of alcohol-loosened inhibitions.  It was a stunning contrast to a woman who’d force fed drugs to a young Lara Perkins once.

But the undergrounds didn’t care who came there or why or what they did while they were there.  They worried her because someone like Bree could be horribly mistreated in a place like that.  And there were all too many Bree’s loose in the world.

She felt her heart twinge at the thought.  She knew there was a lot of talk about her and Bree; she never bothered to respond or refute it. She wouldn’t deny that Bree could be a pleasure to be with, but her real feelings for the girl were protective …protecting her from herself more so than a wayward domme.  Rae Harris had once only half-jokingly referred to Bree as Susan’s atonement for Lara, and for giving Rae to a sadistic domme as a birthday present.  Susan had nearly slapped Rae down at the time, in part because it rang true and Susan hated it.