They were sitting in metal chairs on opposite sides of a small metal table. One of the security guys was standing between them just staring at the door, waiting for my arrival. When I pushed the metal door open he nodded at me silently and slipped out of the room, leaving me and Chuck alone with the obviously nervous couple. The wife was fidgeting with her fingernails and the husband was looking anywhere but at me.

“You signed a contract when you applied to be members of this club. In that contract it specifically states that you will leave at home any and all bullshit you wade in every day. I’m not a marriage counselor and this isn’t therapy.”

The man finally looked at me and then away as soon as our eyes met. I heard him gulp from across the room. The woman decided her best shot at getting out of here was to throw him under the bus.

“I shouldn’t even be here!” She pointed at her husband with a shaking hand. “This is all his fault.”

I lifted an eyebrow and walked over to take up the spot between them that the security guard had abandoned. I put my hands on the edge of the table and leaned down slightly. The woman reared back and the husband just let his head hang forward.

“The only law inside these doors is mine.”

That brought the man’s head up and he shot a pleading look in my direction. “I’m so sorry we disrupted your grand opening. Just let us go and we’ll never come back.” It was obvious he was familiar with the tales of how I handled disruptions in my business. Some of those tales were grossly exaggerated, but most were fairly accurate. I didn’t let anyone mess with my money.

“Oh, you won’t be coming back, that’s a given. I’m just trying to decide if you’ll be going anywhere from here on out without a permanent limp.”

The woman let out an earsplitting shriek and shoved her chair back, knocking it over and making it bang loudly against the cement floor.

“This is all your fault, you pervert! If you could keep your sick perversions in check, we wouldn’t even be here!”

The husband opened his mouth to argue, but then just gave up and hung his head. The wife was loud and obnoxious; no wonder he didn’t try to fight back when she went after him. I would wager that his life was nothing more than pacifying her and being berated by her. “If I’m a pervert, what does that make you?” These were two people on very different pages.

I pushed up off the table and pinned the woman with a look. “Why did you come here in the first place if you weren’t going to support his ‘perversions’?”

She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She shook her head and looked at her husband for help. He sighed and let his head fall forward so that his forehead banged heavily on the metal table.

“She wanted to have a threesome . . . with another woman. It was supposed to put the spark back in our marriage.” It was a common enough fantasy, especially in a union that was as obviously unhappy as this one.

“And . . . ?” Clearly I was missing part of the story.

The wife tossed her hair over her shoulder and waved her hand at her defeated spouse. “Kind of hard to have a threesome with another woman when your husband is too busy shoving his dick down a man’s throat.”

The husband groaned and I barked out a laugh. The woman scowled at me and I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re mad at him because he wants to be with a man and yet you’re obviously the only one interested in being with another woman? You’re both ridiculous and this isn’t the place for either of you.”

“We paid a fortune to be a part of this club and then waited forever for it to open.” I couldn’t believe she was going to argue with me.

To remind her exactly where she was and whose rules she was playing by, I moved around to her side of the table and kept walking toward her until she was backed into the concrete wall. I bent my head so that my mouth was right by her ear and asked her, “So what?”

She gulped and I could see that she was starting to sweat. The knowledge that I could literally make her and her spouse disappear was finally starting to sink in and she began to shake and get teary-eyed.

I backed off and gave them both a disgusted look. “I think the worst thing I can do to either one of you is send you home with each other. You can torture each other by staying together and not admitting you want other people. I’m keeping your deposit and the fees for membership.” The wife opened her mouth to argue but I held up a hand to shut her down. “And if you think of calling the cops or trying to come after me for the money, I’ll be more than happy to let your boss at the bank know about the nifty little embezzling scam you have going on.” Knowledge was the ultimate power and I could see that she knew she was defeated.

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head and she started to sputter. I reached up and grabbed the key dangling around her neck and gave it a light tug. The chain holding it snapped and I motioned for Chuck to get the man’s lock from around his neck. He clapped the man on the shoulder and helped him to his feet.

“Good luck with that one, son. You’re gonna need it, and maybe stay away from anything sharp and pointy when you get home.” The husband looked at Chuck, then at his wife.

“I’m leaving. When we get home I’m packing my shit up and I’m gone.”

Chuck nodded as the irate woman’s jaw dropped open. “What! You can’t leave me!”

The husband snorted. “Sure I can. You aren’t worth any of this aggravation, and tonight, with that guy, is the first time in years that I’ve had an actual erection without having to pop a Viagra. If I stay with you I will kill you or myself, so before it gets to that point, I’m gone.” His gaze shifted to me and a half grin quirked up the corner of his mouth. “You might not think you’re a marriage counselor, but you fixed this decades-long nightmare in twenty minutes. Thanks for setting me free.”

Chuck walked to the door and put two fingers in his mouth to whistle for one of the security guards to escort the couple out of my dungeon. Once they were gone, we shared a look and burst out laughing. It was too ridiculous for words. Chuck clapped me on the back as we walked toward the elevator to head back up to the main level of the club.

“There’s hope for you yet, boss.”

I grunted. “Glad you think so.”

Hope wasn’t something I was very familiar with, so I would just have to take his word for it.