Since it wasn’t yet nine, the first floor was still quiet, with only a few people roaming around. I knew from my past spying that things wouldn’t pick up for a few more hours. By midnight, you’d more likely die of thirst before getting anywhere near the bar.
I followed Jimmy to a cloakroom manned by a middle-aged woman with deep grooves around her lips and eyes. Looking at her skin made me thankful I’d quit smoking in college. A jaded expression covered her face, as if she’d rather be doing anything other than checking coats. And who wouldn’t feel the same way?
“Your bag and coat,” Jimmy ordered, snapping me out of my bad habit of getting lost in my own head while people watching.
I shrugged off my coat and draped my bag on top of it. A bead of sweat trickled down my back. The area between my shoulder blades where my phone was lodged burned. This was the big test, but unless anyone scrutinized my body, I didn’t think they’d notice anything suspicious.
I handed the clerk my bag and coat, and she gave me a yellow-toothed grin.
“Congratulations on your invitation to the inner sanctum.”
“Is it as crazy as they say up there?” I asked, giving her a smile that was so wide it hurt the corners of my lips.
“I don’t know,” she said, with a disappointed shrug. “I’ve never been invited.”
“Maybe one day, you will be.” I did my best to sound encouraging.
She gave me a throaty laugh that held little humor. “I doubt that. I’m way past my sell-by date, plus I’m not into all that craziness.”
Jimmy cleared his throat as if to say shut the fuck up. He stood beside me, in a typical bodybuilder stance, looking every bit as menacing as I was sure he hoped he looked. His legs were spread and his arms were crossed. His bored expression told me to hurry the hell up.
Once I’d checked my coat, I followed Jimmy through the club to the hidden elevator concealed behind a black curtain. I was afraid of whatever fate awaited me when we arrived at our destination. But I had come too far to give up now.
Jimmy waved his arm over the call button, and the door opened. He stood back and waited for me to enter first. Perhaps beneath all that muscle was a gentleman.
Inside the elevator, he stood at one side, and I stood at the other, neither of us speaking. There wasn’t even elevator music to break up the silence.
“So, been doing this long?” If I was going to get my story, I figured now would be as good a time to start digging as any. “I bet you’ve seen a lot.”
He smirked and shrugged. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“What’s not to enjoy?”
His answers were so short I’d have to improvise. I ventured forth with telling him something about myself, hoping he would take pity on me and give me some information—maybe some tips about the kind of guys who came here, or some ways to make sure I had a good time.
“This is my first time here,” I said.
“I know.”
I wasn’t expecting that answer. “How do you know?”
“I was told.”
I wanted to ask who had told him, but if I did, that would let him know I didn’t have a clue about what I was stepping into.
“Excited?” he asked.
“You could say that.”
The elevator shuddered to a stop, and after the door opened, we stepped through a curtain of lights into a winter wonderland. LED snowflakes floated around the room, and winter-blue lighting illuminated hundreds of icicles hanging from the ceiling.
Masked people laughed, danced, and drank. A few feet from me, a woman writhed on a tabletop while being spanked by a half-naked man. By the smiles on their faces, they both loved every minute of it.
I tried not to smile myself, as I thought about the appropriateness of the phrase that was floating around in my head upon seeing the guests at this party: like kids at Christmas. Reminding myself to stay serious, I followed Jimmy around the outskirts of the heaving dance floor, not really sure where we were going and what I would find when we got there.
At the back of the room was Santa’s grotto. My eyes didn’t believe what they were seeing. A female Rudolph with a shiny nose and antlers rode Santa like a pony. Santa’s palm prints reddened her ass, and he slapped her in time with her movements.
“Wow,” I breathed and stared at the rhythmic way Santa’s hand repeatedly spanked the female Rudolph’s ass.
I could feel my breathing pick up speed and my heart beat faster and faster. My unblinking eyes widened. My body liked what I saw, as confirmed by the dampness in my underwear and the hardness of my nipples. But my mind rebelled. This was just a job. I wasn’t supposed to actually like being here.
“This way,” Jimmy said from behind me, and I jumped, both startled by his voice and from my guilt at staring so long.
Sure, everything I was looking at was in full display, but it was usually forbidden and reserved for secrecy. Plus, I wasn’t even supposed to be here.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
My voice sounded hoarse, as if I’d spent the day shrieking at the top of my lungs and had damaged my vocal cords.
“Save the games, sweetheart,” he said, in an uninterested tone, while his eyes scanned my face and body. I decided it was better to keep my mouth shut and follow him to wherever he was taking me.
We left the club floor and strode down a long and narrow hallway full of rooms. A red light shone above some of the doors. I figured they indicated if the room was occupied or not and I also figured in a few minutes I’d be in one of those rooms and God only knew what was expected of me once I was.
Near the end of the hall, we stopped walking. Jimmy knocked on a door but didn’t wait for it to open before going in. He gestured for me to go inside, which I did.
The only light in the room came from muted sconces on the walls by the four-poster bed. We weren’t alone, but the corners were so dark it was hard to tell who else was there.
“Your guest, Sir,” Jimmy said, in a solemn and almost reverent voice.
From the shadows came a man wearing a mask and a pair of black trousers. And that was it. Even though he stood a few feet from me, I felt the power radiating from him.
I couldn’t deny the stranger’s handsomeness, but there was a fierceness there too, so strong that made me want to bury my head in Jimmy’s chest. I didn’t know Jimmy, other than our elevator conversation that went nowhere fast, but I could only hope he was tough enough to protect me from whatever this other guy— whom I knew even less— had in mind.
I gave the masked man a once-over. He looked to be a little over six feet tall, with thick dark hair. But it was hard to tell the exact shade in the low light. Defined muscles that might have been carved with a chisel lined his chest.
“You’re late, and pets who are late get punished,” he said.
His deep voice was neutral and held little emotion, but I heeded the warning behind the words. All the hair on my body stood straight up.
Jimmy took that as his queue to leave, and the door clicked behind me. Damn it. Instead of saving me, Jimmy had delivered me into the hands of this man who looked like he couldn’t wait to use them on me.