Chapter Twenty - Smith
“So you went to talk to her?” I ask. “Why, exactly?” If Bric gives a fuck that I’m pissed off, he doesn’t show it.
“You know why.”
“No, I actually don’t. So give me more, Bric. Because I’m starting to get mad.”
We’re sitting up in my private bar overlooking the Black Room. It’s Saturday night, I’m here alone, I can’t go see Chella because I don’t trust myself to adhere to the rules… and then this asshole comes in and tells me he checked up on her today. At least she’s at home and not here. One less thing to worry about.
Bric is smoking a cigar, which he hardly ever does and he knows I hate, so I know he’s doing it on purpose. Why is he fucking with me?
“I’m just curious, Smith.”
“About?”
But Quin walks in just as Bric is about to explain and takes his seat across from me and next to Bric. “What’s up?” he asks me. Then, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be upstairs?”
“I’m holding back,” I say, trying not to growl out the word.
“Why?” Quin laughs. But then I look at Bric and he presses his lips together and nods. “OK. So we’re gonna go through this again? Why can’t you assholes just enjoy yourselves and not make things complicated?”
“Says the guy who fell in love with Rochelle and drove her away.” I don’t know why I just said that. And I don’t even know where it came from, because it’s not true.
“Nice,” Bric says, puffing on the cigar. “Nice going, Smith.”
“All right,” Quin says, standing back up. “Fuck both of you. I don’t need this shit. I don’t need either of you to enjoy this arrangement. I get her all to myself. No games. And I only came to go downstairs tonight, so catch you down there whenever the fuck I see you.”
Bric and I both watch him walk out.
“Just stay away from her, OK?” I say. “If it’s not Wednesday or Thursday, stay away and keep your fucking mouth shut. I don’t like to be talked about, you know that. Don’t talk about me to her.”
Bric is silent for almost a minute before he too gets up from my table and heads towards the stairs. I watch him go down into the lobby. Lucinda is here again. I cannot remember, for the life of me, seeing her so goddamned much in such a short time span.
But then I see why she’s here when the newest member, Jordan Wells, brings her a drink and he cops a feel between her legs as her husband watches with eager eyes.
Saturday nights at Turning Point Club can get wild. It’s all private. All the shades are closed on the windows facing the street and the restaurant is closed to the public, so you have to be a member to get past the front door.
Bric stops to chat with her, also copping a feel, which makes her whole face light up with delight. She’s been after us both for years. But he can have her. I’m not interested. He goes downstairs every weekend. Without fail. And most of the time I have no idea what he’s doing down there. Don’t care, either.
I went for Lucinda’s birthday party two weeks ago because it’s something I do to make her happy, but I only came back because I was horny as fuck. Marcella Walcott’s pussy was wet when I checked her in Rochelle’s closet. Has it only been two weeks?
A few minutes later Lucinda heads towards the back of the lobby with Bric, Jordan, and her husband. Bric’s eyes meet mine as he moves out of sight.
“Good for you, motherfucker,” I say, raising my glass of Scotch to no one.
He can have that fucking club. He’s always been more interested in what goes on down there than I have. Quin as well. Hell, maybe Quin will join in. Lucinda can get the gang-bang of her dreams.
I stew in my thoughts like this for hours. Until it’s after eleven o’clock and I’m about ready to call it a night.
And then Chella walks in the front door, wearing a white dress that shows more cleavage than I need right now. For a second I’m enraged, thinking she’s going to join Quin and Bric downstairs. But she leans in to talk to the hostess, who smiles and nods at the sentry standing guard in front of the black velvet rope in front of the main staircase, and she is given permission to go upstairs.
What the fuck is she doing?
I watch her with interest as she ascends, and then our eyes meet. I repeat my thought out loud. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She turns her head and keeps climbing until she gets to the landing and presses the button for the elevator.
“Chella,” I say again, a little louder this time as I get up and walk to the opening of my private bar and look down at her. “What are you doing?”
The elevator doors open and she steps inside without answering me.
I jump down the six steps that lead to the second-story landing and follow her, just in time before the elevator doors close.
“Did you hear me?”
“Do I appear deaf? Of course I heard you.”
“Why are you here?”
“I live here. Top-floor apartment. Brand new furniture. Ringing any bells?”
“No,” I say. “You do not live here. You live down on Little Raven Street and that’s where you need to go. Right now.”
“No,” Chella says, her back straight, her chin tipped up. Defiant. “No. I’m not going back there. I’m bored. And you already told me you wouldn’t be around this evening. So why should I stay there? I’d rather be here.”
“It’s Saturday night, Chella. You don’t need to be here, trust me.”
“Rochelle stayed here on Saturday nights.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was Number Two with Rochelle.”
“And?”
And I wasn’t playing games with her like I am with you. But I don’t say that. I say, “It was a lot simpler.”
The elevator doors open and she steps out, the keycard to her apartment already in her hand. She unlocks the door and swings it open, then blocks my entrance so I can’t come in. “I’m tired, so you don’t need to babysit me.”
“Move,” I say. “I want in.”
“I thought you don’t want to spend time with me?” she says.
“I thought you wanted to stay at your own home as much as possible,” I counter.
“I changed my mind.”
“Well, so did I.” She steps aside and I walk past her, go into the kitchen, and immediately take down a bottle of Scotch I stashed in the cupboard while she was at work this week.
Chella closes the door and walks down the hall to her bedroom.
I pour myself a drink, take a long gulp, refill, and then follow her. She’s undressing. I can see her through the open door of the massive closet. I see Quin has been busy, because she’s got a lot more clothes in there than she did the last time I was in here.
“You know,” she says, “if you want me to go home, you might consider lifting the order on that sex tape you’ve had running on my bedroom TV for three days.”
I almost laugh. “You didn’t turn it off?” And then I do laugh.
She glares at me as the dress slips down her body and pools into a puddle at her feet. “You told me not to. Am I the only one following the rules anymore? I mean I figured things would go off the rails, but I didn’t think it would only take a week.”
“Hmm,” I say. “Is this about Bric coming to see you yesterday? Because I never told him to.”
“Of course you didn’t. He was there asking me to deny you access to our bedroom and cut you out of the relationship completely by making you watch remotely.”
I just blink at her. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Why would I lie about that?”
I can think of about two dozen reasons why one of our toys might lie about that. But none of them ring true about Marcella Walcott. She stands there naked, waiting to see if I’ll answer. But I suddenly have the urge to shut the fuck up.
Bric is getting bold.
Chella shrugs at my silence and then turns to her underwear drawer and takes out a cream-colored lace nightie that has Quin’s handiwork all over it.
I mostly like them to sleep naked. Quin likes to dress them up like dolls every chance he gets.
I lean against the closet door, trying my best to look nonchalant as I watch her pull the lace over her tits and then jiggle them around to get them situated.
Chella ignores me, pushing past with a hand on my chest to give herself room to get by. And then she walks out of the bedroom and down the hall, back to the living room.
I did not miss the fact that she has no panties on. Or that she touched me.
Is she trying to fuck with me tonight? Is she baiting me to break the rules? Is she really considering Bric’s advice?
He doesn’t want me out. That defeats the whole purpose of what we’re doing. So he’s added this little interesting element to push thing along quicker.
Is that what he’s doing? Or is he serious? Does he want her to cut me out?
I don’t know why it hits me so hard, but it does. I have never thought of these girls we play with as something to own. But suddenly things feel… different.
Does he want her? For himself?
I shake my head at that. It makes no sense. I mean, I want her for myself, but I’m me. I’m a selfish asshole. I want everything for myself. It’s in my blood. It’s part of my charm.
Even I have to chuckle at that last one.
I’m pretty sure no one calls me charming. That’s Quin, if it’s any of us.
But fuck Bric for telling her to cut me out even if it was part of his game. Has he done this before? He didn’t have to do it with Rochelle. I was Number Two. I had her whenever I wanted her. Which was often in the beginning. But she got old fast. We had nothing in common.
But Chella is the exact opposite of Rochelle. I can’t think of a single commonality about them. Except us, of course.
Did Bric play this game with Quin, when he was Number One with Rochelle? I suddenly have the need to ask him. I head down the hallway, leaving to go downstairs and have this out with Bric and Quin, when Chella says, “What do they do down there?”
“Huh?” I ask, my hand reaching for the doorknob. I turn and look over my shoulder. She’s sitting in a chair in front of the window. My chair in front of the window. The one I should be sitting in as I watch her. And she’s got her legs open, flashing that wet, pink pussy at me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She smiles. Shrugs. “What?” she asks innocently. “I thought you liked to watch.”
I do.
“Downstairs. When they go downstairs in the basement. Rochelle said she’d never been down there.”
An evil idea is percolating in my head. “And you never will either. It’s not a place for you. You’re not even a member.”
“So what’s the big secret?”
“The secret?” I laugh. “It’s not a secret. We fuck people down there. In groups. A husband-wife team chooses others to join them, and we all fuck until we’re spent. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“Is Bric down there now? And Quin?”
Yes, evil little idea, come to Daddy. I’ll take care of you. Nurture you. Keep you alive and healthy. “What do you think?” I ask her.
She lets out a long exhale. “I want to think no. Because I should be enough.”
“Oh.” I laugh the word out. “Enough, you say? That’s so fucking interesting coming from a woman who needs three men to satisfy her.”
“Who said I do?” she snaps, anger all over her red-flushed face. “I never said that. You guys offered this to me.”
“You invited yourself in knowing full well what it was. So hey”—I laugh—“If you’re gonna get jealous about Bric and Quin fucking other women, then you better keep that to yourself. We don’t put up with it.”
“But you put up with Bric telling me to cut you out?”
Yes, evil idea, I will take you home and keep you forever. “Would you like to go downstairs, Chella? Would you like to see what Bric and Quin are doing right now?”
“Is that a joke? Or a real offer?”
I shrug. “Take it any way you want. But if you say yes, and you don’t like what you see, don’t come crying to me when your filthy deviant heart gets broken. Because I’ll tell you something right now, Chella, you can’t ever compare to the sluts we have down there when it comes to sex. Bric will never give that up. Quin, maybe. But Bric is in for the duration.”
“And you?”
I laugh again. “I don’t go down there. That night Quin found you in Rochelle’s bed was the first time all year for me.”
“Then why go that night?”
“Because you made me.”
“I made you?” She laughs.
“You and your wet pussy in that closet. You with your innocent eyes and dirty mouth. You with your big idea to come rock our world and join our game. I went down because of you, Chella. And when Bric fucked his four—yes, four—sluts that night, I painted your face on each one of them as I jerked off and watched.”
We stare at each other. It seems like years go by in silence. “Take me down,” she finally says. “I want to see.”
“See?” I shake my head. “Everyone who goes down participates, Chella. It’s not a spectator sport.”
“But you just said you only watched. That you jerked off. So why can’t I watch with you?”
Because I won’t be able to control myself. Because I’ll end up pushing you into a corner and fucking you from behind. Because I’ll beat the shit out of anyone who comes near you, looks at you wrong—
“Smith?” she says, drawing me out of my thoughts. “Please take me down. I’ll do whatever you say. If you want to go dark, then don’t take a light, right?”
I smile. “Marcella Walcott wants to leave her light behind?”
“I’m yours tonight, Smith Baldwin,” she says back.
My evil idea is bigger now. Blossoming into something beautiful. “Take off your nightie. All the women have to enter naked.”