I feel like a hurricane is raging through my stomach. Screw butterflies, if they were flying in the tumult I feel in my gut, they’d be ripped to shreds. I don’t know what Harlan has planned for me tonight, but I have a feeling that it is going to test my every last boundary.

Will I be able to handle it? Will I be able to handle him? I’m picturing Harlan unleashed, and that’s as terrifying an image as it is tempting.

I just don’t know the answers to my fears. How can I even hope to ask the question without a hint as to what Harlan has in store for me?

I simply can’t.

I check myself in my bedroom mirror one last time. The black silk dress Harlan had sent over for tonight – a throwback to the early days of our relationship – is elegant, yet luxuriously sexy. For once I don’t mind that he’s picking out my clothing.

Especially when he sends jewelry as magnificent as this necklace now kissing my throat...

I have a feeling that everything is about to come to a head, that Harlan’s plan is going to be made clear. Harlan was so struck by our breakthrough on the topic of control a few days ago that I know if he’s returned to it, there must be a reason.

For now, I’ll just go with the flow.

The beautiful, silk evening dress caresses my ankles, almost completely hiding a pair of thousand dollar Italian heels that look so delicate it’s hard to believe they can bear my weight without snapping. My ears sparkle with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds, and my hair tumbles gleefully over one shoulder.

And that’s just what’s on the surface.

Beneath the black silk dress is black lace – lingerie I wouldn’t have dared to wear just a couple of weeks ago. The underwear isn’t so much skimpy as it is forthright – a statement of sexuality so dominant I can’t help but wonder if I have any right to wear it.

It seems made for another woman – a more confident woman, a girl who knows how to use her body, not someone who’s barely scratching the surface.

But then, I muse. Maybe that’s who I’ll become tonight.

My phone buzzes on my wooden bedside table. I glance down, stepping back out of my own head, and free the phone from its charging cable. A simple message is written on the lock screen.

“I’m downstairs.”

Harlan doesn’t bother signing his name. After all, who would dare interfere with his woman? No one in this city, I daresay. I tremble with a mixture of fear and delight at the thought of what his wrath would be like if someone threatened me.

I can’t help but think they wouldn’t last the night.

I rush downstairs. The elevator ride is a blur, and when its doors open, Harlan’s waiting for me, dressed in a black tuxedo that seems to have been sprayed onto his body. His shoulders are outlined perfectly by the expensive material, his bowtie messily knotted with rakish exuberance.

“You made it,” he growls. His eyes widen, and flicker across my body as he appreciates my new look. “I thought you might back out of our little agreement.”

“Should I be worried?” I ask.

The tempest in my stomach has abated slightly, but it’s still rumbling away. I trust Harlan, but maybe that’s the thing that will bring me down…

Harlan holds out his arm and beckons me to join him. “Quickly,” he grins. “Before the elevator steals you back up…”

I link arms with him, and elbow him gently in the torso. It feels like hitting a brick wall. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Harlan guides me to the limo waiting outside, and opens the door for me. He holds his tongue until we are sitting next to each other on the back seat. The privacy screen is up, and we’re hidden in our own world. The limo engine rumbles and we start to move.

“Maybe nervous,” Harlan allows, “would be a better word to use than worried.”

I hike up my eyebrow. “So I should be nervous? That’s… disconcerting.”

“Yes, and no,” Harlan says softly, stroking my forearm. “Everything I’ll do tonight is for a reason, Skye. I’ve never done this with any other woman, I promise you that. But…”

“But what” I say, my tone of voice hard and only somewhat questioning. “I don’t like the sound of that…”

Harlan chews his lip, as if wondering how much he should tell me. Then he gives me an almost imperceptible shrug. “But you’re going to need a safe word,” he says.

As I process Harlan’s comment, my heart rate spikes. It feels ragged and uneven, and I can tell my body has just dumped as much adrenaline as it can find, but there’s nothing to fight and nowhere to run.

“A … safe word?”

Harlan smiles sweetly. “Your choice,” as if this is a concession.

The storm builds in my stomach again. Between that and my jagged, pounding heart, I feel on the verge of panic.

Harlan squeezes my hand reassuringly.

“How long have I got to decide?” I ask, clenching my teeth and swallowing hard. This has all suddenly become very, very real. Up until now, I’d treated it as a game. Now I realize it’s anything but.

Harlan glances down at the watch peeking out of his tuxedo jacket’s left cuff. “Oh…” He drawls. “Not long. I’d say about three minutes?”

I dig my fingernails into Harlan’s palm to express my disapproval – and near-panic. “Three minutes!”

“It’s only one word, Skye,” he grins. “It shouldn’t take you that long…”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and breathe deeply, searching my mind, as I struggle to regain control of my chest. A few moments must pass like that, in silence, because before long the limousine begins to slow. I open my eyes and look out the window. The distinctive stone-fronted buildings of New York’s SoHo district slide into view.

“We’re here, Skye,” Harlan says softly. “Did you make your choice?”

I stay silent a second longer and bite my lip. Then a wicked thought enters my mind. “Oh,” I say, turning to my lover with a mischievous smile. “I’ve got an idea. How about dirty doctor?”

Harlan’s eyebrow darts upward and his eyes widen slightly. “Dirty doctor?” He says. “I guess that’s exactly what you are… I like it. You have my word – the moment that escapes your lips, I’ll get you out of there. Do we have a deal?”

I hold out my hand to seal it. “Deal,” I say, shaking Harlan’s hand firmly.

The limousine slows to a halt. Harlan makes as if to exit the vehicle, then pauses. He reaches over to a black enamel box I hadn’t noticed, opens it, and hands me an object I can’t make out until I’m holding it. I glance down to see a masquerade mask.

“You’ll need this,” Harlan says, setting my heart rate off again. I start to wonder whether he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s like he’s got my emotions on a yo-yo, and just when I think I’m all spooled back up, he sets me off spinning once again. “Let me tie it.”

I don’t trust my voice, so I don’t say a word in reply. I just turn my neck away from Harlan and let him loop the black ribbon around my head. As his fingers work, I squeeze my eyes shut and take one last, long, lingering breath.

A second later it’s done, and Harlan’s donned his own mask. “It’s time,” he says, leaning over to me and grazing my cheek with his lips. “Just know, Skye – you’re the only woman in there who’s worth a damn.”

And with that, Harlan opens the limo door and steps out, leaving a thousand questions raging in my head. What does he mean, the only woman? And more importantly, what the hell is about to happen to me?

Harlan opens my door and I step out in a daze, clutching at his offered arm. I barely take in the architecture. Heck, there’s not much to see. The building we appear to be heading for is fronted with elegant white stone. It looks like a fancy hotel.

As we get closer to the doorway, I see a brass plaque marked with only two words: The Penthouse.

It’s not much of a clue.

I hold onto Harlan’s arm for strength. I haven’t got much of my own. I feel seasick, as though someone’s knocked my land legs out from underneath me.

A uniformed doorman appears from nowhere to let us in as we approach. He doesn’t say a word. We enter a wide lobby lit only by flickering candlelight.

Where am I? And what the hell is going on?

This is so far out of my wheelhouse that I don’t know how to respond. My heart rate is erratic, my breath uneven, and my palms sticky with sweat. I play my eyes around the room, trying to make out what I can in the dim light, but it doesn’t hold any more answers. It’s bare, apart from the marble dresser decorated with a vase stuffed full of fresh red roses.

Harlan ushers me into the waiting elevator. There’s only one button, marked P for Penthouse, I guess. He pushes it, and the doors ping shut. I finally regain my voice.

“What is this place, Harlan?” I whisper, clutching to one of his tree trunk arms. “What the hell’s going to happen to me tonight?”

I have my own ideas. I just need Harlan to confirm them for me, or at least give me the barest hint of a clue. It’s pretty clear that the Penthouse is some kind of – my cheeks burn even thinking about it – sex club.

Oh my God. What have I agreed to?

Harlan takes his time to reply. I wonder if he does it on purpose. The silence allows a rush of thoughts and fantasies to flood into my head. What if he plans to let other men use me? What if he plans to let more than one…?

I gulp. Could I handle it? Should I?

Or should I hit the elevator’s emergency button, and run as far and fast away from this place as I can? Maybe I need to admit that this is just above my pay grade. Admit I’m not cut out for this world Harlan’s pulling me into.

There’s no shame in that, is there?

“You’ll do fine, Skye,” Harlan finally growls. “I believe in you. Do you trust me?”

The elevator begins to slow, and my pulse spikes even higher. I close my eyes behind the mask and try and focus on what got me into this in the first place. Do I really need the orgasm that’s lack has haunted me for so long? Maybe I can just live without it – live without ever knowing what it feels like?

No.

“Yes,” I breathe as the elevator comes to a stop. “Yes, Harlan – I trust you.”

The elevator doors slide open.

A masked man awaits us. Like Harlan, he’s wearing a tuxedo – except his bowtie is white, not black. A warm smile opens up on his face.

“Ah,” he says in greeting, “our final guests. May I see your invitation?”

Invitation?

Harlan doesn’t break stride. He un-links his arm from mine, cutting me adrift, and removes an envelope from his breast pocket. He hands it over.

The man in the white tie opens it, glances at it briefly, and smiles for a second time. “Perfect. The auction commences in five minutes, so you’re just in time. Tonight,” he turns to me as my brain is still reeling from the word auction, “you, Madam, are Eleven. And –”

“– I guess that makes me Twelve?” Harlan growls, his voice low and sounding supremely confident.

We couldn’t be any more different. I feel like I’m spinning, like the floor beneath my feet has turned to dust. My chest and throat clench up with panic. What’s going on? How have I become simply a number, rather than a name? Somehow, I spit out a single word.

“ Auction!?”

“Precisely,” the host says from behind his white mask. “Now, as I’m sure you both know, the use of your given name is forbidden for the night. Our guests go by the numbers. It’s – safer – that way, for all of us.”

That’s news to me.

“Now, Eleven?” The host says, turning behind him to a waitress – also masked – carrying two glasses of bubbling champagne. He presses one into my startled fingers. “Will you go with my assistant here? She’ll take care of your every need.”

My eyes widen behind my mask as far as they’ll go. Harlan didn’t say anything about us being separated! Come to think about it, he didn’t really say anything at all…

The masked waitress smiles at me, and beckons me to follow her. My feet feel like they’ve been weighed down with lead. I cast a look back at Harlan – Twelve, now, for whatever mysterious reason – with pleading eyes. I can’t seem to make my mouth work, nor force my tongue to speak.

Twelve smiles back at me. “I’ll see you soon,” his voice rumbles. Right now it sounds as if it could be an invitation as much as a threat.

But I straighten my back. Harlan – back when that was still his name – asked if I trusted him. The answer, for all tonight’s strangeness, is still yes. If this is the path I need to tread to get to the orgasm he promised me, then I’ll surely walk it.

As I leave them behind, I watch as the masked host presses something into Harlan’s hand. It looks like a key of some description. I can’t make out any more detail. Harlan places it inside his breast pocket.

I follow the masked assistant. As we turn a corner, she starts to talk. Her voice is low, husky, and completely self-assured. In short, she’s the exact opposite of me.

“Is this your first time?” she asks.

I swallow. “Is – is it that obvious?”

The masked woman laughs. “To me, maybe. But behind that mask you can be anyone you want to be. You’ll be fine. Now – have you been told what is going to happen tonight?”

I shake my head nervously. “No,” I croak.

“Perfect. That’s how it should be. We have some return guests, of course.” She lets out a peal of low laughter. “We find that once they’ve had a taste, they are hooked.”

I don’t know about that. If the cauldron of acid in my stomach is any guide, I’ve got a funny feeling – if I survive tonight – I won’t be coming back. Tonight would have to be spectacular to change my mind on that.

“The auction starts in about five minutes.”

“Auction?” I squeak. “Will somebody please explain what’s going on here?”

“Of course,” my host says and smiles. She acts like she’s been through this a hundred times before. I guess she probably has. “Every time we open our doors, we invite twelve guests. Six men, the even numbers, and six women, the odd. You’ll go up on stage one by one. The bidding does get… competitive.”

“Wait–” I choke.

Then I fall silent, as what’s about to happen to me hits home. I’m going to go up on stage like a piece of meat, and have men – hopefully, at least – competing over the right to use my body as they please.

Is this what Harlan planned for me all along?

My assistant lays her hand on the single door that lies at the end of the hallway. She starts to push, but I touch on her shoulder. She turns to me, and shoots me a questioning look. My heart is beating so fast I can barely get the words out.

“Wait–” I say again, with added urgency. “Har–, I mean, Twelve. Can he bid on me?”

I see my guide frown beneath her mask. “I… suppose,” she says haltingly. “But I don’t see why he would.”

She pushes the door open and pushes me through, leaving the second part of her sentence unspoken. After all, why would any man bid on a woman he was already with…

My guide leaves me in a room with five other women, but otherwise alone with my thoughts. Each one is clothed, like me, in an extravagant evening dress, and, like me, a mask.

As I enter the room, every mask turns in my direction. Half the women are seated in chairs around the edge of the room, the rest remain standing. There’s an edge to the room – an electric sense of tension.

Otherwise, the room remains absolutely silent.

I cast my eyes around the other participants – my colleagues in this strange, twisted game Harlan has thrown me into. The three women seated around the edges look like they’ve seen this all before. They are masked, of course, but have a – perhaps faked – sense of profound boredom about them. I wonder who they are.

Escorts, perhaps?

The remaining two aren’t nearly as relaxed. They are both pacing around the room, anxiously chewing their lips. They seem young: far younger than me, anyway. I try and guess their story. I wonder how they got here. They seem so innocent, almost virginal.

But I don’t have long to put it together…

A voice comes through the speakers in this strange, ethereal green room. “Ladies,” it says. “This is your three-minute warning.”

I think that’s going to be all that’s said. Three minutes to internally prepare myself for whatever happens next.

But of course, there is always more.

“It’s time to undress.”