DOCTOR DONG

BRIELLE

I come in from the pool, not bothering to put on my cover up because I plan on heading straight for the shower. As I approach the ballroom, I hear voices, and neither of them are Margaux’s.

“Stop wriggling,” an American woman says. I stiffen and attempt to just keep walking because it is none of my business what the rock star does in his own house, but I find myself huddled behind the wall, listening to their conversation.

Levi groans. A low, erotic sound that makes my core tighten. My stomach clenches, and not in a good way. “I’m trying. It’s not exactly comfortable. It’s sticky and cold.”

Sticky? What could possibly be ... Oh my God. Really? In the room we ... the room that I play in? I have half a mind to storm in there and slap him across the face, and then I realise that it’s me who is out of line, because I am nothing to him, and he is nothing to me. Why should I care if he’s having sex with some strange woman in his house? I am a guest here. Non. I am being paid to be here. To provide a service. Like the maid.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Margaux says from behind, and I jump and almost knock over her tray containing an unopened bottle of expensive whisky and four glasses.

“Er ... bonjour.” I give a startled laugh, and try to back away, but then Levi calls to me as Margaux enters the ballroom.

“Brie, is that you lurking out in the hall?”

I sigh and close my eyes, because there’s no point in refuting it, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him fucking someone else. I have no desire to see that, and why is Margaux coming in and out of the room during all of this?

“You know you don’t have to hang out in the hall like a creeper.”

“We don’t bite,” the American woman says, and then I hear laughter coming from more voices. All male, and none of them Levi’s.

“Speak for yourself.” Levi chuckles. “My little Angry French Girl could use a mauling or two.”

I can’t help it. I can no longer hold my curiosity at bay, and I stalk into the room, hell-bent on giving him a piece of my mind. “I am not your little anything, and I would not allow your mouth to come anywhere near my body.”

He grins. It’s obnoxious and salacious, and completely unwarranted. I hate the way my stomach flips when I lower my gaze and find him naked with a woman sitting on the floor at his feet. She’s holding some kind of big clear plastic pipe with a thick pink substance in it, and it appears that his ample penis is shoved inside. I glance at the woman, who is cute in an American hipster kind of way, and then at the men standing nearby. One is heavily tattooed, fully clothed—thank God—with a bald head and forearms bigger than my thighs the whole way around. He appears to be covered in some kind of pink plaster dust. The other is also fully clothed, and holds a camera on his shoulder, filming whatever it is that’s going on here.

“Brie, this is Celia, Doc, and Chuck.”

Doc tilts his head to the side and appraises me as if I’m a piece of meat. “What do we have here?”

“No!” Levi points at Doc, and accepts the glass that Margaux holds out to him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, and it’s a big fuck N.O.”

“What?” Doc shrugs as if he is unafraid of Levi’s status. I’d be willing to bet that is not something this rock star is used to—people not doing everything he tells them to. “I can’t ask?”

“Not if you want me to pull out of this cast and out of this deal, then fuck no. You can’t ask.” Levi’s eyes are all challenge now. “Frankly, I’m fucking insulted.”

Celia rolls her eyes and twists her head to see me better. “Hi, I’m Celia. I’d shake your hand, but I kinda have them full.”

Levi smiles at her. “Occupational hazard?”

I do not like this woman.

“You’d be surprised at how unfunny that joke is after your thousandth casting,” she says as if she’s made of unicorn sprinkles and candy, but her cheery voice is completely passive aggressive.

Then again, maybe she and I could be best friends. I’m certainly in the market for one after Piaf sold me out with this job knowing full well how I felt about the arrogant rock star.

“Do I even want to know what is going on here?” I say, and turn to Doc, who is circling me as if I’m prey. “And why is this big, bald animal staring at my arse?”

“Doc, I mean it,” Levi snaps, downing the rest of his whisky.

“Forgive me—Brie, is it?”

“Non, Brie is what this bastard calls me.” I point to Levi. “It’s Mademoiselle Kagawa to you.”

“Oh, baby, my clients would eat you up.” He puts extra emphasis on the word eat. It’s disgusting.

“Your clients could never afford me,” I stare at Levi, wondering who these people are and what they are doing with his cock.

“It’s true, you couldn’t afford her. She’s costing me fifty large, and I only get her for the week.”

Doc steps back and fishes something out of his pocket—a business card. He hands it to me. I stare at the arrogant logo done in red, white, and blue. Why America thinks they own the French Tricolore is beyond me.

Doc Dong.

Perverse Pleasure Products.

There is a phone number, and a website on the front, and it finally dawns on me that Doc wants to pay me to cast my ... body.

Never. Going. To. Happen.

I try to hand it back to him, as I want nothing from this man—especially having come from so close to his crotch—but he just smiles, and presses my palm closed around it.

I frown and walk around him, stopping as close to Levi as the cast—and the woman holding it—will allow. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why not?” Levi shrugs. He reeks of liquor, and his eyes are bloodshot, but more than that, they are lonely. Margaux has already refilled his glass, and he lifts it to take another sip.

I snatch it away from him and drink it myself. Wincing when the horrible taste hits my palette and the alcohol burns as it settles in my stomach. I am French. I drink a lot of wine for a single woman living in Paris—or maybe I drink because I am a single woman living in Paris—but I cannot stomach the hard liquor that Levi swallows as easily as water. “Are you really so vain that you want thousands of women to have sex with a replica of your penis? Because that is absurd, even for you.”

“Careful, AFG, you’re starting to sound jealous.”

I scoff. “I am not jealous. I am just curious as to why you would sell your cock for money, comme une pute?”

Margaux inhales sharply at my language, and I blush, but Levi just laughs.

“Because even I’m smart enough to know I can’t rely on my good looks, and my ...” he lowers his voice, and his eyes hood over, “exceptionally gifted hands forever. I’m selling sex. I’m selling the fantasy, and yeah, I’m making a fucking killing. Enough to set me up long after the groupies are gone, and all the record stores are a thing of the past.”

“You’re drunk,” I say, leaning closer. He is taller than me, but his height does not deter me. I am not afraid of him. “You are making a mistake.”

“And you are fucking stunning,” he whispers. My eyes widen with his candour. His free hand comes to my waist and pulls me closer.

“Oh ... okay.” The woman between us startles me out of stupidity. I try to move away, but Levi’s hand grips the flesh of my hip. “I’m just ... I’m gonna pull this off now.”

There’s a loud sucking sound like all the air rushing out from a vacuum and Levi groans in my ear as Celia pulls the cast away and scurries out from underneath our feet. His erection butts up against my thigh. My cheeks are burning hot, my nipples hard, and I know as long as I live I will never forget the sound he made as his cast was coming off. All male, all alpha, and so fucking desirable that for a beat, I forgot who I am, who he is, and that we are not alone in this room.

“Jesus. If only we were still in porn,” Doc says. “Tell me you got that on camera?”

“Yep,” Chuck replies, sounding a little breathless. “I got it.”

“Well, this cast is screwed,” Celia says, throwing the pink rubber moulding on the floor. “He was moving too much. We’re gonna have to re-cast.”

I shove Levi’s hand off my hip and stalk towards the door.

“Brie,” he says. I stop, but I don’t turn to face him. I can’t. “Lose that fucking card.”

I stare down at the business card in my hand and shake my head, hurrying out the door and back to the safety of my room. As I flop down on the bed, my heart races, and I squeeze my eyes tightly closed and remind myself that there are just three more days left of my sentence. Three more days and I can be home, with enough money to take care of my family.

“Three more days, and I am safe,” I say to my empty room, because everyone knows it’s impossible to fall for someone in just three days.