Chapter Thirty-Five – Molly

 

The mansion felt darker somehow, despite the lights placed everywhere. Their soft yellow tone, as warm as candles, splayed over the ceiling and gave nothing but soft lighting all over the front entryway. Figures wearing the same black robes as those outside lined the hall on either side, almost a dozen total. They stared straight ahead, their big, freaky-looking beaks curving malevolently in the poor lighting, as quiet string music played from somewhere, the sound full and alive in the way only a live performance can be.

I stopped in my tracks as the door closed behind me, swallowing hard as I tried to take it all in.

Here I was, in the monster’s lair. Here I was, Daniel in the lion’s den. And my protector, my actual lion, was outside somewhere.

Even I knew I’d put up a good front till now. But a front was all it had been. Now, as I looked around for direction, I could feel the nerves kicking in again.

The robed figures didn’t glance my direction. Didn’t look.

I bit my lower lip, tried to mentally convince my legs they needed to stop their damned wobbling, and set off into the hall. After all, if I didn’t go deeper into the lair, I’d just set off alarm bells in everyone’s mind. And that was the last thing Luke and I needed, especially if we were going to get into the underground passages he’d talked about.

As I strode past each figure, they bent at the waist. Bent so low, their false beaks nearly scraped the yellow, red, and blue tiled floor. I kept walking, didn’t glance to either side, my heels clicking with each step as I gripped my evening bag more tightly.

I stepped into the large group hall, casting my eyes over the crowd in the middle.

Immediately, I wanted to turn back, my chest tightening, my breathing coming harder and harder. This was definitely not my kind of scene.

Women dressed in evening gowns or lingerie. Some older, but most of them barely old enough to drink. Black dresses, white dresses, red dresses. Red bras, black bras, garter belts, hose, thongs, g-strings. Blondes, brunettes, red heads, black hair. Dark skin, light skin, olive skin.

Men wearing suits, men wearing just slacks, men wearing just shirts stood around, their hands on the young women, stroking bare skin wherever they could find it. Flabby bodies, firm bodies with a little bit of muscle, overweight bodies covered in thick, nearly matted fur that was as bad as a shag rug.

A sea of flesh, with the sound of sex and stringed instruments rising above it in place of the gentle crash of waves. Some of the most powerful men in the world, coupled with some of the most beautiful women. All pressed together like in a mixing pot of lust and money. In the gaps between men and women, I saw the pile of writhing limbs on a large four-poster bed they must have moved in after Luke and I had left earlier that morning. A live show, as it were, being performed to the quiet approval of the wealthy men in attendance.

One girl right in front of me, wearing a seafoam green negligee that seemed to complement her skin tone perfectly, stood out from the rest. An older, heavyset man still wearing his suit had a fat arm around her waist, pulling her into his side as he stroked her flank with his thick fingers. One of her hands was down in front of them, her shoulder moving rhythmically as they continued to watch along with the rest of the crowd.

I didn’t even want to know what she was doing with that hand.

I fought down the urge to run up, grab her by the shoulders, and scream in her face. To tell her to get out of here, to make better choices with her life. The man turned to her, his lips fat and smiling beneath his mask as he leaned down to whisper into her ear, his hand moving from her side down to one naked cheek.

She turned and giggled when he was done, a smile on her lips as she eagerly nodded.

That urge faded away when I saw her eyes. Saw how lit up they were. Like she’d known exactly what she was getting into when she came up here. Like she’d made those choices, and decided they were right for her. I couldn’t help but think about all my own choices that I’d made, about how I’d chosen what had seemed best for me at the time.

Going to college, moving down here for a job while I was saddled with student debt, getting laid off and moving in with Heidi to cover it, driving her up here the night before because she needed my help, and I needed the cash. Inviting Luke into my car at the spur of the moment, and falling into his arms the moment I realized how I felt about him.

How were my choices any different from hers?

“Lovely, isn’t it?” asked a smooth, unfamiliar voice from my elbow. “Would you like a closer look?”

I pinched my lips together, fighting my impulse to violently shake my head. I turned to the speaker, a man wearing a scarlet leather mask that covered just his eyes and his nose. Something about his jaw and shaved head seemed familiar, like I’d seen it somewhere before. He was handsome enough, I supposed, and in his early thirties. Which, honestly, was better than most of the guys I’d seen so far.

“Why else would I have stopped to watch?” I asked, cringing inside at the words I’d had to force out. After all, this was a play I was in, and I had my part.

“Come on, then,” he said, putting an arm around my waist. “Let’s get you to the front.”

I almost jerked away as his hand ran over my back, his fingers digging softly into the flesh beneath my dress. My skin crawled like it was trying to get away from him, as if it were trying to take the rest of me back to Luke.

Only he had a right to touch me like that, my body seemed to scream, to put his hands on me in such a familiar way.

I fought down the feeling and nodded. “Well, why not? Let’s see what all the commotion’s about.”

“There’s a better spot around this way. Everyone always seems to crowd near the door.”

“Probably the same as me,” I said, going along with the small talk and his guiding hand as it led me around to the left and towards the opposite side of the crowd. “They just walked in and were mesmerized by the display.”

The bustle seemed to thin a little as we skirted around its edge, just like my tour guide had suggested, and I could now see more of the performance. I tried not to frown or stare too hard, glancing away occasionally as I looked up to the man with his arm around me. The man who most certainly wasn’t Luke.

“Who are they?” I leaned into his ear and asked, as we, now nearer to the bed than I’d ever hoped to be in my entire life, came to a stop. I figured if I kept talking quietly to him, so quietly I had to practically whisper in his ear, I could use that as an excuse to not stare at the two girls and four men on the bed in front of me, all in the midst of a wider variety of sex acts than I’d ever imagined in my life.

“Just performers,” he whispered back, his breath tickling my ear uncomfortably as he tightened his grip on my side. “I think they’re here to give us all some pointers, and to get us in the mood.”

“In the mood?”

“Of course,” he said, turning a little towards me. His hand came up, brushing the back of his soft, cold, manicured fingers down my cheek. “Is it working for you, too?”

I forced myself to stay still as his finger traced down my cheek. “I’ve never been much for exhibition, unfortunately. I’ve always been a little more private in my affairs.”

“I can’t blame you. Even in a place like this, I can’t help but worry that someone will get some kind of blackmail on me.” He smiled. “Luckily, there are plenty of other partygoers like myself in the exact same boat.”

“And what boat might that be?” I asked, looking up at him again. That’s where I knew him from. He was a CEO for some software company out of Seattle. John something. Last I checked, he’d been worth billions.

“A boat worth more than most third world countries, but which is dependent on keeping up appearances.” He smiled. “You know, a woman as beautiful as you would find it quite comfortable. It’s rare I’m able to even carry on the smallest of conversations at one of these parties.”

I smiled a little, even as his hand’s pressure increased on my side. Was this guy offering for me to be his private mistress? Geez. Did this happen at one point or another to all the girls who worked here?

“That does sound lovely,” I lied, my thoughts squarely focused on Luke and just when the hell he was going to show up.

“There’s an open seat over there, if you’d like to…”

“Like I said, I’ve always been more of a private person with my passions.”

“Rooms are down the hall,” he replied, leaning down to my ear. “Private rooms.”

My lips desperately tried to turn into a grimace, and I had to battle with them to the point where I bit my lip in what I hoped came off as a flirty maneuver and not just me intentionally causing myself pain to keep from screaming. This was exactly what I’d been worried about. “Oh, I don’t know about that…”

“What?” he asked, frowning a little. “Isn’t that the whole reason we’re here? If you’re not interested—”

“No, it’s not that.” I put my hand on his chest, smiling as sexy a fake smile as I could manage. Shit! If I turned this guy down, people here were definitely going to be suspicious of why the hell I was here. What to do?

“How about…?” I asked, trailing off as my eyes searched around the crowd, looking for inspiration for a way to get me out of this. They fell on a man with two women in his arms, one on each side. I turned back to him. “How about I go get one of my friends? And we meet you there? What would you think of us putting a little show on for you before the main event?”

“What do I think?” He raised an eyebrow, smiled slightly. “I think I like where you’re going with this.”

Smiling, still biting my lower lip a little, I extricated myself from his arm around my waist, gently pulling his hand away. “Well, let me go find her. Meet you there?”

“Last room on the left,” he said. “I’ve had it reserved since earlier.”

Great. Now all I had to do was stay as far from the last room on the left as possible.