The man canted his face to the ceiling. “Let go of your fear. Let go of your ego.”
“No more ego,” said the woman, reaching for him, and that’s when I turned away. The men in suits stomped their feet in rhythm, shaking the house so hard the vibrations touched me, slipped inside, made me part of it against my will.
It’s only a game, it’s only a game. But it was so much like the memories I didn’t want to relive that I was rooted to the floor. The men stomped so loud the noise became a frenzy.
“Paters, take what’s yours,” the man in black shouted. “Take what’s been withheld from you. Pain creates conscience!”
I opened my eyes again to see the men unleashed. They turned to the kneeling women, whose chests rose and fell rapidly, and seized them by the shoulders, the women staggering to their feet. A man whose masked mouth gaped open, frozen in a silent scream, steered a woman to a column and shoved her against it, chest first. His voice cut across the room. “Beg me.”
“Please.” She turned her face, dark hair twisting over her shoulder. “Let me serve you.”
When he spread her legs with a rough knee, she moaned.
I clapped a hand over my mouth. Everywhere, men bent the women over, or pushed them against walls, and the women melted against them like candles. It was too raw, too chaotic, too messy. What was happening here was so unlike the slick sexiness of Tongue-Cut Sparrow, the cool transactional gazes that followed you onto the pounding dance floor. The woman who’d sent me here was right. This felt real.
The past wrapped its fingers around my throat and squeezed. His dark, charming voice in my ear whispered, What do you want? Tell me the truth.
I shook my head, pushing it away. The couples had started moving in my direction, heading to the stairs. They would catch me spying, a voyeur. If they did, would they even care I’d been invited? I fumbled backward into a recess until my back hit a far wall eclipsed by shadow, slipping into the darkness just as a masked face turned in my direction, exaggerated eyes drooped with sorrow. I dug my nails into my arm, but he kept moving, gripping a small, blond woman by the elbow. The sight triggered a memory of another girl, years ago. Is this what you wanted, Laurel?
They banged up the stairs, sometimes two men at a time, a single woman between them. I held my breath for so long fuzz crept in at the edges of my vision. But they passed without stopping, and then the sounds—the commands, the soft reverb of flesh hitting flesh, the weak cries of pleasure and pain—all of it moved above me.
I exhaled and crept forward, scanning the room. Not a soul, not even the man in black. My body was damp with sweat. I hadn’t expected what coming here would do to me. I needed to get out so I could think straight. But there was no way other than retracing my steps. I would have to sneak past them, pray they were distracted.
I slipped upstairs, back into the marble hallway, stepping lightly. Now I understood the heaven-and hellscapes carved into the ceilings, the ominous red lighting: they were warnings. Promises, for some.
Around the corner, there they were. Spread across a grand living room filled with velvet couches, gilded picture frames holding stoic painted faces, a stately marble fireplace—the finest old Americana. In the corner of the room, champagne bottles chilled in silver tubs of ice, slim glass flutes lining a nearby credenza, fit for a party. It was an astonishing contrast to the orgy of bodies, the women’s limbs twisting, men shoving and bucking. One man bent a woman over an ornate armchair, thrusting so hard the chair jumped, his massive hands pushing her face into the cushion. When she surged for breath, her expression mirrored his mask, mouth contorted in a gasp.
It was a perverse Norman Rockwell painting. Patrician wealth, mixed with barbarism, the mask of old-money civility unsettled by a baser lust. Was this a performance, or the lack of it? A fever dream, or reality uncovered?
I took a step forward, a shiver at the base of my spine, my heartbeat finding rhythm with the thrusting, spellbound by the cries filling the stately room.