Page 178 of Easy
‘Within these walls, I’m just Masters, Mr. Smith.’ Dan’s words seem deliberately bland as his eyes slide to me once again. His gaze travels over my body, as if his eyes alone could remove my clothes. ‘But as for anonymous, my darling here never could be. Even hiding in plain sight. A mask can’t conceal everything, you see.’ I take what feels like a slight, raising my chin. Dan smiles beneath his mask, all obvious teeth and implied menace. ‘What’s your pleasure?’
It used to be you, I almost reply.Until you lied.Only, Dan’s words aren’t directed at me.
‘I-I believe I’m a switch,’ Luke stutters out. Which is news to me.
‘A switch?’ Dan repeats, as though Luke commented on the time of day using a defective timepiece. ‘I understand this isn’t your first... experience here.’
Luke looks to be blushing under his disguise as begins to stammer a justification for the way he likes to fuck.
‘So you’re a submissive,’ Dan suggests. Luke doesn’t answer, his gaze swinging between us as Dan speaks again. ‘Come on, man. If you can’t own your sexuality here, you’re not ready for our membership terms. You must understand that my asking comes from a place of trying to know you better. A place of offering you some fun.’
My heart hits the pit of my gut. Is he offering Lukehisservices or mine? And that he can read me so well, even behind the mask, is frightening as he leans in to run a finger along my exposed jawbone as he whispers, ‘She’s not going to be much fun by herself.’
‘Fuck you.’ My words hit the air like an impact, conversations all around us stirring to a halt.
‘Should I?’ Dan replies quietly.Frighteningly quiet, actually. ‘We both know how good that can be, but perhaps I should fuck him instead?’ His gaze turns to Luke dispassionately, gliding like silk back to me again. ‘Or we could take turns fucking you?’
His words—his tone—cuts like glass, but I fight to keep my countenance calm.
‘I’ll play you both for the chance. The decision goes to the winner as to who fucks whom.’ His disinterested tone is absolutely belied by the pulse jumping in his throat. ‘Darling,’ he purrs once again, ‘Should we play again? For old times.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
LOUISE
Another red room,I think as I enter, but one very unlike the infamous novel I’d read some time before. No obvious implements or apparatus line the walls. No strange harnesses in the ceiling.Thank heaven for small mercies, I tell myself, ignoring a pinprick of disappointment. I fold my arms across my chest, not quite believing I’d been goaded into this.Provoked. Dared, more specifically. To make matters worse, as with some of the other rooms we’d passed, there’s only a doorway. No discernible door. Nothing to hide behind; anyone could wander in and watch me fall apart.
So much for taking the power back. So much for revenge.
In due time, their foot will slip. Their day of disaster will rush upon them.
I brush away the beginning of the Bible passage forming in my head. Because this is what I get. This is my revenge.
Gilded mirrors of all shapes and sizes covered the walls of the room, glass speckled and cloudy with age.Debauchery by looking glass and candlelight.Is it supposed to make it more tasteful, somehow? I walk around the perimeter of the room on unsteady legs, concentrating on the mirrors, the drapes, the floor; anything but look at Dan. And I don’t realise he’s behind me until he grasps my wrists. As he grips them tightly, my fragile bones suffer his need.
His touch is like a nostalgia, a sad longing for something I shouldn’t want.Maybe, I begin to tell myself,I could be happy with one more time. One more opportunity to lose myself in him. But before the point I give in—beg him to take me—his fingers loosen, and he turns away.
‘We’re going to playMaster says.’ Unmoving, I try to make sense of his words. ‘And like the redoubtable Simon, I’m in charge.’ He pauses, a smile of unpleasant proportions playing across his face. ‘And the Master says take it all off.’
Standing almost at opposite points of the room, neither Luke nor I move.
‘You have ten seconds to get into the centre of the room and do as I’ve said. Unless, of course, you care to concede. In which case, I get to choose who fucks whom.’
We draw together as though compelled, mirroring each other’s movements, our hands reaching to unmask first.
‘No,’ Dan calls, his voice ringing through the room. ‘The masks stay. The clothes do not.’
I turn towards the smattering of laughter, dismayed to see we’ve drawn an audience. Dan stands between the entrance and me, the group of voyeurs craning around him to see. Ignoring them all—Dan included—I begin to pull the sheer blouse from the waistband of my skirt.
‘In ancient Venice,’ Dan says, beginning to move towards me, ‘masks were considered a symbol of freedom; a way to behave badly without fear of revealing identity or social class. A way to misbehave without fear of being caught.’
I refuse to look as he draws near, eyes cast downward in mock subservience as I struggle with the button at the back of my neck.
Aswishof cloth against cloth sounds next to me. Luke stripping his tie from his neck? Theclinkof a belt buckle, the whoosh of it coming loose from the loops. Too fast, I think, my stomach tightening. As I turn my head, Dan is holding the other man’s belt in his hand. Luke’s eyes are closed, his body practically vibrating as he swallows shallow breaths.
Hands frozen on my button, elbows ridiculously in the air, I watch on as Dan covers Luke’s hand with his own, lifting it to his own masked face. As Luke’s eyes open slowly, he looks vulnerable. And desperate.
‘Do you know anything about the mask you’ve chosen?’ Dan asks softly.
