Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Isabelle
I take a sip of my chamomile tea and recoil the moment the taste hits the back of my throat. “Eww, that’s gross .”
People say chamomile is an acquired taste but I think that’s just an excuse to avoid saying that it tastes like acrid pond water.
Unfortunately, after falling into a disgusting pond when I was little, I do know what pond water tastes like.
I’m only drinking this tea because I read somewhere that chamomile is good for nerves. I’m not so sure but it beats drinking more coffee. I’ve already consumed ten cups in the space of five hours. Even I know that’s not good.
It’s eight in the morning and I’m at the art studio trying to figure out what I’m going to do for my new sculpture.
I have my notepad with some ideas. That’s it. I’ve been sitting here brainstorming for the last four hours but nothing solid has inspired me the way the last one did. The last sculpture won me a scholarship with Christian Degas. How the hell do I beat that?
My damn mind is blocked for all sorts of reasons. Kade Gurkovsky being the major one.
Him and that kiss .
Kade and I full-on tongue-kissed, and if he hadn’t stopped…
Well, that’s the part that truly scares me. Along with the fact that it was him who stopped the kiss. Not me.
It should have been me. I’m still trying to figure out why it wasn’t me.
I have so many reasons to not want him. Yet every time I’m near him he throws my emotions into a tailspin of chaos.
No wonder I can’t think straight. It doesn’t help that I didn’t sleep all night. I worked on some paintings to get my mind off everything.
Usually I paint in class but I haven’t done any personal paintings since November when Annika and I worked together.
She’s going to be a concert pianist and also composes music, so for one week we set aside some time to create. She composed while I painted to her music. I loved it. Exploring our talents in such a way was inspiring and magical.
Last night was not like that. Last night came from a dark place. Everything I did was filled with misery, sadness and confliction.
All because of Kade.
That kiss left my head spinning and my world spiraling out of control. It felt like having some kind of out-of-body experience. Except I was completely aware that I was in my body, experiencing him. And now I can’t get him out of my head.
I need to figure out something soon because today is my first day of servant duty and I’m dreading seeing him again.
I’m a nervous wreck. I have to be at his place at five to clean for three hours. He has football practice again. There’s a game next week so the team has been putting in extra hours. If luck is on my side I might not see him. At the same time I might.
I keep worrying about what will happen when we see each other.
What will I say?
What will I do if he tries to kiss me again?
Be sensible and tell him it can never happen again? Because that would make sense, right?
The old me would have killed for that kiss. The new me, however, needs to be more sensible and not melt into a mindless mess because Kade and I crossed a line we shouldn’t have crossed.
The kiss was obviously another of his mind games. No matter how real it felt.
I just have to figure out how to keep my head above the ground and not allow him to screw with me.
When I take another sip of the tea it actually tastes worse.
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink that.”
I look up to find Thorne standing at the door looking from me to the cup of tea.
“Hi.” I straighten, surprised to see him. He's never come to see me before and I’ve rarely spoken to him without Annika around. “I think you’re right. It’s chamomile tea.”
“Yeah, I don’t like that either.”
I put the cup down and push it away from my notebook.
He walks closer and I think of the other day when I went crazy. “Thank you for trying to help me.”
“No worries. I came to check on you. Annika told me about Cambridge. I also wanted to see how things have been with Kade.”
How do I answer that and tell him that things are so much worse?
I’m supposed to hate Kade for what he did, not lock lips with him.
“I’m okay,” I decide to say. Everything is too complicated for me to say anything else.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“That was one hell of a stunt you pulled the other day.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I figured you had to be really upset to do something like that.”
I nod slowly. “I was.”
“I know Kade destroyed your sculpture. My uncle will talk bullshit about evidence but I know Kade did it.”
I’m momentarily stunned that he came right out and said that. Aside from Annika, Mackenzie and Eilish, I haven’t spoken to anyone else.
“I worked on that sculpture for a long time and it got me into Cambridge.”
“I don’t know what his motive was but he shouldn’t have done that.”
I wish I could tell him more. I could say that Kade hates me because I did something to him and he won’t tell me what it is. And I guess I could tell him about all the threatening behavior, but then he’ll confront Kade who will find a way to manipulate the situation to his favor.
I know that’s the worrywart in me talking but I’m right. As loathsome as my punishment is, until I can figure a way out of it—and right now that’s nonexistent— it’s something I have to deal with myself.
“Promise me you’ll come to me if he does anything like that again.”
I smile at him, feeling grateful for his offer. “I promise.”
“Good. I hope you get to finish another sculpture, but at least we get to keep you at Raventhorn for a little longer.”
“I guess so.”
“You’ve been a good friend to Annika. And everyone else.”
“I try.”
“I know you do. So allow us to try for you, too, if you need us.” He nods and gives me an easy grin.
“Thanks, I will.”
“Catch you later, Izzy.”
“Later.”
He dips his head and I do the same.
When he leaves I feel slightly better. My mind also clears just enough to come up with a few more ideas I might be able to work with.
Soon it’s time to leave for class, then the day wears on and, too quickly, it’s time to head to Kade’s.
The nerves return the moment I reach his apartment. Like the other day the custodian lets me in and I start to clean.
I clean and I wait and I wonder.
Time moves slower than a snail but eventually eight o’clock comes with no sign of him. Luck was on my side.
I rush out of his apartment and head to mine. I’m going straight to bed when I get in.
I take the stairs two at a time and rush down the corridor but I stop midstride when I find Mackenzie sitting on the doorstep looking like someone died.
She’s got beauty patches under puffy eyes, her hair is up in what I think is supposed to be a messy bun but looks more like a mangled cat, and she’s wearing a prisoner jumpsuit—something she wouldn’t usually be caught dead in. Not even in the hallway where there’s no risk of people seeing her.
“Mackenzie.” When I approach her she lifts her head. “Are you okay?”
“No. My father really did it,” she blurts in a raspy, tear-filled voice, then she stands and brings her hands to her cheeks.
“What did he do?”
“He signed the marriage contract. By the end of the semester I’ll be officially engaged to Levi. He wants us to start dating.”
My mouth falls open and my heart sinks for her, knowing the impact of this news. “I’m so sorry.”
“My life is practically over. I can’t believe I couldn’t figure something out.”
“You can’t worry about that now.”
“If I had my own money I wouldn’t be in this mess, but my trust fund doesn’t come in until I’m twenty-five. By then it will all be too late.”
“Oh, Mackenzie.”
“I’m sorry. I know you’re going through your own stuff and my shit is the last thing you need to hear.”
“Don’t even say that. I’m your friend. I’ll always be here for you when you need me.”
“Thank you.” A tear slides down her cheek and she wipes it away. “I don’t know what to do. How could my parents do this to me? They want me to give up my dreams for the increased wealth they’ll get if I marry Levi. As if we don’t have enough money.”
She’s right. God knows how much money and assets her parents own. It’s disgusting that they would do this to her and wreck her dreams. And I thought I had problems.
It’s things like this that remind me how easy-going my father is with me. He may have raised hell when we spoke about what I did to Kade’s bike and insisted that we needed evidence that Kade had destroyed my sculpture, but at least he understood me. He shouted for a good five minutes but by the end of the call we were sharing our usual I-love-yous and sending virtual hugs.
“What do you need me to do?” I rub her shoulder.
“I don’t know.” Her shoulders drop, then she shakes her head at herself.
“Well. It’s Friday night. You can sleep over if you want and we could order Chinese or pizza and have a chick flick fest.” I offer her a sympathetic smile. “I haven’t watched Pride and Prejudice this year yet.”
I was ready for bed but Mackenzie needs me. I know her; she wouldn’t be here otherwise. Having her around might be good for me, too, to keep Kade off my mind.
“Maybe, um…” Her voice trails off, then the spark of an idea enters her eyes. “I know. How about we go out? I think I need to get off campus. We can go to a club.”
Oh God no. I’m good to eat and watch a few movies, but a club? Not so much.
“I’m not sure about going to a club. I’d have to get dressed up and sort my hair out and —”
“Oh my God, Isabelle, you sound like my ninety-year-old great-grandmother.”
“I do not. It’s just… sudden. I wasn’t planning on going out.”
“That’s exactly what my great-grandma would say.”
Wonderful. My life is already a mess. The last thing I need is to be compared to a ninety-year-old woman.
“I was just about to get in the bath, watch some TV and head to bed…” I stop talking when she quirks a skeptical brow.
“I keep hearing great-grandma every time you open your mouth. That is not good. Come on, Isabelle. Where's your sense of adventure and spontaneity? We’re eighteen and hot. We shouldn’t be locked up in our apartments on a Friday night. And we shouldn’t be miserable because other people want to screw with us. Let’s go out and go wild. Damn the consequences.”
I already damned the consequences of my actions this week and look where that got me.
But… maybe Mackenzie is right. I could use some time off campus, too.
“Come on, come on, come on.” Mackenzie takes my hands and jumps up and down like a child. No one would believe she was just talking about her life being over only a moment ago. “You’ve had the worst week ever. You deserve this.”
She doesn’t know the half of it. I kept the kiss to myself, thinking it was better to do so.
“Who knows? This might be my last weekend of freedom.” She pouts. “I’ll be dating that creep come Monday, enroute to marrying him, and then I’ll be the broken ballerina.”
She wins my sympathy with that comment. “Okay, okay. Let’s go out. And go wild. Just not too wild.”
“Okay.”
The things I do for my friends…
Why in the hell did I bother to think that Mackenzie would listen to me when I cautioned that we shouldn’t go too wild?
Try ending up in a sex club for size.
The words sex club don't even sound right in my head.
I remember when Mackenzie and I started talking in high school and she took me to a club where the guys played Russian roulette. I thought that was the most bizarre experience I’d ever had. Until we went on vacation to Florida and ended up in a gator swamp being chased not just by gators but also some guys I was sure were drug dealers. They were supposed to be our dates. Mackenzie found them on Tinder.
I was pretty sure she was drunk when she picked them and, me being me, I trusted her.
We’ve been through several wild experiences like that and our very own girl version of The Hangover .
But tonight…
Tonight’s the winner.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the most bizarre Mackenzie idea of them all? The sex club, by far.
And how did I end up here instead of a regular club? Mackenzie begged me, twisted my sympathy, and got me to agree.
It’s my fault. I could have said no at the risk of more great-grandma comparisons. But I didn’t.
So here I am at the Dark Odyssey with a Venetian masquerade mask over my face and a silver coin in my purse to give to the guy I want to spend the night with.
God in heaven.
The things I do for my friends.
With the biggest smile on her face, Mackenzie leads me through the sea of dancing people who are also wearing masks. That’s about the only thing we have in common with them. The dress code is lingerie for the women and smart casual for the men.
It would be interesting to watch if I weren't so anxious about everything else going on in the room.
I’ve been to frat parties at Raventhorn where there is a lot of public sex.
The Dark Odyssey also does a lot of collabs with The Verge on campus, and we know to expect parties of the risqué variety.
But this, what I’m seeing here, is something else entirely.
The parties on campus are just a teaser of the darker tastes in the world. Here they have everything .
There’s a sofa area to each side of the room where there are groups of people fucking. There’s an exhibition box above me, with a woman and two men having a threesome. There are couples on aerial hoops flying through the air having sex, and there’s a woman chained to a St. Andrew’s cross on a raised platform at the top of the room, with men taking turns to fuck her.
Sex, sex, sex is all I can see around me. And I can’t unsee it.
Watching is mind-blowing and arousing and strange.
I’m not a prude but I feel like I just walked into someone’s dirty fantasy.
Clearly I’m the only one who feels awkward because this is what the people here call living on the edge. And they look happy doing it.
Unlike me Mackenzie looks quite at home.
That said, she’s more accustomed to places like this. She’s been going to sex clubs since she was seventeen and not legally old enough to be there.
We’re barely legal to be here tonight. The admission age is eighteen, but it’s typical of Mackenzie to know someone who can get us into any club on this planet we desire.
The bouncer said we’d be ID'ed at the bar, but because it's her, we weren’t.
She got a whole bottle of champagne, which we shared when we first got here.
“Let’s dance,” she squeals, stopping at a clear space on the dance floor. I can just about hear her over the club beat. “This place is amazing.”
When she looked around at the architecture I agreed with her. It is amazing.
Also… I have to admit that the other amazing thing is how liberal and free everyone seems to be. No one appears to be worried about anything.
There are happy, shiny faces all around me. No one seems to have a care in the world besides doing what they want with whomever they want.
Nine Inch Nails' Closer starts playing and everyone goes wild. I understand why they do because the song speaks of fucking like animals.
Pushing my anxiety aside, I dance when Mackenzie starts jumping up and down like everyone else.
We dance to the next couple of songs and I actually have fun. I’m about to suggest we get some more drinks when some guy in a Phantom of the Opera mask approaches Mackenzie and starts dancing with her.
He’s tall and built just the way Mackenzie likes her men, so of course she indulges him.
His friend, who is equally tall and muscular, tries to dance with me.
My nerves spike because I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too close to a masked man I don’t know in a sex club , but I dance with him. Then he becomes too touchy-feely for my liking. I’m not about to dig a deeper hole for myself so I politely move away from him.
I turn around to look for Mackenzie but she’s nowhere to be found.
I move around the dance floor searching for her among the crowd. Then head back to the bar, check the sofas, the balcony above, everywhere, but I can’t find her.
It’s like she disappeared and I’m reminded of the time we went to The Verge and she left me to hook up with a guy.
Shit, would she do that again?
The Verge was The Verge. Right there on campus where I could safely get back to my dorm.
This is different. I’m in a sex club in downtown Boston nearly two hours away from home.
Half an hour later panic snakes into my throat, tightening my lungs when I realize that I’m actually by myself. Mackenzie is nowhere to be found.
I ball my hand into a tight fist, cursing her. How dare she do this to me?
Especially when I didn’t want to go out in the first place.
Damn it .
I’m leaving. There’s no way I’m staying here by myself. Fuck knows what could happen to me.
Thanks for that, Mackenzie.
I gaze through the crowd and try to find the exit. It was close to where I was originally dancing with Mackenzie, but I’m so far away now that I can’t see it. I also can’t remember which side of the room it was on.
Damn.
I move through the crowd, which becomes rowdier when another sex-related song starts playing. That makes it harder to get past them.
Suddenly I’m close to the sidelines, where the most sex is happening.
I go that way because at least no one bumps into me. They’re too engrossed in themselves and don’t even seem to realize other people are around.
I walk past them then head down a dark hallway lit by neon. The path we came down looked similar to this. Quickly, I figure out that I’m on the opposite side to the section Mackenzie and I came through.
I just have to go down this path. This strange twisty glass-walled path filled with rising smoke. I recognize this.
The club did something similar for the party last year on campus. The same party where Kade first treated me like shit.
The walls held an exhibition of people having sex. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything like that.
The thought hardly processes in my head before I see them. Naked people through the glass walls having sex.
The smoke moves around them. Sometimes enveloping them completely, sometimes only swirling around them. It adds to the allure of what they’re doing.
The first time I saw this I couldn’t look away. It fascinated me.
It does the same now, even in my angst-filled state.
My steps slow when I reach a young couple who are having sex up against the glass. The pleasured looks on their faces are so exquisite it looks like art to me.
Mackenzie told me that areas like this are designed for voyeurs. Those who like watching people have sex.
I never thought of myself as anything of the sort but the passion I witness in this couple has me transfixed.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” says a deep voice at my ear that I shouldn’t recognize. Not here.
I whirl around and find myself face to face with a skull mask. Those unmistakable blue eyes leer back at me through the openings in the mask, and a smile reserved for nightmares stretches across the face.
“Lo …li…ta,” he says in a slow seductive sing-song voice.
It’s Kade.
What is he doing here?
And how did he know where to find me?