Chapter 14
NOVA
Everyone seemed to be having the time of their damn lives. People were laughing, making out in dark corners, getting their asses spanked in the church pews. There were no blood sacrifices or Kool-Aid drinking in sight.
I managed to find the room where the orgasm oracle had been, where more spanking was occurring. Along with flogging, paddling, and whipping, oh my!
And then there was Maisy, bent over a bench while Archer railed her from behind. His sixpack was on full display, muscles stacked upon muscles across his lean frame.
Somehow, the sight shocked me right out of the mood Wes’s words had put me in.
Jayne and two men approached me where I stood watching Archer. I attempted to wipe the scandalized look off my face, but, judging by their smirks, it hadn’t worked.
“Enjoying yourself?” Jayne asked.
I nodded. “And you?”
I couldn’t imagine watching my husband fuck someone else, but Jayne seemed entirely unaffected.
“Immensely,” she said. “You have no idea, do you?” She grinned.
I turned toward her, noting how the older men’s eyes raked over my body unabashedly. I waited for Jayne to elaborate, resisting the urge to cross my arms or shift under their scrutiny.
“You’re the most talked about newcomer of the season. I’ve been asked at least fifty times tonight if you’ll be joining the auction.”
“The what now?”
One of the men chuckled.
“It’s an event to raise money for human trafficking. It’s part of the Midsummer festivities,” Jayne said. “Volunteers agree to be auctioned off, and all proceeds go to those organizations.”
“When you say the money goes to human trafficking organizations, you mean organizations fighting to end human trafficking, right?” I asked slowly.
Jayne’s face soured. “That’s not funny, Nova.”
Oh, I’m the bad guy? Mimicking a sex slave auction was a fucking insane way to raise money for victims of sexual slavery.
“Sorry. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”
The men seemed to have found the question funny, which made me narrow my eyes at them in concern.
“What do you have to do with the person who makes the highest bid?” I asked.
Oh my God. Realization struck me, remembering my encounter with Roman. That was what he was referencing—he said he would ensure the winning bid would be his.
There was no way in hell I was signing up for that egregiously insensitive bullshit.
“Nothing. You give them at least an hour of your time,” Jayne said.
“What happens between the bidder and their prize is entirely up to the individuals. The Circle strictly prohibits any illegal activities, and there is never an expectation for volunteers to do anything they don’t want to do.
It’s just a bit of kinky theater for a good cause.
Charitable dark roleplay. People have lots of fun with it. ”
“Right…” I said, at an utter loss for words.
“Think about it,” Jayne said. “I bet you could single-handedly pull in seven-figures for victims.” Her fingers trailed down my arm, and I shivered.
“Easily,” one of the men said, taking a step forward.
I balked at them. There were people here who could just throw around a million dollars on a whim? I couldn’t imagine money meaning so little to me. What must that kind of power do to a man’s brain?
I didn’t want to find out.
“I’ll think about it,” I lied.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think that just because I’d ascended, I was automatically in the clear. Until I found Lorelei, I was going to have to perform for these kinky gatekeepers.
Jayne smiled, pleased.
I quickly grew bored of watching Archer fucking Maisy. In fact, it seemed rather vanilla—and I thought these people looked down on vanilla activities with pitying disdain.
I snuck away from Jayne and the old men leering at me, feeling lighter the moment I did. Vastly more interesting to me was a woman in a gas mask and open-breast straitjacket laying on a medical examination table.
A man dressed like a doctor—true credentials uncertain—held a strange device that sort of looked like an electric toothbrush.
Attached to the black handle was a glass rod that glowed faintly purple.
Over the steady pulse of ambient music, I could make out a light zap the moment the tip of the rod touched her pebbled nipple.
Her yelp was heavily muffled by the gas mask.
“It’s a violet wand,” a woman whispered from my left.
I glanced at her pink latex outfit and impressively high heels. “It’s shocking her?”
“Very lightly,” she explained. “At the lower levels, it’s more of a light sensation. But the higher the voltage, the higher the zap.”
“And that’s safe?”
She smiled. “Yes. Though I wouldn’t do any electro over someone’s heart.”
I shuddered. Silly me—even with all my shameful erotica reading, I thought kink was basically restraints, gags, floggers, and being told what to do.
The woman writhed in her straitjacket as a tiny purple spark met her nipples over and over again. Apparently, the possibilities for sin were more endless than I ever could’ve imagined.
“I’m Capricorn,” the woman said.
“Nova,” I said, though I was guessing she knew that from my sermon.
“I was raised religious too. Evangelical. Got my ass sent to gay conversion camp. It didn’t work, obviously,” she said with a bitter smile.
“It’s not easy deprogramming yourself, and only people who’ve gone through it will ever understand.
It’s slow, and it’s not linear. Be gentle with yourself, yeah? ”
I wasn’t sure why now—why with this stranger—but my lip trembled, overcome by her kind words. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Maybe Wes was right, and I was too hard on myself, because I wasn’t even sure what being gentle with myself meant. I released a long breath.
That wasn’t something that had ever been taught to me. But I thought I could start with an Irish goodbye, a milkshake, and slice of pizza on my way home.
“If you’re ever in need of a friendly face at the party, please don’t hesitate to find me,” Capricorn said.
My eyes were blurry as I thanked her again and headed toward the door.
“Wait, Nova,” a voice called.
I sighed and faced a nude Maisy. Her perky tits bounced with her quick stride.
“Here’s my number, just in case we lose track of each other again,” she said, handing me a piece of paper. “Are you having fun?”
“It’s been a mix, but overall, yeah, I think I am,” I said and meant it. This was all new and overwhelming, and yet, I was high off the openness I’d long coveted, the bravery I never thought would belong to me. The attitude shift was shocking, unexpected.
I wanted to see more, do more, taste more.
Even if it all had to end once I found Lorelei.
“Good,” Maisy said excitedly. “Me too. Time to find Jeffrey. He only likes to play after I’ve been with someone else first. It’s kind of his whole thing.”
“Nice,” I said. “I’m glad you two have a symbiotic thing going on.”
“Totally.”
Maisy and I went off in different directions. I wondered if she actually liked playing with Jeffrey, or if it was purely sex work. I’d make sure to ask her next time.
Phone in hand, swallowed by the darkness of a New York City summer night, I wasn’t the same woman now as I’d been when I first entered The Circle.
And I found that exhilarating.
Re-entering my normal life was more jarring than I’d expected. What was casual and lowkey to The Circle was mind-altering, maybe even mind-breaking, for me.
Wes had checked in the next morning with a text, as promised. I’d responded with a lukewarm, all good. Four days had passed since then.
I’d also reached out to Maisy to ask when the party was, as Jayne had never given me an exact date. She said it was in two weeks, and they were still sending out invites, so I shouldn’t worry.
I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was anymore, but worried didn’t describe it.
Though I’d stopped receiving ads from @O, my algorithm had somehow shifted to serve more spicy book content, reels about divine masculine and divine feminine polarity, organ meat supplements, and a slew of kink and spirituality creators.
More bizarre than that was the way my dreams had shifted.
Maybe it was because Jayne had told me they would while I was hypnotized and vulnerable.
I found myself trapped in mazes, running from people I couldn’t see.
And I was having far more sex dreams than I’d ever dreamed before.
They were all weird and intense, hard to describe in a waking state, occupying the same liminal dreamscape as The Circle.
I was also writing again, lit by a fire I hardly understood but felt surging through my veins. The words flowed quickly and steadily, and I should’ve been grateful.
Instead, I was horrified. What I was writing was no longer a cozy, small-town, sweet romance—which meant it was worthless to me.
Everyone knew it was indie author suicide to write in a completely different genre, a genre diametrically opposed to your pre-established audience’s expectation.
My current readers didn’t want this book. In fact, they would hate this book.
If I didn’t scrap what I was writing, and if I dared to publish it, I would be killing any momentum I’d built with my last six books.
I would be completely starting over. More than that, I would be exposing parts of myself I never wanted the world to see.
And yet, akin to my involvement with The Circle, I just couldn’t stop.
From beyond my bedroom door, speakers began to loudly play the song Novacane by Frank Ocean, I presumed in order to summon me from my cave.
Inara squealed, aggrieved, when I gently removed her from my lap and stood from my desk.
“Yes?” I asked when I greeted Hudson and Delilah in the living room.
“They’re doing an Adam Driver lookalike contest in Washington Square Park at six. You in?”
Delilah grinned, twirling in a flowy white dress that looked like what Rey from the new Star Wars movies might wear. “I will be scouting for two gentlemen to come home with me and create one beautiful night together we will never forget.”
I rolled my eyes. “Considering we share a wall, I’m guessing that roleplay won’t be something I’d soon forget either.”
“Picture this,” Hudson said with a dramatic flourish of his hands. He lowered the volume of the Frank Ocean song. “We all bring home at least one Adam Driver.”
“And make them fight to the death,” I finished.
“Nova, this is serious,” Hudson groaned.
“Is it?”
Delilah crossed her arms. “I told you, Hudson, she’s changing. Too cool for us lowly peasants.”
“Soon, she’ll be moving into the dungeon compound and leaving this world behind,” Hudson said with a nod.
“Oh, knock it off. I’ll get ready.”
They basked in their victory, eyes alight.
While I was getting dressed, my phone buzzed.
Wes
I believe I was promised book titles.
I smiled. He even took the time and effort to use proper spelling and capitalization with his ancient communication device.
My smile dropped, remembering our last interaction. After I sent him the name of the first book in my series, my phone buzzed again.
Wes
Do you like music?
I made a sarcastic face he obviously couldn’t see through his screen.
Who doesn’t like music?
Wes
Extra ticket to experimental orchestra at the Lincoln Center Friday, if you’re interested. It’ll be weird.
When my stomach fluttered, I told her to cut it out. Friends hung out together. I could be cool about everything—about Wes, about my new sex cult, about my freaky dreams and my waking fantasies that only grew stronger and less inhibited by the hour.
I like weird.
I hit send as I walked into the living room.
“Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Hudson said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, wiping from my face whatever unconscious look I’d made texting Wes.
“There was yearning in your eyes,” Delilah said.
“There was not. I have not ever nor do I currently yearn.”
Hudson lifted a dark brow. “Nova, you yearn for a living.”
Delilah looped her arm through mine. “Come on. Our Adam Drivers are going to cure us of everything that’s wrong with us.”
I sighed. “I highly doubt that.”