Chapter 9
Nine
My hands twisted in my lap as we drove through the gates to the Never Tell Club. The gemstone peacocks were there to greet us, standing fifteen feet high on either side of the driveway. Alfie moved his hand from my thigh and slipped his fingers into my own, stilling my hands.
“Are you excited to be coming back here?” I asked him.
“I’d be excited to do this with you anywhere. The ‘here’ is immaterial.”
Elliot slowed, bringing the car to a stop.
We stepped out and I looked up at the gothic-esque building.
My heart beat a little faster. I heard a rush of laughter, flirtatious giggling coming from the gardens.
I turned and saw a flash of pale silk, heard a flurry of footsteps followed by a gasp as whoever it was disappeared into the trees.
Alfie was unfazed. I clung on tight to his hand as we walked through the double doors. A live orchestra was playing somewhere, the music echoed through the house so much that it was hard to tell which direction it was coming from.
We stepped into the foyer and I immediately gasped. A naked woman was hanging from the ceiling. She was blindfolded, her arms and legs tied up behind her like an upside down spider. I stole my gaze away, embarrassed that I’d looked at her at all.
Everyone noticed us, of course they did. They ran their gaze over Alfie with hungry curiosity. The women wanted him badly and some of the men too. Their gazes turned from hungry to jealous when they looked at me. I squeezed Alfie’s hand tighter as we moved further into the house.
A waiter approached us with two glasses of champagne on a silver platter but Alfie whispered in his ear and sent him off without taking the glasses.
“Neither of us are drinking,” he explained to me. “Not alcohol anyway. We’re staying sharp tonight.”
“I guess that means no cocaine for me either.” The drug was dotted around the house. A marble flower sculpture nearby had a line neatly laid out on each petal.
He gave me a dark look. “Never.”
“Alfie!” called a booming voice. I looked around to see Kal making his way over. Alfie let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer. “Wasn’t expecting you tonight. Or you as a matter of fact,” he grinned at me. “How are you, Lola? I’ve missed you.”
“That your handiwork?” Alfie nodded at the naked girl hanging from the ceiling, not giving me the chance to reply.
“Mmmhmm. What do you think?”
“I think she looks bored.”
“Fucker. Your girl isn’t looking so thrilled herself.” Kal glanced around the room, tilting his head towards a pair of women that were giving me particularly nasty looks. He leaned in. “Ignore them, love. They’re just jealous. Like me.”
“Enough.” Alfie tried to step in front of me.
“Enough both of you.” I pulled out of Alfie’s grip. “I don’t want to be in the middle of your pissing contest. Speaking of which, I’m going to use the restroom. You two get it together.”
I left the two men standing there staring after me with smiles spreading across their faces.
The bathroom was of course full of beautiful women that looked at me like I didn’t belong. They sneered at my dress like they knew I couldn’t afford it and smirked at my hair. I knew I should have fixed it before I came here.
I stepped into a cubicle, put the toilet lid down and sat. Why had I agreed to come? Being in this place was like staying on a rollercoaster for too long. Fun at first but it made you sick eventually.
I waited until the bathroom sounded like it had emptied a little before I worked up enough courage to step back out again.
I washed my hands and checked my face. I was flushed with nerves.
I pushed my hair back over my shoulders, trying to make it look a bit less wild.
I tucked it behind one ear, then both. Nope. It wasn’t getting better.
“Hi!” A high-pitched voice snapped me out of my insecurity spiral. I turned to see a small woman, no more than five feet tall, smiling at me. “I’m Muffin.”
“Muffin? Cute. I’m Lola. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah,” was her only response, she was too busy dipping into the cocaine dispenser. It was shaped like a woman's vulva. “So, how do you know Mr Tell? I saw you arrive with him.”
“We met through work.”
“You work? That’s adorable.” She giggled, the light catching on the single diamond hanging from the leather collar fastened around her neck. Was it a fashion choice or a kink thing?
“I’ve met Mr Tell enough times over the last few years but I don’t remember ever meeting you. Where do you summer?”
“What? Summer?” I had no idea what she was talking about and when had she met Alfie? Was she another one of his…companions?
“That wasn’t supposed to be a difficult question, sweetie. How about…where did you go to school? Swanshurst? Le Rosey? Aiglon, maybe?”
“Are those all private schools?” I asked and this time she covered her mouth with three delicate fingers and laughed again. I’d had enough. “I’m going to find Alfie. Enjoy the septum erosion.”
I stormed out. Why did these people have to be such bastards? And what did it say about Alfie that he was the king of them?
I found Alfie sitting on a couch next to Kal, apparently best friends again. They were gesturing at the girl hanging from the ceiling, discussing her like a pair of mechanics discussing a car.
“I want to leave.”
Alfie studied me but didn’t move. Kal looked between us, amused, but wisely kept his mouth shut. I felt eyes on me, snickers behind me. Before I burst into tears I walked away, leaving Alfie to follow if he wanted. Of course he did.
Fresh air hit me in the face, drying my tears immediately. I finally stopped walking once I was far enough away from the house that I couldn’t hear it anymore.
“What’s upset you?” Alfie asked, hands in his pockets. “Is it Kal? He’s a smug fuck but don’t let him get to you. He’s always been that way.”
“Everyone here is a smug fuck, Alfie. Including you, king of the smug fucks.”
He didn’t respond but his expression told me he wasn’t happy.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s not acceptable for you to talk to me like that.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “I just had a mean girl moment in the bathroom and everyone’s looking at me like I don’t belong.”
“You don’t. You don’t belong here.”
I knew he meant that as a compliment but it still didn’t feel good. “They look at me like I don’t deserve you.”
“Why does it matter how anyone else is looking at you? The only gaze you should care about is mine.” He gave my hand a tug, pulling me towards him.
“I don’t like Kal flirting with me like that.” I liked Kal, but I was with Alfie and reminding us of the night I’d let Kal tie me up just threw fuel onto a fire we’d only recently managed to put out.
“I know. I’ve dealt with it. He won’t do it again.”
I let him hold me for a while, his hand rubbing calming circles on my back. “What does ‘summer’ mean?” I asked. He frowned, confused. “The mean girl in the bathroom, she asked me where I summer. The hell does that mean?”
He laughed. “It just means where does your family go for the summer. My family mainly summered in Switzerland and Monaco.”
“Of course. My mum used to take me camping in the garden when the weather was nice. Our tent was an old bedsheet. Does that count?”
“It counts. And I’m very jealous.” He kissed me softly. “Now, are you ready?”
“I don’t want to deal with any more of those people.”
“No more people. I didn’t come here to socialise anyway.” He took my hand to lead me away but I hesitated.
“Wait.” Over his shoulder I had just spotted Muffin coming out of the club. She squealed and threw her arms around a familiar blond woman who was just stepping out of a car. “That’s her. The girl from the bathroom…and I think that’s Julia.”
“Makes sense. Julia likes the bratty ones.” He looked at me, catching the deer-in-headlights expression on my face. “You really didn’t want to see her tonight.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. She said she knew you?”
“Julia?”
“Muffin. The bratty girl.”
“Oh. She doesn’t look familiar but we’ve probably crossed paths if she’s with Julia. I haven’t fucked her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s collared which means she belongs to someone else. I don’t play with other people's toys.”
“So does that mean I need to wear a collar? I mean one like hers.” I was already wearing the white NTC collar that I’d had to wear the last time I was a guest here.
“Would you like to?”
“I don’t know.” Alfie stood there, watching me imagine him collaring me. I couldn’t help it, I blushed. “So, where are we going if not back inside?” I asked, changing the subject.
“It’s a surprise. You’ll like it.”
We walked across the gardens, Alfie scooped me up into his arms when my sky-high heels began to sink into the dirt. Eventually, with the club almost out of sight, we came upon a huge, dome-shaped building. The glass was thickly frosted so I couldn’t see inside.
At the entrance, he entered a code and opened the door for me. I stepped in and gasped at the paradise surrounding me. It was hot in here, the air suffocatingly humid to mimic a tropical climate.
“This is incredible.” Most of these plants I’d never seen before in the flesh as they did so terribly in the English climate.
“Riley designed it. It was one of his first projects more than a decade ago.”
Dim orange lighting hung from the ceiling, allowing me to just see where I was going. I felt like I was in the jungle at night.
“Why didn’t you show me this place before?”
Alfie shrugged. “I was just waiting for the right moment.”
Climbing vines twisted around trees long established, purple passion fruit flowers broke up the dense greenery.
I was lost in exploration when something caught my eye.
The brown, coarse rope-like material hung from branches like loose vines but it seemed too flexible to be real.
In my high shoes, I was tall enough to touch them.
“It feels like a coconut shell.”
“It is. I didn’t want to use anything artificial in here, so we had rope made from coconut husks.”
“You used this to mimic vine growth? Clever.”
Instead of growing naturally, they had been fastened to the trees. Looking closer, I could see there was a complex structure of knots, giving the illusion of a vine canopy with tendrils hanging down. It was stunning but a little strange.
Alfie was smiling at me as if he was about to let me in on a secret. Those butterflies in my stomach started beating their wings again.
“They have another use beyond just their appearance.” He held out his hands, indicating I should give him my own. His grey gaze implored me to trust him. I swallowed. This was why we were here after all.
I placed my hands in his and he raised me up, only putting a little strain on my feet.
In my heels I was still comfortable. I thought he meant for me to hold onto the vines and didn’t realise until it was too late that my hands were being guided into knotted loops I hadn’t even noticed were there.
He released me and I dropped back down onto the heels of my feet, causing the rope-vines to tighten.
I stared, open-mouthed. My hands were fully secured in a simple but effective slipknot.
Before I could react, Alfie knelt and deftly divested me of my shoes.
Without the sky-high heels to give me extra height, my body was pulled even more taut and I didn’t have enough slack to free myself. I was stuck on my tip-toes.
This man was diabolical. He’d picked out those shoes so I’d be able to reach the vines without him lifting me, and then taken them away so that I’d be trapped.
I stared at him, shocked. My heart was hammering in my chest. The damp humidity had sweat beading on my skin already.
Alfie’s alabaster skin was flushed a light pink as he began loosening his tie. He was smiling, that hollow-cheekbone smile that made my core clench.
“Now, let’s begin.”