Chapter 7
NOVA
Light reflected off the sharp blade, held inches from three kneeling women. I gasped, unable to stop myself. Hector chuckled softly and took a step closer, his arm brushing mine.
My heart hammered. I glanced around, but no one else was alarmed, their eyes locked on Kingston. The scent of melting wax and smoke grew stronger, my vision hyper-focused on Kingston’s knife cutting through the center nun’s clothing, right down the front.
The girl didn’t flinch. She didn’t make a sound. Her eyes were locked on his, full of pure bliss.
Her breasts bounced free, large and perky, nipples erect. My breath caught at the sight, and I fought the urge to look scandalized with multiple pairs of eyes on me. It was like they were trying to shock me, expose me as being a dreaded vanilla prude.
I didn’t want to prove them right.
Kingston teased his sub’s nipple before violently pinching until she let out a pained moan. “Who is your God?”
My body was doing that horrible thing again. Betraying me. I became hyperaware of the space between my thighs.
“You, my Lord,” she said, eyes brimming with tears as he continued his torture.
Is this what we’re calling PG-13 these days? I wondered.
“Confess, whore,” he spat, letting go of her nipple to fist her hair and jerk her head back.
She stared up at him and winced as she spoke, barely above a whisper. “I’ve had impure thoughts of another, my Lord.”
He grinned, but it didn’t match the ice of his light blue eyes. His Scandinavian features were lethal and ruthless. “Who?” He dragged her away from the others and forced her to look out at all of us.
This was a performance, I reminded myself. It wasn’t real.
My mind rebelled against the reminder, remembering the men of my past who were controlling and possessive in a way that wasn’t negotiated.
Yet, my body rebelled in a different way, a familiar ache returning, demons demanding to be satiated by everything I ran from and denied.
I fought the urge to shift or move. The muscles in my lower stomach tightened. My accursed writer’s brain began to drift—casting myself in the role of a brutalized devotee.
“Who,” the man snarled again, gripping her hair tighter. Her breasts heaved, and I tried not to lower my gaze to her exposed core.
To my horror, when the girl rose a shaking finger, it was pointed directly at a man in the back of the room.
Wes.
All eyes moved to him. He was entirely unreadable. His arms were crossed, but his stance was otherwise cool and relaxed. Something unexpectedly sour turned over in my guts, ruining all my twisted fantasies in an instant.
“Flattered,” Wes finally said, though his face showed no reaction at all.
The room erupted in soft laughter and a few whispered remarks.
Irritated, I ripped my gaze away.
“Can’t say I blame you for that,” the man said with a wink, momentarily breaking character and pulling another round of low laughter from the crowd.
The breaking of the fourth wall soothed something inside me, and I was surprised to find my muscles relaxing an inch.
The woman grinned up at him.
“Mmm, what to do with a whore like you…” He shoved her to the floor. “Ass up.”
She spread her arms out and clasped them as if in prayer while one of the other girls handed him a paddle.
He struck her, and a resounding crack rang through the air. I held my breath, too many conflicting feelings rushing to my mind to parse through.
“Thank you, my Lord.”
Each time he paddled her, she thanked him, her voice coming out breathier each time. When he was done, he instructed her to turn over onto her back.
My eyes widened when he placed a heavy black boot on her cunt.
“Your God is a possessive god,” he said. “But tonight, you will serve your community. You are not to be touched, but anyone may paddle you at any time. You are not permitted to wear any clothing for the remainder of the evening.”
“Yes, my Lord,” she said.
“Good girl,” he purred, the tone softer for the first time. “Get to it.”
He left her there on the floor, his other two subs following closely behind him as he left the room. The room clapped softly.
“You should see them at parties,” Hector said to me. “I’ve never seen Kingston hold himself back like that.”
“That was him holding back?” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Hector laughed. “Soirées are like foreplay, teases of what’s to come.”
“I’m guessing you’re a member then?” I asked.
“Most of us are.”
I glanced at Maisy, hoping that remark hadn’t hurt her feelings, but she was too busy flirting with Jeffrey to care or even notice.
“I think there’s something happening in the red room,” Hector continued. “If you wanted to check it out before dinner is served.”
“Oh, um…” I hesitated.
The only red room I knew was Christian Grey’s, though I’d heard kinky people hated that representation of BDSM. In high school, I binged all three books in secret and sobbed when I finished, overcome with shame. I didn’t touch another book for weeks.
“Okay,” I heard myself say, willing to do anything to escape my own discomfort.
He led me away from the group, his hand briefly touching my lower back to guide me in the right direction. We left through a different door, into what I now understood was an endless maze of rooms and doors and halls.
The moment I’d stepped foot inside The Circle’s sanctuary, I’d entered a liminal space, a world between worlds.
That feeling only amplified when I stepped into a dark room illuminated only with red light.
The door closed behind us, and it was deathly quiet for a moment, as if the space was soundproofed.
Perhaps tonight was the night I got serial murdered in a Gothic church by the VP of an investment bank.
My eyes adjusted. Against a wall was a St. Andrew’s Cross. A woman in lingerie was spread and cuffed to each leg of the X; a red silk blindfold covered her eyes. Three men in suits stood in front of her.
Off to the side, a different woman in a long black dress stood with a tall, dark-haired man. She turned.
Jayne.
She raised her champagne flute with a wink.
“Okay, ready,” a man said.
Tied to the woman’s thigh was a wand vibrator, but I couldn’t hear its loud buzz over the sudden burst of rhythmic techno music. Heavy percussion pulsed through the space, and I felt the strong bass as a hum in my chest.
“Again,” one of the men said.
I faintly heard the door close behind me. One of the men was writing something down in a notebook. Another adjusted the vibrator, and the woman writhed in ecstasy or torment or both—it was hard to tell.
She began to call out letters, one after the other.
“What is she saying?”
Before Hector could answer, a different voice beat him to it. “Stocks. She’s listing stocks.”
I turned to glare at Wes, who only glared right back. A few other attendees had come in with him, surveying the mostly empty space. Various pieces of kinky furniture and implements were displayed, unused.
Shaking my head, I found myself walking away from both men, toward the mysterious circle of people extracting stocks from an orgasming woman.
Jayne greeted me with a sly smile. “Nova, I’m so pleased to see you. This is my husband, Archer.”
Archer was classically handsome, with a strong nose, hooded eyelids, and dark hair that fell lazily onto his forehead. It was long enough to give him a spiritual flare, perfect for a cult co-leader.
“So… what exactly is going on here?” I asked, ignoring the sudden heat from a body close to mine. I willed myself to appear unbothered and curious rather than so completely out of my element, it felt like I was dreaming.
I wasn’t sure it was working.
“Wes,” Archer greeted warmly. Something briefly flashed in his eyes—almost like shock or awe, but with a tinge of hunger.
They’d clearly already met, perhaps after I’d left the orientation. Wes nodded at him.
“They’re inducing a trance-like state,” Jayne answered, her gaze sweeping from me to Wes to the nearly convulsing woman on the cross.
“Trances have been used by our ancestors since the beginning of time to transcend the body and enter the realm of the spirit. By way of music, rhythm, pain, dance, ecstasy, meditation, drugs… the methods are endless, and there’s a wealth of healing and extrasensory potential. This is just one way.”
“She’s on drugs?” I asked.
“No,” Jayne said firmly. “She’s astral traveling through pleasure. Her high comes purely from the chemical cocktail created by her own mind.”
“Okay. So this kinky shamanic ritual is being performed in order to… predict the stock market?” I asked.
“Are you the SEC?” Archer joked with a charming smile.
I laughed with them, even as a voice in my mind whispered in a high-pitched tone, what the fuck?
Wes wasn’t laughing. “Hypnosis is another useful tool, erotic or otherwise,” he said nonchalantly, his gaze moving back to the cross.
“Is this one of your specialties?” Archer asked him. “I know many of us would be eager to learn.”
Wes nodded. “It is.”
He made no offer to share his knowledge, but he did finally grace us with the smallest of smiles. I stared at his lips, the hard planes of his face in the dim light.
Archer’s eyes flashed again, like they were playing some unspoken game I wasn’t privy to. Hypnosis. Wes liked… hypnotizing people. My imagination went wild before I could stop it. This was all so strange and sinister and—wait a damn minute. We had moved on far too quickly from the orgasm oracle.
“Does it work?” I asked, nodding toward the man scribbling down letters.
Jayne’s smile was teasing, elusive. “Tell her your favorite quote, Arch,” she purred, rubbing her husband’s arm.
He exhaled slowly, sipping his glass of amber liquor. “Millionaires don’t use astrology. Billionaires do.”
“J.P. Morgan,” Wes finished for him. “Allegedly.” Something stormy passed through his eyes.
“He said that?” I asked, not quite believing them.
Wes shrugged. “A famous astrologer claimed he did.”
“I believe it,” Archer said. “Believing in the seemingly impossible is medicine for the soul.”
One of the men uncuffed the woman from the cross, and she collapsed into his arms. Her forehead beaded with sweat, an exhausted smile on her face. Another man planted a kiss on her temple as if in reverence.
“I hope you both are hungry,” Jayne said before gesturing toward the door and leading us out of the room.
Hector was by the door, talking in a low tone with another man. His face showed clear irritation, and with Wes still hovering close to me, it seemed clear why.
“What is your problem?” I hissed at Wes.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
I snorted. Yeah, I bet his list of problems was as long as my list of enemies.
“I can handle myself. You don’t have to act like some macho kink guardian. I’m not so naive and helpless.”
Wes was back to being infuriatingly unreadable, the easygoing humor of our first encounters evaporating like it never existed at all.
“Have you considered that perhaps I too wanted to see what was behind the red curtain?”
At the insinuation I was dreaming up his interest in me entirely, I clamped my mouth shut. He was making me feel confused in a place that was already dangerously disorienting, and that was never a good sign with men.
“Well, I hope your curiosity was quelled. Enjoy the rest of your night peeking behind curtains,” I snapped.
I sped up to get away from him. My irritation with Wes had perhaps landed me in even greater danger.
Before I knew how it had happened, I was seated at the grand dining room table.
Kingston’s nude sub was serving us slices of rare beef with asparagus and artful splatters of sauce and garnish, her ass as bright red as the blood pooling on my plate.
On one side of me was Archer, on the other side, Jayne.
A foot brushed mine underneath the table, and they both looked at each other at the same time.
Then, their gazes fell to me.