2. Demi #2
There’s another buzzer on the side of the archway. When I press it, it reaches the other end but no one speaks.
“Hello, I’m—”
The door clicks before I can finish. I open it and step inside a narrow corridor with plain walls and overhead lamps that barely light up the top of the walls.
I follow them to a door at the far end. Another buzzer.
This door clicks open before I can remind the person at the other end that I’m here.
Up a staircase, and I’m starting to feel like Alice following the White Rabbit through Wonderland. At the top, I enter a small room devoid of furniture or embellishments of any kind. Bare walls. Bare floorboards. It feels as if someone rented this as an empty space they had no intention of using.
A door across the room opens, and a woman appears. “You’re late.” Her voice is clipped, with an accent that sounds faintly Slavic. She doesn’t smile.
“I believe I was on time when I buzzed downstairs.”
I know I’m here for an interview, and I want to prove to the boss that he’s right to take a chance on me, but I won’t be treated like shit.
One corner of her mouth twitches, and she opens the door wider to let me in. Maybe attitude is what she’s looking for. It wasn’t mentioned in the brief, but I’ll run with it for now.
The next room is warmer. The wall lamps are brighter, like stepping out of the shade and into the sunlight.
There’s a thick-pile carpet on the floor that swallows my footsteps, and two squashy sofas to my right.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins though when I spot the two men in black suits sitting one on each sofa, and the black leather masks on the coffee table between them.
“Sit.” The woman, who is wearing a smart black skirt suit, gestures for me to join the men while she sits on a hard-backed chair in the corner of the room and unlocks a tablet.
My choices are restricted. I can either refuse, walk out of here, and kiss goodbye to working with the new team.
Or I choose a sofa and suck it up.
I go with option number two.
Both men have buzzed haircuts almost to their scalp, thick necks, and dark eyes.
Their fingers and necks are inked, which leads me to believe that the tattoos don’t stop there.
I’ve yet to see a smile from either of them, and the atmosphere in the room is becoming a little claustrophobic, partly because of the lack of windows, and partly because they play the mean and moody character so well.
I sit down, knees together like that will keep me safe if this scenario descends into the sinister depths of X-rated movies.
The man sitting to my right picks up a black leather mask from the coffee table and hands it to me. “Put it on.”
Jeez, they’ve clearly never heard of cultivating employer-employee relations to get the best out of people.
I hold the mask over my face; it’s one that covers the whole head with holes through which to see and breathe.
It smells faintly of perfume beneath the leather; I can live with that.
Maybe the woman who left before me wore the same one.
Did she get the job? Difficult to tell when all I can think about is the man sitting beside me fastening the straps and locking me inside this contraption.
It’s hard to breathe.
I don’t know why I’m panicking, it’s only a mask, but it feels surreal to have my face completely covered with no way out, and I instinctively touch the straps at the back to figure out how they work. A hand slaps my fingers away, and I yelp involuntarily.
I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and count to five. It helps a little.
This is only an interview, I remind myself. DI Goss said he’d gotten me as much of a shoo-in as he could without raising suspicion, but the rest is down to me.
“What is your wildest fantasy?”
My eyes fly open, and I swivel my neck to look at both men, trying to figure out which one spoke. The room has darkened while my eyes were shut, and although I can still see them, it takes a few beats to bring them into focus.
They’ve moved closer.
Too close.
I stand up, disoriented with the weight of the mask covering my face and head.
“I’m not having sex with you.” Fuck the job. DI Goss never said anything about screwing my way into the role. There’s been no one since Enzo, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.
“Sit down. We do not want to have sex with you either.” Is there a hint of amusement in his tone? His accent is Eastern European too, faint but noticeable.
I do so. My heart is still racing, my ego is bruised, but I believe him.
“Now, answer the question or leave.”
Fuck! Do I even have any?
“I… it’s not the kind of—”
“You don’t answer, you go.” One of the men points to the door.
My thoughts are spiraling. It’s hard to think of something wild on the spot, even more difficult with an audience, but I wanted this job. I agreed to it before I even knew what it entailed, and I’m fucked if I’m giving up because I can’t think of something erotic to tell them.
Come on, Demi. Think… Think about Enzo…
He did things to me that no one else had ever done. We fucked on the rooftop, in the pool, in the shower, in Central Park, on the beach in Sicily, in the sea too. He made me come with his tongue in the back row of a cinema while we were surrounded by people.
Once the memories come, they don’t stop. My pulse races. My panties are already saturated, and my breathing is shallow.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m not doing this for these strangers, I remind myself. I’m doing this because I’m good at my job.
Enzo. His face buried between my legs with that glint in his eye as he watches me.
I smile behind the mask. I can feel him, can feel his tongue inside me, dragging flat across my clit, and I spread my legs a little wider.
A muffled groan reaches my covered ears, and I realize with a jolt that it came from me. Enzo is going to make me come, and he isn’t even here.
This is what I want though, right?
Or maybe this is what they want.
Only one way to find out.
“My wildest fantasy…” I pause, choosing my words carefully, “…is having an orgasm in a room filled with strangers when you don’t know what I’m thinking.” I don’t sound like me; my voice is hollow, distorted.
“Are you having an orgasm right now?”
“I’m close.” My breathing is shallow, so hopefully that’s proof enough.
“Do it.” It’s an order.
I swallow hard, spread my legs wide on the couch, and put myself back in the cinema, my panties pulled aside, and Enzo’s head underneath my dress.
His tongue is on my clit. The thrill of being seen means I’m already throbbing, my entire body tingling as he licks and sucks and slides a finger inside me.
I don’t know what’s happening on the screen.
Every part of me is focused on the sensation between my legs, and my clit spasming in his mouth.
On the couch, I shift my hips, rubbing my clit against the seam of my pants, and imagine Enzo gripping my thighs, my clit soft and swollen, my nipples hard, while these men in their black suits watch me come.
I rest my head back against the cushion and pull my knees up to my chest, rocking my hips back and forth. “So close…” I murmur.
My breathing is ragged. In my mind, Enzo slides three fingers inside me and finds the spot while his tongue flicks back and forth across my clit.
And my orgasm explodes, my body spasming on the couch and curling up on itself while my mind spirals around visions of Enzo and his arms around me, holding me close while I come back down to Earth.
Strong fingers unfasten the mask, exposing me to the room.
My face is sweaty from the leather, my cheeks on fire from the orgasm.
“You will be known as Nyx,” the man beside me says. “Your real name no longer exists. JADED has one rule: no one is allowed to touch.