2. Primrose
PRIMROSE
There’s something a little medieval about this heavy gate. And my mind jumps from ancient torture devices to the kinds of things I might see tonight.
It’s fine, I tell myself as I forcibly replace one thought with another. I’ll just treat it as an anthropological study. To see how the other (kinky) half lives. For the dinner party stories I’ll get out of the experience, and to bank a couple of scandalous anecdotes to share in my old age.
Hey Edna, did I tell you about that one time I visited a sex club?
I startle as the gate swings open to a very large and very sharply suited door denizen.
“Sabine Kopek and her plus-one. We’re guests of Jay.” She straightens her shoulders and tosses her long blond hair.
The man taps at an electronic tablet, then asks my name—in French. I reply in kind, giving him at least some version of it. Rose Whit sounds like she might be into freaky stuff, but Dr. Primrose Whittington? Not so much.
He moves aside and directs us to a nearby table manned by a woman in a tightly fitted red cocktail dress.
“Téléphones,” she demands, barley looking up.
I tighten my hand on the precious lifeline as Sabine exchanges her own handset for an inky barcode stamped to her wrist. “I suppose that saves you from worrying about where you’ll put your ticket.”
“Pardon?”
When you’re naked and getting nasty, I don’t add as I pull Sabine away from the table.
“I’m not leaving my phone,” I whisper-hiss. “I’m only here to charge it. No phone, no orgy.” I make a quick slashing motion with my hand.
She gives a glance the attendant’s way before grabbing my handset. She stuffs it into her jacket pocket. “She doesn’t have a phone,” she explains in rapid-fire French as we step back to the table. The woman’s attention drops to my purse.
“See?” My eyes feel as wide as saucers as I pull on the sides, allowing her to peer inside. She gives a disinterested flick of her wrist, and her attention slides away.
“I don’t know why you’ve got to leave them,” I mutter as we make our way along the path toward the house.
“A lot of powerful people will be here,” Sabine says, linking her arm with mine. “Pictures or it didn’t happen?”
“Oh, this definitely didn’t happen.”
“Don’t look so worried, chéri. It’s just a party.”
“Some Eyes Wide Shut shit,” I mutter. Curious. What the hell was I thinking? Curiosity didn’t only kill the cat because I’m pretty sure my libido is flatlining.
Here lies Primrose Whittington’s sex drive. It suffered a fatal blow—I mean—a knock to the head after she fainted like a Victorian virgin when confronted by nekkid people having sex.
We reach the entrance hall where the party is in full swing. Techno or EDM—I never know which is which—seems to make the walls throb. Or maybe that’s just my pulse in my head. But at least the partygoers seem to be all wearing clothes.
“Here!” Sabine yells over the music as she passes me a white satin ribbon from a rack on the wall.
“Strange place for a haberdashery display,” I yell back.
Her expression twists before she brushes my words aside. “Tie it somewhere visible.”
“I’d rather have the gold,” I yell, touching the bangle on my wrist in suggestion, matchy-matchy.
“You want to be touched?”
I pull a face, all scrunched nose, what and eww!
“Gold means this,” she shouts as she leans closer to my ear. “White is voir… how you say, for looking.”
“For people who like to watch?” I pull back as I clutch my figurative pearls.
She gives a gallic flick of her shoulder. How would she know that? So much for her tears and denials.
“I can’t even watch porn without my soul trying to claw its way out of my skin.” And that’s while I’m alone.
She seems to find that funny. And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll laugh about ‘that one time’ I became a spectator at an orgy. I didn’t even know an orgy was a spectator sport.
“Safer though, no?” She offers me the ribbon again.
I don’t immediately reach for it as a tall, slender woman dressed in a leather bustier struts by us.
But that’s not the most striking thing about her outfit.
It’s not even her matching leather thong, which looks seriously uncomfortable, or the black stockings and sky-high heels.
The most striking piece would be the leather lead she’s holding.
And the man she appears to be taking for a walk.
On all fours. Must be hell on his knees.
But then, the leather jocks he’s wearing can’t be that comfy, either.
“I think we might be a little overdressed,” I say, even if I do wish I’d brought my big coat.
The music changes, and Sabine’s face suddenly lights up. “This is Jay’s set! He said to look for ’im on the terrace.”
She pivots, and I follow, my eyes glued to her flowing blond mane as she weaves through the dense crowd of partygoers drinking, chatting, and generally hanging out. Some of them are really hanging out I see, thanks to some varying states of undress. But I’m surviving.
“Look, a bar!” I could do with a stiff one. A drink, I mean. “Sabine?” My stomach plummets. I only took my eyes off her for a second, and she has… gone.
After her tears and her supposed concern about being here alone, she’s totally ditched a bitch! And she has my phone.
“Fabulous,” I mutter as I shimmy sideways between the backs of a couple of men. “Excuse me. Coming through.” I weave blindly through the crowd. She can’t have gone far, and at least I know where she’s going. I’m sure she’s bound to realize I’m not behind her any minute. Any minute now.
Except, she only needed me as far as the door. Why do people have to be such selfish arseholes?
I push my way through the throng as I mentally cross my fingers that I’m going in the right direction when, huzzah! I spot a door, so I slip through it and into a garden room. Glass roof and parlor palms. I close the door behind me, and the music fades. It feels a bit like going deaf.
This must be a chill-out zone. Partygoers lounge on cushioned benches in jewel tones like we’re in an antiquated harem, the low tables littered with glassware and ornate shisha pipes.
I wrinkle my noise at the fruity smoke, my hair coming to life thanks to the oversized cane fans rotating lazily overhead.
On the move again and, oh! I spot a couple canoodling, so swing my attention in the opposite direction.
It’s fine, I tell myself. They’re just snogging.
Heavy petting. That stuff happens everywhere from bus stops to parks benches and pubs.
Sometimes it feels like I can’t go anywhere without seeing people making out.
I glance back—no biggie. They’re just kissing.
Except… the man seated next to them is touching himself as he watches.
A laugh like a fart spurts from between my pursed lips.
Ohmygod, I am not cut out for this.
And then it seems to be everywhere: sex.
Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention or seeing only what I wanted to see because there’s a guy to my left doing coke from his companion’s ample bottom—which gives the expression a couple of cheeky lines a whole new meaning—and a couple to my right are totally going at it.
And no one is batting an eyelid! Well, except me because I am freaking the furk out!
I give a quick shake of my head to unfrazzle my brain. The doors. I need to get outside before my radioactive cheeks explode or something.
“Where’s the fire, gorgeous?”
It’s not the question that makes me halt but the strong fingers that loop around my wrist. Panic momentarily seizes me as I turn to the owner of the voice, rattling my brains for an appropriate answer.
Thanks, but no thanks?
Oh, so you want to share my herpes, do you?
I’m only here to observe? My ribbon. I glance down at my wrist. Where the hell has it gone?
But as my brain seems to catch up, I realize he spoke in French, and I have an out.
“Can I help you?” I begin as I turn, all frowning and cutely confused. English girl without a lick of French just entered the chat.
Two men sit at a table, a bottle of wine between them. One is fair-haired and all smiles, the other dark-haired, broad shouldered, and brooding. The one thing they have in common is they’re both unfairly good looking.
“Anglais,” the blond says to the grump in French. And then he says something about me being just his type.
“I’m sure lots of women would totally be into this grade A sausage-fest before me, but I’m sort of in a hurry,” I say.
“Saucisson?” The blond gives a playful quirk of his lips, and my stomach plummets. But lots of French speakers would recognize the word ‘sausage’ in an English sentence.
Wouldn’t they?
“Yes, sausage.” I give a definitive nod of my head. “Sausage I’m not at all interested in, so…” I give my wrist a shake. But the blond just flashes me a wide smile that speaks of expensive dentistry.
Given his attitude, his designer suit, and heavy watch, I’m going to say he thinks he’s a bit of a catch.
And maybe he is if you’re into the group thing.
Or the public thing. Or maybe he likes to have his bum tickled with a peacock feather.
I give a shake of my head as the image of just that flits through my mind.
“That’s a pretty smile,” he says, still speaking Francais.
Said smile deflates. If I wasn’t pretending not to understand I’d tell him exactly how much women appreciate it when a strange man comments on their mood. I mean, I’m sure you’d be more attractive if you knuckle-dragged your way back to the 1950s, but we can’t always get what we want.
“Do you think she has any French?” The blond’s gaze slides to his friend. “La langue de l'amour.”
The language of love in the house of fucking? Cupid would probably off himself.
His dark-haired companion seems to agree as he makes a noise of pure derision.
My attention shifts automatically and, holy moly!
The instant our eyes meet, something jolts through my body straight to my soul.
The sensation is considerably more pleasant than the time I accidentally stuck a fork in the toaster, but it feels no less electrifying.
His gaze drops and travels over me with a slow, sensual intent. By the time his eyes return to mine, I’ve forgotten how to breath.
Turns out, I do like older men. But just the ones who look like they would put the world at a girl’s feet. And put anyone who hurt her six feet beneath it.
The (dumb) blond waggles an admonishing finger between us, putting my fanciful thoughts to an end.
“Ah-non! Prems!”
What is he, twelve? Prems is the equivalent of calling dibs. You can’t call dibs on people. But maybe you can at a sex club.
“Hey!” I exclaim as he tugs me a closer. I look to the man with the startling blue eyes, but he merely reaches for his glass.
He’s older than his tablemate, his hair almost black, his brow stern and his jaw chiseled. Lashes laminated by an unfair god.
“Assieds-toi.” Take a seat. The blonde actually pats his knee.
Barf. I give my head a hard shake. “My friend will be looking for me,” I continue as I try to ignore how his gaze slides over me. It doesn’t feel as good as when dark and dangerous did the same. Though his gaze is now cold, and his posture arranged into complete indifference.
His attention span must be minuscule.
“That’s not very friendly.” Tom Cruise teeth slides his thumb over my hammering pulse. My reaction is instinctual as I yank my arm.
“Let go.” I sound much calmer than I feel. Should I say it in French, or will that just make things worse?
“Relax,” he continues, all boyish smile and reassurance. I’m not buying it.
“Nils,” the other man chides, more bored than bothered. “Leave the girl alone.”
“You’re just a sore loser. Maybe we should ask her if she likes to share.” His arm slides around my waist, my momentary shock allowing him to pull me to his knee. “What do you think, beautiful? Want to get to know us both a little better?”
Not-Nil’s blue eyes flare angrily. What the hell? I didn’t even say anything.
“Get off.” I pull from his grip. But blondie makes another grab for me, flashing me his uber white teeth.
“I do like them feisty.”
“Nils.” The other man casually straightens the crease in his pants before his gaze flicks up. Hard. “She clearly isn’t interested.”
“Then she must be frigid.” The insult is a hot whisper in my ear as his fingers span my ribs. “Are you?”
Panic reverberates through me as I swallow over a sudden lump that tastes like old shame. But I will not give either of these arseholes the satisfaction of my tears.
As the youngest member of family, and with four brothers, I know how to deliver a cutting put down. As well as a swift upper cut. But as it turns out, I get to use neither as not-Nate lurches forward with the speed and venom of a cobra.
“Let her the fuck go,” he growls. Woah, the man is pissed—seriously—that dispassionate manner of his shed like a skin.
Nils freezes. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure which of us is more stunned.
“Come on,” he placates. “It’s just a little fun.”
“For whom?” Not-Nils demands. “Now, before you force me to do something we’ll both regret.”
His fingers slowly retract and I can breathe again.
“Thank you,” I mutter, not meaning to catch my so-called savior’s eyes. This time, I ignore the electric sensation.