by Duval, Lexi
The place is without equal, the largest and most extravagant mansion in the whole of the United States. A palatial wonder to match the great castles and estates of Europe. The sort of place that only a man like Oliver Turner could afford.
Knowing what the other side of life is like - scratching for cents and pennies, eking out a meager living from noodles and soup, living a life so empty it might as well cease to exist – I find such wealth almost vulgar. And all of it paid for by war and the creation of weapons to kill, maim, and destroy. The idea leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.
Naturally, I push such thoughts to one side like a pro when it comes time to spring into action. Before long, guests are arriving, and we're put into position. Some are ordered to the front, where they wait with glasses of the finest champagne to give out as people enter. Others hang further back, waiting until the ball moves into its stride before they're expected to act. Others still ferry fresh trays of Dom Perignon back and forth, ensuring the waitresses at the entrance never run dry.
My job is one of the latter, so I'm busy from the word go. Each time I return to the front with a full tray, I notice more limousines and supercars arrive. Guests spill out, already wearing their masks, tickets in hand.
All manner of strange faces appear, giving the whole thing a strangely fantastical feel. It's odd not knowing who's behind the mask. Whether it's a famous actor, musician, powerful politician, or simply one of the super rich billionaires I've become accustomed to in the club.
Half an hour passes before the stream of arriving guests begins to weaken, becoming nothing more than a trickle. Within the mansion, however, hundreds now mingle, drinking champagne, nibbling on delectable hor d'oeuvres and canapes. Music plays from a string band, the room fills with the sounds of Mozart and Beethoven, and the endless murmur of chatter.
It's all so refined, so urbane. Not a voice is raised. Not an argument started. Yet behind those masks, I know, are a million issues and worries. The sort of power plays and posturing that only the rich and powerful endure.
Sometimes, I think to myself, a simple life is better...
As the night progresses, my mind lingers on Kyle. I wonder whether he's even here, among the crowd, hiding behind a mask like the rest of them. I try to spot him, knowing the shape of his body so intimately, the way he moves and walks, his mannerisms and body language. Mask or not, I expect to recognize him. Perhaps hear the sound of his penetrating voice, and feel that tingle up my spine as a result.
But I don't. I'm certain he's here, but it's too busy to tell, and the guests are all dispersed around different rooms. Currently, my directive is to serve those in the main banquet hall, and not venture beyond. It's quite possible that he'll be in one of the other rooms.
The night flows, a nice change up from my time in the club. For a start, it's nice to be serving women too. To not be in a world where you know, just through a couple of doors, people are having sex. Here, I doubt that sort of thing would go on. It's not a houseparty populated with frat boys and college sluts, where every bedroom is filled with copulating students.
It's a few hours in when I notice the volume change. Drink has that universal effect, no matter what social class you belong to, of lowering inhibitions and weakening the senses. Naturally, the ability to control the sound of your voice is impaired, as is the ability to hear quite so clearly. The chatter, therefore, begins to increase. I think I even spot some dancing as the band picks up its rhythm.
So, the rich do know how to get down too...
When I return to the kitchen, I'm greeted by my least favorite girl here – Julia, miss beautiful Brazilian. Strangely, though, that arrogant sneer she usually carries when looking at me is absent. Her expression is more muted for once. I even spot a light smile.
“Hi Belle,” she ventures. “Enjoying the night.”
I play along. “Sure, beats being down in the club.”
“You know Kyle is here, right?”
I shrug my shoulders as if I don't care. But even the mention of his name makes me smile. If only I had a mask too to hide it...
“OK...” I say, waiting for more.
“He asked me if you were here, so I told him. I hope you don't mind.”
I shake my head, and try to remain nonchalant. Yet the idea that Kyle is asking after me is actually almost killing me right now.
“He also asked me to pass on a message.”
“Oh, right? What message?”
“He said to meet him at 10 PM in the left wing of the mansion, beyond the banquet hall.”
Now I can't contain my excitement. Kyle's lust knows no limits. He wants to fuck here, tonight? I can't deny the idea makes me incredibly horny. Secret sex, with the cream of the US right outside the door. What could be more exciting?
“Right...thanks Julia,” I say, feeling I may have misjudged her.
Perhaps my feelings of jealousy toward her have blinded me. Maybe she really is a nice girl with no interest in him. Certainly, she doesn't sound envious right now. She's just smiling at me sweetly and preparing some drinks.
She drifts off with some remark about getting back to work, leaving me to look at my watch. My heart lurches. It's already 9.55 PM.”
Without having any time to think, I immediately set off toward the banquet hall. Inside, the night continues to descend, with a drunkenness beginning to engulf a few members of the congregation.
I'm pleased for it. It masks my own secret mission to meet Kyle as I pass by unnoticed. Remembering the housekeeper's brief tour of the central areas of the mansion, I make my way toward a small corridor leading off the hall in one corner. That, I know, leads toward the left wing.
Nerves hit me hard, mingled with excitement. My heart does little leaps, throbbing with the sound of the room at my back. I reach the corridor and train my eyes towards the door at the end.
Just beyond the door he waits....
I step forward, leaving the party behind, the world growing quieter. I grip the handle, already warm from a recent touch. Kyle's touch...
Through I go, into an adjoining hall, dimly lit. The door shuts behind me, and I stare out at the many doors leading to other rooms, other parts of the mansion. To my immediate right is a large staircase with a gallery above. Yet I see no movement.
It's quiet now, the noise of the event dulled to a murmur. Then, out of nowhere, I see a hand come from behind me, out of the corner of my eye, and close over my mouth.
My heart lurches. Is this a part of Kyle's sex game?
I'm gripped hard, unable to turn around, unable to speak. The hand on my mouth holds tight, causes a rush of fear to rumble through me.
Then I hear it. The voice in my ear, dripping off a slithering tongue.
“He's not here to stop us this time, is he?”
Brad drags me backward, and now I start to struggle. I twist, but he's strong, pulling me back as my legs thrash. We go through an open door, into a small, quiet study. I'm turned around as Brad kicks the door shut with his foot, then pushes me toward a desk at the back of the room.
I'm pushed down, my chest crushing against the wooden desk, his hands at the back of my neck. He kicks my legs open, spreading them wide, and I try to wiggle away. But he's not letting me go...not this time.
“Don't struggle Belle. You wanted this before. And now you're going to get it.”
His voice is jumpy, altered by alcohol. His mind is lost, driven by rage and jealousy and the humiliation he suffered at the hands of Kyle.
“If you scream, I'll destroy you,” he says, my mouth now free of his hand as he holds me down with one and pulls down my skirt with another.
I feel his fingers working frantically, dragging my panties down my legs, fiddling at his belt buckle and zip. I yelp, but he threatens me again, and a fear seizes me that seems to cut off my ability to speak.
There, numb and helpless, I'm raped. Any virtue I had left is taken from me. My body used as nothing more than tension relief by a boy with no one to answ
er to, a boy with ties so strong he knows he's invulnerable.
When he's finished, he leans down close and whispers once more in my ear, his entire weight pressing against mine.
“If you tell anyone about this...if you mention it to anyone...if you even think about going to the police...I'll make your life a living hell. You know who my father is. Who will they believe...the son of Oliver Turner, or a cheap slut hooker like you?”
Warm tears form in my eyes as he speaks. His words, as much as his actions, crush me, soil my spirit and my soul. When he puts himself back in order and leaves the room, I stay there, unable to move for several minutes. Bent over the desk like I'm nothing, discarded with the threat of violence ringing in my ear.
Tears flow, and my trembling hands lift up my underwear, my skirt, and return me to my original state. Only inside, I fear I may have just been changed forever.
I step out of the room, wipe my eyes, and desperately try to regain some form of composure. Because right now, I have to put on a brave face. Right now, I'm the most vulnerable and weak I'll ever be.
If someone sees me like this, they might just drag the truth from my lips. So I stand up straight, stoic and strong, and return to the banquet hall to finish the night.
Chapter Four
I wake with a start, my hands shaking and mind ringing with horrible memories. Fragments of a night I'll always pray to forget but never be able to. Brad's slithering voice. The violent thrust of his crotch against me. The pressure of his hands, digging into my back, pushing me down onto the desk.
When I wipe my eyes in the darkness I realize I've been crying, tortured in my sleep, replaying that night again and again against my will.
I take my cell and see that it's only 4 AM, the dawn several hours away. But I know I won't sleep from now. I don't want to sleep from now. Let my mind be left defenseless in slumber, unable to control the visions and sounds and smells of Brad as he torments me from afar.
On the Monday after the event, I'm scheduled to be back at Club Billionaire. I call in sick, unable to face it, telling Alice that I've come down with food poisoning and am going to the doctor this afternoon.
When Wednesday comes, and I'm expected once more, I use the same excuse. I do the same on Friday, saying the doctor told me to take it easy for at least a week. The time, meanwhile, is spent trying to overcome the trauma of what I went through.
I spend the week in bed, mostly, unable to come out, unable to face the world as if I've done something wrong. Above everything else, I feel dirty, used and abused like I'm nothing, my soul cracked and sullied and thrown out to dry.
When Trey and Glenn try to speak to me, I feign illness, telling them they don't want to know what's wrong with me. With food poisoning, it's always a good excuse, and they retreat without another word. To strengthen the realism, I spend lots of time going back and forward to the bathroom, pretending to use the facilities when in actual fact I'm just going there to cry.
I begin to wonder, as I lie in the bedroom that has become my prison, whether Kyle is thinking of me. Whether he's even noticed I'm not around. For all I know, he might be away on business and won't have been to the club for a while. Or perhaps he has but just doesn't care.
Then my mind burns with the thought that Julia, that fucking bitch Julia who led me into Brad's trap, is back getting her claws into him. I always thought that she seemed too sweet that evening, suddenly losing the fierce looks and smirks she gives me down in the club and adopting a much friendlier demeanor.
Now I know why.
She was in it all along with Brad, party to his crime. I wonder how a girl, any girl, could possibly be an accomplice to rape. And all because she's jealous of me and Kyle, desperate to have him for herself.
The thought makes me feel sick. That such people exist, devoid of any sort of humanity. In my mind, she's just as bad as Brad. In some ways, she's even worse. How she can do something like that to me, a girl, knowing the sort of damage it would inflict, is as callous and heartless as act as there is. The girl belongs in the deepest reaches of hell.
When a new week blooms, I still cannot face returning to the club. The thought that Brad might be there, drinking with his cronies, ordering me around, is too much to bear.
I know he'll have no remorse, no regret. It's quite possible that he's done it all before. When a boy like him, who's so used to getting what he wants, is denied something, he takes it anyway. That's the way his warped little mind will work, a means of regaining the power, the control, that had been shifted from his grasp.
It becomes obvious that Alice knows something's up. She probes me via phone calls and text messages to tell her what happened. I don't relent, of course, and merely stick to my story that I'm ill.
As the days go by, however, I begin to wonder if I'll ever be able to go back. I consider hiding away in my room forever, blocking out the world and all the darkness within in.
But then I see Brad's smirk in my head, his arrogant fucking sneer. Gradually, my fear turns to anger, my anger to hate, and I tell myself he's not going to win. That when I'm ready, I'm going to step back down there and show him that he can't hurt me. That he means nothing to me. That I won't let my life be altered by a stupid boy who knows nothing of the real world.
It's the middle of the week when Glenn appears at my door, knocking and then peeping his head inside. I take out my earphones and put my laptop to one side on the bed.
“Belle...how are you feeling?”
“OK, I guess. What's up?”
“There's a guy at the door, he's wants to see you. I said you were ill, that I'd check to see if you were OK for company. Shall I let him in?”
My heart seizes up a touch, the crazy thought that Brad might have come to my home rushing through me.
“What's his name?” I ask quickly.
“Err...I didn't get it. But he's pretty tall, dark hair, um...brown eyes I think.”
My heart lurches again, but in a different way.
“Kyle...” I whisper.
“No shit! That's Kyle Lawson, your boss?”
“I guess...why don't you go double check, then let him in.”
Glenn nods, looking slightly excited, and darts from my room. It gives me a split second to check my look in the mirror. It's not good. Hair all over the place, no make up on. Eyes baggy and tired. Body covered in nothing but sweats and a t-shirt. In short, I look awful.
Moments later I hear a few words being exchanged behind my door, then another knock.
“Belle, can I come in?” I recognize Kyle's deep cadence immediately.
“Sure, come in,” I croak, my voice cracking from inactivity.
I take a deep breath as the door opens, and Kyle steps into the room and lightly shuts the door behind him. My only saving grace is that the room is dimly lit, only a single lamp by my bed as illumination.
Kyle moves forward and takes a seat on the bed, eyes on me the whole time.
“I see what you were talking about when you said your roommates were stoners,” is the first thing he says. He sniffs in deep. “You could get high just breathing the air here. Do you ever indulge?”
I shake my head. I used to get high, but that part of my life is over.
“So Belle, what's been going on with you?” he asks. He looks so beautiful in the low light, like a Da Vinci painting, pristine and unblemished.
I shrug. “I've been ill. Hasn't Alice told you?”
“She did. But I think it's more than that.”
He looks at me intently, watching for a change in my expression. The slight widening of my eyes is enough for him to know he's onto something.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I saw you at the masquerade ball. It was later, you looked...upset. Your smile was gone. Something happened there didn't it? I could see it in your eyes.”
“You were there?” I say, trying to divert the question.
He nods. “I was. I saw you all night, smiling as you worked. But that sm
ile disappeared later on. Tell me what happened, Belle.”
His eyes are piercing, cutting through me.
I shake my head as I speak, my breathing growing a tad more labored as memories of Brad rush through me again. “Nothing happened. I was just starting to feel ill, that's all...”
“I'm not buying it, Belle. It was the Turner mansion. I could see Brad watching you too. Even with that mask on, I could tell which one was that weasel. Did he say something to you? Did he do something to you?”
His voice lowers, and he creeps in slightly closer to me. When he lays his hand down on mine, I realize my fingers are trembling.
“You're shaking.” He lifts my hand up, squeezes my fingers tight. “Tell me what he did.”
His words turn deeper, darker. His eyes narrow, his breathing becomes louder, shorter.
“Nothing,” I repeat, Brad's threats echoing in my head.
If you tell anyone about this...if you mention it to anyone...if you even think about going to the police...I'll make your life a living hell
I turn from Kyle's gaze, suddenly finding it impossible to make eye contact. It only serves to strengthen his belief that I'm lying.
“Belle, please, you can tell me. If you don't, I'll have to ask him.”
Now I look at him, my eyes widening. “No, don't, you can't do that!”
“Then tell me what he did.”
A shudder runs through me, my entire body engulfed by a sudden cold. I can feel him again, smell him, hear his grunts.
Tears start to trickle from my eyes. Tears of shame. I feel dirty, like my presence is sullying Kyle, the last person I'd want to drag into my seedy little world. But he's here. He cares. That thought alone stands like a beacon amid the horrors in my head. A shining light within the darkness.
Kyle hugs me tight, a hug of comfort and reassurance to tell me everything will be OK. It's the tenderest moment we've shared, and somehow I feel closer to him than anyone in the world. As if Brad's crimes have brought us closer together.
Kyle asks me again, asks me to tell him what happened. I feel the answer dangling on the tip of my tongue, desperate to fall but unable to take the plunge. In the end, it doesn't have to. Kyle says it for me.