by Logan Fox
Better than having them look at her. Asking her questions. Maybe this was all hum-drum to them, but it sure as shit wasn’t to her.
She accidentally slammed the bathroom door and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
“Figured it was you making all the noise.”
Pearl’s eyes flashed open.
Ivy lounged in the sunken bathtub a few feet from where Pearl stood. Mountains of bubbles created a vast typography on the surface of the steaming water. The scent of jasmine wreathed the bathroom’s foggy air.
“I’m sorry,” Pearl said, already fumbling behind her for the handle.
Ivy shrugged, making the bubble-mountains undulate. Her curly brown hair was piled on top of her head: with her blue eyes and neatly shaped eyebrows, she looked like royalty. That was if you didn’t factor in her piercings. It was the first time she’d seen Ivy up close and their proximity revealed a piercing in the dimples on both the girl’s cheeks, a ring through the middle of her nose, and a tiny diamond glittering above her cupid’s bow.
“Chill. I’m used to it.” She lifted a hand and began toying with a scoop of bubbles. “Just keep it down in here.”
Pearl nodded and walked around the bathtub, glancing back at Ivy. Another three diamonds glittered in a row up the back of her neck. How the hell did you even get pierced there? She shuddered and let herself into the closest toilet stall.
Music played softly through the bathroom: a woman’s melancholy voice accompanied by a violin. Not the type of music she would have thought Ivy listened to. Heavy metal, maybe. Or punk rock. Death metal, even. Not this.
Pearl was stepping into the shower when Ivy spoke again.
“Going to see the boss-man tonight?” she asked.
“Yup,” Pearl said, testing the shower’s temperature with a hesitant hand.
“He won’t fuck you,” Ivy said.
Pearl swung her head around, but the woman wasn’t looking at her — she’d taken up a sponge and was scrubbing an arm.
“Excuse me?” Pearl managed.
“You’ll think he will. But he won’t. He waits. With Gia it was three weeks. Morgan… I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about it. But he likes to tease the new girls.”
“And you?” Pearl asked, hugging herself.
Ivy shrugged. “He fucked me before I even got here. We ran into each other one night, one thing led to another…” The girl laughed, but it was a strange, sour sound. “Well, that’s one way of putting it,” she muttered to herself.
Pearl’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t think of a response. Her stomach churned and, for a moment, the only thought she had was that of getting violently ill in a toilet stall while Ivy sat lathering away in her bathtub.
“Just a heads-up,” Ivy said. “If I was you, I’d want to know. It takes the pressure off.”
“Thank you.” Pearl stepped into the water and began soaping her skin, glancing periodically behind her at Ivy. The woman obviously didn’t have anywhere to be: she’d resumed a floating, corpse-like pose in the water, her arms bobbing to either side.
It looked nice.
She should take a bubble bath sometime.
Pearl stepped out of the shower and began drying off.
“How long have you been here?” Pearl asked after clearing her throat for the fourth time.
“Four months, give or take.”
“Four?”
Ivy shrugged, and a heap of bubbles slid off her shoulder in a slow avalanche.
“The money’s good and I don’t mind the work, so I renewed my contract.”
Pearl toweled her hair dry and found a comb in one of the bathroom cupboards. She watched Ivy in the mirror as she combed out her hair.
“How long are you planning on staying?”
“Don’t know. Till I get sick of it, I guess.”
Pearl shook her head. “It’s really that easy for you? All of this?”
Ivy snorted and sat up, sending a small tsunami over the side of the tub.
“All of this?” she repeated, her lip perking up in a small sneer. “You don’t even know the half of it. You’ve been here all of three fucking days.”
“I have an idea—”
“No, you don’t.” This, delivered through another snort. Ivy laid her arms along the side of the tub, resting her chin on them as she watched Pearl over the side of the tub. “You don’t have a fucking clue.”
Pearl looked away from Ivy, concentrating on combing out her hair instead.
“I was like you,” Ivy went on. “Came here not knowing what the fuck to expect. I’d been into BDSM for a year or two, but nothing too hectic. Had a Master who treated me real good… until he didn’t anymore. Tanner persuaded me, made me think it would be easy work for good money. So I came here thinking it was some kind of upper-class brothel or something. It isn’t. It’s nothing like that at all. Here, they expect you to be the perfect sub, all consenting, all accepting.”
Another snort. When Pearl glanced at Ivy’s reflection, the girl had her cheek on her arm, looking away. Her curls bounced as if she’d been shaking her head.
“I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s a living — and a good one — if you’re into it. But you don’t look the type.”
“What type?” Pearl asked, trying to ignore the cold weight settling in her stomach.
“The type who enjoys pain.” Ivy was looking at her again, her blue eyes wide and intent. “Because there will be pain, whether you like it or not. Whether you agree or not.”
Pearl’s voice was a strangled mess when it left her. “But Caden — he was going on about consent and—”
Ivy laughed. It was a forced, deliberate sound that had nothing to do with joy.
“Right.” She nodded, a sarcastic smile twisting her mouth. “So you’re one of the gullible ones, then. Good luck with that.”
Ivy sighed and climbed out of the tub, wrapping a towel around herself. She had another two piercings in the dimple above either hip.
“They can’t…” Pearl began. “I mean if I say no…”
Ivy looked up from tucking the towel around her breasts. “Then they’ll make you say yes.” She gave a small shrug, pushing her lips out. “Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’ll enjoy it. But trust me, you don’t have a choice, doesn’t matter what any of them says.”
The girl left the bathroom with the tub still gurgling as it swallowed a pond’s worth of water and bubbles.
Pearl turned back to the mirror, staring at her own wide eyes as she desperately tried to delete the image of those nearly-healed stripes across Ivy’s back and ass.
She played cards with Gia in their room while minutes poured by like treacle in a snowstorm. The girl was overly enthusiastic about Snap, couldn’t get the hang of Blackjack, and cheated when they finally attempted Go Fish.
Pearl set down her cards and sighed, glancing at the small clock on Gia’s bedside table. The books that had been piled on the table the first day she’d arrived had all mysteriously disappeared.
“When do they clean?” Pearl asked.
“Who?”
“The cleaning guys. When do they—” Pearl gestured vaguely at Gia’s neatly made bed and complete lack of decorative, discarded clothing.
“I don’t know,” Gia whispered, her eyes becoming furtive. “I mean, there’s almost always someone here. I think they’re invisible.”
Sure she did. Pearl sighed again and waved away Gia’s offer for a new hand.
“Still half-an-hour.” Pearl looked up at Gia. “What happened when you saw him for the first time?”
“Who?” Gia asked, her big blue eyes so obviously feigning ignorance that Pearl shook her head and rose from the bed without elaborating.
“Can I go outside?”
“Outside where?”
“Outside, Gia. Outside the house. The garden. The maze. The pool. Anywhere outside of here!” Pearl ran her thumb and forefinger over her eyes at sight of Gia’s confused pout. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.”
Gia’s expression took several seconds before it melted into her usual, dopey grin.
“It’s the meds,” Gia said. “I went bat-shit crazy when they put me on them. They almost kicked me out of here.”
Pearl gripped her own jaw, waiting for Gia to answer her question. When she didn’t, Pearl tossed her hands into the air and left their room.
“Pearl?”
She ignored Gia’s plaintive cry and stormed through the living room. The other foxes weren’t around — Seth had come in earlier to take Morgan away, and then Opal. Ivy she hadn’t seen since the bath incident.
Detouring to the fridge, Pearl grabbed a bottle of cucumber-infused water, taking a few swallows as she darted up the stairs. Cherry blossoms met her halfway up — their scent as penetrating as Ivy’s bubble bath had been.
Pearl hesitated at the front door.
Would it open? She couldn’t see a swipe pad or anything near the frame. Gia had been there to let her in when she’d arrived, and the girl hadn’t been holding keys. Maybe they only closed off areas inside the villa, like Caden’s office and that tiny, weird room where she’d called Cheryl.
Cheryl.
God, she needed to speak to Cheryl. Cheryl would tell her this was crazy and would work out some way to break her out.
Except… she had no idea where she was. Well, she had a clue. Vermont. How big was Vermont again?
It didn’t matter. She could know her exact GPS co-ordinates and it wouldn’t make a damn difference. She had no way of contacting anyone.
And, in thirty minutes, the owner of the Fox Pit would be expecting her for dinner.
Pearl blinked, stepping back. She had the door’s round handle in her hand, the brass cool in her palm. When had she closed the distance? Behind her, a soft noise. She spun around, watching as a cherry blossom twirled to the ground. Had she brushed against the branch when she’d been walking past? Her bottle of cucumber water lay on its side, less than a foot away from the flower.
Who picked up the blossoms when they fell?
She had the sudden urge to hide somewhere and wait for Gia’s ghostly cleaning staff to come by and hoover up the cherry blossom.
Instead, Pearl turned the door handle and it opened.
The sun had set an hour and a half ago, so the night was still in its infancy: the sky was a deep purple and the last essence of twilight still clung to the villa like an obstinate fog. Pearl’s bare feet crunched over the gravel drive as she walked up to the large fountain she’d seen when she’d arrived at the Fox Pit; three foxes, water gushing from their mouths. It felt like years ago, now. In truth, less than a week.
She stared up at the sculpture, hugging herself. It was so peaceful out here, the only sound that of rushing, tinkling water. Until, somewhere close, a car started up.
New guests? Or employees going about their business?
This close to the fountain, the air smelled of water. Pearl walked around the sculpture, staring at the gravel drive where it disappeared behind a line of dark trees.
Could she follow it to the gate? Climb over it? Stick out her thumb and hope someone saw her and gave her a lift into town?
Wafts of honeysuckle scented the air here, but a cursory glance didn’t provide their location. Perhaps they were behind that black block of a building a few feet away. She shrugged her shoulders. A car motor revved. Pearl turned back to the fountain, watching the black water as it spilled out of a fox’s mouth.
A motorized door rumbled behind her.
Pearl spun around, her chest tightening as light bloomed from the dark building; a garage. Five cars formed a neat row, their paint gleaming under the bright fluorescents. Two Bentleys, two SUV’s, and a battered sedan that looked unbelievably out of place beside them. Four motorcycles completed the brigade of vehicles, with two bicycles thrown in for good measure.
A Bentley’s reverse lights came on. The car backed out with a crunch of gravel, its driver angling the car so it stopped parallel with the drive.
A window rolled down.
“What’s up, good looking?”
Pearl stiffened. Then she blinked and leaned her torso forward. It was the driver, the one who’d brought her here. She hurried up to the side of the car, resting her palm on the roof as she ducked down to window height.
“Hey,” she said.
The driver smiled up at her and draped his wrists over the steering wheel. “What are you doing out here? I thought they kept you lot tied up in there.”
Pearl shrugged. “I was bored.”
The driver laughed. “What, is it your day off or something?”
She straightened, shivers caressing her arms. Was this the same guy? Those were the same eyes, the same mouth. But they didn’t seem concerned at all anymore, not like they had when he’d told her she should find him if she needed help.
“I shouldn’t keep you. You probably have to go,” she said.
The driver gave a small shrug. “Not yet. Get in.”
Pearl shook her head and took a hurried step back from the car. “I should be getting back—”
“I don’t bite,” the driver said. His eyes gleamed as he looked away from her and began hunting in the darkness beside him. He held up a sleek, black cellphone.
“I’ll let you make a call…” He wiggled the phone at her. “Huh? Come on. What do you say?”
Pearl took another step back, again tightening her arms around her shoulders.
The driver’s smile slid. “Look, chick, I have like five minutes. Either you—”
Pearl raced around the front of the car and tugged on the passenger-side door. After a second tug, it opened. She slid inside, yanking her dress straight when it hiked up her leg.
The driver grinned at her and rolled up his window with the touch of a button. The car crunched over gravel as it rolled forward.
“Where are you going?”
“Gotta stay incognito, babe. Can’t have the boss seeing me liaise with the staff, understand?”
Pearl bit down on her lip and watched as the car slid around a languid bend. She couldn’t remember the route to the gate, but it didn’t look like he was trying to take her out of the property. Much the pity. After a few twists and turns, Pearl glanced across at him, her eyes latching on the phone still clutched in his hand.
“Can I?” Pearl asked, holding out her hand.
“What’s your name, beautiful?” the driver asked, his eyes darting between her and road.
“Pearl.” She swallowed, forcing her eyes away from the phone. “Yours?”
“Henry.”
“You brought me here, right?”
“Good memory.” Henry left one hand draped over the wheel, the other toying with the phone. “You know, I could get in a lot of trouble for doing this.”
“So why are you doing it then?” Pearl snapped.
“Woah-ho!” Henry laughed, holding the phone out to her. “Feisty, aren’t we?”
“I just really have to speak to someone.” Pearl reached for the phone, but Henry snatched it away before her fingers could close over it.
The Bentley’s headlamps went out. Henry slowed the car to a gradual stop and turned in the seat to face her. Pearl’s stomach dropped into the pit of her pelvis, and tingles of dread began inching across her shoulders and arms.
“You girls always do,” Henry said.
Pearl forced a deep breath into her stomach and tucked in her diaphragm as she exhaled.
“Can I make a call?” she asked, tempering her voice as much as possible.
“What’s the magic word, beautiful?”
“Please?” This was barely a whisper.
Henry handed her the phone. She took it, but she didn’t move fast enough to avoid him grabbing hold of her fingers and tugging her closer. Pearl gasped, trying to retrieve her hand, but he crushed it against the phone, refusing to release her despite how hard she yanked.
“You’re hurting me,” she said.
His brown eyes narrowed.
“You don’t like it?” he asked. “Isn’t that what they do to you in there? Don’t they tie you up and whip you?”
“Please, just—”
“You like it, don’t you?” Henry grabbed her by the elbow. “When they hurt you. When they whip you. Don’t you?”
“No!” Pearl jerked at her arm, succeeding in jostling his hand away. The one wrapped around her fingers, around the phone, didn’t waver. “I don’t! Just… let me go!”
“What about when they fuck you? You like that?”
Pearl yanked her arm free with a yell. Henry’s eyes opened in surprise, his astonishment instantly replaced by a curling lip. He dove at her, grabbing the front of her dress in a fist as she flung herself back. Her hands fumbled on the door handle, but even when she latched on, the door didn’t open.
He’d locked it.
He’d trapped her inside with him.
Henry, the kind-hearted driver, had trapped her inside the car.
No, not Henry.
This man wore Henry’s face like a Halloween mask, but she could see his real features beneath — that hooked nose and those bloodshot eyes. Not Henry’s face at all. Another, far more familiar face.
Pearl screamed, the sound reverberating through the Bentley’s cabin. Her legs flashed out as she tried to kick at the specter — for he could only be a ghost, dead as he was — but he’d pulled himself over the center console of the car and there wasn’t any space left to kick him.
Instead, she punched him with the phone still tightly held in her right fist. Her hand connected with solid flesh — that Henry mask — and the impact jarred up her arm in a painful thrill.
The man yelled and fell back.
Blood sprayed from Henry’s nose, splattering over her face as he coughed and spluttered in abject astonishment. And it was Henry again, Henry wearing his own face, Henry the kind-hearted driver.
“You fucking cunt!” Henry had both hands over his face, the words emerging muffled.
Pearl fought back a sob. He’d released her dress, but not before inflicting a rent several inches long down the front of it. Her eyes fled over the Bentley’s sleek console, hunting.
Then she found it.
Her left hand slammed over the door lock button. She heard the doors unlocking with a snick. Henry cried out and sprang forward again, grabbing onto her ankle as she half-slid, half-fell out of the car.