We turned the corner and the apartment opened into a spacious great room with twenty-foot-high ceilings. Spacious was probably not the right word. The place was gigantic, covering what had to be about three thousand square feet, and it was filled with at least a hundred people.
I felt my eyes go wide to take it all in. Adults of all ages were gathered in bunches like any well-attended party. Most of the men were dressed in tuxedos or suits, though a few had begun to lose pieces of clothing to the floor while the furniture was littered with discarded jackets and bowties. The women were more plentiful and more often naked or stripped down to designer underwear, though enough wore cocktail dresses to make me not feel out of place. A sensual, pulsing beat pumped through the sound system, an undercurrent to the buzz of energized conversation and flirting laughter. Pillows were generously strewn across the space, so many pillows, and the air smelled of a combination of expensive perfume and sex. All around me, people were kissing and groping and grinding and fucking in groups of two, three, seven, ten, a libidinous carnival of depravity and debauchery.
It was shocking. And stunning.
Breathtaking in its horror and its beauty.
“Have fun.”
I barely heard the redhead as she let go of my arm and disappeared somewhere behind me. I was too fascinated with everything in front of me. Having forgotten for the moment my reason for attending, I walked through the crowd, taking in the details of the scene. In the corner, a woman was erotically spanking an older woman draped across her lap. Next to her was a half-naked man sucking off another man dressed in high tails while he also gave a hand job to a man who had a sign around his neck that read “Touch Me.” A woman wearing nothing but metallic pasties and a cat mask crawled across the floor toward a man holding a riding crop. A kissing orgy was taking place on a huge pile of pillows in the center of the room while a smaller orgy was all out fornicating on the couch next to them.
As the redhead had said, there were games being played. Nearest the front of the room, a very handsy game of suck and blow was taking place. One person passed a dollar to the person next to them using only their mouths. At closer look, it was a hundred. Of course. How could I expect anything less? Further in the room a group was playing naked Twister, and still further, a wicked game of Truth or Dare was underway.
Everywhere there was touching. Everywhere there was sex. It was intensely erotic, and maybe in another lifetime I would have found it arousing. And I was aroused, on one level. I felt flushed. My pulse had quickened. My pussy was wet and swollen.
But my head wasn’t in it. My head was never in it. I enjoyed sex, for the most part, on a purely physical level. My body knew how to respond, how to give good orgasms. My head, though, always remained detached and separate, safe behind the ice walls I’d built around me. Just like every other emotion, arousal was one I’d grown numb to, even in this environment, with shameless licentiousness surrounding me.
It was like that all those years ago, too. I’d disassociated then as well. I’d had to in order to survive. Was that where the nothing in me really began? Not with Hudson, but in the depravity of that first sex party way back then?
That night had been nothing like this one. This party was celebratory and empowering and consensual where the other had left menacing shadows over my existence. The difference gave me the last burst of confidence I’d needed, and any traces of my initial anxiety melted away.
Still, I clung to the wall as I made my way through the room. I hadn’t seemed to attract much attention, as of yet, and I wanted to keep it that way. While many of the people were wearing masks as I was, others had lost the pretense of disguise. It was a surprise to realize how many faces I recognized, some because they were well-known entertainment, sports, and political figures, others because they ran in the same elite circles of the wealthy that I did. A nude woman bent over in the Twister game with a hand on red and a foot on yellow was a reporter for a major news show. The man fingering her was a Broadway director.
Another woman who called herself Miss T wore a mask, but I could swear she had the exact same jawline as Hudson’s secretary. Though, to be fair, I saw traces of Hudson in all sorts of things that had nothing to do with him. Not as much these days, but at times.
It wasn’t until I saw my father’s CEO of children’s programming going down on a man in drag that I had the jolting realization that I might really know some of the people here. Jesus, what if Hudson himself was in attendance? Or his parents? Or my parents?
That thought was a reminder of my purpose. I needed to get on with this and get out of here. I stopped gawking at the festivities and concentrated on my task, looking for someone who might have interacted with Edward at one of these things. The good thing was I was pretty sure I’d found exactly the kind of place he might attend. Another good thing was there were plenty of women who seemed to enjoy S&M play. Now to find one that wasn’t currently occupied…
After making mental notes of all the possible candidates I’d already come across, I decided to leave the game room and scope out the more private areas of the unit. My parents lived in a more than decent size apartment, but this penthouse was one of the largest I’d seen in the city. More than eight thousand square feet total, if I had to guess. And no rooms were off limits to play. That left a lot still to explore.
I slipped through the chef’s kitchen where a sextet was having fun with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and into the dining room. This was where the demonstration was supposed to be taking place, and indeed, something seemed to currently be happening on the table, but there were so many people gathered around, I couldn’t see exactly what, at first.
But then, a couple in front of me broke away from the assembly, leaving a small window in the crowd for me to slip through and watch. The demonstrator was an older man with gray hair in a tux with a red jacket, his eyes directed at the woman dressed in a schoolgirl outfit who was on her hands and knees on top of the table next to him. Her skirt was flipped up to expose her cotton white panties.
“Who wants to pull them down?” he asked the onlookers. “Who wants to show us what our innocent girl is hiding underneath?”
The crowd roared enthusiastically, volunteers rushing to be the one he called on.
A memory shot through me, through all of me. Through my head, through my bones, through my veins, turning my blood to ice. How much to touch her here? How much to be the first?
A wave of tremors came over me, as though it weren’t my body itself shuddering, but as if the ice walls around me were actually bars of a cage, and that cage were being rattled. I could feel a scream building inside me with no place to go. It was trapped, stuck in my throat. As much a prisoner as I was in the presence of those memories.
I couldn’t be there anymore. I had to leave. If not the party, at least the demonstration.
Shoving through the bodies, I made my way out to the opposite side of the dining area than I’d come in. This fed me into the family room, a quieter space despite the abundance of guests. I looked around absentmindedly, my eyes scanning past the two men masturbating in the corner and the trio fucking on the sofa and stopped when they came to the woman in a black sparkly wrap dress kneeling at the foot of a man sitting in an armchair.
Then my heart really began to pound.
Not because of the scene I was witnessing—the man stroking the head of the woman at his feet—but because the man was Edward Fasbender.
Fifteen
My first instinct was to run. Dash from the room and get the hell out of there before he spotted me.
But my feet wouldn’t move. I could barely even breathe, my entire body frozen like a deer in the sightline of a hunter.
The fear of being caught was real and overwhelming. It clouded my head, which was why it took a few seconds to remember I was in disguise. He wouldn’t recognize me behind my mask. Relaxing in the realization, my pulse began to slow. Not completely, but to a more reasonable tempo, at least. I could think clear
ly again. This was what I’d come for, ultimately. Well, I’d come for someone who’d possibly been with Edward and here was a woman who was with him for sure.
Having Edward here too was actually a bonus. Wasn’t it?
I decided to believe it was.
Pressing my back against the column of wall behind me, I took on the role of voyeur, and trained my eyes on the scene. He hadn’t noticed me, which gave me even more confidence. My breaths came easier as I studied him. Like most of the men in attendance, he was dressed, but not to the nines as some were. His black suit was tailored, fitting him like it was sewn on, just as the other suits I’d seen him in had been, but this time he wasn’t wearing a tie. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, and, even though he wore a vest over it, this subtle change in his usual attire gave him a casual look. His facial hair had grown in thicker but still looked impeccably groomed.
He was devastating.
Completely, utterly devastating.
So much for getting my breathing under control. My legs were so weak from looking at him, I wasn’t even sure I could have stayed standing without the support of the wall. I was suddenly very aware of the slickness between my legs, of the tight beads of my nipples. The hair on my arms stood in the grove of goosebumps that had sprouted over my skin.
How long had it been since a man had affected me like this?
Years. More than a decade.
With seeming disinterest, he stared at the woman on the floor who was practically humping his leg at this point. His impassivity was a ruse, though, judging by the bulge in his pants. And with a bulge like that, there was no way he was wearing underwear.
Devastating.
“Your desperation is embarrassing, Sasha,” he said callously. Or I thought he said, it was hard to tell for sure across the low buzz of the room.
I couldn’t make out her response, but whatever it was must have pleased him because he yanked her up to straddle his lap, her back to his chest, and now a new sensation gathered inside me. A covetous heat pressing against my lungs, filling up the cavity between my ribs, restricting the beating of my heart. I wanted to be Sasha. I wanted to sit on his lap. I wanted to be the one who pleased him.
It was a sensation that both pissed me off and turned me on. I seethed underneath my mask, not wanting to watch anymore. Unable to look away.
Edward remained stone-faced as he tangled his fingers in her dark brown hair and tugged sharply, so sharply her head touched his shoulder, exposing the long column of her sepia-toned throat. His nose traced the curve or her neck while his free hand clawed across her decolletage, leaving a trail of scratches in its wake.
I remembered his hand on my throat when he’d kissed me, remembered it so vividly that it felt like it was me that his nails scratched now, and I shivered despite my rising body temperature.
I swore I could feel his fingers as they trailed down over her bosom to find the sash of her wrap. With one pull, the dress fell open, and after Edward rearranged the material to his liking, I could see she was completely bare underneath.
My breasts grew heavy, my nipples tighter mirroring the taut, brown tips on the woman before me. And when Edward brought his hand up again to roughly squeeze her tit, I had to bite my lip to stifle a gasp.
I could feel it. Could feel the shot of electricity from my own breast to my pussy as though he were fondling me. Could feel it because I wanted so desperately to be feeling it.
He moved to her other breast, handling it just as brutishly, and, then, when she moaned with pleasure, his eyes lifted and locked with mine.
The air hitched in my chest. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. He’d seen me, was seeing me, and still I couldn’t look away. His lips curled up in a self-satisfied smile, and for one terrifying second, I was sure the jig was up, certain that he knew who I was.
But of course he didn’t. He’d merely realized he had an audience, and the conceited bastard couldn’t help gloating about it. He even appeared to gloat about it to Sasha, whispering in her ear before letting go of her hair and helping her tilt her head up to look at me as well. Her grin was almost as cocky as his, though warmer in its fullness. As though she were welcoming the guest of my gaze.
Again, I wanted to flee, but I was incapable, held in place by the weight of my curiosity. I had to know what happened next. I needed to see it. I wanted to feel it.
Now with an onlooker to entertain, the show progressed quickly. Edward once more said something in Sasha’s ear, likely instructing her because immediately she spread her legs wider, proudly displaying bare mocha lips and a hint of pink skin.
Taking her hand with his, he brought her fingers up along her slit, gathering wetness before settling on her swollen clit. Continuing to guide her, they rubbed at her bud in small tight circles. His other hand came back to pull at her steepled nipples, twisting it so cruelly her torso involuntarily tried to buck away.
And mine arched forward.
And all the while, his eyes never left mine. As though I was the woman he was fucking with his fingers. As though it was me he wanted to take to the brink of pleasure. As though he weren’t using my desire to destroy me.
I swallowed. My throat felt too moist. My chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths. My hands felt heavy and useless at my sides. My fingers curled into the material of my dress, half needing an anchor and half wanting to pull up my skirt and relieve the ache of my pussy.
I wondered what my eyes showed. My stare was leashed to his and while his eyes showed almost nothing beyond pupils dilated with lust, I was sure mine gave away much more. Could he see the storms brewing inside me from this distance? Could he see I was on the edge, ready to combust with rage and heat and jealousy? Ready to explode with raw lust. I hadn’t even actually been touched, and I could feel an orgasm brimming.
Edward lifted Sasha’s hand from her clit and, after bending her pinky and thumb into her palm, moved it down to her gleaming wet entrance. He released his grip on her, letting her thrust her three fingers in and out on her own. She was close, as close as I felt, I could tell from the erratic shift of her hips back and forth, rubbing his erection underneath her.
I pressed my own thighs together, trying to temper the building fury between them.
All it took was Edward pinching her clit, and then she was convulsing with waves of pleasure.
His eyes left mine to glance at the woman writhing on his lap, and, with the tether between us cut, I bolted free, taking off in search of somewhere I could be alone, somewhere private. Somewhere away from those piercing, wretched eyes.
The first open door in the hallway led to an empty bathroom. I slammed the door behind me, having enough sense to lock it before I pulled up my skirt and shoved my hand down my panties. My pussy was hot and drenched. My fingers slid easily against my coated clit.
Bracing myself on the sink counter, I rubbed furiously and didn’t stop even after the first orgasm ripped through me. I had to get it all out, all of him out. Had to get rid of this poison he’d put inside me. My knees buckled as a second wave rolled over me, and still I kept on, rubbing until my skin felt chafed and on fire. Rubbing, rubbing, rubbing until I was shaking and tears were rolling down my cheeks, until I’d let out a loud guttural cry of relief.
Until I’d yanked the last of my pleasure from my cunt and was free of that devil and the dark, agonizing curse of desire.
Sixteen
I was sweating when I’d finished.
I removed my mask and tucked the strays of my hair back into my knot as best as I could. Without my purse, I couldn’t fix my makeup. Luckily most of my face was covered by the disguise, but my mouth was still visible and my once-red lips were now pale and blotchy. I dabbed at them with a tissue then stared at my reflection.
I looked wrecked, and I was.
Some dragon.
After all that, I hadn’t even gotten what I’d needed. I’d verified that Edward liked things a little bit kinky, but I’d already guessed that. H
e was a bit of an exhibitionist, a bit of a dom. A bit brutal. So what? None of that was useful.
I’d learned more about me from the experience than I’d learned about him, and what I’d discovered wasn’t something I wanted to know—the man had power over me. Real, ruinous power.
Fuck him for that. Fuck him.
The handle of the door jiggled next to me, followed by a knock when it didn’t open. “There are bedrooms for what you’re doing,” a female voice called.
Ah, shit. She’d probably heard me.
Whatever. This was a sex party, after all. I couldn’t possibly have been the only woman to get herself off in here tonight.
“Just a minute,” I called out tersely. With a sigh, I donned my mask and opened the door.
“Oh, it’s you,” Sasha said when I walked out.
Of all the people who could have been waiting for the bathroom, it had to be her.
She’d put her dress back together, and she looked unfairly more put together than I felt, and she’d been the one who’d actually had an orgasm.
Well, I’d had one now too. Three, actually. Perhaps the unbalance was warranted.
“I bet you needed that,” she said with a knowing smile. Friendly. As though we weren’t strangers, as though we were close now that she’d come in front of me.
No. We were not friends. The only reason she wasn’t the enemy was because that title was already taken by her lover.
Thinking of Edward again and the way he’d touched her made my stomach twist. It was definitely time to leave.
Without saying anything, I stepped out of her way so she could get past, but just as she was about to shut the door behind me, I reconsidered. “Sasha,” I called to her. I waited until she turned around. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
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