by Lee Savino
Olympia shook her head, obviously frustrated. “Andrea Doria just arrived and she brought a bunch of security with her, too. There are more bodyguards than guests.” Olympia turned away, still muttering.
Slim nodded to Fats and carried Cora down the hall with Armand leading the way.
She dropped her head against Slim’s chest, suddenly feeling more exhausted than she ever had before in her life. The good news was that she was pretty sure she’d be able to sleep the second she laid her head down on any kind of pillow.
In the upstairs hallway, she caught a glimpse of another tall black woman standing in a bedroom doorway, a giant blonde wig on her head and fabulous makeup highlighting her midnight skin. She stared in surprise down at Cora in Slim’s arms.
“So sorry, Andrea.” Armand sidled up to the woman as Cora was carried on by. “Novice drinker.”
“No problem, we’ve all been there,” the tall woman laughed. Cora craned her neck to stare at Andrea’s heavily made up face under the outrageous blonde wig. She looked vaguely familiar, and Cora almost had figured out why, but the thought escaped her when Slim put her in bed.
“I don’t think coming out tonight was the best idea,” Cora murmured to him before the darkness of the room closed in on her and, exhausted, she finally slept.
Nineteen
In the Mayor’s mansion, Zeke Sturm strode back from his study, tossing his cell phone to an aide. With his usual exuberance, he threw open the doors to the dining room and looked down the long table at the assembled guests.
Every night the same, like a boring joke, Zeke thought as he viewed their expectant faces. A visiting dignitary, a decorated war hero, and a kiss-ass aide walk into a bar… Out loud he said, “Apologies for my tardiness. I hope the first course was to your liking.”
Polite murmurs came from up and down the table. Zeke made sure to share his smile all around. People could be so petty if they felt not enough attention had been directed their way.
“I’m told the chef received a gift from one of the ships docking in our ports,” Zeke said as he sat down. “So tonight we dine on fresh sea bass. It was imported specifically for a particular shipping tycoon’s meals, now graciously gifted to us.”
The guests all expressed their appreciation.
“Please, enjoy.” Zeke smiled and gestured, and took his first bite as everyone would wait on him. “Mmm,” he said. “Much better than the way my ex-wife used to char it.”
The guests around the table laughed, right on cue.
“What we call a sea bass is actually two species of toothfish, renamed to sound more palatable,” said a man from midway down the table in a heavily accented voice. He had a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard, and piercing blue eyes. He was a professor, if Zeke recalled correctly. Professor Wagner or Ziegler? Something like that.
“A fish by any other name…is still delicious.” Zeke savored a forkful and motioned to the servers, calling for more wine around the table.
A round, bald headed man bustled up to the table. “My apologies for being so late.”
“Commissioner,” Zeke greeted the newcomer, and only the very astute would pick up the slight twitch of his lips, a micro-expression of annoyance. Zeke thought the bearded professor had noticed, though. Observant, that one.
“Sorry, boss,” the heavy man breathed, tucking his napkin into his collar and grabbing a dinner roll. The man was the opposite of refinement and it was his position alone that afforded him a seat at the table. “This new drug has got us all scrambling.”
Zeke wished he was sitting closer so he could kick the man under the table.
“New drug?” The dignitary from Metropolis, Claudius, perked up before Zeke could change the subject.
“Just hit the streets,” the commissioner said, oblivious to Zeke’s glare. But Bill wasn’t the cleverest man and had always been slow at picking up on social cues.
“Limited quantity, but we think that will change. Couple of rich kids got picked up for indecent exposure, said they had taken something. Their parents went to swinger parties and came home with a couple pills. The kids know their stash; they try everything their parents do. We questioned them in the hospital and it all came out.”
The commissioner finally paused in buttering his roll and realized that every eye around the table was trained on him in fascination.
“Are the kids ok?” a woman asked, Zeke forgot her name in his budding fury at his commissioner. Zeke had gotten re-elected, it was true, so he wasn’t immediately worried about campaigning again. But a mayor was only as strong as the confidence he inspired. If his guests left with the impression that he couldn’t control the drug traffic on his own streets—
“Oh yeah, effects wore off hours ago,” Bill continued. “Just a little groggy, dehydrated. One of them still had a high, and he had an erection the size of—” Bill finally saw Zeke’s face and bit off the rest of the sentence. Cheeks ruddy, he continued, “We rushed the labs to figure out what was going on.”
“Interesting,” Zeke said, his tone frosty.
The commissioner winced, having obviously caught onto Zeke’s disapproval. Finally. But it was too late. The rest of the guests leaned in as one.
“What is the effect of the drug?” the professor asked in a scholarly tone.
“An extreme high, leading to almost uncontrollable arousal. Sets off…uh, climaxes that are…uh, off the charts, as it were.”
“Again, nothing like my ex-wife,” Zeke said, going for laughs and hoping to steer the conversation away from talk of drugs.
“Detrimental side effects?” the professor’s fork was frozen halfway to his bearded mouth.
“Too soon to tell. But for some it seems to cause aggression. In all cases the high is followed by a crash. Sweating, shakes, a little dehydration, withdrawal headaches, that kind of thing.” The commissioner, sweat beading on his forehead and obviously as desperate as Zeke was to end the conversation, shoved the entire roll into his mouth.
Twenty
Cora woke up in the dark, with a slight headache and screaming thirst. Her body was soaked with sweat. Ugh, gross. A glass of water waited on a side bed table; she downed it and staggered to the adjoining bathroom to drink some more.
Her shoes were gone, and gods, where was her purse?
She should never have come out when she was so tired. How long had she slept for? She looked around but she didn’t see a clock. She searched for her purse so she could look at her phone, again, no luck.
She stumbled around the dark bedroom but still couldn’t find her purse. She must have dropped it downstairs somewhere. Crap.
After looking around the bedroom one last time in vain, she slid into the dark hall. Pulling a shaky hand through her hair, she leaned on the wall to rest a moment. Where was Fats? Or Slim? The upstairs was one long hallway with rooms off of it.
Which direction led downstairs? Well, she wasn’t getting anywhere just standing here, so she turned left and started walking. As she got closer to what she suspected was the front of the house, she heard a man talking. He sounded a little like Armand.
It wasn’t until she’d opened the door and was halfway inside that she realized she’d entered another bedroom.
And it was occupied.
In the low lamp light, she could clearly see the couple on the bed. She recognized Armand immediately, he was the one on top, the angel wings tattooed on his back moving as his shoulder muscles worked. A woman’s long legs wrapped around his body, as his rather beautiful backside pumped to the rhythm of the music.
Oh shit. She did not need to be seeing this. Cora backed away in horror, fumbling for the door handle, but not fast enough.
A new partner entered from another side door, coming from the master bath, Cora guessed. The newcomer was the blond, stunningly beautiful Andrea Doria. She put her hand up to straighten her wig, and Cora saw the large onyx ring she wore. Andrea’s robe fell open to reveal a very masculine chest and, lower down, male parts. Impressi
ve, very aroused male parts.
“You all ready for me?” the drag queen drawled to the panting couple on the bed.
Armand reared back and Cora caught sight of the woman’s face who was beneath him—it was Olympia. Her dark skin was slick with sweat, but her head was propped on the pillows and she looked as a regal as ever.
She saw Cora, too, and glared daggers at her as she addressed Andrea, “He’s ready. Climb on.” Her toned arms pulled Armand back down over her and Andrea leaned forward, climbing on the bed. Armand hadn’t seen Cora and she’d rather it stayed that way.
Cora backed into the hall before Olympia could alert anyone to her presence. Andrea noticed the movement by the door, though, and called to her, squinting through the darkness. “Come on in, honey, plenty of space on the bed.”
Reversing hard, Cora turned and hustled down the hall the other direction, hoping the tall drag queen didn’t decide to chase her down and insist she join in.
Cora passed a second door that had drifted open, but she didn’t look. The noise of moans and cries made it sound like an entryway to hell, but she was sure the occupants were having a blast.
She hurried by. The hall turned and finally, stairs!
Cora ended up in the kitchen, so it must have been a service stairwell. She looked around. Where was everybody? Her eyes moved to the digital clock on the stove. 1:30 a.m. Seriously, where was everyone?
More importantly, where were her bodyguards, shoes, cell phone and purse? Cora was ready to get the hell out of here and curl up on her bed back in her apartment. Maybe she’d break her own rule and let Brutus sleep up beside her on the mattress tonight. She could use a little comfort cuddling, even if it was only with her Great Dane.
Continuing her search, she walked out of the kitchen. The lights were low and all Cora could hear was some sexy, throbbing music. Without thinking, she flipped on an overhead light, and gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Olympia’s living and dining room was filled with naked people.
A few looked over at Cora briefly when the lights turned on, but the rest were too caught up in the throes of lust to pay attention. For her part, Cora couldn’t move. Even her hand was frozen on the light switch.
The food had been cleared off the table, making way for the long, sexy body of a naked woman, who lay shuddering in pleasure as the mouths of three men traveled over her pale skin. One of the men briefly turned away, grabbed a spoonful of thick whipped cream, and dabbed it on her perky breasts before licking it off.
Beyond them, several couples were in a clinch, making out while leaning against the wall. Right before Cora’s eyes, one of the couples embraced as the man lifted the woman and started thrusting into her, pressing her against the wall. His partner moaned and wrapped her legs around his naked body, digging her nails into his muscular shoulders and urging him to go faster.
Above all of this, Anna stood on the arm of a large armchair, naked but for her signature red lipstick, watching the goings on with a satisfied smile. Seated below her was Max Mars, his own legs spread with a woman kneeling between them.
As Cora watched, the movie star reached up to Anna, and Anna stepped down so she was standing on the chair cushion with one leg cocked up on the armrest, straddling Max’s face. Gripping his blond hair, she thrust her pelvis forward, her head falling back as his mouth moved between her legs.
Cora was blushing so hard, she was sure her face would explode. Marcus had always teased her that she was naïve and sheltered. But even after two years living in the city watching Armand flirt with every hot thing that moved and Olivia delighting in saying the most graphic things to embarrass her…Cora still wasn’t prepared for this.
“Come on, babe,” the man with the whipped cream beckoned to Cora. When she still stood frozen, he grinned. “Oh, I get it. Here, there’s a few left.” He set down the whipped cream bowl onto the side board and reached for a little bag filled with white pills. “One of these will loosen you right up.”
Cora couldn’t find air to speak. The man shook the bag impatiently. “Olympia won’t mind. She scored them for all of us.” He came towards her, a lanky Adonis, smiling as she stared at him, wide eyed. His own green eyes were long lashed and mesmerizing.
“Here, beautiful,” he took a pill out of the baggie, and proffered it to her. “Down the rabbit hole.”
A squeak may have escaped from her throat. She backed away even as she stared at the pill that looked identical in shape and color to the pills Armand had given her.
“Cora,” she heard someone call, and she looked across the room, grateful for the interruption.
At first, her eyes flew to Anna and Max Mars. Anna had fallen to the couch, her body arched backwards over the arm of the chair as Max’s gorgeous muscular torso reared over her. The woman who’d been between his legs before now was kneeling behind him, still doing her best to lick him as he pounded Anna aggressively.
Cora reluctantly tore her eyes away from the threesome, looking past them to see the man who’d called her name. A man in an olive-green suit, dapper except for his hair, tufted unusually in blond spikes.
Oh shit. It was Spike Hair. Philip Waters’ thug, the one who’d been there when she was kidnapped.
Cora didn’t even stop to question what he was doing here. Her hand shot out and she hit the lights. As the entire room went dark, she jerked backwards, away from the man offering her the pill, back into the kitchen, escaping the man who’d called her name.
Twenty-One
Around the Mayor’s dinner table, conversation was stilted as all the guests waited for the poor commissioner to finish his mouthful.
“So this new drug, what’s it called?” Claudius, the diplomat, piped up as soon as it looked like the man might be close to swallowing. Claudius took another bite of fish as he waited to hear the answer. He’d finished almost half his plate, not as put off his meal as the rest of the crowd by the conversation.
Glancing nervously at Zeke, the commissioner answered, “On the streets, it’s now being called A, or Bro, or Brew. Short for Ambrosia.”
“Sounds lovely,” Claudius’s wife said with a smile to her husband. “Causes extreme arousal? If the only cost is a little headache, might be something I’d want to try.” She finished with a mischievous glance toward Zeke. “If it weren’t illegal, of course.”
“The libido is a powerful drive,” said the professor. “Unexpressed emotions never die, but are merely buried alive to appear later in uglier ways. We suppress our desires to fit into society but when we suppress them too long, society may collapse.”
“That’s Freud, isn’t it?” Zeke recognized the quote.
The professor nodded, looking pleased that someone had caught the reference, and raised his glass to Claudius’s wife. “So you see, a woman such as yourself, keeping your libido under wraps could be dangerous to all.”
She laughed delightedly, and the rest of the table looked impressed with the professor’s musings. Zeke barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. The professor slipped down a few rungs in his estimation. He’d met academics like him before—old, self-important windbags who were relevant only to the campus bubble they lived in.
This was the last thought he had before he gasped involuntarily and hunched over a little. Fuck, his stomach. A cramping pain tore through his stomach and radiated outward to the rest of his body.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” he heard Claudius’s wife say. Looking up through watering eyes, Zeke saw Claudius collapse forward, face down into his meal, gagging.
Help. He needed help.
But when Zeke opened his mouth to shout for help, all he managed was another desperate, choking gurgle. The pain. Zeke had never felt anything so intense. Gods, he was going to die. He was going to die!
Zeke thrashed and plates and cutlery flew. His dinner partners jumped up as his hand went rigid, gripping the tablecloth as he slowly sank to the floor.
“Mr. Mayor?” The commissioner’s voice was a distan
t shout.
Zeke’s vision went blurry and he prayed to pass out because the pain, oh fuck. His eyes went wide as another spasm tore through his stomach.
The professor crouched beside him. “Get an ambulance!” he shouted in his thick accent.
“Is he choking?” someone cried out.
The professor stared down at Zeke and Zeke wanted to beg him for help, to do something, dammit. But all the man said was, “I do not think so.” He looked down the table. “Two choking at the same time? It cannot be a coincidence.”
A woman was screaming and Zeke peripherally registered that it was Claudius’s wife, that her husband had collapsed, too.
“Madam!” The professor bellowed at her from the floor beside Zeke. “Does your husband have a food allergy?”
Zeke didn’t hear her reply. All he knew was that the next moment, the professor was cradling his head and ordering someone, “Take his feet, now! We must carry him to the car.”
“But, the ambulance—”
“It will be too late. We must go. Now.”
“What about Signore Claudius?”
“He’s already dead. Now hurry or we’ll lose the mayor, too!”
Twenty-Two
Spike Hair? Here? Cora could wonder why and how later, though. She wasn’t about to let herself be a victim again. She rushed onto the patio. As she rounded the house, she tripped on a man’s outstretched legs.
“Oh!” she screeched and slammed a hand over her mouth. Because it was Slim. Laid out and unconscious. Was he— Was he—?
She dropped down and put her fingers to his throat. But even before she felt his heart beat, she felt his chest moving up and down. He was breathing. But in the light from the back patio lamps, she could see a tiny trickle of blood marking the spot where he’d taken a blow to the head. Whimpering, she checked his pockets, but whoever had knocked him out and tied him up must’ve taken his weapon and his phone. Dammit!