Page 85 of High Sea Seduction

“Six years ago, I went to a party, hosted by someone I believed to be my friend. I had no idea what sort of party it was. I was young and wanted to fit in, and everyone was talking about the party to end all parties. I charmed my way into an invitation and on the day, I was driven from my campus at UCLA to a house somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. I have no idea whose house it was. I was taken to a part of the house named east wing on Friday night. I woke up in hospital on Monday morning.”

Mason may have tensed. Or he may have sprouted a halo and turned into Angel Gabriel. I don’t know because I’m sucked violently into the past.

24

KEELY

Six years ago

“Omigod!Leo, what the fuck is going on? Why is that girl screaming?”

I’m still holding my stinging cheek from the virtual slap from the TV bimbo. I look around, certain that if I search hard enough, I’ll find the remote to turn this acid trip off.

Another scream rips through the room, this time from behind a black curtain positioned in a different section of the room. A flap opens as someone goes in and I catch a glimpse of another girl. This one is suspended from ropes tied to the ceiling. But there’s a floodlight set up on a tripod over there too, showing her naked and severely contorted body, and the avid audience staring up at her.

My hammering heart climbs into my throat, and my hand falls uselessly to my side. As a teenager in a sex-centric world, I’ve on occasion thought of what an experience in a sex club would be like. Even as a nineteen-year-old virgin, I know this isn’t it.

Morbid curiosity dampens my fear for a moment, and I stare at my surroundings.

In total, I count eight floodlights illuminating squared off areas the size of my living room back home. Besides the floodlights, there are no other lights. It doesn’t stop my gaze from probing the dark, trying to make sense of what I’m witnessing.

It registers that Leo hasn’t responded, and I start to turn.

Suddenly, my TV bimbo has gotten stronger and is yanking me by the arm down the dark middle of this amphitheater of fuck knows what to fuck knows where.

I start to fight, then realize it isn’t my virtual nemesis, but Leo’s hand shackling me. He’s dragging me along faster than my unfamiliar stiletto-shod gait can keep up. I stumble and nearly trip, but I catch myself at the last minute and try to reverse my forward momentum into my first circle of hell.

“Leo, let go of my hand, please.” I try to pry him off me, but he’s strong. Way stronger than me. He has to be in order to do all but the most dangerous of his own action stunts during film shoots.

“I’m sorry, Keely,” is all he says.

“What do you mean, you’re sorry? Sorry for what?” My voice is high-pitched with pure panic as we pass yet another curtained-off square. Someone is moaning, and it’s not the type of moan that proclaims pleasure.

It’s the type of moan that says:You’re hurting me. I don’t like it, but I’m at a point where I know I can do fuck all about it.

The rise of excited voices in that section also tells me there’s an audience lapping up whatever is being done to the individual beneath the spotlight.

“Please, Leo. You were right, I shouldn’t have come. It’s not too late. I… I can leave. Just let me go and I’ll forget this ever happened. I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.” My words tumble over each other, and my heart tears from its moors and plunges into my stomach when I see where we’re headed.

My eyesight has adjusted enough in the semi-darkness to see a last, unlit area at the back of the cavernous room. I can also pick out the dark, eager figures crowded around the parted curtain. They turn as Leo drags me forward.

“No!” I mean to roar the word like a fucking lioness, but it emerges as a whimper unworthy of a cockroach.

The ominous sound of a switch being thrown drenches the single chair in the middle of the room in blinding light. I see the black ropes snaking from the back of the chair and I spend a hot, insane little second wondering why they’re not white like the others. Am I not worthy? Or am I worthy beyond my own comprehension?

The pause button on my nightmare releases and a scream kamikazes into my throat. Before I can let it rip, Leo’s hand slams over my mouth.

“Whatever you do, Keely, don’t scream. This will be over much quicker if you just go with the flow.”

I lose all feeling in my knees, and my body drops like a stone. Leo catches me easily by the waist, and his other hand cups the back of my head and shoves me through the gap in the curtain. When I’m directly beneath the light, he releases me.

One calm part of me helpfully steps forward and offers flashes of my young life in a shockingly brief, but totally Oscar-worthy clip. I’m sure I hear ghostly applause as the other part stares at Leo, mummified in fear and shock.

“Why are you doing this?”

His head drops for several seconds, and I see that regret from earlier flash over his face. But he lifts his head and all I get is a blank, beautiful canvas.

“Take your clothes off, Keely.”

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