Page 110 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
Going in since it’s started, but I’ll make sure to take a seat by the door so you can find me! xx
There’s no response. I chew on my lip a moment, and then remember my lipstick and stop. I have the sudden worry that she’s not okay, that she’s been hurt or fallen ill, that she’s been in an accident . . .
I’m worried, Bex. Let me know if you’re okay. xx
The text comes half a second later.
I’m fine.
My heart flips over as I read it. And then immediately sinks back down to my feet. I decide to try calling one last time—and then I’m sent to voicemail after only a ring.
I look down at the phone like there’s been some sort of misunderstanding, but no. That’s Rebecca’s voicemail message I’m hearing, and after only four seconds on the line. Which means she sent me there. Which means she’s not injured, which means she’s not away from her phone.
She just doesn’t want to talk to me.
I . . . have no idea what to make of this.
A sad, lonely kind of panic starts buzzing around the edges of my mind.
“Which way?” Emily asks. I look up to see her finished and standing next to me, the thin white wristband on her wrist indicating her guest status at the club. She’ll be able to play publicly and in the private rooms, but only with members of the club.
I force myself to lower the phone. To smile as brightly as I can.
“This way.”
The theater underneath Justine’s is all prewar glamor and Jazz Age luxury. Circular booths upholstered in buttery leather surround red-clothed tables, which are lit by small fringed lamps. Globed pendant lights hang from the ceiling, burning a faint gold, and the whole room is adorned in a custom silk wallpaper depicting various sex acts from mythology and history: Catherine the Great having her feet tickled; Enki ejaculating the Tigris and Euphrates r
ivers; Edward VII fornicating by aid of his special sex chair; Pasiphaë and the bull.
At the front of the room is a low stage framed by velvet curtains in a deep-hued garnet, and the usual kinky furniture staples are front and center—racks of toys, padded benches, crosses. A slender woman with light brown skin and straight black hair purrs the night’s agenda into a microphone as Emily and I slide into the last unoccupied booth toward the back.
I check my phone again. Nothing more from Rebecca.
The panic at the edges of my mind buzzes louder now.
The exhibition works on a volunteer basis, our host is explaining, and anybody can come up and display whatever they like—a particularly tidy little sub, a talent for Florentine flogging, even the more outre kinks like autofellatio or fire play—all that’s needed is clear, sober consent from the participants and an adherence to the club’s rules, which ban scat, watersports, some types of breath play, and most types of blood play. She cedes the stage to polite applause.
A server wearing nothing but a cock ring brings us shallow coupes of fizzing champagne while the first volunteers mount the stage—an older woman and a young man with a leather collar around his neck. She cuffs the man to the spanking bench and starts perusing the selection of paddles hanging from one of the racks.
Emily clinks her coupe glass lightly against mine. “Here’s to a night of fun,” she whispers, her dark-lipped smile evil and beautiful in the dark. I try to smile back, but my eyes slide to the empty doorway instead, as if I expect Rebecca to be standing there, tall and stern and perfect.
She’s not.
The sub gets paddled, his cock reddened and ready between his legs as his Domme beats him, and then she uncuffs him and allows him to ejaculate onto her boots. The equipment—and the Domme’s boots—are cleaned and the next volunteers come up.
And the next.
More coupe glasses of champagne are handed out. A woman fucks her sub with a strap-on and I squirm in my seat. We’re given finger foods and hors d’oeuvres.
And still no Rebecca.
I check my phone I don’t know how many times. I send text after text—trying to be easy and calm and not clingy—but I don’t feel easy or calm right now. I feel like I want to cry. I feel like I want to crawl under the table and hide.
Rebecca is never late. Rebecca never sends me straight to voicemail.
I’m fine, she said. Nothing else. No excuses, no apologies, nothing at all.
Am I being stood up? Was I right all this time that she didn’t want to scene publicly with me because she was embarrassed? Does she want to hide me from her friends? I can live without her loving me—I think—but I don’t know if I can live with being an embarrassment.
