The floor looks likes several layers of cheap plywood, much of it studded with knotholes that allow her to see swamp water swirling below, a stark contrast to the lush purple draperies hanging on either side of her and the tufted purple fabric covering the low ceiling overhead. A robe and mask, just likes the ones they wore the night before, hang from a silver hook, and on a tiny antique wooden desk next to them, she finds a sheet of frayed cardstock. The paper type looks familiar, but the message printed on it is lengthier and more substantial than any of the commands they presented to her in the bathroom last night.
She sniffs loudly to get Marcus’s attention.
“I’m here,” Marcus says.
“Alright, now,” Emily says quietly, “let’s see what we have here.” And then, as if she were simply reading aloud to herself, she continues. “Welcome, Miss Conran. We hope you enjoy your visit with us. Tonight we give you the gift of freedom. Tonight we will free you from the words and the labels you use to keep your true desires at bay. We will free you from the crushing need to control how you desire, how you love, and how others perceive you. We shall, in turn, guide your every step, and in return, we ask for nothing from you but compliance, silence, and willingness, a willingness to see your own truth, as we shall reveal it to you through pleasure and fantasy. Please undress completely before putting on the mask and robe.”
She checks the shadows on the other side of both curtains. If they thought her little performance sounded like something other than a woman reading quietly to herself, there’s no indication of it from their movements.
“The letter…” Marcus whispers, reading her mind.
She curses herself for not having seen this, for not having predicted that whatever ceremony she was about to walk in to would be as wordless, regimented, and choreographed as the test they subjected her to the night before. And she can’t leave Arthur’s letter here in this little cell. Just the thought of doing so makes her see his withered, bruised hand clutching the pen as he struggles through the painful haze of chemo and radiation to put each word to paper. Nothing about this room is private enough to protect this secret. It’s not even a room, really. Once they draw the curtains back, it will be completely exposed to its immediate surroundings.
“You okay?”
Yes.
“Okay. We’ve all got a visual of the place. You’re in some sort of giant tent. There are about five walkways coming off the thing. They each lead to a boat just like the one you came in on. So if you need to make a run for it, just head for one of those walkways, hit the water, and we’ll have you in thirty seconds. Dupuy just gave Jonathan the same message.”
Yes.
She knew a moment of decision would arrive at some point this evening; she just didn’t expect it to come this early. She doesn’t disrobe, not all the way, not like they asked her to. Instead, she leaves her panties on and slides Arthur’s letter through the sideband, making sure the envelope is flush against her skin. There’s no ignoring the eventual consequence of this choice. As soon as she’s required to take off the robe, the letter, complete with Arthur’s handwriting across the envelope, will be exposed where it sits against her right hip. The jig will be up. And that’s fine, because, goddammit, that’s as far as she’s willing to go. She will not allow herself to be subjected to another frenzied burst of pleasure divorced from all intimacy. She’s not willing to make love to masks again, not while a man like Marcus sends promises of contentment surging through her body with every word he whispers into her right ear.
One curtain is suddenly pulled back, and her silent messenger extends a gloved hand toward her. There is something less intimidating about his presence now that she is masked as well, and when she takes his hand, she does so with confidence, as if the barrier between them has collapsed, temporarily at least, and they are now compatriots who shall together solve the mysteries of the night.
The other three members of her group have fallen back now. Her silent messenger lifts her hand slightly above their shoulders. When they step through a draped opening into the giant tent, part of her is expecting him to spin her out into the first steps of some elaborate waltz. But instead, he guides her to a nearby podium three steps off the floor. On its flat desk surface, two purple candles burn, and when she sees the slender, flickering flames have no wicks at their center, she sucks in a frightened breath.
“Hey, you good?” Marcus asks.
Yes.
“You inside?”
Yes.
“You have the letter?”
Yes, and yes, you’re the reason I took the letter with me, babe. Part of the reason, anyway. Because I know as soon as they see it on my body, we’re done, and that’ll cut down on the chance of more strangers touching and tasting me while I dream of your eyes, your lips, the feel of your muscular arms protecting me from the cleansing surf.
Four other podiums just like her own form a circle around the perimeter of the tent, facing inward where a round dais sits in the center of the entire space. Atop the dais is a throne-like chair made of dark, intricately carved wood. As her eyes adjust to the dim, wavering candlelight, she can see the throne’s spine, legs, and struts are all carved into billowing columns of flame, flame the color of obsidian. There are three other shadows standing at podiums identical to hers. Like her, they are robed and masked. Two of them are Jonathan’s height, but out of those two, one has a long mane of dark hair spilling out from the sides of her hood. The other is Jonathan, she’s sure of it. The sight of him slows her heart rate, allows her to rest her hands flat on the podium before her as opposed to clenching both sides as if she fears being blasted into outer space.
Thank God, he’s here, she thinks. When he volunteered to come, I thought he was being insane, but now? But if I’d had any idea what this place would really be…
Another robed figure, surrounded by a team of four masked minders, enters the tent. The woman’s frightened gasps have a steady rhythm to them. She’s not just gasping. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. That, and the way her minders stick closely to her side, as if they’re preparing for her knees to buckle, suggest the woman is giving in to the same kind of panic attack Emily feels on the verge of herself. But the masked, shirtless figures surrounding the woman support her and gently guide her up onto her podium. They stroke her back with their gloved hands, and though they are as wordless as the figures that brought Emily here, the physical treatment they grant their frightened guest is delicate, tender. Comforting.
It comforts Emily, at least. Their newest visitor still looks like she’s about to collapse.
A handbell chimes. The beautiful black woman who visited Emily the night before steps out from two flaps in the side of the tent, revealing a cluster of shadows gathered in the private room behind her. The plunging neckline of her black leather dress exposes one half of each breast, just shy of each nipple, and is lined with diamond-colored jewels that shimmer in the candlelight. The same jewels line the lower flaps of her dress, which shift around legs turned muscular from supporting her ample upper body.
Leather? Emily thinks. In the swamp? And she’s not sweating?
She makes a beeline for their still frightened, still gasping recent addition, reaches out and gently runs her fingers across the woman’s chin as she walks past her. “Fear is a survival instinct that spills far outside the borders of nature’s purpose for it. Fear assaults us in a million different ways, every second of our waking lives. It disguises itself as reason, maturity, and even common sense, as if there is such a thing. You are here tonight because you have decided there are some fears, fears about yourself, that you can no longer abide, and so, with your consent, we shall strip those fears of their costumes and their disguises so they can be exposed for what they truly are.”
She takes one step up onto the dais at the center of the room. It begins to slowly revolve beneath her. “My name is Lilliane. Welcome to The Desire Exchange.”
As if on cue, the flaps covering the private ro
om part and a young man emerges carrying a silver tray loaded with five silver goblets. A compact woman holding a decanter so large it looks like it could accommodate several bottles of wine follows him closely. Masked and shirtless, the man circulates the room, stepping in front of each podium only as long as it takes to set a silver goblet down on each one. Even masked, the guy has some resemblances to Ryan, to be sure, the same dirty blond hair with a slight curl to it. But he’s way too young. Maybe ten years ago this masked man and Ryan Benoit could have been mistaken for brothers, but not today…except that mouth looks a lot like—he’s placed Emily’s goblet and departed before she can get a good look at his chin and jawline, and now the goblet is being filled by a young woman who moves with just as much speed and a refusal to look Emily in the eye that’s just as strong.
I swear to God, if we went to all this trouble over a case of mistaken identity, she thinks, and then the booming authority in Lilliane’s voice jerks her away from her thoughts.
“Based on your experience with us so far,” the woman continues, “some of you may have already decided we are magicians or illusionists. To you we suggest this: if an illusion changes the course of your life for the better, are you still willing to dismiss it as dream and vapor? Obviously you are all free to believe everything you’re about to witness tonight isn’t real, but you are also free to take it into your hearts as if it was. The choice will be yours. We are not here to convince you we possess special gifts. We are here for one reason, and one reason only. To teach you a single lesson.”
She surveys each one of them in turn, walking in a slow circle counter to the lazy spin of the dais. “Trust the fantasy that guides you to your heart.”
Lilliane allows these words to settle over them, and, Emily notices, she’s also checking to make sure each goblet has been filled.
“Any sign of him?” Marcus asks.
No.
“The libation we have just provided you with is perfectly healthy and safe, but it will also open your mind to everything you’re about to witness.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Marcus mutters. “Can you fake it?”
Emily scans the room. It looks as if every other visitor has also been assigned a four-person team as well, probably the same team that administered their test. Those teams have assembled in the shadows behind each podium, and when she risks a glance over her shoulder, she finds her four minders standing exactly where she thought they’d be, between her and the walkway through which they entered moments before.
Are they watching her every move, or are they just there to catch her if she passes out? The reflective black glass filling the eyeholes of their masks sends a shiver through her limbs, an unwanted flashback to the pleasure unleashed by their raw assault on her flesh the night before.
No.
“Ugh…okay, then. If you start to feel sick or like you’re gonna pass out, I want an extraction order. Immediately. Got it?”
Yes.
“Please,” Lilliane says. “Drink!”
Across the tent, Jonathan hesitates before taking his first sip. But he still takes it, and that gives her permission to try one as well. She expects bitterness, or at least the familiar bite of something alcoholic, but the bland sweetness of the dark liquid is such a shock, she begins to gulp it rapidly before she pauses to consider that its innocuous flavor could be part of its seductive recipe.
She sets the goblet down on her podium, shocked to see it’s still half full. Lilliane surveys the room, her heels clicking against the wooden dais underfoot as she continues her slow counter-walk to its lazy spin.
Every second Emily doesn’t bring the goblet back to her lips feels like an eternity. She expects one of her minders to appear beside her and force its stem back into her hand. But they don’t approach, and Lilliane’s eyes pass over her podium without stopping to examine how much of the dark liquid Emily has consumed.
Okay, good, Emily thinks. They’re not forcing us to down it all right off the bat. That’s a sign it’s not poison or some crazy drug.
“Does it taste weird?” Marcus asks.
No.
“Good,” he whispers. “Emily, that woman. The one from your test. Is she the one speaking?”
Yes.
“Does she look the same?”
Yes…and what the hell kind of question is that, Marcus? But they haven’t worked out a signal for the later so she grips the edges of the podium instead of whispering it.
“Alright,” Marcus whispers. “You ready to give me a headcount.”
Yes.
“Are there five visitors?”
Yes.
“Don’t include them. Just The Desire Exchange folks. Okay. Wait ten seconds and give me the count. If it’s double digits, leave a five second space in between each number.”
Yes.
She begins her headcount.
Two people emerged from the private room—the guy who could be Ryan Benoit’s younger brother and the woman who used the decanter to fill each goblet. Throw in five four-person teams, plus Lilliane, and that made twenty-three people total.
She taps her podium twice, counts off five seconds, and then taps her podium three times.
“Twenty-three?” Marcus asks.
Yes.
“Alexandra Vance!” Lilliane cries. The guy who could be Ryan’s younger brother hands Lilliane the leather-bound notebook in which Emily lied her heart out.
The woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown wretches at the sound of her name, clutching the flaps of her robe. One of her minders steps forward and places a hand gently against the small of her back. Emily assumes he’s just offering comfort until he grips the woman’s elbow and guides her off the podium.
Leather-bound notebook open against one supporting arm, Lilliane begins to read as the trembling woman is walked to the carved, obsidian-colored throne. “The boys from down the street are home from college for a vacation. I’ve seen them all week long, coming home late. Lounging by their parent’s swimming pools with no shirts on. I’m in the garage one day cleaning up the mess my ex-husband left behind when I find a box of sex toys and bondage equipment he left behind, none of which we ever used on me when we were married.”
Alexandra’s minders push down gently on both of her shoulders until she’s seated, then they stand on either side of the throne as Lilliane continues to read, circling the dais as if she wants to sprinkle all four of the other guests with a little of Alexandra’s most private fantasy. Even though the scene before her has the trappings of a trial or a judgment, there is no recrimination or disdain in Lilliane’s tone as she continues to read. “I’m sitting there, crying my eyes out over my ex-husband’s betrayal, when I hear a knock on the door, and there they are. The boys from down the street. They are shirtless and muscular. They are smiling at me until they see my tears. And then they’re coming toward me because they see what’s in the box, and it’s almost like they care more about my ex-husband’s sex toys than they do about me or my pain.
“I stand there watching them as they start taking out whips and chains and all sorts of bondage stuff, and then they grab me and tie my wrists to the light fixture over my head and I am helpless to stop them as they use everything in the box on me over and over and over again.”
Lilliane closes the book, standing a few paces from where Alexandra sits, trying to catch her breath.
“Is this your fantasy, Miss Vance?”
“Yes,” the woman gasps. “Yes…it is.”
As she approaches the dais, Lilliane studies the terrified woman with an expression somewhere between thoughtful and stern. “Describe your fear to me, Alexandra,” she says in a softer, less commanding tone. “Use any words or images you’d like. But describe it to me, if you can.”
“Like…it’s like someone’s sitting on my chest and I can’t…Can’t breathe.”
“I understand,” Lilliane says. “Now, please, consider for a minute, that you are actually choosing not to breathe. That a part of you is literal
ly trying to prevent you from taking your next breath. Because if you don’t breathe, if oxygen ceases to enter your lungs, then you won’t be. And if you cease to exist, your fear will end. This strategy of your body, of your mind, may seem like it’s designed to protect you, Alexandra, but really it’s designed to punish you. And you do not deserve to be punished. Not in the slightest. So please, listen to my voice, dig deep, and decide to breathe.”
If Alexandra’s chest is any indication, Lilliane’s words have had a positive effect; it appears still now where only seconds before it was heaving. “Your body’s instincts and reflexes will try to end your fear by ending your life,” Lilliane says, and it’s clear she’s addressing all of them again. “We, on the other hand, remove your fear from you so that you may live your life the way it’s meant to be lived.”
She turns to the young woman who filled each goblet and gives her a slight nod. When she steps up onto the dais, the two minders depart, and suddenly Decanter Girl is gently sliding the flaps of Alexandra’s robe apart. She reaches up and removes Alexandra’s mask, revealing the woman’s tear-filled eyes. She gently caresses the side of Alexandra’s face. She whispers something only Alexandra can hear.
As she continues to gently caress one of Alexandra’s furiously blushing cheeks, the young woman reaches up with her other hand and removes her own mask. And that’s when the drug starts to take effect, or at least Emily hopes it’s the drug; how else can she explain the tendrils of gold luminescence that have emerged from the young woman’s eyes, lips, and nostrils, the same ones that are now floating up into the air above her head, the same ones that pulse with intensity when the young woman brings her lips almost to Alexandra’s and takes in a sudden, sharp breath? How else can Emily explain the cobra’s hood of glittering gold that is now coalescing in the air high above the dais, twisting and becoming more solid, as if it were a living thing unto itself?
The Surrender Gate: A Desire Exchange Novel Page 21
