The Private Club

by J. S. Cooper

  "And if you're sticking with blond, you should think about tanning. You look washed out. If you want to stick with the pale look, I suggest you go strawberry red. And then maybe you can keep Meg."

  "I'm a natural blonde."

  "Sure, doll." She ushered me into the small, dark room. "This is your room. You'll be sharing it with the other new girl. She's not here yet."

  "Sharing?"

  "Yeah, sharing. This is a trial period. If Greyson likes you, you'll get your own room. For now, you get to choose a bunk."

  "I don't need a room, I have my own apartment." I looked around the room distastefully.

  "Then why are you here?"

  "For a job." I sighed and looked away from her gaze. I felt out of place and even more uncomfortable than before. "I needed a job."

  "And the club is the first place you thought to look?"

  "I thought it would be easy money to bartend and allow me to look for another law position in the daytime."

  "Law?"

  "I'm a lawyer."

  "Oh, fancy-schmancy." She laughed bitterly. "Now you're just one of the girls, Starla."

  "I'm Meg," I whispered, but I don't think she heard me. "Does the training start tomorrow?"

  "Training?" she frowned.

  "I don't have much experience bartending."

  "I wouldn't worry about that!" She burst out laughing and looked me over. "It seems to me you have the requisite skills for the job." She stared at my scantily-covered breasts and nodded. "I guess all your lawyer skills are going to come in handy."

  "What does that mean?" My voice rose.

  "What?" Her eyes narrowed and she looked at me in surprise.

  "Your comment means what?" I gave her a sharp look. "Look, I don't know you and you don't know me, so I'm going to assume that you're not being a bitch on purpose. Maybe you just had a bad day?" I took a deep breath and was about to continue when I watched the expression on her face change.

  "You're not as pathetic as you look, are you?" She smiled, and I could see a new respect in her eyes.

  "I don't look—"

  "No need to get riled up, Starla," she laughed. "Day one hasn't even started yet."

  "I'm not riled up," I shot back, annoyed.

  "I'm surprised Greyson chose you. He usually prefers the submissive girls."

  "I'm not submissive."

  "No, you're not." She looked at me consideringly. "I'm not even sure why you're here."

  "I told you why I'm here. I needed a job."

  "Yeah, yeah." Her eyes grew cloudy, and I could tell she was thinking. "I know why you came. I just don't know why Greyson let you stay."

  "What do you mean?" I frowned, my heart pounding. Talking about Greyson was heating me up even more.

  "Nothing." She shook her head, and this time she looked me over again carefully. "I just hope he knows what he's doing."

  "Will he be there tomorrow?" I tried to ask casually, but my ears were perked up, eagerly waiting for her answer.

  "Greyson?" She gave me a look. "Not at all. Greyson has nothing to do with the girls. I doubt you'll see him again for the rest of the week."

  "Oh, okay." I felt a surge of disappointment at her words. I tried to tell myself that it was due to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to get much information about Brandon without seeing him. My body was calling me a liar though.

  "Just relax and wait for the next girl." She walked to the door and stopped before she left. "By the way, I'm Raven. I'll be helping you this week."

  "I thought you were Patsy?" I frowned and she laughed.

  "Do you think men prefer an exotic dark-haired beauty called Raven or a mousy brunette called Patsy?" She raised an eyebrow at me and then walked out of the room, leaving me standing there wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.

  I was surprised by Patsy’s appearance. While she was beautiful, she was older than I thought she would be. She had to have been in her late thirties, though she hid it well. I wanted to call after her and ask her more questions, but for some reason I didn’t trust that the answers she would provide would be true.

  ***

  A few hours later, the door opened slowly and my breath caught as I waited to see who was going to walk thought the door. My heart skipped a beat and my fingers quickly smoothed down my hair as I waited for Greyson to walk through the door.

  "Hello," a young voice squeaked and I looked up in surprise and disappointment.

  "Hi."

  "I'm Nancy." She walked into the room and I was able to see her properly now. I frowned as I stared at her. If I thought Patsy had looked too old to be working here, then Nancy looked too young. She couldn’t have been older than eighteen.

  “Meg,” I said and smiled at her warmly. “Or, I guess, Starla now.”

  “Meg or Starla?” She gave me a wry smile.

  “That’s the name Patsy said I should use.” I shrugged.

  “Oh, she told me to use Pippi.” The girl smiled. “There’s no way in hell I’m telling anyone my name is Pippi.”

  “That’s how I feel about Starla.” I laughed and she joined in. She looked different when she laughed. I studied her face again to see who my new roommate was going to be. She reminded me of Katie, in a way, from back when we had started college. Her long brown hair shone like silk and her big brown eyes were open and wide, showing all of her emotions. In this very moment, I knew that she was excited, scared, and slightly worried. She felt the exact same way I did, and that gave me comfort. “So did you just get a job here as well?” I asked, wanting to continue the conversation. Instinctively, I trusted Nancy, and I wanted to find out what she knew.

  “Yeah.” She nodded and she looked away from me. “I did.”

  “Not happy about it?” I jumped off of the bed and walked over to her.

  “No, I’m very happy. I wanted this job.” She looked up at me. “I needed this job.”

  “Can I ask you something?” I bit my lip, and she nodded apprehensively. “Do you know what this job is, exactly? I’m not really sure and no one will tell me.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes looked at me in shock, and I could tell that she was surprised by my question. “You don’t know?”

  “No,” I sighed. “I applied for a job as a bartender and I’m not sure that what I’m going to be doing is bartending. I know, I know. I should have run out of here as soon as I sensed something was up, but my best friend’s boyfriend—well, ex-boyfriend—told me not to take it and I just found out that he may be involved with the club somehow and...” My voice trailed off as I realized how much I was babbling. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. I guess I needed to get that off of my chest.”

  “My sister disappeared.” Nancy’s voice was soft, and I could see unshed tears in her eyes. I froze at her words and stared at her. “My sister got a job here about ten years ago. She was really excited. My parents and I didn’t really know what was going on. But she never came back.”

  “What do you mean she never came back?” My mind went into lawyer overload. I’d always enjoyed criminal law in law school, and part of me had always wanted to be a detective.

  “I’m not really sure what happened.” She shook her head. “I was only nine when my sister left. My parents were upset with Maria. They wanted her to go to college, but instead she started working at some private club and started dating some older man. We never really got to meet him, but I saw her with him once.” Her eyes glazed over. “Then she just disappeared. I thought my parents had disowned her, but my dad passed away last year and my mother told me that they never knew what happened to her.”

  “What?”

  “I know. I can’t believe my dad never tried to find her.” Tears started falling from Nancy’s eyes and raced each other down her face. “So I’ve decided to try and find her. And this is where I start. This is my only clue.” She bit her lower lip, and I could see her fingers trembling as she gestured around the room. “She got a job here, and I’m pretty sure the guy she
was dating was from the club.”

  “A patron?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He could have worked here as well.”

  “I guess you’ll know him when you see him.”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I only saw the back of him.”

  “Oh.”

  “And to answer your question, I have absolutely no idea what our jobs will entail.”

  “I’m a bit scared.”

  “So am I.” Her face was white. “So am I.”

  ***

  The sunrise woke me up early the next morning. I lay in the top bunk listening to Nancy snoring and stared through the window. The sky was a light orange, and I could see the gardens through the glass. I ran my hands through my hair and thought about Katie and Brandon, wondering how they were getting on.

  Katie had been my best friend for a long time, and I had witnessed how Brandon had torn her apart when he had dumped her in college. I had felt helpless in comforting her and slightly envious that Katie had already experienced a great love, whereas I had barely experienced a soggy kiss.

  Men and I never seemed to mesh. The men I liked never really liked me, and the men I didn’t like loved me in droves. I’d had a couple of relationships with suitable men, but I’d always found them to be a bit boring. I was boring, so I didn’t want to date boring men. I wanted a man who was handsome and sexy and dangerous. A man who could make me melt with a glance. A man like Greyson.

  I closed my eyes and allowed myself to think about Greyson. He ticked off every box on my list, but he came with a couple of disclaimers I wasn’t quite sure about: heartbreaker and illegal.

  “Are you awake, Meg?” Nancy whispered to me softly and I smiled. I was really lucky that I had gotten paired with Nancy.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “What do you think we’re going to do today?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It’s such a weird concept. I wonder if my sister had to go through this.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Will you help me?” She spoke slowly and my fingers froze in my hair.

  “Find out about your sister?”

  “Yeah.” She got out of her bed and stood up so that her face was close to mine in the top bunk. “You’re a lawyer and you’re already investigating stuff for your best friend. I was thinking maybe you could help me as well.”

  “I suppose.” The words tripped out of my mouth before I had time to say no. I was already regretting telling her that I thought my best friend was dating a guy who had a connection to the club.

  “Oh my God, really?” Nancy’s eyes widened with happiness. “Oh my God, that would mean so much.”

  “I don’t know that I could really help much.”

  “Oh, you would be a godsend.” Nancy’s fingers gripped my sheets. “I honestly have no idea what to do next.”

  “You got this job. You know enough.” I sat up, rolled my legs over the edge of the bed, and then started laughing hysterically as I stared at Nancy’s eager face.

  “Are you okay?” She gave me a worried expression.

  “I feel like I’m in college again.” My words sounded bemused. “You remind me of my best friend, Katie. We were roommates for most of college. And I was always there as her sounding board.”

  “You don’t sound happy about that.” Nancy’s voice was soft, and I stared at her in surprise.

  “You know, I’ve never really thought about it before. But you’re right. It got old being her sounding board. You’re pretty astute.”

  “It’s hard, isn’t it? Being number two.”

  “Number two?” I frowned and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

  “I’m guessing if you were the sounding board in the friendship, she was the one who had the boys and the fun.” Nancy looked at me with a question in her eyes.

  “I guess so. Though I never looked at it like that before. It was more like, she had all these experiences and I just felt like the one who got left behind. Like all I wanted from life was to be a lawyer or travel the world.”

  “Yeah, I’m the smart one.” Nancy shrugged. “Maria was the beautiful one. My parents always used to thank God that I got the brains and she got the looks.”

  “But you’re beautiful.”

  “Not when compared to my sister.” She smiled at me softly. “Maria was the kind of beauty that could sink ships. My dad used to say they should have named her Helen.”

  “Helen?”

  “Like Helen of Troy.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, my dad is...” She paused. “Or rather, was, a very funny man.”

  “I’m sorry he passed away.”

  “It’s okay. My mom warned him about the food he used to eat.” She shrugged and looked down. “He had a heart attack. My mom blames the steaks. I blame my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “He was never the same after she left.” She looked back up at me. “I think she broke his heart.”

  “I don’t understand why he didn’t look for her.”

  “She got engaged.” Nancy sighed. “They all had an argument. My dad thought she chose the fiancé over her family. Well, I don’t think she did.”

  “Whoa, what?” I jumped down from the bed. “What do you think happened?”

  “Well, the guy she was dating, he seemed to—”

  BANG BANG.

  Nancy and I both jumped as we heard the loud knocks on the door.

  “Hello?” I called out timidly and shook my head at myself. Since when had I become scared of a few loud knocks?

  “Are you girls up?” Patsy’s voice called through the door.

  “Yes,” I called back and watched as she walked in. She looked her age this morning. She had no makeup on and her hair was in rollers. She was also wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and looked very unglamorous. She grinned as she stared at Nancy and me and the shock in our faces. “We all look normal at some point in the day.”

  “You look very beautiful,” Nancy squeaked out and I nodded.

  “Don’t lie, girls.” She looked us over. “You both need to get ready so you can meet the other new recruits and some of the staff.”

  “Do we learn about the positions today then?” I spoke up, curious as to when we were going to find out what our actual jobs were to be.

  “Unlikely.”

  “Will we see Greyson? I mean, Mr. Twining?”

  “No, he doesn’t have much to do with the girls.” She shook her head and frowned at me. “Mr. Twining is the owner of the club. He has much more important things to deal with.”

  “I understand.” I blushed, feeling embarrassed.

  “Will I get to meet him?” Nancy spoke up, and I could tell that she was wondering if Greyson was the man her sister had dated. In fact, I was starting to wonder that myself.

  “If you make it past the three days.” Patsy turned around. “Now, go shower and get ready. We have a long day ahead of us.” She strolled out of the room. “Meet me in the courtyard in an hour. You’ll see the other girls there as well.”

  “Okay.” I nodded, and Nancy sat on her bed. “I wonder how many other girls are here.” I looked at Nancy and she shrugged.

  “Who knows?” She jumped up. “I’m going to go shower. Coming?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m going to have a quick look around first.”

  “Wow.” Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Really!” I laughed. “I want to figure out where I am and what’s going on.”

  “You’re brave.”

  “Aren’t you here to figure out what happened to your sister?”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to build up to it. What if you see Greyson? Won’t you be scared?””

  “No.” My heart beat fast and I looked away.

  “I’d be so scared to see him. He’s so handsome and strong. He makes my legs shake.”

  “Yeah, he is a bit intimidating.” I gave her a weak smile.

  “Good lu
ck, Meg. I could never do what you’re doing.”

  “Then I guess you’re lucky you’ll have my help.” I smiled. “Let me go now, before I chicken out.”

  “See ya, Meg.”

  “Thanks.” I gave her a quick smile and hurried out of the room, my brain turning everything over. Something didn’t seem right, and I wasn’t sure what had my brain whirling.

  I hurried down the cold hallway and quickly turned the corner. I paused as I saw two men talking hurriedly at the other end of the corridor. I walked quickly to a door and pushed it open so I could hide. For some reason, I knew that it would be a mistake to have the two men see me. I leaned against the door and tried to control my breathing. And then it hit me.

  Nancy had said that she’d be scared to see Greyson because he was so handsome and strong. But how did she know? From all accounts she had never met Greyson before. She’d even asked Patsy if she would get to meet him. It didn’t make sense that she would ask about meeting him if she had already met him.

  Why would she lie? She had either lied to me or to Patsy. Did she know more about her sister’s boyfriend than she was letting on? I rubbed my forehead and looked around the room curiously.

  I was in what appeared to be a child’s nursery. There were cribs and toys, and I shivered at how creepy it was. Everything about this setup was creepy, and I wanted out. I was no Poirot, and at this moment I didn’t want to be one.

  I opened the door slowly and paused as the two men walked past the door, still talking.

  “If she figures it out, Greyson and Brandon will be destroyed.”

  “Maybe we should help her figure it out then.” The other guy laughed. I peeked through the door to see if I could catch a glimpse of their faces, but their backs were now to me.

  “If the truth gets out…” One of the guys stopped. “This place will blow up.”

  “When you play with fire...” the other guy started, and they both laughed.

  “What if he finds out first?”

  “Then she’s gone.”

  “Like the others.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We gotta do what we gotta do.”

  They rounded the corner then, and I stood there, rooted to the spot. I should find the exit and run. I should leave and never come back. I should go and call Katie and tell her that I thought Brandon was bad news. Very bad news. But I didn’t. I exited the door and walked back quickly to my room. I hurried into my safe haven and then stopped as I saw who was in the room.