“I’m not sleeping with him.” Ever again if I can help it. That little stunt he pulled last night has left both me and my vaginarecoiling.
“Youwill,” Chloe snaps. “He’s Gage Fucking Oliver—emphasis on thefucking. You always sleep with him. You’re a fool in many ways, but when it comes to men, you are razor sharp and greedy ashell.”
“Shut up, Chloe.” It comes out far too quiet and morose because on an intrinsic level I know this istrue.
“You’ll sleep with Logan, too,” she goes on, unwarranted. “He won’t take you from behind like that. Too vulgar, not his style. Don’t get me wrong. He is a dirty,dirtyboy. He’ll want you to ride him like that stallion you’re on now. You should have seen the agony and the ecstasy on that boy’s face as he gripped me, demanding I ride him harder, faster,stronger.”
“He thought you were me.” Just the idea of Chloe taking advantage of Logan that way makes me want to hurl. “And would you please stop sleeping with people under false pretenses? It’s getting old. Stop using Laken’s face, and for shit’s sake, stop using mine.” Laken happens to be the woman Chloe’s husband, Wesley, is obsessed with. She also happens to share the title of my best friend along withBrielle.
“Back toGage.”
“Back to Gage.” I scoff. “Anyone ever tell you, you’re like a dog with aboner?”
“Gage can be my masteranytime.”
“He will be,” I assure her. “If he has his way, he will be everyone’s master.” I can still see him there on that stone of sacrifice toasting to his new life, one with Demetri, as the leader of everything I oppose. “Wait a minute…” I squint ahead to the tiny ramshackle town coming upon us quickly. “Something tells me we’re not on Yankee soilanymore.”
“Took you long enough,” Chloe huffs. “I’ll give you another clue, oh fearless,brainlessleader. We’re not even in the same centuryanymore.”
“Crap,” I whimper as we plod closer to our temporal destiny. Music erupts from one of the establishments on the cobble-lined street. It’s late in the day, evening ready to turn to an instant midnight, as bodies stream in and out of a raucous little saloon with enough candle power winking from inside to combust everyone stuffed in that carnal hall of desires in an infernal holocaust. Women in seedy dresses pour out of the entry with drunken men pawing at their cleavage, vomiting into the streets between their bouts of heartlessgroping.
“What are we doing here, Messenger? Aren’t there enough men in the twenty-first century foryou?”
“I don’t know what we’re doing here, or wherehereexactly is, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out on both accounts. And I’m pretty sure we’re not here for the men, Chloe. Put your ovaries on ice for a minute. Your brain might actually kick in andfunction.”
Chloe and I park our exhausted horses alongside a few other majestic steeds tied and bound near the entry. It occurs to me as we stand outside of the open mouth of the establishment that I have no clue how to get us out of this dated, musty, dusty, rusty hovel for waywardwomen.
“It’s a bar,” Chloemuses.
“It’s a whorehouse,” Icorrect.
“Well then”—Chloe threads her arm through mine—“it looks like we’ve finally found that home away from home you’ve been lookingfor.”
Inside, music belted out by a live band accosts our hearing, five overgrown men with missing teeth and lewd intentions stitched in their greasy smiles fog up the stage. It’s loud as hell, the entire place is brimming with both boisterous activity and body odor—with wall-to-wall people—highly intoxicated as they might be—women in large bustling dresses, the backs longer than their short suggestive fronts, full and heavy breasts heave over their corseted tops, and suddenly the urge to nurse the twins hits me hard. I fed them just before I left. I nursed Tobie, too, Chloe’s poor speck of a daughter who is only a month older than my twins. My heart tugs at the thought of the boys’ perfect dark heads knit to my breasts. They’re my two precious little olives, and I miss them with an indescribableache.
“Maybe we should go?” I shout up over the roaring laughter, the howls of drunken men, the shrieking of cackling women. The entire place has a Halloween night appeal, something otherworldly, something out of an old silent movie, and right about now my exhausted eardrums crave a lull to themadness.
“Maybe weshouldn’t.”
A lone man sitting in the corner smoking a cigar catches my attention, and I recognize those blessed by God features, those whiskey-colored eyes, those lips that I’ve tasted while drinking down hiskisses.
“Logan,” I whisper and suddenly this entire new world feels like a dream. I take a step closer and the veil of smoke evaporates from around him, and just like that, his face morphs into someone else entirely as he speeds out of the room. “That wasweird.”
“You’re weird.” Chloe leans in as we absorb the scene together. “Looky there.” She motions to the rear of the facility where a pianist tries to keep time with the band, invoking a disastrous sensory experience that I’m sure has long been declaredillegal.
“What are we looking at? You want to dance on the stage? Introduce them all to a little Bishop twerking magic? I’ve got news for you. You’re on your own.” I take a few strides out in that direction and stop short. No, it wasn’t the piano Chloe was pointing at. It was the girl in the red satin dress with a corset I’ve seen before—the exact one I sported on a ski trip once. “Oh my dear God.” I walk numbly in that direction with Chloe on my heels. I see her, and not only do I know who she is, but her very presence puts in perspective where we are and the precise century toboot.
“1645.” A dull laugh comes from me. I should have known. This harried,whorishscene has unfurled many a time in Marshall’s living room. And a part of me very much wishes I were in Marshall’s living roominstead.
Marlena. I smirk at how much she looks like the witch by my side. Marlena is Chloe’s long-lost something or other. For so long she’s inserted herself into our narrative, our century, our world, and now here we are crashing hers. I suppose it’s only fair. Although, I have no clue what good could come ofthis.
“I’m guessing she holds the key to this debauchery,” I say as we fast approach her, and just as we’re feet away, a man in a suit—dated as it might be—gropes her breast from behind. He buries his caramel-colored head into her neck and continues to squeeze the living shit out of her boob as if he were kneading dough. Normally I wouldn’t think twice to interrupt, wouldn’t care who the hairy scary man in the distinguished suit is, but I just so happen to recognize that head of hair, those strong hands that are currently exposing her left nipple as my very own spirithusband.
“Well, well, it looks as if we have a class A pervert on our hands,” I say it loud enough for all involved to hear as a few stray women strut by and fan themselves with their feathered boas at the sight. Yes, Marshall Dudley has been cause for more than a heated moment or two in just about any century. He’s a walking, talking erection, a human bottle of testosterone that attracts even the demurest ofbarflies.
“Oh, come on, Skyla.” Chloe brazenly removes his hand from her great, great, a million times great-grandmother’s tit, and Marshall opens a sleepy eye to get a better look atus.
His eye closes once again and his lips continue to move unabated by what he’s just seen, and just like that, he freezes. His eyes spring open and he straightens rather lazily. Marshall moves Marlena to the side as if she were merely on the assembly line for the night, and knowing Dudley she most likely is. He squints into Chloe and me as if trying to place us before his eyes widen, hard and round, and his shoulders fly back as if atattention.
