He held up a scanner, and she presented her wristband. The little machine flashed a green light, and he started to move away. “Thanks!”
“Wait!” she called after him and then mimed writing on the bar. “Don’t I have to sign the receipt or something?”
“All electronic!” he yelled back. “We take US money, Canadian, euros, Bitcoin, and CurieCoin.”
“But how do I do your tip?” she screamed just as the music stopped.
Everyone turned to look at the screeching anime character.
Colleen kept her eyes on the bartender and did not crawl under the bar to get away from all the eyes pointed in her direction, but she wanted to.
He grinned at her with straight white teeth. “First time, huh? The Devilhouse pays a living wage. No tipping. Have a nice night.”
Colleen thanked the guy, who moved on with a wink, and she returned to studying the crowd as the music came up, the lights dimmed again, and strobes flashed through the air. She had half an hour before she needed to present herself to the “private rooms” desk upstairs.
A curvy woman stood and talked to people at the tables, her black gown clinging to her body like wet silk. The man she seemed to be with wasn’t talking to the other couple but standing at her side and facing her as if he were intent on her every word. Occasionally, she reached up and stroked the side of his face, and he leaned into her touch. Once, he kissed her palm as she stroked, and her dark red lips curved in a secretive little smile at him before she went back to talking to her friends.
Despite what the bouncer outside had said, the nightclub wasn’t three separate floors, but the layout was a pit for the dance floor and a raised dais that took up a third of the space for the bar and other serving tables.
The second and third “floors” were wide balconies that circled the room. Round dining tables with white tablecloths and flowers crowded the second floor like at a fancy restaurant, an impression amplified by the tuxedo-clad waitstaff gliding between patrons to deliver covered plates or bottles of wine.
The third floor held some dining tables and waitstaff, too, but five large chairs occupied the rear wall with what looked to be a table set in front of them, kind of like the head table at a wedding reception so everybody could ogle the bride and groom. The chairs were empty though, and the table looked like it had a white tablecloth but no place settings.
In the bar, most of the people standing around the small tables or leaning against the railings seemed to be couples, which struck Colleen as kind of unusual for a nightclub in a college town. The pool bar over on Rural Road called The Que was always crowded with roving bands of college students trying to hook up.
The Devilhouse must be more of a grown-up kind of place than the college bars Colleen had been frequenting since she’d turned twenty-one. Considering that she had dropped out of college and was now twenty-three years old, maybe she should be getting on with her life and finding places where she could hang out with adults.
Adultier places, so to speak.
Not that she had the money to go to adultier places. She sipped her insanely overpriced mango cosmopolitan, which was like the sweetest parts of oranges and peaches on her tongue. At least she could pretend she wasn’t a broke dropout for the night.
After a while, she approached one of the staircases and offered her wristband to the guy at the foot of the metal staircase who was gatekeeping. He also beeped the chip in the orange plastic and surreptitiously eyed her anime cosplay outfit.
She gathered up her courage and asked him, “Could you point me toward the private rooms desk?”
The man’s eyes flared, and he mouthed the word, “Oh,” before he pointed toward the rear wall and said loudly, “Head toward the back of the club. The desk is behind the black velvet drapes in the back. The desk you’re looking for is going to be right below the Domina’s chairs up there.”
Colleen made her way over to where the guy had pointed, sticking close to the wall so she wouldn’t disturb people eating their suppers or the waiters charging around, until she found the curtains against the back wall.
As soon as she got near enough, the break in the curtains was obvious. An offset section hung a few feet in front of a lighted opening, so at least Colleen didn’t have to spend five minutes ruffling the curtains like a comic whose act had bombed and was frantically trying to escape while being pelted with tomatoes.
Behind the curtains, a sumptuous lobby decorated in burnished dark wood and fresh red roses surrounded a desk with a pretty woman who wore a dark dress. Her honey-blond hair was sleekly twisted behind her, and her makeup was so flawlessly blended that it looked airbrushed. Her dark eyelashes swept perfectly from her lids to rest on her porcelain cheekbones when she blinked and must have been expensively applied extensions.
The woman smiled pleasantly. “This is the private rooms desk. Do you have an appointment?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Colleen stepped forward and held out her arm with the orange wristband. “The guy at the front said that it was coded into the wristband?”
The lady retrieved one of the ubiquitous scanners from the desk drawer and beeped Colleen’s wristband. Consulting a computer screen beside her, she said, “Yes, Ms. QueenMod. You have an appointment in Playroom Two starting at ten o’clock for three hours.”
“Three hours?” Colleen wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was going to happen in there with TwistyTrader, though she had mentally prepared herself for anything from talking with him over a cocktail to him throwing her on the floor and railing her right there. “Is that a lot?”
The woman turned back and looked Colleen directly in the eyes while she smiled. “Is this your first time here?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Nothing at all to be sorry about. Welcome to the Devilhouse.” She opened the desk drawer again and withdrew a brochure and a clipboard with a pen and several pieces of paper. “The Devilhouse is the only nightclub of its kind in the greater Valley area. We cater to a wide variety of clientele. Since it’s your first time, I’ll need a few more forms, and we should discuss standard operating procedures.”
Colleen was trying very hard not to fidget. “What kind of clientele?”
