“Vivi LaFrance and Gigi Brighton.”
The man pulled out a little tablet from his pocket and his eyes scanned the screen. He snapped his fingers and a man in fine livery appeared from the shadows with a silver platter.
He held it out to us. “If you please.”
The masks were like theirs, but gold. They secured to our faces like the dresses we wore—a second skin. Only our eyes, nostrils, and mouths were visible.
The moment mine was secured, a feeling, like being cold and hot at the same time, seemed to rush through my veins, and I shivered.
“This way,” he said.
I pinched Evelina discretely as we followed him. “Vivi LaFrance? Gigi Brighton?”
She shrugged and said in Italian, “I did one of those stripper name generator things on social media. Those are what it came up with. I'm a computer geek, not a writer.”
A beautiful hostess greeted us in French at the door, and this time Evelina gave the name of the club. It almost felt like another security checkpoint.
The place didn’t look like a sexy nightclub. It looked like a...swanky restaurant in a mansion. The people dining wore no masks, but they were not staring at us either.
“Very well,” the woman almost purred, leaving us waiting at the stand. She came back with a bear of a man who looked us over from head to toe.
“Names,” he asked.
“Vivi LaFrance and Gigi Brighton,” Evelina repeated.
He pulled out a little black book from his pocket, and his eyes scanned whatever had been written down. He looked down at the writing. Back up at us.
“A moment,” he said, and left me sweating in my pale silk dress.
“Calm down,” Evelina whispered from the side of her mouth. “People try to get in here all the time. All they do is ask you to leave if there’s a name discrepancy. Or the big fella will ask his boss if we’re up to their standards.”
“Standards?”
“If we’re appealing enough. There will be more women here than men, for a reason.”
He came back a minute later and nodded. “Follow me, Ms. LaFrance. Ms. Brighton.”
I swayed into Evelina to get her attention again without alerting the bear. My lips felt a little…odd. They were tingling, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt like I’d taken a hit of a strong drink or something.
Before I could tell her, the man turned to look at us, as if he sensed we were about to have a quiet conversation. We both smiled. He shook his head and continued to walk through numerous rooms with locks that he had keys to. I realized with a start that the main entrance might have looked like a place to dine, but the mansion had to be cut off in sections. The restaurant was only a part of this place, and it was secluded from the rest.
Each room we walked through was made to play on the senses.
Textures. Sights. Scents.
The scents.They started off pleasant, but the deeper we traveled, the more…sensual they became. I found myself inhaling deeper and deeper, licking my lips more and more. Rose was so prominent in the room that we stopped in that I looked behind my back, expecting to see mamma.
Of course, I thought dimly, swaying a little on my feet. I felt weightless, almost like a bird.S’envoyer En L’air.Linking the pleasure of sex and the ascent to heaven.
“Are you ready to fly, ladies?” the man asked in French, and then he opened the door.
Evelina reached out and took my hand as we walked through it. The lights were dim, music was pulsating, and the scent of something exotic floated through the air like itwasair. I breathed in, and the entire feeling of the place made me shiver. Not from cold unease, but from…desire.
That was it.
The feeling.
It oozed through the air, concentrating it.
