After exchanging a nervous glance, Michael and I followed Mr. Roderick through his home. He looked too young to possess such an extravagant residence. Generational wealth, maybe? Involved in something illegal, perchance?
He stopped at a door and turned to face us. “Did you leave your phones as requested?”
Michael nodded, and Mr. Roderick led us through the doorway. The music rushed toward us, making my heart thump against my chest. Dim lights cast little more than shadows through the room, but I could see a naked woman lying on an overstuffed white couch, passed out. Her arm draped over her bare torso, just beneath her exposed breasts.
What the hell kind of party is this?
In the corner, a man hovered over another naked woman and sniffed lines of powder off her chest. He inhaled deeply, pulling away long enough to devour theskin of her breasts. She moaned as she sniffed powder from a necklace around her neck. Another pair of people were entwined at the waist, moving together as sweat coated their bodies and reflected the gentle gleam of the overhead lights.
I didn’t bother with a sideways glance this time. I stared at Michael with no pretense of subtlety.What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?I now understood the reasoning behind the no-phone rule.
A woman across the room leaned against a shiny black piano. Her champagne-colored dress opened across her slim waist, exposing her stomach, and the skirt hugged her hips. She caught me staring, and a flirty smile crossed her face.
“You guys okay?” asked a voice from far away. “Zoey, you okay?” The voice grew closer, and strong hands shook my shoulders. “Zoey!” his voice grew stern.
I escaped my trance as the music grew louder and Mr. Roderick’s touch became firmer. “I’m okay, it's fine. Just a bit shell-shocked,” I said as I turned to face him.Not a lie.
I had been to some fucked-up parties in my lifetime, and what I was seeing wasn’t all that shocking comparatively, but it wasn’t the same as a married woman. It was different with Michael there because I had to be a different person in his presence. I’d left this sort of wild lifestyle behind when I let him slide the gold band around my finger.
“Do I have to worry about you two being narcs?” Mr. Roderick laughed with an uncomfortable snap at the end.
Michael wrapped his arm around me. “No, don’t worry. We don’t get invited to parties like this very often.”
“Or ever,” I said under my breath.
Another man in a suit came by with a fake smile plastered on his face. He held the silver tray in his hand toward me, and I eyed the white baggies. A goddamn display of drugs toted around like they were fucking hors d’oeuvres.
“Pick your poison,” Mr. Roderick said with a smile, wrapping his arms around both of us.
I hesitated before grabbing one of the baggies. Michael glanced at me with a pinched face and a frown.
“You guys need to relax,” Mr. Roderick said with a smirk. He motioned toward the woman I’d been staring at, and I could somehow hear her footsteps over the music as she came toward me. She touched my arm with soft fingertips.
“Mira, show them to a quiet area where they can decompress,” Mr. Roderick said.
“With pleasure,” Mira said. She wrapped her arms around our waists and guided us into an adjacent room. Once she’d closed the door, the music faded into a low thump again. She gestured toward the couch, and we all sat down. Mira slipped her heels off and drew her legs up, showing a flash of black between her legs.
“It’s a bit much, I know,” she said with a smile.
“It’s just different,” I said.
Mira pulled a baggie of powder from between her full cleavage. “Different is good, no?” She opened the baggie and dumped its contents onto the glass table, splitting it into three even lines before reaching down thefront of her dress and pulling out a straw. Her blonde hair slid along the glass as she leaned over and snorted a line. She sat up, wiped her nose, and held the straw toward us.
I reached out and grabbed the straw. “Fuck it,” I said as I pulled my hair over my shoulder and snorted the second line. I handed it to Michael and with a quick paw at his arm, he leaned over and sniffed up the third. My sinuses burned, and the drugs lit up my brain like fucking Christmas lights. I draped a leg over Michael’s lap and relaxed against the back of the couch.
Mira fanned herself. “This always makes me so overheated.”
I knew what she meant. My skin felt warm and pleasant, like I was wrapped in my favorite blanket with a really good book.
“There’s a bit more than just coke in there.” Mira giggled.
“Like what?” Michael asked as he sat taller. He leaned forward and cocked his head, and his leg started shaking.
“A little bit of this, a little bit of that,” she said as she reached behind her neck and untied the top of her dress. The fabric spilled down her body, exposing her full breasts. She lay back with a satisfied sigh.
Michael and I stared at her, admiring the soft curves of her body. If she’d aimed to distract us from the unknown contents of the drugs we’d just inhaled, she’d succeeded.
“I want to kiss you,” Mira said with a pout of her lips.
