I turn to Arla in the driver’s seat. “Where are we?”
Before she can reply, my door swings open. A striking man with impossible cheekbones and lush, glittering lips waits to take my hand and help me out of the car. I look to Arla, but she’s already climbing out. So, I take the man’s hand and let him tug me onto the walk.
Arla marches around the front of her vehicle, engine still running, and barks at another man in a sleek suit. “Park her for me, Jordan? I have someone I want to show in.”
He nods and hurries to pull the Jaguar away.
“We use a dedicated garage nearby,” Arla explains. “Valet is complimentary for all members.”
But before I can askMembers of what?she’s already addressing the man who helped me out of the car.
“Sal, this is Jude. You’ll be seeing a lot more of her around here.” Now that I’m standing, I can see he’s even taller than Rock. “She’s my guest, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a curt nod. “No line, no questions, no charge.”
Arla looks pleased. She loops an arm through mine and tugs me along, pausing at the doors. Sal reaches over and grasps the brass handle of the nearest one.
“Welcome to Medusa,” he says to me with a wide, maniacal grin.
11MEDUSA
Before I can summon the words to resist or question, we are rushed into a dark room lit by green neon tubing. It shines beneath the bar and around several platforms. Gargoyle sconces glow against emerald velvet wallpaper, and the twenty-foot antique saloon bar, dark as a Tuscan cigar and set with beveled mirrors, reflects light throughout the room. Music pumps from the back where a DJ is playing a sultry swing remix on a raised stage that juts from the wall, shaped like a broad pulpit and backed by black velvet curtains, and the floor is filled with bodies in all stages of dress andundress, grinding, twirling, slithering against one another. In a corner near the entrance, a giant birdcage contains a man dangling from a complicated network of jute ropes, and my shibari remark comes back to haunt me. And on a central platform, a woman with a fall of long, golden marcel waves is covered in pearly balloons. She gives an enormous pin to anyone who tips her as they line up to pop them, one by one.
Arla drags me to the bar where a gentleman with a handlebar mustache and suspenders—and well-defined pectoral muscles in lieu of a shirt—drops what’s he’s doing to lean in. “A maiden’s prayer for my friend and me, please, Fen. With a kick for the newbie,” she adds with a wink. He quickly mixes the ingredients in a shaker and passes us each a martini glass. Itake a sip and taste the fresh tang of citrus with the dry, piney undercurrent of gin.
“What is this place?” I practically shout over the music into Arla’s ear.
“It’s my club,” she replies, fighting bodies to pull me across the dance floor and through a keyhole-shaped doorway into a second, quieter space with more of a lounge feel. Spotlights rain silver onto another smaller stage to our left, this one curving out with a couple of steps terracing to the floor, the same plush curtains I saw behind the DJ running behind it—they must share a backstage hall or dressing room. A woman so pale she almost glows is wearing a drooping sash of rainbow sequins tied in a voluptuous bow over her ass and four-leaf clover pasties, orange curls pinned behind her head. She’s bent over an enormous cauldron while another woman in a top hat and breeches runs a golden cane across her backside, giving it a loud whack now and again.
Round booths upholstered in green leather are set against a black-marbled wall across from us, angled toward the stage. The opposite wall is lined with velveteen sofas on either side of the doorway, and the long room is dotted with small tables and chairs, all full, while people laze atop one another on the sofas like sedated cats. A second, smaller but no less impressive bar glows under golden chandeliers opposite the stage to our right.
The booth nearest the stage is separated from the rest of the room with an elaborate gold railing like you’d see on an opera box in a theater, something carved for King Louis XIV. But Arla releases a latch, swinging open a small gate, and herds me inside. She closes it behind us and joins me.
“I reserve the best seat in the house. Perk of the job,” she explains.
What job is that?I wonder. Ringmaster of the naked circus? Guardian of the padded sex dungeon? Mad Hatter at Alice’s swinger tea party? It’s not that I have a problem with what I’m seeing here. There’s something luscious and beautiful about the acts and performers, something undeniably erotic about themusic and the aesthetic, something magnetic and free about the people. Everyone is clearly enjoying themselves away from prying, judging eyes. And it feels undoubtedly Arla, as little as I know about her.
It’s more that I can’t classify Medusa as my brain so likes to do. It is one part speakeasy, one part burlesque show, one part BDSM act. If an adult circus pitched a tent in the Emerald City…thatwould be the equivalent of Medusa. And I had no idea it was here, though I’m evidently alone in that. The place is packed, so she’s not hurting for business. This club must be one of the city’s worst-kept secrets.
Arla unbuttons her old-fashioned coat, revealing a fitted black lace top with a scalloped neckline and a pair of matching wide-leg trousers. “So, what do you think?” she asks.
I look around and return her ardent gaze. “It’s… unique,” I finally manage.
She smiles, relishing my unease. “It’s one of a kind. There isn’t another club like Medusa in the world. We have members from all fifty states and nearly every continent, excluding Antarctica.” She leans in and places a hand over mine. “It will grow on you. It’s home, after all.”
Gingerly, I pull my hand away. “Home? You mean youlivehere?”
The Fathom is looking more and more like the kinky sex cult Aaron hoped it would be. Even if it’s missing the satanic bit, I sense something at the core of this group I have yet to be introduced to. Brennan’s comment about “the beast,” Arla in the cemetery promising to put exhumed remains to “good use,” and that initial invitation—learn what waits in the deep…I’d thought they meant it philosophically, but Medusa is spectacularly tangible. And the question remains—if Arla’s initiating everyone else, who initiated Arla?
“You make it sound repugnant,” she chides with a margin of offense. “The world is a scary place, Jude, and we’re stronger here. Strongertogether,” she says, watching me.
I look around, trying to picture a quaint home tucked behind the curtains or the bar, but every seedy corner is filled with bodies. “Brennan and the twins live here too?” I can’t imagine where.
“In time,” she says adamantly, ignoring my questions, “you’ll understand.”
I take a long sip of my drink. Something about her proximity makes my hair stand on end, like I’m sitting too close to an electrical current. I want to crawl out of the booth she’s shut me into, but there are patrons watching us with envy in their eyes. Arla is someone they all want to be close to.Lucky me.
“So, this is it? The circle, the big reveal? I get a lifetime membership to your club because I’m willing to go to ridiculous places at even more ridiculous times?” I ask after another drink. The gin is already working its way through my veins, causing my muscles to loosen, my tongue to lose its inhibition. I stare at the stage where the redhead has been replaced by another woman with a black bob and an intricate harness fitted with dozens of gold rings. She is strapping a man in assless leather pants onto a Saint Andrew’s cross that she wheeled out on casters.
