And the dye, however it worked, meant she wasn’t wearing makeup. No itchy feeling, no crackling as it dried. No worries of it rubbing off.
She looked like she was on fire, in the full-length mirror. Flames licked up her legs, across her mound and up her stomach.
And with her red hair all wild behind her head, and the horns artfully placed to seem real — she looked like a demon birthed from a volcano. Or Hell, she supposed.
Rhea was fully dyed as well, but Felix’s arms were dyed, and his legs from the knees down. Also, his balls and dick, so it looked as if his balls were on fire and the flames crawled up his cock. The rest of him was a blank canvas, and she understood he’d be painted in whip and cane marks by the end of the evening.
Rhea’s hair was totally French braided, her horns straight, where Emmy’s were curved.
Felix was rock hard, and she could hear a vibrating toy. She turned him around and saw a plug.
“I told them I could stay hard while they worked on me,” Felix told her. “But they said protocol required it, and that it has to stay in until a vampire takes it out.”
She turned him back around to look at his face, because the makeup artist had gone all out with him — winged eyeliner all thick and dramatic, thick and long fake eyelashes, a deep burgundy lipstick, and contour that made him look emo and pain-drenched before the evening started. He was starkly beautiful.
“I look completely ridiculous,” he told her.
“You look like a sex god in…” she shook her head. “What was the movie with John Travolta dancing in the show with whips and smoke?”
He grinned. “Ohhh.Staying Alive.I’ll take it.”
“I’m gonna go lube my asshole,” Rhea said, looking at Emmy. “You should come do so as well. I advise you to overdo it.”
The three headed to the edge of the room, and the two women lubed their own assholes, used baby wipes to clean their hands, and then made their way up one flight toLe Bacchanal Ballroom Magnifique— and then just stood inside the door and stared.
Red light bathed everything in a lush, decadent wash, as if the room itself had been soaked in blood. Torches burned in sconces along the curved outer walls, their flames tall and elegant, smoke-free, casting flickering shadows that made the already-Baroque details seem alive. Deep metal bowls sat on heavy, low tables scattered throughout, fire flickering above stones, long tongues stretching up and dancing.
The columns, all Corinthian grandeur, had been modified with blackened steel hardware, turning classical beauty into diabolical whipping posts.
Everywhere she looked, she was reminded this opening night was all about sadistic excess: a half-dozen pillories in a circle, so people in them could watch others being fucked and hurt, St. Andrew’s crosses scattered around the room, wooden ponies with ropes ready to bind victims onto them, bondage tables in sleek black and blood red.
Whips, straps, canes, and floggers were strewn around the room, draped over equipment and coiled on tables. Cages of varying sizes were scattered around the room, many barely big enough for a human to stand, so there’d beno way to sit, but one in particular, low to the ground and shaped like a Halloween cat, looked designed to painfully bend the spine of anyone forced inside.
But it was the sound that set her off even more than the visuals: a low, thrumming bass. She felt it in her bones, a pulse beneath the skin. Her clit throbbed in time with the rhythm like her body knew it was being summoned. Her nipples tightened. Her breath shortened.
This wasn’t just atmosphere, it wasn’t just a setting. It was beyond theater — an infernal Hell waiting for the sadists and masochists.
The handbook said it was a playground for the richest vampires on the planet. She’d thought she understood what it meant, but this was more than she’d expected.
Felix touched her back, then put his arm around her. “It’s supposed to be scary before you even get into the room,” he told her. “Anticipation that’s both dread and lustful cravings. You’ll enjoy watching the rest of us being hurt, knowing you’re safe. It’ll be fine.”
A vampire dressed in a black skinsuit stepped forward with a tablet, scrolling through. “Level one, you’ll start the night in a standing cage. Find one and stand beside it. Level two, let’s put you in a pillory. And for you, Mister Three, go stand beside a wooden pony.” He glanced at his watch. “Twelve minutes until the vampires begin arriving. Someone’ll get you strapped on or locked in before then.”
She found a standing cage, and if they aimed her the right way, she’d be able to watch a great deal of what was going on around her.
Within a few minutes, a girl in a black skinsuit who smelled of bear opened the cage and motioned her in. Emmy stepped in, facing the way she wanted, and the girl closed it and then reached down to flip a latch Emmy wouldn’t be able to reach. Effectively locking her in.
Wide metal pieces bit into her chest, pressing her boobs flat, so flesh bulged out obscenely between them. She felt bars pressing into her back, and the tops of her arms were compressed tight, pinning her arms to her sides.
She wasn’t just caged, she was held still by the iron bars, or maybe they were steel made to look like iron. Her entire body was trapped, standing straight with no way to move or to find relief. She couldn’t even stretch and arch her back.
And the sound coming from what had to be bass speakers under or directly on the floor threatened to undo her. A low, slow throb under her feet, a beat she felt in her bones, her teeth — and especially her clit.
When the vampires arrived, it was as if a horde had escaped from Hell. Some wore strappy leather, others in torn mesh. Many in skinsuits with holes to allow access to genitals. A few in body paint. Many wore horns as part of exotic headdresses.
A tall, lithe female vampire was literally draped in rubies around her neck, waist, wrists, and ankles — and Emmy figured they were all real.
Zander entered with massive wings folded behind his back, graceful tips rising high above his head. He moved to a clear patch of floor, and with a slow, deliberate grace, his wings unfurled — black feathers stretching wide andmajestic. He wore nothing but towering boots, and his cock stood thick and tall, hard as carved obsidian.
