This information did not surprise me.
Wait a damn minute.
“Last holiday party?” I repeated. “I thought Maisy only ascended this summer…”
Both women exchanged a look. “Girl, nooo. Maisy has been Jayne’s lapdog since opening night.”
It was their turn at coat check, which ended our conversation but left me reeling all over again. I ran through each interaction I’d had with Maisy since I’d entered The Circle. The way she’d guided me along, told me how everything worked, what rules to follow, pushed me in specific ways—toward Archer and Jayne, towardRoman.
“Password?” my auburn-haired nemesis asked, irritation in her tone.
“Eyes wide open,” I said, shrugging out of my coat and handing her my phone.
The moment it was in her hands, it felt like I’d crossed some grand point of no return. I was on my own now.
“Just you?” she asked casually, cruel humor dancing in her eyes. “No Just Wes?”
I plopped my socks and nasty sneakers stained with dark subway matter and road debris right down on the desk in front of her. Her smirk fell, and she glowered at the sneakers and socks with alarmed disgust.
“Yep, just me,” I chirped with a wide smile. “Have a great night!”
Now bare in my lacey slip and silver heels, goosebumps erupted on my skin.
“Right this way, Nova,” said a friendly volunteer I vaguely recognized. “Welcome to the winter wonderland.”
When he opened the doors to the nave, a dark wooden barrier stood before me, blocking me from continuing. In the center was a large wardrobe.
I stared for another three seconds, processing, before I sighed and stepped forward. When I opened the wardrobe, I wasmet with a couple fur coats hanging on a rack and another door in the back. Voices floated from beyond the portal.
I stepped into the wardrobe, opened the second door, and slipped into The Circle’s world between worlds.
The first thing I saw was Santa Claus sodomizing a reindeer.
47
NOVA
Fake snow dusted the ground, and the space was decorated with faux icicles, garlands, ribbons, candles, real ice sculptures—all illuminated by thousands of tiny lights hung around the space. Tchaikovsky’sThe Nutcrackerplayed softly through hidden speakers.
In the sanctuary, below the stained-glass windows, ballet dancers—nude except for their classical tutus and pointe shoes—performed on a wooden dais. Their skin shimmered, adorned with tiny jewels that reflected the light.
Chills crawled down my spine. The Christmas décor and the pews took me back to Tennessee, where Christmas was more about endlessly proving one’s holiness through impossible, excruciating tests than it was about celebration or togetherness.
No, in Pastor Roy Carter’s town, community was a façade, and everyone was out for themselves. My parents would’ve sacrificed me in an instant if it meant they’d be marked safe for the second coming.
Theyhadsacrificed me. Lorelei too.
My gaze swept from the ethereal beauty in the sanctuary back to Santa Claus.
A small group of voyeurs had gathered around Santa’s spectacle beside a fake chimney, where a woman wearing antlers and heavy red blush on her nose arched her back and took a candy cane dildo up her ass.
She moaned, and the SantaHo-Ho-Hoed theatrically, drawing quiet laughter from the onlookers.
I blinked. Well, at least I was no longer reflecting upon my childhood trauma.
I turned away to explore the rest of the massive space, scanning for Lorelei. One man was bent over a pew, taking a harsh whipping from a woman dressed as Krampus. She was perhaps the same Domme who’d been humbling finance bros at the Midsummer party while dressed as a clown.
In another alcove, Capricorn was tying up a blindfolded woman with ribbon and teasing her with a feather wand as she giggled. When she saw me, she smiled warmly and winked before focusing back on her play partner.
