My eyes adjusted. Against a wall was a St. Andrew’s Cross. A woman in lingerie was spread and cuffed to each leg of the X; ared silk blindfold covered her eyes. Three men in suits stood in front of her.
Off to the side, a different woman in a long black dress stood with a tall, dark-haired man. She turned.
Jayne.
She raised her champagne flute with a wink.
“Okay, ready,” a man said.
Tied to the woman’s thigh was a wand vibrator, but I couldn’t hear its loud buzz over the sudden burst of rhythmic techno music. Heavy percussion pulsed through the space, and I felt the strong bass as a hum in my chest.
“Again,” one of the men said.
I faintly heard the door close behind me. One of the men was writing something down in a notebook. Another adjusted the vibrator, and the woman writhed in ecstasy or torment or both—it was hard to tell.
She began to call out letters, one after the other.
“What is she saying?”
Before Hector could answer, a different voice beat him to it. “Stocks. She’s listing stocks.”
I turned to glare at Wes, who only glared right back. A few other attendees had come in with him, surveying the mostly empty space. Various pieces of kinky furniture and implements were displayed, unused.
Shaking my head, I found myself walking away from both men, toward the mysterious circle of people extracting stocks from an orgasming woman.
Jayne greeted me with a sly smile. “Nova, I’m so pleased to see you. This is my husband, Archer.”
Archer was classically handsome, with a strong nose, hooded eyelids, and dark hair that fell lazily onto his forehead. It was long enough to give him a spiritual flare, perfect for a cult co-leader.
“So… what exactly is going on here?” I asked, ignoring the sudden heat from a body close to mine. I willed myself to appear unbothered and curious rather than so completely out of my element, it felt like I was dreaming.
I wasn’t sure it was working.
“Wes,” Archer greeted warmly. Something briefly flashed in his eyes—almost like shock or awe, but with a tinge of hunger.
They’d clearly already met, perhaps after I’d left the orientation. Wes nodded at him.
“They’re inducing a trance-like state,” Jayne answered, her gaze sweeping from me to Wes to the nearly convulsing woman on the cross. “Trances have been used by our ancestors since the beginning of time to transcend the body and enter the realm of the spirit. By way of music, rhythm, pain, dance, ecstasy, meditation, drugs… the methods are endless, and there’s a wealth of healing and extrasensory potential. This is just one way.”
“She’s on drugs?” I asked.
“No,” Jayne said firmly. “She’s astral traveling through pleasure. Her high comes purely from the chemical cocktail created by her own mind.”
“Okay. So this kinky shamanic ritual is being performed in order to… predict the stock market?” I asked.
“Are you the SEC?” Archer joked with a charming smile.
I laughed with them, even as a voice in my mind whispered in a high-pitched tone,what the fuck?
Wes wasn’t laughing. “Hypnosis is another useful tool, erotic or otherwise,” he said nonchalantly, his gaze moving back to the cross.
“Is this one of your specialties?” Archer asked him. “I know many of us would be eager to learn.”
Wes nodded. “It is.”
He made no offer to share his knowledge, but he did finally grace us with the smallest of smiles. I stared at his lips, the hard planes of his face in the dim light.
Archer’s eyes flashed again, like they were playing some unspoken game I wasn’t privy to.Hypnosis. Wes liked… hypnotizing people. My imagination went wild before I could stop it. This was all so strange and sinister and—wait a damn minute. We had moved on far too quickly from the orgasm oracle.
