“Authenticity is resistance to the new world order. Letting flesh be flesh, spirit be spirit—these are radical acts that cannot be taken from us. Blood and marrow and sex and soil, the impregnation of both the body and soul—these things arereal. Creation and communion are what we can always return to when the world goes dark. We weather the storm together. By conquering our fears, freeing ourselves from all limitation imposed upon us by outside forces, and embracing our innermost selves.”
As her rich imagery washed over me, I thought ofblue light time.Sitting with my roommates in the dark, our faces illuminated by our screens. Laughing but not explaining why. Physically close yet worlds apart.
I frowned and looked down at my plate.
“This world wants us as lonely as possible. Our salvation comes from opposite action. They want us to put up distance. We will come as close as possible instead.”
Archer stood, grabbed his wife, and kissed her as if in the heat of passion. Their lips collided, and his teeth tugged on her bottom lip as he grabbed her ass and finished with a playful smile.
When he finally pulled away, his voice was a low growl. “Let’s eat.”
The table clapped for them. Other servers milled about, refilling drinks and catering to the attendees still mingling on the other side of the room. Some of the servers were dressed normally, others in various states of undress. A few had collars around their necks, and the split was about seventy-thirty, women to men.
“My wife is so fucking hot,” Archer said, taking his first bite of meat.
“What—other than co-owning a BDSM dungeon—keeps the spark alive?” I asked.
Jayne glanced at me with an amused curve of her lips. “Polarity.”
I tilted my head. I had a general understanding of the word, but I assumed there was a deeper, cultier meaning she was referencing.
“It’s not about biological sex,” Archer said, sipping his whiskey. “It’s aboutenergy.Jayne’s natural state is unapologetically feminine, and it’s my responsibility to keep her there by embodying my truest divine masculine.”
“Together, we’re magic,” Jayne added. “Two expressions of divinity coming together in perfect wholeness.”
I swallowed a bite of beef and suppressed a moan. Unfortunately, their primal, bloody sex meat was actually really good.
The divine masculine and divine feminine spiritual babble was not nearly as convincing, but I smiled and nodded anyway. I could only assume the pregnant women were connected to all of this, and that really freaked me out.
Jayne and Archer were seductive, that was for sure. I could see how Lorelei, someone who yearned for novelty and connection above all else, would’ve easily been pulled into Jayne’s magnetic orbit. I’d noticed the same language I was hearing now from The Circle coming from Lorelei’s VidWave content long before she started withdrawing.
It was inevitable that her social media algorithms would eventually lead her here, but why in the hell hadmine?
I’d managed to fight the urge to find Wes for an impressively long time, but I caved the moment I saw the nude servant girl beelining for him.
Our eyes locked. He smirked, and I swore I could read his sarcasm from across the table. Like me, he was skeptical of every word Jayne said. I could almost hear him making witty commentary in that low, warm tone of his, the same tone that sent tingles down my spine when his body was close.
The woman with the paddled ass bent to whisper in his ear.
Wes’s gaze on me never wavered. His lips moved, but I couldn’t read them or hear what he said over the table’s chatter.
Nor did I want to know. I quickly averted my eyes and focused on the conversation happening closest to me.
“My dance card is almost full, but find me at the end of the night, and we can negotiate something,” Archer said to a woman across the table.
The woman was Indian, with a glossy, shoulder-length haircut and big bright eyes entirely absorbed in Archer’s charm. Her delicate features were demure as she nodded and sipped her red wine.
“Of course,” she said. “Lucky dancers.”
She was clearly flirting, but I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Swing dancing, maybe? I glanced at Jayne.
She wasn’t bothered. In fact, she radiated as much vibrant, sensual energy as when Archer had kissed her. Her attention swept from the woman to her husband before landing decisively on me.
“You don’t drink, Nova?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’m not sober or anything, I just… don’t.”
Lorelei had drunk enough for the both of us when she was around, and watching what that much drinking and consumption of other substances had done to her sucked the fun out of it for me. Not that partying had ever done much for me to begin with. A part of me was always put off by the idea of notbeing fully in control. I was terrified of what I might let slip, who I might reach for, or what I might ask them to do.
