Page 59 of He Hate Me

“I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with our other mystery.”

“How could it?

“I don’t understand any of this shit,” I lie. It’s only a partial lie. I know why Devin’s obsessed with security—it’s because of Anton. But why Deja’s mother has been lying to her? No idea. God, I want this to be over so I can get the hell out of this house and stop lying to Deja. Maybe I’m overly optimistic to think she’ll still want to be with me when she knows everything, but I have to try. I don’t want to keep lying to her, but until my mission is complete, I have no choice.

Twenty-Two

Deja

Ithought I was accustomed to rich people shit. I mean places like the Asterburg mansion don’t faze me anymore. After a few months at Briarwood and seeing some of my friends’ houses, I decided my house was nice, but those bigger houses with movie screening rooms and fountains and statuary were what rich people lived in. Never mind they were all built in the last thirty years and the appointments weren’t necessarily as grand as you’d expect from looking at the outside of the house, this was still it. I imagined celebrities like Oprah and Rihanna living in houses like that. And then I drive through the gate of Rourke van der Hoff’s estate and I see how rich people really live.

The driveway to Rourke’s mansion winds through a thicket of trees. Maple and oak flank the road, their leaves a riot of orange, red and gold. I catch glimpses of manicured gardens through the trees. Symmetrical flowerbeds are dotted with the last blooms of annuals about to face their deaths at winter’s hand. My mind supplies the soundtrack, something like Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen prelude.

The circular driveway is lined with boxwood hedges and stone benches. As we pull up, I see Rourke descend the stone steps from tall mirror-like glass doors, through which I see scrolling ironwork. The ironwork pattern is repeated in the fanlight and more subtly on the iron and frosted glass awning above the door.

I step out of the car and can’t help but gawk at the size and grandeur of Rourke’s home. The mansion is constructed of white brick and limestone, the latter giving the building a soft yellow hue. Rourke bounds down the steps wearing an ugly AF sweatsuit that I’m sure costs hundreds of dollars. His hair is mussed, and his eyes red as a demon’s.

“I’m going to scream like a girl,” Rourke says, dapping Brandon. “Deja Marcus is at my house.” He fans himself with his hands the way girls do when they’re meeting a hot celebrity.

“I didn’t come here to be mocked, van der Hoff,” I say, with mock seriousness.

“Oh, I know why you came here.” He chuckles knowingly. “Come on inside.”

“Can I just leave my car there.”

“Of course. Butler can move it for you if needed.”

“You have a butler?”

“Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head. “His name is Kyle Butler. I guess you could call him a household manager. He wears a lot of hats around here. We only have him and Selena—she’s the housekeeper—as permanent staff.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he says, leading us through the door.

I have to wonder if Rourke van der Hoff owns a dictionary. Of all the words that could describe what I’m seeing, humble is not one of them. A gallery runs from one end of the house to the other, lined with eight-foot-tall windows. Each one is dressed with ivory and gold silk brocade drapes. The flooring is some kind of dark stone, polished to a sheen. There’s an enormous marble-topped, gilt console table along the wall and above it a gigantic mirror with a fussy gilt frame. Oversize stone urns scattered at regular intervals serve as plant pots for small palm and citrus trees. Through the double doors nearest to me is a room with the same grayish-black stone floors and a light-colored Persian rug. Beyond it I can see another room with a polished wood spiral staircase and a dazzling chandelier.

I could go on like this for a long time describing the inside of Rourke’s house, but my point is that Rourke lives in a house that could be a museum or hotel. It’s that lavish, that perfectly styled. It even smells good, like someone sprayed orange blossom scent in every room.

“Did you get the package I had delivered here?” Brandon asks, speaking for the first time since our arrival.

“Yeah,” Rourke says. “It’s in your room.”

“I’m going to go check on it,” Brandon says.

“Can I give you a tour?” Rourke asks.

“Sure.” As Rourke’s guest I need to be polite and do whatever he asks within reason. He is doing us a favor, provided I get mentally comfortable enough to actually take my clothes off in a schoolmate’s house.

The house has 8 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, plus a library, two dining rooms, conservatory, formal living room, kitchen and so on. It would take him all afternoon to show me the whole thing, so he just hits the most important ones—like the kitchen and the powder room. He tells me we can come join him on the third floor if we want to chat and takes me to the room Brandon uses.

The room is as large and lavish as everything else in this house. A king-size fourposter with brocade bed covers, a seating area, a walk-in closet, a marble-lined ensuite with separate tub and shower. I thought my bedroom was big; you could play soccer in here. Brandon doesn’t look up when I come in, his attention focused on several red objects spread across the bed. When I get close enough to see what he’s looking at, I freeze. I can recognize most of the objects: rope, a gag, two sets of leather cuffs, something that looks like a feather duster, a riding crop, a blindfold, and a tasseled whip-thing. There are a few other pieces I don’t recognize. Everything is made of leather-like material except for a small piece of jewelry.

“Surprise,” he says, smiling at me over his shoulder. I smile back nervously. He said he wouldn’t go so easy on me the next time we were together, but I wasn’t prepared for a full on BDSM experience.

“Um, okay.”

He cocks his head to the side looking disappointed by what he reads on my face. There’s an angry energy around him, an intensity that I wish I knew the source of. It’s not aimed at me, but I can still sense how strong it is. He was carefree and happy yesterday; today his smiles never reach his eyes. He wants something from me, I can tell. This is how he is before he starts one of those coercive episodes. I step back involuntarily. He shakes his head and starts putting the objects back into a cardboard box.

“Are we okay?” I ask, my voice wavering more than I would like.