Andi turned toward me and gave a little shrug when the performers left the stage. “Meh. That wasn’t so bad.”
I licked my teeth, then chuckled. “Alright. I’ll admit you handled that better than expected.”
Andi gave me a wide-eyed, innocent look. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I figured you’d make an excuse, run out of here, or maybe even slap me when you saw what was going to happen.”
“Oh. I mean, as soon as I saw the shape of the handle of that whip, I was like, ‘that’s totally going in her ass.’ So, it actually was less dirty than I imagined. Come on, right? Whip in the old coocher? That’s hardly a scandal.” Her eyes flicked across my face, then she flashed a crooked smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re smiling. Or maybe you’re constipated… Did you have the shrimp, too?”
“The first one,” I said. “And you know, it’s almost creepy how much you remind me of your grandfather.” She really did, even though there wasn’t a drop of blood relating the two of them.
“Like… physically speaking? Or do you mean my personality.”
My eyes fell to her chest and the lean shape of her body, which was clad in her aggressively conservative outfit. For what felt like the tenth time that night, I imagined how good it would feel to peel her out of it, layer by layer. “Your personality.”
“Anyway,” Andi started, “I’m up way past my bedtime. So, as fun as this has been, I’m going to just head back up to an empty room and call it a night.” She stood and bobbed off in the completely wrong direction.
In fact, she was heading toward the orgy room. And some legacy members of the club were scheduled for that room tonight. “Uh, Andi,” I said, taking a step toward her.
“Nope. I’m not interested in watching any more weird shows tonight. I need to sleep that one off, thank you very much,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing around a corner.
I stopped and waited with crossed arms and a smile.
It was a minute later before she returned, walking more stiffly and with much wider eyes. “That was the wrong way.” The quiet, stiff tone of her voice made the situation immensely more amusing.
“Why don’t you let me walk you out.”
Andi nodded, and for the first time since I’d met her, she didn’t seem to have much to say.5AndiBree paused with the nail polish bottle in one hand and the brush in another. “You’re making that up,” she said, eyes wide.
I shook my head. “I wish I was.” I’d just finished filling her in on the details of last night, concluding with the optical abuse of whatever the hell had been going on in that dark, smelly room. I shuddered at the memory. Until that room, every single man I’d seen had been sculpted and near perfect. That room. It had apparently been senior night, and those seniors were all very… Lively. It was like stumbling into a room full of humping rabbits in heat, only the rabbits were hairless, wrinkled, and one was loudly asking if anyone had seen its dentures.
Bree leaned in a little. “Are you okay? It looks like you’re going to be sick.”
“I saw things, Bree. Things no human eyes were meant to see.”
“You’re exaggerating, though. Right?”
I pointed to my face. “Does this look like the face of somebody who didn’t walk in on a room full of grandmas and grandpas playing hide the sausage?”
Bree thought about that. “Well, good for them. Just because they’re older, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to enjoy themselves.”
I sighed. “That’s not the point. They can have all the fun they want. I just don’t want to have to see it. Maybe when I’m eighty, I’ll have had the time to prepare my brain for something like that.”
“You’re terrible. I mean, I do hope they were being careful. That sounds like a recipe for somebody to get hurt.”
I laughed. “They all looked surprisingly limber, actually. Not that I stuck around long enough to see who could touch their toes and who couldn’t.”
“And what about Landon?”
“What about him?”
“I mean, didn’t the thought cross your mind? This whole situation would be perfect if you wanted to date him.”
I laughed. “This isn’t exactly the ideal start for a successful relationship. Besides, he…” I shook my head. I was going to say he hated my guts, but that wasn’t entirely true. He was trying to hate my guts, but I’d seen enough to suspect those feelings were forced. “Just no,” I said. “The whole experience was way, way too weird. I just need some time to process everything before I go back there. If, I go back.” Except I knew I was going to. I kept thinking about the way he’d rested his leg against me during the show in the Red Room. It had felt like he was somehow claiming me—daring me to move away. But I hadn’t. I’d sat there, letting the dirty thrill of it fill me and warm my belly until I had been uncomfortably excited.