1
“Where did you hear about this place again?” I ask my best friend as we pull into the parking lot of Club Deep. It doesn’t look like a club. It just looks…like a building. Possibly an abandoned one. But maybe that’s the point? I don’t know.
Cosette shrugs as she puts the car in park. “I just heard some people talking about it the other day.”
“At another club?”
“At another club.”
I stifle the sigh that’s aching to come out of me. Cosette is a party girl. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I worry when she goes out without me. I’ve had one too many drunken phone calls asking for a rescue. So my expectations for this club are low. It’s probably not even really a club, just some indie place that’s trying to get started and will disappear off the map as quickly as it appeared. But really it doesn’t matter. Cosette isn’t just my best friend, she’s basically all I have left. She’s been family for longer than I can remember, and it’s felt like more than that since my parents died. If she wants me to go with her to a club, I’m going to go.
Cosette is taking her time, fixing her make-up. Even longer than normal. “Are you meeting someone I don’t know about?”
“No,” she says way too quickly.
I fight to keep from rolling my eyes. I love her, and I will go to as many clubs as she wants, but I’m just about over getting there and being dumped for some guy she’s actually meeting.
“I’m really not meeting anyone, Libby. Let’s go.”
Autumn coolness is just now starting to set in, and I rub my arms, wishing I had worn something a little warmer. These pants are skin tight and thin, and the shirt reveals my stomach. I was going for sexy, but I think I should have opted for warmth. I just hope the temperature is better inside.
A security guard checks our IDs, and Cosette hands him a piece of paper. Did we have to have tickets to get in here? “Downstairs at the main bar,” he tells her.
The entrance is dark, but already I can hear thumping bass coming from down the stairs. Swirling lights curl up the steps to meet us, and the sounds of a crowd filter to us through the music. A loud cheer goes up just as I step onto the main floor, and my jaw drops.
The club is way bigger than I thought, multiple levels and balconies obvious as I look up. Three bars circle the main dance floor, which is packed with people. Cages are stationed around and hang just above the dance floor, each with its own sexy dancer. But all of that isn’t what makes my jaw drop. It’s what’s along the outer edges of the club. In areas lit up with spotlights, people are having sex. Like, actual sex. And not just that, kinky sex. The kind you only read about in bed under the covers where absolutely no one can see you. Every pairing that I can think of. A man is kneeling before a woman with her hands bound above her head, and I can see his tongue thrusting into her. A pair of men hold a woman between them and they’re both inside her at the same time. Heat runs through me, and I keep my eyes moving. Things I never thought I’d see in real life are here—someone being flogged and looking like they love it, a screaming woman orgasming as her partner uses a vibrator on her. Blood rushes to my cheeks and I look away from a woman who’s bent over a bench and being pounded into from behind.
Cosette grabs my hand and starts to pull me across the dance floor. I pull her back. “This is a sex club.”
“Good observation, Sherlock,” she smirks at me.
“Did you know?”
She just nods, pulling me along with her again. I’m too stunned to protest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
We reach the biggest of the three bars and she gives me a look I know all too well. “Because, Libby, if you had known, you wouldn’t have come.”
“I might have,” I say defensively. But we both know she’s right. On any given day I would rather be at home than at a club, and knowing this was a sex club would have given me the perfect ammunition to bow out. I sigh. “Okay, fine. But I’m here now. Even though I don’t understand why.”
Cosette suddenly looks away, fidgeting like she’s nervous. Then she takes a breath and points behind me. At the end of the bar there’s a high stage with dancers, and a sign ‘Dancer auditions here.’