“Are we in a brothel?” I whisper. “Where’s the cab driver?”
Sal shakes his head in disbelief. “Do you know him or something?” he asks. I shake my head back, dragging my feet as he takes hold of my arm and starts hauling me up a sweeping mahogany staircase, toward the source of the screaming and moaning.
“Then why do you care?” he asks. “He’s fine. He’s in the trunk of the cab. Once this is all over, I’ll send him home with his car and he’ll. Be. Fine.”
“Huh,” I huff, secretly glad I’m not in the trunk of a cab.
The moaning reaches fever pitch as the voice screams out, “Sal! Get this thing out of my pussy!”
I almost choke when I hear what she’s said. I look at Sal, whose cheeks are so, so red they might as well have been lit on fire. He clears his throat, looking nervous as we reach the top of the stairs.
I have a feeling that things are about to get even more fucked up.
And, sure enough, I’m right.
We enter a large bedroom at the top of the stairs, and I finally see the source of all the noise. It’s a nice bedroom as far as rooms go, but it smells … it smells like piss. There’s a large bed against one wall, an impressive four-poster affair. Oh, yeah, and there’s a chick lying—tied—to each bedpost, stark naked, a giant black vibrator stuck up her … well, you know.
“You motherfucking motherfucker!” the chick screams at Sal, her eyes wild, her face smeared with old makeup. I look at Sal, who appears hopelessly lost.
“Katya,” he says awkwardly. “You’re still here?”
The chick looks like she’s about to pop a blood vessel. The moaning and breathing is so loud, and it’s not coming from her. I scan the room, my eyes landing upon a large flat-screen television hanging on the wall, with porn playing loudly.
“You fucking tied me up!” she screams, rattling the ropes on her wrists to make her point.
“I did sailors’ knots,” he says. “I thought you knew how to undo them.”
She just glares at him.
I’m still transfixed by the bizarre situation when Sal takes my elbow and leads me past the bed, shoving me down into a chair. I don’t struggle until I see a length of rope appear in his hands—the same rope securing Miss Porn Star to the bed.
“Oh, no fucking way, buddy!” I protest, pulling my hands away. “I’m not letting you do that to me!”
Sal responds by covering my mouth and nose with his large palm, pinching my nose shut and sealing off my mouth so I can’t breathe.
Really, again? That’s what I want to say, but obviously I can’t since I’m silenced by his hand, not to mention on the verge of passing the fuck out again. I kick his shins with my cheap work shoes, pummel his face with my fists, but it’s no use. He had the jump on me, and I’m clearly not at my best, the first pains of needing one of those magic white pills starting to eat into my bones. My eyes start to flutter closed and all the fight goes out of me as I slump forward against Sal’s hard chest. I’m still hovering on the edge of consciousness, but it’s like I’m drunk, my limbs heavy and clumsy as I attempt to push him away. It’s useless, though. By the time he takes his hand away and I can suck in a great lungful of air, I’m tied to this stupid chair.
“Sal!” the chick on the bed screams. I catch another acidic whiff as I’m desperately filling my lungs, and, yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure she pissed the bed.
SIX
THEO
Blonde. Curves. Legs up to her goddamn armpits. Tits blatantly on show for me. The woman standing on the other side of the door is sex personified. Normally I get hard just looking at her, but not now. Not when there’s a belligerent Gracie O’Connor standing behind me, just waiting for an opportunity to kick my ass, and I can’t fucking find my tearaway brother.
Shandi pouts, shoving out her chest. “Luca said you came up here,” she informs me in that husky voice of hers. “You said you’d come find me when you got back, baby. What are you doing up here all alone?”
So Luca told her I was up here but he failed to mention I wasn’t alone. I could kiss the man. Shandi and I aren’t together but I don’t think she’d mind it if we were. I would, though. Bitch is crazy. “I just needed to make a phone call. It’s private up here, is all,” I say.