xi
Later in the evening, we were back in my cell. Rather, I was in my cell and she was in the doorway, leaning up against the frame. I had written a bit in my journal – a final entry – and set it to expire, so it would delete if no one stumbled across it and read it in the next few weeks. I’d taken a nap too. Naps were a pleasure I would miss, but they weren’t worth living for. Now I was back at my desk and proof-reading the journal on the computer. If you’re going to leave a legacy online, even something as trite and common as a personal journal, it should be well-written.
And now Jane stood there silently, watching me, but not hurrying me. She had changed costume again – she was wearing a black patent minidress, boots, fishnets, and gloves. I thought there might have been a riding crop slipped into one of the boots.
“I have some business tonight,” she said, without warning. “It was already scheduled, and with a regular customer – not an ender, obviously. I may not be back in and fresh until after midnight.”
I looked up at her with a lump in my chest. My room was fine, but only when I knew she was a phone call away. Suddenly the hotel seemed very large and lonely, and my cell foreign and unwelcoming. What’s more, her outfit was for someone else. I knew it was ridiculous to be jealous, but I was.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you alone or lock you in your room, though, and I meant it. Claire’s a good girl. I think you’ll like her – she’s a costume player, like me. If you’re ready, I’ll take you to her room.”
I stood, and without speaking I turned off the computer and slid the chair under the desk. In the elevator, Jane seemed to sense my unease when she threw her arm over my shoulder. She was taller than me again. “I truly am sorry we aren’t able to spend the whole night together, Cupcake, but Claire will take good care of you – I’ve made sure of that. I’ve told her a lot about you too, so I know you’ll have a good time. And don’t forget: I know what I’m talking about. I’m psychic.”
She kissed me behind the ear, and her mouth lingered there, tasting, nibbling, as the elevator stopped and the door opened. Then she turned me toward a trio of doors so much like her floor that the center door could have been hers.
“Claire is on the left.” Jane nodded her head in the direction while she wiped her lipstick from my neck. “She’s already inside, and she’s expecting you, so just go right in. I’ll come find you after midnight. You’re going to have so much fun!”
Then she squeezed my ass and trotted me off the elevator. The door closed behind me, and I could hear all that I knew of the rest of my life whirring away.
With nothing else to do, I crossed glumly to the left door. It was ajar and dark behind, and flished open when I touched the panel. It would have been more ominous if it had creaked, but doors don’t do much creaking anymore. I stepped through and called out, “Hello?”
From the other side of the room, a lively voice replied, “Oh, come on in, Honey. And shut the door behind you!”
I touched the door closed, and heard a mechanism inside snikt into place – another touch on the panel confirmed that it had locked itself out of my control. I was in the room for good now, so I sunk into the deep couch just inside the door. At least the lights had brightened.
Claire’s room had the same basic features as Jane’s – huge, divided into several sitting areas, a kitchenette, a wall of windows looking out over the city, and a large sunken circle framing an enormous bed. The colors and the overall feel were very different, though – the furniture was cut from some lightly varnished wood or painted an antiqued creamy color, and red brick accented the walls, steps, and windowsills. The room was warm, and everything was decorated to match, but it was too large and uncluttered to be cozy. Like Jane’s room, a pair of heavy wooden doors hid in the back corner, but these were open, and light and preening noises drifted from them. And then the voice:
“I’m just taking a moment to touch up; I only got back from the show just now, so I haven’t had time to change. Take off your shoes and go sit at the foot of the bed.”
I stood again, slipped off the sandals, and walked down to the bed. While Jane’s was a huge four-poster with intricately cast head- and foot-boards, Claire’s was equally large but lower to the ground, with tiered mattresses and a cushioned bench perimeter. A white fur rug, far too big to be the real skin of any one animal, stretched out in each direction from the bed. This was a bed designed for rolling off of. I perched on the edge of the bed and watched the doors.
A moment later, she emerged. Flinging the doors wide, she threw her arms out to each side, crossed one leg over the other, and said, “Ta-da!” She was… I wasn’t sure.
She wore a tall top hat with a sequin band and a bright red swallow-tailed tuxedo coat. Beneath the coat was a deep-necked tuxedo halter-top, a shiny red cummerbund, and black satin briefs. Stockings, tall showgirl heels, and a bowtie choker completed the outfit. She clutched a bullwhip in her white-gloved hands.
Beneath the ringmaster getup, she was a beauty of the exotic type, with skin the color of caramel, short black hair in loose curls, deeply dark eyes, and deeply red lips.
She completed her pose and began strutting toward me, one foot in front of the other like a runway model. She tapped the loops of her whip in the palm of her free hand. “Tut, tut, my dear, you’re rather eager to get started. I didn’t tell you to get on the bed yet – I told you to sit at the foot.”
My face must have flushed the color of her coat. Abashed, I slipped from the edge of the bed, down the several terraces, to sit cross-legged in the thick rug on the floor. I tried awkwardly to lean back against the bed for support, but the bottom step of the bed, even padded as it was, hit in an odd spot in the small of my back and left me out of balance.
“Much better.” She caught the bullwhip and rolled the leather between a gloved thumb and finger. “I read your file, you know, before Jane did. I had pulled it, actually, but she has seniority. Pity.” She took the steps down the reverse dais slowly, exploiting the opportunity to show off the length of her legs and the curve her heels gave her. “Do you know what I read in all of your answers?” Her heels stopped and tapped together right in front of me. She locked her knees and bent over, thrusting out her posterior in a cheesecake pose, and lifted my chin with the whip. She didn’t raise my head quite far enough to meet her eyes, just the scooped cleavage that hovered before me. “I read that you’re eager to please, Honey.” She straightened again, and my head stayed angled up. “‘Eager’ is good. I don’t want to have to use this.” She shook the whip, then tossed it over my head to the other side of the bed.
She stepped back from the rug so we could get a better look at each other, then rested her hands on her cocked hips. “See, I’m rather frustrated at the moment. I just got back from running our circus for a group of tourists, and let me tell you, I can put on quite a show.” She wiggled her hips and ran her hands down her thighs. “I start the crowd off, get them all horny and excited, and I keep them there when the ring shows change, but at the end of the night, they always want to leave with the girls in the acts.” She began to pace in front of me as she worked toward the climax of her monolog. “The lionesses and tigresses – they get their prey, the ponygirls get their riders, the clowns their prats, and even the acrobats leave with some balls and pins to juggle, if you follow. All I want is my … one … mark.” She stepped right up to me, a heel on either side of my hips sinking into the fur rug, and she thrust her satin-covered mons up against my face. “Someone to take advantage of. Uhh… mmm.” Her thighs squeezed over my cheeks and chin and she grabbed the back of my head for leverage as she slid down to my chest and up again, using my skull like a dancer’s pole. “Come on, baby, give me something. I need some friction.”
My hands found their way up the back of her legs to cup her ass, and after a few minutes of grinding, groaning, and gasping – of her leg hooked over my shoulder and around my neck to hold me in place – of nearly precarious balancing acts stabilized by a quick grab of her gloved hands, pressing my head ever harder into her, we both found our way back up onto the edge of the bed. My fingers had discovered a hidden snap placed conveniently at the bottom seam of her briefs, and my lips and tongue found no further barriers – instead a rather pressing invitation – behind.
*
Despite her show of force, she rolled under me after her first orgasm, and I undressed us both over the next fifteen minutes, not that undressing was all we did. Only her stockings and one glove managed to stay on until the end, when I lay beside her, panting heavily. I wore only what I brought with me into the world. She stared into my eyes for a long moment, then kissed me on the lips for the first time, holding my face between her fingertips as she rose-budded my nose, my chin, the shape of my lips, tasting herself on me.
She pulled back again to study my face and judge me. “Jane made me promise to take special care of you. I’m not allowed to leave you alone, but she didn’t want me to get too attached, either. So, I think I’ll just keep you so busy that you won’t even know what time it is until she’s here and it’s time to leave.” She lifted herself to her hands and knees and crouched over me. “Now, I don’t think you’ll be ready to go again for another couple of hours, but I don’t have that problem, see.” She pulled off the remaining glove, one finger at a time. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a lot of frustration to work out, you know. And, Honey, you’re just what I need to help me do it.”
