“Oh my God.” Rachel stopped in her tracks, not that anybody could hear her gasp above the blaring rock cover of “Dirty Dancer.” The whole bottom floor spread out an entire city block, housing both tucked away booths illuminated only by votive, diamond-studded candles and brightly lit stage areas surrounded by beautiful – and not so beautiful, but still rich enough – drunk socialites. Nobody threw cash in a place like that. Each stage was lined with small machines that guests could either swipe their credit cards through or punch in their member number to have their tips put on their tabs. “Wow!”
Zack wasn’t kidding. There were fabulous tits – everywhere.
The women on stage, ripping off their clothes to the shouts of delight and waving black AmExes. Women walking around in sheer lingerie that left nothing to the imagination. The young and old alike, who had no shame when the men they were with asked them to show a little more skin. Rachel had a plunging neckline that had made her self-conscious when she stepped out of the cab. Now she wondered if she was too covered.
“What do you think?” Zack shouted over the music and the laughter surrounding them. “Wild, huh?”
“Now I know what you do every Friday night!”
“I’ve only been here twice before!”
Now that Rachel couldn’t believe.
Tatiana didn’t bother trying to communicate to them using her mouth. She used elaborate gestures that got them through the crowds and to a secluded table on the far side of the room. It was a little quieter there, so she said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can get you two.” She knelt beside the table once the guests were seated. “Anything.” She winked at Zack.
He must have sensed Rachel tensing up next to him. “A room won’t be necessary yet, thank you,” he said. “But I’ll take a whisky sour and she’ll…”
“A rum and Coke, please.”
“Bacardi or Captain Morgan?”
Rachel inhaled a deep breath. She was getting better at playing games. “Havana Club.”
Tatiana nodded, impressed. “I’ve got an exquisite bottle that’s a nice and ripe fifteen years old.”
“Sounds great.”
The hostess slipped away into the crowd.
“You’re going to drink my wallet dry, girl.” Zack leaned back in the booth, his silk shirt wrinkling against his abs. Hello, handsome.
“You’re a billionaire. You can afford it.”
“So I give you this nice dress and bring you to this nice club and suddenly you’re an expensive date?”
“Duh?”
Zack continued to grin. “You could’ve sprung for more expensive than Havana Club.”
“It was the most expensive rum I could think of.”
“You’re testing me, huh?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Zack slung his arm around her shoulders, bringing her head closer to his as they crashed forward against the table. His other arm swung out before them, gesturing to half the attendees making fools of themselves with drink and sex. “What do you think? Know anyone here? Because I went to Winchester Academy with half of these bitches and bastards.”
At least Rachel knew that Winchester Academy was the super expensive, super exclusive private school on the outskirts of town. Legend was that ninety percent of the kids who went there were from families worth millions – and more. The other ten percent were the scholarship charity cases in way over their heads. Of course you went there, Zack. Was probably the star art student of his grade – because it was the only school around that could afford to have the arts!
“Nope. Can’t say I recognize a single soul.”
“Shame. There’s already three tabloid scandals waiting to break out in here. You know, assuming anyone in here would dare leak shit to the paps.”
“You never know. I might.”
She meant it as a joke, but Zack shook his head and said, “All those NDAs you signed say they could sue your ass for a million dollars. They’ll do it, too.”
“Good thing I’ve got you to pay my legal fees for me.”
“Ha!”
Rachel leaned in closer. “So, anyone in here I should know?”
Zack perused the room again. “I went to college with that guy over there.” He pointed out his old frat brother James Merange and his tragically gorgeous blond girlfriend Gwen. The usually confident, boisterous woman was uncharacteristically quiet tonight as she stood beside her boyfriend while they talked with an older pair Zack only somewhat recognized. “He and his girlfriend are well-known names in the local kink scene.”
“There’s a local kink scene? For rich people?”
“What do you think rich people do with their time? Knit?”
Rachel laughed. “You don’t seem super kinky to me. Something you wanna share?”
“No. Not really into it.” One of the reasons Zack didn’t come to this place – besides, as he explained, having to adhere to the ridiculous dress code and dealing with people he usually wasn’t in the mood to see – was because it catered heavily to kinksters and swingers. Zack could only take so many stage shows of men having their balls electrocuted before he had to go home. “Been put off it by knowing some real assholes into the scene. I’d rather not associate.”
“Assholes?” Rachel believed him, but everyone was in such a good mood tonight that she couldn’t imagine them being anything but jovial to any pair walking through the doors. Is there some kind of hierarchy that Zack hasn’t bothered to get himself into? Zack definitely wasn’t the kind to kiss ass, unless he thought it was going to get him laid. “Like what kind? Abuse?”
“Hmm.” Zack kept his eyes on a pair on the far side of the room. “Let’s not get into it. We should be having fun.”
Rachel followed his gaze in time for Tatiana to return with their drinks. They toasted and knocked back a few gulps, Rachel instantly regretting it. I drink way too much around this guy! She had drunk more since knowing Zack than she had in her whole life! A woman could only build up so much tolerance in that amount of time.
But the more she drank, the sillier the club became. Women in leather dancing onstage? Men leading around their best girlfriends in leashes? Women in crazy boots putting on masks and making shirtless guys swoon? What else was going on in there?
“Lots of sex,” Zack responded.
“Really?”
“This is only the front end of the club. In the back, where all the real VIPs are, I guarantee you there’s more fuckin’ than, uh…”
“Than what?”
“I totally forgot what I was going to say.”
Rachel took his glass away from him. “Think you’ve had enough to drink tonight.”
“Aaah, I’ll be sober enough before you know it.”
When Tatiana asked them if they wanted another round of drinks – no doubt she got a commission for each one – Rachel ordered a sparkling water on their behalf. Tatiana walked away with a clenched jaw. No more commissions for her.
“Let’s get up and do something!” They needed to walk off some of the tipsiness anyway.
Zack latched onto her arm and followed her out of the booth. “What? Finally saw a celebrity that you recognize?”
No, but Rachel was enthralled by the beautiful women and handsome men surrounding her. They smelled like ancient scents locked away in Swiss vaults, and dressed in some of the most sumptuous, gratuitously sexy outfits Rachel had ever imagined. Her hand-me-down dress felt frumpier in comparison.
She loved seeing how couples moved drunkenly to the music, laughing at the nudity around them, soaking up the sexual depravity, and eventually participating in it themselves when the confidence built up (with a little help from liquid friends.) What would it be like to come to this place every Friday night when the party was the craziest? Shots out of belly buttons? Women jumping up on empty stages and ripping their Chanel and Dior off as if they suddenly embraced the nudist lifestyle?
A whole line of cocaine left on the sink in the ladies’ room, but by that point in her life Rachel would have been disappointed if she didn’t get the whole experience.
She walked out, ready to laugh about it to Zack (while of course looking for someone who was particularly coked out of her mind, because she was nosy) when she saw him sitting on a chair, a beautiful young woman hovering near his ear. His eyes were locked on her cleavage.
And Rachel’s eyes were locked on the svelte figure in that body-hugging white dress and the perfect blond hair brushing against her cream-colored shoulders. Her makeup was perfect – standing out in the dark lights of the club but not overdone. Stiletto heels kicked behind her as she bent down to giggle in Zack’s ear. He did nothing to push her away, although his body was turned in the other direction as he drank ice water and humored her.
“You’ll never guess what I saw in the ladies’ room.” Rachel swept up to the table as if she had never seen the blond woman hovering nearby. “Topless women everywhere. There’s a boobie-measuring contest going on in there.”
Zack pried his eyes off the other woman’s cleavage. “You’re lying.”
“What makes you think I’m lying?”
“’Cause you would still be in there checking it out if it were true.”