Taking His Virgin - Club Lush

“Your turn,” she giggled, taking my phone and all but pushing me in front of the brownstone.

I was pretty self-conscious, but Liz always knew how to make me drop my defenses. Usually, it worked out fine but not that fateful night. It seemed stupid later, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of what criminals looked like. However, the guy who went up behind Liz looked more prep school than gutter punk. Nonetheless, she stiffed, like something was being pushed into her back.

“Keep still,” the mugger demanded.

Liz did as she was told, even if her expression did rage with quiet fury. She would have snapped the guy’s neck if she had the chance. Or, at least, she would have tried.

“Phone and wallet,” the mugger demanded.

Liz handed over my phone and her wallet. The preppy perpetrator pocketed them and looked at me. His icy blue eyes made me quietly gasp.

“You too,” he snapped.

Feeling as though I was moving through molasses, I took my wallet and put it in his outstretched hand.

“Phone too.”

“That was her phone,” Liz pointed out.

“Oh, yours then.”

Liz took out her phone and handed it to him. The high-born hooligan pocketed both my wallet and Liz’s phone and then took her by the arm. I stifled a scream, thinking he was going to drag her off and rape or shoot her or something. Instead, he just shoved her toward me and took off at a fast run.

I could feel my lip quivering. My locked muscles began to loosen as I came out of fight or flight mode.

“Hey,” Liz said, drawing my attention to her and taking me in a hug, “you’re okay.”

“But, y-you—”

“I’m okay,” she said before I could blubber anything else, “pissed off but not hurt… except maybe my pride. You have your cards, right?”

“M-my cards?”

Liz reached into her jacket and took out her bank and Visa cards as well as her driver’s license, all held together with an elastic band.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering her telling me to do that.

“Good, I don’t suppose you have a phone card.”

“No, I didn’t think there would be any payphones.”

“Right, me neither,” Liz said, laughing, despite her apparent fear.

“We should call someone, right?”

“Probably a good idea. The question is how with no phone cards or change.”

“You still have money?” I asked, feeling my body start to shake with exhaustion.

“About five bucks in my boot. Probably not enough for a chocolate bar around here. We’re just going to have to knock on some doors and ask to use the phone.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but still, my tummy did back-flips. It was partly leftover stress from the mugging, but I also didn’t want to bother anyone. It wasn’t like we had any other options, though. As usual, Liz took the lead and almost pulled me up the stairs of the next house. It was a giant mansion of a place that went up a full three floors.

Liz was the one to knock on the door as I stood several stairs below her. She had barely touched the wood of the door before it went swinging open. We both stared in amazement.

“W-we really shouldn’t just go in,” I mumbled, as Liz moved to do just that.

She made a tsk sound. “We need to get help somewhere. The way I see it, we’ve already been welcomed.”Chapter Two - AmandaIt wasn’t a great choice. The way I saw it, I could either stay out on the steps and maybe get mugged again, though for what I didn’t know, or follow Liz into the dark unknown and hopefully get some help. Preferable without getting into more trouble in the attempt — even though that would be just my luck.

I closed the door on my way in, not wanting to be rude, being a guest and all. The house was pretty scary. The front hall was like an echoing chamber with all kinds of weird stuff in it, such as bone specimens like skulls and old books and giant oil paintings. Surprising as New York had been, I never would have expected to find anything like that there. I just figure it was the sort of thing that went on at country estates in rural areas. Most often in Europe. American and arcane, while I was well aware of both, did not fit easily together in my head.

I wanted to leave, actually pulling on the back of my best friend’s jacket like a little kid, but she was fascinated—seeming almost mesmerized by what was happening. Particularly when the chanting started.

Liz moved like she was possessed, moving deeper into the museum-like house. Following the sound of chanting that was making the hair on my neck stand up. Soon enough, they came into view. A group of maybe fifteen well-dressed men stood in a small sitting room, rendered otherworldly by flickering candle-light. They were mostly older gentlemen, fifty at least, some of them even older. A couple of them were much younger, maybe in their mid-30s. I’d gone to a girl’s school and hadn’t had a lot of experience with guys outside my own family, so determining age was difficult for me.