Odalisque

Kai watched Mason, surprised. His friend wasn’t normally given to exaggeration and flowery speech. The odalisque must really have been something. “I’m sorry now you didn’t invite me along.”

“You know, if I’d known, I would have. But I expected a typical gangbang scene.”

“A typical gangbang scene? Jesus, what do you and Jess get up to after hours? I’ve never participated in any gangbang scenes, typical or not.”

“Are you judging us, Mr. Whips-and-Chains? Because everyone knows you’re heavy into the kinky stuff.”

Kai choked on a mouthful of refried beans. “Everyone who?”

“Jessamine knows. Which means everyone knows. But who cares? This is L.A.”

“Well, there’s kinky stuff, and then there’s gangbang scenes with a sheik and his exotic French sex slave. So you said there’s some code?”

“Yeah, the Code d’Odalisque. You can find it online. It’s pages and pages long and so fucking hot it’ll burn you. I got halfway through and had to stop because I was getting lightheaded from nonstop jacking off.”

“Too much information.”

“Sorry. But seriously, it’s fucking hot. These women literally exist to accommodate cock. They live for it. They do whatever their owner desires sexually. Whatever. Nothing of a sexual nature is off limits.”

Kai was going to start masturbating himself in a moment. “Really? Nothing? What about stuff like...”

Mason smirked knowingly. “Your kinky stuff? Hell yeah. Whatever you like. They are purely sexual. They shimmer with it. Like Jess, only submissive and open to whatever you wanted. This girl at the sheik’s...she was there to be used, and she wanted to be used. She craved to be used. That was the hottest thing. They’re pleasure slaves. They’re...specialized.” Mason imbued the word specialized with so much lewd, lascivious emphasis that Kai started to laugh.

“So when do you and Jess get your own odalisque?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. She’d already booked the fucking tickets to France when they told her odalisques only served men. They said I would have to be the one to acquire one, and I don’t particularly care to. Oh, Jess was spitting nails, but I don’t want the responsibility. I already have Jess to wrangle, you know? I told her she had to be content playing with the sheik’s odalisque.” He smiled at Kai. “And yours, when you’ve picked her out.”

Kai shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Didn’t the whole thing start in your part of the world? Didn’t they have slaves and harems in India?”

“They had slaves and harems everywhere once upon a time. And I’m only half-Indian.”

“You’re Indian enough, you handsome motherfucker. And rich enough too.”

Kai held up a hand. “Don’t try to talk me into it. I’ll fucking do it, and I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, this is not legal or realistic. People cannot actually own sex slaves--”

“No, it’s an arrangement. A rental. Year-to-year, in the sheik’s case.”

“Literally? Year-to-year?”

“Apparently, half the money goes to an account for the odalisque to utilize upon her retirement, a quarter goes to the agency that places them, and a quarter goes to charities dedicated to the obliteration of human sex trafficking.”

“Okay, now you’re making this shit up.”

“I’m not making it up. This is all on the level. Consensual, monitored, legitimized, more or less. Sort of like taking on an au pair or a foreign exchange student.”

“Except you don’t use your au pair or foreign exchange student as a no-holes-barred gangbang sex slave.”

Mason got a glazed look in his eyes. “I’ve always wanted an au pair.”

“You don’t have kids.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.”

Kai pushed his plate away. “Well, thanks for the most arousing and utterly ridiculous conversation of my life. If nothing else, this would make a great movie plot, this whole odalisque thing. You should pitch it to your director friends.”

“You want the guy’s card? The odalisque agent? I forcibly removed it from Jess.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“It’s right in my wallet.” Mason reached for his back pocket and somehow Kai couldn’t summon the impulse to shake his head. Mason fished out the embossed ivory rectangle and held it across the table.

“I’m not taking it.”

“Take it. I don’t want to argue with Jess about it anymore.”

Kai swiped it from his fingers and looked down at the card’s tasteful, subtle design. Maison Odalisque, Agt. Sebastien Gaudet, and a phone number. “He doesn’t have email? A website?”

Mason chuckled. “These kinds of arrangements don’t take place over the Internet. If you aren’t rich enough to get on your personal jet and fly to see Monsieur Gaudet face-to-face, you aren’t rich enough for one of these odalisques.”

Kai tried to bite his tongue, but the question burst forth anyway. “How much? How much did your sheik pay?”

“The math is straightforward, my friend. One flat mil a year. One million for a willing, horny, erotically trained cockslave at your beck and call for three hundred and sixty-five days.”

Kai smiled. “A bargain.”

“I think so,” said Mason, looking down at his phone. Kai could see his friend’s sex-siren wife on the phone’s display background. “I happen to think there’s no price too high to pay for sexual contentment. Sexual adventure, even.” Mason looked back up with a grin. “Life is short, don’t you think?”

Chapter Two: Maison Odalisque

Kai didn’t take a private jet. He didn’t actually have a private jet, but he did have a lot of money, enough to manage a million if it came to that. If. He was on a fact-finding mission, though, that was all. He’d phoned Sebastien Gaudet and found him personable and well-spoken. The man had reassured Kai that it was perfectly fine to fly over just to look around and ask questions.

And Kai had a lot of questions. First and foremost, what the hell he was doing flying to the French countryside to visit a manor where they trained odalisques.

Odalisques. The unfamiliar, grandiloquent word sounded almost as silly as the idea of buying a woman’s favors for a year. He didn’t know whether to be alarmed or excited by the fact that he was pretty much living out the plot of some contrived porn novel.

He hadn’t told Mason anything about this trip. Or Jessamine, or Satya, his women’s-rights-crusading sister who would bite off his head and chew it to pieces if she knew he was even considering acquiring a sex slave.