Page 180 of Midnight Curfew

Simone hands us gold masks, and Aracely strolls back out from the dressing room with an attendant, her bottom covered in black leather underwear.

But the lock catches my attention. The leather covers as much as a bikini bottom would, but there’s a heart cut into it too high up to be for penetration. Is it for her to go to the bathroom?

Slowly, I reach out, and she lets me take her waist and trace my thumb over the hipline. A thick belt of metal is seared into the leather, the lock secured below her navel to keep the bottoms on tightly.

It’s a chastity belt. Pretty good idea, actually. Not being able to get at her will turn them on more, but I won’t have to worry about avoiding sex with her.

Her breasts are bare, her hair curtaining her eyes, and a heart is painted over her lips in red like the Queen of Hearts.

They should’ve locked up her mouth, too. Men can still get in that way.

We drift through the archway leading into the Den.

“No means no in here, right?” she murmurs.

“Nunca te diré que no,” someone says, drifting past.

I look up to see Jerome holding her eyes as he walks in. I didn’t know he spoke Spanish.

“What did he say?” Dallas asks her.

“Nothing.”

But I see the glint in her eyes before she pulls down her mask.

We head in to see that the feast is in full swing, several couples and groups playing at once as Dallas and I don our masks as well.

Unlike the Wolfe Room, this is where you come to get right to it. No heavy drinking—the glasses will be knocked over anyway. No dancing. No loitering and talking. Not much foreplay.

No cameras. No phones. No computers.

And be aware, the person behind the mask might not be as much of a stranger to you as you think.

We pass a shower in the corner, closed in on three sides with black tile and glass, two women tribbing against a wall, their tongues deep in each other’s mouths.

A small group of three men stands around a bed, one stepping up and rolling on his condom, taking the place in the young woman’s waiting arms when another is finished with her. In seconds he’s flipping her over, burying himself inside her as the others stroke themselves to get ready for their turn.

Fog lingers in the air, adding an extra layer of secrecy, and I can’t help but look around and wonder which bed or mound of pillows was where my father brought Sophia.

Nausea rolls through me, a cross between bile and a growl rising in my throat as I push away the images of her unprotected in here.

“Do people fly in for this?” Dallas whispers.

I shake my head, swallowing. “It’s all locals, relatives, or associates.”

No one in here isn’t connected to St. Carmen in some way.

We float around the room, Aracely’s hand in mine as we observe a couple going at it doggy-style in a filled tub, and a young woman on a couch taking three men at once.

“Jesus,” Dallas exclaims beside me.

The woman I recognize as Diana Setler by her pedicure. It’s always white polish. The three men—one under, one behind, and one in her mouth—all look alike, just different ages.

I lean into Dallas’s ear. “Her husband, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law.”

He turns to me, his wide eyes meeting mine through our masks. It’s not the sex people want. It’s the power to indulge without consequence. That’s what this place is for. To use each other in front of the people who love them until eventually dicking up another man’s wife in front of your own doesn’t get you hot anymore. Then they move on to true perversion.

We pass a woman riding a man’s face, and a group of masked women sucking and kissing a man who’s strapped to a bed so tightly he can’t move his arms or legs.