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I allow the kiss for a similar reason. My own survival.
I have to play nice…
Hopefully not for long.
CHAPTERTWO
MORRIGAN
Istep into my car, eager to start the AC and escape the humidity, shutting the door as the engine roars to life. The busy street drowns the noise of it, but it’s not like people didn’t already turn their heads as I sat in it. They probably think it’s my boyfriend’s or daddy’s car, as most do. Technically, they wouldn’t be wrong.
As I was finishing university last year, my parents suddenly decided moving about in taxis wasn’t safe for their daughter anymore. They insisted they buy me a car, even though I didn’t want to be tied to their money, and the only way to escape their flashy choice, which would have ensured I would flaunt their wealth around the city, was to concede. After some negotiation, I managed to sway them from the same mid-life crisis red Ferrari my father has, toward this black beauty, a Dodge Challenger GT.
I love this car, but it’s a constant reminder of their control over me, and I fucking pray for the day I can just drop the keys on their fucking table and buy my own, the day I’ll be able to afford to move out and escape their damn clutches. Ryan’s too… but it’s been just over two months since his father died, and I’m still trying to find the right time to leave him. The courage to…
Luckily, my parents wanted to raise goodstock, and the best uni took me 400 miles away from them, up North, even as they protested it was too far. The freedom allowed me to have a part-time job without them knowing. I saved every penny, along with most of my allowance since I was fifteen, and began to understand that my family’s values, their view of me or women in general, are much different from most, and I had to plan my way out. But all my savings are tied up in my first business venture in which I’m a silent partner. There’s no way I can let my family, or anyone else, know just yet, that I’m involved. Lulu and I worked too hard for it.
I pull away from the curb just as my dashboard flashes with a phone call, Lulu’s name popping on the screen. I turn the volume down and answer.
“Give me a sec, let me put my AirPods in. I’m in the car.” These days, I’m careful we’re not overheard, especially when it’s about business.
I fiddle with them and switch the connection on my phone as I stop at the traffic lights.
“You good?” I hear her sweet, soft voice on the other line. It’s deceiving. The woman may sound sweet, but she’s vicious. Calm… but vicious.
“Yeah, all good. I was just thinking of you. What’s up?”
“I’m just having a little trouble making a decision and I wanted to ask if you can come in and help me out.” I hear her long nails tap one by one on a solid surface. She sounds impatient.
“Yeah, give me ten, or actually fifteen minutes. I need to…”
“I know,” she interrupts. She knows my life all too well, including the regression of my relationship. I need to lose my tail, if there is one, since I told Ryan I’m going home. Her location or my friendship with her isn’t a secret, but I would rather have a head start anyway.
The four-story pre-war building looms, the beautiful details of the facade hiding many secrets beyond it. On the top floor Lulu lives with her boyfriend, the two floors below unused, and on the ground floor, Lulu opened a quirky bar, which brings her constant income.
I look around before I leave the car, a habit that has become second nature now, but I wasn’t followed. Before walking into the bar, I glance briefly at the windows of the floor under Lulu’s apartment, the one she insisted I should have. I didn’t want to bring my fucked up life so close to her, but her love is the only unconditional one I know, and in the end I accepted her offer.
This place was an inheritance from her late grandmother, who had it from her own mother, and it’s been rotting since the 50s, stuck in time. Lulu started renovating it, she finished the restructuring, part of the ground floor, and her apartment, but when our business idea fully formed, all the financial efforts shifted. The works on my apartment halted before they properly began. It doesn’t even have a floor right now, just some bare beams that used to hold the rotting parquet.
I step into the bar, so ingeniously placed in the space that the bar itself is at the front of the space, and all the tables are behind it, away from the windows, away from the road. She started from a small front, slowly extending it toward the back once it became more popular. But it’s still small, narrow, as the rest of the ground floor and the basement is being turned into something much, much more exciting.
“Hey, sugar!” I greet the bartender as I walk past, toward the back door hidden nicely from the view of the street. The location for our business is perfect because even if someone was following me, going to see my best friend is nothing unusual.
After punching in a code, I step into the well-lit short corridor surveyed by two cameras, arriving at two other doors. Both lead to a different secure foyer, one at the front of the building, where the access to the apartments is, and the second one, where I’m punching in yet another code to get in, leads to the back of the building.
As I make my way inside, a dim gold light bathes the space where a black 3D diamond pattern covers most of the walls, the decadent glow reflecting off of some of the faces of the shapes, and I think I’m in a bit of disbelief, as this space wasn’t finished the last time I was here. To my left, double doors lead to the entrance hallway at the back of the building where there is a private courtyard and parking lot. To my right sits what will be a staffed wardrobe, and right in front of me, in the middle of the wall stretching the entire length of the space, sits the pièce of resistance—the black marble and dark wood, semi-circle shaped reception desk.
I step closer, in awe at the beauty our artist created on the black velvet covered wall, bas-reliefs of naked bodies protruding out of the flat surface, the gold light absorbed by their sinful positions. On either side of the desk, five feet away, two entrance ways interrupt the wall, and this is where their beauty lies. On the left-hand side of the reception desk, on his hands and knees, there is a bas-relief of a man with a leash clearly wrapped around his neck, held by a woman standing on the inside of the reception desk, her legs spread in an imposing stance. On the right-hand side, outside of the reception desk, sits a woman, ass on her heels, palms on her thighs, a leash held by a man standing on the inside of the desk, wrapped around her throat. And in-between these two scenes, centered on the wall behind the desk, is my favorite—a beast of a man, standing tall, one hand wrapped in the hair of the woman before him, holding her head, neck bent back uncomfortably, while his other hand is lost in the relief, between them, where their hips join.
They are so beautifully sculpted behind the soft fabric, so enchanting and mildly hypnotic.
I continue through the entrance on the left, into a wide corridor with a couple of sitting areas, the doors to a set of toilets and dressing rooms on the opposite wall, but my attention is caught somewhere else. Against the same wall as the reception on the other side, the stairs lead down into our club, and right above them, one word written in large brushed-gold letters, tells you exactly where you’re going and what awaits you while you’re there—METAMORPHOSIS.
It shines discreetly against the black velvet, and its meaning is as much tied to our own evolution as it is to the experience of the people who will join us here.
As I walk down those steps, gold spotlights illuminating each thread, my soul feels freer, here beneath the ground, as a sultry rebel blues song floods my ears. The moment the block heels of my knee-high boots hit the floor, as my eyes sweep over the space before me, I clutch the handrail so hard my bones ache.
“It’s ready…” I whisper to myself.
