As I stand with my wet hair taunting me in the bathroom mirror a mere two hours before I’m expected to be downstairs, I’m thankful for the strong and intense feeling of ownership that his attention has given me. I feel safe even in my fear.
As I get ready for the evening ahead, I end up letting my curls dry on their own, and braiding my locks loosely down my back. The emerald gown is stunning, and when Liz arrives thirty minutes before we need to be on the gaming room floor, she appraises me excitedly. “You look amazing.”
She must be trying to make me feel better, but the honesty in her eyes is encouraging. She sets about the task of helping me with my makeup. I haven’t yet been to the spa and won’t until the week prior to my starting to work, so Derek has asked that she help me with makeup.
She sets to work on my skin and wryly comments, “I can see why Derek asked me to keep your makeup simple.” She looks to my eyes with her provocative comment, knowing I’m hanging on her every word. “You are far too pretty to need this.” She smiles and winks at me before she finishes her comment. “Besides, I think Derek’s a little worried about the attention you might get…”
When I look myself over for the last time before we leave my room, I’m surprised with how content I actually am with my appearance. My auburn locks are in a loose, long braid that falls over my shoulder. My makeup is exactly as ordered: my eyes made up in natural colors that look stunning against my bright blue irises, my cheeks a soft pink, and my lips a glossy and natural hue. The slinky dress feels smooth against my bare skin. The spaghetti straps show off my shoulders and neck nicely. I’m braless and wearing no underwear, and the dress leaves no curve to the imagination. It isn’t tight, but skims my body perfectly. Jacob did an amazing job. My taut and nervous nipples show through the thin fabric, and the skirt falls to the floor. My heels are blessedly more comfortable and easy to walk in than I worried they might be. My jewelry is beautiful and borrowed from Liz. The earrings are long but not big. They hang simply down my neck. The necklace is equally exquisite and trails down between my breasts.
And as Liz stands behind me taking in my appearance, looking beyond amazing herself, she smiles gently before giving me her feedback. “You look stunning, Ash. Don’t be nervous. I’ll be there.” With that, we leave my room and make the short trip down to the twentieth floor where the gaming hall is located.
When we enter, I’m taken aback, and I’m suddenly terrified. The room is large, more than large, it’s huge—ballroom huge. The ceilings are massively high, and there are poker tables, black jack tables, and other gambling tables I don’t recognize from wall to wall. There is a large circular bar in the middle of the room that serves all sides of the room. There are servers moving through the throngs of men, taking drink orders. Everywhere I look are beautiful women. Some of them I recognize from the building, and others I’ve never seen before. They all look far more stunning than I do, and while I may have felt reasonably confident in my appearance ten minutes before, I now feel like the self-conscious child that hides inside of me, ready to come out as soon as I’m reminded just how plain and ordinary I really am.
The room isn’t crowded, but there are more men than I can count, and as we walk in, their eyes move to us, appraising us. I see Frederick a short distance away, and he approaches us quickly. “It’s good to see you, Miss Monroe. I’m glad to see you’re with Liz tonight.”
I greet him in kind, and he moves away from us. I’ve not seen Derek yet, and as Liz and I start moving through the men toward the bar, I start scanning the room looking for him. We take our seats at the bar and order a drink, and Liz starts filling me in on the ins and outs of the gaming room floor. Essentially, men gamble, and they buy women for a period of time. Often the purchased women are used as gambling stakes, subject to their house manager’s approval. House managers are in charge of arranging and approving purchases, and there is a special desk set up by the entrance that handles the actual transaction of a purchase. This desk also notifies security of the arrangements being made so that security is monitoring the appropriate rooms at the appropriate times. House managers come and go as they please and as they are able, but their function is to oversee their women and approve arrangements. They gamble, drink, and socialize with the other men, but their responsibility remains to the club.
Liz eyes me speculatively as she goes over these details and points out different activities as they are happening. At one table a woman from a different house has been put up as stake in a poker game. Her house manager, ugly Aaron—I feel sorry for her instantly—is watching nearby, with a drink in his hand, talking to another man. The woman is stunning, far more stunning than any one of the men at the table, and she watches the activity with amusement, feigned or not, I can’t tell, but she is playing her part well. I can’t help but wonder if I could ever be so comfortable in such a situation. The whole operation looks normal—the men, the women, everything looks normal. I’m not sure what I expected to see … naked women, people having sex in the middle of the room … but it is nothing like my imaginings.
Once Liz and I have been at the bar a few minutes taking in the scene, Derek approaches us. I’m glad to see him there, but he definitely doesn’t seem to feel likewise. He looks me over carefully while Liz watches him.
She smiles slightly before commenting, “Doesn’t she look lovely, Mr. Pennington?”
His eyes slowly leave my body before travelling to her. He looks at her for many seconds, castigating her with his eyes for putting him in such a position before he finally answers, “Yes, she does.”
The smirk on Liz’s face tells me she expected just such a reaction but didn’t care. She wanted to put him on the spot, and she managed it beautifully. His eyes return to me, but flit away quickly. He leaves us there to continue our drinks after lightly touching my arm and telling me that he’ll talk to me later.
As he moves away from us, Liz comments, “Sorry to put you on the spot, but I just couldn’t help taunting him a bit with you.” There is a wry smile on her face as she eyes me.
We continue our drinks as I look around taking more of the place in. The room is incredible, appointed as nicely as the rest of the building, and the activity is all equally sophisticated and regal … that is, apart from the dress of the working women. They are all dressed far more provocatively than I am, and I was feeling exposed in my evening gown! I’m suddenly thankful for my skimpy fabric. At least it isn’t skin tight and split up the side to my hip, or so low cut that my nipples sit a mere fraction of an inch beneath the line of the cleavage threatening to show themselves. I’m suddenly very grateful to Derek and his decision to keep me simple and “demure.”
My eyes find his regularly as he moves through the crowd. He is nearly always already eying me, and my skin flushes the moment our eyes meet.
Liz confirms this when she comments a bit dryly, “He just can’t stop staring at you. My God, how is he going to ever let another man fuck you?”
I’m taken aback by her comment, and just as much by the honesty of it. My time is coming up sooner than I care to acknowledge, and while I can often ignore the immediacy of it, her words just smacked me in the face with the truth of it. As the night wears on, endless men approach, asking who I am and introducing themselves to me. Every time I look to Derek, he is glaring harshly back at me. Liz always refers the men to Derek if they have any questions about my availability, but as time goes by, his reception of the men approaching him becomes more and more hostile as I watch.