Exhibit (7 page)

Violet snorts a little.

“You think that's entertaining?”

“I was wondering that myself.”

“Is it sex behind all these doors? What we consider taboo and forbidden or secret, always has to have some kind of sexual connotation?”

'”Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I'm wondering what makes you tick.”

“Come on now, Violet. You know that already.”

Violet pulls a cigarette out of her bag, and before she even needs to search for a lighter, one of the waiting staff has come to her assistance. She blows smoke languidly into the air above her, those thick lips pursed so tightly it makes me wonder if that’s what her ass-hole looks like.

“Sex and money”, she says.

I wonder for a moment if I’m losing her, and then when I catch her eye, I know immediately otherwise. She’s playing a game.

“How long did it take you to work that out?”

More smoke disappears into the air above us. I watch it fight in spirals towards the darkness of the dome that encloses us. Her strategic silence tells me she's not planning on answering that question.

“I've got something stronger if you want it”, I offer.

“Pass”, she says.

“You might need it after we've seen what's behind the red door.”

Violet points her cigarette at me.

“You know what it is? You think this only belongs in this world, that people like me don't see things that people like you see.”

“No”, I say, shifting in my seat to open my body up towards her. “I think we're both driven by sex and money. I think you'd be lying to me if you said you weren't. I think the whole world is.”

She points to us both, one encompassing movement as simple as the flicker of the end of an index finger.

“We are just as bad as each other?”

She folds her arms across her chest, her leg over the other and shifts to show me only the very side of her. Playfully coy.

“Maybe they'll throw us both to the lions”, I say.

“Back with your own kind.”

I try again.

“We're the same you and I, you wouldn't be here if you weren't. We're two sides of the same coin. We’re looking for the same thing.”

“Maybe”, she says. “And maybe not. Maybe this time you're wrong. Maybe, still, you’re betting on the wrong girl.”

“I'm never wrong. I can even tell you what's in the room we're about to go in.”

She stubs out her cigarette, opens her body up again like a flower responding to morning light, places her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. Carefully nurtured curiosity. “Tell me”, she says, a smile crossing her face.

“Answers”, I say, my eyes lighting up. “To both of our questions.”

The waiter comes back over. “It's time”, he says. “leave your drinks here and follow me immediately.”

I
hold out my hand for Violet to take, but she doesn't bother, crossing her arms over her chest instead. I know why she does it, and she's right, I like it just as much. The thrill of the chase isn’t there if the rabbit is already dead.

We cross the waist of the two rooms, pass green, yellow and black doors to our right, and eventually arrive at the red door.

The waiter hands us a key card which Violet takes. “It has been set up to your liking”, he says.

“How do you know what we like?” she asks.

The waiter smiles. “When you are done, leave the key in the room, and close the door.”

“That’s it?”

“The rest is up to you.”

And with that, he disappears back into the crowd. Violet looks at me. She looks at the world of colorful chaos around us, up to the ceiling above and internally, perhaps morally, to see if she can really do this. She takes a deep breath.

“Shall we?” she says, holding up the key.

I can feel a buzz of excitement cut through me.

“Open it up”, I say.

The first door leads to a long corridor, at the end of which we can see another door. We close the first door behind us, walk the length of the corridor - red carpet, red walls, red lampshades, out from which spills red light - and get to the door at the end.

Violet and Bain's room
, has been written on a sign that hangs on the second door, which has been painted a red so vibrant it reminds me of oxygenated blood.

I feel like we're either in a photographic dark room, or one of my memories that I haven't yet had. There is no lock here, no place to enter the key card. There's an antique looking handle, and that's it. Again Violet looks at me.

“This is fucking weird”, she says.

“Open it”, I say. My heart is beating faster than I’d like to admit. I have no idea what we're going to find inside, and part of me feels like perhaps we should both just walk away now and forget all about it.

This better not remind me of them. Of the Christmas I'm desperate to forget.

Violet doesn’t leave us with that option. She places her hand around the door handle and gives it a twist. A moment later, the door yawns open.

The red light of the corridor gives way to the clean, bright, yellow light bathing us now, as we enter the room one by one, and close the real world behind us. When my eyes adjust, I'm absolutely fucking stunned by what I see.

“Fuck”, is all I can say, repeatedly, while Violet steps slowly around what we've found.

Inside, is my bedroom.

I mean, it's not my bedroom of course, but it is, it's just that it's no longer in my house, it's here. This is it exactly, my bedroom, just how I left it this afternoon.

“This is my room”, I say. “I don’t believe this. Fuck. How the fuck?”

Violet isn't looking at the room so much as the wall, I hadn't noticed it until I notice her over there looking at it. A video is being projected onto the wall of a series of different images of me, from various different stages of my life.

“Is that you?” she asks.

I go over. “Fuck me”, I say, shaking my head. “What kind of weird shit is this?”

“This is your thing not mine, you tell me. I was expecting a sex show or something a little bit more normal. This is pretty fucked up. Even for here.”

I look around the room in astonishment. I go to the drawers of the bedside cabinet, open them and find my books, my magazines, my fucking watch. It's like they've taken my bedroom out of my apartment and somehow reinstalled it here. It's impossible, of course. I sit on the bed, lean over and smell the duvet. It even smells of me.

“This is fucked up”, I say. Violet is still watching the images, which seem to be playing out at random.

“Hey”, she says suddenly, “that's tonight.”

I join her again by the wall, and we both stand there open mouthed and watch my car leave Aces and nearly crash into Violet. “How the fuck have they got that?”

We watch the projected image of Violet stood on the sidewalk looking up into the sky, around to the side, and then eventually getting into the car. We look at each other, eyes wide. Now she reaches out and holds my hand, squeezing it tightly.

“What the fuck is this?” she asks me.

“You tell me”, I say. “I don't know whether it's supposed to be an art installation or whether it's meant to freak us out.”

“Maybe both.” Violet says. “It’s definitely freaking me out.”

“What would the point be?”, I ask, sitting down on the bed to try and work it out myself.

“Maybe it's a game”, Violet says, running her finger along an imaginary line on the wall, where the video breaks. “Do you think they are watching us now?”

She comes over to the bed.

“Probably”, I say. “They’ve probably been watching us all night.”

She sits down next to me, and her hand goes between my legs, snaking slowly, fingers walking, to my inner thigh. It’s a little unexpected. “Maybe we should give them something to watch”, she says. “You know, it's always been a fantasy of mine to be on camera.”

“Is that so?” I ask, forcing myself to concentrate.

“That's so”, Violet says, pushing me further onto the bed, encouraging me to sit up on it, like I would do at home.

Without any further encouragement, she snakes her leg around my waist so she's sat on top of me, and then begins to attack my tie. I don't stop her. Fuck it. If they have my bed, they can see whatever they want, whenever they want. I bite her neck, then I kiss where my teeth have left marks. Violet pushes me so I'm flat down on the bed. I swing my legs up and spread out my arms.

“Who are you?” I ask. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

The answer to my question is playing on the ceiling above me on repeat. My car nearly hitting Violet. Violet standing in the snow. Violet getting into the car. Violet and I at the elevator in the kitchens of the Chinese restaurant above. Violet and I walking through the main floor. Violet and I at the entrance to the red room, and then, for a fleeting moment as though the image I'm watching is a mirror in transition, Violet and I here, her on top of me, my arms spread out ready to accept her, before the whole process recycles again, and there she is back on the sidewalk trying to decide whether to get into my car or not.

M
y breath is short, urgent. “Maybe this room is for me”, I say.

Bain kisses along my neckline towards my shoulder. “How do you figure that out?”

“Maybe this is my fantasy, not yours.”

I push him away to rise up so he can slide his hands along my body, feel the form of my tits. “Your bedroom, your life, to have a million people or no-one watching us. To not know. To be part of that.”

He explores me with his hands, eventually pulling me back to him.

“That's your fantasy? My bedroom, my life?”

“You were just in the right place at the right time”, I say, losing myself in him. “You're lucky.”

“I'm the lucky one?”

I open his shirt, ripping at it so eagerly a button pings off.

“I only have one shirt”, he complains. “You better make that worthwhile.”

His chest is muscular, and well defined. I smooth my hands over it, testing each part separately, working my way across his nipples and down the ripples of his abdomen with kisses that form a route that leads me purposefully towards his belly button.

“What do you think?” he asks, cocky, but seemingly in need of appraisal.

“I think you need to work out more”, I lie.

Bain is already beginning to swell, and I know he wants me to release it, but I won't, not yet anyway. I tease him by walking my fingers across the waistband of his trousers, before pulling myself off him entirely, ready to perform for him. As soon as I do, the images on the wall change, and we become surrounded by reflections of me, so whatever it is I'm doing is immediately reflected on the four walls around us.

“You still think this room is for you?” Bain says, responding to it.

I begin to dance for him. I've always been a good dancer, and I can tell Bain is impressed, as soon as I start. He sits there with his shirt open, propped up against a pillow on the bed, his cock hardening and pushing against the expensive fabric of his tailored dress pants.

“I'm only doing what I want to do”, I say. “I don’t have control of the images.”

“You've done that before?” Bain asks, watching me gyrate, drop into a squat, and straighten up again, my back curved and my ass pushed out. I smile at him and blow him a kiss.

“Your turn next”, I say.

“I can't dance”, Bain confesses.

“Can you fuck?” I ask him.

Bain laughs. “I thought you'd never ask”, he says.

I'm horny now. The booze, the place, the evening, the man, the spontaneity of it all is making my head spin and my pussy wet. I want to feel Bain's cock inside me, widening my hole. I want to fuck myself to orgasm on his girth.

My hands go to my tits, and then to my pussy. I pull off my layers, one by one. I want to get naked and I want Bain to give it to me. I'm surrounded by four versions of myself and each one of me looks more incredible than the next. I take off my bra and throw it at Bain, and instead of catching it, he just lets it hit his chest and slide to the side.

My tits look great. I massage them and pull my nipples erect, and I know I'm doing this now for both Bain and for everyone else that's watching. Everything about this turns me on. I love performing and the more eyes I have on me, the better. I look back to Bain and he's lost in me, unsure where to put his hands. They are still behind his head, but I can see him wanting to put them either on himself or on me. He looks like he's waiting for the go ahead. The cocky bastard waiting for permission to begin.

Off come my jeans, I spin once to show him just how sexy I am, and then I crawl onto the bed and towards him. Into the lion's den.

T
his girl knows how to dance, and I know how to pick them. Fuck, she is incredible. I didn't realize it with the huge amount of clothing she was wearing to protect that milky white skin and those perfect rose-bud nipples against the cold, but she is perfect.

I've paid thousands of dollars for women half as good as this. And she can move. Fuck me, she moves like a snake, ready to fucking strike. Mating season in the fucking tropics. Her tits are incredible. They are the perfect size. I like them big, and big they are. She must be early twenties for the figure she has, those tits have got some weight, and they aren't dropping.

She has a perfect ass too, and I can't wait to see her cute little pussy and slam my cock into her. I've not touched it out of respect. I could have been sat here wanking away, but I'm saving myself for her. I might even make her come, although that pretty much happens automatically. I bet she's even close now. She thinks this is for her, this room. Maybe she's right. It isn't everyday that she meets someone like me. I'm going to give it to her alright. Come here you foxy fucking lady.

“H
ow many people do you think are watching?” I ask, as I finally attend to his mammoth cock.

“How many people do you want to be watching?” he says, turning the question back on me.

I pull his trousers down and see that pre-cum has seeped delightfully into the silk of his boxer shorts. I feel the form of his cock through the fabric, and then pull those down as well, until he's fully revealed to me.