Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (8 page)

Since she wasn’t actually in the
first scene, Angel headed down to the audience area so that she could watch. 
She’d have to leave before the scene finished to get into her place, but at
least she’d be able to get to watch some of it.

******

Hanging up the last of her
costume pieces, Angel sighed.  Her face felt raw from scrubbing – stage-make up
was always harder to remove than regular make-up, but it was important to get
it all off or she’d have acne like none other.

“Can you believe we open in just
one more day?” asked Karen softly, sounding rather awed. 

The college sophomore had just
started doing theater outside of school, this was her first community theater
show and she acted almost as if it was professional.  Which Angel could
understand, it wasn’t the same as doing it through school that was for sure. 
For one, a lot more personal work and time on the part of the actors went into
community theater shows – they’d all helped to build the sets, pick out and sew
the costumes, paint, load-in… all things that were taken care of by the crew
students during school shows. 

“Open in one more day and then it’s just two
weekends before it’s all over,” she said with a sigh. 

Opening weekend always made her feel a little
melancholy, because after the months of work and rehearsals and memorization
and soul-searching, it was the beginning of the end.

“But they’re going to be great weekends.”

“They’re going to be
amazing
weekends,” Angel replied, grinning as she forced her spirits back up. 
There was no point in wallowing, especially since the actual shows hadn’t even
started yet.  And she did love doing the actual shows, although unlike
some actors she loved the rehearsal process just as much as she loved the
performances.  

"I'll see you tomorrow!"
 Karen gave her a quick hug and a wave before heading out the door.

Grabbing her purse, Angel opened up her
phone, she always checked her calls and texts before heading out to her car.
 She was usually the last one out of the dressing room because she
preferred to take off her make-up at rehearsal rather than driving home with
it.  Getting pulled over for speeding while in full stage make-up had only
happened to her once, but that had been enough.  Nothing as embarrassing
as talking to a police officer when you had giant freckles actually drawn on
your face. 

Checking her missed calls, she frowned when
she saw she had one from Michael.  Leigh's Michael, not her Mike.
 Michael hadn't called her since before he and Leigh had
"separated."  A little wave of panic went through her as she hit
the call button - had something happened to Leigh? 

"Hello, this is Michael."

At the standard greeting Angel rolled her
eyes.  It was his cell phone number, he knew who was calling him, but he
pretended he didn't know as if that was somehow more polite than acknowledging
the Caller ID.  Still, her panic subsided.  He would have never
answered the phone that way if there was really something wrong.
 "Hey, it's Angel.  You called?"

"Hey Angel," he said as she left
the dressing room and waved down the hallway at some of the crew members before
heading towards the parking lot.  "I ah... was hoping to ask you for
a favor."

"Well you can always ask," she
retorted cheerfully.  It was her standard answer because far too many
people had realized over the years that she was a sucker for helping people
out.  She used to say "whatever you need" before she started
realizing that people were taking advantage of that.  Well, actually,
Leigh had pointed out that people were taking advantage of that and had told
her to stop being such a doormat.  Which was funny, considering how often Leigh
played the doormat for Michael.

"I want to take Leigh away for our
anniversary in a couple of weeks and I was hoping that you could help me
surprise her with it... I found a B&B that has all sorts of activities and
spa treatments and I'd appreciate it if you could look over the choices I've
picked out and let me know if you think I made the right ones.  You two
like the same things and I think I've done a good job but I'd like a second
opinion."  Angel raised her eyebrows, Michael sounded almost
hesitant, as if he was nervous about his decisions.   "And I wanted
to surprise her with it so I was hoping you could come over and pack for her
the Friday that we're going to leave, maybe if you have time in between classes
or something."

"Wow... Michael that's so sweet!"
 She grinned.  Good, this was exactly what Leigh needed from him!
 And he was sounding more like the Michael that she'd first met, less like
the jerk he'd been the weekend before.  "Of course I'll help out!
 And I can definitely come and pack for her on Friday, I don't have any
classes scheduled for Fridays right now.  Usually I spend them sewing, but
I can definitely put that aside for an hour to pack a bag for her."

"Thank you," he said, sounding
truly relieved.  "I'll email you the link to the B&B along with
the list of activities and spa treatments I picked out so that you can look
that over."

"That works, do you still have my email
address?"

"Still angeleyes?"

"Yep, that's me."

"Great, thank you so much Angel."

"Not at all a problem," she said
enthusiastically.  "Anything to help you and Leigh have a great
weekend together."

"I really appreciate it."
 Something about his tone of voice and the high level of gratitude in it
said that he knew that she wasn't his biggest fan and that he really did
appreciate her putting aside her own judgment of him in order to help him out.

What he didn't get is that Angel would do
just about anything to make one of her best friends happy.  Especially
Leigh, who was more like a sister to her than she was a friend. 

******

Walking in the front door of the house, Angel
was greeted by pure mayhem.  The main room of the house was always
chaotic, especially in the evenings, because that's where the television,
gaming systems and computers were, but tonight was particularly bad.  Her
roommates Q, Mark and Sam were all pretty insular, but they had a wide group of
friends from World of Warcraft and other online games. 

Apparently someone had forgotten to tell her
that they'd be having a bit of a convention at the house.  There were
several more computers than usual, along with several more guys in various
states of dress hunkered down around them, barking out orders, insults and
suggestions on their headsets, and chugging Red Bulls.  

"Oh dear god..." Angel muttered as
she took in the scene.  

Quickly she looked around for Q, who tended
to take the lead when it came to organizing events - he was also head of the
Guild that the guys were all involved with in the game.  Fortunately he
was also the easiest to find because he was the biggest at about six feet tall,
dark black skin and enough lean muscles that most people looked at him and thought
"jock" rather than "gamer."  His real name was Quinton
but she was the only one who ever called him that, the guys attempted it at
their own peril.

"Quinton..." she said, standing
with her hands on her hips as she glared around the room at them.

"Uh oh... Mommy's home," murmured
Sam, not even taking his eyes off the screen.  His real name was Sampson,
but he definitely looked more like a Sam.  Unlike Q, he was basically the
epitome of the gamer stereotype: skinny, geeky white kid with glasses.
 Even though he was twenty five, he was still basically a kid.  He
worked at the Apple store, was constantly bringing home various electronics to
take apart and play with, and was thoroughly convinced that one day (possibly
soon) robots were going to become too intelligent and end up battling humankind
for supremacy.  The worst part was that the longer she talked to him and
the more she learned about technology, the more some of his theories started to
make sense.

"Uh... hey....SHIT!... Hey Angel."
 Q didn't take his eyes off his computer screen either.
 "Uh..."

"Did you forget to tell me
something?" she prompted.  The three guys whose names she didn't know
were now eyeing her warily as if they recognized the dangerous tone of voice
and weren't sure if they should run from the room now or wait and watch the
fireworks. 

Mark, the last of her roommates, started to
come into the room from their kitchen, took one look at her standing in
fighting stance with her hands on her hips and flipped right back around and
back into the kitchen.  Avoidance at its best.

Her lips quirked. 

"Sorry Ang," Sam said, giving her a
rueful shrug.  

"Yeah, sorry," Q echoed although it
was obvious that he wasn't giving her his full attention.  "We kinda
uh... decided to continue the LAN party from this weekend... here… I forgot to
let you know…"  

With a sigh, Angel kicked off her shoes and
nodded a greeting at their company.  No point in yelling at the guys now,
they wouldn't be able to pay attention to her anyway.  Maybe later,
although probably not.  They weren't bad guys or bad housemates, even if
they were a little forgetful sometimes.

It was definitely a good thing she didn't
have the standard office job though, or she'd be a lot angrier.  She knew
from experience that the guys were going to be up all night, chances were
they'd called out from work tomorrow already, and that they wouldn't
mean
 to
be loud, but they wouldn't be quiet exactly.  Which was why she had the room
furthest away from the main room.

Her bedroom was her refuge.  Unlike the
guys she didn't spread out all over the house, although her sewing machine was
down in the main room.  Normally she enjoyed being surrounded by the guys
while she worked on her latest project or order, but not when they were doing a
LAN party.  Then they were way too involved in their game to be able to
talk with her at all and they didn't want the TV on because it was too
distracting.  At least she had some stuff that needed to be stitched by
hand that she could work on tomorrow, she had a corset that she needed to
finish and ship out by Monday.

Sitting down at her desk, she flipped on her
lap top so that she could go through her nightly routine.  She had three
email addresses, one for personal emails, one for women who took her
self-defense classes to reach her, and one for her Etsy store.  It was
just easier to keep it all separated so that she didn't lose track of things.
 

Unsurprisingly Michael had already sent her
the email.  A little smile played on her lips as she scanned through it.
 Couples massage, body wrap, mani-pedi, horseback riding, and a wine
tasting.  It was going to be cold, but Leigh loved horseback riding even
though she'd never had lessons, so she'd appreciate the gesture.  It
looked like a good combination of things that both Leigh and Michael enjoyed,
but it was obvious that Michael had put a lot of thought into pampering Leigh
with the spa treatments.  

Lucky girl.

Angel sighed.  Sure Michael could be an
ass, but she could still be envious of the way he took care of Leigh when it
came to things like this.  He might suck at the small stuff and the day to
day stuff, but what girl wouldn't like celebrating her anniversary with a guy
who planned out a romantic weekend?  And the B&B was gorgeous.
 Just looking at the website and the description of the restaurant there -
where she was sure Michael and Leigh would eat at for at least one dinner - she
was feeling jealous. 

Typing out a quick email to Michael telling
him that he'd done a great job and that Leigh was going to love it, Angel
decided it was time to do a little something for herself.

She clicked on the button she'd created on
her Favorites bar that took her straight to the Stronghold website.  Their
membership was more exclusive and so their application process was more
involved than Chained's.  If she filled out an application now then
hopefully she'd be accepted as a member by the time
The Rivals
 closed.
 Then Closing Weekend might not be so depressing, since she'd have
something to look forward to the next weekend.

The first bit of the application was the
standard personal information, including asking if she wanted to use a pseudonym
in the club.  She chose Angie.  Again, close enough to her real name,
but softer.  Checked the box that she was new to the scene.  Filled
out a little blurb about what interested her in BDSM, why she wanted to try it.
 

And then a page came up with a list of kinks
and dirty deeds, asking her to indicate her interest on a scale of one to ten.
 One being "hell no absolutely not" and ten being "yes
please!"  At least that's how she interpreted it.  

There weren't too many things that she said
no absolutely not to.  Needles, knives and blood.  Full hoods - she
was too claustrophobic for that.  Same thing with mummification.  Shiver.
 Piercings.  Anything to do with excrement or golden showers.

A couple of the more severe toys scored a
two.  Especially the scarier looking whips.  So did sex with a member
of the same gender.  While she didn't think she was entirely opposed to
it, she didn't have an interest in it either.  She wanted to be open
minded, so she figured a two was probably the way to go.  After all, it
was almost a "hell no."