“Hey, now, now, my neo geisha…”
Ororo sat in Sebastian’s office waiting his arrival. She always felt dwarfed in Sebastian’s office, which was bigger than most people’s apartments, including hers. He had a fondness for dark woods paired with soft colors, and she’d never seen so many windows in one room in her life. Ororo heard the door opened and she felt her spine turn to steel.
She wasn’t particularly looking forward to this meeting. “Hello, Ms. Munroe,” a soft voice said behind her. Ororo relaxed in her chair. It wasn’t Sebastian.
“Hello, Tessa.” Ororo said, as the dark-haired woman walked into her view.
“Mr. Shaw will be with you momentarily,” she said, conveying little emotion. If there was anyone Ororo felt hid their emotions better than she did, it was Tessa. Tessa endured everything without ever betraying a hint of emotion. “He had an important meeting. It’s running over, of course.”
“Of course,” Ororo said with a chuckle. Sebastian’s meetings never ended on time.
Ororo didn’t get a chance to talk to Sebastian the night before. He had some important meeting that couldn’t wait. She relayed her message about Cameron through Tessa, Sebastian’s “pet.” She’d always felt a certain degree of pity where Tessa was concerned. She knew Tessa was a mutant, but she didn’t know what her powers were. Tessa wasn’t allowed to speak about them.
“Would you care for tea, Ms. Munroe?” Tessa asked, interrupting Ororo’s thoughts.
“No, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.” Ororo said to the woman.
Sebastian had acquired Tessa through one of his own auctions, the sordid things. She knew because she was there at the time, standing on the outside of the crowd while Tessa was paraded around with the other mutant women like a herd of cattle. Ororo hadn’t been robed as the buyers were. She’d only slipped in after the auction begun.
Ororo hadn’t thought the robes were a necessary precaution. The lights on the floor were too dim for anyone to be recognizable, but the lights pointed at the podium were bright, literally blinding those on the stage. She believed the robes were more of an intimidation factor than anything. What was scarier than not knowing the face of your captor until after he or she “owned” you? She’d even heard horror stories about slaves who were auctioned who never knew their masters’ face.
After a slave was bought, he or she was collared for their master’s convenience and were usually forced to take on the crest of that master. The crest tattooed on Tessa’s shoulder blade was that of the “Black King” of the Hellfire Club. She couldn’t say that she’d ever seen Sebastian be cruel to Tessa, but there was a lot going on there that she didn’t care to know about.
At the club, she saw Tessa being led around by Shaw wearing little more than underwear, but then again, Emma was known for walking around with far less on, but she wasn’t Sebastian’s “pet.”
“It’s no inconvenience. It’s what I am here for.” Tessa said.
“No, it isn’t.” Ororo said.
Tessa met Ororo’s eyes, but neither woman said anything. Tessa was nobody’s “slave,” or “pet,” or “familiar,” or whatever he referred to her these days. She was a free woman who should’ve been living whatever life she chose to live. Goddess, I have to get away from this place, she reminded herself. Ororo watched Tessa walk to the large bar that occupied a corner of Sebastian’s office.
Sometimes, she wondered how she continued to look herself in the mirror knowing what she did, the things she pretended not to see. She used to believe that she didn’t have a heart any longer, that her heart had been swallowed into some dark void. But now, as she watched Tessa leave the office again, she realized that maybe she hadn’t quite lost her heart. She’d just buried her emotions, but it was getting harder and harder to continue.
“I’m getting way too old for this,” she said to herself, reaching for the cup.
She heard the door open, again, and she quickly placed her cup back on the table. Sebastian walked by her a whirlwind of navy blue and expensive cologne. “What happened?” he demanded. He didn’t look at her, as he stood facing his windows, a gesture he often performed. He didn’t sound particularly angry, but he didn’t sound happy either.
“I was followed.” She said simply, not caring to elaborate. What more could she say? She’d let her guard down, or maybe, he was just that damn good. Either way, she’d been followed. That was the short and the long of it.
She’d been followed by one of the last people in the world that she wanted to be followed by. She worried that Logan would tell Jean more than she worried about him telling the whole team. She couldn’t say that she knew exactly what Jean would do, but she knew Jean had a heart of gold. Jean believed there was an easy solution to every problem. Optimism blinded Jean at times.
If she were lucky, Jean would be angry with her, making it much easier to keep her personal life separated from this life. Jean was her last tie to anything to do with the world outside of Shaw Enterprises. She’d been lucky all these years to keep them separated. Now, it seemed like her luck was starting to run out.
He turned to her, suddenly. “Why didn’t you eliminate both threats?” he asked. His voice was still even, but his eyes held some malice. She’d never incurred his wrath before, and she wondered if this was the metaphorical calm before the storm.
Destroy all who see you…
That was a lesson from those early days. Witnesses were always discouraged in the business, but she’d rarely had to deal with witnesses in her time as an assassin. It was always best to eliminate any witnesses to the crime unless there were too many to handle, and when that happened witnesses could never agree on details. You always had one person who was more vocal than the rest and made the other witnesses believe they saw something they really hadn’t.
She didn’t exactly know what to say to Sebastian. She hadn’t been able to eliminate Logan because he scared the shit out of her. She didn’t really want to hurt anyone from the X-Men. Besides, she didn’t know if she could really “eliminate” him, anyway. She couldn’t tell Sebastian any of that. She couldn’t tell him that she knew who witness was. She tried to form a feasible explanation in her mind.
“I couldn’t. He wasn’t some meddling human. He was a mutant, and he surprised me by being more aggressive than I gave him credit for,” she said sounding defeated. That was the best she could do, considering her stress level at the moment. “He might have been watching Cameron.” That was a blatant lie, but she hoped it sounded believable.
“Figures his father might do something like having another mutant to protect him,” he muttered under his breath. Ororo almost raised her eyebrows in surprise that he believed her. But then, wasn’t it a little odd that Cameron’s father hadn’t insisted on any protection for his son since his stay in the States? Was his father really foolish enough to believe he intimidated Sebastian enough for him not to attempt something like this?
“I can finish what I started,” she said. Hospitals were easy to infiltrate in her opinion. The hospital had plenty of people in them, all potential witnesses, but in spite of all the people who were present in the hospital, the hospital was one of the easiest places to handle business.
He sighed deeply and said, “Don’t bother. Victor has already taken care of your mistake.” Ororo could only imagine Victor storming the hospital with as much fanfare as the President, laying waste to everything in his path. She knew it would likely be on the evening news, if it already wasn’t the story of the hour. “Just so you know. You’ll be working the White room tonight. Unfortunately, I had to terminate one of the girls,” he added, changing the subject suddenly.
That meant more than likely the girl had threatened to talk if Sebastian didn’t comply with some demand. It didn’t happen often, but from time to time, the workers liked to think they could manipulate Sebastian. And Sebastian, never the one to comply with anyone’s demands, made sure they were taken care of. If there was one thing Sebastian hated, it was someone thinking they could get the upper hand on him. Bullying typically didn’t work with him.
“Yes,” was all she said in response, waiting for him to get back on the subject of the botched assassin attempt. He dismissed her, and she felt like asking him, “Is that it?” Shouldn’t he have yelled at her or something? She knew that couldn’t be all. He didn’t even reprimand her. She knew that wasn’t the end of that. He’d find a way for her to make it up or his name wasn’t Sebastian Shaw.
The White room was nicknamed the Sakura Blossom because all the women”some of them barely women”dressed as geishas. It was an elegant room, filled with plush, white carpet, gold trimming, white marble bars that seemed to run the whole length of the club. Golden, open-mouth dragons soared across the walls, a ruby eye promising terror glittered enticingly.
The atmosphere was soothing. Men and women sat at one of the many elegant tables, taking their poison of choice, whether it was alcohol or drugs. They made small talk with one another, talking about their mergers, the stock market, and the next company to go down in flames Enron-style”moneyed duplicity.
She didn’t mind working the White room so much. She worked in the room from time to time for various reasons”mostly when someone had been “terminated.” Sometimes, when the crowd was going to be larger than usual, such as when people came from out of town. She had it easier than the other women did. Most of them, this was all they did. True, their main job was to entertain and serve the people in the room, but that wasn’t the main attraction of the room.
Silent bidding wars raged over the women’s body. And while Sebastian always paid well for your “services,” she just couldn’t see giving anyone her body because he’d or she’d won “the right.” She didn’t have to participate in the other side of working the White room. Sebastian often commented that she’d fetch a pretty price in the White room. She didn’t care how much some oversexed snob was willing to pay for sex. She’d walk out of the club and disappear forever before she subjected herself to that.
She entered the dressing room through a private entry that only employees used. The dressing room was large, occupying many girls in various states of undress. She spoke to everyone respectfully before taking a seat in a chair. A man was at her side in minutes, smiling at her while offering her a mineral water. She accepted and listened to his polite chitchat while he freed her hair from the bun that she’d worn for work.
It didn’t matter how clean the women were. Groomers were assigned the task of “cleaning” the women. The groomers were always male, and while that should’ve caused alarm, it didn’t. They were eunuchs, men who’d been castrated. For every woman there was in the room, there was one eunuch to groom her. Being “groomed” was more embarrassing than it was alarming.
Sebastian preferred it this way. He claimed women groomers were given to petty jealousy and often did things to damage “his goods.” And he said it was obvious why he didn’t use men who were not castrated, even gay men. He just couldn’t take that chance. So, the women were taken care of by these quiet-spoken, even-tempered men. Some of them appearing nearly androgynous in nature.
Ororo was always the last to dress and always the last to enter the main room. It wasn’t because of embarrassment about her body. She didn’t have to be “groomed.” However, she felt better when she comforted the others first. Many of them cried while they prepared for a night in the White room. So, she worked with the groomers to soothe the women.
The groomers were gentle with the woman and were always trying to comfort them, but sometimes, it took a woman’s touch to get them through this. She often asked them why they didn’t seek something better, and the answer was always the same. Who would pay them the money that Sebastian did? For some of them, all they had going was their bodies and little else.
Grooming consisted of this. A woman was taken and bathed, as if she were just a child, by one of the eunuchs. Her hair, which had to be a certain length for the “split peach” style they would eventually wear”extensions were unacceptable, was washed thoroughly. She was then taken and oil was massaged into her skin with precision.
The hair was next. One of the groomers, a hairdresser during the day, taught Ororo how to style the women’s hair in the “split peach.” While she was helping, she found that it was the prefect opportunity to try to ease a woman’s fears. Bonding over hair, women had been doing it for years. She couldn’t say how many stories she’d heard while working on a woman’s hair.
Afterwards, the women were dressed in their kimonos. Beautifully ornate robes of different colors adorned each girl. No girl wore the same color. Neither was the design ever the same on any of the kimonos. Make-up came last. Some even went as far as to take the traditional makeup of a geisha, but they really didn’t have to go that far.
By the time they had to enter the room, they were transformed into these confident, beautiful women, ready to put on a show for all the waiting people. You wouldn’t believe only a short time before some of them had been on the verge of a breakdown.
Ororo always wore white, but she did not wear a kimono. She wore a Mandarin-collared robe. Her hair was done in a simple knot, nothing like the elaborate hairstyle the other women wore. It served to show that she was unavailable, though people still asked.
The patrons of the White room were always courteous. They had to adhere to certain rules of the room or they’d find themselves thrown out on their ear, answering to the wrath of Sebastian Shaw. They were never to grab or grope the girls. Such behavior was best left for a low-class bar (or the Blue room in Ororo’s opinion), and they weren’t paying for low-class there.
She walked around the room, smiling, refilling drinks, laughing at bad jokes. “Damn,” she heard one of the men say when she walked past. “It’s love.” She threw him a wink over her shoulder. She knew better than to take anyone in that place seriously, but she could play up to the attention.
One of the women walked up to her, speaking softly into Ororo’s ear. “That man over there is asking about you,” she said, pointing at a table in a far corner of the room.
Ororo’s eyes traveled in the direction that she pointed, and she shook her head in disbelief. Boot-clad feet rested on a table and a cigar hung out the corner of his mouth dangerously. Oh, it can’t be, she said to herself, but sure enough, she met Logan’s eyes. For a second, she paused and her heart caught in her throat.
She reasoned with herself that that reaction was just nervousness and not anything more. After all, he had ruined her mission, and she was supposed to be pissed off about that. But even now, as she walked toward him resolutely, she felt the first stirrings of attraction. There was just some kind of magnetism he emitted that lured her in.
Keep it together, Ororo, she said to herself. “Surprised to see me, darlin’?” he asked, grabbing her wrist before she could demand what he was doing there and why he was asking about her. She didn’t pull away from him, not wanting to draw attention to them. She casually tried to wrench her wrist out of his grasp, but his hold was unyielding.
He didn’t release her wrist, even as she sat in the chair across from him. Did he think she was going to run off? After last night, he probably did think she was going to bolt at any second. She suppressed a shudder and looked down at his hands. His knuckles were flawless, showing no evidence that anything had ever came out of his hands.
“What are you doing here?” she questioned, keeping her voice low. She hoped that he hadn’t come to the club to make any trouble about what happened the night before. Nobody there would care what she’d been up to the night before. He’d only end up making unnecessary trouble for himself.
“A glorified secretary, huh? More like a glorified whore for Shaw,” he said, not answering her question.
His words stung, but she’d been called much worse in her lifetime. And to think she found herself tangled in her sheets that morning because of a dream about him, even though he did catch her. “You don’t know my circumstances. You don’t know me at all,” she said scornfully. How dare he come and pass judgment on her.
“Ororo!” a voice called behind her. Logan released her wrist and turned toward the voice. She stood quickly, as a blonde man rushed up to her. She positioned her body in front of him, so he couldn’t be seen. Why was she hiding him? He was a big boy. He should be able to handle the consequences of actually having the nerve to sneak into The Kurogaisha. Yet, she didn’t make a move to reveal him to the man who stood before her. “You are needed in the Arena.”
She raised her eyebrows at him in surprise. Why could she possibly be needed in the Arena? “Why?” she asked, hiding little of her surprise at the request.
“Mr. Shaw said that you were the main attraction tonight,” the man answered.
Ororo’s mouth gaped a little in surprise. The main attraction? That meant she was actually fighting in the Arena. Ororo had never stepped foot inside the Arena before. She’d seen the ruthless show of aggression, a barbaric show of needless violence, but she’d never participated. She knew Sebastian would find a way to get her.
Before she followed the man out of the White, Logan grabbed her hand. She’d been a little surprised by the familiar way his fingers had grabbed her, as opposed to the way he grabbed her wrist earlier. “The Arena?” he asked.
“None of your concern. You should be more concerned with finding a way out of here,” she said before turning away from him again to catch up with the man.
She caught up with the man outside of the room, quickening her step to fall into pace with him. “Your opponent is one of Oswald’s assassin, so don’t think you’re going to just get in and get out without any problems,” he told her.
Ororo nodded. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe they would put her against an amateur. If this was her punishment, it wasn’t supposed to be quick and easy. “Which one?” she asked. She hoped he said Loundis. She’d been aching for a reason to break his hand after that last meeting between Oswald and Sebastian.
Oswald and Sebastian were close business partners. Well, as close as they could be despite obvious distrust of one another. During the last meeting that Oswald and Sebastian had, Loundis proved how much of a pig he really was. The last straw came when he touched her one time too many and she chopped him in the throat. Of course, Sebastian chided her before she could really tear into him.
“Can’t you handle a little male attention?” Sebastian had asked her after he stopped her from kicking Loundis where it counted. Male attention her ass. And even though she was the one who chopped him in the throat, he smirked at her until the meeting was over and even had the nerve to invite her to dinner before he left.
“Destin,” the man finally said. She repeated the name to herself. She couldn’t say that she knew him. She’d heard of him, but she had never actually seen him. He was very elusive from what she understood, and Oswald liked it that way. Ororo wondered why Oswald was willing to risk the life of a man who his prized assassin. Because one thing was for sure, one of them wouldn’t come out of the Arena alive.
It hadn’t taken a lot of ingenuity to get inside of the club. He entered through one of the side doors that was reserved for staff only. When the bouncer at the door said he didn’t recognize Logan and would need to see some identification, the man accidentally slipped and knocked himself out on Logan’s knuckles. Oops.
The Kurogaisha was much bigger than he thought, and he made plenty of wrong turns and saw some things he hoped to never witness again before he found Ororo in one of the ritzier rooms where all the girls were dressed as geishas, except Ororo. She was dressed much simpler than the others were, but she was still much more beautiful than the rest. He reminded himself to keep his head on straight where she was concerned. She may be beautiful, but she was dangerous, very dangerous.
He asked one of the girls a million questions about Ororo”all of which she answered reluctantly before getting Ororo herself. Ororo did come over to his table, her blue eyes blazing, but they hadn’t talked long before someone approached Ororo. Logan heard when the man told her she was needed in the Arena.
She started to leave, but he caught her hand. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he quickly dropped it when she looked down at his hand taken aback. “The Arena?” he asked. That was one area of the club that he’d undoubtedly missed.
“None of your concern,” she said ominously. “You should be more concerned with finding a way out of here.”
He followed her out the room. She might’ve just given him a sound piece of advice, but he was more interested in where she was going than getting out. The man who approached the table told Ororo that she would be going against someone named Oswald’s assassin. They diverged in front of the Arena.
He was herded with the rest of the crowd into a stadium, reminding him of something right out of a Roman history book. He pushed himself as close to the front as he could get, looking over into the arena. There were already two men fighting; both of them bloody beyond recognition. The crowd cheered lustfully for the men while people screamed out bets all around Logan.
One man gained the advantage when his opponent made a mistake, falling flat on his face. The man put a knee in the man’s back and grabbed his head, ramming his face into the concrete over and over again while the crowd yelled “Oh! Oh! Oh!” in unison with his attack. The man stood victorious. The crowd went wild for him.
If this was any indicator of what Ororo was about to do, he didn’t think he was going to like what he was about to see. He felt like he just took ten steps back into some third world country whose economy seemed to thrive on blood sports. Every single person around him had more money that he would ever see in one lifetime, though.
Ororo stepped into the arena first, a look of grim determination etched into her face. He could tell by her tense stance that she didn’t want to be there. She still wore the white robe from earlier, but it was different. The sleeves of the robe were gone, showing off toned, slender arms. The bottom half of the robe converted into shorts, baring legs that seemed to go on into infinity. Some of the men whistled at her, but she looked neither to the right nor to the left.
Her opponent was tall and skinny. His hair, dyed an obscene shade of purple in Logan’s opinion, fell into his face, and Logan wondered how he saw anything at all. He moved in a nonchalant way, as if this were of no consequence to him. Destin. There was a sort of cockiness that exuded from him. The corners of his mouth curled into a smile, as he studied Ororo.
He’d gathered from the man sitting beside him that sometimes they competitors fought with weapons, sometimes they fought with their powers, and sometimes they fought hand-to-hand. The only rule etched in stone was somebody had to die. The rules were always announced before the match. Ororo’s match against Destin was a weapon match.
Destin chose a medieval style sword, whose tip looked sinisterly sharp. She chose twin blades, longer than the ones he’s destroyed. They curved near the middle, giving them a crescent moon appearance. He was actually a little nervous for Ororo as he watched the two circle each other.
When they actually started fighting, Logan thought they were evenly matched. There movements seemed to be anticipated by the other. There’d been one point in the match where Destin managed to relieve Ororo of both her blades, but he gained no real advantage by doing so because Ororo soon knocked his sword from his hand.
Then, it was a hand-to-hand match, and neither seemed to interested in retrieving their weaponry”at first. Destin made the mistake of going for one of Ororo’s blades to use against her. Inexperience with the oddly shaped blade caused his movements to come off as clumsy. She, however, was quite sure when she picked up Destin’s sword.
In the final decisive moment, Destin swiped at her with the blade. She turned avoiding the strike. With her back still turned to Destin, she brought the sword up high, tuning the hilt of the sword away from her body so that the blade faced her. She swayed to the side a little, bringing the sword down between the space her body and her arm made.
Destin’s mouth gaped at the sword caught him in the stomach. He hunched over from the impact, and Ororo removed the sword, cleanly. She turned to the man, letting the sword fall to the ground with a clang. Destin sank to his knees, losing more blood than seemed possible.
“Finish it!” the announcer’s voice screamed over the loudspeakers, as the crowd cheered for blood. She picked up the twin blades, testing their weight in her hand, walking slowly toward Destin. She breathed deeply, reluctance made her movements jerky. She paused in front of Destin who was holding his stomach, blood poured through his fingers.
Logan could see Ororo and Destin’s lips moving, and he tried to filter out the other sounds to hear what was being said. “…must not be afraid…” he heard Destin say, and that was all he could catch amidst the roars of the crowd.
Ororo took a deep breath, crossing her arms, causing the blades to form a full moon around her neck. He saw the slightest bit of a tremble in her hand, but before he could blink, before he could breath, she unfurled the blades, quickly, slicing through Destin’s neck with both blades. Blood splattered on the front of the pristine outfit she wore, onto her face, into her hair. She turned from the now headless body, dropping the twin blades to the ground.
She had won.
The crowd went wild for her, but something was obviously wrong. Her movements showed all the signs. He saw her fall to her knees. Static crackled in the air, making the hair on his arms stand on edge. She was breathing deeply, too deeply. Hyperventilation. Logan’s jaw tightened when he saw a hulking, blonde man walk into the arena and help her to her feet.
She disappeared through the doors leading out, and he pushed his way back to the main corridor of the Arena. She was alone and walking in the opposite direction of the Arena, still covered in Destin’s blood. She walked quickly, and he followed. She walked into a room and slammed the door. He opened the door and saw her sitting a vanity table with her head in her hands.
“Go away, Victor,” she said.
“Not Victor,” he said behind her.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, looking up. She stared at his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t say anything, so she kept talking. “I have never been in the Arena before tonight. I have never known what it was like to take someone’s life for sport.” She sounded as if she were trying to give him some kind of explanation for what happened only moments earlier.
“Only for profit.”
She gave him a scathing look. “If you’ve come to insult me any more, save your breath for somebody who cares,” she said.
“But you do care.”
She could play cold and detached all she wanted, but he knew she cared. “Why are you following me?” she asked him, not denying whether she cared or not.
“Because I need answers. I need to know why.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you’ve sent off warnin’ signals since we met, an’ I needed to know if you’re a threat.”
“Hardly. Why do you think I haven’t visited the mansion in so long? I’ve been trying to keep away. I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble for anyone at the mansion.”
“Jean talks about ya all the time and it makes me wonder how you got wrapped up in all this.”
“Revenge,” she said with a slight smile. “At least, that’s how it all started. It turned into something more after that, something that was inescapable. Now, I don’t know why I continue. Maybe, I’m too afraid to change because this is all I know.”
“You coulda came back to the mansion instead of becoming an assassin,” he said. He didn’t know what happened that led her to make this decision, but he knew she could’ve asked for the Professor’s help.
She shook her head. “No, the mansion couldn’t provide me with the kind of solace that I needed. I didn’t want peace. I wanted my anger. I wanted my pain. It was all I had at the time to keep me strong, to remind me what needed to be done.” Her voice was thick with emotion, and he expected the tears to come at any moment. But they didn’t.
“What happened that was so bad you couldn’t count on your friends?”
He thought she was about to tell him what caused this. “Have you ever known a rage that was so deep that you felt like it would choke you if you didn’t sedate it somehow, the kind of rage that cries out for vengeance?” She asked him instead.
“The kind of rage that makes you mindless to everythin’ else except that feeling of hatred,” he said. He knew it, that dark feeling that pounded in your head, in your soul, making you deaf to everything and everyone.
Her eyes were shining with fervor. “Exactly. You do understand. Now, do you think that the Professor could have possibly provided me with the relief I needed?” she asked. He couldn’t answer the question because he knew the answer was no.
“But what happened?” he asked again.
“I have to shower,” she said suddenly, standing from her chair. She picked up some clothing and a robe and disappeared into the restroom.
Whatever happened, it was obviously something that Jean and Scott knew about. The Professor probably knew, as well. He could probably wring it out of Jeannie, but he would rather hear it from Ororo. He sat in the room, waiting for her return.
She came out of the bathroom refreshed, as if by showering away Destin’s blood she had also showered away her past. She had the robe wrapped around her, but he could still see a peek of jeans under the robe.
“If it makes you feel any better, Logan, I do plan to get out of this. I can’t do it anymore,” she admitted, sitting across from him, an unexpected confession.
“When?”
“As soon as I can,” she said, truthfulness lining her words. “It’s time for me to move on with my life, to actually heal now.”
He started to ask once again what happened, but she must’ve sensed it coming because she stood again. “I have to get you out of here. I’m surprised that you’ve managed to make it this far without anyone getting suspicious,” she said.
He liked to think he was just a bit more normal than some of the people he’d seen earlier. At least, he wasn’t prancing around on the end of someone’s leash. Maybe his normalcy is what should’ve made him stand out in a place like the Kurogaisha. She probably just didn’t want him digging into her past anymore, though.
She faced the wall, letting her robe drop to the floor. She turned to him only slightly, and he could see the curve of her breast in the dim light. He wasn’t so sure that was unintentional. “Could you please hand me my shirt?” she asked.
He looked from her to the shirt on the back of the chair. He didn’t make a move immediately. Instead, he studied the way her muscles moved in her shoulders, the way her back tapered into a small waist that led the way to shapely hips, the same ones that beckoned when she walked. She made sound in her throat meant to gain his attention.
“Are you going to hand me that shirt, or am I going to have to get it myself?” she asked with just a bit of a smirk on her lips. If she turned around now, he wasn’t responsible for what may or may not happen. He grabbed the shirt quickly and handed it to her. “Thank you.”
She pulled the shirt over her head, sweeping her hair to the side for one moment, briefly revealing the tattoo he’d spied at the mansion. Keen eyesight revealed numbers this time. 1920151813. What the hell did it mean? Hell, it could just be some tattoo that she decided to get. Somehow, he didn’t think so.
She turned around and walked past him, opening the door and peeking out. She waved him over, an indicator to follow her. She walked out the door, but pushed him back, just as he glimpsed two of the bouncers questioned someone. She closed the door behind her, leaving him alone in the room. He heard heavy footsteps becoming louder as someone walked toward the room. They paused right in front of the door where he knew Ororo stood.
“Have you seen anyone suspicious?” he heard a man with a deep, rumbling voice ask.
“What kind of question is that?” Ororo said with a laugh. “I see plenty of suspicious people working in a place like this. This place doesn’t have a shortage of suspicious people.”
“No, this place doesn’t have shortage of fuckin’ weirdoes. That’s a little different from suspicious,” deep voice said.
“What is this about?” Ororo asked, and she actually had a note of concern in her voice. Either she was a really good actress, or she thought he really had done something awful.
“Somebody attacked Roy and snuck into the club. We found him out cold at the backdoor. Didn’t come to for a while. When he did, he said some guy was tryin’ to use that entrance to get into the club.”
“Poor Roy.” Ororo said, her voice softening in worry. “Is he all right?”
“Yeah, he’ll be okay. His jaw is a little busted up. Don’t think it’s broken since he’s talkin’ okay, but the boss told him to go to the hospital. He’d pick up the tab,” deep voice said, sounding sympathetic. Logan hit him hard, but he didn’t think he’d him hard enough to break his jaw.
“I always knew Roy was a fuckwit.” Another voice, male, with a tinge of an accent he couldn’t place.
“Anyway, we think the guy might still be here,” deep voice continued.
“Roy said it felt like someone hit him with a lead pipe when the guy punched him. I believe the bastard’s just soft,” the other man said.
“What the hell is up with you bashin’ Roy? Don’t you got nothin’ better to do? Oh, still mad he fucked your girl, huh?”
“You wanna repeat that?”
“Boys! Boys! Can we please save the male aggression for the boys’ bathroom?” Ororo asked, her voice commanding. The squabbling ceased. “What did he look like?”
“Roy said he was white, sort of short,” deep voice paused. “‘Bout this tall or so.”
“Oh yeah, that is short.” Ororo said, chuckling a little, and the bouncers laughed with her.
“You know what they say about short men,” deep voice said laughing harder. Ororo’s laughter mixed with the bouncers, as they traded a series of short jokes for the next five minutes. Why I oughta, Logan said to himself, but he stayed where he was.
“He’s stocky, not fat just solid from Roy’s description. Muscular or whatever. He’s dark-haired, got wild hair, some beard stubble. Said he had the look of a wild man.”
Damn, that bouncer got a better look than he thought. “No, I haven’t seen anyone that fits that description, but if I do, I’ll let you know.” Ororo said, her voice brightening.
“All right, we’re going to go check out the Arena. Somebody said they saw him there,” deep voice said. Logan heard retreating footsteps going back in the same direction they’d come from.
“Hey, why’d ya have to bring up all that shit about Roy and my girl?” he heard one of the bouncers ask, his voice starting to fade as they walked away. Through the door, he heard Ororo let out a breath. She opened the door.
“Follow me,” she said, leading him in the opposite direction as the securities guard. She pushed past a couple of people who paid them little attention. They walked until they came to a part of the club that was deserted. “Do you always go around knocking people out?”
“He slipped””
“And fell onto your knuckles, right?”
“Damn right.”
Ororo laughed, as he followed her down a series of passageways that looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in years. Dust an inch thick settled on the walls where the cobwebs didn’t cover them. He felt like he was being led into someone’s dungeon. She told him they were the old service passages that were used before the new ones were built.
“So, what was with the short jokes back there?” he asked. He heard her chuckle lightly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by them,” she said, pausing to look at him. Her blue eyes were full of mirth. “What you lack in height, I’m sure you make up in… other areas.”
He was about to make a seething comment about the jokes “not meaning anything,” but he quieted when he heard soft moans, wanting whimpers, and pillow talk seemingly coming from the walls. He thought he smelled the lingering smell of sex earlier, but he hadn’t been so sure. Now, it was all around him.
“This was one of the reasons that Sebastian had new service ways built,” she said quietly. “This place has always been a play place for the rich, even before Sebastian acquired it. The former owners seemed to enjoy the voyeuristic side of sex.”
She removed one of the bricks from the wall, soundlessly, which turned out to be nothing more than a hollow block. Did that mean the whole wall was paper thin? Had to be. She touched the hole the block came from and he heard the soft sound of something sliding back. Soft light beamed from behind two holes in the wall.
“They would watch their patrons without their consent using paintings. How cliché is that?” she asked, touching her hand to the hole again, shutting off the light. She replaced the brick. “That was part of the reason the former owners went out of business. Remember that sex scandal with Senator Kincaid?”
“Yeah,” he said. He remembered. Someone had taped the sick bastard with a girl who was barely thirteen. Whoever made the tape tried to use it to bribe the Senator, but when the Senator didn’t hold to his promises, every news station in the country became privy to the Senator’s unusual sexual appetites.
“Someone taped that right here one night. After that, things basically turned into a witch-hunt around here until the former owners were forced to close the place down. They couldn’t have all their secrets getting out, after all.”
“So, when Shaw took over, he had to insure nothin’ like that would happen again.”
“Exactly. It may seem rather pointless because it could all happen all over again, but Shaw has some stiff rules. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe the hold that he has over people, even his own peers. Sebastian was supposed to have these passages sealed off, but I think from time to time that someone still makes good use of them with Sebastian’s knowledge.”
“You think someone’s still makin’ tapes for blackmail with Shaw’s approval.”
“I’ll tell you a secret. The Kincaid tape that was leaked to the media was deliberate. I know it was supposed to be someone’s revenge against Kincaid because he wouldn’t cave in to that person’s demands. That’s not true. Kincaid was more than willing to meet the demands of the person who made the tape.”
“Are you sayin’ Shaw made the tape or had someone to make the tape?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m only telling you that I know the tape was made to ruin the careers of Kincaid and the former owners of this place,” she said. She didn’t say anything more, and he knew it would be useless to question her any further about it.
She led him through a small door that opened to the outside. “You’re home free, now,” she said. She started to close the door, but he pressed a firm hand against it.
“I didn’t tell the others about you, not even Jeannie,” he said.
She looked at him surprised. Then, she opened the door wide, grabbing him suddenly, pressing her lips to his. At first, she caught him off-guard with the gesture, but before long, he found himself kissing her back, savoring the taste of her lips against his. He placed his palm flat on the palm of her back, pressing her into him.
She pulled back, ending the kiss as swiftly as it started. “Call that a thanks,” she said breathlessly. She winked and closed the door in his face.
The fuck just happened? he asked himself.
Author’s Notes: This would’ve been out sooner, but I’m feeling under the weather and didn’t want to post it without fixing any “glaring” mistakes. I skimped on the fight scene because this chapter was already insanely long at over 8,000 words (according to all mighty Word), and I didn’t want it to turn into a monster. Sorry if this chapter ending seems a little rushed. I’ll probably go back and fix all that later. The next chapter will be out as soon as I can muster up some more energy.
Chapter title comes from the song “Neo Geisha” by Zeromancer.
Next Chapter: “If you ever get close to a human and human behavior, be ready to get confused…”
