Role Play Read online

  “I’m not going to do that!” I exclaimed. “You’re crazy!”

  “You better do something.” He reached into the back seat and grabbed a plastic bag. Throwing it into my lap, it took me a moment to realize it was the red curly wig he had loaned me. I had left it on the car seat when he dropped me off last weekend. “You check out that website. You’ll see! If you don’t keep an eye on her, then I will.”

  I got out of the car. I didn’t like the way he was yelling at me, almost threatening me, like he had a right to treat me this way. But I took the bag with the wig in it.

  I headed to my apartment, determined to have it out with Lola once and for all.

  ...

  Lola was stretching on the living room floor when I came in. My sister had always been flexible and fancied herself a good dancer, but you needed lessons to be able to really dance. Not just copying what you saw on YouTube videos. Right now Lola was lying almost prone between her widely outstretched legs, with her long hair bundled up behind her head.

  I could hear the deafening rap through the ear buds Lola was wearing. My sister gave me a wave, but didn’t stop her rhythmic stretching.

  I went into the bedroom to change into comfy night clothes, trying to figure out how I could make my sister talk to me. I went through my usual getting-home rituals, putting my clothes in the hamper, and washing my face and hands.

  Walking back into the living room, I waved to get Lola’s attention. “Hey, Lola!”

  Lola only removed one ear bud. “What?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about Martin.”

  “What about him?”

  I flopped down on the couch, trying to send out a relaxed vibe. “How’s it going with him? You’ve been gone all week, and I wasn’t sure if you were seeing him or doing something else.”

  “Both.” Lola kept on stretching.

  “Come on, Lolly!” The nickname came out without thinking, but it reminded me of the profile name that Dick said she had made. “Tell me what’s going on. I’m so curious.”

  “Yeah, I know you’re curious! Or you wouldn’t have spied on me.”

  Irritation flashed through me. I had done it to try to understand her. But I couldn’t tell Lola that or she would get even madder. “Well, I’d rather have you tell me. I just want to make sure you’re okay. What if something happens that you don’t like?”

  “I have a safeword. That’s what I say to stop whatever’s going on if it’s not working for me. But I’ve never had to use it. I got to trust Martin before I let him touch me.”

  “How did you get to know him?”

  Suspiciously, Lola eyed me. “At the mall. He worked there for a while. We kept running into each other in the food court.”

  “And that made him trustworthy?”

  “Sierra, I met him months ago. We were friends long before anything happened. He’s a performer. He travels all over the world doing shows.”

  “What kind of shows?”

  “Performance art.”

  I suddenly saw Lola’s stretching as more than an idle exercise. “Like dancing?”

  “Kind of. I want to be a part of his work. I’m sort of on a trial basis right now.”

  “You mean you aren’t having sex with him?”

  Lola shot me a look. “It’s none of your business, but I am.”

  My mouth opened. “How is it none of my business? I’m your sister.”

  “My private life is mine. Why do you keep acting like you own me? Like you can tell me how to live?”

  “Lola! I’m just trying to help you.”

  “I don’t need your help. And I don’t need you telling me I should be doing this and I should be doing that. Go deal with your own shit and let me deal with mine.”

  “My shit is doing just fine. I’m getting my degree at the end of summer. And you could have, too, if you had taken classes—“

  “Give it a rest, Sierra. For years you’ve ragged on me to go to school. I’m done with school. I’m never going back. I keep telling you that, but you won’t listen to me.”

  I continued as if I hadn’t heard my sister’s protest. “My only problem is you, Lola. I’m afraid you’re spinning out of control, again. Breaking up with Dick, who you love!”

  “What’s love?” Lola asked darkly. “He smothered me, like you smother me.”

  “I’m just trying to—“

  “Help,” Lola finished. “Which brings us back to that again. I don’t need your help. It’s none of your business.”

  “I’m family, Lola. We live together. If you spin out of control again, you’ll take me down with you. I’m living pay check to pay check here. And I know you relied on Dick for rent money. What are you going to do?”

  Lola shrugged one shoulder, looking away. “I’ve gotten a couple of modeling gigs. I’m hoping this work with Martin will get to be a paying gig, too.”

  “Modeling.” All of my doubts filled my voice. Lola may be pretty, but neither of us were fashion models.

  “Bondage modeling.” Lola lifted her chin. “And before you say anything, it’s just pictures. And it’s only topless. It’s not like it’s porn.”

  I stared at her, unable to form the words that were swirling around my brain. The first thing that came out was, “Are you kidding me?!”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it, Sierra.” Lola got to her feet. “This is why I didn’t tell you. Let me live my own life. Or I’ll have to find another place to live!”

  Lola stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. I was used to that. Lola let everyone know when she was mad.

  But the last time Lola told me to butt out of her life, she had been doing a lot of drugs with her ex-boyfriend. Lola was once again following some random guy to her doom. Just like our mother.

  Even worse, Lola had never threatened to move out before. It was our unwritten rule, going back further than I could remember, that we stuck by each other. Through everything. No matter what else happened, we had each other’s back. How could Lola forget that?

  What would I do without Lola? The practical side was a nightmare. I couldn’t afford to live in the city alone. Not on my pay.

  I was breathing faster, trying to figure out why Lola was suddenly threatening to move out.

  It must be that guy, Martin. He had lured her away from Dick, and he was luring my sister into flashing her breasts and going to a fetish club. Maybe he was trying to get Lola to move in with him, so she would be dependent on him. Instead of me.

  I must have sat there a full five minutes, running possibilities over in my mind. Then I reached for my laptop and punched in the website Dick had given me. I had to make my own profile to get in, so I signed up as Francisco29 to throw everyone off, and clicked at random on the buttons asking whether I was gay or straight.

  As soon as I was in, with a question mark for a profile avatar, I searched for Lollycat.

  I quickly found the profile and knew it was Lola because she had posted several dozen photographs of herself in her gallery. I clicked through quickly. Some were topless, all right. Lola was tied into unusual shapes, and was suspended by ropes. In several, she was held up by a thick webbing. A couple of them were stunning. I couldn’t believe that was Lola, her profile so serene as she arched in a perfect circle, dangling from a crossbeam in an abandoned building.

  Where on earth… did that happen?

  She must have been doing this while I was sitting here worrying about her.

  It was both better and worse than I feared. It wasn’t quite porn, but it was a lot slicker and more professional than I expected. The names under the images were of different photographers, and I followed the links back to their profiles. There I found hundreds of photos, not just a dozen. My mind was boggled at the wide-ranging imagination of the photographers, and of the models tied up into beautiful contorted shapes. A few were graphic, but mostly they were otherworldly and haunting.

  I took a deep sigh. Drugs, I could sort of understand. Lola was always so
angry that it probably felt good for her to let go. But this stuff made no sense. Why would Lola want to expose herself like this?

  Going back to Lollycat, I saw that there were events listed down one side that Lola had checked as “maybe going.” In the text of her profile, she called herself a “new bondage model,” and said that photographers could contact her about setting up a shoot with her. Under relationships, there were several names under “In a rope family with…” and Martin was the first one listed.

  I poured over the profiles of the three names who were linked to Lola’s profile. Their profiles had additional relationship links to other people. I could hardly get through it all, there were so many photos and comments posted, especially by the woman, JuneTime. She was the blond woman who I saw with Lola at the Chamber.

  Under Martin’s profile, there were hundreds of shadowy shots of swirling fire and bursts of sparklers partly obscuring the performers. None of them were of the high quality of the fetish photographers that Lola had posed for. They looked like snapshots taken at events, interspersed with startlingly ordinary photos of him hanging out with friends at parties or sitting on the back of a van between the open double doors. They chronicled several years of traveling around the country with his “performance troop” called Transcendence. They did “fire shows” and “freak shows” where he swallowed a sword and JuneTime twirled a baton lit on fire.

  When I clicked on some of their hundreds of friends, things got a lot more graphic with photos of red marks slashing across people’s backs and buttocks, and frankly explicit shots of genitals. Some men used a photo of their erection as their profile photo, of all things! As if that was appealing. I made sure to click away quickly from those profiles.

  I was shocked to see how late it was when I finally put the lap top away, reeling at what I had seen. I had been in the fetish network for hours. I could hardly keep my burning eyes open, but my brain was buzzing in overtime.

  I turned out the lights and lay on the couch in the dark, trying to absorb the riot of things I had seen.

  I didn’t understand it. And what I didn’t understand, I had to figure out.

  Dick was a jerk for suggesting I bug Lola’s laptop. I would never do that.

  But I could put on that red wig and go to the next event that Lola had checked as “maybe going.” Pleasure Salon. It was being held at a bar on the lower east side.

  There was nothing stopping me. And I might find out more.

  The next day, yawning at work, I found the halter dress in a sales rack. It was black and when I tried it on, it fit my body like a glove. It was something I would never buy usually, so it was a real surprise to see how sexy I looked in it. In that dress, with that red wig, I could become a different person. Someone who could walk into a bar filled with fetish-lovers and feel right at home.

  Then I could see for myself what Lola was up to.

  Chapter 4

  Victor

  I was up the block when I spotted those distinctive magenta curls going into the bar. I got a sudden rush like I’d never felt before, the visceral memory of Sierra’s body crushed under me as I whispered to her. Her rapid breath on my face, as I leaned so close to her cheek that I could feel her trembling.

  I didn’t like to think that it was nonconsensual, but it was a mindfuck she hadn’t negotiated. I had set it up that way. And she, in her ignorance, had agreed.

  It was wrong to take advantage of her. But I couldn’t regret it, and that probably made me a bad man.

  Then again, it wasn’t my fault. I’ve always been told I’m bad.

  The fact that I went around letting people think I’m a rich airline executive also proved that early prediction. But I only took advantage of women who were after me because of my money, so who was to blame for that?

  Sierra was hiding something behind that gaudy wig. Now was my chance to find out what it was.

  I went through glass door of the bar. It was once a Chinese massage parlor named Happy Endings, and the name had stuck when it was turned into a bar. Across the front of the building was the fuchsia awning with Chinese characters that proclaimed the services the massage parlor used to offer.

  Inside it was sleek and modern, with glazed concrete floors and frosted glass partitions. I passed the stairs that went down to a big open space in the basement, and went to the main bar in the back. It was busy, like it always was for Pleasure Salon. People liked a low pressure event like this where they could meet in public. Since it was a bar, and people were drinking, there was no playing allowed.

  Sierra wasn’t at the bar or seated in the two rows of banquets. I went downstairs to find the room filled with moving light. A show was going as two people twirled short ropes with balls of fire on the end.

  I homed in on Sierra among the crowd along the side. The cocktail tables were filled with people standing around watching the show.

  I worked my way through the crowd in her direction. Sierra didn’t see me coming. She was focused on the performers. Her black halter dress clung to her curves, making an enticing package.

  I noticed that Sierra never scanned the crowd or the stairs when more people came down, so she wasn’t waiting for someone. Like last time at the Chamber, she was here alone. And she wasn’t chatting up the men around her who kept giving her appreciative smiles in the rare times she looked away from the performers. She wasn’t on the prowl.

  What other reason than friends or meeting someone new would bring her to Pleasure Salon? The more I looked, the more it didn’t add up.

  The fire master up front started flogging the two girls with flaming whips. The girls squealed, probably more for effect than in real pain.

  Now Sierra looked away from the show. With shaking hands, she dug out her lipstick and a tiny mirror, and quickly touched up her dark red lips.

  I moved up next to her elbow. “Is that part of your disguise, Sierra?”

  When she recognized me, her expression was shocked, angry and, yes, turned on. She was turned on!

  I knew it. I couldn’t have gone so far if she hadn’t been right there with me. I hadn’t mistaken the way her hips had ground into me, the way her eyes never left mine, the instant connection we had formed in the midst of our scene. All week I kept thinking it was a psycho delusion that rapists probably felt, but here was the evidence in her eyes.

  She broke her gaze, turning her head away. “You have some balls coming up to me. After what you did.”

  Her voice was low and husky, like she was overwhelmed by the memory of it. I leaned in closer, wishing I could rid us of the barrier of her overly curly wig.

  “I’ll go upstairs with you,” I murmured. “Turn myself in to the producers. We’ll tell them how I scared you. I’ll do whatever they say.”

  Her startled eyes met mine. “You wouldn’t.”

  “They’ll say I’m a jerk who shouldn’t have done a mindfuck scene with someone I just met. And they’d be right.” I leaned in to lower my voice. “But I couldn’t resist you.”

  We seemed locked together, the rest of the bar disappearing. We were wrapped together in the darkness, as all the other eyes were focused on the flickering lights.

  My fingertips brushed her cheek, silky soft.

  She flinched. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I won’t until you ask me to.” I clenched my fist, pulling away. I wanted to keep stroking her cheek, to smooth away the pain in her eyes. “So who are you hiding from in that getup?”

  She raised her clasped hands to her breast, forming a barrier between us. “No one.”

  I gave a short laugh. “Don’t try to bullshit me. I’m a master of disguise, and I see a snow job going on.”

  “Get lost.” Without a backward look, she made her way over to the other side of the room.

  It didn’t bother me one bit that she was blowing me off. She was hot for me, almost as hot as I was for her. The fact that she was also pissed that I had scared her to death didn’t matter. It might even be one of the reasons w
hy she was so hot for me. Kink could be weird that way.

  “Donations!” a girl announced, thrusting a top hat at me. She was wearing a bondage harness of black rope over a nude bra. Her dark hair was slicked down tightly and wrapped in a bun, with some sort of shiny stuff that likely repelled fire.

  I pulled out a couple dollars, trying to place the girl. I had seen her recently.

  Glancing over at Sierra, she was riveted to us. Then I remembered. This pretty, if rather surly girl had been with the guy Sierra had been chasing down in the Chamber.

  The same guy who was up front packing away the fire gear.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the girl.

  “Lola.”

  “What’s the name of your group?”

  “Transcendence.” She gave me a mocking smile. “Any more questions and you’ll have to give me five bucks.”

  I laughed at her as she moved on. From across the room, Sierra looked like she was dying to hear what we were saying. But as Lola circled around with the other girl in their ménage, Sierra managed to turn away just as she passed her table.

  Sierra was hiding from Lola. Interesting.

  I waited as Sierra watched the group finish packing up the gear. When they went upstairs, so did Sierra, with me following behind.

  Lola’s group was at the bar having a drink and celebrating a good show. One of the producers was talking to the guy in charge of Transcendence. In the brighter light, the performer’s gnarly broken-down skin made him look older than he probably was.

  I saw that Sierra had parked herself at a banquet along the side wall, where she could see the group through the glass partitions. A couple sat on the other side of her table, ignoring her with their heads very close in deep conversation.

  I went up to the bar to say hi to the couple who produced Pleasure Salon, and got introduced to Martin, the guy with the face. He had come to the city a few months ago, having traveled around the country for the past few years doing gigs. Lola was by Martin’s side talking quietly to her other half in the show, June.