I am wearing his tuxedo shirt and my high heels, holding the studs of the shirt up to my ears to see what I would look like with black earrings. He frowns and pulls my hand toward him, scooping them out of my grasp, returning them to the tiny tray on the bureau. I walk away toward the window, taking my champagne flute with me. It's still half full but the champagne, poured last night and well into this morning, has gone flat. I take a long sip, make a face and stare out over the strip. Daylight makes Las Vegas honest in a way I can't describe. It's so filthy, ugly and then at night it undergoes a metamorphosis into a sexy pornographic firework, drawing us in, keeping us rapt.
Maybe it's similar to me and then in the daylight I am revealed, honest in my translucent blue flesh, washed out ash-blonde hair, diluted bottle-green eyes and thoroughly corrupted mind. The black dress is harsh, the shoes unmanageable in their level of difficulty, I lost my stockings the night before. Or at least, I think I did. Vegas has a way of making the days all blend together in a haze and we've moved hotel rooms three times. One was to change to a comp after the hotel realized they had a High Roller on the grounds and then again when I made a remark about the paint color and he decided I was right and we needed something less...oppressive.
If I say it, it happens and so I watch my mouth. If I say I don't want it, it happens faster.
I don't dare tell him the view is terrible, then. I might be whisked back onto a plane and carted away to the Swiss Alps or Hawaii. This is far enough. Far enough for me to miss home and want to return but this is one of those trips arranged for my benefit, so that Caleb can swoop in and prove he has means or money or might, I'm never sure which.
I watch as a squad car slowly pulls in beside three women loitering in front of a lavish hotel. They exchange words, their body language reminding me that I am no better, the only difference being their conquests for cash are relative strangers and mine is a stranger relative.
I'm not required to walk the sin city stroll either. I was flown in on a private jet, and then deposited here by a private car. This is as close as I'll get to humanity save for those who serve us when Caleb makes a flick of his wrist or speaks a few low words into his phone. His phone is amazing. It folds into a tiny black brick with a pull-out antenna and it works absolutely everywhere. I asked if I could hold it but he said I didn't need it, and besides, he was expecting business calls. Then he told me not to worry, he wouldn't let business interfere with this trip, since this is for fun.
My eyebrows went up then and I asked if I could just call Bailey. He said no. Then he softened a little and said maybe we would call her later today, that it's still very early back home with the time difference, and maybe instead we should order some breakfast.
I turn and he slides his shirt off my shoulders, pulling it on, frowning at me.
You should get dressed.
Why bother? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, what is it?
I don't appreciate the games, Bridget.
Then you should have brought someone older. I smile creepily at him and then stick out my tongue for good measure. The drinking age is twenty-one here, and I am all of eighteen now, too young for all of the lounges and clubs he was planning to take me to, forgetting that he doesn't run this show. The mafia runs this show and in passing someone told him he could definitely bring me to their club whenever he liked, but he would have to leave me there for a while.
It was at that point where I realized that I didn't like this one bit. I started asking for his phone or maybe any phone or hell, just give me back my passport and I can find my own way home and Caleb shook his head and said we would have our own private party at the hotel and he ordered too much champagne and stuffed mushrooms and foie gras and caviar and strawberries with cream and chocolate and raspberry glaze and they just bring the food and he doesn't even have to pay for it and how did he get so powerful that he can hold his own in a place like this at the age of twenty-seven and I think I might be sick again. I should be home, getting ready for prom.
By ten o'clock he was on the balcony looking at the lights, holding me up, wrapping me in his suit jacket, pulling my hair up out of the collar and smoothing it back, holding me in his arms in the cool night, telling me I didn't have to go back to his brother if I didn't want to and I drank until I couldn't hear him any more and then I woke up at ten in the morning when the strip went quiet at last and I don't know where my dress went or why my head doesn't hurt at all but I still can't seem to get a line out or a line in for that matter, though he seems to be making lines damn near everywhere. I see my reflection behind them, dusty and faded. I don't like these trips. I don't like that I can't remember what happens and I don't like that he brings everything he thinks I will need, including clothes in my size, but not my taste. His taste, shameless, depraved.
And all I can taste is sin.
