Scandal:The Complete Series(11)

Some sentences have so much innuendo, they could be interpreted in a number of ways. All good writers know that. Sentences are not only made up of words but also spaces and pauses that can alter their meaning completely. That’s what Jaxson is doing right now. He uses words in ways that pose more questions than answers for me.

“Are you telling me Madison fancied strip joints?”

“Just this one,” he says, turning on his seat while he puts his hands on my hips, turning me around so we face each other. “This is a strict membership-only club. Madison had one and she made good use of it.”

“Madison liked girls?” I say, throwing a doubting glance at Jaxson.

He leans in, bringing his lips close to my ear. “She liked girls and she liked boys. She liked feeling alive and often only new things could do that for her. There is a lot more going on here than the stripping and the dancing.”

“New things or dangerous things?” The words come off my lips but I don’t know where they come from. Esposito would be proud. “Can you show me?” I ask. My heart pounds in my chest but I’m starting to find comfort here within the looming shadows and darkness of this new world, Madison’s world.

“Ella,” he says uncertainly.

“Show me what’s going on here,” I say, grabbing his hips now to spin him in his stool so we remain fully face to face.

He did not expect me to embrace the danger so eagerly. It’s not eagerness. It’s necessity. This is why Mark chose me for this story. I actually care and won’t rest until Madison can rest in peace.

Jaxson accepts the change in this game and gets off the stool, taking my hand in his without a word. We have achieved some desperate synchronicity, a unified need to know the truth.

We make our way across the length of the main stage, through an open door and down a few steps to some sort of semi-basement, my hand in his the whole time.

“The private rooms are down here,” Jaxson says as if reading my mind when we spot two bouncers pacing up and down the long hallway with the lush planted flowerpots. It’s a wonder they can survive in so little light. “Some like to call them dream chambers,” he adds.

Jaxson stops outside a door. “Are you ready?” he says without looking at me, only squeezing my hand tighter.

Exhilaration and fear course through my veins. “Not at all,” I say. “But let’s go in anyway.”

There are moments in our lives where we know the next step we take is one that can never be taken back, that once traveled there is no return. This is one of those steps. My chest and shoulders and neck all ache from the pounding of my heart.

The door opens and my jaw drops. Six young men and women, all of them good-looking enough to be models, all of them half-naked and joyful, roll around on a white, thick carpet in a heap of limbs and flesh under some reddish-pink light, groping and kissing each other. All eyes turn to Jaxson and me as these almost alien sex gods freeze on the spot like statues.

Is this a fucking orgy? An orgy of sex gods no less? They’re all models. I begin to recognize a few of them.

I turn to Jaxson, confounded and shy as hell.

“You asked,” he says with a shrug.





—six—


When Things Get out of Hand


No matter what moral judgment I might make of the intertwined human bodies in front of my eyes, I cannot deny they are spectacular. Frankly, I don’t know if I can handle so much eye candy in such a short time. First, the model agency, now this.

How much can a girl take before she develops an inferiority complex?

“In or out?” one of the guys says, a young blond stud with piercings on his ears, lips and nipples. I can’t help but wonder where else he might be pierced, but I neatly tuck that thought away. Lord knows there are more important things to consider.

Jaxson smiles as he shrugs. “In,” he says and I don’t know if I should be offended that he doesn’t bother to ask me what I want before he shuts the door behind us. Oh well, you know what they say, when in Rome…

Rome is actually a very apt analogy if we take into consideration how upper-class Romans used to entertain themselves at their banquets. Except this is twenty-first century Los Angeles and I’m not exactly an emperor’s wife.

My heart starts pumping faster and my hands get sweaty as the implications of what I’ve just gotten myself into begin to become clear.

“Take off your shoes,” Jaxson says in a commanding voice, as he kneels down on the wooden floor to get rid of his sneakers.

This is my chance to say fuck it and walk out of this weird dream chamber with red walls and a burning fireplace in late June. It is my chance to drag Jaxson Cole out into the light and ask him the endless questions that now flood my head. Like, was Madison really into group sex and if so, does he think she might have met her murderer here? Was this the reason he asked me to meet him at the club? I should have asked those questions right away.