The Saint(99)
He raised his hand to his head and held up two fingers as horns. Eleanor burst out laughing.
“I like you, Kingsley. I don’t want to, but I do.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the center of her palm. No finger sniffing this time.
“The feeling, ma petite, is entirely mutual.”
They arrived as Kingsley’s town house, and he escorted her inside.
“Who’s this, King?” A stunning Hispanic-looking woman in a tight white dress came down the stairs. She gave Kingsley a quick kiss on the cheek. “Nice uniform,” she said to Eleanor. It sounded like a genuine compliment, not sarcasm.
“We’re doing an age-play scene tonight. Teacher-student. I’d let you watch but it’s her first role-play.” Kingsley ran his hand over Eleanor’s bottom.
“Next time, maybe?” the woman said, giving her a wink and Kingsley another kiss. “I’ll play her sister, and you can punish us both for acting up in class, Mr. King.”
The woman strolled away, her hips swaying seductively with every step.
“Age-play?” she asked. “That’s a thing?”
“Here everything is a thing,” he said. Kingsley gave her another ass pat.
She thought about finding a knife and slicing that roaming, ass-grabbing hand of his off, but the word sister reminded her of a question she wanted to ask.
“Can I ask you a weird question?”
“I might not answer it, but you may ask me anything.”
“Was it Elizabeth?” she asked as he took her arm and led her up the stairs.
“Elizabeth? What about her?”
“Søren said when he was married to your sister he cheated on her with someone. Your sister caught him and whoever kissing and ran off and that’s when …” Eleanor felt weird about bringing this up but she had to know. “Søren didn’t tell me who he cheated with, only that he loved her.”
“He said he loved her?”
“Something like that. I keep thinking about why he wouldn’t tell me who she was. And then he told me about him and Elizabeth when they were kids … and your sister, she came to visit you all at school. It was an all-boys school, but they let her visit. Why?”
“Because she was a relative.”
“Right,” Eleanor said and waited. Kingsley said nothing more. “I’m asking, was it Elizabeth who Søren cheated on your sister with? They had a fucked-up childhood. They were lonely. Incest or not, I don’t care. It’s the only answer I can come up with. I mean, what else could have shocked your sister so much she … you know.”
“Killed herself?”
“That. I mean, seeing her husband kissing his own sister? That could shock anyone to death.”
“It could, oui.”
“I want to know who he loved enough to cheat on his wife with. I need to know, and I know you know.”
“I know,” he said.
“But you won’t tell me?”
“Not yet,” he said with a smile. “Perhaps in time. But I will tell you this, you’re on the right track. Now come with me.”
Kingsley escorted her to a room at the end of the hall on the second floor.
“Tonight is my friend Blaise’s birthday and we’re having a little party for her. I thought you should come and see how our sort plays together.”
He opened the door and led her inside a kind of sitting room.
“Oh, fuck.”
Everywhere Eleanor looked, she saw fire. Tall taper candles, all alight, covered every horizontal surface—tabletops, window ledges—and a few dozen sat on the floor in ornate silver holders. So dazzled by the scene before her, Eleanor hardly noticed the four other people in the room until Kingsley introduced her to them.
First was Blaise, the birthday girl, who wore nothing but a white button-down shirt. Next was Baptiste, dark skinned and handsome, who had some kind of sexy accent—not quite French, but close. Then another man—Sven or something. She’d stopped listening because Blaise now stood naked in the center of the room.
“Shall we?” Kingsley picked up a candle as Blaise lay on the floor on a large wooden board. Everyone in the room followed suit. Soon everyone, herself included, held a candle in their hands.
Blaise raised her arms over her head and smiled up at Kingsley.
“Happy birthday, ma fille.” He knelt at her side, bent to kiss her and as soon as the kiss broke, he poured candle wax onto the center of her chest.
Blaise winced in agony. Eleanor winced in sympathy. Everyone else laughed and applauded. Music played. Wine flowed. And one by one every guest took their turn dripping candle wax onto Blaise’s naked body. Everyone but her.