Chapter 28: The Jacuzzi
The cold plunge was a shock to the system, a seizing, gasping clarity that lasted all of ten seconds before the memory of the steam room—of her behind the glass—flooded back in, warmer and more insidious than the water. I climbed out, my limbs shuddering, and followed the others to the indoor jacuzzi, a large, marble-lined pit set into a grotto-like room with dim, underwater lighting.
Chloe was already submerged up to her shoulders, her blonde hair slicked back, smiling at me.She looked like a safe harbor. “Over here,” she called, patting the bench next to her.I started toward her, but Nora moved first. She slid into the churning water directly beside Chloe, her movement fluid and claiming. “Plenty of room, Ethan,” she said, not looking at me. She gestured to the space on her other side, where Mia was already lowering herself, her sharp eyes watching the whole arrangement like a strategist. “You can sit by Mia.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.The hierarchy was set. I obeyed, sinking into the violently hot, bubbling water on Mia’s left. The jets roared, a constant, thrumming vibration through the water and the stone.
For a minute, it was just the four of us, soaking in silence. The room smelled of chlorine and the faint, sweet coconut of someone’s shampoo.Chloe made a small, happy sound.“This is amazing. My muscles are just melting.”
“That’s the idea,” Nora said. She shifted, her leg brushing Chloe’s under the opaque, churning foam.“It’s all about release. Letting go.”
Nora’s arm was stretched out along the jacuzzi’s edge behind Chloe. Her fingers drifted, absently tracing patterns on the wet marble. Then, they dipped lower, disappearing below the foam-flecked surface. Chloe’s smile faltered for a second, her eyes darting to me.My own body went rigid. Because at the same moment, under the cover of the swirling water and the roaring jets, I felt a hand on my thigh.
It was Mia.Her touch was deliberate, exploratory. Her fingers walked inward from my knee, a slow, clinical progression. I stared straight ahead, at a mosaic tile on the opposite wall, my heart hammering against my ribs.I couldn’t move.I couldn’t look at Chloe.
Under the water, Mia’s hand found its target.She didn’t hesitate. Her cool, ringed fingers closed around me, already half-hard from the adrenaline and the sheer, sick tension of the day. She began to move, a slow, relentless rhythm masked completely by the chaos of the jets.
A choked sound escaped my lips.
“You okay, Ethan?” Nora asked, her voice honeyed with fake concern.Her face was a mask of innocent inquiry, but her eyes were black pools of knowing. Her other hand, I saw, was now also submerged near Chloe, who sat perfectly still, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed a deep, feverish pink. Chloe’s eyes were locked on mine, wide and confused and dark with something that wasn’t quite refusal.
She could see my panic.She could probably guess what was happening to me under the water. And Nora’s hand, somewhere beneath the surface, was doing God-knows-what to her.
“Fine,” I gritted out. “Just… the heat.”
Mia increased her pressure, her technique obscenely proficient.It was a violation, but my body, traitorous and starved, responded. Shame burned through me, hotter than the jacuzzi water. I was trapped between two sensations: Mia’s mechanical, demanding touch and the devastating sight of Chloe, being drawn into Nora’s orbit. Nora was whispering something in Chloe’s ear now, her lips brushing the shell of it. Chloe swallowed, her gaze dropping to the water, then flitting back to me, pleading and startled.
“We should do this more often,” Mia announced, her voice conversationally casual as her wrist worked beneath the foam. “It’s so… connective.”
Nora smiled, a slow, luxurious unfurling.“It really is. You know, Mia lives just a few blocks from here.In that new loft building.We should go.Have a proper drink. Extend the afternoon.” Her eyes sliced toward me. “Ethan, you’re not going to bail, are you?”
My mind screamed yes.Run.Get Chloe out of here. But Mia’s grip tightened, a silent promise and a threat. And Chloe, under Nora’s whispered spell, gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
“I…” The word died in my throat.I was outnumbered.Outmaneuvered. The photo of me, vulnerable and asleep, flashed in my mind.This was the price.This was the next step down.
“Great,” Nora said, as if my silence was agreement. She finally lifted both her hands from the water, placing them innocently on the edge of the tub.The sudden absence felt loud. “Let’s dry off and head over. Mia makes a mean martini.”
Mia withdrew her hand from me with a final, deliberate squeeze that made my stomach lurch. She stood up, water streaming off her angular frame, and climbed out without a backward glance. Nora followed, extending a hand to help Chloe out.Chloe took it, her fingers trembling slightly.
I was the last to leave the water, my body humming with a disgusting cocktail of arousal, humiliation, and dread. The borrowed swim trunks clung to me, betraying everything. I wrapped a towel around my waist quickly, avoiding Chloe’s eyes.We dressed in a silence that was anything but quiet. The rustle of fabric was loaded.The zip of a bag was accusatory.Chloe didn’t speak to me. She walked close to Nora, who had an arm draped casually over her shoulders.
Outside, the afternoon sun was brutal, a stark contrast to the spa’s liquid shadows. Mia’s loft was, as promised, only a five-minute walk.The building was all concrete and glass. Her apartment was a vast, sterile space with high ceilings, a kitchen of polished steel, and a single, enormous white sofa facing a window wall.
“Gin or vodka?” Mia called from the kitchen, already clinking bottles.“Vodka for me,” Nora said, guiding Chloe to the sofa. “Chloe?A little lemon drop? Sweet, not too strong.”
“Okay,” Chloe said softly, sinking into the cushions.She looked small.
“Ethan?” Mia’s voice carried across the cold room.I stood awkwardly near the door, my escape route.I could still leave. Make an excuse.But leaving meant abandoning Chloe to them.Leaving meant Nora’s displeasure. Leaving meant I’d never know what happened next, and the part of me that was sick with curiosity was louder than the part that was afraid.“Yeah,” I said, my voice flat. “Whatever.”
I walked to the sofa and sat on the opposite end from Chloe and Nora. A vast expanse of white linen separated us. Nora kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up, turning her body toward Chloe, closing me out. She accepted a martini glass from Mia, took a sip, and let out a satisfied sigh. “Perfect.”
Mia handed Chloe a misty, yellow drink, then brought me a heavy crystal tumbler with clear liquid and ice.“Vodka soda. Straightforward.” She sat on the wide arm of the sofa next to Nora, creating a wall of women. The air in the loft felt charged, waiting for a spark.
Nora took another sip, then leaned in toward Chloe, her voice a low, intimate murmur. “You seemed so tense in the jacuzzi, sweetie.All wound up. You need to learn to relax.” Her hand came up, not to the nape of Chloe’s neck this time, but to brush a stray, damp strand of hair from her forehead.The gesture was impossibly tender.Proprietary.
Chloe’s eyes found mine over Nora’s shoulder. They were clouded, glassy from the drink and the proximity.She looked lost.She looked like I felt.
And in that shared glance, a thread of understanding snapped taut between us.A thread of normalcy, of us versus them. Without thinking, I reached my hand out across the endless white sofa.
After a heartbeat, Chloe’s fingers slipped from her lap and stretched toward mine. Our fingertips touched, then our whole hands clasped, hidden from view by the bulk of the sofa cushion.It was dry and warm and human. A secret.Our secret.
Nora, sensing the shift, pulled back slightly from Chloe and looked directly at me.She saw our joined hands.Her smile didn’t fade. It sharpened.
The game, I realized with a sinking finality, had just become infinitely more complicated.