Chapter 66: The Actress from England
The record had stopped spinning an hour ago, the needle stuck in the runout groove, clicking softly with every rotation. Nobody had bothered to lift it.
The great room smelled like a bordello now—stale smoke, spilled vodka, the animal musk of three women who had fucked themselves into a stupor and hadn't washed. The air was thick enough to chew.
Veronica lay on her back on the bearskin, staring at the ceiling. The wood beams swam in and out of focus. Her arm was numb from the elbow down, the needle still dangling from the crook like a forgotten ornament.
She should have been thinking about escape. About Brian. About the wedding that would never happen now.
Instead, she was thinking about how good her cunt felt. Sore, yes. Used. But good. That deep, satisfied ache that came from being filled and fucked and emptied.
Emily snored softly on the sofa. Emma was awake, propped against the armrest, scrolling through her phone with the blank expression of someone too high to care what she was looking at.
Nobody spoke. There was nothing to say.
Then the door slammed open hard enough to crack the plaster.
Caron stood in the doorway, backlit by the gray morning light from the hallway. She was still in her nightgown—black silk, wrinkled, stained with something that might have been coffee or might have been tears. Her hair was a rat's nest. Her mascara had migrated down her cheeks in two dark rivers.
She held a bottle of Ketel One by the neck, half empty. A cigarette smoldered between her fingers, ash falling onto the hardwood in slow motion.
"You're all awake," she said. Her voice was raw, scraped hollow.
Emma looked up from her phone. "Caron—"
"He's got a fucking jet."
Caron staggered into the room. Her bare feet slapped against the floor, then sank into the bearskin as she reached the rug. She didn't seem to notice Veronica or Emily. She didn't seem to notice anything except the bottle in her hand and the fire in her chest.
"Gulfstream. Custom interior. Cream leather seats, gold fixtures, a fucking bedroom in the back." She laughed—a wet, broken sound. "I know because I picked out the sheets. I picked out the fucking sheets, Emma."
She collapsed onto the rug. The bottle tipped, vodka spilling across the bear fur, pooling in the hollows like tiny lakes.
Emily stirred on the sofa. "What are you talking about?"
"Anna Madeley."
The name landed like a slap.
Emma's phone slipped from her fingers. "What?"
"Anna fucking Madeley. From that show. The one about the animals." Caron dragged on her cigarette, her hand shaking so badly the cherry wobbled. "He's been flying to England for a year. A year. Every time he said he was going to London for business, he was going to see her. To fuck her. To put his cock in her cunt and his tongue in her mouth and—"
She broke off. A sob tore out of her throat, ugly and raw.
"I found the tickets. The hotel receipts. The texts on his other phone—the one he thinks I don't know about. I know about everything. I always know."
Emma slid off the sofa and crossed to the rug. She knelt beside Caron, her robe falling open, her face unreadable.
"Does he know you know?"
Caron shook her head. Tears dripped off her chin onto the bear fur.
"No. And it doesn't matter. The jet is already in the air. She'll be here by noon. Noon." She took a swig from the bottle, gagged, swallowed. "He's replacing me. And when he's done replacing me, he's going to—"
She couldn't finish the sentence.
Emily was awake now, sitting up, her eyes wide. "He's going to what?"
Caron looked at her. The terror in her eyes was absolute.
"What do you think? He's going to have me killed. Or Emma will do it. Or you. Or someone. That's how it works, isn't it?" She laughed again, that horrible wet sound. "That's how it always works."
Emma didn't deny it.
Veronica watched from the bearskin, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was still high, still floating, but Caron's words cut through the fog like a blade.
Killed. She's going to be killed.
And Emma will do it.
The words hung in the air, unspoken but understood.
Emily moved first. She slid off the sofa and grabbed a fur blanket from the back of a chair—fox, silver-gray, impossibly soft. She wrapped it around Caron's shoulders.
"Here," she said. "You're freezing."
Caron didn't resist. She let Emily drape the blanket over her, let Emma take the bottle from her hand and pour a fresh glass of vodka from the bar.
"Drink," Emma said, pressing the crystal into Caron's fingers. "Slowly."
Caron drank. Her hand was still shaking, but the vodka seemed to steady her. She took a long breath, then another.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry for barging in. I just—I didn't know where else to go."
"You did the right thing," Emily said. "You came to us."
Emma nodded. But her eyes were distant, calculating. Veronica recognized that look now. It was the same look she'd had when she watched Dennis drive away. The same look she'd had when she offered Veronica the needle.
She's already planning it.
Then Caron noticed Veronica.
She blinked, as if seeing her for the first time. Her red-rimmed eyes traveled down Veronica's naked body—the bruises on her hips, the dried come on her thighs, the track marks in her arm.
"Who's this?"
Emily glanced at Veronica. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth.
"That's Veronica. She's an actress. We just broke her."
Caron tilted her head. The grief on her face flickered into something else. Something hungry.
"Broke her?"
"Two nights ago. Hector wanted her ruined. We ruined her."
Caron looked at Veronica again. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips.
"I've seen you," she said. "In that show. The one about the lawyers."
Veronica didn't answer.
"You were good," Caron said. "Really good. I remember thinking—I remember thinking I'd like to fuck you."
She laughed again, but this time it wasn't broken. It was low and dark and full of something that wasn't quite sane.
"I've been so scared," Caron said. "So scared I couldn't breathe. But now—" She set down the glass. She let the fox blanket slip from her shoulders. "Now I don't want to be scared anymore. I want to feel something else."
She crawled across the rug.
Veronica's breath caught. Caron was beautiful—even wrecked, even swollen with tears, she was beautiful. Dark hair, pale skin, full lips that parted as she came closer.
"Can I kiss you?" Caron asked.
It wasn't really a question.
She didn't wait for an answer. Her mouth found Veronica's, hot and wet and tasting of vodka and salt. Her tongue pushed inside, demanding, desperate. One hand tangled in Veronica's hair; the other slid down her stomach to the wet heat between her legs.
Veronica moaned into the kiss. Her body responded before her mind could catch up. Her hips lifted, pressing against Caron's fingers.
"Fuck," Caron breathed. "You're so wet."
"She's been like that all morning," Emily said. She was already moving, positioning herself behind Caron, her hands on Caron's hips. "She's a greedy little thing."
"I like greedy."
Caron broke the kiss. She pushed Veronica onto her back, spreading her legs wide. Then she lowered her head.
Veronica's world went white.
Caron's mouth was electric—hot and skilled and relentless. She licked up Veronica's slit in one long stroke, then circled her clit with the flat of her tongue. She sucked it between her lips and flicked it, fast and hard.
"Fuck," Veronica gasped. "Oh, fuck—"
Emily had found the strap-on again. She knelt behind Caron, pulled her hips up, and pushed inside.
Caron cried out against Veronica's cunt—a muffled, desperate sound. But she didn't stop eating. She pressed her tongue deeper, her whole face buried in Veronica's cunt, her hips rocking back to meet Emily's thrusts.
It was a tangle of limbs and mouths and cunts. Emily fucked Caron. Caron ate Veronica. Veronica grabbed her own tits and squeezed, her nipples hard as stones.
"Yes," she heard herself saying. "Yes, yes, yes—"
Emma stood by the bar, watching. She lit a cigarette and smoked it in slow drags, her eyes half-closed.
"Don't come yet," she said. "I want to watch her suffer."
Caron pulled her mouth away just long enough to say, "Then you come do something about it."
Emma smiled. She stubbed out her cigarette and walked to the rug. She knelt behind Veronica, lifted her head, and kissed her—deep and filthy, her tongue still tasting of vodka.
Then she slid a hand between them and began to rub Veronica's clit while Caron licked her cunt.
Two mouths. Two hands. It was too much. It was everything.
Veronica came with a scream that seemed to tear itself from somewhere deep in her chest. Her body convulsed, her back arching, her heels digging into the bear fur.
Caron licked her through it. Emma held her down.
When it was over, Veronica lay gasping, her body limp, her mind erased.
But they weren't done.
"I need more," Caron said. "I need—I need to not feel anything."
She crawled to the silver tray. The syringes were still there—three of them, loaded and waiting.
"God yes," Emily said. "Me too."
They shot up together—Caron first, then Emily, then Emma. Veronica watched with heavy eyes, her body still trembling from the orgasm.
"Your turn," Caron said, holding out the last syringe.
Veronica wanted to say no. She wanted to say she'd had enough. But her arm reached for the needle before her brain could stop it.
She tied off. Found the vein. Pushed.
The rush hit her like a wave, warm and heavy and endless. All the fear melted away. All the pain. All the thoughts of Brian and weddings and choices.
Just nothing. Beautiful, blissful nothing.
They lay on the rug together, four women tangled in a pile of fur and limbs. The cock was still inside Caron. Emily's hand was still on Veronica's hip.
Nobody spoke.
The record spun in its endless circle, clicking with every revolution.
The sun climbed higher over the Pacific, turning the room gold.
And somewhere far away, a jet was crossing the ocean, carrying a woman named Anna Madeley to a mansion on the cliffs.
Caron closed her eyes and didn't think about it.
None of them did.