The Dollhouse Society: Felix (3 page)

I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. The rational part of my brain told me to tell him to go to hell and walk out of there with my dignity intact. But there was another part of me—the part that wanted the story almost more than anything—that made me actually consider this madness. If I could get through the next two month, I would have a story that would trump everyone else’s in my class. I could get it published in the biggest newspapers and magazines in the world. I’d graduate with honors.

And, after all, it was only two month. Eight measly weeks. “Say I agreed to this. Would I need to do what that courtesan tonight was doing? Would I need to…perform for everyone in the Society?”

“
If we do this, we will begin slowly.” He looked at me, fiercely and demandingly. No one had ever looked at me that way before. “You’ll allow me to take you in hand, to teach you, educated you, discipline you, and as the trust grew between us, we’d explore your sexual limitations.” He smirked again, slyly. Each time he did that, he looked less Caucasian and more Asian, more exotic. Each time it happened, I felt my stomach flip over. “Should you choose to push the boundaries within yourself, I’ll let you experience things that no one else on the outside even knows about. What do you think?”

I sat tongue-tied, stared up at this frighteningly exotic gentleman. I didn’t know what to say. I was crazy to agree, I knew. “Why…?” I took me two tries to get the words out. “Why would you do that? Why would you take me on as a courtesan if you know I plan to reveal the existence of the Society to the whole world?”

“
If you plan to write about the Society, it would be in my best interest to give you a proper tour, would it not?”

I nodded stupidly. He had a point.

“
If I do nothing, you’ll write your article based on what you’ve seen here tonight. But if you learn what it truly means to be a gentleman’s courtesan, you might be more favorable in your article. In fact, you might not write it at all.”

So he meant to undermine me? “Don’t count on that. I
will
write it…one way or the other.”

“
Then accept my offer. Be my courtesan for the next two months. Experience everything a courtesan experiences at the hands of her gentleman. Then write your article based on your observations instead of some perceived notion of what you think you’ve witnessed here tonight.”

I gave him a shrewd look, or what I hoped was one. “And what do you get out of it?”

Mr. Alex Ishikawa smirked that damnable smirk that told me nothing. “Well, my dear, I get
you
.”

We sat together for several moments. I listened to the mantel clock ticking solemn ticks and solemn tocks. The room and his scent closed in around me once more. He continued to watch me for an answer. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “All right. You’ve got a deal, friend.”

Mr. Ishikawa lost his smirk. “Since you’ve agreed to this, you need to be aware that I’m not your friend, Felix. I’m your gentleman. As such, I deserve more respect than that. You’ll address me as Mr. Ishikawa, or, preferably, as
sir
. Anything else is subject to discipline.” Before I could voice my protest, he said, “Stand up.”

I thought about stomping out, forgetting all about this, but a chance to write about one of the oldest and most exclusive sex clubs in New York City? I thought about Gloria Steinam. She hadn’t backed down, and neither would I. I stood up as proudly as I could, shoulders back, facing forward like a soldier on the firing line.

Mr. Ishikawa lounged back on the settee and rested his chin on his fist, looking me over with a far more critical eye than I was used to seeing, even from my dad and my professors. I started to fidget, and my shoes felt too tight, but he said, “Stop that immediately. Be still, Felix. A proper courtesan doesn’t fidget around like a small child.”

I snorted a response and forced myself to hold still. I soon learned I was breathing just a little too hard. I looked him over in return, sitting there like some conquering Asian emperor examining his spoils, his gleaming black braid, thick, dark lashes, his legs parted enough to make me worry about the snugness of his tuxedo trousers. There was a substantial bulge in those trousers, but I feigned ignorance, though a small, desperate part of me hoped I was at least partially responsible for it and not just the tightness of his pants.

I wondered what he thought of me. For the first time in my life, I wished I didn’t have a Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy addiction. I wished I worked out at the gym where Cookie and our friends went. I wished I didn’t go to pilate classes to just sit there on my mat and daydream about the people around me instead of paying attention to the instructor. I wished I was taller. I wished I was thinner. I wished…

“
Take off your shoes.”

“
Why?” The question was automatic for me.

His face darkened and I felt a little spike of worry. The air was suddenly full of fission between us. “A good courtesan doesn’t question her gentleman’s command, Felix. She does as he bades her. Now take off your shoes. I won’t ask you again.”

I stood vibrating with anger. Mine. His. I took a deep breath and toed off my black patent leather evening pumps. That, of course, made me even shorter.

“
Now the dress.”

Dear god.
I started to sweat. My hands jittered too much to do much of anything but clutch each other.

Mr. Ishikawa waited patiently.

You can do this
, I told myself.
You’re one tough bitch, Felix.

My fumbling hands found the zipper on the back of the little black cocktail dress, and as I unzipped it, the sound was disconcertingly loud in the room. Cookie’s borrowed dress fell to the floor in a black puddle at my feet, and I soon found myself standing there, shivering in front of Mr. Ishikawa, dressed in only my sensible cotton bra and panties, bought on discount at Costco. God, I felt like such a loser. It was like I was the girl next door both inside
and
out. Then again, I hadn’t expected to do a striptease for a strange man tonight. If I had, I might have purchased some prettier underwear.

My hands went to hug my too-wide middle, to cover myself up, but he narrowed his eyes. “Hands at your sides,” he said, and I obediently dropped my hands and tried to concentrate on something other than making a fool of myself. I wanted to watch the light playing in my wine glass, or scan the books on the tall shelves, but my traitorous eyes kept wandering to Mr. Ishikawa’s tailor-made trousers instead.

He studied me unhurriedly, unflinchingly, like an important item he meant to purchase. Silence pressed in. I wanted to scream. Finally, he said, “You’re very pretty, Felix. Very sensual. Are you currently involved with anyone?”

“
No,” I told him honestly.

“
Good.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you a virgin?”

“
What?” I didn’t understand what that had to do with anything.

“
Have you ever had a man inside you?”

“
I don’t think that’s—”

“
It’s important,” he snapped back. “I need to be aware of your level of sexual experience. Don’t lie. You’ll only harm yourself in the end.”

I started fidgeting again, but forced myself to stop. “I’ve made out. I’ve had a man touch me.”

“
Lips? Breasts?”

I nodded.

“
Did he penetrate you?”

“
No.”

“
Did you orgasm?”

“
No.”

He looked satisfied. “You can put your dress back on.”

“
Thank you,” I said, grabbing up the dress. My face was burning with embarrassment.

“
Thank you, sir,” he corrected me.

“
Thank you,
sir
,” I said as I zipped up and stepped back into my shoes.

Just in time, too, because another gentleman, guiding his pretty courtesan ahead of him, had stepped into the room, thinking it was empty. The gentleman looked surprised and said, “Ah, forgive me, Alex. I didn’t know this room was occupied.”

“
That’s quite all right, Ian. We were done here anyway.” Mr. Ishikawa stood up and offered Ian a little formal bow. He tucked my hand into the crook of his arm and, still smirking, walked me from the room.

***

“
So dish,” Cookie said the moment I walked in the door of our shared apartment.

My roommate sat cross-legged on the sofa, while our third roomie, Darren, carefully redid her nails. Cookie and Darren were both studying choreography and modern dance at CUNY, though they both hoped to transfer to Julliard soon, which was notoriously hard to get into. They were both lithe and graceful, crunchy-earthy, and obsessed with yoga, freestyle aerobics, and all-organic food. They did things like eat nothing but Greek yogurt for three days before a performance and regularly taped the bleeding blisters on their feet. Darren once told me my secret staff of Jolly Rancher candies was the devil’s playground. I’d been lucky to land a gig as their roommate so I wouldn’t need to deal with the insanity of dorm life, but the truth was, they scared the crap out of me.

I knew I should listen to them, cut them some slack. They were cool peeps, and I loved them to death, but I’d never had a best friend growing up, male
or
female. My dad’s job meant we’d bounced all over the coast of Texas, from one oil rig to another, and no friendship I’d ever developed had stuck for long.

I clutched my purse in front of me, chewed on a rope of my emergency red licorice, and said, “It was really interesting.”

“
Just interesting?” Darren said, raising his eyebrows at Cookie.

Darren and Cookie had known each other since fourth grade and I hated that they did that, that they had all these little signals and inside jokes between them. Their Secret Service eyebrow colophon drove me crazy, like they were talking about me behind my back, only right in front of my face. It always made me feel like an outsider around them, like I didn’t belong. Cookie once said she and Darren had made a pact long ago that if neither of them landed a great stud, they would have a baby together someday, just because. It was hard not to feel like a third wheel around folks that close.

“
It wasn’t what I expected,” I told them. “But I’m okay, as you can see, so no need to worry about me.” Before they could interrogate me further, I escaped to my bedroom, closed and locked the door, and stood there a long moment, breathing in the dark, just trying to process what I’d agreed to.

I closed my eyes, but I kept seeing that dangerously smirking face that Mr. Ishikawa had offered me. I could still smell his cologne in my nose. After about five minutes of standing there like an idiot, my phone went off and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I fumbled the unfamiliar phone out of my purse, the new one Mr. Ishikawa had given me before he’d handed me down into my car for the evening like a footman turning me over to my royal carriage—though my car was an ancient, secondhand Dodge Aries with a bad transmission and nothing a princess would ever ride in. I thumbed open the sliding screen on the phone. The device looked a lot like my smartphone, but it was more compact and it had a
lot
more apps on it. He’d told me his company planned to unveil it later this year at CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo. I was the only person outside his company who had one.

There was one email waiting. Mr. Ishikawa had left instructions he expected me to follow
to the letter
(his exact words) for our first meeting at his home this coming weekend. They were incredibly, embarrassingly, detailed and included everything from the way I was to groom to what I was to wear and how I was to walk, talk and address him, both privately and in public. I scanned the lost list to the bottom, where he’d sent me a simple personal closing message:

Remember you belong to me now.

No
thanks yous
or
see yous
or
until then
, just that. Just that message.

You belong to me now.

My older phone went off, the familiar ringtone making me jump and almost drop Mr. Ishikawa’s phone. It was my dad. “Hello, Daddy,” I said as I went to curl up against the headboard of my bed.

“
Cookie just called and said she was a little concerned about you, baby,” Daddy said, and I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Cookie to call my father the moment she thought something bad had happened to me, though it did sound good to hear my father’s familiar east Texas drawl. I had missed it. “Is everything all right? How did the assignment go?”

“
Everything went fine,” I told him cheerily and then deliberately changed the subject. We talked about New York and Texas, some bad storms moving in, and about my Aunt Sarah, who lived in Maine and desperately wanted me to visit her right after graduation. Finally, when I yawned for the umpteenth time, my dad told me I should get to bed, get some rest, and call him anytime I was feeling lonely. I told him goodnight and started getting ready for bed.

After sliding under the sheets, I lay there a long time, replaying the evening’s events over and over, wondering if I’d made the right decision, wondering what came next. The idea of seeing Mr. Ishikawa this weekend was both frightening and exciting—and seemed a long time off. I didn’t have a vibrator or anything like that—honestly, I was too nervous to visit a sex toy store and too worried if I ordered something online that Cookie or Darren would intercept the package and make fun of me—but after a while I let my hands wander old-fashioned-like under my Betty Boop nightshirt.

I started by circling my nipples until they were hard little pebbles standing at rigid attention. I imagined a hot, rough tongue encircling them, wetting them until they were slick with saliva before my lover started moving methodically down my body, licking and kissing along my ribs, then further down until he’d reached the wet, swollen folds of my labia open and waiting for his kiss. I imagined him kissing me there like he kissed my mouth—ravenously, deliriously—his tongue flicking along all my wetness…