The party that night was larger than usual. On the other nights I’d served for him, Carter had only had a handful of guests, maybe five at the most; but this time, there were closer to fifteen. I didn’t have time to keep an exact count. They kept me busy, running back and forth to the bar with drink orders, so that I barely had time to deliver one drink before I was sent off to fetch another.

There were three dancers in the room, women I knew by sight but had never spoken to, and by the time the final guest arrived, maybe half an hour after the first, the dancers were all naked and perched on a man’s lap, with other men fondling their breasts and bald pussies and shapely asses.

Carter’s parties were usually pretty sedate, with the men focusing primarily on their discussions about business and only secondarily on the dancers, but the atmosphere this evening was different. The guests were paying more attention to the dancers than usual, stroking them more demandingly, urging two of them to make out with each other. One of the men directed a dancer to straddle his lap, and began grinding his hips up against her with every appearance of intending to get himself off.

I set down a tray of drinks and glanced at Carter. He was in close discussion with one of his guests, and didn’t seem to notice the direction his party was taking. The dancers seemed happy, laughing with the clients, pressing their breasts against a man’s face, letting him suck on their nipples; but I was growing increasingly uncomfortable. Germaine had told me, back before the first time I waitressed at one of Carter’s parties, that Carter’s guests were all very vanilla, and that I had nothing to be concerned about. But it looked, now, like a few of them were going to try to have sex with the dancers, right there in front of everyone, and Carter didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

I went over to him, finally, under the pretense of refilling his drink. He looked up at me and smiled, and I took that as my opening. “Some of your guests are getting a little wild,” I murmured, hoping that the man he was talking to couldn’t hear me over the noise in the room.

Carter sat up out of his lazy slump and looked over his shoulder, at the men groping and licking and sucking. He raised one eyebrow and said, “You think that’s wild?”

“Well. More than usual,” I said, frowning.

He chuckled. “You’ve only been to my parties. Most of the parties here are—well. Maybe someday you’ll go to one.”

I kept frowning. I didn’t know why this was making me feel so unsettled. It wasn’t a surprise, after all; I knew that I worked at a sex club, and given the context, nobody in the room was doing anything particularly shocking. None of the dancers was protesting. Everyone appeared to be having a good time. But there was still something about the whole situation that made me twitchy, like there was an itch under my skin that I couldn’t scratch.

I was aroused, I realized, and not just from Carter fingering me before the party began. I liked watching the dancers being fondled by the guests, because I was imagining myself in their places. What would it be like to have those men desire me so blatantly, to touch me like that, out in the open, not caring what anyone thought? What would it be like to walk around naked, so confident in my own desirability that I lost all self-consciousness?

What would it be like to straddle Carter, right there in the middle of the room, and unzip his pants, and ride his cock until we both came?

A man called to me, requesting another drink. I shivered and turned away from Carter, letting him return to his conversation.

I welcomed the interruption. It let me return to the steady work of serving drinks, which kept my mind just busy enough that I didn’t have to think about the things I kept learning about myself. Being  around Carter was peeling me down like an onion, layer by layer, and I was afraid of what I might find at the hidden core.

As the evening wore on, and the guests drank more, they grew increasingly uninhibited. I tried not to look too closely, but I still caught flashes, quick glimpses from the corner of my eye as I turned or set down a tray of drinks: fingers sliding into a pussy, a mouth hanging open in ecstasy, a hard cock being drawn out of a pair of expensive wool trousers.

My face was flushed because it was hot in the room. That was all.

I lost track of time, too busy going back and forth to the bar to waste any precious seconds looking at the clock. My feet started to ache, which meant it had been at least a few hours. At some point, Carter beckoned me over, and I went to him gratefully, glad to return to him—my anchor, my safe harbor.

I stopped beside him and bent down, close enough that I would be able to hear whatever he had to say to me. “Mr. Sutton,” I said, trying to sound sultry, “how can I be of service?”

He touched the back of my knee, and drew his hand up my thigh, beneath my dress, until it rested directly below the curve of my ass. I stiffened, glancing at the man Carter had been speaking to, but he was on his phone, apparently paying no attention. I forced myself to relax. Nobody would care. There were naked women directly behind me; nobody would care that Carter was touching my thigh.

“I want you,” Carter said, pitching his voice just loud enough for me to hear it, “to go over to that gentleman with the purple tie, get on your knees in front of him, unzip his pants, and suck his cock.”

My head reeled. I must have misheard him. He wouldn’t have—he wouldn’t actually say something like that to me. “What did you say?”

“You heard me,” he said. “I owe that man a favor. You’re mine now, aren’t you? Go suck his cock.”

I straightened up, suddenly feeling the need to distance myself from him. “I’m not—why would you ask me to do that? I don’t know him, and I’m—you don’t own me, you—”

He frowned up at me. “Why are you arguing? I gave you an order.”

My face flushed with blood, sudden heat, and then drained, leaving me cold. My head felt like it was floating a foot above my body. I was trapped in an unexpected nightmare, Carter suddenly transformed into someone I didn’t recognize. “I don’t want to,” I said.

He shrugged, indifferent. “I don’t care.”

How could I tell him no, when my refusal meant nothing to him? I said nothing for a few moments, trying to stay steady on my feet, thoughts running in tiny circles, like a trapped mouse. And then I opened my mouth, chest aching, and said, “Sassafras.”