The Enemy Inside (14 page)

He traced the figures in the photos with an index finger. A very young Jay, just accepted into the academy and beaming in a tuxedo, stood next to a pretty blonde woman dressed in white.
 

“Renee,” he muttered.
 

Even now, after so many years, it still stung to look at it, like getting salt in a fresh paper cut. And yet he couldn’t put it in the garbage.
 

He couldn’t watch it happen again. It would kill him.

Throwing the picture back on the lounge, Jay picked up his now empty beer bottle and wandered into the small kitchenette, wondering what, if anything, he felt like doing that night.

He considered trudging the few blocks east to the station and heading to the numerous singles bars in the area. He gave it some thought for a few moments before dismissing the idea; he was not in the mood for romantic entanglements. His worry for Berg still gnawed at him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to relax. He snatched another cold one and a bag of potato chips from the bench, ripping it open and munching on its contents heartily.
 

He contemplated the gym, looking down at his washboard stomach.
Hmm
 . . .
maybe later.

His cell interrupted his musings. He checked the caller ID, his heart accelerating at the thought it might be Berg. No such luck. It was his ex, Cindy. He answered it anyway, because Cindy was usually good for an evening of pleasant distraction, no strings attached, which was just what he needed.

“Heya, gorgeous, what’s up?” he greeted her as he sat back down on the couch with his cell and his beer. Listening intently, he smiled. “Sounds intriguing. Come on over.” He hung up.

He stood, brushing potato chip crumbs off his T-shirt onto the nondescript, grayish carpet. Grabbing the photo, he stashed it back in the inner pocket of an old winter coat hanging on his clothes rack, and wandered off to the shower.
 

Later, when he was showered, shaved, and dressed, his doorbell rang. He swung open the door. “Wow, check you out,” Jay said to Cindy, eyeing her tight black leather pants and corset. Cindy was Jay’s type to a tee: tall and blonde with big blue eyes and the usual array of silicon enhancements.

Jay and Cindy hadn’t dated long—neither of them being interested in any long-term attachments—but they still hooked up occasionally. The daughter of an ex-mayor, Cindy was from a wealthy, well-bred Chicago family but spent most of her time amusing herself by trying to come up with ever more creative ways to disgrace them. Jay enjoyed helping her with the desperate cries for Daddy’s attention.

“Not looking so bad yourself.” Cindy breezed into the apartment in a cloud of perfume and kissed Jay on the lips lingeringly. She looked at the chaos that was Jay’s apartment and wrinkled her perfect, surgically altered nose. “I see Stevie Wonder’s still your decorator.”

Jay laughed. “So, what’s this naughty evening you have planned?” He looked forward to some debauchery. Last time they’d hooked up, they’d ended up in Mexico somewhere, fucking rampantly in between drinking margaritas courtesy of Daddy’s unlimited credit card. He remembered Cindy could suck the nails out of a floorboard.
This night is bound to be good.
“Shall we start here or somewhere else?”

Cindy smiled wickedly, reaching out to drag Jay to her and pressing her body against his. “I definitely have somewhere else in mind. Somewhere hot.” She paused, licking his earlobe. “Ever been to a swinger party?” she whispered.

“A what?” Jay thought he’d misheard.

“A swinger party.” Cindy frowned as much as the Botox would allow. “You know, partner swapping.”

“I’m sorry, are we back in the seventies again? Where did I leave my bell bottoms?”

Cindy let out a peal of silvery laughter. “No, silly. Swinger parties are making a huge comeback, thanks to the Internet. You join a club—invitation only—and members host the parties at rotating locations around the city and e-mail you the address. Very chic and exclusive. Only the best of society get an invite, or the naughtiest.”

“Don’t you have to be married or something?” Jay wondered how car keys in a bowl had made it into twenty-first century high society.

“No way. Couples are invited, and single women can go as
guest stars
. But no single men without an introduction, so you’ll have to pretend to be my boyfriend tonight.”
 

Jay looked dubious.
 

“There are no car keys or watches in a bowl, or anything tacky,” Cindy replied with a shrug, reading his mind. “You arrive and are invited to join other interested people if you want.” She flicked back her long hair nonchalantly, like swinger parties were just a run of the mill, blasé occurrence in her life. “They supply condoms and STD testing, too.”

“So what do you need me for, if you can go on your own?”

“For fun. It’s been a while since we . . . played. And last time, some loser wouldn’t take no for an answer, so you can be my bodyguard.” She traced her long index finger up Jay’s chest to his lips. “I seem to recall you quite like guarding my body.”

Jay was torn. He could get hard just being in the same room as Cindy, but the other stuff? “I don’t know, it’s not really my scene, and I’m a cop, in case you forgot.”

Cindy rolled her eyes, looking like she wanted to fold her arms and stamp a foot. “It’s all legal, only consenting adults allowed. Besides, everyone wears masks and they won’t know you from Adam. You don’t have to join in if you don’t want. Just come and watch. They love voyeurs, too.”

Jay weighed up his exciting night on the couch against watching rich people get it on. Or he could always try to tail Berg again. “Sure, let’s go.” He grabbed his leather jacket off the kitchen counter.

Cindy drove, and thirty minutes later, she turned into the parking garage of Chicago’s best known skyscraper, Willis Tower, or as it would always be known to rest of the world, the Sears Tower.
 

Nervous, Jay felt Cindy’s stilettos echo ominously against the granite flooring as they walked through the ultramodern lobby. He tried to distract himself by gawking at the polished granite and stainless steel columns surrounding him, but he’d seen it all before and the opulence left him cold.
 

Cindy steered them toward the set of elevators that would take them directly to the uppermost residential floors. “Here.” She handed him a mask from her purse. “No one goes in without one.”
 

They entered the elevator and she pressed the penthouse button.
 

Jay hesitantly put the mask on, wondering what he was in for. The elevator opened, and a mountain-sized security guard clad in black and sprouting the obligatory earpiece barred the way. Cindy gave her name to the guard, and the pair was ushered to one of the penthouses without a word.

The door opened a few moments later, and Jay’s senses were assaulted. A woman wearing a transparent bra and panties and carrying a tray of drinks was stationed at the entrance. Cindy opted for the French champagne, while Jay took two fingers of top-shelf bourbon to settle his nerves. The acid jazz music, heavy on the bass, was pounding, and the lighting was low and red, giving everything an eerie quality, like looking through blood. The air was perfumed, but even the expensive scent couldn’t disguise the pervading aromas of sweat and sex.

The party looked like an upmarket cocktail soirée, with couples sitting on low leather couches drinking champagne. Others mingled by a long table bearing
hors d'oeuvres
and a bowl of colorfully packaged studded, ribbed, and flavored condoms. There looked to be around twenty guests in the large foyer, all of whom were either in pairs or threes, chatting softly while sipping their drinks.

Cindy greeted a few guests with her usual European double kiss. She didn’t bother to introduce Jay, it clearly being a
no names
type of event. The attendees looked to Jay like they ranged in ages from twenty to sixty, and most were well dressed in the latest designer wear and from the better part of town, while some were just wearing elegant masks and expensive lingerie. Jay stopped another scantily clad server, a male this time wearing Calvin Klein briefs and nothing else, and ordered more bourbon.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” he said to Cindy as they stood in the middle of the crowd. “Some of these women are something to look at.” He eyed an attractive brunette wearing nothing but a feathered mask and a tiny G-string no thicker than dental floss.

“This is the main greeting room,” Cindy said. “The real fun takes place in the other rooms.” She nodded toward the long hallway to the left.

Jay noticed a trio, the G-stringed woman, another woman, and an older, gray-haired man, get up off the couch and head off down the hallway. When his second drink arrived, he belted it down in one swallow, too. “Keep ’em coming, buddy,” he said to the waiter, who nodded.

“There are private rooms, or larger rooms if orgies are more your thing. There’s even an S&M room here,” Cindy continued, as if she were talking him through the menu at her favorite restaurant.

“You’ve been here before, then? I thought the venues changed?”

“They do. But sometime they are in the same place a couple of times. I’ve been here once before. It’s one of the better venues, owned by a wealthy couple who designed it just for events like these. Some are not so nice.” She wrinkled her nose.

Jay nodded and drank his third bourbon. The alcohol was having the desired effect, and he was starting to relax from the inside out. While Cindy assured him it was legal, the cop in him wasn’t so sure. He never would have thought something involving consensual sex between adults would freak him out, but this was coming close.
 

Cindy, sensing his indecision, grabbed his hand and put down her untouched champagne on a nearby credenza. “Wanna look around?”

Jay looked vainly for more alcohol, but Cindy was already dragging him by the hand, eager to get into the action.

The pair walked down the hallway, passing several rooms in which a variety of pairs, threesomes, and even foursomes were entwined. The air was getting thicker with the smell of sex, and moans and groans of pleasure were drowning out the music.

With the bass pounding through his head, Jay’s three straight bourbons started to take their toll and everything took on a surreal quality. They moved to a room containing a bed where two masked men and a woman were fucking. A second masked, naked woman, who looked to be in her mid-forties, watched while pleasuring herself with a large black dildo.

“She likes watching her husband get it on with other women and men,” Cindy said. “I’ve enjoyed a few private parties with them. Her husband has great hands. You didn’t hear this from me, but he’s a senator and a friend of my father’s.” She paused for a moment. “Wonder what Daddy would say if he knew about all the things that guy has done to me?”
 

“It seems like you know your way around here.” He hoped he sounded cooler than he felt.

“You get to know certain people after a while. This is my favorite room.” She nodded ahead. Inside, Jay was stunned to see a live picture that looked like it belonged in a hard core porn video.
 

The room resembled a cell from an asylum, with black leather padded walls and floor, strobe lights, and a matte black ceiling. On the padded floor, at least ten masked guests were entwined, fucking in various positions, some of which even Jay hadn’t known were possible. Women and men, men and men, and women with women—it was like an orgy straight from the Roman Empire, sans togas.
 

Jay also saw various sex toys being used in ways he never would have imagined. He would have been turned on if it weren’t so freaky. He realized, with a little chagrin, he preferred nice, respectable, anonymous porn DVDs bought from dingy shops in back alleys. He wondered how he was going to get out of this without looking like a prude and ruining his hard-won reputation.

One of the men looked up from between the splayed legs of a woman and beckoned for Cindy to join them before going back to his slurping wholeheartedly.

“Orgy room,” Cindy explained.
 

“No shit.”

“That guy’s a supreme court justice.”

“How can you tell?”

“Private party. Trust me.”

“Okay.” Jay quickly moved them away, horrified at the thought of being in that guy’s courtroom. “I don’t think this is my scene,” he said to Cindy, trying to steer her back to the meeting room. “I’m a traditional kind of guy—you know, go out, get drunk, and pick up a random woman in a bar for some one-night-only fun, that kind of thing? I’m gonna take off.”

Cindy pouted. “That’s disappointing, Jay, I wanted to have a bit of fun with you tonight. I thought you were a little more open-minded.”
 

She rubbed her hand on the crotch of his pants. Not finding what she was after, she yanked it away angrily.

For the first time in his life, Jay felt as out of his depth as a virgin on prom night. “Come with me? I’ll even try to do to you what that black guy is doing to the redhead, although I’m not sure where I’ll get a garden hose at this hour.”

Cranky, Cindy turned him down flat. “I’m going to join
them
,” she said, pointing to the orgy room. “So let’s just check out this last room, and then you can go. You’ve got to see this. I promise it’ll be worth it.”