The Pleasure Set Read online

  “Just think it through, Laney.”

  Now Laney felt even more confused.

  *

  Laney parked close to the building on Avenue of the Stars. The sheer fabric of the Alexander McQueen black cocktail dress she bought when she shopped with Kay on Melrose rippled lightly across her chest when she walked.

  The security guard confirmed Laney’s name on a list and showed her to an elevator. He stepped inside with her, inserted a key to unlock access to the penthouse, then exited the elevator.

  As Laney rode up in silence she looked at herself in the mirrored walls and noticed that she appeared a little more pensive and full of anticipation than she wished. Blowing out a breath, she finally stepped off the lift and stopped.

  A long, thickly carpeted hall led to only one place—a set of double doors at the end of the hall. Muffled music came from the other side.

  She reached the door but hesitated. Theresa’s words returned to her. “The party won’t start for me until I see you. Make sure you find me first.”

  Laney checked her appearance one more time and suddenly the door opened. Dance music blared from inside as two women stumbled out—disheveled, drunk, and laughing. In the few seconds it took, Laney glimpsed what was going on inside. Something she wasn’t expecting.

  Women from the Pleasure Set were everywhere, kissing, fondling, and making out in pairs, in trios, in positions all over the place. The two departing women slammed the door closed, laughingly pardoned themselves to Laney, and swerved around her toward the elevator.

  Laney’s mind raced. She consciously tried to slow her breathing, but she knew her eyes were flung wide open.

  Oh my God, she thought. Did I just see what I thought I saw? A split-second, living snapshot of an orgy. Should I bolt? Should I go in?

  She stared at the door with a huge decision before her. Hell, if I go home now, I might as well go over to Judith’s to reconcile. The thought was ridiculous, but this was an important juncture.

  The last thing Hillary had told her was to think it through. She narrowed her eyes and, all at once, a momentous decision washed over her, burning hot in her mind as it settled in. Who needs to think?

  *

  Laney opened the door to another burst of pulsating music. Through the hazy, dimly lit room she could make out numerous sexual liaisons. She strolled through the place, adjusting her eyes to the bodies around her. Women were everywhere, all in different stages of sex and oblivious to her. They had all been at one or more gatherings of the Pleasure Set, and now they were engaged in this outrageous orgy. She tried to act nonchalant, but surges of surprise pulsed through her as she recognized Kay Kitterman, Morgan Donnelly, and others. Bare legs, breasts, arms, asses, faces were everywhere. Everywhere.

  The music changed to a techno beat, the kind she usually heard only in gay men’s bars, and she understood the rationale. It was hot fuck music for hot fucking people.

  She had to maneuver carefully since bodies were draped over and lying on every piece of furniture, as well as on the carpet. She made her way behind a couch sitting in the middle of the room. Someone’s legs were angled in a vertical position off the back of it, causing her to have to duck to get by. She swerved to move out of the way of another couple, fervent in their movements, and was thrown off balance, half falling, half dropping to her knees to get past the maze of arms and legs. She considered standing, but it was easier to crawl, if only temporarily, to pass the jumble of bodies all around her. The beat of the music that boomed from speakers throughout the room thudded in her chest, but she could hear women close by her moaning and gasping as they rocked together in small couplings and groups.

  As she crawled on all fours, trying not to look around too much, other body parts thrust and gyrated in and out of her view. Then she reached another couch against the far wall and was aware of a woman lying on it. Laney’s face was even with the other woman’s face, and she knew in her gut who it was before she turned.

  Theresa was by herself, smiling at Laney. She wore a slinky green dress and her long legs were crossed.

  They didn’t say a word but their eyes immediately locked. Theresa had clearly been waiting for her. The scene was almost too insane to comprehend. Laney was on automatic pilot, no longer able to stop and consider any logical decisions, even if she knew what logic was.

  Her heart beat faster, thumping in a cadence that threatened to deafen her. Desire erupted in her body as the dizzying swell of sexual stimulation overtook her. A bizarre thought hovered on the periphery of her mind. Was this what taking LSD might feel like? Her brain was sinking in a sea of erotic intoxication, powerless to surface and just as unwilling. Her limbs felt numb and she couldn’t form full sentences in her mind, let alone speak out loud with any lucidity. All she could do was focus on Theresa’s mouth, her lush, plump lips smiling for only her.

  Still reclining, Theresa reached for Laney. She hadn’t stood up yet, but somehow she glided toward the couch. Theresa drew her into a deep French kiss that was immediate and strong, sending shock waves through her body.

  After some time, Theresa pulled her up onto the couch. From somewhere, she produced some Cristal champagne and they drank straight from the $500 bottle. They took turns sipping like two children who had just stolen a pitcher of Kool-Aid. They kissed and drank and kissed again, all the while never speaking.

  Laney hadn’t had enough champagne to feel tipsy, but the intensity of the scene went to her head immediately. It was like a sizzling, sexy dream that leaves the dreamer with panting breaths and wet thighs. Theresa pressed Laney into the couch and the bottle fell to the floor. Now on her back, Laney looked into Theresa’s eyes, which were intense and provoking. She wrapped her legs around Theresa and pulled their hips together. Laney rubbed Theresa’s back, feeling the warmth of her skin under the slinky fabric. When Theresa pushed her hips into Laney in rhythmic strokes, Laney moved her hands down to grip Theresa’s ass, pulling her into the burning focus of her need.

  Laney’s mind swirled with sexual intoxication. Women were moaning around her. The murmurings of passion and the cries of orgasms intensified her rising excitement. She had heard such noises in rented porn films but had never been in the middle of such extreme sexual clamor. And as the twosomes and threesomes around them writhed and succumbed to one another, the rise and fall of the explosive unions drove Laney to a wilder and faster rhythm and she pushed her hips up into Theresa’s with more intensity.

  Theresa then slipped off the couch and made Laney stand in front of her as Theresa sat down again. When she hiked Laney’s dress up and brusquely spread her legs, Laney saw her eyes burning darker than ever. Theresa was clearly just as horny and out of her mind as she was.

  And when Theresa pushed her mouth into Laney’s wetness, Laney uttered a moan so loud that, somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized she sounded like an animal in heat.

  Her mind spun in crazy circles. She needed to come fast but knew somehow that Theresa wouldn’t let her. Theresa’s hands wrapped around her ass and her expert tongue drew Laney’s clit into a hard, throbbing center of arousal. Laney opened her eyes and could make out women in the dark. They all were moving differently, stroking and humping and fondling, and the sight shot waves of stimulation through her. And when she closed her eyes, she felt only Theresa’s mouth. She couldn’t believe she was in a room of writhing, contorting bodies, all moaning and gasping as if to encourage each other.

  Laney laid her head back and consented to the carnal onslaught.

  Before long the ripples of an orgasm began to travel up her spine. It appeared much too soon, so Laney pushed Theresa down onto her back on the couch. With Theresa’s head on one end, Laney pulled her dress up and climbed on top of her in a sixty-nine position. Theresa threw one leg over the back of the couch, which offered Laney the access she craved, and she licked the dripping wetness off each thigh. Theresa shuddered at each stroke and groaned when Laney pushed her chin into Theresa’s perfectly shaved center
and ran her tongue over her clit a few teasing times before she plunged it inside her. Theresa spread Laney’s legs and managed to continue her oral fucking while pushing her hips in rhythm with Laney’s mouth.

  Though Laney knew every other woman there was heavily involved in her own libidinous pursuits, she wouldn’t have cared if they had all stopped to watch her. She was caught up in a wave that she refused to fight. The women were united in an erotic feast, and she blended into this setting like she had been with the group for years. She was now one of them. And she planned to get out of it what everyone else seemed to be there to get.

  Theresa’s thighs started shaking and Laney’s flight to orgasm increased in velocity.

  Abruptly Theresa moved away and Laney sat up in response. Theresa stood before her and pulled Laney forward until she sat on the front edge of the couch. She then planted her left foot up firmly on the cushion next to Laney’s right hip and her right one on the ground. Theresa smiled, obviously knowing what she wanted. She must have liked this position, for she now clearly wanted Laney to do the same for her.

  Theresa moved one hand behind Laney’s head and pulled her into her, directing Laney’s tongue between her spread legs. Laney steadied herself by wrapping her arms around Theresa’s ass, which enabled her to remain locked into Theresa’s clit and lips as she massaged Theresa with her mouth and tongue.

  Theresa’s head dropped back as she slowly began driving her hips into Laney’s face.

  When Theresa had been the one sitting, Laney had recognized the primal nature of the position. She felt like she was getting a blow job, which was strange but not at all objectionable. Now the restraint of Theresa’s hands at the back of her head, guiding her for Theresa’s maximum pleasure, sent new bolts of sexual charges through her. Theresa was grinding herself into Laney’s mouth and Laney wanted it all. Feeling both dominant and submissive but completely in control, she flashed on the image of the nude women in the film they had watched.

  She needed to be the vessel that carried Theresa’s orgasm across the threshold. She wanted Theresa to crash into her, to pull her hair if she wanted, to dig her nails into her shoulders. Laney felt movement on the couch. Two women she didn’t know very well had fallen next to her. Laney glanced to her left and saw that one was straddling the other. They were kissing passionately and gyrating together.

  Theresa was moaning loudly, her head still thrown back. She either wasn’t aware that these women had moved so close or didn’t care.

  Laney could feel the women next to her. Their hips and thighs were pressed against her and this new sensation, coupled with the realization that they were also in the midst of a sexual encounter so close that she could feel them shiver and buck, sent her libido into overdrive.

  Suddenly Theresa moved away from Laney’s mouth and climbed onto Laney’s lap. With both their dresses pushed roughly up and out of the way, Theresa spread her legs and plunged two fingers inside Laney. Extremely wet and swollen, Laney gasped in desire, and as she accepted the strong fingers that quickly found her G-spot, she was aware that Theresa was crushing herself into the same hand. Theresa stimulated them together, and they rocked back and forth as Laney reached up and pulled Theresa’s mouth to hers.

  Laney was out of control. The situation was out of control. And she didn’t care.

  After a while with Theresa’s hand stroking them both, Theresa suddenly stopped kissing her and dropped her head to Laney’s shoulder. She began to alternately moan and pant. The hot breath stimulating Laney’s neck made her grip Theresa’s thighs to make sure she didn’t move away. Laney was close to coming and tried to stay on the edge of her orgasm. But when Theresa shuddered and cried out, Laney let go. They both came loudly and with a white-hot intensity that erupted like lightning inside Laney.

  Chapter Eleven

  Even though Laney took a faster-than-usual shower at home, she was more than an hour late to work. Kelly eyed her suspiciously as she walked past her desk. Laney made it into her office and sat down with a heavy sigh, then dropped her forehead into her hands.

  “Good morning.”

  Laney started, looking up to see Kelly standing at her door. “Shit,” she exclaimed, her head pounding like a timpani. She was tired from no sleep and a bit rattled from her all-night experience.

  Kelly lowered her voice. “Jumpy, aren’t we?”

  Laney began to wave her off but instead uttered one word of survival. “Coffee.” She needed time to comprehend the night before. She pushed the pile of overdue paperwork away and picked up a pen, then doodled absentmindedly on a pad of paper while she reviewed last night’s events.

  An orgy. And she had participated with everything she had. The fact that she’d been tipsy from the champagne wasn’t an excuse. As a matter of fact, it had heightened her arousal. Never had she had such raw, exposed sex. There had been no loving touches, no affectionate caresses, just feral fucking. It had thrilled and electrified her.

  She had also never been among others having sex. The whole penthouse seemed to be thick with a lascivious carnal fever and she could still feel it, smell it, and taste it.

  Where does it go from here? She wasn’t used to having sex for its own sake. Was that all Theresa wanted? Was that all Laney wanted? Was she making a big deal about this? Well, it was a big deal to her. She shook her head slowly. The Pleasure Set was more than she could have ever imagined.

  Throughout the day, moments from the night before washed across her vision like little apparitions dancing to the loud drumbeats that continued to pound in her head. Bank customers walked by and she could hear the occasional buzzing of the merchant-only deposit door, but she couldn’t focus on work.

  Just after three p.m., Laney’s cell phone rang. The caller ID showed that it was Sandrine.

  Genuine attraction to this woman washed over her. But underneath the thrill of seeing Sandrine’s name on her cell phone was a growing discomfort. The knowledge of the orgy the night before tainted the memory of the pleasant dinner she and Sandrine had shared. Comparing the reckless nights she had spent with Theresa to her conventional date with Sandrine confused and frustrated her. How could she be attracted to two entirely different women?

  What am I doing? she asked for the first time. And in the back of her mind, she knew that the thought really applied to Theresa, not Sandrine.

  As the phone chirped, Laney paused with her thumb on the Connect button. Her head pounded from fatigue, but a new dull ache throbbed in her chest. The presence of Sandrine, even via a phone connection, made Laney feel guilty and soiled. She was convinced that Sandrine would read those negative emotions in her voice and, with embarrassment, she didn’t want to expose that part of herself.

  She let the call go to voice mail.

  *

  Later that afternoon, the office phone rang and kept ringing. Realizing that Kelly had gone to get more coffee, Laney answered it herself. “Laney DeGraff.”

  “Laney.”

  It was Theresa. Laney paused, unsure what to say.

  “Sweetie,” Theresa said, “are you okay?”

  “What the hell happened last night?”

  “You’re a bit shocked, I suppose.”

  Kelly walked in and dropped off a mug of coffee in front of Laney. “Yes.”

  “It’s a private thing. Just us girls, you know? Sometimes we don’t get together to talk business.”

  Laney waited a moment for Kelly to walk out of her office. “But everyone’s sleeping with everyone.”

  “Not really. We keep our group very confidential so feelings develop, feelings that wouldn’t be safe to explore outside the group. I don’t need to tell you that there would be a lot to lose if anyone—Morgan, Kay, any of us—got caught. So we stay within the circle.”

  “It’s cheating, isn’t it?”

  “What, on our husbands? Boyfriends? Girlfriends? If you haven’t noticed, they’re fucking who they want and so are we.”

  “I hadn’t put it in those exact words, but I s
uppose it was just a fuck to you.”

  “A figure of speech, darling. And not the most important part of what I was trying to tell you. It works, Laney. Our group works. It’s no different from what most people in Hollywood are doing. We’re just not hanging out at bars, getting photographed by the paparazzi and having eight-by-ten glossies show up in court. You and I are in a safe place, within a group of women that we trust.”

  “It’s the perfect cover—”

  “Divorce, for most of us, is too complicated and too costly. Everyone does it, Laney, it’s just that we do it a little differently. And only with each other. We trust each other. We won’t tell. We stick together and protect the group.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Can you put the group aside for a moment?”

  “I suppose—”

  “Tell me how it felt.”

  “Being with you?”

  “Yes.”

  It had been beyond belief. The sex had felt like a mind-blowing narcotic shot through her veins. She just wasn’t sure if the drug was healthy. Still, the excitement was beyond anything she’d ever experienced. “Crazy. Wild.”

  “It was amazing for me.”

  “I could barely get to work.”

  “I can only imagine.” Theresa chuckled, and then the conversation fell into a brief silence.

  Theresa lowered her voice. “Will you come over to my place after work?”

  Should she? Admittedly, she had never felt so free and so liberated from the oppression she had been under with Judith. What she and Theresa were doing wasn’t hurting anyone. And she could compartmentalize Theresa from her job, from Sandrine, from whatever she wanted. “Yes.”

  *

  Felicia called while Sandrine was changing from a recent workout at the police station.

  “Felicia, hello.”

  “Hi. What are you up to?”