3RD BI-MONTHLY PENTHOUSE EXTRAVAGANZA
by RILAYAWRITERabout 1 hour ago
•long read•intense intensityThe cleanup crew arrived at noon. Maya watched from the kitchen counter in an oversized NYU hoodie and nothing else, drinking espresso from a cup that cost more than the crew's hourly rate, while two professionals in gloves scrubbed the Twister mat with expressions that suggested they'd seen worse but not by much. Riley sat beside her in a bathrobe, her hair a disaster, her legs still unsteady, scrolling through her phone with the thousand-yard stare of someone who'd been edged for two minutes and then ridden someone's face to completion in front of forty-three strangers.
"We need to do that again," Riley said. "We need to replace the Twister mat," Maya said. "And the bar. And possibly the structural integrity of that wall you were pinned against." " worth it."
Maya looked at her. Riley's bathrobe was open, and there were fingerprint bruises on her hips from Aubrey's grip, and a red mark along her collarbone from someone's mouth, and she looked like she'd been through something that most people would need therapy to process and she was glowing. "Next weekend," Maya said. Riley looked up from her phone. "What?" "Next weekend. Bigger. The whole building. Every floor. I've been thinking about it since three AM when you were asleep and Aubrey was snoring in a way that I found offensive but also endearing."
"You were awake at three AM planning a party while I was unconscious on your chest?" "I was awake at three AM because Aubrey snores like a freight train and your elbow was in my ribs. Planning was a coping mechanism." Maya set down her espresso. "Here's the concept. We invite everyone in Minkus International Condos. Every resident. Plus the core group. Strip games, free use, the whole architecture. But structured. Wheels. Categories. A tournament bracket for the strip games so it feels like there's stakes."
Riley's eyes lit up in the specific way they lit up when Maya described something that was equal parts depraved and organized, which was Riley's exact aesthetic. "A bracket." "Seeded. Topanga would be a one-seed, obviously. She didn't lose a single hand last night. That woman is a menace." "She counted cards, Maya." "That's what makes her a one-seed." Riley pulled her laptop from under a pile of clothes on the counter, how it got there, neither of them could explain and opened it. "Invitations. We need invitations. Physical ones. Hand-delivered to every unit in the building." "With a dress code." "No dress code. That's the point." "Undress code," Maya said.
"I hate you." Riley was already typing. "I love you. I hate you." The invitations went out Tuesday. Maya designed them, because Maya designed everything, and they were printed on heavy card stock in black and gold with embossed text that read: *You are invited to a weekend gathering at the Matthews-Hunter Penthouse. Theme: Games. Rules will be explained upon arrival. Bring an open mind and whatever you're wearing, because you won't be wearing it long.* Below that, in smaller text: *Participation is voluntary. Observation is welcomed. Consent is absolute. Wheel spins are final.*
They slipped them under every door, forty-seven units, plus hand-delivered copies to Topanga, Aubrey, and the core group. The RSVPs came back within twenty-four hours. Every single one said yes. The couple from 11 sent a bottle of tequila with their RSVP. The woman from 7 sent a note that said, "My husband doesn't know what he's in for. Neither do I. We'll be there at 9." By Friday, the penthouse was ready. Maya had reorganized the space into stations. The living room held three blackjack tables, a poker table, and the new Twister mat, which was industrial-grade and apparently designed for, as Maya put it, "high-traffic erotic applications." The bar was stocked with everything. The bedroom door had been removed from its hinges and stored in the guest closet, because the open-door policy from last time was now permanent.
Aubrey arrived at 8:45, wearing a green dress that matched her eyes and heels that added three inches to her already considerable height. She carried a bag that clinked. "What's in the bag?" Maya asked. "Supplies." Aubrey set it on the bar and pulled out four bottles of vintage champagne, a set of silk ties in various colors, and a timer that looked like it belonged in a professional kitchen. "Silk ties?" "For the restraint station." "We don't have a restraint station."
"We do now. I've been thinking about this since the wall." Aubrey uncorked a champagne bottle with the ease of someone who'd done it a thousand times. "Riley responded well to being pinned. I want to explore what happens when she can't move at all." Maya looked at her. "You and Riley have been texting." "A strategy session. She's enthusiastic." "She's always enthusiastic. That's her defining characteristic."
Topanga arrived at 9:10, dressed in a cashmere sweater and slacks, looking like she was at a book club rather than what was about to happen. She carried her own deck of cards, which was so perfectly Topanga that Maya laughed out loud. "You brought your own cards," Maya said.
"These are marked," Topanga said, setting them on the bar. "Not by me. They came that way. I've memorized the marks." "That's cheating." "It's preparation. There's a difference." Topanga accepted a glass of champagne and surveyed the room. "How many people?" "Forty-seven units, plus core group. We're expecting sixty, maybe seventy."
"And the rules?" Maya pulled out the wheel, which had been repainted with new categories. "Same structure. Strip games run continuously. The wheel spins every hour. Categories include Edge Someone for Two Minutes, Free Use for Ten Minutes, Restraint Challenge, Oral Fixation, and a new one — Confession." "Confession?" Topanga raised an eyebrow. "You have to tell the room something you've never told anyone. Something sexual. If the room votes that it's sufficiently shocking, you keep your clothes on. If they vote it's not shocking enough, you lose everything." Topanga sipped her champagne. "I'll win that category." "You absolutely will."
By 10 PM, the penthouse was full. Sixty-three people, ranging from fully dressed to already topless, because the couple from 7 had apparently started without waiting for the official start time. The blackjack tables were running. The poker table had a waitlist. Someone had brought a roulette wheel, which was not on the official agenda but which Maya approved immediately because it meant more gambling, which meant more losing, which meant more nudity. Maya stood on the bar at 10:15 and tapped a spoon against a champagne glass. The room went quiet.
"Welcome to the second annual, well the second one. We're not calling it annual yet. Rules are simple. Strip games run all night. You lose, you remove something. You run out of things, you become the entertainment. The wheel spins every hour on the hour. Whatever it lands on, we do. No exceptions once your name is selected. Consent is the only override, and if you override, you you are out for the night." She looked out over the crowd. "First wheel spin is at 11. Until then, play, drink, and start losing."
The room moved. Cards were dealt. Chips were stacked. Clothes started coming off in the methodical, inevitable way that gambling strips people, not all at once, but piece by piece, a jacket here, a sweater there, until someone lost their third hand in a row and stood up and unzipped their skirt with the resigned dignity of a person who'd made a choice and was living with it. Aubrey won her first three hands at the poker table, which was characteristic, and used her chip advantage to buy clothes from other players, which was not in the rules but which no one objected to because watching Aubrey negotiate for someone's shirt while fully dressed herself was its own form of entertainment.
"You're not losing," Riley said from beside her, already down to her bra and jeans after a spectacular run of bad luck at blackjack. "I don't lose," Aubrey said. "I manage risk." "Manage this," Riley said, and unhooked her own bra, pulling it off and dropping it on the table. "I'm playing the next hand topless. If I lose, I'm down to my thong. If I win, you have to kiss me."
"That's not how poker works." "It's how this poker works." Aubrey looked at her cards. She looked at Riley's bare chest. She looked at her cards again. "Deal me out."
She stood, took Riley's hand, and pulled her toward the bar. The crowd parted. Riley's back hit the bar edge and Aubrey kissed her, hard, one hand on the back of Riley's neck, the other on her hip, and Riley made a sound into Aubrey's mouth that was somewhere between surprise and surrender. Aubrey broke the kiss and looked at her. "I'm going to edge you again," she said, quietly enough that only Riley and Maya, who had materialized behind the bar, could hear. "But this time I'm going to tie your hands first." Riley's pupils dilated. Maya could see it from two feet away, the way the brown of her eyes contracted and the black expanded, the involuntary tell that no poker face could hide.
"The silk ties," Riley said. "The silk ties." Maya reached under the bar and pulled out the bag Aubrey had brought. She handed Riley a green tie. "Wrists together, behind your back. I'll tie them." Riley held out her wrists. Maya wrapped the silk around them, twice, then secured it with a knot that was firm but not tight enough to hurt. She'd practiced this, because Maya practiced everything and Riley stood against the bar with her hands behind her back, topless, her jeans still on, looking at Aubrey with an expression that was equal parts challenge and need. "On the bar," Aubrey said. "What?" Aubrey lifted her, physically, by the waist, and set Riley on the bar the way someone might set a drink down. Riley's legs dangled. The bar was cold against her bare back. The crowd had noticed now, a widening circle of attention, people setting down cards and turning to watch.
Aubrey unbuttoned Riley's jeans and pulled them down her legs, taking her thong with them, and Riley sat on the bar completely naked with her hands tied behind her back and sixty people watching and her breath was already coming short. "Two minutes," Maya said, setting the kitchen timer Aubrey had brought. "Same rules. You come, the timer resets." Aubrey stepped between Riley's thighs. She didn't start slow this time. She pushed two fingers inside Riley and curled them up, and Riley's head fell back and her mouth opened and a sound came out of her that was louder than last time, rawer, because her hands couldn't grip anything, couldn't anchor her, and the only thing she could do was feel it.
Aubrey's thumb found Riley's clit and pressed. Riley's hips jerked forward on the bar, her thighs clamping around Aubrey's waist, and Aubrey used her free hand to push one of Riley's knees to the side, holding her open. "Don't close," Aubrey said. "I want to see you." "Two minutes." The timer ticked. Aubrey's fingers moved inside Riley with a rhythm that was deliberately uneven, three fast strokes, then slow, then fast again keeping Riley's body guessing, keeping the tension building without letting it crest. Riley's abs were flexing, her toes curling against the bar's edge, her wrists twisting in the silk ties.
"Sixty seconds," Maya said. Aubrey added a third finger. Riley sobbed. The sound hit the room like a physical thing, and three people in the crowd audibly inhaled. The woman from 7 had her hand inside her husband's pants. Topanga was watching with her champagne held perfectly still, her expression unreadable, her cards set aside for the first time all night. "Thirty seconds." Riley was shaking. Her thighs were trembling against Aubrey's sides. Wetness was visible on Aubrey's fingers, on Riley's thighs, on the bar surface, and the sound of it, the slick, wet sound of Aubrey's fingers fucking into her, was audible in the silence of the room. "Please," Riley said, and her voice broke on the word. "Hold it." "I can't — I — please —" "Fifteen seconds." Aubrey pressed her thumb hard against Riley's clit and held it there, not moving, just pressure, constant and firm, while her fingers curled inside and Riley's whole body went rigid, every muscle locked, her back arched off the bar, her mouth open in a silent cry. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
Aubrey pulled her hand away. Riley collapsed back against the bar, her chest heaving, her body twitching with aftershocks that weren't orgasms, that were the body's confused response to being taken to the edge and held and then released without resolution. Her thighs were shaking. Her eyes were wet. "Untie me," she whispered. Maya untied the silk. Riley's hands came forward and she grabbed Aubrey's shirt and pulled her close and kissed her with a desperation that was almost violent, and the crowd erupted, not in applause, but in sound, in the collective exhale of sixty people who had been holding their breath.
The wheel spun at 11. It landed on Confession. Maya spun the name wheel. It landed on Riley, who was still naked on the bar, still shaking, still wet. "I need a drink first," Riley said. Maya handed her tequila. Riley drank half the bottle. Not a glass, the bottle. She set it down and looked at the room. "I've been daydreaming," she said, "about leaving the city. About a cabin somewhere. And " She stopped. Her eyes flicked to Aubrey. "About someone who'd come with me." The room was quiet. Aubrey's green eyes were fixed on Riley with an expression that Maya had never seen on her face before, something beneath the strategy and the composure, that looked like it had been living underground for a while and was now blinking in the light. Aubrey," Riley said. "Her name. It's Aubrey."
Maya looked at Riley. Then at Aubrey. Then at the room, which was holding its breath again. "Is that sufficiently shocking?" someone asked from the back. "No," Topanga said, from her seat, still fully clothed. "It's not shocking. It's obvious." She sipped her champagne. "She's been obvious about it for weeks." Riley lost her jeans, which she'd already lost and the room voted to give her a pass because, as one person put it, "that took more courage than taking off your shirt." The party continued. The wheel spun again at midnight and landed on Free Use, and the room moved the way it had last time, like a tide, like gravity, like something fundamental had shifted and everyone was falling toward the same center.
But this time, Maya noticed, Aubrey didn't follow her to the bedroom. She followed Riley, who was walking unsteadily toward the guest room, still naked, still vibrating with everything that had happened on the bar. Maya watched them go. The guest room door closed, not open, not this time, because whatever was happening in there was not for the crowd. Maya stood in the living room of her penthouse, surrounded by the sounds of sixty people losing their clothes and their inhibitions in the specific, beautiful chaos she'd designed, and she felt something she hadn't expected. Not jealousy. Not exclusion. Something warmer. Something that felt like watching someone you loved finally say a thing out loud that they'd been carrying in their chest like a held breath.
She turned to Topanga, who was shuffling her marked deck with the serenity of a woman who would die fully clothed. "Deal me in," Maya said. "You're wearing a hoodie and nothing else."
"Then I don't have far to go." Topanga dealt the cards. Maya looked at her hand. She looked at the closed guest room door. She looked at the room full of people who were having the kind of night that would require professional cleaning and professional therapy in equal measure. She lost the hand. She took off the hoodie. Topanga dealt again.
The party lasted until 5 AM. Maya knew because she checked her phone when the last guest left, stumbling into the elevator with their shoes in their hands and a dazed expression that suggested they'd need the whole weekend to recover. The guest room door opened at 5:15. Aubrey came out first, then Riley, and they were both naked and their hair was wrecked and Riley had a mark on her neck that looked like it had been there for hours. "Good party," Riley said, sitting on the bar stool next to Maya, who was still naked, still playing cards with Topanga, who was still fully dressed and had won every hand for the last six hours.
"How was the guest room?" Maya asked. Riley looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at Riley. Something passed between them that was quieter than the frequency from the bar, less urgent, more settled. The kind of look that happens after the thing has been said and the saying of it has changed the air. "Different," Aubrey said. "Good different?" Aubrey put her hand on Riley's knee. Riley put her hand on top of Aubrey's hand. They sat like that, not speaking, while Topanga shuffled her cards and Maya poured the last of the champagne and the sun came up over Manhattan through the penthouse windows, lighting up the wreckage of a party that had broken several laws and at least one piece of furniture.
"You owe me a new bar," Maya said to no one in particular. "You owe me a new deck of cards," Topanga said. "These are worn out." "You've been shuffling them for seven hours." "Bridge players shuffle for longer." Topanga gathered the cards, tucked them in her bag, and stood. She looked at the three of them. Maya naked on the bar stool, Riley naked with Aubrey's hand on her knee, Aubrey naked and looking at Riley like she was a hand of cards worth going all in on. "Same time next month?" Topanga asked. "Same time next month," Maya said. Topanga walked to the elevator, still fully dressed, still composed, still the only person in the building who could attend an orgy and leave looking like she'd been to brunch. The elevator doors closed. Maya looked at Riley.
"So. A cabin." Riley's face went pink. "I said that out loud, didn't I?" "You said it into a mic, technically. The bar has acoustics." "I wasn't thinking." "You were thinking. That's the point." Maya refilled her glass. "Where's the cabin?" "I don't have a cabin. I don't even have a car."
"I have a car," Aubrey said. Maya looked at her. "You don't have a car. You live in Manhattan."
"I have a car in Connecticut. And a cabin." She paused. "I've been daydreaming too." The sun was fully up now, pouring through the windows, and the three of them sat naked on bar stools in a penthouse that looked like it had been hit by a very organized hurricane, and nobody moved to get dressed, and nobody suggested sleep, and the champagne was almost gone but not quite, and Maya poured the last of it into three glasses and raised hers.
"To the cabin," she said. Riley raised hers. Aubrey raised hers. "To the cabin," they said. They drank. The champagne was warm and flat and it was the best Maya had ever tasted.
"We need to do that again," Riley said. "We need to replace the Twister mat," Maya said. "And the bar. And possibly the structural integrity of that wall you were pinned against." " worth it."
Maya looked at her. Riley's bathrobe was open, and there were fingerprint bruises on her hips from Aubrey's grip, and a red mark along her collarbone from someone's mouth, and she looked like she'd been through something that most people would need therapy to process and she was glowing. "Next weekend," Maya said. Riley looked up from her phone. "What?" "Next weekend. Bigger. The whole building. Every floor. I've been thinking about it since three AM when you were asleep and Aubrey was snoring in a way that I found offensive but also endearing."
"You were awake at three AM planning a party while I was unconscious on your chest?" "I was awake at three AM because Aubrey snores like a freight train and your elbow was in my ribs. Planning was a coping mechanism." Maya set down her espresso. "Here's the concept. We invite everyone in Minkus International Condos. Every resident. Plus the core group. Strip games, free use, the whole architecture. But structured. Wheels. Categories. A tournament bracket for the strip games so it feels like there's stakes."
Riley's eyes lit up in the specific way they lit up when Maya described something that was equal parts depraved and organized, which was Riley's exact aesthetic. "A bracket." "Seeded. Topanga would be a one-seed, obviously. She didn't lose a single hand last night. That woman is a menace." "She counted cards, Maya." "That's what makes her a one-seed." Riley pulled her laptop from under a pile of clothes on the counter, how it got there, neither of them could explain and opened it. "Invitations. We need invitations. Physical ones. Hand-delivered to every unit in the building." "With a dress code." "No dress code. That's the point." "Undress code," Maya said.
"I hate you." Riley was already typing. "I love you. I hate you." The invitations went out Tuesday. Maya designed them, because Maya designed everything, and they were printed on heavy card stock in black and gold with embossed text that read: *You are invited to a weekend gathering at the Matthews-Hunter Penthouse. Theme: Games. Rules will be explained upon arrival. Bring an open mind and whatever you're wearing, because you won't be wearing it long.* Below that, in smaller text: *Participation is voluntary. Observation is welcomed. Consent is absolute. Wheel spins are final.*
They slipped them under every door, forty-seven units, plus hand-delivered copies to Topanga, Aubrey, and the core group. The RSVPs came back within twenty-four hours. Every single one said yes. The couple from 11 sent a bottle of tequila with their RSVP. The woman from 7 sent a note that said, "My husband doesn't know what he's in for. Neither do I. We'll be there at 9." By Friday, the penthouse was ready. Maya had reorganized the space into stations. The living room held three blackjack tables, a poker table, and the new Twister mat, which was industrial-grade and apparently designed for, as Maya put it, "high-traffic erotic applications." The bar was stocked with everything. The bedroom door had been removed from its hinges and stored in the guest closet, because the open-door policy from last time was now permanent.
Aubrey arrived at 8:45, wearing a green dress that matched her eyes and heels that added three inches to her already considerable height. She carried a bag that clinked. "What's in the bag?" Maya asked. "Supplies." Aubrey set it on the bar and pulled out four bottles of vintage champagne, a set of silk ties in various colors, and a timer that looked like it belonged in a professional kitchen. "Silk ties?" "For the restraint station." "We don't have a restraint station."
"We do now. I've been thinking about this since the wall." Aubrey uncorked a champagne bottle with the ease of someone who'd done it a thousand times. "Riley responded well to being pinned. I want to explore what happens when she can't move at all." Maya looked at her. "You and Riley have been texting." "A strategy session. She's enthusiastic." "She's always enthusiastic. That's her defining characteristic."
Topanga arrived at 9:10, dressed in a cashmere sweater and slacks, looking like she was at a book club rather than what was about to happen. She carried her own deck of cards, which was so perfectly Topanga that Maya laughed out loud. "You brought your own cards," Maya said.
"These are marked," Topanga said, setting them on the bar. "Not by me. They came that way. I've memorized the marks." "That's cheating." "It's preparation. There's a difference." Topanga accepted a glass of champagne and surveyed the room. "How many people?" "Forty-seven units, plus core group. We're expecting sixty, maybe seventy."
"And the rules?" Maya pulled out the wheel, which had been repainted with new categories. "Same structure. Strip games run continuously. The wheel spins every hour. Categories include Edge Someone for Two Minutes, Free Use for Ten Minutes, Restraint Challenge, Oral Fixation, and a new one — Confession." "Confession?" Topanga raised an eyebrow. "You have to tell the room something you've never told anyone. Something sexual. If the room votes that it's sufficiently shocking, you keep your clothes on. If they vote it's not shocking enough, you lose everything." Topanga sipped her champagne. "I'll win that category." "You absolutely will."
By 10 PM, the penthouse was full. Sixty-three people, ranging from fully dressed to already topless, because the couple from 7 had apparently started without waiting for the official start time. The blackjack tables were running. The poker table had a waitlist. Someone had brought a roulette wheel, which was not on the official agenda but which Maya approved immediately because it meant more gambling, which meant more losing, which meant more nudity. Maya stood on the bar at 10:15 and tapped a spoon against a champagne glass. The room went quiet.
"Welcome to the second annual, well the second one. We're not calling it annual yet. Rules are simple. Strip games run all night. You lose, you remove something. You run out of things, you become the entertainment. The wheel spins every hour on the hour. Whatever it lands on, we do. No exceptions once your name is selected. Consent is the only override, and if you override, you you are out for the night." She looked out over the crowd. "First wheel spin is at 11. Until then, play, drink, and start losing."
The room moved. Cards were dealt. Chips were stacked. Clothes started coming off in the methodical, inevitable way that gambling strips people, not all at once, but piece by piece, a jacket here, a sweater there, until someone lost their third hand in a row and stood up and unzipped their skirt with the resigned dignity of a person who'd made a choice and was living with it. Aubrey won her first three hands at the poker table, which was characteristic, and used her chip advantage to buy clothes from other players, which was not in the rules but which no one objected to because watching Aubrey negotiate for someone's shirt while fully dressed herself was its own form of entertainment.
"You're not losing," Riley said from beside her, already down to her bra and jeans after a spectacular run of bad luck at blackjack. "I don't lose," Aubrey said. "I manage risk." "Manage this," Riley said, and unhooked her own bra, pulling it off and dropping it on the table. "I'm playing the next hand topless. If I lose, I'm down to my thong. If I win, you have to kiss me."
"That's not how poker works." "It's how this poker works." Aubrey looked at her cards. She looked at Riley's bare chest. She looked at her cards again. "Deal me out."
She stood, took Riley's hand, and pulled her toward the bar. The crowd parted. Riley's back hit the bar edge and Aubrey kissed her, hard, one hand on the back of Riley's neck, the other on her hip, and Riley made a sound into Aubrey's mouth that was somewhere between surprise and surrender. Aubrey broke the kiss and looked at her. "I'm going to edge you again," she said, quietly enough that only Riley and Maya, who had materialized behind the bar, could hear. "But this time I'm going to tie your hands first." Riley's pupils dilated. Maya could see it from two feet away, the way the brown of her eyes contracted and the black expanded, the involuntary tell that no poker face could hide.
"The silk ties," Riley said. "The silk ties." Maya reached under the bar and pulled out the bag Aubrey had brought. She handed Riley a green tie. "Wrists together, behind your back. I'll tie them." Riley held out her wrists. Maya wrapped the silk around them, twice, then secured it with a knot that was firm but not tight enough to hurt. She'd practiced this, because Maya practiced everything and Riley stood against the bar with her hands behind her back, topless, her jeans still on, looking at Aubrey with an expression that was equal parts challenge and need. "On the bar," Aubrey said. "What?" Aubrey lifted her, physically, by the waist, and set Riley on the bar the way someone might set a drink down. Riley's legs dangled. The bar was cold against her bare back. The crowd had noticed now, a widening circle of attention, people setting down cards and turning to watch.
Aubrey unbuttoned Riley's jeans and pulled them down her legs, taking her thong with them, and Riley sat on the bar completely naked with her hands tied behind her back and sixty people watching and her breath was already coming short. "Two minutes," Maya said, setting the kitchen timer Aubrey had brought. "Same rules. You come, the timer resets." Aubrey stepped between Riley's thighs. She didn't start slow this time. She pushed two fingers inside Riley and curled them up, and Riley's head fell back and her mouth opened and a sound came out of her that was louder than last time, rawer, because her hands couldn't grip anything, couldn't anchor her, and the only thing she could do was feel it.
Aubrey's thumb found Riley's clit and pressed. Riley's hips jerked forward on the bar, her thighs clamping around Aubrey's waist, and Aubrey used her free hand to push one of Riley's knees to the side, holding her open. "Don't close," Aubrey said. "I want to see you." "Two minutes." The timer ticked. Aubrey's fingers moved inside Riley with a rhythm that was deliberately uneven, three fast strokes, then slow, then fast again keeping Riley's body guessing, keeping the tension building without letting it crest. Riley's abs were flexing, her toes curling against the bar's edge, her wrists twisting in the silk ties.
"Sixty seconds," Maya said. Aubrey added a third finger. Riley sobbed. The sound hit the room like a physical thing, and three people in the crowd audibly inhaled. The woman from 7 had her hand inside her husband's pants. Topanga was watching with her champagne held perfectly still, her expression unreadable, her cards set aside for the first time all night. "Thirty seconds." Riley was shaking. Her thighs were trembling against Aubrey's sides. Wetness was visible on Aubrey's fingers, on Riley's thighs, on the bar surface, and the sound of it, the slick, wet sound of Aubrey's fingers fucking into her, was audible in the silence of the room. "Please," Riley said, and her voice broke on the word. "Hold it." "I can't — I — please —" "Fifteen seconds." Aubrey pressed her thumb hard against Riley's clit and held it there, not moving, just pressure, constant and firm, while her fingers curled inside and Riley's whole body went rigid, every muscle locked, her back arched off the bar, her mouth open in a silent cry. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
Aubrey pulled her hand away. Riley collapsed back against the bar, her chest heaving, her body twitching with aftershocks that weren't orgasms, that were the body's confused response to being taken to the edge and held and then released without resolution. Her thighs were shaking. Her eyes were wet. "Untie me," she whispered. Maya untied the silk. Riley's hands came forward and she grabbed Aubrey's shirt and pulled her close and kissed her with a desperation that was almost violent, and the crowd erupted, not in applause, but in sound, in the collective exhale of sixty people who had been holding their breath.
The wheel spun at 11. It landed on Confession. Maya spun the name wheel. It landed on Riley, who was still naked on the bar, still shaking, still wet. "I need a drink first," Riley said. Maya handed her tequila. Riley drank half the bottle. Not a glass, the bottle. She set it down and looked at the room. "I've been daydreaming," she said, "about leaving the city. About a cabin somewhere. And " She stopped. Her eyes flicked to Aubrey. "About someone who'd come with me." The room was quiet. Aubrey's green eyes were fixed on Riley with an expression that Maya had never seen on her face before, something beneath the strategy and the composure, that looked like it had been living underground for a while and was now blinking in the light. Aubrey," Riley said. "Her name. It's Aubrey."
Maya looked at Riley. Then at Aubrey. Then at the room, which was holding its breath again. "Is that sufficiently shocking?" someone asked from the back. "No," Topanga said, from her seat, still fully clothed. "It's not shocking. It's obvious." She sipped her champagne. "She's been obvious about it for weeks." Riley lost her jeans, which she'd already lost and the room voted to give her a pass because, as one person put it, "that took more courage than taking off your shirt." The party continued. The wheel spun again at midnight and landed on Free Use, and the room moved the way it had last time, like a tide, like gravity, like something fundamental had shifted and everyone was falling toward the same center.
But this time, Maya noticed, Aubrey didn't follow her to the bedroom. She followed Riley, who was walking unsteadily toward the guest room, still naked, still vibrating with everything that had happened on the bar. Maya watched them go. The guest room door closed, not open, not this time, because whatever was happening in there was not for the crowd. Maya stood in the living room of her penthouse, surrounded by the sounds of sixty people losing their clothes and their inhibitions in the specific, beautiful chaos she'd designed, and she felt something she hadn't expected. Not jealousy. Not exclusion. Something warmer. Something that felt like watching someone you loved finally say a thing out loud that they'd been carrying in their chest like a held breath.
She turned to Topanga, who was shuffling her marked deck with the serenity of a woman who would die fully clothed. "Deal me in," Maya said. "You're wearing a hoodie and nothing else."
"Then I don't have far to go." Topanga dealt the cards. Maya looked at her hand. She looked at the closed guest room door. She looked at the room full of people who were having the kind of night that would require professional cleaning and professional therapy in equal measure. She lost the hand. She took off the hoodie. Topanga dealt again.
The party lasted until 5 AM. Maya knew because she checked her phone when the last guest left, stumbling into the elevator with their shoes in their hands and a dazed expression that suggested they'd need the whole weekend to recover. The guest room door opened at 5:15. Aubrey came out first, then Riley, and they were both naked and their hair was wrecked and Riley had a mark on her neck that looked like it had been there for hours. "Good party," Riley said, sitting on the bar stool next to Maya, who was still naked, still playing cards with Topanga, who was still fully dressed and had won every hand for the last six hours.
"How was the guest room?" Maya asked. Riley looked at Aubrey. Aubrey looked at Riley. Something passed between them that was quieter than the frequency from the bar, less urgent, more settled. The kind of look that happens after the thing has been said and the saying of it has changed the air. "Different," Aubrey said. "Good different?" Aubrey put her hand on Riley's knee. Riley put her hand on top of Aubrey's hand. They sat like that, not speaking, while Topanga shuffled her cards and Maya poured the last of the champagne and the sun came up over Manhattan through the penthouse windows, lighting up the wreckage of a party that had broken several laws and at least one piece of furniture.
"You owe me a new bar," Maya said to no one in particular. "You owe me a new deck of cards," Topanga said. "These are worn out." "You've been shuffling them for seven hours." "Bridge players shuffle for longer." Topanga gathered the cards, tucked them in her bag, and stood. She looked at the three of them. Maya naked on the bar stool, Riley naked with Aubrey's hand on her knee, Aubrey naked and looking at Riley like she was a hand of cards worth going all in on. "Same time next month?" Topanga asked. "Same time next month," Maya said. Topanga walked to the elevator, still fully dressed, still composed, still the only person in the building who could attend an orgy and leave looking like she'd been to brunch. The elevator doors closed. Maya looked at Riley.
"So. A cabin." Riley's face went pink. "I said that out loud, didn't I?" "You said it into a mic, technically. The bar has acoustics." "I wasn't thinking." "You were thinking. That's the point." Maya refilled her glass. "Where's the cabin?" "I don't have a cabin. I don't even have a car."
"I have a car," Aubrey said. Maya looked at her. "You don't have a car. You live in Manhattan."
"I have a car in Connecticut. And a cabin." She paused. "I've been daydreaming too." The sun was fully up now, pouring through the windows, and the three of them sat naked on bar stools in a penthouse that looked like it had been hit by a very organized hurricane, and nobody moved to get dressed, and nobody suggested sleep, and the champagne was almost gone but not quite, and Maya poured the last of it into three glasses and raised hers.
"To the cabin," she said. Riley raised hers. Aubrey raised hers. "To the cabin," they said. They drank. The champagne was warm and flat and it was the best Maya had ever tasted.