Puppet Master

Chapter Sixteen

This was her Jayden, why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place, because when he’d teased her, his face had fallen into a sloppy grin that she rarely saw him make with anybody else.  Because one day he’d made that sloppy grin, while her brothers had been taunting her softly about her really bad singing voice as she’d tried to sing along to Boyzone, or some other such muck, and she’d felt like he’d narrowed the whole world down to just the two of them and his cheeky smile. Her heart had kicked in a gear and she’d hung her head as her cheeks burned bright red and she’d shuffled away leaving him laughing along with the boys, seemingly oblivious with a cheeky, lopsided grin.

A very sexy, cocky grin that was so completely Jayden she had to shake her head and laugh at herself now to stop her body from pouncing at him and winding itself around his. She felt closest to him when he smiled at her like that; she genuinely believed that he could love her back in the same way that she did him. Or maybe that was some emotive thing from the memories of being fourteen and never pinning her teenage crushes on another soul, because it felt like she was breaking her own heart if she so much as tried it.

“I guess so, sorry.” Her voice was rueful, as she shook her head at her own stupidity, and fussed with the hem of her skirt to distract herself.

“Only you, babe; I bring you to a fetish club, tell you I own it, and the second solid question out of your mouth is regarding the design.”

He chuckled lightly, resuming his steady march through the corridors. Most of the doors were shut, and the dove grey walls gave one the impression that they were strolling through a very nicely designed labyrinth, her body turning this way and that, so that she worked out that the entire structure must facilitate at least seventeen private rooms for the use of the club’s members.

Until they were brought to the final door at the end of the last corridor, where he stopped, and lightly squeezed his hand around hers, not looking back at her, just squeezing her hand, letting a bit of her Jayden into the puppet master’s display.

Two orchids flanked the French doors, and as she stepped inside, the first thing she noticed was the beautiful palest shades of lilac, and a whisper of sky blue all marbled into each other. Pale pink rose petals littered a trail on the luxurious carpet up to the biggest four poster bed that she’d ever seen.

Standing at least six foot by five, the edge of the frame reached up to Tori’s waist; it completely dominated the room. Four wrought iron pillars stood up at each corner, sprayed with a cream lacquer, and white gauze draped the impressive frame. Pale pink satin covered the bed, and a white leather Chesterfield sat on the other side of the room, much like her mother used to have, facing a flat screen television mounted on the wall which must have been at least 70 inches.

It wasn’t quite what you’d expect from a fetish club... and Tori had seen it before.

In fact, she’d designed it, when she’d been painting a series of prints based around the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, for a school project when she was fourteen. She’d painted an image of herself as Juliet, in contemporary dress and with modern surroundings, emphasizing the timeless quality of her favourite story. She’d been inspired by the Baz Luhrman adaptation with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. Except Romeo was never anywhere to be seen in these images, because she’d known she would paint him as Jayden, and her feelings would have been as plain as day on the small canvases.