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The brass key turned like it had been oiled for me.
The red room was dim and warm and smelled of candle wax and expensive perfume. A huge bed, dark red sheets, a fire crackling in the grate. She stood at the tall window with her back to me, the scarlet silk clinging to her waist and hips, the red domino mask still on, one hand resting on the glass.
“You came,” she said, without turning. “Ten minutes. I’d started to think you wouldn’t.”
“I nearly didn’t. I’m Ben. Sorry. I’m not supposed to…”
“Thirty-three,” she said, “single, fixes lifts for a living, terrible at lying. Tom’s list had a few details.” She turned. “I’m thirty-one. That’s all you get, and that’s the point. Nobody here has to be anyone else’s anything.”
She crossed the room and stopped inches away. Her gloved fingers walked up my chest and unknotted my cravat. Her eyes were doing something warm and wicked behind the red.
“The rules are simple. Masks stay on. If either of us says cinders, everything stops. Otherwise, I’d like to lead. I’d like you to do what I ask, and I’d like you to tell me what you like and what you don’t, out loud, in your own filthy words.”
Her dress dropped open at the shoulder. She was wearing nothing underneath it.
“Do you want to find out who I am?” she said, very softly. “Or do you want to find out what I’m like?”