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“Mine is the room nobody gets shown,” she said. “But you asked nicely, and I like your hands.”
She opened the black-ribboned door with a key of her own. Inside was a small, warm room with a black velvet chaise, a mirror taller than me, and a dressing table covered in candle stubs and silver brushes. Her room, for the night, and nobody else’s.
“I run the stairs,” she said, closing the door. “I keep everyone safe, I tie the wrists, I count the keys back in at three. I don’t play.” She turned to look at me, a black cat in a black room. “Usually.”
“What changed?”
“You said sorry to the coat stand.” Her gloved hand came to my chest. “And then you said it to a potted palm. Nobody is that polite unless they mean it.”
I kissed her. I’d barely decided to, my mouth was just there. Her lips were soft behind the velvet edge of the mask, and she made a small noise and pulled me in by the tailcoat and kissed me back hungrily, her tongue sliding against mine.
When she stopped she was breathing hard. Her thigh had pushed between mine, and I’m sure she could feel exactly how pleased I was.
“I’m thirty-four,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you my name. Do you want to be told what to do, or do you want to ask me something?”