Prologue

 

Labyrinth is not so much a place as a state of mind; the domain of men who worship the female sex and with the same gut level passion reduce them to little more than sexual playthings. This is our feeble attempt to control the female species-a feat that remains impossible to accomplish with any permanency. By their very definition women cannot be controlled, defined or defeated, but simply allowed to flower with careful manipulation ... drama, mystery, a bit of the occult all practiced in our arcane labyrinth. We hate and love women with the same breath, nurture and tear them apart with gnashing teeth. We own, we conquer, but we cannot posses; any man here who would say otherwise lies-for sport, perhaps, or just for show. An arrogant and, I think, misguided attempt to impress other males who are easily awed.

How long we can hang-on to this little labyrinth of interconnected fantasies is anyone's guess. My guess? One day we'll all awaken and what we are, what we did will be stripped from our psyches, purged from our thoughts. Perhaps a whisper, a distant echo of a rapturous female voice will remain, hauntingly so. Perhaps just the fragrance of desire that rides in on the nearest breeze. Or, perhaps, we'll be lucky enough to have even these whispering remnants of our longing eradicated from our dreary minds, bringing us a welcome if not dismal peace.

Until that day, the labyrinth will convene from time to time, arising out of unmet need, and driven into existence by the quiet roar of lust awakened, lust which will refuse to be denied its chance to speak.

Alec West

Chapter One

 

The phone rang. She answered quickly. Kathryn was routinely in a rush-the life of a stockbroker with far too much to do and so little time.

"Kathryn. Thayer here," the voice on the other end spoke abruptly.

"Yes, I recognize your voice, darling." She smiled to hear her husband's deep baritone, then flipping her dark hair back with a flick of her head, she cradled the phone on her shoulder and went about poring over the client's file before her. "So, we're going to dinner with Rob and Lauren tonight?"

"No. I canceled, although we will be going out."

"Wait, those plans were made weeks ago-" She opened a file on her computer while waiting for her husband's reply.

"Something's come up," he said.

"Could you be less vague?" she said absently, as her eyes scanned the screen.

"Less vague? No. I'll pick you up at work. I'll have your clothes with me; you can change in the car."

As this last piece of pertinent information dropped into place, a half dozen small cues in the short exchange between husband and wife had melded into a single fact.

Her face paled, drained of its vibrancy as if a ghost had just passed through her body. She stiffened briefly, then all the nervous stockbroker energy that took over at eight o'clock every weekday morning seemed to melt from her body. Her eyes were strangely dreamy now. If one were looking on they'd have seen the svelte thirty-something female take off her black rimmed glasses, and emerge from her cocoon of proper business protocol to become the fluid Kathryn of the evening hours.

She took the phone in her hand, her voice deepening as she spoke. "I'll be waiting for you on the curb, six o'clock."

"Five-thirty," he countered.

"Yes, of course. Five-thirty."

In another part of town, Jewel Brody was bent over her sewing machine, turning the hem on a pair of suit trousers, when Billy Brignace placed his hands on her hunched shoulders.

"I got a call," was all he had to say, to have his girlfriend seize up and turn enough to see his face.

She looked alarmed. "Darlin', I have a stack of stuff to do? I could never-" she bit off the last of her retort before she finished.

Billy just smiled and moved away, sitting on a nearby table so that his feet dangled a foot off the cement floor. "So what? You hang out here for another three hours, then go home to Frank, huh? That's how you want to spend your weekend?" He was smug and brash and all knowing, sporting a cocky smile.

The picture of her beer swilling, pot-bellied husband jumped into Jewel's mind.

"Besides," Billy went on, looking almost evil now, "You're as pent-up as a caged flea."

She let her thoughts fix on Billy's caged flea, and her big chest heaved and her eyes started to smolder darkly. A shiver shook every bit of voluptuous flesh. Though her thick blonde hair was a tangled mess and her clothes a little rumpled she was still a stunningly sexual woman.

All around her sewing machines were humming, just as hers should be. But she couldn't be less interested now that her concentration was broken. "You know how much I want to fuck you, baby," she told Billy in a breathy whisper. She looked around self-consciously, then back at Billy.

"And what else, Jewel?" His eyes got darker as he watched her respond.

He could almost see the gears working, memories flooding into her brain in rapid succession-as if flipping through the kid's view master. Her breath grew short and tiny beads of sweat formed on her upper lip. It was no wonder they called the place a sweat shop; though on that particular day it wasn't all that hot. Nothing like it would be in mid-July when the old swamp cooler kicked in. Though it was already mid-May, spring had not yet turned into summer. It had to be more than the temperature making her sweat.

A small smile formed on Jewel's full pink lips, and she batted her lashes like a tarty street girl. "So, I guess I'd better get myself ready, hadn't I?" she practically purred.

With raised eyebrows, Billy replied, "I guess you'd better."

Lana McCarron looked like a million bucks in exercise shorts and a tiny tank-which did wonders for Dominick's libido. He sat with his ass against the hood of her silver Prius, cocked his head and watched her tall and stately form move across the parking lot toward him, a walking wet dream; a latter day Rita Hayworth, all curves, voluptuous angles and bedroom eyes. Her round behind was a treat to squeeze; but a good smack on that haughty rear and she was like putty in his hands, another smack and she'd be coming. As she got closer his big lips formed a sly grin. The chocolate brown of his smooth bald head was almost blinding in the late afternoon sun.

"You have your weekend free?" he said, although he already knew that she had every weekend free for him. She'd stopped a few feet in front of him, hands on hips, looking incredulous.

"Free? Me free? You think you can just run me down on the spur of the moment and I'll come running. Darling, really-" And there was that smile, the mocking one, as she sashayed around him and moved to the driver's side of the car.

Dominick jumped up and moved in behind her.

"Your ticket to paradise just got punched, girl. Roundtrip fare all paid."

She'd been rummaging around in her sloppy black purse, looking for car keys, and suddenly jerked upright, momentarily struggling with his message.

"What was that?"

"You heard me, bitch."

"I really wish you didn't call me that," she came back, her voice dripping with sugarcoated disdain. Volumes of silky red hair fell free as she loosened the bun and gave her head a sensuous shake.

"Only because you know where it leads." With his finger he traced a delicate line from the crook of her neck to her waist, seeing her body seize up in a trembling shudder. "Take it or leave it, Lana." He bit off the blunt remark-as if she really had a choice-then backed up and sauntered toward the far side of the parking lot.

He hadn't gone ten steps when her voice ended his retreat. "Dominick, wait! Please!"

He stopped but didn't turn around.

"You know, love, I'll get this arranged-" much sweeter now, "-I just need to make a couple of calls."

He turned now. "Well then, you make 'em and make 'em fast, cause you got about sixty seconds before I leave." He sauntered toward his car leaving her scrambling for her cell phone.

 

Three days before...

"Miss Poulin, thanks for meeting me." He beheld her with a pair of eyes so fixated on her loveliness that it would suggest she was the only person in his world at that particular moment. She was one of several females in Perot's tiny boulangerie where he gallantly held out a chair for her, although the dancer was the only woman he saw. Even now with quaking nerves, her waifish beauty surfaced with a luminous glow.

Alec West was a big, bold impressive man. Handsome, yes, but solid like a fortress, and thus scary for a girl of twenty-six like Evie Poulin. He made her tummy flutter and something deeper roil within her loins.

The coffee house was noisy, but their corner of it was quiet enough to talk.

"You know, Miss Poulin-Evie-you have admirers, me being a big one." His smile was broad and friendly, belying the true nature of his mission.

"Really?" A pink blush brightened her naturally pale face. Her ash blonde hair was fixed in a messy bun atop her head, held in place by a Vintage tortoiseshell hair stick, a present from her grandmother Poulin, during a trip to Paris three years before. "You've seen me dance?"

"Maybe five times now, and just last weekend, Peter and the Wolf."

She smiled. In fact, she beamed. Self-conscious and unable to contain the blush; flattered until her ears burned.

"But there was another time two years ago, a much darker ballet. I found it enthralling and your performance, well-reviewed as I recall. The depth of your emotion seemed so genuine, so real." He paused while she searched her thoughts to remember back that far. "Dracula, was it not?"

Her face turned ashen. "Yes, it was."

"What? Did that disturb you?"

"No-no. Not at all." She shook her head; she was flustered now, with her barefaced lie sitting before them like a malicious sprite there to tell her tale.

"Ah, Evie," he reached out and took her hand. "You can't pull a fast one on me. You've heard the phrase, what you are speaks so loud, I can't hear a word you're saying? I paraphrase Emerson, I believe."

She blushed again, bit her lip and drew her hand back, stuffing both hands in her lap like a penitent child. "I'm sorry, Mr. West, you make me very nervous." She could hardly engage his eyes with her own. In fact, she was about to excuse herself, and only hesitated because she could not do so without feeling like a fool.

"I suppose you should be nervous, given what I know about you-or maybe I should say sense about you. I can't say I have a hold on all the facts, but-"

"And what do you presume to know?" she managed to look up, dreading what he'd say, and yet almost jumping out of her skin to hear him offer his observations.

"You have a natural earnestness about you, you work hard, but you like to be managed-" the word seemed to scream at her "-because your head is so often in the clouds you find it difficult to navigate the nuts and bolts world that requires so many decisions from you."

She gazed back startled, as if he'd just punched her in the stomach. "My god, how would you know me so well?"

"It's my business to know."

"Your business? Exactly what is your business?" At the moment she couldn't even recall when they first met or why she'd agreed to this date in the first place.

"I acquire things."

She shook her head, puzzled.

"Or you could say I bring people together. I make deals happen."

"And that has something to do with me?"

"No. Nothing to do with you. Except that I had a feeling you might be a good candidate for a little gathering that I'm hosting."

"Oh?"

"So you can consider this an invitation to my soiree, begins Friday night."

"A dinner party?"

"Much more than that."

"I don't understand."

He spoke in deliberate, modulated tones, enunciating each word as he leaned in and forced her eyes on him. "Let's say it's all about that darker side to your character, Evie, that cauldron of desire you clutch with white-knuckled determination. Perhaps you'd enjoy playing in that venue rather than keeping your distance. It's all very safe. What do you say?"

She was quaking deeply by the time she managed to stammer, "W-well, I don't know. It's, it's all so very vague."

Alec West smiled, and once again moved for her hand which had risen to the tabletop. This time, he would not let it go until she accepted his invitation.

 

***

 

"So, you delivered the invite?"

"Of course," Alec replied

"Exactly how did that happen?"

"I took her to coffee," he answered. "She'll be on my arm Friday night."

"She consented just that fast?"

"Of course. Women like Evie never turn me down."

Behind Alec's comment the caller could hear the smirk even over the cell phone.

"But I understand that there's a long term boyfriend."

"Just a convenience. Girls like Evie like to be attached for safety's sake."

"And you're sure you have her cooperation?" There was just the slightest tremor of concern in his voice.

"You know she's an easy mark. You wouldn't have wanted her otherwise. I just wrapped her moldable mind in a bit of mystery and had her squirming in the chair. I imagined it blistered red against the white backdrop of her pretty round ass. I could have mauled it as we were leaving Perot's; all I have to do is put my arm around a mark like Evie and I have them feeling all gooey inside."

"Are you going to pass her on or take her for yourself?" the next obvious question, the caller's irritation showing.

"Dammit man, you know she's yours. Don't go getting your nuts all in a wad; I like my women a little more raw than fainting beauties like your dancer, even if she was fun to woo."

"And what did you tell her about the labyrinth?"

"That I thought she might be interested in an adventure of the hedonistic sort; a bit of a retreat, celebrating sexual freedom, a very adult party. No strings, no pressure, of course, just a willingness to drop a few inhibitions...if she's so inclined."

"And her response?"

"She blushed, of course she really didn't stop blushing the entire time. What a charmer she is! She said that she'd had a big fight with Joel-her boyfriend-and it would serve him right if she went away for a night. Just remember, we've got to nurture this one carefully."

"And you'll do that like the master you are."

"I'll keep her on the edge of her seat in anticipation."

The caller could hear the chuckle behind the comment before the connection was severed.