Nine Marines' Shared Property - Nicole Casey Page 0,31
I can handle a relationship—with nine guys no less. This way, I won’t be able to rush into anything; I won’t be able to open my heart; I won’t be able to get too attached. It’s perfect.”
Holly didn’t look any the more convinced. “I hope you’re right.”
“What? You don’t see the logic?”
“Oh, I see the logic,” she said, “But I know you. And I know it will take more than a little thing like a military conflict and a six-month deployment to keep you from opening your heart and getting attached.”
“I’ll be fine.” I finished my mimosa and poured us two more. “Not to change the subject,” I said, “but I’m dying to see the costumes you’ve picked out for us.”
Holly wagged a finger in the air. “No, you’re dying to see the costumes I’ve made for us.”
“I stand corrected. When do I get to see them?”
“As soon as you decide which one you want,” she said. “You can choose between fire and ice.”
“Hmm, so if I pick one, you’re going to wear the other?”
She nodded.
“Then why don’t you pick?”
She wagged a finger in the air. “It doesn’t work like that. You decide. But don’t worry, both costumes are sexy.”
I smiled. “I think you should be fire.”
She winked at me. “Good choice.”
After the big brunch and several mimosas, I needed to take a nap. Unfortunately, I did not wake from the nap calm and rested; I woke anxious and nervous.
But Holly’s presentation of our costumes helped calm me down.
Holly, as fire, wrapped herself in tight strips of glimmering yellow, orange and red silk. She sprayed her hair yellow and orange and tied it in a bun atop her head with strands of hair falling in a cascade along the sides of her mask, a shimmering metallic red cut in the shape of a flame.
“Hot, hot, hot!” I applauded as she turned and paraded her outfit for me in our living room.
She walked over to the bags on the couch. “And now for something cool, cool, cool.”
My costume, ice, was of a similar design: tight strips of soft blue, silver and white silk hugged my body. She sprayed my hair white and soft-blue, tied it in a bun for me and pulled strands to fall over the mask. It looked as if there was real ice encrusted in the mask. I was worried it would melt. Holly laughed and said that it was cured rubber. “You’re not going to melt. But you are going to melt some hearts.”
We took a taxi to the ball held at an estate on the edge of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. This was going to be an all-night affair. There was no turning back.
The taxi let us out at the gate. “No cars allowed inside,” said the security agent who asked for our names, checked his register then opened a smaller gate to the side for us to enter. “Follow the torches,” he said. “And have a good evening.”
Torches lined the long winding driveway. And while they did provide some heat, the evening air was cool, bordering on cold, and we hurried to get to the house.
Large trees concealed much of the home from view. The branches blended with the vine-covered walls such that it was impossible in the dark night to get a true sense of its proportions.
The Grim Reaper greeted us at the entrance. “Those who dare cross the line are beyond the reach of angels,” he said. And with his sickle he motioned to a line of, hopefully, fake blood traced before the threshold of the front doors.
“We have no interest in angels,” said Holly.
“Precisely,” said the Grim Reaper, and he stepped out of the way to grant us passage.
The entryway was pitch black, save a neon sign off to the left that read ‘Dare’.
Naturally, that was where we headed.
We arrived at a velvet curtain. Holly opened it, and we stepped in.
The room was dimly lit. The walls and ceiling were painted a dark scarlet. With plush sofas and antique chairs strewn in a seemingly orderless fashion, we were quickly disoriented.
A woman, dressed as a black cat, crawled along the floor on all fours. A chain hung from her collar and ran to a sofa where a man, wearing a black bikini bottom and a wolf mask and nothing else, lay, the end of the chain resting loosely in his hand.
Farther down, a woman draped in leopard skin held two leashes in her hand, each attached to a man on all fours on