Page 13 of White Rabbit

“Kinky.” Chad chuckles as he slides a tray of drinks down on the table.

“I also heard they like to fuck one another.” Tiffany’s eyes glitter, and I can tell she’s already pretty tipsy.

Chad pauses for a moment, before laughing. “Incestuous. Okay…very kinky.”

Orla tilts her head as she salutes with her glass. “And illegal.”

“Spoilsport.” Tiffany laughs. “Don’t ruin my fantasies.”

“Awh baby, am I not the star in your fantasies?” Jeremy faux whines as his hands move up the exposed skin on her back, fingers intertwining with the chains.

Tiff just sighs, “Anoushka Volkov is my fashion idol, have you seen her handbag collection? And her shoes?”

She makes an almost orgasmic noise that has us all laughing.

A few drinks later, after we’re coming back from the dance floor, Chad pulls a little shimmery holographic baggie from his pocket and wiggles it.

“Yass!” Tiffany cheers as she snatches the little bag up and starts pouring it out onto the glass table.

Jeremy’s grin is wide as he rolls up a hundred-dollar bill and offers it to Tiff first. She leans in and sniffs up the neat white line Jeremy has made with his credit card. Tilting her head back, her lips spread into a slow grin before she gets to her feet, leaving Jeremy to inhale his share.

“Want some?” Chad asks, nudging me with his shoulder.

“Is that…are you offering me coke?” I can’t help the way my brows raise as I look at the man who claims to want to be my husband.

Casual drug use has never bothered me the same way it might others. I’d done an art degree, spending a year on an exchange program in Europe—there were drugs, sex and art like I’d never seen before. I also knew that the finance world Chad and Jeremy existed in often used recreationally too. But I was a prison officer, and Chad knew the risks to my job.

“It’s White Rabbit,” Tiff says, sitting in the space on the other side of Chad. “It’s, like, cleaner and safer and all that shit.”

“I’ll have to pass.” I hold my hands up in a mock surrender. “Regular drug tests at work. Sorry!”

“Boohoo, you whore.” Tiff chortles, her hand on Chad's thigh as he leans down to snort some.

“Orla, you in?” Tiffany yells to where Orla and Lewis are making out on the other sofa, a knotted tangle of limbs.

Orla’s eyes lock with mine before they narrow at the table and she waves off Tiff. “You know that’s not my jam, Anderson.”

I may have met Tiffany in college, but I’d known Orla since I was a teenager. And what Tiff didn’t know, what nobody knew besides a select few, was that Orla’s mother had been an addict. Drink and the occasional smoke were the extent of Orla’s vices for a very good reason.

Another hour passes and I find myself checking the time on my phone, wishing the night would pass faster while Chad and Jeremy get louder and drunker until I’m struggling to enjoy. Chad sits next to me with a round of shots, pressuring me to drink two before he nuzzles into my neck, begging me to take a little White Rabbit just to ‘try it’.

“Look, you do what you want but I don’t want to. Stop pressuring me,” I hiss, trying to push him away as he plants messy, wet kisses on my neck.

“Is it really because of your job? Because you can quit as soon as you say yes to marrying me, I mean, you can stay home and look after our babies. Don’t you want that?” His words are slurred and sloppy, just like he is and swallowing a noise of disgust, I get to my feet.

I can’t breathe when he’s wrapped around me like an octopus. Can’t think. I just need…just need space. I need to not be pushed and pulled and coerced into doing something I don’t want to.

Pushing my way through the crowd, which seems to have swelled in the last couple of hours, I find a staircase and follow it until I’m standing on a balcony overlooking the dance floor.

My hands tighten on the rail as I watch my boyfriend and friends below me. Is this really what I want my life to look like? Are these the people who make me happy?

“Why you look so sad pretty woman?” An accented silky voice says behind me, and I turn, about to tell them to mind their own business, but my words don’t come out. I would recognize that face anywhere, even without the long white hair elegantly tied back in a ponytail. “A pen for your thoughts?”

Anoushka Volkov lights up her cigarette, before she takes a seat on the couch and crosses one leg elegantly over the other, leaning forward and resting her elbow on her knee. She’s wearing a pair of high-waisted trousers with silver buttons. Her top is a waistcoat with nothing underneath it, but as she shifts, I get a glimpse of what looks like black tape covering her nipples. In her other hand, she holds a red crystal adorned clutch with the initials AV in silver clearly visible. It doesn’t surprise me she used to be a supermodel, with a face and a body like hers.

Frowning, my alcohol addled brain tries to piece together her words. “A pen…do you mean…penny?”

“Da. This.” She waves her hand, expression bored as she takes a toke of her sweet-smelling cigarette, before blowing out lazy smoke rings. You’re not supposed to smoke inside clubs anymore, but I guess the rules don’t apply when you’re the owner.

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