They Do Not Just Talk

The private rooms were passed a velvet rope and through a door guarded by two big black men, and ran off to either side of a small corridor. The decor shifted from grubby illegal club aesthetic to money: mahogany wood, plush red carpet that Lois Lane's heels sank into, old brass handles and accents. Lois noticed the discreet security cameras...and the door at the end of the hall.

"What's through there?" Lois asked.

Tyrell looked at her for a moment, oddly...and then his hand shifted down to cup her ass as he ushered her in the room.

"Well you know...some players are more pay to play," he said.

The room was small, but tasteful...almost like stepping into some elegant lounge of the 1920s. Ornately carved couches faced each other over a low table. A private bar, topped with marble, made up the far side of the room. A slender wooden door marked with the brass letters WC advertised a small, private restroom. A gilded telephone stood on a stand like a tower of Oriental mystery, a tasteful nude looked down at Lois from over one of the couches...and above the other, the only hint of modernity, was a wide, slightly curved flatscreen television.

Tyrell immediately went to mix them some drinks.

"So...there's a brothel here? In the club?" Lois asked, suddenly aware of how thirsty she was.

Tyrell came back. Her drink, she was, was milky white in a cocktail glass; his was a finger or two of amber liquid, bourbon by the smell of it, with a single sphere of ice in it. She accepted the drink.

Glasses clinked. His dark brown eyes stared into her. Beneath that gaze, Lois felt compelled to drink...it was the same she had at the bar, but a bit stronger, the ammonia-whiff more pronounced. She wondered what exactly was in it, and was just about to ask, when Tyrell set his glass down and squeezed onto the couch next to her.

"Yes. Young women in need of money...it's an old story. Some of them do very well. Don't even go home at night. Just sleep here, eat here. There's something very primal about that, don't you think? Just to sleep...eat...and mate."

One big black hand rested on the spine of the couch. Tyrell leaned in, bourbon on his breath, his other hand clutched at Lois Lane's thigh.

"Are you interested in that sort of thing?" Tyrell said. His left hand began to run up and down the reporter's thigh. "You're a bit older than most of the girls we get in there, but you're beautiful. Elegant."

Lois tried to pull away from him, then. Set her empty glass on the table...to make some space between them...and then she spied the bathroom.

"I don't know if I have what it takesh to be a whore," she said, curtly, surprised at the slight slur in her voice. She hadn't drunk that much.

"Why don't I grow freshen up? You can make me another drink. I want to hear more about this brothel."

Tyrell let her gently pry his hand from her thigh as she worked her way around the table. His dark eyes were on her the whole time. Hungry. Calculating. It had been a long time since Lois had seen anybody watch her that way, and it scared her...and, perhaps, thrilled her...more than it should.