After I was hired and read the contract plus signing it, Mike showed me around at my new workplace.
Madame Gremelda said I could go home to pick up my things but it wasn’t necessary since everything I needed will be in the hotel room as well. I chose to stay as I didn’t wanna take the risk of bumping into the cops at my place. The hotel was the safer option.
Invicta was huge and had the most luxurious interior I’d ever seen in my life. The theme seemed to be black, white and silver, and it all looked very expensive and elegant with those huge modern chandeliers that hung on high ceilings.
The guests I saw all looked like a million bucks but Mike and I soon went a few levels higher, to a special floor where only staff stayed. I would mostly stay on this floor, never to mingle with guests as I hadn’t come here for the guests. I came for the Gladiators... It’s still such a weird thing, gladiators in the twenty-first century.
“Ok, so this is your room, I’ve begged and begged for you to have the room next to mine and you’ve got it! So, who is the best?” Mike asked while he waited for me to open the door, using a key card.
Bleep. It opened.
“You,” I answered him with a nod. “Definitely you,” I then said as we entered my room, right before my mouth popped open.
“Amazing right?” Mike asked.
“Oh. My. Fucking. Lord.” I said, my voice echoing through the large room.
This wasn’t just a room, this was a fucking suite fit for a prince.
“Cool, huh?” Mike asked again, cause I hadn’t really answered him.
“This is where I’ll live for...for free?!”
“Yup.”
“Ok, what’s the catch, Mike? This isn’t possible. Oh my God!”
“Bentley.”
“Hmm?”
“You should call me Bentley in here.”
“Oh, ok, Bentley.” It was so horrible to call him like that.
“Anyway, what do you mean ‘what’s the catch?’ You know what’s the catch. You’ll work as a slave for someone else.”
“Yeah, but still...that’s only for 24 hours and it pays well too. But just...look at this, man! I’d eat my own shit for this!”
“You say that now but wait till you have to...” Mike—I mean Bentley mumbled.
“What do you mean? It... It was just a matter of speech. Wait...I don’t really have to eat my shit, right?! Why would a Gladiator want me to do that?”
“What can I say? There are some weirdos among them. I’m sorry, honey, but I’ve done some pretty crazy stuff since I work here.”
“Why’d you tell me that now instead of before?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little sick to my stomach. I seriously wasn’t planning on eating my own shit at all!
“It’ll be ok, Tesla.” Ok, not gonna lie, it was so weird to hear him call me by my new name... “Besides, the most freaky of them all isn’t even around. He’s in a coma at the hospital as we speak.”
“Wow, really...? Is he in a coma because of a fight?”
“Hmm-hmm.”
“Wow, they’re that rough? Like in the old times?”
“They can’t murder each other as they did in the past eras. But yeah, they can get pretty wild. Last week, I saw a man bite off another guy’s ear, and that’s not even that weird,” Bentley explained while he gently closed the door behind us.
“What the fuck!?” I replied, walking further into the room.
“Yeah, and not like Mike Tyson who only bit off a piece, no-no...I’m talking about the entire shell! And it was so fucking gross how he spat it out on the floor and the other went nuts when it hit him he actually got an ear less.”
“Please, I don’t wanna hear about these things anymore,” I said and I was happy I wasn’t obligated to go watch the fights.
“Ok, I’ll shut up,” Bentley replied.
“Thanks.”
I looked around a little while my friend poured us some drinks. We sat on the couch when I was done. Everything was incredible.
“I’m really happy to see you again,” Bentley said.
“As am I.”
“Are you gonna tell me what happened?”
“How’d you know something happened?” I hadn’t told him anything about what had happened.
“We might have missed each other for a while, but I’m still your friend. I know when something’s wrong with you.”
I put my drink on the table and rested my elbows on my knees, rubbing my face into my hands. “Later.”
“Sure. I’m here, right beside you. We’ve never lived so close to each other.” He slapped my back.
“I’m happy about that...So...what’s the deal with this hotel? Why is there no police allowed in here?” I asked. I mean it was convenient for me, but it was a little weird.
“Hotel Invicta is actually a chain of hotels which are located all around the world. Every guest here is a member of the underworld and they stay here to lay low. Most are murderers, mobsters, hitmen. Invicta is always unbiased and gives every man what he needs, but in exchange for that, they have to bring in some big bucks. The cheapest room has five digits a night.”
Holy fuck?! I looked at Bentley with an open mouth before I could speak again.
“You have brought me to a place where murderers stay?”
“Actually, Invicta probably is the safest place in the world. Remember that no violence thing I told you about?”
I nodded.
“That’s where Invicta’s special “police” come in,” he said, air quoting the word police. “If a guest misbehaves and doesn’t follow the rules, he gets finished.”
“F-finished?” How could my friend just speak about it like it was nothing?
“Yup. And not only the guest, their entire family.”
“What the hell?”
“So, most criminals behave well. And if they don’t, the police is happy cause they get a dead criminal delivered at their door.”
“Is this a fucking movie I ended up in or what?”
“Nah.” Bentley laughed. "Anyway, to give the guests something they can get a kick off, the Gladiators were introduced a few years ago. They’re pretty important to the hotel, and that’s why you and I are here—hot, smart, sexy people to entertain them and reward them for their hard work...”
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