Blue Angel (21 page)

It was crazy. She wanted to hook up with him to get back at Mallory for taking Bette’s attention away from her, maybe even to have some leverage to get Mallory away from the Blue Angel—you stay away from my club; I’ll stay away from your man. But she actually liked him. He was cute and charming, and he treated her like a lady. Mallory was so lucky. How did she screw things up with him? Poppy was dying to know so she wouldn’t make the same mistake.

It would be nice to have a boyfriend in New York.

Mallory couldn’t imagine why Alec didn’t answer his phone all night. She even texted him, and he ignored her.

Sitting in the hotel room was agonizing. She kept running through the time calculations—now it’s ten o’clock in New York; now it’s midnight. . . . She was losing her mind.

She had no interest in partying, but meeting Bette at the club had to be better than sitting alone and obsessing over Alec.

Of course, she had no idea how to get a cab in this town.

She took the elevator to the lobby. The place was packed with people, every table of the restaurant atrium filled. In the corner, a DJ spun, and clusters of great looking people stood holding exotic cocktails and talking intently.

The boyishly handsome guy at the desk greeted her with a smile. She’d never been at a hotel where the front desk was just feet away from the bar, but maybe that’s how it was in LA.

“How can I help you?”

“Can I get a cab?”

“Sure. Where are you going?”

“7969 Santa Monica Boulevard.”

“Ooh! Sounds like someone has a good night planned. But honey, I suggest you step up the ensemble a notch.”

“What?”

“Yes. Trust me. March yourself back upstairs, and slip on something short and black and hot. You can rock it. The cab will be waiting for you.”

Mallory hesitated a minute, then said, “Fine. I’ll be right down.”

From the outside, the club appeared to be a nondescript white building. If it hadn’t been for the name “Voyeur” on the side of the door, she would have thought she was in the wrong place.

“Club’s closed tonight for a private party,” the guy at the door told her.

“Yeah, I know. I should be on the list. Mallory Dale?”

The guy spoke into his headset and then waited. He shook his head.

“You’re not on the list,” he said, and she could tell he wanted to shoo her away. Mallory’s stomach dropped. She couldn’t go back to that hotel room and worry about Alec for the rest of the night. She was all dressed up, and she was here. . . . She had to get into this stupid club. Bette had promised her name would be at the door.

And then she realized her mistake.

“Try the name Moxie,” she said.

“What?”

“Moxie. I’m on the list under the name Moxie.”

The guy spoke into his headset again and opened the door for her.

Mallory texted Bette,
I’m here . . . meet me inside the front door?

She stood nervously inside the entrance hallway, and even in that space she could tell she was out of her depth. Walking slowly into the club, she knew this place was going to make the Blue Angel look like the Olive Garden. Sure enough, as she made her way inside the club, she felt like she’d wandered into a sex dungeon in Versailles. Above her hung enormous metal chandeliers with spiked lights; the drapes were black leather; the first room she turned into was wallpapered with filmstrip from a vintage-looking erotic photo shoot.

Two women brushed by her holding hands. They were dressed in identical corsets with black garters, thigh-high black patent leather boots, and carrying whips. A guy lounged on a Chesterfield sofa, totally nude except for a mask.

A text came through from Bette,
Meet me at the photo booth
.

What was she talking about? She would have to ask the nude guy.

“Excuse me—is there a photo booth here?”

“Yeah—you passed it already. Go back the way you came in . . .near the women’s bathroom.”

She backtracked, and sure enough there was an old-fashioned photo booth—the kind she used to go into with her friends at the mall or in the beachside shops at the Jersey Shore. And there was Bette, who had somehow added a black cape to her outfit.

“Hey—so glad you made it out!” Bette said. Mallory could tell even from a few feet away that Bette’s usual cool demeanor had been dramatically defrosted: her cheeks were flushed; her eyes shining; and her smile was giddy as a school girl’s. Mallory wondered if she had taken drugs.

“Are you okay?” Mallory asked.

“Oh, my God, I’m better than okay. I’m in love.”

“Are you high?”

“I don’t do drugs. I thought I told you that.”

“Maybe someone slipped something into your drink. You have to be careful at places like this. Here, look at me. . . . I’ll tell you if your pupils are dilated.”

“I’m not on drugs! Listen, if anyone can understand this, it’s you. I met my soul mate.”

“Your soul mate? Here?”

“Yes! I know—it sounds crazy. But it finally happened. We started talking, and I just felt this connection. . . . It’s beyond attraction. It’s like I’ve known her forever.”

Mallory hated to be a buzz-kill, but was tempted to point out that Bette had only been at the club for two hours.

“Look,” Bette said. “Here are some pictures we took in the photo booth.”

She pulled a ribbon of photos out of her bag. Mallory bent close in the darkness of the room to get a good look at Bette’s new love interest.

The woman had dark skin and light eyes and cheekbones you could ski jump off of. Mallory would have recognized that bone structure anywhere: it was the pop star Zebra.

“You are kidding me!” Mallory said.

“No. It’s crazy, right? She performed on that stage over there. And then afterward a bunch of us went over to talk to her, and she recognized
me
. She was at the Angel almost two years ago—before she was anybody. She said she saw me perform to an Amy Winehouse song, and she thought about it for days.”

“Zebra. I can’t believe it.”

“I know. I told her I just performed to ‘Through the Looking Glass’ last week! She said I have to come to her hotel and show her my routine.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet she wants you to come to her room and show her something. But it’s not your ‘routine’!”

“I’m in love. Seriously. I can’t wait to get out of here and just be alone with her.” Bette smiled. “You don’t mind that I’m telling you this stuff, do you?”

“No—why would I mind?”

“I don’t know. Because we’re sort of lovers. And I don’t want you to feel bad.”

“Bette, I’m the one who’s been moping about Alec this whole trip. I want you to be happy—I’ve been telling you all along that you should find someone you can have a relationship with. I just never thought that person would be the biggest pop star in the world.”

“Are you going to be okay if I sleep out tonight?”

“Of course. I’m a big girl. Go—have fun.”

“I want you to meet her.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to stay here very long. This is a bit intense for me at the moment. And I’m exhausted.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah. I wanted to get out for a bit, and seeing you here was enough. I’m ready to go to sleep.”

“No! Come to the back and meet Zebra and some of the girls who will be at the party Saturday night.”

“I can’t.” Suddenly, she felt near tears. She didn’t know if it was the jet lag, the fact that Alec surely had gotten her messages and was not calling back, or that Bette was about to fall in love and leave her more alone than ever; whatever it was, she couldn’t process it all in the middle of this over the top club.

“Just come with me to meet Justin Baxter, and we’ll get his driver to take you home.”

“I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind,” Mallory said.

“Trust me—some day you will be happy you met Justin Baxter. Just humor me,” said Bette. “Have I steered you wrong yet?”

The cab pulled up in front of Poppy’s dilapidated building. The old lady from 4G was sitting on the step, smoking as usual, with her cat on her lap. Poppy could never understand why the cat didn’t scamper away. Maybe it was too old to run.

She wondered if Alec lived in a big fancy building.

“Do you want to come up?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said.
That was easy,
she thought.

They walked past the old lady, and neither she nor the cat seemed to notice them going by.

“That cat must be sedated,” Alec said.

“I never thought of that.”

Poppy could imagine them as a couple. They already had this in common—their shared interest in why the cat from 4G didn’t run. She wondered how long he and Mallory had been together. A year? Longer? Poppy’s longest relationship had lasted a year. His name was Trent, and they were together her entire freshman year at Arkansas State. He had shaggy blond hair and blue eyes and looked like an Abercrombie model. She had lost her virginity to him in his dorm room closet. It wasn’t the big life-changing event her friends had said it would be. She didn’t even come, and then two months later she was tired of him.

“This building is old-school,” Alec said, as they climbed the stairs to the third floor. The staircase was wide with a thick wooden railing. The tiling along the wall and ceiling was elaborate and decades older than she was.

“I like it, but my apartment is tiny. And my roommate is annoying, but she’s in London for the month.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a student at NYU. I get the sense that her parents are loaded, and she’s slumming it here for a year or two before she gets her own place in Tribeca.”

She opened the door, and her roommate’s cat greeted them excitedly at the door, until it realized they weren’t her owner. She slunk back to the master bedroom.

“I see there’s a feline vibe in this building.”

“Yeah. And I hate cats. My mother told me they carry evil spirits, and it’s hard to shake that sort of thing off just because you move to a city where they are everywhere. The first time I went to one of those Korean delis and saw a big fat cat in the corner near the potato chip display, I almost had a heart attack.”

She gave him a tour of the place, ending with her small bedroom off of the kitchen.

“So that’s it. Do you want a drink? We might have a bottle of wine here.”

“No,” he said, and the way he was looking at her, she knew he was going to kiss her. She put her arms around his neck, and he pulled her close. He smelled good, and he was at least five inches taller than her, which was a rarity and really turned her on. She wondered how Mallory the Mouse had scored a guy like this.

They sat on the edge of her twin bed, and he pressed her back, his body tight against hers. He unbuttoned her dress, kissing her neck, moving down to take one of her breasts in his mouth.

“You’re perfect,” he breathed.

She said nothing, because “yes, I know” probably wouldn’t sound right.

Poppy reached for his belt, fumbling with the buckle until he just took his jeans off himself. She felt him hard against her legs, and she was surprised by how much she wanted to take him in her mouth.

His hand was moving between her legs, stroking her clit. She moaned, and she pressed his hand deeper, wanting his fingers inside of her. An image of Bette flashed in her mind, and she imagined it was Bette’s hand touching her. But it felt nothing like Bette’s touch, and this distracted her. Alec moved his finger in and out with sharp, quick strokes, and she was dying for him to eat her pussy—that was the way she always came the fastest. But he didn’t seem to be moving in that direction. She thought maybe she should lead the way, and she wriggled free of his touch so she could maneuver herself on top of him to suck his cock. She kissed his chest, working her way down to his cock. She slid her tongue along the shaft, and he made a noise, his hands in her hair. Like Justin Baxter’s, Alec’s cock was bigger than she was comfortable with for blow jobs, but she wanted the satisfaction of making Mallory’s boyfriend come in her mouth. And then she wanted him to put his face between her legs and eat her pussy so she could come in his mouth. And then she would get on top of him and fuck him.

The thought of this made her even more wet as she sucked his cock. She pressed her pussy against his leg, grinding it gently in a way that could sometimes make her come. She worked her mouth around the tip of his cock, her hand stroking his thick shaft in a way he seemed to like. Her pussy throbbed, hungry for an orgasm. Plus, her mouth was getting tired. She wondered if she should make him come with her mouth or get on top of him and fuck him. But before she could decide, he pulled away from her.

“It’s okay,” she said, slightly dazed. “You can come in my mouth.”

“Um, no. It’s not that,” he said, sitting up.

“Then what? Did I do something wrong?”

“No! No, absolutely not. You are incredible.” He sat back against the window and pressed his hands against his forehead as if thinking about a complicated math problem. “The truth is, I’m just so fucked up about my girlfriend.”

“Mallory? I thought you broke up.”

“We did. But I can’t . . . I thought maybe with someone like you—so gorgeous and cool. But I can’t.”

She couldn’t believe this. That bitch was thwarting her at every turn!

“Do you want to just . . . talk or something?”

“No,” he said, pulling on his jeans. “I’m really sorry, Poppy. This has nothing to do with you. You gotta know that.”

And then he left.