Blue Angel (26 page)

“Open it,” she said.

Poppy removed the lid and found a plastic cover, and underneath that a black satin pouch and in it a sleek, black oblong object that was smooth and tapered at the front.

“What is this?”

“Gorgeous, right? It’s the LELO ‘Ella’ dildo. I haven’t even used it yet. I thought maybe you’d be more comfortable with this one.”

Poppy held the object in her hand, turning it around a few times. It did seem more inviting, with its flawless finish and delicate shape.

Patricia resumed her position on the bed. Poppy sat next to her, and Patricia pulled her down, kissing her, her hand moving between Poppy’s legs. She stroked Poppy’s clit and told Poppy to finger her at the same time. Poppy complied, and as she worked her finger in and out of Patricia’s slick cunt, she found herself wondering what that LELO would feel like. Patricia kept the pressure on Poppy’s clit, refusing to move inside of her. It was as if she wanted Poppy to feel the absence of penetration, to be deprived the way she had deprived her of the purple dildo.

Poppy pulled Patricia’s hand lower, trying to get her to finger fuck her, but Patricia refused. For a second, Poppy stopped the motion of her own hand, distracted by her frustration.

“Don’t stop!” Patricia said, and Poppy immediately resumed her in and out fingering, feeling Patricia begin to contract against her hand. Her pussy muscles were strong, and Poppy experienced the orgasm against her hand in a way that was remarkable and exciting. Her own pussy was throbbing now, and she was dying for the type of release that she had managed to give Patricia.

When Patricia finished climaxing, she kissed Poppy hard on the mouth, and pressed the LELO into her hand.

“I want you to be comfortable with this stuff,” she said hoarsely. “We will have fun with it. Try it. Make yourself feel good, and let me watch.”

Poppy was so excited, Patricia didn’t need to ask twice. She spread her legs and stroked herself with the LELO a few times before pushing it deep into her cunt, then drawing it out slowly and pressing it in again. She moaned and didn’t even care that Patricia was watching this incredibly intimate act. Then, wordlessly, Patricia took it from her. She licked Poppy with a long, practiced stroke of her tongue, then worked the LELO firmly inside of her.

“Does it feel good?” she said.

“Yes,” Poppy breathed.

“Do you want it fast or slow?”

“Fast.”

Patricia worked it in and out, and Poppy felt her pelvis moving with the LELO as she would move with a guy on top of her. When her orgasm came, it was so sudden and strong it forced a scream out of her, and she was startled at her violent response to being fucked in that way.

Patricia lay next to her and pulled her close. They held each other for a minute, and Patricia laughed.

“I don’t think you were scared of fucking me with that,” she said. “You just wanted it all to yourself.” She kissed the top of Poppy’s head.

“I had no idea it could be that good.”

“Baby, that was nothing. Tomorrow, I’m taking you shopping.”

Poppy liked the sound of that. Tomorrow. But she knew that for now, she should go. But when she stood to get her clothes on, Patricia grabbed her hand.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s so late. I should get home.”

“I wish you would stay,” Patricia said.

It was the first time anyone had asked her to stay the night since she’d moved to New York three years ago. Poppy sank back into bed, pressing herself against Patricia, who put her arm around her.

“Does your cat sleep in the bed?”

“I’m a one-pussy woman, Poppy. The bed is just yours and mine tonight.”

Mallory closed the door to her suite at the Palihouse. She sat on the couch, where just twenty-four hours ago she had sat worried that she would not be able to pull off Bette’s routine. But she had not only done it: she had done it, and loved it.

She pulled her phone out of her bag and dialed Bette’s cell.

“It’s me,” she said.

“Let me go somewhere quiet—hold on!” Bette said over the sound of club music. Mallory waited, sifting through her bag. She found the envelope Justin had left for her in her dressing room, which she had yet to open. “Okay—tell me!” Bette said.

“Where are you?

“The Bellagio. Zebra’s hotel room. She’s having a little get-together. Now tell me.”

“It went great. Amazing, actually. I remembered everything you taught me—it all came together. By the middle of the performance I was barely thinking except for the logistics of getting the costume off—my body just knew what to do. And I love that song, and your choreography is perfect for it. I was thinking of adding one last turn at the end, but there was nothing else to take off, and I remembered you saying each movement has to mean something for the overall reveal so I didn’t mess with it. . . .”

“Did you remember what I said about not mingling with the guests before your performance—about staying elusive?”

“Yes.”

“I’m proud of you! I just wish I could have been there to see it. Oh, Zebra says she is proud of you, too.”

Mallory shook her head. How had her life come to this—the biggest pop star in the world was being supportive of her burlesque debut!

“How are you?”

“Mallory, this is it. I feel my life in motion. The paparazzi photographed me leaving the hotel with Zebra. I guarantee I will be in
Us
magazine next week.”

“How are things with you two?”

“She’s unbelievable in bed.”

Mallory smiled. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m happy for you! So when do you want to audition for the Blue Angel? That is what you want now, right?”

“Yes, “ Mallory said, admitting it for the first time, even to herself. “Can you help me?”

“Of course I’ll help you. We’ll talk when I get back.”

“When are you flying home?”

“I don’t know, Moxie. But you’ll be the first to hear.”

Mallory could imagine the devilish look in her beautiful blue eyes.

“Be good,” she said.

“I’m always good,” said Bette.

Mallory ended the call, then sank back in the sofa. She looked at the time, then calculated New York hours. In less than twenty-four hours, she would be with Alec.

I
n the earliest hours of the morning, she fumbled for her phone in the dark and dialed Alec.

“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing up so early?”

“I’m too wound up to sleep,” she said, which was true. “I’m excited to see you tonight.”

“I’m excited to see you, too,” he said. “I miss you.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do! Call me when you land,” he said.

“Okay. I love you, Alec.”

“I love you, too, Mallory. You know that’s not the issue.”

“So what is the issue?”

“I don’t know. Trust? I never went outside our relationship for anything the entire time we were together. I know I pushed you to do things that sometimes you were hesitant to do, but we always explored those things together. And it made us closer. Then the minute we had a fight, you went to someone else—physically and emotionally you went to that person. You made decisions about your job that affect both of us as a couple without talking to me. I felt very excluded, Mallory.”

“Okay,” she said. “I can see how you would feel excluded. And I’m sorry, Alec. I really am.” She knew she had to tell him about the Baxter party, and about her plans to audition at the Blue Angel. But she wanted to do it in person. “Let’s continue this conversation tomorrow night. I want to be able to put my arms around you and show you how much you mean to me.”

“I like the sound of that. I can’t wait to see you.”

She hung up, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world. And then she remembered the envelope from Justin Baxter. She quickly opened it, and pulled out a check for five thousand dollars. She wouldn’t have to worry about getting a temp job next week or even next month. This bought her time to focus on the Blue Angel.

There was no turning back. Moxie was part of her now. She would just have to find a way to help Alec see that Moxie loved him, too.

The plane landed, and the captain told them they could turn on their wireless devices. Mallory dialed Alec before she even pulled her bag out of the overhead bin.

“It’s me—I just landed,” she said, nearly breathless. “I’ll meet you at the apartment?”

“Please don’t,” he said.

Mallory was sure she’d heard him wrong. Her ears must be clogged from the descent.

“What did you say?”

“I don’t think you should come over, Mallory.”

“Okay. Do you want to meet for dinner? I’m starving.”

“I don’t want to meet at all.”

“What are you talking about? We just had a whole conversation this morning about what was bothering you and moving ahead with our relationship . . .”

People were pulling down their luggage, a line was forming in the aisle to deplane.

“Yes. A whole conversation in which you failed to mention that you stripped at a party in Malibu last night. Apparently, Billy Barton was quite impressed with your performance.”

Oh, no.

“I wanted to tell you about that in person,” she said.

“You lied to me—again! You said explicitly that you were not involved in that party—that you were just in LA to clear your head.”

“I can explain. Bette needed to go to Vegas and . . .”

“Yeah. Somehow Bette is always involved. I don’t see how there is room for us to have a relationship when clearly Bette has more to do with your life these days than I do.”

“You’re not being fair,” she said. “I think we need to talk about this face-to-face.”

“I don’t want to see you.”

“If you are ending this, you at least owe it to me to see me,” she said, starting to cry.

“I don’t want to end it, Mallory, but I can’t be in a relationship where you lie to me, and I can’t trust you. I will never know who you are with or what you are doing as long as you’re hanging around that club. The only way this is going to work is if you stop going there and promise me you will stay away from Bette.”

“You’re making me choose between you and the Blue Angel?”

“Is it really a hard choice? I can’t believe you say it like that.”

She watched the line of people start to leave the plane. All she could do was sit hunched in her seat, clutching the phone.

“We’ve been together since we were twenty-two. We’ve both changed and taken on new interests along the way. I didn’t get upset when you got so involved with
Gruff
, when you started hanging out with Billy Barton and going clubbing.”

“The difference is, I found a way to include you in that world. I could have gone to burlesque shows for that article and never mentioned it to you, but instead I brought you to a show so we could share the experience. And fine, maybe I pushed too hard for the three-way, but at the end of the day it was still something we would do together. You, on the other hand, go off and sleep with a woman alone the night we have a fight; you get involved with this club without even mentioning it to me. You never thought to tell me so I could watch you or somehow feel it was a part of our life and not totally outside of it. That is why the relationship is ending, Mallory. Not because I can’t deal with your changing.”

“I want to include you!”

“It’s too late,” he said. And hung up on her.

Poppy sat curled against Patricia on her pillow-laden sleigh bed. They were watching a DVR marathon of
The Good Wife
(Patricia loved legal dramas) when Poppy’s phone rang.

“I’ll pause it,” Patricia said.

“Hello?” Poppy didn’t recognize the incoming number.

“Hey, it’s Alec Martin. Can you talk?” When it rained, it poured! Too bad for him he was a day late and a dollar short, as her mother would say.

“Sort of. What’s up?”

“You were right—Mallory did perform at that party.”

“Oh, Alec, it’s not a big deal. I mean, it’s just a party,” she said. Patricia stroked her inner thigh.

“Can you meet me somewhere for a drink? I just need to talk,” he said.

“I don’t know—” She looked at Patricia. “When?”

“Now?”

“Hold on a sec.” She covered the phone and told Patricia that Mallory’s boyfriend wanted to talk to her. “He sounds traumatized,” she said.

“Go—but don’t be too long. I’m already feeling possessive.” Patricia bit her shoulder lightly.

“Okay,” she said to Alec. “I’m in your neighborhood. Pick a place, and I’ll be there in ten. But only for a little while. I have plans tonight.”

“Good for you! Is it
her?
”

“Who?”

“The woman you were telling me about at breakfast.”

“Oh—no. Someone better.” She smiled at Patricia. “Much better.”

She met him at Wicker Park, a loud sports bar on Third Avenue. He was sitting in a booth near the door and looked like someone had run over his dog.

“Thanks for meeting me,” he said.

“Sure. What can I do?” He was so obviously forlorn she felt bad and forgot all about Patricia waiting for her back at the apartment.

“I wish you could somehow help me understand this world that has pulled Mallory in so strongly. She tells me her interest in burlesque has nothing to do with me, but it feels like there is a third person in our relationship suddenly. She never lied to me before, and now I can’t trust her at all.”