Improper English (30 page)

“Not still feeling sick, are you?” Ray asked quietly, watching me as I started in on the third glass of water.

“No, just a little parched.”

“Ah.” The look she bent upon me spoke volumes, but I didn’t have time to decipher it, I was too busy trying to inch my knee away from Alex’s without him noticing. It was a lost cause. They don’t make people detective inspectors if they aren’t observant.

“What’s wrong with you?” Alex hissed as I tried to edge away from the pressure of his knee against my leg. “Why are you acting like this?”

I gave up on my leg and just let it go up in flames. “Acting like what?”

“Why are you squirming in your chair? Is it so bloody difficult to sit next to me?”

My temper rose at that. Of course it was so bloody
difficult! My hands were shaking with the attempt to keep myself from wrestling him to the ground and stripping him naked in front of everyone. The least he could do was help me!

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is,” I snapped back. “Why can’t you keep your limbs to yourself? Every time you touch me I—”

He leaned closer to me until I could see the lovely black edges of the emerald facets in his eyes. “Every time I touch you, you what?”

“Nothing,” I ground out between my teeth. I had a plan. My plan was good. Nowhere on my list was there an item which included the seduction of Alex in a restaurant.

I turned my head away from him, intending to ask Daniel a question, when Alex turned my insides to pudding by leaning close to my ear, his breath ruffling my hair as he spoke. “You’re a terrible liar, sweetheart.”

I pushed him back with one hand and shoved myself away from the table with the other. Once again every eye at the table was on me as I stood with one hand on Alex’s chest.

“Bathroom!” I squawked, and ran for my life.

Five minutes later I returned, another pound poorer, but with my hands soft and perfumed from the scented lotion the attendant had offered.

“Sorry,” I apologized as I sat down again, reaching for my glass of water. I drank half of it before realizing everyone was watching me.

“What?” I asked them, looking from one face to another. “Why are you guys looking at me like that?”

“Alix.” Isabella reached across Alex and took my hand in hers, giving it a comforting little squeeze. “You are
among friends here. You can tell us if something is amiss with you.”—she waved a vague hand toward her torso—“inside.”

I blinked at her. “What?”

She frowned at Alex until he sat back in his chair; then she leaned across him. “Dear, we’re concerned about you. These frequent trips to the WC could be indicative of a serious problem. Are you experiencing any burning when you…?”

Lord, yes, every time Alex glanced at me I went up in flames, but I didn’t suppose that was what she was talking about. My cheeks burned anew under the sympathetic expressions everyone at the table was sending me.

I glared at my plate and avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’m fine, Isabella. There’s no need for anyone to worry.”

“Bladder infections can be quite serious, you know,” Paula said from across the table, her red curls bobbing earnestly as she spoke. The ladies at the table all nodded sagely. “A girl I worked with had one, and she ended up going into hospital with kidney damage because she didn’t take care of herself.”

My blush hitched up a level as speculative looks were focused on me. I cleared my throat and tried to think of something, anything else to talk about but bladder infections. “Thank you, Paula, but I can assure you that I don’t have a bladder infection. So, is everyone looking forward to the opera tonight? Do we have any opera virgins here?”

“If you don’t have a bladder infection, then why are you running to the WC every two minutes?” Isabella asked. “Do you have food poisoning? Have you had—”

“No!” I shrieked, wondering if it was possible to fall down dead with embarrassment.

“Well, if it’s not food poisoning or a bladder infection that’s making you use the WC so frequently, then what is the matter?”

“Venereal disease,” Ray offered.

I prayed for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

Everyone looked at me for a moment, then at Alex. He withstood their gazes well by simply cocking an eyebrow. “Don’t look at me, I didn’t give her anything.”

“Oh, dear God in heaven,” I moaned, my head sinking to my hands.

“If she had an STD, she would have some sort of sign, a rash or discharge, surely,” Karl said, frowning. “Alex, have you noticed if she has had any—”

“That’s it!” I stood up, clutching my evening bag to my chest and glared at everyone at the table. “I’m leaving, but before I go I would just like to tell you all that I do not have a bladder infection, food poisoning, or a sexually transmittable disease, thank you all for asking. Good night!”

“Alix, sit down.”

I glared down at Alex. “No. If I sit they’ll start discussing my last pap smear or something.”

He grabbed my wrist and tugged me down to the chair. “No one is going to discuss anything you don’t want discussed. Sit.”

I allowed myself to be reseated, but resolved to leave at the first mention of anything else to do with my reproductive organs.

“What’s a pap smear?” Karl asked Isabella in a whisper that could be heard across a crowded room. Daniel
winked and gave me one of his sultry smiles. Ray muttered to Bert that they would need to make sure I went to see a doctor. Alex smiled encouragingly at me as he placed his hand over mine.

I sighed, resigned to hell. It was going to be a long, long dinner.

We survived the opera without any further speculation as to the causes of my frequent dashes to the ladies’ room. Alex finally seemed to catch on to my subtle hints that I wasn’t open to his advances toward a reconciliation. I think that point was finally driven home to him when, before the opera began, we had a bit of a squabble over who had the right to our shared armrest. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t quiet, and I’m not proud of calling him a tottyhead in public (“What did you call me?” “Tottyhead. You, sir, are a tottyhead. Tottyhead, tottyhead, tottyhead!”), but the argument served its purpose. He claimed the armrest by dint of it being his birthday, and ignored me for the whole of the opera.

“What has angered Alexander?” Isabella asked during intermission. I glanced over at where he was weaving his way through the crowd at the bar.

“He’s just being a big baby because he doesn’t like opera.”

A tiny smile graced her lips as she sipped at a vodka on the rocks. “I have to admit I wondered at your choice of entertainment, but thought perhaps you knew something about him that I did not.”

I shrugged. “I thought it would be good for him to be exposed to a little culture. He’s so hidebound and straightlaced, new experiences are bound to broaden his horizons. And besides, this isn’t the entertainment.” I
glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. “That comes later.”

Her smiled increased in brightness. “Are you going to do it?”

I scooted aside so Daniel and Paula could pass us on their way back to our seats. “I don’t know. I can’t make up my mind. Every time I think I will…well, let’s just say I change my mind.”

“I’m sure it would mean a lot to him if you did.”

That was what worried me. “I’ll think about it. I still have the rest of the opera to decide. You’re going to, regardless, aren’t you?”

She gave me an unfathomable look. “Perhaps.”

“Isabella, it was because of you that I suggested the whole thing! You can’t back out now!”

“That’s what
you’re
talking about doing.”

“Yeah, but Alex and I aren’t…together anymore. And besides, your costume is better than mine. And you’ve had lots of practice. I just look lumpy.”

She laughed her silvery laugh and deposited her drink on a table before hooking her hand through my arm. “Come, they’re about to ring the bell, let’s return.” As we squeezed through the door, she leaned her head close to mine and added, “Alix, I don’t know what it is you are doing with this list and plan of yours, but I suspect you will very much regret it if you do not take part in the festivities you have planned for later.”

I thought of what was coming up and blanched.

She was right. Isabella often is, which is one of the things that most irritates me about her. But I knew she was right, I’d regret not having the balls to stand up and do what I had planned, which is why two and a half hours later I found myself with Isabella and eight other women as we huddled together in the dank, cold, dimly lit backstage area of a very exclusive club (arranged with Daniel’s assistance—never let it be said that I looked a gift horse in the mouth), shivering as I shimmied my way into a skimpy belly dancer’s outfit.

“I look lumpy,” I snarled as I hooked together the top part of the outfit. “Look, my boobs are bulging over the top of this vest thingy. I’ll probably pop out during one of the dances and expose myself to everyone. I just hope you’ll be happy then! I just hope you’ll be able to live with yourself knowing I exposed my breasts to your
friends because you refuse to allow me to do my part in a comfy caftan.”

She gave a laugh that would be a giggle on a lesser person, but as Isabella was too elegant to giggle, the result was light and sparkling rather than silly. “You can’t possibly belly dance in a caftan. Stop being so difficult, Alix! You’ll have a wonderful time.”

I cast an envious glance over at her slender silver-and-blue-clad body, then grumbled as I tugged the low bodice up a bit higher. It did no good; the weight of my substantial bosomage pulled it back down. I glared at my reflection. “Fleshy. There’s just no other word for it, I look fleshy.”

“You look lovely and you know it, so you can stop fishing for compliments. I don’t understand why you’re being so coy; Alexander has seen you without your clothing.”

“Yeah, Alex has, but no one else here has except you and all of the other dancers. I didn’t mind him seeing me naked in the heat of passion, but in the cold light of reason, I’d rather not have all the acres of my skin exposed to view.” I turned around to look at the back view. “Dear God, you can see all of my butt through the skirt! Isabella, look! You can see my butt! I’m not going to go out there and have everyone and his brother get a gander at my bare butt!”

She looked. “Why aren’t you wearing the panties?”

“You told me to take them off.”

“Not the panties you came in with, the ones specially made to go with the outfit. You should be wearing those.”

I looked in the box that held the outfit I had bought the prior week. There was nothing else in it.

“Well, hell, they gypped me!” I held up the empty box. “I’m not going out there with my butt visible through this flimsy material!” A horrible thought struck me. If my behind was visible, then…

I looked in the mirror.

“Pubic hair! You can see my pubic hair! Dear God, it’s right there where anyone can see it! I refuse to do this! I refuse to parade around baring all my assets to everyone, and you can’t expect me to! It’s illegal! It’s cruel and unusual punishment!”

“Alix, calm down.”

“Alex is a policeman! He’ll probably arrest me for indecent exposure!”

“We’ll find you another pair of panties.”

“And if he doesn’t, someone else will. They’ll probably raid the place, and then my picture will be plastered all over the paper with the headline YANK WANNA-BE WRITER IN SEX CLUB SCANDAL. My mother will hear about this, and then she’ll disown me, not that that means much, because she doesn’t really like me now, but this will be the straw that broke her back, but what’s worse, what’s much worse is that no publisher will consider me after I’ve had all my fleshy bits spread across the tabloids! I’ll end up broke and destitute and living in a car because I can’t afford an apartment, so desperate for employment that I’ll have to resort to posing for men’s smut magazines just before I die of malnutrition, friendless, alone, and probably an alcoholic to boot.” I paused long enough to take a deep breath. “I hope you’ll be happy with that end for me, Isabella, because that’s what’s waiting for me if you force me to go out there with everything I own on display!”

“Alix, will you listen to me? I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t wish to do!”

The sight of my scantily covered pubic mound haunted me. I closed my eyes and hugged my filled-to-the-brim bodice. “It’s not fair of you to ask me to go out there like this. It’s not fair of you to make me feel guilty for not wanting to go out and have everyone see my pubic hair and bare butt.”

She grabbed my hand and shoved a piece of cloth in it. I opened my eyes and looked. “What’s this?”

“Panties. Put them on.”

They weren’t the same color as the flame red and orange of my outfit. These were pink. “Where’d you get them?” I asked suspiciously, holding them up to see if they looked like they’d fit.

“They’re Susan’s.”

“Susan?”

I looked down to where she was pointing. One of the entertainers I had hired—a troupe of women who specialized in dancing various themed dances for mostly male parties—was clad in a hot pink and turquoise belly dancer outfit. She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign. I gaped at her for a moment, then shoved the panties back at Isabella.

“I’m not going to wear some other woman’s underwear! That’s just gross!”

“Alix, they’re clean—”

“No!” I dug through the bag holding the garments I’d been wearing before changing into the gauzy peepshow costume. “If I can’t wear the panties that were meant for this outfit, I’ll wear my own.” I pulled out a pair of black lace undies and stepped into them.

Isabella eyed my groin critically. “It doesn’t match the
rest of the ensemble. In fact, it’s quite noticeable.”

I glared at her. “I told you I should wear a caftan!”

I hoped the hat and veil would be enough to keep my identity secret, but the three belly dancing lessons Isabella had given me weren’t sufficient to allow me to keep up with the other professional dancers. They might not be any great shakes as belly dancers, but they were willing to come forward and dance a sinuous, bumping and grinding circle around the birthday boy, whereas I kept to the rear and tried to hide behind everyone else.

There was one moment when I claimed the limelight. Isabella, the only one among us who really knew how to belly dance, wiggled her way in front of Alex and started shaking her groove thing at him. He looked pleased by the show—very pleased, much more pleased than a man who had had his hand on my knee earlier in the evening should have looked. I gnashed my teeth and clanged the little bells strapped to my fingers with much fervor, slowly but surely pushing my way forward until I was just to the left of Alex, in front of Daniel. The latter was trying to not too obviously enjoy the antics of a longlegged blonde grinding away in front of him. I nudged her aside, bared my teeth at Daniel, and accidentally bumped into Isabella, sending her spinning toward Karl.

I looked down at Alex and met his emerald-eyed gaze. “Laugh and you die,” I warned him. His lips twitched as he looked me over from head to feet. I clanged my bells at him when he stopped his perusal and peered closer at my black undies. “Eyes up, buster. And stop drooling over Isabella. It isn’t seemly in a man of your elderly years.”

He laughed at that, and after a few more warning bells
chimed perilously near his nose, coupled with the three sinuous hip shakes that were the only elements I could remember how to do, I moved on. Bert wanted to know how hard it was to belly dance, so she got up with Isabella and had an impromptu session, joined soon thereafter by Paula. I glared as the other dancers continued to surround Alex, and plumped myself down next to Ray.

“This was a rotten idea.”

“I think it’s a grand one,” she replied, her toes tapping in time to the blare of belly dancing music that filled the private room. “Took courage.”

I glanced at her in surprise, then sat back to think about that. I supposed it did take courage to arrange to make a fool of myself in front of the man I loved. I slid a glance to the left toward Alex. He was laughing at something Daniel was saying, watching as Isabella encouraged Bert and Paula to join the other dancers.

“Well, I will say that Alex seems to be having fun. He looks happy and relaxed and isn’t exhibiting the least bit of resistance to being exposed to something out of the norm like he did at the opera.”

Ray nodded, clapping her hands in time to the music and calling out encouragement as Bert and Paula danced by in the line of dancers.

“I wasn’t sure how he would like this, but I guess…
Hey!
No touching! I specifically told you there was to be
no touching!
”

I stood up and started toward Susan of the underwear as she gyrated before Alex, doing some sort of pelvic thrust movement at him while curling her fingers through his lovely hair.

“Back off, sister,” I snarled. Ray caught my arm as I
stalked past her, pulling me back to my chair.

“Don’t.”

I pushed her hand away. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t degrade yourself. Black’s not the sort of bloke to play while the cat’s away.”

I glared at the hussy. She had shot me a smug glance when Ray hauled me back, then continued to dance her crotch toward Alex in a manner that would shame a nymphomaniac. I toyed with the idea of ripping the hair right off her head, but decided Ray was probably right. When I had set up the belly dance, Alex and I were still firmly a couple, and I had imagined how pleased (and aroused) he would be by my participation. I hadn’t for one moment worried that he would be equally turned on by the other women, even Isabella. Now, however, all bets were off, even if Alex was looking a bit embarrassed about Crotch Woman thrusting herself in his face.

“Oh, yeah,” I growled to myself watching the she-wolf undulate in front of the man whose children I had once hoped to bear. “Brilliant bloody idea, Alix. Just brilliant.”

Alex saw me home. I didn’t want him to see me home, and told him so in no uncertain terms, but short of shackling him to a chair in the club—something I might have considered had I possessed shackles—there was nothing I could do to stop him from following me into the tube station or a taxi, so I gave in.

“OK, but you get to pay for it,” I warned him, and climbed into one of the wonderfully roomy black taxis that dart about town. He gave the driver my address on Pentonville Road, and sat down next to me.

I let him have my best glare. “How’d you know my address, smart boy?”

He didn’t even glance at me. “Isabella told me where you had moved. Was it a secret?”

No, drat it, I hadn’t told her it was a secret, and he knew it.

“No, it wasn’t. Alex, why are you doing this?”

“Seeing you home? I was raised to always see a woman to her home after a date.”

“We weren’t on a date. Tonight was a party, not a date. We are not dating.
Comprende?
”

He shot me a quick look out of the corner of his eye, then leaned back against the seat, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes. “Why did you jump up every time I touched you?”

“Maybe I don’t like being touched.” I rolled my eyes as soon as the words left my mouth. Lord, I was stupid sometimes!

“Mmm. Do you know, I’ve found that when witnesses swear to a statement I suspect is false, often it is quite easy to prove or disprove their claim.”

Uh oh, did he mean what I thought he meant? He didn’t mean…“Ack! Alex, unhand me!”

“In a minute. I’m investigating your statement.”

“You are not, you’re groping me.” I tried to push back from where he was holding me to his chest, but I couldn’t do anything but run my hands over him. Helplessly. The new Alix could sometimes be a weak, weak woman, I discovered to my delight.

He nuzzled the side of my neck and zeroed in unerringly on the one spot guaranteed to turn me to blancmange in his arms. I alternately burned and shivered with desire, with need, but each time I was about to melt into his arms, I remembered my plan. It was too important to mess up.

“Alex…we’re not…you shouldn’t…oh, just a hair to the left…no, no, you must stop…
ALEX!
The driver can see you! Remove your mouth this instant!”

He lifted his head just enough to speak. “No, he can’t.” His mouth returned to my left breast.

“Actually, I can, but you’re not doing anything I haven’t seen before, so carry on, mate. No, I tell a lie—I haven’t seen that done in a cab before. I didn’t think there was enough room. Is your lady’s hand where I think it is?”

I rolled my eyes forward to the front of my head and peered over the top of Alex’s hair at the grinning face of the driver in the mirror, simultaneously snatching back my hand from where it had drifted. Of its own accord, I hasten to point out.

“Alex, stop,” I begged, trying to tug him from where his face was buried in the bodice of my dress. “We can’t do this in a cab. It’s wrong, it’s morally wrong, ethically wrong, and probably legally wrong as well.”

“You’d be surprised what people get up to in a cab,” the driver chimed in. “All sorts of things, and not a one cared whether it was legally, morally, or ethically wrong.”

I glared at his smiling reflection and dragged my free hand from where it had slipped under Alex’s shirt, threading my fingers through his silky hair, tugging on it until he came up for air. “Alex, you have to stop! You’re making a scene!”

He grinned and wrapped one hand around my neck, holding my head still as he prepared to plunder. “I know. Makes a nice change, doesn’t it?”

I didn’t reply, being too busy entertaining his tongue as it dropped by for a visit. By the time he counted all of
my teeth—twice—my objections had evaporated and the only thing I could say when he lifted his mouth from mine was that I needed to buy him an eye patch.

“Why?”

I tried to ignore his fingers dancing a fiery finger dance up and down my spine. “You’d make a hell of a pirate.” I hiked up the bodice of my dress and managed to push myself a reasonable distance away from him. The new Alix took several shaky breaths and reminded me that such behavior was unauthorized and would lead to complications I didn’t think I could cope with at that moment. I licked my lips, trying to catch one last taste of him, and told myself to be stalwart. One of us had to be strong, one of us had to be reasonable, and it looked like it was going to have to be me, dammit. “OK, you’ve had your birthday fun. Now it has to stop.”