The Blue Room: Vol. 1 (4 page)

          He's the worst of all. He
knew – this whole time, I feel sure. He
knew
what I'd be asked to do.
Maybe he thought that I'd give in. That I'd succumb with the flashbulbs in my
face and money waved at my tits. Maybe he thought I had desires I didn't even
know I had until everyone's drunk and sweaty and the need is pouring off all
our backs.

          He's wrong. He's wrong
about me, I tell myself. I'm not that kind of girl. I'm not his kind of girl. I
don't even like him. Sure – when I first met him, sitting across from him in
that swivel armchair in his private office – I felt a certain something. Not
even attraction. Just, like, a heating of the blood. A prickle down my spine.
But Terrence Blue is a pro – no less than the girls he hires. He knows how to
sell sex. It's positively written in his DNA. Being attracted to Terrence Blue
is like admiring a Michelangelo sculpture. It's just what you do. It doesn't
mean anything. Maybe some other girl would find him sexy, with his cocksure
smile and that swivel of his hips like he could just thrust any girl against the
wall at a moment's notice, and she'd moan with ecstasy because of how lucky she
is to have him. Maybe that's how it works, for other girls. Not for me.

          I don't care about his
eyes, those shining, piercing blue eyes that get right under your skin. I don't
care about his silky soft hair, black, to his shoulders, lustrous. I don't care
about his face, chiseled to perfection, but with a few flaws that indicate
mischief, nor harmony or his full sinful lips like a rock star’s lips.

          “Staci?”

          I don't care about his
voice, either. Not when it's low and dark like this. Like he's whispering into
my ear, trying to make me wet.

          “How are you? I just came
to see how you're doing.”

          I wipe my tears away with
the back of my hand. I'd melt into the floor if Terrence Blue saw me cry. I'm
supposed to be worldly, street-smart, experienced. Used to the attentions of
horny men. Not some inexperienced virgin recent college grad, desperate for a
job but unable to cope with its demands. A girl who gets hysterical when a man
puts his hand on her ass. I need to convince him that I can handle this. This
job, this world. That I can sing my heart out, and shake my tits to boot.

          Rita could handle it, after
all. My old college roommate, Rita was a gorgeous girl with long dark hair and
blue eyes almost as piercing as Terrence's. She'd funded med school on that
stage. Sure, there had been odd times – times when she didn't come home at
night, times when she vanished for weeks on end – but she'd always texted me.
Just to say “I'm fine. Don't wait for me.” And she'd always come back. The last
time, she told me she'd met someone. A wealthy man, a handsome man. A patron at
the club. Mr. X., she called him. He was too famous, apparently, for me to know
who he really was. She wasn't sure if he loved her or he loved her cup size,
but she was happy. Happy enough to give up med school and live on his largesse.
She left college and the last I heard, she was wearing Cartier. I figure she
was happy. She wasn't broke, at least. And right now, not-broke was all I could
focus on.

          Well, that, and Rita.

          One Facebook Message from
her. “I'm in too deep. And I don't know how to get out.” Sent from the Grand
Blue Towers, a luxury hotel where the Blue Girls were frequently put up for the
night. She never answered my calls. She never answered my emails.

          I was going to find out
what happened to her.

          “Staci?”

          Did Terrence use this voice
on Rita, I wondered? That smooth voice, so husky with need. I knew I couldn't
trust him. But when I felt my nipples harden, involuntarily, I knew his voice
had the desired effect.

          “What do you want?” My
voice was soft. I couldn't stand to look up into his eyes.

          His fingers on my bare
shoulders seemed to burn into my skin. I could feel him tightening his grip on
me. “Man...I was so turned on watching you on stage just now, Staci. I've seen
a lot of girls at this club. And not one of them has a delectable pair of tits
like yours. I just want to take them in my hands...”

          I didn't move. I let him
touch my breasts. I froze.

          “I want to take them in my
mouth...”

          “Is that part of my job
description?” I jerked back. Got control over myself again. “Because I'm pretty
sure that's illegal.”

          “Your job,” Terrence leans
in so close I can smell the musk on him, masculine, sensual, and delicious. “Is
to create a fantasy. To make men's fantasies come true. And not just any men.
Only the most prestigious, the most powerful of men come here, knowing how
exquisite our tastes are in selecting women for the Blue Room. That's why we
put you up in the nicest hotels, give you everything you could desire. Food,
beauty treatments, etiquette training, pampering beyond belief...”

          “So I can fuck whoever pays
you?” Now I'm getting mad.

          “You'll do what you're
willing to do. Nobody is forcing you to sing.”

          “I came here to sing,” I
say, still barely believing Terrence's words.

          “You did sing.” Terrence
leans in and, before I can jerk away, takes my lower lip into his mouth,
sucking it gently. It tingles and I almost moan. “You taste just as good as I
imagined.”

          I pull away. I'm not going
to let him distract me, not for a second.

          “You're expecting me to
have sex with patrons if I want to keep your job.”

          He doesn't listen. He's
pressing me up against the wall, kissing me passionately, his tongue flicking
against mine until I moan again in spite of myself. I despise him, but somehow
I don't push him away.

          I have to stay calm. To
keep my job. To find out what happened to Rita.

          But it's hard to stay calm
when a boy who looks like Terrence Blue is pressing his body against mine.

          “You surprise me, Miss
Atussi. From the look in your eyes, I thought you wanted something else
entirely. You're more than you seem.”

          “What are you talking
about?”

          “You may act all sweet and
innocent, Atussi, but when you're on stage, you're the sexiest woman alive. You
want something. You have a hunger in you. And I want to find out what it is.”
He presses my hand to the hard-on in his pants. It's enormous. Bestial.

          But I push him away.

          “I want you to stay...” he
groans.

          I want to stay, too. But I
won't let him take advantage of me that easily. I took a deep breath, forcing
myself back into control.

          “Another day,” he says.
“You get another chance. Understood?”

          “I'm not going to whore
myself out, Terrence,” I say.

          I think I detect a hint of
a smile. “Good,” he says. “But if you change your mind – remember, wealthy and
powerful men take very good care of themselves. They have the money to. And
they often make wildly passionate lovers. Most women would love to be their
mistresses, to be taken care of by them, to be fucked by them.”

          “Not me.” I make it as
clear as possible.

          But still, somehow, I let
him trace his fingers up my inner thigh. I let him rub his fingers against my
panties, then slide them aside. I feel those gasping tremors of pleasure as his
fingers gently and tantalizingly rubbed the most sensitive and heated part of
me to the point where I clench down on my lower lips to keep from moaning
loudly, but my voice deep from the center of my chest groaned softly, “Oh,
Terrence.”

          His voice is husky with
need.

          “What if that patron was
me?”

Chapter
4

         
M
y whole body is tingling. I've never felt like this before.
The shiver running up and down my spine; the way my blood is boiling in my
veins. The way my heart is ricocheting against my chest so hard that it feels
like I'm being beaten up from the inside out. All of that is new to me – so
new.

          Sure, I've felt desire
before. Or, at least, I think I have. I've kissed boys, and fumbled here and
there, and from time to time explored the outskirts of that land of pleasure
I've never visited, not really. I'm experienced enough, I suppose. Although – I
think with a sigh – by the standards of the Blue Room I'm practically celibate.
I'm certainly the only virgin here.

          It's not that I have
anything against sex. Sex is what brought me into the world, after all, the
only good thing my father ever did for me. I never held out for any particular
reason. Except maybe idealism. The idea that when I knew, I'd
know.
That
this was the person I wanted to lose my virginity to. In my head it had been a
romantic realization. All about love, about pretty pink clouds and princess
ribbons, about rings and promises of undying devotion. I'd never dreamed that
my body would respond to the touch of a man like this. I'd never dreamed that
it would respond without any promises of romance all – and to the most
repulsive man I'd ever met, a player, a huckster – and maybe more. Whatever
happened to Rita, I have no doubt that Terrence, even if he's not behind it, knows
what's going on. He knows where she is.

          I have to remember that. I
tell myself that much. I have to remember that, even when his hand is on my
thigh, his fingertips tracing ever so slightly the contours of my knee, then
sliding upwards toward my panties  again, I have to remember that, even when
his musk is filling my nostrils, driving me wild, driving me mad. I have to
stay
calm. Stay cool. Stay in control.

         
But I couldn't deny what my body
wanted. Physically, all I wanted was for Terrence to have his way with me then
and there. I wanted it so badly I felt I could taste the need. I'd never known
that sure a desire existed, a desire so strong, so potent, like the hottest
spice or the most intoxicating wine, to make everything else in the world seem
so vague in comparison. I'd never known temptation like this.

          But I wasn't about to lose
my virginity to Terrence. I know what it's like, after all, to get knocked up
to a man who doesn't deserve you. I've seen men like him before. Players. Men
who don't care about women except as receptacles for their desire and need.
Good-looking men who have it all – wealth, looks, power, and that mysterious
brand of sociopathy that so often comes along when you've got all those things
in one package.

          Men like my father.

          Norma Rae, that was my
mother's name. Stage name, of course – she wanted it to be Norma Jean but her
managers said that was too on the nose. She wanted to go Broadway, go
Hollywood. Instead, she went to my father's bedroom. He saw her in the chorus
line and wanted her then and there, just like Terrence wanted me, just like I
wanted him. In a movie, this would have been her ticket to fame and fortune,
real romance. In a movie, he would have lifted her out of poverty and ambition
and made her a star.

          But life isn't like the
movies. Life isn't like Hollywood. In real life, the men who seduce you knock
you up and abandon you, leave you without a penny – a penny they could well
afford. Just because they can. I mean, my dad wouldn't even have had to talk to
my mother again, just to make sure she was taken care of. Men like him have
secretaries to do things like that, remembering important things like their
wives' birthdays and how many illegitimate daughters they have. But my dad, he
didn't even care enough to send along enough money to keep my mom's health
insurance going.

          Pregnancy destroyed my
mother's body. She always pretended like it didn't – joked she ate too much –
but beneath the smile, beneath her attempts to spare me the guilt I always felt
for existing, I saw the truth. Hollywood chewed her up and spit her out. Nobody
wanted a showgirl with stretch marks. She never got married, never even had a
boyfriend. Worked five or six jobs at once. None of them enough to give her
insurance. None of them enough to treat the cancer that now ravaged her body.

          She's in hospice, now.

          And my father? He's
probably here tonight. Sitting in the crowd. Putting those hundreds down
another girl's G-string.

          A girl no older than my
mother was twenty-two years ago.

          I would never have come
back here, to dance for men like him. Not if I didn't want to know what
happened to Rita. Not if I didn't want to get my own back on the Blue Room, and
places like it – places that ruined the lives of the people that I loved.

          I clung to that, and it
gave me strength. It gave me the strength not to give in, even as Terrence
moved his fingers over my most intimate part, giving me so much pleasure that I
couldn't help myself when I moaned his name.