3 Straight by the Rules (8 page)

“Thank you,” I told her.

She looked over her shoulder at the flickering candles on the dining room table.  “Are you expecting company?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear it because you have an assignment in five minutes.”  She didn’t look one bit sorry.

I was horrified.  “What?  Now!  Can’t it wait?”

She shook her head.  “Miss Spry said you are
not
to miss it.”  I could sense Helen’s hot-eyed glare behind Delilah’s frown.  “And she said to give you this, too.”  She handed me the bag.

It was the tea I had wanted for my father.  I could smell the smoky aroma through the paper.  Getting the tea didn’t soften my temper, however.  “Are you
sure
you can’t change that appointment?”

She glared at me.  “I’d thought you’d be happy to go do your dirty work.  Isn’t that what you succubi like to do?”

“No, it
isn’t
what I like to do,” I said.  “Helen forces me to.”

Delilah blinked.  “
Forces
you?  You mean, you don’t
want
to sleep with all those men?”

“I don’t sleep with men.  Wait – have you been reading Wikipedia?”

“Maybe.”  She hesitated.  “Yes.”  She sat down on a kitchen chair that groaned under her bulk.  “I thought that you and William had signed up for your jobs.”

“I don’t know about William,” I said, “but I never wanted this.  I
hate
working for Helen.”

“Me, too.”  Delilah twisted her silver bangles on her wrists.  “I passed two months ago.  Breast cancer.  When I was alive, I wasn’t what you’d call a Christian lady, so I didn’t think I was good enough to get into Heaven.  Which is why I ended up working for
her
.”  Her eyes glistened.

“Welcome to the club,” I said.

She levered her body out of the chair.  “I’m sorry, Lilith Straight.  I had you figured all wrong.  And I’m sorry, too, about what you’ll have to do tonight.”

My stomach clenched.  “What am I doing?”

She handed me a slip of paper.  “Dirty work.”

As much as I wanted to defy Helen and brush off the assignment, I couldn’t.  After all, I wanted to see my daughter one last time before Helen decimated me.  And Helen
would
decimate me if I refused to follow her direct orders.  So instead of keeping my date with William, I  stomped to my bedroom to change out of my clothes and into something more appropriate.

I arrived at the location wearing little more than a silk robe and a smile.  And because I was nervous, the smile was as thin as the robe.

The hotel banquet room bustled with wait staff who laid out stacks of china on buffet tables and lit cans of Sterno under chafing dishes.  I snagged the attention of the bartender who was arranging bottles of liquor.  “I’m the sushi model,” I said.  “Do you know where I need to be?”

He ogled me, taking in my long, bare legs and clingy silk robe before directing me to a bleached-blonde forty-something wearing a high-gloss lipstick that matched her scarlet nails.  Her nametag read: Barb Silverstone, event coordinator.  She carried a clipboard and shouted orders to a pair of waiters arranging canapés on silver platters.

“You’re late,” she told me.

“I didn’t have a lot of warning.”  After Delilah had left, I’d quickly blown out the candles, turned off the oven, and left a note for William.  The message was brief because I was afraid that Jasmine or Ariel would find it.  All I’d written was:
Sorry, duty calls. L.
  I hoped he understood.

Barb frowned, taking in my face and hair.  “Well, at least you’re pretty.”

Because of my demon’s powers, I can alter my physical appearance, and I’d made myself taller and more willowy.  My hair was shorter and blonder, and I’d added glittery, purple makeup that swooped like a fanciful Mardi Gras mask over my eyes.

The coordinator ordered me to follow her, then strode across the room.  As we approached an enormous ice sculpture of a bare-breasted mermaid, she slowed down.  A scrawny waiter whose thinning hair had been dyed a flat black was attempting to chat up a young waitress as she arranged fresh fruit around the base of the sculpture.  The fact that the woman was young enough to be his daughter didn’t stop the man from ogling her breasts and standing too close to her.

Barb’s sharp eyes narrowed.  “Milo!”   She barked out the name like an insult.

The man jumped guiltily, then smiled at the coordinator.  “What is it, sugar bear?”

“Leave that poor girl alone so she can do her job.”

“Sorry, sugar bear.  I just wanted to taste her grapes.”  He took Barb’s hand and kissed her cheek while his eyes slid up and down my scantily-clad body.

This man was my client, I realized.  I would have tempted him right then, but my succubus reminded me that we hadn’t been given all of the tools yet.

Despite Milo’s innocent smile, Barb continued to glare.  “Watch yourself, or I’ll see you in divorce court,” she warned.  Before walking away, she slapped his butt a little too hard for it to be affectionate.

She led me over to a table that held an enormous platter of sushi and ordered me to disrobe.  Worried, I glanced around the busy room.  Get undressed in front of everyone?  Was she kidding?  Underneath my robe, I wore a skimpy bikini so, technically, I wouldn’t be naked.  Still, I wasn’t eager to show that much skin to this many people.  “Where’s my costume?”

She frowned.  “What costume?”

“You know.  The one I’m modeling in?”  I had figured being a sushi model meant wearing a kimono as I walked among the guests and offered them sushi from a silver tray.

She rolled her eyes.  “You’re modeling the
sushi
.  Now take off that robe and lie down on the table, so I can set out the food.”

My eyes traveled from the platter of sushi to the linen-covered table and back again.  “You aren’t seriously thinking of using me as a sushi display, right?”  Either this was a joke, or another of Delilah’s epic blunders.

“Of course.  That’s what sushi models do.”

I backed away from the table.  “No!  No way.”

Barb clapped her hands at me.  “Chop, chop!  You’re not getting paid to debate this.”

My succubus needled me, a reminder that I
did
want to see Grace one last time before my evil overlord destroyed me for disobeying her orders.  Helen and I had already faced off once this week.  One more showdown like that, and I’d find myself locked in an iron maiden alongside Patrick.  Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath.  Okay, semi-naked, covered in sushi…  It wasn’t pleasant, but how bad could it be?

I let the robe slip from my shoulders and reluctantly laid on the table which, thank goodness, was padded underneath the white cloth.  Barb placed an enormous pair of lotus blossoms over my breasts and a broad, glossy banana leaf on top of my nether regions.  Then she laid the cold, sticky rounds of sushi in a line along my shin bones and on my outstretched arms.  As she worked, she said, “The rules are that the guests cannot talk to you, touch you, or otherwise maul you.  And you are not to move or speak.”

They might not be able to touch me, but they could look, and now that I was being piled with sushi, I was drawing stares from the wait staff.  Their eyes crawled over me, making me squirm.  Someone used their phone to snap a picture.  I flushed in embarrassment as I wondered whose FaceBook page I’d be appearing on.

When Barb laid the sushi onto my stomach and along my collarbones, I sucked in my breath.  It was like being covered in leeches.  My skin wanted to crawl away from my body.  “This is the stupidest, grossest thing I’ve ever heard of,” I said. “No one’s going to eat sushi that’s been sitting on a stranger’s skin.  Who came up with this idea anyway?”

She glared at me.  “I’ll have you know that
nyotaimori
is considered an art form.  Japanese men do it all the time.”

“Are you
kidding
me,” I said, outraged.  “My
father
is Japanese!  He would never think that eating sushi off a semi-naked woman was art.”  I lifted my head and glared.  “I’ll bet not a single person living in Japan has even
heard
of this.  In fact,
nyotaimori
is probably a made-up word…”

She shoved a spicy tuna roll into my mouth.  “You are not to talk, remember?”  Then she walked away, tucking the empty tray under her arm.

Being partially naked and covered in sushi is bad.  Being partially naked, covered in sushi and not being able to move is worse.  Within minutes, my nose began to itch maddeningly.  A fleck of something got into my eye, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t blink it away.  My muscles started to cramp.  First my right thigh, then my left winched tight until I gasped in pain.  Breathe through it, I told myself.  Breathe!  My skin itched as the sushi began to dry out.  I would have cheated and scratched, but the palms of my outstretched hands were filled with shrimp tempura rolls.  I was helpless and humiliated.  No doubt Helen was punishing me for my temerity the day before.  I swore that I could hear her laughing at me from the otherworld.

As I listened to the hum of conversation, I wondered where on earth my client had disappeared to.  My orders were to make him take a piece of sushi from me.  When I’d first read my instructions, the temptation hadn’t sounded too bad.  However, now that I knew the sushi was being displayed on my nearly-naked body and that Milo was a terrible lecher, I began to worry.  Along with that piece of sushi, he might try to sample something else of mine.

Although my client hadn’t stopped by for a gander, everyone else did.  And while the men didn’t talk to me, they all got their messages across loud and clear.  Some leaned over to sniff at my lotus blossoms and leer at my cleavage while others joked at how they wanted to peek beneath the banana leaf.  Pretty soon, it wasn’t just the smell of sushi making me sick.

A pair of college students ambled over.  They both looked too young to be drinking, but from their giggles and lack of coordination, it was clear they’d been taking advantage of the open bar.  After treating me to several double entendres, one of them said to his friend, “Man, your birthday party blows.”

“I know, right?”  The other kid poured a packet of soy sauce over one of the California rolls on my belly, and brown liquid dribbled into my navel.  “My dad said he’d only invite a
few
of his employees tonight, but they’re overrunning the whole damn thing.  He probably wants to write this party off as a business expense.”  He ate part of the sushi then gave a disgusted, “Ack!” and spit the rest of it into the palm of his hand.  “Let’s get out of here.”  To my relief, the pair of them staggered off.

Finally, my succubus nudged me.  My client had reappeared.  I could just see him from the corner of my eye.  Unfortunately, Barb’s threat of divorce court must have worried him because he refused to come near me.  He lingered a few feet away as he handed guests the glasses of white wine on his tray.

I’d been ordered not to speak, but I wasn’t about to lie there any longer.  “Psst,” I said, trying to discreetly get his attention.  “Hey!”

To my relief, he came over.  “Barb said that you’re not supposed to talk.”  His oily gaze slid from one end of my body to the other.  “And we wouldn’t want to make Barb angry, would we?”

This job couldn’t end quickly enough.  “Try one of the spider rolls,” I said.  “I hear they’re amazing.”

He made a face.  “I hate sushi.”

Of course he did.  Because my job wasn’t hard enough as it was, thank you very much.

I amped up my charm a little.  “Are you sure you won’t sample something?  I mean, hardly anyone is trying the sushi, and I can’t leave until it’s all gone.”  I lowered my voice.  “And I
really
have to use the ladies’ room.”  This was the truth.  The large glass of wine I’d drunk earlier had made my bladder uncomfortably full.