Skin (3 page)

Her basic instincts told her to get out now.

Hope that had never died made her stay.

oOo

“DRINK?” the bartender asked.

“The usual, Joe,” Michael Wyndham said as he glanced at the new dancer, Caresse, on stage. “And run a tab.”

“You got it.”
The young bartender who was working his way through college with what he made here set a bottle of German beer in front of Michael.
“How’s your documentary coming?”

Michael shrugged. “Not as quickly as I would like.”

“Yeah, these girls don’t trust
no one
.”

Sometimes Michael thought he’d been coming here too long and should just give up, but the place kept drawing him back.
And the women.
“A lot of interviews, but I still haven’t figured out what makes the dancers tick.”

Would he ever?

“Maybe you should stick to subjects closer to home like Fight.”

“What, you think I was part of a fight club? I didn’t even know anyone personally. It was just a subject that had a gut draw. I delved into why the hell guys would take up such a brutal hobby.”

Which gave it a similar thread to Skin.

He guessed that was his theme, figuring out why people did what they did when it didn’t make sense to him.

“Keep at it, then. You’ll get it.” Joe moved away, saying, “Got another customer.”

Michael knew he was going to keep at if he ever wanted to understand his birth mother.

His parents had never hidden the fact that they’d adopted him, and after high school, they’d given him an envelope with information about her. He hadn’t wanted to betray his
real
parents and so hadn’t opened the envelope. Not for years. But he hadn’t been able to forget about it, and eventually he’d had to look. And then he’d had to track her down.

Breezy
Summers
. By then, that was his birth mother’s stage name. He’d learned she’d never tried any other way to make a living.
Had never wanted to.
Nearing fifty and with three failed marriages behind her – none of those men his father – she was still stripping. He just didn’t get it. The thought of how she’d lived her life haunted him.

The idea of a documentary exploring her world, getting into the minds of the women who did what she did, had come to him slowly. He had enough production day work to keep him solvent. This particular documentary was his latest personal project, but he hadn’t yet found the narrative thread that would be the heart of Skin.

He took a swig of his beer, and when he lowered the bottle, it was to see a dark-haired woman at the fringe of the bar area. She was nervously looking around as if trying to orient herself, as if seeing Club Paradise for the first time. Dressed conservatively in loose gray trousers and a looser silk shirt that almost hid her curves, she had a natural beauty that she couldn’t hide.

Now why was
she
here?

What was
her
story?

Something he would like to find out.

oOo

REFUSING TO MEET any of their gazes, Lilith wandered over to the bar, wondering how any woman could thrive in such a lurid, sexist atmosphere.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.

“A sparkling water with lime.”

She paid for the high-priced water and sipped, her gaze constantly moving over the room until it rested on a dancer soliciting a customer for a lap dance.

The young man appeared to be about Lilith’s age. He was nice looking and nicely
dressed,
a boy-next-door type with sandy hair and pleasing features. He appeared embarrassed by the dancer’s direct approach. She laughed at him and turned her back, obviously scouting the crowd for a better bet. The young man glanced around furtively, and Lilith could swear he purposely tripped the dancer as she started off. Then he acted solicitous in helping the young woman up while his hands were all over her.

How could she let him touch her like that?
A stranger?
Were they all so careless of their bodies? Was Hannah?

Lilith shivered in disgust.

What she wanted to do was charge backstage and
demand
to see the dancer who called herself Anna Youngheart. How long was she going to have to wait before the woman showed? How long before she was finally reunited with her sister?

“Looking for company?”
came
a male voice from behind her.

She started and whipped around to stare at a beard-stubbled face, whose attractive owner seemed interested and, unless she was now imagining things, quietly amused at her expense. Her quick impression of him: lean strength; dark, slicked-back hair a shade too long; a beat away from fashionable; spooky gray eyes.

“I’d prefer my own company, thank you,” she said, picking up her drink and sipping.

His eyebrows lifted fractionally.
“Strange place to pick if you want to be alone.
Or do you really?”

“I said I did.”

He took the empty seat next to her anyway, the deliberately perverse action irritating Lilith, even though he scooted his stool in the opposite direction and gave her plenty of breathing room. So why did she feel like she had just run up a flight of steps?

Everything about Club Paradise made her a little uneasy.

“You’re alone,” the stranger assured her. “I’m not here.”

Her hold tightened on her drink, and her gaze wandered about the room in every direction but his. Still, she was aware of him ordering a beer, which no doubt meant she was stuck with his company unless
she
moved. Only he’d taken the last vacant stool at the bar.

“But if I were here,” he suddenly went on, “I would introduce myself. Michael Wyndham.”

He didn’t seem to require an answer. He certainly seemed laid-back if perverse.

“And I might speculate as to what it is about a place like this that appeals to a woman like you.”

At that she flashed him an angry glare.

“Well, come on, you’re not the usual customer,” he clarified, paying for the beer.

“Look,” Lilith said, “I’m certain plenty of women would be charmed by you–”

“Knowing why people do things is kind of a hobby of mine. No offense, but you really aren’t the typical Club Paradise patron. Yet you must want something.”

“Peace and quiet.”

“Like I said, you’re in the wrong place.”

“Then try breathing room.”

“I thought I gave it to you.” He slid off the stool. “But if I was mistaken, I apologize.”

Saluting her with his beer bottle, he strolled away from the bar and over to a small empty table also in the back of the club. He folded his length into the chair nearest the wall, leaned back and watched not only the Asian dancer on stage, but other men, as if analyzing their reactions to her gyrations.

Lilith’s gut instinct was telling her that this Michael Wyndham didn’t fit here any more than she did.

Then what was he doing here?

A sudden ruckus on the other side of the room drew her attention.

A chair-back bounced off the floor and the customer who’d been sitting there bent over and drew a knife from his ankle. The weapon flashed at a muscular dark-haired man who looked deceptively calm before he struck out, disarmed the drunk and threw him on the floor, applying a shoe to the guy’s windpipe. Within seconds, two bouncers grabbed the downed man and escorted him out of the club.

The dancer on stage never even missed a beat.

“Who was that guy?” a man asked the bartender.

“Name’s Gabe O’Malley.
A regular.
Got a temper I wouldn’t cross.”

As if nothing at all had happened, the man in question slipped back into his seat and downed a shot.

The waiting seemed interminable. One dancer blended into another. Lilith’s senses were assaulted by the music that seared her ears, the mixture of thick smoke and cheap perfume that clogged her nostrils and throat, the private lap dances that made her stomach churn.

She prayed it wouldn’t be Hannah. And she prayed it would. No matter what she’d done to survive, Lilith loved her sister and wanted Hannah back in her life.

And then the music shifted to an oldie; and Lilith watched, mesmerized,
as
the young woman called Anna Youngheart took the stage and began to strip.

She wanted to get closer, to see Anna’s face, to assure herself of the woman’s identity one way or the other.

Photographs could lie.

She white-knuckled her drink glass as the dancer sashayed down the ramp and flirted with the men in the audience who waved money at her. They tucked that money in her garter, and in her thong bottom. They took their time, their fingers lingering on her flesh. Not only did she let them, she seemed to enjoy the attention.

Lilith could still picture her kid sister, a slight figure prancing around their bedroom to some old rock tune. Then the vision of innocence vanished to be replaced by the woman who had command over the men for whom she danced.

She blinked but the image before her didn’t change.

Hannah – it really was her sister!

Hannah licked her lips and leaned forward to give one guy a better shot at the flesh nestled in her sheer bra. And then, to Lilith’s absolute horror, while Anna/Hannah was still bending forward, she deliberately undid the bra and let her breasts swing free in the guy’s face.

Lilith wanted to go up to the stage and rescue her sister, wanted to haul her out of this nightmare.

So why didn’t she do something?

Anything?

Why sit here... frozen... paralyzed?

Lilith felt helpless. Emotional paralysis washed over her like a wave, stripping her of the ability to act.

And then suddenly she realized it was too late to do anything.

The music segued into a different tune as her sister sashayed off the stage.

Lilith set down her drink and forced herself to her feet. Her gaze went to the left of the stage, to a scantily clad dancer coming through a doorway. Not Hannah. But surely that was the entrance to the dressing rooms.

Her stomach fisted. She ignored the eyes that followed her as she made her way to that doorway. She was almost there, within a few yards, when a big guy in a tux stepped between it and her. She tried to waltz around him, but he was fast for someone so big. Still...

“I need to get back there,” she said with a plastic smile.

“Not without an invitation.”

He didn’t have to work to look threatening, but Lilith was pretty sure she could take him if she put her mind to it.

Adrenaline rushed hot along her limbs, but her heart was pounding, and she could hardly breathe. Part of her wanted to get to the dressing rooms at all costs. The other part wanted to run and never look back.

Forget the whole thing.

But forget Hannah?

Isn’t that what she’d done all those years ago?

Another scantily clad dancer came through the doorway into the club. When she saw Lilith, a cunning smile turned up her mouth.

“Lap dance, honey?” She licked her lips provocatively. “Or did you have something more
personal
in mind?”

Men all around her were staring again. Their gazes felt disgusting, like bugs crawling over her.
Men waiting for her answer.

“You’d better get back to your seat, Miss,” the bouncer said, his tone kind.

Sucking in air, Lilith nodded and backed away as the dancer whispered something to the bouncer and then laughed.

Face hot with her humiliation, Lilith turned and fled toward the club’s exit.

She glanced back once only to be caught by the man who’d identified himself as Michael Wyndham. His intense gaze was pinned to
her
all the way across the room as she escaped into the night.

oOo

FRESHENING HER MAKEUP, Hannah shook off the weird feeling that she’d seen a ghost. She’d only gotten a glimpse of the lone woman near the bar, but seeing her had given Hannah a start. So when she went back into the club to look around for someone she knew would be good for at least a C-note, she was searching for the woman, as well.
Or maybe instead.
Though she scanned the room, the dark-haired woman was nowhere to be seen.

Jerked out of her thoughts by a hand clamping down on her arm, she forced a smile to her lips when she saw it was Paul Ensdorf.

“Hey, sexy, how you doin’ tonight?” she murmured as she stopped before Melinda’s brother.

“I’ll be better if you give me a lap dance.”

“Mmm,” she murmured, moving in closer, her thighs spread over his.

Other than to give them tips, the men weren’t allowed to touch the dancers. But after Paul slipped that C-note in her bra, she let him brush his knuckles across her flesh and ran her tongue over her full lips like it was some kind of promise.

Paul practically salivated. And Hannah smiled with satisfaction as she gyrated to the music – an imitation of the sex act.

She liked the mastery she had over men. The music ended, and she slid back, her gaze once more roaming the room.

Paul asked, “What are you doing Monday?”

“You tell me,” she said distractedly.

“High tea – very classy, just like you.”

Sighing, she gave him her full attention and wondered how much that would be worth to him. “Then I guess I’ll like it.”

“Afterward, we can come back to my place. Grandmother will be visiting friends at the nursing home.”

Hannah ignored her stomach tightening at being alone with him in that old mausoleum of a building again. Melinda had warned her about going there. She’d said their grandmother was an old bitch from hell and was keeping Paul’s balls for him. Paul was more than a little weird, but so what? A mortician made big bucks, and no way would Hannah turn him down if he wanted to spend more money on her away from the club. A girl needed some good times to get her mind off the bad, and after all, she didn’t actually sleep with him.

“Monday, then,” she murmured.

“I can’t wait.”

Throwing him a kiss, Hannah floated away as if she was in heaven because he’d asked her out.