Whispers in the Night (14 page)

“So . . . what do you do, Damon?”

“Why do you want to know?” His response sounded too harsh and tinged with suspicion even to him. But he wasn't in the mood to be conned. He was a good customer and a great tipper. He had even been gentlemanly with all the girls who had performed for him in the VIP, always asking before he squeezed their nipples or smacked their asses.

A frown marred her delicate face. She picked up her drink. “I didn't mean to disturb you. Thanks for the drink.” She then made to get up.

Damon gestured a bit dramatically for her to stay. Could she have really just wanted to know his name and what he did for a living? He hadn't met many women, and no exotic dancers, who had seemed all that interested in him unless something was in it for them. Could Hypnotize, the diva of club Tamales, actually be different? The thought fluttered on hopeful, beer-soaked wings through his mind, before he reluctantly dismissed it.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Please, don't go.” He had never been good reading or using the signs, gestures, and phrases of seduction. He had always preferred things more straightforward. “Didn't mean to come off so gruff. I . . . I work at Dunlap College in West Point. I'm a dorm director.”

“Really?” She leaned in closer. He would never forget the perfumed scent of her skin that night.

“Yeah.” Damon smiled sheepishly, unable to resist being pulled into her orbit.

“So, what's it like?” She reached across the table, touching his arm with manicured nails. Her touch was as warm as her eyes. “Do you deal with guys or girls? Upperclassmen? Freshmen?”

“I run a coed building . . . upperclassmen.”

“That must not be too bad. You must be glad you don't have to deal with any badass freshmen.”

Damon found himself nodding at her declaration. He had been assigned to a freshmen hall his first year on the job. It had been one of the most wretched experiences of his career.

Seeming to peer into his mind, she nodded with a wistful twinkle in her eyes. “I know I raised enough hell when I was a freshman.”

“Do you go to school around here?” He squeaked over the lump in his throat, his heart racing at the thought that Hypnotize was a Dunlap student. He had heard about several girls from the college who danced locally in West Point. That had been another reason he had decided to seek his pleasures far away from familiar eyes.

“No . . . well, not yet, at least. I had gone to school at Clark for a year before coming back home.”

“Why did you move back?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Her face closed up at the question before she stared down at her drink.

“Didn't mean to pry,” he said quickly.

“No, it's okay.” She paused, looking at him again, really looking at him as if she were judging him. He fought his natural instinct to turn away from such scrutiny. To this day, he was glad that he had.

“I . . . dropped out after I got pregnant.”

He couldn't help but gaze over her body, even looking under the table, the brazen, alcohol-fed reaction eliciting a self-conscious chuckle from her. “Damn, you came through all right.” Even in the murky lighting of the club, her skin shone luminous and unmarked by the strains of childbirth.

“Thank you.” Her smile was even more radiant.

“May I ask you a question?” He then leaned in closer to her.

“Yes, Damon?”

“Why . . .” His liquored suaveness had forsaken him, leaving him to stumble over his words. “Why are you talking to me?”

She laughed. His face had grown hot as the dam of past rejections had burst open. Sensing his distress, Hypnotize quickly said, her expression sympathetic, “I've seen you come in here a couple of times. And you seemed nice. Smart. You don't bullshit the girls or act like an asshole like some of the other customers do.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You've never danced for me, so how would you know how I act?”

“We girls talk,” Hypnotize said conspiratorially, her gaze coasting over to the changing room. “In there.”

“Really?”

“Really.” A fit of giggles shattered her serious expression.

“Since you know my name . . . it's only right that I know yours.” Damon rarely asked dancers for their real names. It hadn't really been all that important, and plus, too much reality shattered the illusion that he had paid to see.

“Marie. My name's Marie.”

He stiffly shook her hand. “What about your baby? Boy or girl?”

“A boy. His name's Joshua.” She made to reach for the obligatory photos, before smacking her blemish-free forehead in mock consternation. “Sometimes I forget when I'm half naked.”

“I wish we could all be so fortunate.” He had been proud of his quip. From that moment on, Hypnotize had become his favorite dancer. Snicka, Blaze, and Honey Bunz had all been forgotten.

 

 

Damon glanced at his watch again: 10:45. Okay, it didn't appear that Marie was going to show, he realized.
Probably because she knew I was going to be here
, he surmised. He was a creature of habit, after all, and Marie knew him in a lot of ways better than his own family did.

The last time he had gone to Tamales, things had ended a little shaky between them, but he had hoped that she wasn't still mad at him. He had given her a whole month to hopefully let things settle down between them. After her set, he asked her to go to the VIP. After the second private dance, and in between records, she sat on his lap. Automatically, his arms coiled around her slender stomach. She leaned back into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. It was at that serene moment of blissful tranquility that his nature got the better of him.

I'd had too much to drink that night, said something I shouldn't
, he tried to convince himself for the umpteenth time. He was surely not the first guy, and definitely not the first patron, to ask her for sex. Sitting up, Marie had just looked at him, with a lopsided smile that slowly dissipated before the light dimmed in her eyes.

“You're serious?” Her tone was incredulous.

“Well . . .” He shrugged. “I . . . mean . . . we're friends and all.”

“So? What's that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing . . . I mean. It's just been a long time . . . since Cheryl. You know.”

“And what's that got to do with me?”

“I . . . I've got money. I'll take care of you.”

“What? I can't believe you just came at me like that.”

“Like what?” Treacherous anger shredded his buzz. “I know what kind of shit goes on in places like this. I'll take care of you.”

“Like hell.” She grabbed his arms. He wouldn't let her go.

“Let's talk about this,” he pleaded. “I didn't mean anything by it.”

“I'm not a ho, Damon,” she bleated, tears brimming in her eyes. She tried to break his grip.

Then what are you?
He remembered the vicious thought sluicing through his mind. But gratefully, a modicum of sense had by then returned. “I'm sorry, Marie. I just . . .” The words had faded away with his resolve. He had let her go, and Marie had jetted out of the VIP.

Despite their friendship, Marie established boundaries early on. She gave him her e-mail address, and even accepted a gift or two, but not her cell number and no dates. As long as he'd had Cheryl, sex with Marie had been a fantasy often used to get him off after one of his Tamales excursions.

But after Cheryl, he had allowed the crushing loneliness and the burning horniness to get the best of him. After making an ass of himself at the club, he had sent several e-mails to Marie, trying to explain what he did and why he did it. He was a good guy, just out for a little fun. And though he might run out every now and then, he didn't mean anything by it. He was just a man, after all.

She hadn't replied to any of his electronic entreaties. He had hoped to see her tonight, and see if she was willing to let bygones be bygones. But if she wasn't, if she thought he was perverted or something, not only was their friendship over, but she would surely ruin his reputation for courtly behavior with the rest of the girls. If he couldn't smooth things out, he would have to find a new club.

Not only did she seem to be avoiding him, but she must've convinced the other dancers to join in a coven against him. Downing the remainder of his beer, he placed it beside the others before making his way to the exit.

Detouring at the bathroom, Damon dispensed most of the beer in the bathroom's urinal, afraid to even go into the bathroom stall, the stench from it permeating the walls. He zipped up and ran some cold water on his hands, a veteran enough to know that there was no soap in the soap dispenser hanging from the wall above the sink. He took a quick glance in the mirror, checking to see how red his eyes were.

Pleased with the results, he squared his shoulders, opened the bathroom door, fortifying himself to leave Tamales forever . . .

And then he saw
her.

Standing calmly on the stage, decked in a sable sarong with matching bra, her svelte body radiated passion and poise.

“Fellas, Tamales is proud to bring to the stage, all the way from the Islands . . .” The DJ's voice took on a faux Caribbean patois. “. . . Noir.”

Damon absently closed the bathroom door without taking his eyes off her.
Noir
. The word rolled around in his mind, its shadowy and sensual connotations thrilling him.

Ghosting to the stage, feeling disconnected from his legs, or the rest of his body for that matter, Damon blinked in surprise when he actually found himself eyeing Noir's pierced navel.

He took a slow, loving appraisal of her as his gaze made its way to her face. Rich skin a shade beyond sepia, purple, or coal, as Stygian as the night itself, the woman's body seemed to have been carved by a sculptor more than formed in the womb of a living being. Lighter-skinned women, especially redbones like Cheryl or Marie, had always been Damon's preference, but none of them compared to obsidian Noir.

Continuing his inspection, he felt a primal energy coiled within the woman's taut muscles. Unlike supple, voluptuous Hypnotize, Noir was angular. Hard.

Both haughtiness and fierceness warred behind her dark eyes as she looked down at him, though her aristocratic features were impassive. Her regal face was crowned with a short, kinky natural. She reminded him of one of the ancient Egyptian or Abyssinian queens in the Art History textbook a resident had given him after she had been unable to sell it at the “Book Buy Back” last semester.

Strange that he was thinking of crazy shit like that now of all times, he thought, while the most enigmatic and fascinating woman he had ever seen stood before him. Even the DJ respected the sanctity of the moment, of Damon's discovery, because he had refrained from his cacophonic ministrations for a brief respite. An eye in the hurricane, Damon realized as soon as the music began and Noir quickly dispatched both bra and sarong, her onyx body twisting into a carnal dervish. It was the performance of a lifetime, for the both of them.

After the last dance hall number had ended for her unusual solitary set, Damon was waiting by the steps as Noir descended the stage, bra hanging from her neck as she wrapped the sarong around her dangerous hips. In heels, she met his gaze at eye level. A fine coating of perspiration made her dusky skin shine as if polished.

“That was awesome,” Damon struggled to say, reaching into his pocket to hand her a ten-dollar bill. He had already left a great portion of his paycheck, in ones and fives, on the stage. Noir hadn't even acknowledged his generosity, and he was shocked that she didn't seem all that concerned about the green littering the stage even now.

Every dancer, Marie included, was zealous about getting each dollar she felt owed them. But it appeared that Noir was different. But if she wasn't in it for the money, then why was she here?

“How . . . how did you learn to dance like that?” Damon asked, trying to fill up the vacuum. Noir had been content to stand there, merely gazing at him, her expression giving away nothing as she fastened her bra.
Well, say something
, Damon demanded in his mind.

Changing tactics, determined to get some kind of response from this woman, unable to be ignored, he asked, “The tattoo, on your back, I was trying to make it out while you were dancing, but you were moving so, so . . .” Images of her sinuous form seducing the lucky dance pole flittered through his mind, momentarily robbing him of speech.

She smiled all of a sudden, quickly turning her back to him. Still, he was able to make out only a letter or two of the heavily Gothic script running along her upper back. Its dark ink blended almost too well into her skin.

“Succubus,” she said, her words clipped, precise, her accent perhaps West Indian. “It comes from ancient legend. Succubae were female demons that seduced men while they slept.”

He shook his head. Damon hadn't expected too many sisters, especially those that shed their clothes for a living, to know anything about medieval mythology. “I know what a succubus is.”

“You think so?” Though her lips were pinched, her tone was now playful. “I don't think you do.”

“Well, yeah, I read about it . . .” he began defensively, for some reason feeling a need to explain himself.

“Do you want a private dance?” she asked, cutting him off.

“Well . . . . uh, sure.”
Don't you mean hell yes
? his inner voice chided.
Hop on that shit!

She wrapped a hand in his. Her grip was cold and leathery, scaly almost. “Come with me. Something tells me you're no stranger to this place.” She led him toward the VIP lounge.