The Blue Room: Vol. 1 Page 6

  Girls like Rita?

  Now I'm more curious than ever to meet him.

  “What does he do to them?”

  “He's one of our best patrons at the club,” says Terrence, as if that settles it. “What he wants, he gets.”

  “So he can have his way with any girl?” The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “What if they say no?”

  His smile is dark. “They never say no.”

  Chapter 9

  “I want to see him,” I say.

  It's the most dangerous thing I've ever said, but right now, I'm sure it's what I want. This man – whoever he is – sounds like someone who might have known Rita. Who might have killed her. No, I won't let myself think that way. All I know is – he might know where Rita is. And right now, that's good enough for me.

  Part of me, too, knows that it'll be easier this way. To do sick, strange things with a stranger won't shake me nearly as much as taking money for sex with Terrence Blue. I'm not afraid of getting hurt.

  “I want to protect you,” he says.

  I want to laugh in his face.

  “You want to protect me?”

  Like he hasn't grown up in the lap of luxury. Like he hasn't grown up with everything he's ever wanted. He thinks I haven't met prostitutes before? Pimps? Men who beat up women? When you grow up in the one-night-cheap motels of Las Vegas, you learn pretty early on that you have to protect yourself. I've been beaten up before. Back when I worked the cash register, drunks would try to get fresh all the time. And he thinks he's going to protect me? Ridiculous.

  I'm going to protect myself. And Rita, too. If she's still alive.

  “Why?”

  “If he can have whatever he wants,” I say, “he's going to have me sooner or later. And I don't want to waste time. Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow. You might want to sell me off while I'm still ready, willing, and able.”

  “I told him you were so new – we didn't have all your paperwork filled out yet. Confidentiality agreements. Security checks. STD testing.”

  “Confidentiality agreements?”

  “This patron is discreet. Not that he needs paperwork to keep people quiet. This guy has a lot of people who – ah – shut people up as necessary.”

  I'm starting to get nervous. But I didn't come to the Blue Room to back out. My intuition tells me that this guy is the guy I want.

  “I want to know who he is.”

  “You don't,” says Terrence. “You're better off not knowing. We have a lot of people who come into the Blue Room. Celebrities, princes, billionaires, politicians. People powerful enough to make those disappear whom they perceive as a threat. Many of our girls don't even know his name. He likes it that way.”

  Did he make Rita disappear? The question has filled my brain so entirely I can't think of anything else.

  “You can at least tell me what he's into,” I say. “I want to be prepared.”

  “He's rough,” said Terrence. “Dominant.”

  “I can handle that.”

  “Are you sure you can?”

  He takes my hand and pushes me onto the bed.

  “When you can't even handle this?”

  He gets on top of me. He's straddling me.

  “He's not going to take his time with you. He's not going to kiss you gently, make you wet. He runs the world. He hasn't got time for that.”

  I can't help myself. Again I'm turned on – so turned on I can't move.

  “Don't move,” he says.

  “I'm not – oh!”

  His tongue is down between my thighs, working its way upwards.

  He finds what he's looking for. I arch my back. The pleasure is so intense I can't stand it. My panties are down somewhere around my ankles; his face is buried between my legs; his tongue is licking me over and over, probing deep, reenacting the motions of his fingers earlier.

  He's right. I can't handle it.

  “You're delicious,” he murmurs, his breath intoxicating me as it ripples between my legs.

  I scream his name over and over when I come.

  “That's one,” he whispers. He strips the dress from me, pulls it onto the floor.

  “I want to eat you all night.”

  I tell myself I'm doing this for Rita. I'm preparing myself for the moment when I'll have to meet this man, have to pretend I know what I'm doing.

  Before I find the truth.

  Right now, I'm lost in him.

  He kisses every part of me, nipping at the most sensitive areas, driving me wild. His tongue finds places I didn't even know were part of me – patches of skin that under him are nothing but nerves.

  “More...” My voice is rough and hungry. “Don't stop.”

  “A second course?”

  He's explored every part of me. Soon he's stripped down to his underwear; soon I'm exploring him, too, with my lips, just as he has explored me.

  At last I can't stand it any longer.

  I tell him exactly what I want him to do to me.

  “Oh, Staci,” he groans. “I wish I could. But Mrs. Walters would have my head.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There's a price on virginity here,” he said. “Stupid, isn't it. When we both know what you're capable of. When we both know how depraved your desires are, how deep they go – in your own mind. But that technicality is worth a pretty penny to several of our patrons.

  “And – this patron? Does he want a virgin?”

  “He shouldn't,” Terrence looks faintly disgusted. “The stuff he's into – it's not exactly how most girls want their first time to be.”

  “I'm not most girls,” I say.

  “He likes virgins,” Terrence says. “He especially likes experienced virgins. Who know how to please a man. But who give him that little ego-boost – of having him been their first.”

  “Then I guess you'll have to leave.” I'm trying to play sassy – but deep down I don't want him to go. I want to stay in his arms until morning. I've come three times tonight, and still I want more. He's awakened a hunger in me I didn't know I had. A knowledge of my own body, my own strength.

  I should feel conquered, I think. Seduced. Instead, I feel in control. Powerful. Like I'm recognizing a part of myself that I didn't even know existed.

  “You're going to have to make up for that somehow,” I say. I'm laughing, even joking as I say it, but I'm proud of the power I have over him when I see the desire cross his face in a smile. “If you can't be inside me...”

  “I'll have to find some other way to make you moan.”

  We understand each other perfectly.

  But when the clock strikes three in the morning, Terrence gets up.

  “Sorry, darling,” he said. “I have an unbroken streak of never spending the night with any woman.”

  I pretend like it's okay.

  After all, I need time to myself. To recover. And to eat. I haven't had dinner and it hits me all at once that I'm starving.

  “Next time,” I try to make it a joke. “Take me out to dinner first.”

  “That'd be a challenge,” he says. “I'm not sure I could be with you in any setting when I couldn't reach up between your legs whenever I wanted. I don't know if I'd be able to stand it.”

  And with that, he leaves me.

  The next morning, I hardly have time to reflect on what's going on. There's no beauty treatment listed on the schedule, but the daily handwritten letter slipped under my door at some insane hour says

  8:00. Mixology. Ben.

  Ben, I learn, is an affable bartender who works in the Blue Room. He shows up at my hotel room with a bottle of Courvoisier in each hand.

  “Sorry it's so early,” he says “I bet you're wondering who on earth drinks at a time like this?

  “Can't we start with mimosas,” I say. “After all, it's not even brunch.”

  “You know what they say.” He grins. “It's five-o-clock somewhere in the world.”

  His task, he explains, is to teach me drinks. Not just how to
make them – that would be too easy. But how to identify wine and fine spirits by their taste, and how to identify men's tastes by just looking at them.

  “The idea is that a good bartender knows what the customer wants before he orders it,” says Ben. “My ex-boyfriend, he used to say he could tell the cocktail order before the customer entered, just by the perfume his female companion was wearing. But that's pretty rare. Still, it's a gift. And learning about fine wines and liqueurs makes you that much more desirable as a companion.” He looks apologetic.

  “Sorry – that's kind of gross, isn't it?”

  I laugh out loud. For the first time, someone in The Blue Room is talking like a real, normal person, not a character out of Eyes Wide Shut.

  “What?”

  “You're the only person here who hasn't acted like this is normal.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I'm not going to pretend I'm not in that world,” he said. “But it's easier for me if I hold onto myself in the process.” His gaze turns dark. “You know – everyone is for sale here,” he says. “Whether they want to be or not.”

  I wonder who has sold him, and when.

  “I'm prepared to accept that,” I say.

  “Why?”

  He's so nice, so warm, so trustworthy-seeming, that I almost tell him about Rita on the spot. But I think better of it. I can't trust anybody just yet. Not Ben. Not Terrence. Not even myself.

  “There are worse things than sex,” I say. I think of my mother in her hospital bed. “There are worse ways to sell yourself.”

  He nods, and for a second his stare grows melancholy.

  He's seen things, I think.

  “Come on,” he says. “Let's start with the wines. Maybe if we get tipsy by the afternoon, it'll make your 5 pm. more appealing.”

  I look at the schedule. 5 pm. Basics of the Global Economy.

  “My community college never had this stuff,” I joke. “Guess I'm finally getting an education.”

  “Careful, Staci.” His voice is low. “There's some things here nobody ever wants to learn.”

  Chapter 10

  It is going to be a special night. That much I learn from the handwritten note Mrs. Walters slips under my door at 7 pm. There is to be no client tonight. Instead, I am going to be going to the Blue Room to learn how things worked as, as she puts it, a “silent observer.” I understand at once what she means. No more punching and kicking like last time. I'm going to learn how the other girls – the real girls – perform. I'm going to know my place and keep my mouth shut.

  “Don't worry,” Ben smiles gently at me. “I'll be there. Serving drinks. That's all I do...now.” The now is final and I wonder how much of Ben was really for sale. “I'll keep an eye out for anyone sketchy.”

  I'm not sure how to feel. Part of me is nervous – it's one thing to be one-on-one with a client, quite another to be peacocking around in front of several of the Blue Room's most important, most notable clients. Trying to compete with the other girls there. Who am I kidding – I'm nobody's competition. These girls have been in the business for months or years. They've been whipped into shape by Mrs. Walters – and those that haven't have been kicked to the curb long-since. I'm going to be the newbie. The bottom on the totem pole. Fresh meat. It's been like that every job I ever worked in Vegas and LA alike. Last on, first off. That's what they say.

  “The Never Knights are playing tonight,” says Ben. “So it's not going to be quite like usual Apparently Danny Blue has been pushing to give the Blue Room a better image.”

  “Who's Danny?”

  “Terrence's half-brother,” Ben explains. “He's not like Terrence. I mean – he used to be, from what I hear, but now he's a one-woman man. A Never Knight man, at that. He's sworn off his bachelor days – and his old way of doing things. If he had his way the Blue Room would be shut down completely, or turned into a more conventional theater or music venue. He's weirded out by the whole sex thing.”

  “I can see why.”

  Ben grins. “He's one of the good ones, this Danny. He used to be in the Never Knights. But since his father got sick he's been taking a more managerial role. Hanging up the whole guitar. Poor guy. He never wanted any of this, from what I hear. Just to teach music in California and play his guitar. But he figured – better him than Terrence.”

  Better him than Terrence. I think longingly of last night. I can just about deal with one Blue boy in my life – but two? I sigh. Good thing Danny has a girlfriend – because I couldn't withstand the advances of another one.

  When we arrive at the Blue Room, the curtains are drawn tight around the stage. It's a huge stage – it could fit a whole Broadway cast on it, I think – but tonight it's a more intimate setting, and the deep velvet curtains are tight around the band.

  I sigh involuntarily.

  It could have been me, I think. It was me – for one night, at least. I had my shot. But now I knew I was needed elsewhere. For more intimate performances.

  I'm prepared to hate Never Knight. A beautiful rock-star's daughter making her own name for herself – yeah, right. More likely she'd been funded by Daddy's money and fame. I can't imagine her ever having it difficult in her whole life. Daddy had probably bought her a guitar by the time she was out of the womb.

  But once the Never Knights started to play, I can't deny that Neve is good. Very good. She has a raw sexuality – but more than that, she has a real sense of mischief, of fun. Like she is enjoying herself up there. She's just singing for herself and for her bandmates, not for any of the men. She isn't selling anything. She isn't playing a role. She is just herself – powerful and fierce, and fiercely talented.

  I am won over.

  The rest of the band is just as good. The guitarist – “Danny's replacement,” whispers Ben into my ear – is a tiny girl with an enormous pink bob and equally large saucer-green eyes, marked clearly in black liner. Her leather pants fit perfectly; her T-shirt is torn, showing off her perfect abs. She's fierce, too.

  Neve is a vision. Her silver dress shows off her long tanned legs, her curvaceous body. All the guys are staring at her. Including Terrence. My jealousy comes back.

  Must be easy, I think. To be so sexy for yourself. To not have to put on a performance just for someone else.

  “Hey, sexy!” I flinch as I hear Terrence approach Neve as she gets offstage.

  “Hey, creepy,” she rolls her eyes at him before jumping into Danny's arms, kissing him so violently that I feel ashamed of my earlier envy. Neve's clearly besotted with Danny – and he with her.

  The crowd's going wild for their performance. They cheer, scream, and shout.

  But what they don't do is stand.

  It takes me a second to figure out why.

  People at the Blue Room want to stay in the dark.

  I decide to sneak backstage. From there, I reason, I'll be able to get a better view. Maybe one of the audience members tonight is my mysterious client – the one who, I'm sure, knows what happened to Rita.

  I tiptoe backstage, ignoring Ben's whispered protestations.

  “Hey!”

  One of the band-members passes me.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  He's got big brown eyes and a charming, even innocent smile.

  “Have a beer!”

  I offer him one from my platter.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Under 21.”

  I look at him in shock. Of all the rules that are being broken here, I didn't expect that to be the one people objected to.

  “Seriously?”

  He smiles bashfully at me.

  Before I can ask him if he's sure, his band-mate – a tall, lanky redhead with a carefree air about him– grabs it and downs it.

  “Luc may care,” he grins widely at me. “But I sure don't.”

  “Steve's above the law,” Luc rolls his eyes.

  So's everyone here.

  “We're gonna go meet some girls!”

  Something about the way Steve says it stops me dead in my tracks. Thes
e two boys – they can't be more than twenty – and they're already seeking out prostitutes like us?

  Prostitutes like me.

  I'm almost ashamed. The thought that one of them could buy and sell me makes me feel sick. They're both handsome, but in the moment I can't be attracted to either of them. They're just clients, after all.

  “If you want to arrange a meeting with a Blue girl...” My voice is stilted and cold. Like Mrs. Walters.

  “A Blue girl? What's that?” Luc's eyes are so wide.

  “She means a groupie, stupid. Don't you?”

  A groupie. A nice, normal girl. One who wants to sleep with a rock star. And who doesn't get paid. Who's in it for the fun.

  “Come have a drink with us!” Luc smiles. “Well, I'll have an ice-tea, but...”

  “I can't,” I say. “I'm working.”

  “When do you get off work?”

  I can't tell them the truth. I never get off work.

  “I can't,” I say. “I'm waiting for someone.”

  I look over at Terrence to see his eyes are only for Neve.

  The others pick up on it, and I curse my inability to hide it.

  “Join the club, uh...”

  “Staci.”

  “Staci.” Steve grins again. “Me, I'm a player – I'm not going to deny that, but I have my limits. Terrence Blue has no limits. In number of women or in...the depths of his depravity.” He winks. “I hope you're into the kinky stuff.”

  I hope they don't see me blushing.

  “Terrence the Terror.” Luc sighs.

  “You know him, then?”

  “We know Danny. We're friends,” says Luc. Then, “kind of.”

  “Kind of?” I ask.

  “I appear to be the only straight man in the world utterly immune to Neve's charms,” Steve laughs. “I mean – I love her as a friend, but thinking about her romantically is like thinking about a sister or something...Luc didn't feel the same way.”

  Luc looks embarrassed.

  “Oh,” I stutter. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...”

  “Ancient history,” Luc says with difficulty.

  “Anyway, Luc's got Riley now.”