First Kiss (12 page)

Kiki zipped down the window, grateful for the whipping summer wind. "Fab Tomba, Fab Tomba, Fab Tomba," she muttered against the hot breeze, his name tripping off her lips with all the sweetness and effortlessness of powdered sugar. The total recall of that first kiss ran like instant replay in her mind. Oh, God, it had been fantastic. Correction. Beyond fantastic. As first kisses go, the only way to describe it was well, off the charts.

Kiki's body still hummed from the sensual memory. When her mouth had been crushed against his, there hadn't been a muscle, a nerve, a cell, not so much as a nanosecond of a buried impulse, that didn't sing with blissful harmony for the here-and-now and the what-would-be. If a simple kiss carried that kind of impact, then the sixty-thousand-dollar question was this: What would making love to him yield?

She smiled to herself as the image of him leaving the suite with a slight smear of Fango mud on his face tattooed her brain. Part of Kiki had felt obliged to tell him. But the more devious part of her won out in the end. Maybe it was the secret knowledge of him unknowingly walking around with war paint from that cosmic kiss. The idea made her glow with happiness.

Finally, the cab jerked to a stop in front of Lenox Hill Hospital. Kiki paid the fare and dashed inside through the emergency room entrance, ignoring the odd looks as she arrowed directly toward a tired-looking nurse behind the main reception desk. "I'm looking for Danni Summer."

The nurse checked records and pointed in a vague direction.

Kiki followed the ambivalent finger. She darted in and out of semiprivate rooms until she found Danni, sharing recovery space with a patient coughing so violently that Kiki swore the woman might hack up those weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

"Oh, my God!" Kiki exclaimed, thunderstruck by Danni's condition. "What happened?"

Danni stared back miserably, her right leg elevated, her left shoulder in a sling. "Occupational hazards." Her voice was late-night hoarse.

The one-woman leper colony started up again.

Kiki gave her a half-empathetic, half-disgusted smile before closing a flimsy curtain. Not the obliteration she longed for but better than nothing. She took a deep breath and returned her focus to Danni, wincing at the sight. Her friend's pain was palpable.

"Don't worry. I just need some rest," Danni croaked. "The injuries are fairly minor."

" Minor ? You look like you got hit by a bus."

"It's just a damaged rotator cuff from hanging on the pole. My knee was swollen, too. The doctor said that was from dancing on high heels. He drained some water from it. That relieved most of the pressure. But it still hurts."

Kiki reached out to brush a tendril of hair away from Danni's eyes. "Sweetie, you have to slow down. All of this dancing is too hard on your body. I mean, if you're not careful, you could really develop a serious injury."

Danni managed a brief smile. "The doctor told me the exact same thing. He must be feeding you these lines."

"I haven't even seen a doctor," Kiki said sharply. "The only medical person I've encountered is a nar-coleptic nurse."

"Well, he's around here somewhere," Danni replied. And then, sotto voce."

"He looks just like George Clooney. I think I'm in love."

Kiki adjusted Danni's pillows. "So much for your fear of hospitals."

Danni grinned, somewhat dreamily now. "Oh, Dr. Wonderful gave me a sedative to calm me down." She appeared to be fading by the second. "Your face is green. Did you know that?"

Kiki took Danni's hand and squeezed gently. "Yes, sweetie, I know my face is green."

"I can't stop dancing, Kiki," Danni murmured. Her eyelids fluttered. "It's like a sports injury, you know? I just have to tough it out and get back on the field. There are so many Bon Jovi songs that I haven't choreographed yet. Like 'You Give Love a Bad Name.' "

Kiki brooked no argument. "We can talk about all of this later, sweetie. Why don't you go to sleep?"

"Call Suzi-Su," Danni muttered, trailing off, falling in and out of consciousness.

"I will," Kiki promised. But it suddenly dawned on her why Suzi-Suzi had been unreachable. This was the one night of the week that Chad slept over, and Suzi-Suzi unplugged the phone to give him the full, unencumbered-by-the-outside-world Stepford wife treatment. Kiki sighed. Friends. Couldn't live with them. Couldn't live without them. Couldn't institutionalize them.

As Danni drifted into a deep sleep, Kiki stood there and began a soliloquy about Fab. She was dying to talk to someone so badly that even a zonked-out person would do in a pinch. She blathered on about his kindness in discounting the hotel suite, his surprise appearance with the Spice Market dinner, his uncanny ability to psychoanalyze and seduce at the same time.

"Please tell me you don't mean the Fab Tomba," Danni murmured. For a split second, her eyes opened, then closed again.

Kiki clung to the idea that Danni was still conscious enough to finish this train of thought. In fact, right now that hope and that hope alone was setting the rhythm of Kiki's heartbeat.

"He used to date Tiffany Lynn a dancer at the club," Danni whispered before slipping back into oblivion. Only this time she stayed there.

Kiki yearned to counteract the sedative. Maybe Ritalin? Or shock treatment? She wanted chapter and verse on everything Danni knew about Fab. But the idea of getting it tonight was officially a dead issue. "Why does everything happen to me?" Kiki wailed. And then a crazy idea burned up her brain stem. She glanced at the clock on the wall. By stripper standards, the night had only just begun. Danni might be down for the count, but this Tiffany Lynn person was probably getting warmed up to set the Champagne Room on fire.

A wave of guilt rolled over Kiki. How could she even entertain the notion of leaving Danni alone in the hospital? Hmm. Well, when you really thought about the situation, it wasn't so terrible. Not like Danni's condition was life-threatening. Please. The girl was already yammering on about returning to work. And she was under a doctor's carea dead ringer for George Clooney, no less. By comparison, Danni was in better shape than Kiki!

All guilt cast aside, Kiki commandeered Danni's cellular and scrolled through the stored numbers until she found a listing for club. That had to be it. She dialed.

"Camisole," a female voice smacked while the driving bass of Usher's "Yeah" thundered in the background.

"Is Tiffany Lynn working tonight?" Kiki asked.

"Sure. Come party with her, honey. Get a private dance. Bring your man. He'll love it. Or just stop in alone if that's your thing."

Kiki rolled her eyes. What a sales pitch. The girl had obviously been listening to too many Dale Carnegie tapes. "Thanks." And then she hung up, kissed Danni on the cheek, and dashed out.

Luckily, the so-called gentlemen's club was on the East Side and only a short cab ride away. Why did they call these places gentlemen's clubs anyway? A better choice would be an oasis for pigs or haven for

horny losers . Hmm. Maybe a subject worthy of tackling in her book.

A thick bouncer with biceps for brains blocked the entrance and shook down Kiki for a thirty-dollar cover charge. "Hey, baby, what's up with the face? Is it Halloween? Nobody told me."

"Nobody told you it was 2005, either," Kiki shot back. "Acid wash went out in the eighties."

The already drunk Wall Street types filing in behind her cackled like high school boys who had just heard a good your-mama's-so-ugly joke.

Camisole marketed itself with illusions of grandeur, using "The Manhattan man's first choice in upscale adult entertainment" as a positioning line. But at the end of the day, the parlance meant nothing.

A strip club was a strip club. Music thrashed. Strobe lights flashed. Lasers scanned. Mirrors amplified. Smoke billowed. And herds of young executive maleshighly successful and highly stressedwere in great moods because hot girls were naked.

Prince's hard-charging "D.M.S.R." exploded from the speakers. "Never mind your friends/Girl it ain't no sin/To strip right down to your underwear." Rock's diminutive royalty rasped the lyrics over a beat that tested the mettle of the state-of-the-art sound system.

On the stage, two dancers walked slowly back and forth, looking bored. Basically, they were doing noth-ing. But the girls were nude. So in the great American pecking order of amazing routines, this ranked right up there with the best of David Copperfield at least with the crowd gathered here tonight.

A fast-moving barmaid with an empty drink tray stopped to give Kiki a strange look. "Nice makeup. Very She-Hulk. Can I get you anything?"

Kiki smiled, shaking her head. "I'm just looking for Tiffany Lynn."

"She's up there," the waitress said, pointing at the stage. "The blond one."

Kiki maneuvered her way to the lip of the performance platform. Up close, Tiffany Lynn was more than a dime-a-dozen exotic dancer. The girl was truly beautiful. Funny that the mention of Charlize Theron had only hours ago tripped off Fab's lips, because this woman could easily be her twin.

Tiffany Lynn arched her back and popped a hip to one side in time with the Prince beat, sending impressive muscle ripples down her stomach. Then she pushed her perfect breasts forward, as if to prick the eyes of the men who wanted her.

This move provoked a macho chorus of whoops and whistles from the crowd. But if Tiffany Lynn appreciated the reaction, it didn't show on her vacant face. She just paced the area until the song ended, hypnotizing the regulars with the mechanical rhythm of her wild-side walk.

Kiki stood waiting as Fab's ex stepped down from the stage. "Tiffany Lynn!" she called out.

The girl with the porn star name turned to Kiki and did a double take. "Do I know you?" Her voice was soft, kind, and almost sang with a musical intonation.

"I'm a friend of Danni's," Kiki said.

Tiffany Lynn's piercing baby blues widened with authentic concern. "Oh, I've been so worried about her. How is she?"

"Nothing too serious. A damaged rotator cuff and a swollen knee."

Tiffany Lynn shook her head. "I've told her to go easy on those pole moves. She's not a gymnast." One beat. "What's that stuff all over your face?"

"A treatment mask. It's a long story. Listen, there's something I want to talk with you about. Can I buy you a drink?"

Tiffany Lynn shrugged easily. "Sure, why not? But just coffee for me. I've got an essay due tomorrow."

Kiki tried not to stereotype, but certainly the phrase I've got an essay due tomorrow belonged under the heading "Things You Don't Expect a Stripper to Say."

"You're in school?"

Tiffany Lynn nodded. "Yeah. I go to NYU. I have a class with one of the Olsen sisters. I don't know if it's Mary-Kate or Ashley. But she's very sweet. I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name."

"Kiki."

"Nice. You don't hear that one very often. Guys will remember that. Are you thinking about dancing, too? Camisole's a great club. The manager's a pretty decent guy. Be warned, though. He does hit on all the new girls, but just lie and tell him you're a lesbian. That's what I did. He left me alone. Plus, he's great at working around your schedule. I only show up one week a month. With private dance money and tips, I make enough to play full-time college girl the rest of the time."

"I don't want to work at the club," Kiki said.

Embarrassed, Tiffany Lynn covered her mouth and giggled. "I'm sorry. I just assumed. Most girls who approach me want the 411 on dancing here."

Kiki decided to just come out with it. "I was hoping for the 411 on Fab Tomba."

Tiffany Lynn hesitated. "I'll need more than a cup of coffee for that conversation." She spun around to extend her lithe, honey brown body over the bar. "Hey, Kirby, who do I have to sleep with to get two shots of tequila around here?"

The hot bartender with the neatly trimmed goatee gave her a wink and a crooked smile. "Me, I hope." Then he showed off, wowing them with an intricate move worthy of Tom Cruise in Cocktail . As the beat of Destiny Child's "Lose My Breath" boomed inside the grown-up playground, his worked-out body moved in perfect synchronization. There were twists, turns, spins, bottles flipped midair, and at the end of the spectacular, two hits of Mexican 1800 Tequila swirling hurricane-style in side-by-side shot glasses.

Tiffany Lynn knocked one back like it was the antidote for a deadly disease. "This girl wants to know all about Fab," she told the liquor magician.

Kirby balled up a fist and smacked the business end of it into his other hand. "He broke this angel's heart. If he shows his pretty-boy mug in here again, I just might break him."

Now it was Kiki's turn to need a drink. She made the tequila disappear fast. The potent liquid burned a trail down her throat and sent a telegram to her brain: quit while you're ahead.

"Hey, Fab's not that bad," Tiffany Lynn said. The qualifier was proof that romantic feelings could still be bubbling near the surface. "Don't listen to him. Kirby's like a big brother to all the dancers. None of the guys we date are good enough."

"That's because they're all losers and assholes," Kirby said, wiping a spill off the countertop. He zeroed in on Kiki. "You must be the latest on his hit list. I guess that's why your face turned green."

Kiki wondered if the real green monster might be the bartender. Did he have a legitimate beef? Or was Kirby just envious because Fab had scored with Tiffany Lynn? After all, no man wanted to get typecast in the thankless role of platonic protector. Especially among a group of beauties who took their clothes off at the drop of a drumbeat. A diabetic would have an easier time working at Dylan's Candy Bar on Third Avenue.

"Just be careful," Kirby said. He gave her a ray-gun gaze. "Keep your eyes open and don't fall too hard too fast."

Kiki downloaded the suggestion. It sounded less like jealous talk and more like good advice.

"I don't think he's such a bad guy," Tiffany Lynn said. "The trouble with Fab is that he's so easy to fall for . Come on. He's as hot as can be, he's nice, and let's not even talk about the way that he kisses."