Naked Angel (2 page)

“Turn around,” Violet said, picking up the crop. Cookies obeyed, letting Violet push her down so she was leaning on a vanity table, her ass in the air. “Don’t move,” Violet ordered. She paused for a minute to look at Cookies’ pale, creamy ass, a hint of russet pubic hair visible between her legs. She resisted the urge to get on her knees and lick the girl’s pussy. She knew in order to get true satisfaction she had to do things in the proper order. Violet understood the need for control, something most of her lovers did not. At least, not until she taught them.

She raised the riding crop and brought it down hard on Cookies’ left ass cheek. The girl cried out, but did not move a muscle. A satisfying red mark emerged almost immediately on her flesh. Violet repeated the lashing on the other side. She dropped the crop and kneeled behind Cookies. She pressed one finger into Cookies’ pussy and was satisfied to find it very wet. Violet was surprised to feel the building pressure in her own cunt. There was something about Cookies that always got her excited. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was a relief to not be bored yet.

She worked her finger in and out, reaching up to graze Cookies’ clit before resuming the sharp strokes inside of her. She slipped one hand inside her own underwear, mirroring the motions inside herself as she worked Cookies into a frenzy. She felt Cookies’ pussy contract on her fingers, and the girl cried out as she came.

Violet quickly pulled off her jeans. She tugged on Cookies’ hair to turn her around. Violet sat on a chair, spread her legs. Cookies knelt in front of her, hands on Violet’s thighs, her tongue lapping at her wetness.

“Fuck me,” Violet growled. Cookies darted her tongue in and out of Violet’s pussy. Violet pulled on her head, trying to get her deeper. She felt a rush of impatience. “Use your hand.”

Cookies moved her mouth to Violet’s clit, her fingers pressing inside with the sharp, fast strokes she knew Violet liked. Sure enough, Violet shuddered to a silent climax. Cookies sat back on her heels, wincing when she accidentally put pressure on the freshly bruised skin on her ass.

Violet noticed her discomfort and said, “If you think your ass hurts now, you don’t even want to know what it will feel like if you come back here tonight without photos of The Painted Lady show.”

M
allory stood behind the red curtain. On the other side of it, center stage, Alec warmed up the crowd, reminding them that the more skin the performers revealed, the louder he expected the audience to get. “Foot stomping is appreciated, but not mandatory,” he said to a few laughs.

“I see some familiar faces out there,” he said. This was met with shouts and clapping. “As you know, this is a huge night for New York burlesque—and I don’t just mean because Super-size Suzy is visiting us tonight.” This brought another round of applause: Supersize Suzy was a six foot two inch, double D–breasted British transvestite who had recently been made infamous by her unbridled performance in a burlesque documentary called
Fan Dancers
. “And if that isn’t enough, we are starstruck to have with us tonight—fresh off her latest movie set—the mysterious, magnificent Mistress of Delight: Bette Noir.” More applause, whistles, and a few random shout-outs of her name.

From her perch behind the curtain, Mallory smiled. She remembered how, at the first show she’d gone to, the audience had gone wild when Bette’s name was announced. And that was before she became world famous for dating the pop star Zebra, appearing in a national Dolce & Gabbana campaign, and getting rave reviews in an indie film directed by Jake Gyllenhaal. “But first, I have the great pleasure of introducing to you our opening performer: the sexy, sassy, incomparable Moxie!”

At the sound of her stage name, Mallory reflexively straightened her back. She tugged on her elbow-length white gloves to make sure they were easily removable, and straightened her headpiece. These were nervous, unnecessary tics. She was, as always, perfectly prepared for her performance. Maybe more so tonight than ever before.

The song “Puttin’ on the Ritz”—the synth-pop 1983 cover version—filled the room. The curtain receded to one side, and Mallory felt the heat of the stage lights bathing her in a red glow. From the darkness in front of her, the full house roared. She knew she was a sight in her costume, but this wasn’t a fashion show. Being a sight wasn’t enough. Burlesque was all about the reveal—revealing parts of her body, yes. But in doing so, she would elicit a reaction from the audience that revealed something about them.

Mallory shimmied to the front of the stage, twirling the fluffy pink boa draped over her shoulders. She sensed the audience’s collective anticipation. Although she’d practiced on the stage many times, it felt dramatically different to be in front of people. In the months since the Blue Angel had changed ownership and she’d stopped performing, she’d almost forgotten what it felt like to play off a crowd.

As the song kicked up-tempo, she swiveled her heels in opposite directions, launching into an improvised Charleston. At the same time, she tugged off one glove, throwing it into the audience to an appreciative roar. She loved the way the pink beaded fringe on her dress moved with her hips, and she exaggerated her kicks in the front and back to maximize the dramatic flair of silk.

When the song came to the lyrics “walk with sticks or umberellas,” she retrieved a black walking stick from the floor and used the tip to tease off the spaghetti straps of her dress. With another shimmy, her breasts were exposed, her nipples covered in pink sequined pasties with pink tassels. The audience shouted her name, and she let the dress fall to the floor so she was clad in only the boa, pasties, a pink thong, thigh-high white fishnet stockings with garters, and her black patent heels. She used the boa to tease the crowd, covering her breasts and then revealing them in flashes. She turned her back to the audience, holding the boa in either hand, stretching it across her nearly bare ass and rubbing it back and forth. Then she bent forward and moved the boa so she was rubbing it between her thighs from the front to the back. This whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and when she turned to face them again, she dropped the boa and shimmied her shoulders so the tassels on her pasties twirled dramatically.

The red curtain closed.

“That performance would almost make Prohibition tolerable,” said Bette.

Mallory was breathless and could only smile her thanks. She heard Alec retake the stage to introduce the next act.

“Another round of applause for Moxie, the sexiest flapper to grace the stage since Louise Brooks,” said Alec. The audience clapped. “Moxie, come on back out here.”

“What is he doing?” Mallory asked Bette. “He’s interrupting the whole flow of the show.”

“Better go humor him,” Bette said. She handed Mallory a black silk robe.

Mallory quickly covered herself and returned to the stage. A few people stood to applaud her. This was embarrassing. What was Alec thinking?

“I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but in addition to being The Painted Lady’s opening performer, Moxie is also the creative director of the club and producer of the show you are seeing tonight. And I’m hoping she might take on one more role—that of my wife!”

Alec got down on one knee. Mallory looked at him in shock.

“Oh, my God! What are you doing?”

He pulled out a small black box and opened it to reveal a beautiful art deco, antique diamond ring.

“Marry me, Mallory,” he said, his voice low and husky with emotion.

Mallory wasn’t sure if the low roar she heard was the sound of blood rushing to her head, or if it was the sound of the crowd, or if this was simply what it felt like to be truly shocked for the first time in her life.

“Oh, my God,” she repeated.

“What do you say, Mal?” he asked with that wonderful teasing glint in his eyes.

Was this really happening? After all the years, the mind-blowing sex, the jealousy, fights, uncertainty, missteps, soul-searching, and compromise, could it really culminate in this one perfect moment?

“Yes,” she managed to breathe. “I’ll marry you.” He stood up and hugged her. Through a blur of tears, she watched him slip the ring on her finger.

He held her tight, and all she could think was that she didn’t ever want this happiness to end. She had no idea how to leave the stage. She didn’t want to. She didn’t trust the magic of the moment to follow her into “real life.”

But on the stage, anything was possible.

Behind the red curtain backstage, Nadia Grant clapped her hands in delight. She was happy for Mallory and, to be perfectly honest, thrilled for the last-minute reprieve from having to perform immediately.

Not for the first time that night, she wondered if this was madness. Maybe her ballet friends were right: She had no business being on a burlesque stage. One of them, Anna Prince, was at the show tonight to support her, but Anna still was trying to talk her out of performing at The Painted Lady: “You’re a ballet dancer. Even if you can never go
en pointe
again, you can find a place in ballet.”

Easy for her to say: Anna had scored a spot in the hot new company Ballet Arts, run by one of the youngest choreographers in New York City, Max Jasper. All of her hard work was paying off, while Nadia watched hers go down the drain. How could Anna blame her for becoming intrigued when she’d learned that Mallory, the woman with whom she’d been sharing dance studio practice space for over a year, was a burlesque dancer. And of course the competitive part of her—the part that would not die no matter how bad her injury—whispered,
I can do that
. Hearing that inner voice made her feel hopeful and alive again for the first time since hearing the doctor’s prognosis.

“You don’t understand,” Nadia told Anna. “If I can’t perform in ballet, I need to do something completely different. Being near it but not a part of it just kills me.”

But burlesque—now that was something to keep her mind off the tragedy of her lost ballet career. It was daring, it was glamorous, and, best of all, she had a built-in tour guide: Mallory.

It had been Mallory’s idea. When Nadia had told her she wasn’t going to use the practice space for a while, Mallory had been concerned enough to ask lots of questions. And when Nadia confessed that her ballet career was over, Mallory insisted that she find another outlet for performing.

“You have to get back onstage,” she’d said. “It’s the only way you will get through this.”

Mallory was right: Studying burlesque, trying on costumes, and witnessing Mallory and Alec build the club had saved her sanity during the past few months she’d spent in physical therapy instead of in ballet rehearsals.

So she would never be reviewed by Alastair Macaulay in the
New York Times
. But she could make a name for herself in a different world—a glamorous, fascinating world that was probably more relevant to women today than ballet.

Knowing that Anna was in the audience made her nervous. Nadia had thought having a friend in the audience would make her feel better, but now she regretted it. She felt all the more pressure—that her performance must justify her choice. She imagined that somehow, if Anna saw her dance a classic striptease, she would change her mind. Anna might agree that Nadia had found the right alternative to her thwarted dance dreams. And she knew that one transcendent burlesque performance could change anyone’s mind, just like watching Mallory had changed hers. Of course, she wasn’t Mallory. But she had the heart of a dancer, and she had to believe that would get her through her début performance. When it came to dance, confidence was key. She couldn’t waver now. “Nadia, three minutes,” Bette told her.

Nadia took a deep breath. Showtime.

M
ax Jasper stretched his long legs under the table. Their seats were close to the stage. A little too close, if Max had had anything to say about it. This whole burlesque thing was making him uncomfortable. He was a man who loved women—and loved women’s taking off their clothes. But he preferred it in the privacy of his bedroom, not in a crowded room surrounded by hoots, hollers, and clapping.

When Anna had told him that Nadia Grant, the promising girl who’d danced the corps de ballet with American Ballet Theatre, had become a burlesque performer, he could not believe it. Anna had urged him to come to the show.