The Blue Room: Vol. 1 (9 page)

          “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

         
I
t 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.