The Lonely Hearts Club (20 page)

Candace raised her head and met Liz’s eyes across the room. “Do you believe that? Some things are meant to be?”

“Maybe. Sometimes I think so.” Liz smiled ruefully and shrugged. “Although right now, I’m batting zero.”

“No you’re not.” Candace bounced up off the bed and slunk across the room, her eyes glittering. She kissed Liz soundly on the mouth, then wrapped her arm around her waist. “You’ve got Bren. And you’ve got me. And if you need to get laid, you’ve got my number.”

Laughing, Liz threw her arm around Candace’s shoulder. “Good to know, since you’re on speed dial.”

*

Bren checked the time. 8:59 p.m. Candace and Liz would be downstairs to pick her up any second. She should check her make-up one last time and go downstairs to wait for them, but instead, she sat staring at her email. At exactly nine p.m. she pushed send/receive and watched her mail download. A message appeared—the same message that had appeared every night at nine p.m. for the last four nights.

I’ll be there tonight. Will you?

This time, instead of deleting the message as she had every other night, Bren immediately typed
What makes you think I know where it is?

You write the city like you know it.

Bren smiled. Nothing caught a writer’s attention faster than someone who paid attention to their work. The doorbell rang, but Bren ignored it. She should go. This was a game that was becoming too real. Instead of signing off, she asked,

How will I know you?

Ask the bartender. He’ll have a note for you from Jae.

“Bren?” Candace shouted from downstairs. “Hey? You ready?”

“Just a minute,” Bren called back as she typed.
Jae isn’t real.

Are you sure?

Bren closed the email program and stood up. Enough. The game was over. All she had to do was ignore the whole thing. It was probably just a prank anyhow. She could be getting an email from someone in Iowa who’d Googled the names of bars in Philadelphia. There was no reason to think that this person would actually be there tonight, and even if she was, there was no reason to meet her.

“Bren?” Candace asked again.

“On my way.”

Bren hurried downstairs. Nothing would happen that she didn’t want to happen, because she was in control. She slowed, considering that. Jae—no, the stranger—understood her need to be in control. Even though it seemed like the stranger had been making all the overtures, she’d set everything up so that ultimately, Bren would make the critical moves. Bren would be in charge, just the way Bren wanted it. Interesting.

“Happy birthday!” Candace pulled Bren into her arms and kissed her exuberantly. “You ready for some adventure, baby?”

Bren tightened her arms around Candace’s neck and kissed her back. “Could be.”

“Oh my God,” Candace said, stepping back and eyeing Bren incredulously. “Where did you get leather pants?”

“The usual place. A clothing store.” Bren smiled, enjoying Candace’s astonishment. Her lightweight dark brown leather pants were cut low, and she’d chosen a sleeveless black shirt that dove between her breasts and rode high enough to expose a few inches of her belly. She had a lot of skin showing—well, for her anyhow—but it
was
her birthday. A girl was entitled to be daring on her birthday.

“You look so hot.”

“Well don’t say it like it’s such a shock,” Bren chided.

“No. I don’t mean that. I mean you look…different. Good. Great.”

“Come on before you say anything else and really get in trouble,” Bren said, laughing. “Let’s not keep Liz waiting.”

“Where have you been hiding this side of yourself,” Candace complained as Bren closed the door behind them and they started down the steps to the sidewalk.

“I guess you could say between the covers.”

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Candace grumbled.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Bren teased. But maybe it was time.

*

“Want another beer?” Parker asked, pushing her chair back from the table.

Reilly reached out to steady the empties on the sticky, crowded surface of the small round table. After she’d showered and changed into jeans and a T-shirt, she and Parker had opted for dinner at a neighborhood bar where they could watch a baseball game on the big screen TV. Over the course of a couple of hours, they ate chicken wings and spicy curly fries and drank beer out of the bottle. Parker had drunk most of the beer.

“Are you driving somewhere later on?” Reilly asked.

Parker squinted at the round clock behind the bar. The letters spelling out Schlitz on the dingy face were faded from decades of smoke, even though no one was smoking inside now.

“I’ve got a little time,” Parker said. “I’m crashing a birthday party.”

“Now that sounds like a hot time.”

“It is when it’s Candace and her friends.”

Reilly sucked in a breath. “Oh. Well, if you’re driving, you’d better go easy on the brew.”

“Don’t worry, I’m spacing ’em out.”

While Parker went to get refills, Reilly watched the game. Or tried to. She wondered where the party was. She wondered if Liz would be there. If Candace was going to be there, Bren and Liz probably would be too. She told herself it wasn’t a good idea to think about Liz, but she’d been telling herself that all week and it hadn’t really worked.

She tried logic again. Liz had told her to stop, because she didn’t want to be involved. That made sense. There was no law against pregnant women dating, except they weren’t talking about dating. If Liz hadn’t stopped her, Reilly had a feeling that kiss would have turned into a lot more very quickly. And that spelled complications, for both of them. No, they both made the right decision. Bad timing. Bad idea. Use your head, Reilly. Let it go.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it looks pretty heavy.” Parker dropped into the chair opposite Reilly and passed a mug of sweating draft beer across to her.

“Nah,” Reilly said. “I was just zoning.”

“Huh.”

“So. A birthday party.”

“Yeah. Bren’s.” Parker sipped her beer. “At the Blue Diamond. Ever been?”

Reilly shook her head. “After hours place?”

“Strip club.”

“Girls? Stripping, I mean?”

“Yep. And lots of girls in the audience, too.”

Reilly laughed. “And this is where Bren’s going for her birthday?”

“Yeah, kind of sounds like Candace’s idea, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t.” Parker shook her head. “Candace says it was Bren’s.”

“So, um, I guess they’re all going?”

“You mean all of them including Liz?”

Reilly looked away.

“You know,” Parker said, rubbing her face gingerly. “Even with the shades, the lights hurt my eyes. I’m not so sure I can drive in the dark. I didn’t think about that when I came in this afternoon.”

“You can stay at my place tonight if you need to,” Reilly said.

Parker said, “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“And,” Reilly added slowly, “if you need a ride down to the Blue Diamond, I’ll take you.”

Parker grinned. “That would be great.”

The minute Bren walked through the door of the Blue Diamond, she felt as if she had stepped into a scene from a William Gibson post-apocalyptic cyber-fantasy. The walls and ceiling were painted black, and blue bulbs in recessed fixtures drenched the room in a murky haze, obscuring everything except the raised platform which took up the length of one entire side of the room. Featureless, nearly formless figures of indeterminate sex occupied most of the tables. Three upright silver poles gleamed beneath tightly focused spotlights on the stage. At the moment, it was empty, but a pounding bass beat reverberated through the floor and shimmered in the air.

“I think the act is about to start. Let’s grab a table,” Bren urged.

“I can’t see a thing,” Liz muttered, stumbling into a chair.

“You’re not supposed to,” Candace replied, grabbing her arm. “That way you can get a hand job under the table without anyone noticing.”

Bren snorted, moving a little faster as her eyes adjusted. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to miss any of the acts.

“I’m not sitting on these chairs then,” Liz announced.

Laughing, Candace tugged Liz’s hand. “Come on, I’ll take care of you. I’ll find you a nice safe seat.”

“There’s a table open right at center stage,” Bren said. It was almost as if it was waiting for them, because as near as she could make out in the gloom, the other tables with good views of the stage were occupied. “I’ll grab it.”

Before they’d reached the square wood pedestal table, the room grew even darker and the music ratcheted up a notch. Almost by feel, Bren found an empty chair and slid into it, and Liz took the seat next to her.

“I want a drink,” Candace shouted above the blaring music. “I’m not sure there’s table service.”

Bren thought about the note that might or might not be waiting for her, and quickly focused on the stage. If there
was
a note at the bar, it would be there later. If there wasn’t, she didn’t want to know right now. She liked the anticipation, the excitement, of thinking that Jae was here somewhere, possibly watching her. Of course, Jae wouldn’t know what she looked like, because there were no pictures of her as her author persona. But still, she had a feeling that Jae would know her, and that she would know Jae.

“I’ll have a screwdriver,” Bren said.

“Be right back.” Candace disappeared into the gloom.

“Okay, confess,” Liz said into Bren’s ear.

Bren started in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Why did you pick this place?”

“Oh.” Bren considered any number of plausible replies, but it was something about the tone of Liz’s voice that caused her to say the one thing she never expected to say. “I might be meeting someone here.”

“Really,” Liz said with interest. “Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Liz shifted her chair closer. “Like a blind date?”

“Something like that.”

“You let Candace set you up on a blind date after swearing you wouldn’t do it ever again?”

“Oh no.” Bren laughed. “Candace’s blind dates were always disasters. We’re not interested in the same kind of women.”

“So who set it up?”

“She did. The woman I’m meeting. Maybe.”

“So…you know her.”

“No. We’ve never met,” Bren said.

“You know this is very confusing, right?”

“I know.”

“I’ve thought for a long time there was something you weren’t telling us.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

Liz patted Bren’s thigh. “Don’t apologize. It’s your birthday. Have a good time and explain it all to us later.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you, you know,” Bren said.

“That’s a ditto.”

“Here we go,” Bren said, as a statuesque blonde sauntered onto the stage in six inch heels, a black satin G-string, and a black leather jacket that stopped just above the perfect round globes of her full, tight ass. She strutted to one of the poles as the rhythm picked up, grabbed it with both hands, and pressed her crotch against it. Then she did a perfect split as she swung slowly around in a circle, the steel shaft jutting upward between her widely spread thighs.

Candace slid in beside them and passed glasses around the table. “How does she do that?”

“Flexibility,” Bren murmured, studying the woman as her generous breasts threatened to spill out of the partially unzipped jacket. The blonde was attractive, and she had a great body, but Bren felt nothing other than a vague curiosity.

After a few more impressively acrobatic and undeniably sensuous moves that looked as if she was masturbating on the pole, the blonde slinked to the near edge of the stage and went down on her knees with her thighs splayed. She stretched her torso back and let the jacket fall from her arms, leaving her breasts exposed and jutting upward into the harsh lights. Her skin shimmered with sweat and the narrow G-string did little to obscure her glistening sex.

Candace gave a low murmur of approval and Liz bumped her shoulder.

“You are such a pervert.”

“I am not,” Candace whispered. “I just have a healthy sense of appreciation for the female form.”

“Uh-huh.”

Shadowy figures from the audience approached the stage, tucking folded bills under the dancer’s G-string or dropping them onto her tight stomach as she undulated to the pounding beat, her pelvis thrusting with the unmistakable rhythm of sex. As the tempo pulsed faster and the air grew heavy with heat and collective arousal, the blonde fondled her breasts and stroked her fingers between her thighs until, real or imagined, she and the music climaxed together. Then the room went dark and silence fell like a thunderclap.