The man’s jaw sagged and he blinked stupidly. “I ... didn’t ... I—”
“You sicko!” the second woman exclaimed, taking the guy’s own martini out of his hand and dumping it over his head. Good thing those Hair Club infomercials always show guys swimming and water skiing and such. “My girlfriend, Dusty, is going to kick”—she poked him in the chest with her finger—“your”—another poke—“ass!”
Uh-oh, time to go. I disappeared into the crowd just as the bouncers appeared and began peeling someone I figured was Dusty off the Hair Club guy. Sorry, man. I headed backstage as quickly as I could.
I’d never been backstage anything before and it was quieter than I expected. There were a few dancers milling around, but none of them were Keilana. “Keilana,” I whispered loudly. “Keilana?” I came to a closed door on one side of the short hallway and just as I reached out to open it, a long arm appeared from nowhere and yanked me inside a tiny room on the opposite side of the hall.
I was whisked inside, and before I knew it, Keilana was locking the door. She whirled around and faced me, her eyes burning with anger. “Are you trying to get the shit beat out of you?”
I blinked. “I—I didn’t ... I—” Jesus, I sounded like the Hair Club guy.
“If the bouncers catch you back here after kicking you out there’s no telling what they’ll do.” She ran her hands down my arms, checking me for injuries. When she saw my knees, she sighed. “I looked for you in the alleyway but you were already gone. I thought you might have come to your senses and gone home.” Her eyes narrowed. “That reminds me. What the hell are you doing here?”
I pointed at myself with my thumb. “What am I doing here? What about you? Since when are you a Goddamned stripper!” I yelled, my emotions churning to the surface with surprising ease. “There is no way—!”
Keilana clamped her hand over my mouth. “Shut up,” she said bluntly. “We can talk later. Thanks to you I’ve been asked to leave for the night.”
I wrenched my head from her hand. “Tonight only?”
She nodded. “I’ll be back.”
The words tied my guts into a solid knot.
“And next time you won’t come and make trouble for me, got it?”
God, she’d certainly been pissed at me before, but now she practically had smoke coming out of her ears. I grabbed her biceps. I had to get through to her somehow. She wasn’t going to come back here and strip if I had to chain myself to her. This wasn’t about jealously or snobbery. Keilana was more than a pair of tits and a firm ass.
“You don’t have to be a stripper,” I said in a rush. I cast around for something to say that wouldn’t insult her or her friend Billie, but I didn’t have much luck. “Have you lost your mind?” I began to gesture wildly. “I don’t care how deep into trouble you think you are or whether or not your parents will help you out of it. I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever it takes. You don’t need to do this for the money.”
Her back stiffened. “Cadie—”
“Let me finish!” The music was deafening back here and I had to raise my voice even when I would have rather not.
I waited until her mouth snapped closed before I continued. “You’re too smart to waste yourself here. This is what you do when you can’t do anything else. This is what you do when you’re desperate. You don’t need this. Don’t you get it? You’re special!”
She lifted a single eyebrow. “Can I say something yet?”
“I guess.” I braced myself. This is where she told me her horrible secret. That she was a sex addict or that she had thirteen illegitimate children she was trying to support on the side. Or that she was the madam in a prostitution ring that worked out of this club. How many years in jail had Heidi Fleiss gotten?
“I’m not in trouble.”
I let go of her arms, stung to the core over her lie, and only barely stopped myself from shaking her. I closed my eyes in a bid for self-control. There was such a fine line between loving Keilana and wanting to kill her. “That can’t be true or you wouldn’t be selling peeks at your naked body to a bunch of perverts!”
“You were in the audience.”
“My point exactly. Christ, before I knew it was you in the red cape, I was hoping you’d dance closer to the front so I could get a good look at your nipples!”
“Are you saying you don’t want to see my nipples now?”
“No! Yes! No! Ah!” I covered my face with my hands.
“I’m not a stripper, Cadie.”
“I saw you on stage. I saw you dancing!” I didn’t add that she’d been awesome.
She put her hands on her hips. “I gathered that when you rushed the stage, screaming like a madwoman.”
I shook my head, and unable to do a better job of articulating what I was feeling or thinking, I blurted, “You can’t be a stripper. You just can’t.”
Her gaze sharpened and her voice dropped to a dangerous purr. “Says who?”
“Says me! Me! Me! Me!” I don’t spaz out often, but when I do I rarely go only halfway.
She pushed to her feet, using her slight height advantage as she glared down at me. “And who are you to tell me how to live my life?” She didn’t seem like a twenty-one-year-old college student at that moment. She was a self-assured woman who knew exactly what she wanted. “Remember our game? Call this one of my questions, but I want the truth.”
I took a step backward, needing a second to think. That really was the question, wasn’t it? Who was I? “You know who I am. I—I’m your roommate.”
“Try again,” she demanded, stepping forward and giving me no relief.
I swallowed hard. “I’m your friend who doesn’t want to see you debase yourself for a few dollars.”
She shook her head. “Not good enough, not for how insane you’re acting.”
My eyes dropped to the floor and my hands shaped impotent fists. I looked up when I felt a warm hand come to rest on the side of my face.
Keilana’s gaze softened. “I think you’re someone who is in love with me, Cadie. Are you ever going to say it or are you going to make me wait forever?”
The music stopped and suddenly I could hear the pounding of my own heart thudding loudly in my ears. Astonished, I gaped at her. “You-you knew?” I finally spluttered.
“It’s not like you hide it very well.” She smiled cautiously. “So is it true? Even after seeing me on stage?” She gestured around the small room. “And here?”
I surged forward and kissed her with all my might.
She kissed me back like she wanted me more than anything on the planet and my knees went weak at the feeling.
When we finally separated there was a loud popping noise as the suction between our lips was broken. I felt a little dazed. “It’s true,” I whispered emotionally, thrilled to the core to finally be saying it. “Anyplace. Doesn’t matter where.”
And with that I knew this game had to end. I did love her and there would end the lies, even if that meant she’d never speak to me again. My nostrils flared with fear. “And how do you feel about me?”
She smiled a beautiful smile and took one of my hands in hers and cradled it softly. “You are the nosiest person I’ve ever met”—she laughed when the tips of my ears turned red—“but I’m falling in love with you anyway, Cadie. I have been since almost the beginning. I know I can trust you and to me that’s the most important thing.”
“It is?” My heart twisted in my chest.
“I don’t just want to get you into bed. Well, I do,” she said grinning, “but I want more than that too.” A tiny bit of insecurity peeked through. “I want everything, I mean, if you do.”
A lump grew in my throat and tears pooled in my eyes. My heart was soaring but at the same time I felt like I was going down in flames. She’d said everything I’d ever wanted to hear, well, I could have lived without the nosy part. But the rest was what I’d secretly longed for, even dreamt about. And yet it was all wrong.
She needed to fall in love w
ith Belinda, not Cadie.
Then I noticed something near her feet. The damned black backpack! I hated that fucking thing the way I hated myself for betraying her trust.
She followed my gaze. “It’s not a mouse, is it?” She began dancing around, looking at the floor. “I hate mice!”
“No mouse. What’s inside that backpack?” My mouth was suddenly dry and I did my best to lick my lips. I knew in my heart that I’d forgive her damn near anything ... and that I’d help her out of whatever mess she was in. But I still had to know.
For me and no one else.
Her brows furrowed at my question and she bent to pick up the pack. “See for yourself.”
I looked her right in the eyes and swore to myself that I wouldn’t go crazy when she confirmed my suspicions. “It’s where you keep your costumes for stripping, right?”
Puzzled, she just looked at me for a few seconds. “Weren’t you listening?” She rolled her eyes. “I told you, I’m not a stripper.”
I gritted my teeth. “Then what are you, Keilana? Because I know what I damn well saw!”
The sound of running footsteps pitter-patted down the hall.
“Shh!” Worriedly, she glanced at the door. “Keep your voice down. You’re not supposed to be back here. I’m already going to be in trouble with the manager after your little freak attack out there.”
I sighed. “Sorry.”
She passed over the backpack. It was a little bigger and heavier than it had appeared at a distance and I held my breath as I grasped the zipper. It was cool to the touch and my hand froze. Was I ready for this?
“Is the zipper stuck?” Keilana started to reach for the pack, frowning. “I need a new bag.”
“No, it’s okay.” I drew in a deep breath. Please, God, don’t let there be body parts stored in Tupperware in here. As I unzipped the zipper and blindly stuck my hand inside, a flash of going to a nature center as a kid and reaching into a small hole in a wooden box to feel some sort of surprise, tore through my mind. It was always fur or antlers, by the way. Somehow I doubted that would be the case here.
I blinked. “Electronic equipment?” I flipped open the bag, exposing the mystery to the light. It was jammed with cameras, tiny video recorders, cords, a mini tape recorder, the smallest laptop I’d ever seen, and some loose batteries. What the hell was this? “You’re making porn out of this pack?”
“No!” She looked at me like I was crazy. Which I’m not. I think. “Jesus Christ, Cadie, do you always imagine the most horrible situation possible and then put me in it?”
Of course. “Maybe,” I said a touch defensively.
She hesitated for just a second, then let out a little breath, apparently having come to her decision. Her eyes blazed with sudden determination. “I want to be a documentarian and I’m making my first film. It’s about strippers and Billie is pretty much my prime interview, though there are several other women in it too.”
She scrunched up her face. “They were from some really seedy clubs down the road. The filming played havoc with my school schedule and nearly killed me. Thank God I finished it just before summer. Things here this semester have been a piece of cake in comparison.”
“A filmmaker? That can’t be true!” I shook my head wildly, unable to accept what she was saying.
“Shh! The manager lets me shoot back here, but at his discretion ... and after I bribe him on a regular basis. If he cuts me off this close to the end of production I’m screwed.”
“But you were on stage. You weren’t just filming. You were the woman in red!” My mind drifted back to Keilana appearing out of the mist. “The sizzling hot woman in red that I would still love to eat alive,” I added, hoping that didn’t sound as lecherous out loud as it had in my head.
This time it was her turn to blush. “Hold that thought, okay?”
I leaned forward and kissed her softly. She smelled incredible and I was still so keyed up from the show that I was about ready to explode. I don’t know where I found the willpower to break that kiss. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget.”
I held up the bag to remind Keilana I was still waiting for more of an explanation.
She quirked a grin and shook her finger at me. “Don’t kiss me like that if you expect me to be able to think.”
This time it was me that smiled. “Deal.”
“Billie’s been after me for months to learn one of the routines and perform so I’d really know what it feels like to be up on stage. I’ve been gathering my nerve and practicing the dancing. Tonight a couple of girls called off work so the club really needed someone to fill in. I umm ...” She paused to let out a shaky breath. “I wasn’t going to get totally naked up there but my top was supposed to come off right at the end of the show.”
I closed my eyes, half aroused by what she was telling me, the other half blessedly relieved that I stopped her in time. Keilana was too smart not to later regret something so stupid. I wanted to throttle Billie for even suggesting it.
“I got a taste of what Billie does up there everyday and I gotta tell you, it’s a lot different being up on that stage than it is watching.”
I squeezed her hand, wincing at the mild sting from my scrapes. “And?”
“And it was a lot scary and a little intoxicating and something I don’t want to do again. It was a stupid idea that I should have never agreed to in the first place.”
“True.”
She crossed slender arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “You don’t have to be so smug about it.”
“How would you feel if I got up on that stage and did that same dance with Billie?”
The tiny, but instant, growl that exploded from her throat surprised me, but it wasn’t an unhappy surprise. “Eww ... Okay, so I see your point.”
I zipped the bag closed and handed it back to her, careful not to drop it. I’d have to sell a kidney to replace even one of those cameras.
I didn’t know what to think about everything that had happened. I’d been expecting something horrible for so long that now that it hadn’t happened, I wasn’t sure how to act or how to feel.
“Are you okay?” she asked me, clearly concerned.
I blew my hair out of my eyes. “Yeah. I ... It’s just been a long day.”
“No kidding.”
I still felt uneasy. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing? There’s nothing wrong with making a documentary. I still don’t understand why you’d hide it?”
Dismayed, she trained her gaze on my dirty shoes. “My parents, Cadie, they aren’t like most people’s parents. They’re control freaks. I mean real control freaks.”
That was, unfortunately, completely true. I was living proof. “What does that have to do with me?”
Sadly, she glanced up at me. “They know I don’t want to go back to Honolulu and work for Poppenhouse Cookies Charitable Giving Headquarters. That’s the job my dad has all picked out for me.”
My eyes went round. “You told them about this movie project?”
She gave me a lopsided grin. “Get real, okay? I told them I wanted to go to film school, and they said no. I told them I wanted to make documentaries. They said no. I told my mother I wouldn’t marry Mr. Right, who they’ve had picked out for me since I was three years old, and they ignored me. They’re selectively deaf! I wasn’t far from graduating so I figured I’d do my best to get through school on their dime and then do whatever it is I want afterward.”
“I still don’t—”
She placed two fingers over my lips. “I’m still talking.”
Contrite, I nodded.
“Last year my grades started to slip. I was out all hours of the night and some of the girls I was filming, well, let’s just say they lived a little wilder life than I could keep up with.” She smiled sheepishly. “Though for a while I gave it the good old college try. I kept what I was doing from my parents and used my allowance to finance my project. One day while I was on the phone with my mother, she let slip that she kn
ew I was spending a lot of time in San Diego.”
Uh-oh. “How did she know that?”
“That’s a very good question. And the only answer that makes sense is that she paid some parasite to spy on me.”
I felt like taking a bath in lye.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true! One day I realized that I was being followed.”
All the blood drained from my face. “You were?” I managed weakly.
“Yeah, by some guy. Ever since then I’ve kept what I’m doing a total secret. My life at school and my work here never cross paths. I can’t let them and hope to be able to keep doing what I’m doing.
I know it’s stupid, especially since I was one of the parasites, but I still felt hurt that she didn’t tell me what she was up to. She spoke with such passion about her project, this was something important to her, and so it was important to me too.
She caught my expression and gentled her voice, “Cadie, I’ve thought about telling you a dozen times, but you don’t know my parents. If they wanted information out of you or believed you could be of some use to them, they’d make your life a living hell until they got it.”
I forced a snort. “You make them sound like the mafia.” Oh, crap. Please don’t let them be the Hawaiian mob.
“They aren’t the mafia,” she said grimly. “They just get what they want, no matter who they hurt in the process.”
They wouldn’t get what they wanted this time. My knees started to shake. “Keilana, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Keilana!” Billie began to bang on the door. “Are you in there?”
“Just a minute” Keilana called out. “Hide!” she said to me, and began pushing me toward the closet. “Billie’s already jealous of you and she went out on a limb to get me on stage. If she sees you in here she’s gonna go crazy and call the goons.”
I dug in my heels. “So? They’ll just tell me to go, no big deal.” Okay, they’d probably toss me on my head this time, but that didn’t mean I was going to give in.
“So I’ll have to re-shoot weeks of film if she pulls out of this project,” she hissed. “In the closet with you.”
Undercover Tales Page 18