by Adele Dubois
Still, he’d come back to her without complaint, even after she’d surprised him with the news she had regular sex with both male and female strippers at the Tongue and Cheek.
Maybe he’d secretly been relieved to take an occasional break while she partied with her other friends.
Tomas had participated in her ménages and sex parties since then, but she understood from the beginning his heart wasn’t in it. He did it for her. Though he sometimes joined in, mostly he watched. Tomas was much too conventional to initiate that type of lifestyle. He was more comfortable watching strippers from a distance, drinking a little and gambling with the guys. Without her, Tomas was a straight arrow.
The kinky sex was her thing.
Slowly, oh so slowly, Crystal released the bra clasp and let the cups drift open to expose the breasts consumers paid exorbitant subscription fees to see. When she tossed away the bra, wearing nothing but her tiny thong, there was a collective murmur of approval in the studio that continued for several seconds.
Her boyishly handsome makeup artist, Gunther, a notorious womanizer who occasionally visited her bed, had expertly sprayed the length of her body with nude foundation and had colored her nipples a bright dusky coral for tonight’s performance. Crystal noted the special care Gunther took to pinch and pull her tender nipples until they were swollen and taut before applying tint in the makeup room.
Gunther did love his job.
The variety of colors used to paint Crystal’s nipples was the hallmark of her weathergirl stint. On occasion Gunther went all out and painted her breasts and torso like an abstract painting or realistic landscape. Sometimes he added clip-on nipple rings, hardware and studded leather. These were the gimmicks used to ensure continued customer interest in watching the show. Every night her body was wrapped like a surprise package.
Tomas’ eyes never wavered from Crystal’s form as she continued her segment. She sent him a wink, and then ran her hands over her flesh and half closed her eyes while she stared into the camera. “Thanks for joining me tonight,” she murmured to her viewers. Sal kept the camera focused on the length of her body and then moved in for a closer shot of her face and torso. She blew a kiss to her audience. “I wish you sunny skies.”
After the show ended, Crystal slipped on the robe Sandra, a production assistant, provided and tied the sash while she made her way to her dressing room.
Inside her private quarters, painted a soothing peach, her daily stack of fan mail, a chilled bottle of water and a small bowl of fresh fruit waited on an antique bureau. Her mirrored vanity table and bench sat in the center of the room. In the corner nearest the door stood a mahogany wardrobe stocked with her specially made breakaway costumes and street clothes. A plump visitor’s chair and a compact daybed filled the far side. A tiny bathroom with shower stall completed the modest, windowless space.
Crystal appreciated WCNT’s generosity in providing a room of her own. In many studios and theatres, actors were forced to share. Private space was a symbol of her importance to the show—and a privilege she never took for granted. Still, Crystal dreamed of the day she’d be assigned bigger and better quarters inside a major television station. When that time came, she’d never have to strip again to earn a living.
She took her snack and the mail to her vanity table, sipped her bottled water and ate a sliced apple like she did every night to unwind after a show, and then flipped through the pile of envelopes. The letters looked like standard fare—viewers requesting autographed pictures, journalists seeking interviews, men asking for dates and women telling her how they thought she should do her job. Crystal sorted the correspondence into two piles. Trash. Reply.
It was the letter at the bottom of the heap that got her heart pumping double time as she pulled it free from the others. She nibbled the corner of her mouth and noted her trembling hand as it clutched the white paper. The crude printing on the front of the envelope in block letters looked the same as those on four other letters she’d received since she started at WCNT six months ago.
Someone wanted her hurt, or dead, and she didn’t know why.
She shoved the message, unread, into her vanity table drawer with the others, trying to think what to do. Although she’d originally dismissed the notes as the work of a crank, the deepening hostility had changed her thinking. Whoever this person was seemed determined to scare her. She’d have to stop procrastinating and take action.
Soon.
Crystal had avoided showing the letters to Tomas or her producer for the simple reason that she didn’t want to rock the boat. She’d found a good job that had gained her celebrity and she’d maintained the first stable, albeit unconventional, relationship of her life. Things were going great and she didn’t want some nutcase messing things up.
There were a hundred women standing in line to take her job. A thousand. She didn’t want to create prickly problems for her employer. Beside that, she had always ignored what she didn’t want to see. Why should this situation be different?
Yet ignoring the threats hadn’t made them go away. They’d merely escalated.
Gazing down at the closed drawer where the malignant letters lay, Crystal knew deep inside her soul that she couldn’t avoid these threats any longer. A cold sweat broke over her skin. What if her refusal to act turned out to be lethal?
She couldn’t delude herself anymore that the letters were a hoax.
Her fingers traced the drawer holding the unopened envelope, curiosity drawing her to it like a hypnotic drug. If she gave the letter to Tomas, he’d know what to do. He was with the Military Police, who worked cooperatively with local police districts in matters affecting military personnel and their families. His brother, Antonio, worked for the FBI. They would guide and protect her.
Shouldn’t she trust her lover’s experience and judgment? She trusted Tomas with her body and her fantasies. Why not go to him for help with this?
With a decisive pull on the drawer handle, she retrieved the letter and sliced it open with her fruit knife. Her fingers shook as she opened the page, written in black ink on plain white copy paper like the others. The simple words jumped out at her.
You like it rough? You don’t know what that means yet, bitch. I’ll make you suffer.
A cold patina of sweat broke out over her skin until she became weak and lightheaded. An iron fist of fear squeezed her lungs until she could hardly breathe. She doubled over in her chair and held her sides, fighting for control. The letter and envelope dropped to the floor and skittered under the table near her feet.
While she struggled to regulate her breathing, she’d missed the sounds of Tomas entering her dressing room. Always considerate of her needs, he’d waited fifteen minutes for her to finish her break before joining her after the show. On a typical night he’d hang out while she showered off her makeup, they’d make love on the daybed and then go out to dinner. Sometimes he brought takeout and showered with her.
She turned and looked up at Tomas, who held bags of Chinese food in his hands in the open doorway, and watched the smile slide from his face. “What’s wrong?” He rushed into the room and dropped the parcels on the bureau. “Are you sick? You look pale as a ghost.” He went to her side and pressed his hand to her forehead as if checking for a fever, concern etched on his features.
Crystal shook her head and took a series of shallow breaths. “Not sick. Just give me a minute.” The trembling that had overtaken her subsided after Tomas pulled her into his arms and held her. He smelled like cool evening air, fresh citrus and body musk all rolled into one. Tomas was all male, but no one could calm and soothe her like he did.
He kissed the crown of her hair, bought his mouth to her perspired temple and ran his hand down the length of her back, caressing her spine. He whispered in her ear. “I’ve never seen you like this. What’s happened, mi amor?”
The solid feel of his chest and arms blanketing her eased some of her fear. Tomas had been there for her since the first day they’d met. He w
as her rock and her hero, though she’d never let on that she cared so much.
Vulnerability was a dangerous state in which she dared not fall. She’d watched her mother love and lose dozens of men who’d treated her like a doormat while they came and went.
They came and came, all right, making frightening guttural noises through the thin walls of her tiny house, while Crystal pressed her hands to her ears beside her sister Dottie in their double bed. The next day, the next week or the following month the men invariably went their own way. Then her mother would fall into a deep state of depression, swear off men for a little while and start the cycle over again.
Crystal cringed. She would never risk her heart to a man. She’d clearly inherited her mother’s sex drive, but staying in charge of her relationships was Crystal’s only weapon against repeating her mother’s mistakes.
But this situation was different and out of her control. She had to trust someone. Who better to help her than Tomas? He would know what to do.
“Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what’s wrong.” Tomas said.
Her jitters subsided enough to disentangle from his embrace and reach down to retrieve the letter from its hiding spot near her feet. She handed the note over without a word and watched Tomas while his eyes scanned the print.
He looked up slowly and made deep eye contact, his dark brown eyes glittering with outrage. A steady throb pulsed in his jaw and his nostrils flared. He said through his teeth, “I’d like to kill the bastard that wrote this.”
They both knew Mr. Law Enforcement wouldn’t go rogue, though Tomas wasn’t adverse to a blood and knuckles arrest when it suited him. Before Crystal could say so, Tomas laid the letter on the vanity table by the top corner using only two fingers. “Do you have a clean plastic bag?”
Crystal nodded and went to the bureau where she kept odd junk, an old sewing kit and random storage containers for makeup and hair supplies. There she retrieved a box of gallon-size food storage bags and brought them to Tomas.
He pulled a bag from the box and dropped the letter inside. “Where’s the envelope? Don’t touch it, just point.”
Crystal extended her index finger, indicating the floor beneath the vanity. Tomas picked up a pair of tweezers from her tabletop and used them to retrieve the legal-size envelope. He dropped it inside the bag with the letter.
“What will you do with those?” Crystal asked. “I don’t want the police! The paparazzi will find out and make my life miserable.”
Tomas frowned and shook his head. “People who write letters are usually cowards. This threat might be nothing, but we can’t take that chance. The authorities should be notified.” She recognized the look of determination on his face that meant he wouldn’t budge. Tomas could be as immovable as a concrete slab once he’d made a decision.
When he met her gaze with a flat, stony expression, Crystal sighed and decided it was best to tell him everything. “There’s more than one.”
“What?” His head jerked with the question.
Crystal opened the center drawer on her vanity table to reveal the small stack of malicious letters she had saved.
Tomas blanched at the sight of the mail. His horrified look turned accusatory. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The truth was, she had ignored them in the beginning. The first letter had been a rant of derogatory name-calling. Crystal was unfazed by terms like slut, whore and cunt. She’d been called that, and worse, by jealous lovers, overly aggressive Tongue and Cheek bar patrons or ex-boyfriends.
“Who else has seen these?”
Crystal shook her head. “No one, I don’t think. Unless a member of the production staff snooped. Though the room belongs to me, it’s not uncommon for crewmembers to come in here to borrow something. The door only locks from the inside.”
Crystal let out a sigh. The only reason she hadn’t thrown the letters in the trash was because they’d been addressed to Crystal Miller, not Crystal Diamond. She’d been curious as to why the person had written in care of the studio, when anyone who knew her well enough to know her real name would also know where she lived. That detail niggled at her.
“The first and second letters were just rants mingled with mild threats. The third got scarier. It wasn’t until the fourth that I got rattled. That letter came a few days ago. The fifth arrived so fast it took me off guard.”
“What about your fan mail? Have you seen similar handwriting or printing on those?”
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t noticed.” Crystal sighed and chewed her lower lip in frustration. She should have thought of that. “I throw most of my mail away.”
“Save everything from now on. Understand?”
Crystal nodded.
“Do you have a pair of gloves in your closet? Any kind, it doesn’t matter.”
All she could find were a pair made of sheer black lace. Tomas took them and put them on without flinching. He opened and read each letter slowly, also taking note of the postmark and delivery dates. “The aggression has escalated,” he said. “We can’t let this go, Crystal.”
She couldn’t keep herself from whining. “Can’t you do something without involving the cops? You’re with the Navy military police. You have contacts. If this ends up on the police blotter, every newshound in the country will show up.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah, I could call a buddy at the local precinct. Maybe he could look into this quietly. My brother at the FBI might also be able to help.” Tomas bundled the letters and slipped them into another baggie. “I hate to say it, but unless someone attempts an assault, it will be hard to catch whoever is doing this.” Tomas pulled off the lace gloves and laid them on the vanity table.
Any other time Crystal would have made a sarcastic or salacious remark about him wearing her garments, but she had no urge to do that now. She kissed his cheek instead. “Thank you, honey.”
“Honey?” Tomas looked up at her and smirked. “Not dickwad, knucklehead or shit for brains?” He squeezed one cheek of her butt through the thick terrycloth she wore. “Things are looking up.”
“I have to admit I feel better knowing you’re on my side.”
His expression turned solemn. “I’ve always been on your team, Crystal. I just wish you’d stop inviting other players into your locker room.”
“Would it make you feel better to know you’re team captain?” She caressed his biceps and then ran her palm down his arm. Beneath her hand, his muscles flexed in response. The hairs on his arm prickled.
“General manager. I’ll take nothing less.” His dead-on stare said he hadn’t been placated this time. It was getting harder to justify her reluctance to commit when they’d so obviously become a couple.
“I noticed you didn’t say owner. You’re obviously getting to know me well.” Crystal glanced at the open doorway and whispered, “Close the door, Tomas.”
Tomas locked the door. Crystal took him by the hand and led him toward the daybed. When they reached the edge, she untied her robe and let it fall open to reveal her near naked body. Crystal reached out and touched his face. “I’ve been upset. I think you should comfort me in the way only you can. Just you. Nobody else.”
Tomas smiled then, all of the anxiety of the past several minutes draining from his face. “I don’t want you to worry about those letters. Understand? I’ll look into it.” Hungry eyes savored every inch of her skin. His gaze traveled over her tiny thong as if replaying her earlier on-screen sex show.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her then, and his full, pliant lips relayed all the concern and desire that had been reflected in his eyes. His kiss told her secrets he had never spoken out loud—that he loved her and would put all her needs before his if she would only promise to be his alone.
When his tongue touched hers and he pulled her closer, crushing his muscled chest to her breasts, his affection and want nearly splintered her resolve. For an instant she sensed what it would be like to belong to someone completely. That knowledge
sent a heady adrenaline rush through her that washed a sense of peace over her too. Every nerve ending along her body tingled from the dual effect.
Crystal broke the kiss, caught her breath and stepped back, not sure what to make of this unexpected turn of events. She felt him. Not his body, but his soul, and the experience rattled and intrigued her at the same time.
She returned to his arms and kissed him with the same intensity he’d offered. Their breathing quickened as their kisses became more urgent. Crystal wrapped her arms around Tomas’ neck, nibbled his bottom lip and then pressed her lips to his jawline. “What’s happening here, Tomas?” she whispered.
Tomas reached under her chin and lifted her face to his. Tenderness filled his expression and gentleness glowed in his eyes. He kissed her softly. “I think you know.”
Suddenly, the intimacy became too much and she squirmed away. Crystal giggled to disguise her discomfort. She hated feeling vulnerable. Maybe the letter had affected her more deeply than she’d acknowledged and that insecurity had exaggerated her connection to Tomas.
She returned to what made her feel most comfortable and in charge. Seduction. Theater. Sex as invigorating gymnastics. Crystal dropped her robe from her shoulders and let it fall near the bottom of the bed. Except for the tiny thong, she stood naked before Tomas and cupped her breasts. “Take off your clothes,” she said, and then pulled a condom from the decorative box she kept on a table next to the bed.
He stripped and dropped everything beside him on the chair. Crystal tossed him the condom and took in the sight of his massive erection. She cooed, “I have just the place for you to put that.”
Tomas stroked his hard-on and ran his thumb over the smooth head. A clear droplet coated the tip. Crystal watched him shudder as the veins in his cock turned a deeper blue. His hand slid down his shaft and gripped it tightly at the base, making his phallus grow larger still. “I intend to stick this in as many places as it will go,” he countered. “Get in the shower and take off that body makeup first.”