After Hours

by Rochelle Alers

  Mrs. Beatty nodded. “I’ll make certain to expedite the closing.”

  “We haven’t set a wedding date, and you want to move in next month?” Dina asked Lance once they were back in his car.

  Shifting on his seat, Lance turned to stare at her. “We probably won’t move in before the end of the year. You’re going to have to select furniture, then wait for it to be delivered. And that can take months. Once we’re married, you’ll move in with me.”

  “What about my lease?”

  “Don’t worry, baby girl. I’ll pay off your debts.”

  Dina wondered how Lance would react if she told him she needed eighty-four hundred dollars to add to the eleven thousand six hundred she’d put away to pay off an ex-con threatening to hurt her supposedly deceased grandmother.

  She wouldn’t panic, at least not yet. Sparkle had an encore performance Friday night, this time at a bachelor party.

  CHAPTER 59

  Dina plucked the Post-it off her locker. The message was short and to the point. See me—Sybil.

  She refused to entertain the notion that Sybil was canceling the bachelor party the following evening. Each time she became Sparkle it brought her closer to her goal.

  Dina found Sybil in her office, but she wasn’t alone. Karla King sat on a chair, flipping the pages of a magazine while Sybil spoke softly into the telephone. Sybil glanced up, ended the call and beckoned to her.

  “Come in, Dina, and have a seat.”

  Karla put aside the magazine and smiled at Dina. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s all good.”

  Leaning back in her chair, Sybil stared at the ring on Dina’s left hand. “Congratulations.”

  Dina blinked once. “Say what?”

  “Isn’t that an engagement ring?”

  Dina raised her left hand. She’d forgotten to take the ring off. She thought it best not to wear it when working. “Yes, it is.”

  “Let me see,” Karla said, coming to her feet and grasping Dina’s hand. “Damn! It’s big enough to choke a horse.”

  “Lance Haynes?” Sybil asked.

  Dina nodded. “Yes.”

  “Are you and Lance still friends?” Karla teased.

  “Yes. But now we’re very, very good friends.”

  Karla let go of Dina’s hand and hugged her. “Congratulations. Your ring is incredibly beautiful.” She caught Sybil’s gaze and mouthed, “Engagement party.” Sybil nodded. “Have you set a date?”

  Dina pulled away from Karla. “Not yet.”

  “Do you plan to have a long engagement?” Sybil questioned.

  “No. Lance and I were thinking about an October wedding.”

  Sybil motioned for Dina to sit. “That’s practically around the corner. If you’re looking to have a small wedding, then you’re welcome to have it here.”

  “It’s going to be very small. I don’t have any relatives—at least none that are close—and Lance is an only child. Aside from his mother, who lives in South Carolina, he only has his business associates.”

  Sybil clapped her hands. “That does it. You will have it here. I’ll set up everything in one of the first-floor rooms.” Picking up a marker, she jotted down a note to herself on a Post-it.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Dina. Sybil and I will pull it together for you,” Karla volunteered. “By the way, where are you going live after you’re married?”

  The night of their engagement Lance had given Dina a key to his apartment, and although she’d accepted it, she still planned to spend most of her time in Irvington. “I’m going to move in with Lance.”

  “Where does he live?” Sybil asked.

  “He has an apartment in West New York. I’m not certain how long we’ll live there because Lance is buying a house in Upper Saddle Brook.”

  Sybil’s eyes brightened with excitement. “Did you buy a new house?”

  “It’s fairly new. The original owner had it custom-built but never took possession because some of his investments fell through. So he put it on the market before the bank foreclosed on it.”

  Karla leaned forward. “How many rooms does it have?”

  Shaking her head, Dina closed her eyes for several seconds. “Too many,” she said when she opened them.

  “Maybe I should rephrase my question. How many bedrooms do you have?” Karla asked.

  “There’re five in the main house and four in the guest wing.”

  “Damn!” Sybil and Karla chorused.

  “If you need help decorating, then Sybil’s your girl,” Karla said with a hint of pride in her voice. “She helped me design my outdoor kitchen and select the accessories for my guest bedrooms.”

  Dina expelled a sigh of relief. “I’d thought about retaining the services of an interior decorator, but I don’t want the rooms to have that look-but-don’t-touch appearance.”

  “I hear you,” Sybil drawled. “I’m sorry, but I have to change the topic. It’s about tomorrow night.” Within seconds she’d garnered both Dina’s and Karla’s attention. “I’ve arranged for a car service to pick us up at eight. We’ll be dropped off at a Fort Lee hotel. We’ll get dressed in a room adjoining the suite where the bachelor party will be held. We do our thing, then leave. Each of us will have half an hour of stage time.”

  “Who’s the client?” Karla asked.

  “He’s the son of man who purportedly has the largest black-owned car dealership in the state. The prospective groom has earned the reputation of being a ladies’ man. I heard on the down-low that his daddy had to pay out a lot of money to get him out of a sit-chi-a-shun after an ex-girlfriend accused him of rape.”

  Karla grunted. “Maybe Delectable needs to teach the boy a lesson.”

  Leaning over her desk, Sybil gave Karla a high five. “What Delectable is going to do is tear him a new asshole,” Sybil drawled, enunciating each word.

  “I hear you,” Karla drawled.

  Dina sat, listening to the interchange between the two. They were better educated than most women she knew, resided in affluent communities and were married to professional black men, but underneath the fancy trappings they still were sister-girls who lapsed into dialect and laughed at themselves.

  Sybil turned to Dina. “I want Sparkle to put something on the son of a bitch that he’ll never forget. I want it to be you, not his bride, that he’ll fantasize ’bout fuckin’ on his wedding night.”

  Dina turned away, blushing. This was too much for her. This is the type of conversation she would have with LaKeisha Robinson, not her attorney and her employer. What made her their equal was her initiation into the clandestine world of exotic dancing. What separated Sparkle from Delectable and Chocolate Ice was that Sparkle did it for money, while Karla did it for male attention and Sybil for allegedly a release of frustration.

  Did her dancing for money make it more acceptable?

  No.

  Was she exempt from being labeled unfaithful because she was single?

  No.

  CHAPTER 60

  “Sit down, Sparkle. You’re making me nervous with your pacing.”

  Dina stopped and shot Karla a blank stare through her mask, then continued pacing the length of the room. She’d applied her eye makeup, gotten into her costume and tied the ribbons to her ballet slippers around her ankles. She’d retied them twice because she’d forgotten that the bow went in the back, not the front of the leg. She stopped, shaking out her arms and legs.

  I’m never going to get used to this.

  And she didn’t want to get used to shaking her ass for sloppy-drunk, horny men. She wanted to marry Lance, decorate her new house and host dinner parties, like Karla and Sybil. And like the Mary J. Blige song, her anthem had become, “No More Drama.” She stopped pacing and sat on the edge of a folding chair. The noise and music coming from the adjoining suite could be heard through the walls.

  “I don’t think I’ll have to warm up this bunch,” Karla murmured.

  She was stunning in a brown sheer lace jumps
uit. Thousands of rhinestones covered the garment from the stand-up collar to the hem. The brown was an exact match for her skin tone, and upon closer look it was apparent that Karla was completely nude under the sheer fabric. Although a shimmering mask concealed most of her face it failed to disguise the eyes that glowed with a savage inner fire.

  Dina glanced over at Sybil, who sat spread-eagle with her whip dangling between her legs. Dressed entirely in black with thigh-high leather boots and flicking the whip, she looked sexy and dangerous.

  “We’re ready over here!” shouted a strong masculine voice followed by a knock on the door.

  Karla strolled over to the door and stepped onto a stage in the adjoining suite. Sybil moved quickly to hold on to the doorknob to prevent it from closing. “Come, Dina, and look,” she whispered.

  Dina rushed over to the crack in the door, her mouth dropping when she watched Karla pull herself up and swing around a pole to Ludacris’s “What’s Your Fantasy.” All the men were up on their feet when Karla’s tongue flicked out like a lizard’s along with the lyrics.

  She found herself as mesmerized as the men in the room when she stared at Karla. She simulated making love as she spread her legs, clutched her crotch with both hands while throwing back her head in supplication. Chocolate Ice teased, taunted and seduced, utilizing the pole as if it were an extension of her body. Karla King, aka Chocolate Ice, was good—very, very good.

  Karla felt as if she’d been injected with a powerful stimulant. It’d been years since she’d danced for men, but the moves, the splits, came back as if it’d been yesterday. She couldn’t see the faces of the men staring at her because the spotlight was focused on her, but she felt their rapt gazes and felt the lust in the room that shimmered like waves of heat.

  They were no different from the men she’d danced for twenty years ago. Whenever she performed, it was to complete silence. If it hadn’t been for the music, she would’ve been able to hear their accelerated heartbeats. There was something about her routine that required the utmost concentration or else they’d miss something.

  She beckoned to the prospective groom, smiling as he came closer. Then, without warning, she slid down to the floor of the stage and wrapped her legs around his neck. Thrusting upward, she pushed her crotch against his face. He stumbled backward as if jolted by volts of electricity. The entire room erupted in laughter. Recovering quickly, he buried his face between Chocolate’s outspread legs, inhaling deeply. The scent of raw sex wafted in his nostrils. He reached for Chocolate, but came away empty. She’d scooted to the other edge of the stage, bowing. Her routine ended as bills rained down around her feet.

  Karla picked up the money, waving to the men who whistled, stomped and shouted for more. She slipped through the opening in the door, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. A wide grin spilt her face under the brown lace mask. Chocolate Ice was back!

  Sparkle took the stage to a chorus of gasps from the assembled. She knew Chocolate was a hard act to follow, but whoever had selected the music for her opening act had picked the perfect song—Marques Houston’s “Naked.” She stared at the groom, gesturing to him. He moved toward her as if in a trance. The crooner’s melodious voice reverberated throughout the room.

  Sparkle saw something in the guest of honor’s eyes she hadn’t expected to see—indecision. She didn’t know if he was afraid of Sparkle or if he’d had second thoughts about marrying his fiancée. The green fairy managed a full split, her hands anchored on the floor between her legs. She leaned forward, giving everyone close enough a view of her breasts spilling over the revealing décolletage.

  She held his head, whispering the chorus in his ear. He hollered, grabbing himself between the legs. Sparkle’s hot breath and the sound of her sultry voice in his ear made him come!

  One by one Sparkle seduced every man in the room, a few faring no better than the prospective groom. One man approached the stage, credit card in hand. He waved it above his head, shouting, “I need to make a withdrawal so I can pay the beautiful fairy.”

  Sparkle turned her back to him and squatted. Raising her hips slightly, she gave him an unobstructed view of her bare bottom through the sheer green tights. Smiling at him over her shoulder, she drawled, “Hey, Boo, the ATM is open 24/7.” The man ran the edge of the card down the crystal-studded G-string before reaching into his pocket and littering the stage with one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Sparkle rewarded him with a kiss to the forehead. She bumped, she grinded, dropped her ass, then popped up like a jack-in-the-box. She put all she had into the performance because she literally was dancing for her grandmother’s life, ending her routine with pulling the pins from her hair, shaking it out and tossing the raven mane over her shoulders and down her back. Bowing gracefully, she threw kisses at the men standing on chairs and pounding tables. She scooped up her tips and slipped off the stage.

  Dina met Karla’s and Sybil’s gazes. They were looking at her as if she were a stranger. “What’s the matter?”

  Sybil shook her head. “You were awesome.”

  Karla sans mask, hadn’t changed because she’d wanted to watch Dina’s performance. “You are better than Chocolate Ice ever was in her heyday.”

  Instead of feeling elated, Dina felt like weeping. She forced a smile. “Thanks.”

  Sybil and Karla didn’t know—they couldn’t know that this isn’t what she wanted to do. They may want to perform for the company of men, but she did it because she didn’t have a choice. For the ten years Adina Jenkins went on stage each night to perform in a role, she’d had to seduce a man—for money. Adina had retired, but it was now Dina Gordon who’d reprised the role to use her body to again seduce men—for money.

  Chocolate Ice and Delectable saw dancing as fun—a way to spice up their rather ordinary lives. While it was a job—drudgery—for Sparkle, who wanted to live a very ordinary life for the first time in twenty-seven years. A roar went up in the other room, and she peered through the opening in the door with Karla to see Delectable strutting onto the stage.

  Delectable uncoiled the whip and popped it, the deafening sound getting everyone’s attention. Swaggering on the four-inch heels, she pointed the handle of the whip at the prospective groom, who’d changed into a pair of jeans.

  He mounted the stage as Delectable asked someone for a chair. She motioned for him to sit, and he appeared visibly shaken when she placed her booted foot on his groin.

  “Relax, baby boy. Delectable is not going to hurt you.”

  Moving backward, she trailed the length of leather on the floor, measuring the distance it would take for the tip of the whip to reach her target. There was no music, no sound except for the whisper of breathing.

  Delectable swung the whip over her head, then snapped her wrist. It came over the chest of the man sitting stiffly in the chair. He screamed and peered down at his white shirt, looking for blood where the leather had cut into his flesh. There was none. The only thing missing was a button. The whip came down again and again, leaving the shirt in tatters but not a mark on the trembling body.

  There was no applause or shouting when Delectable ended her awesome skill with the whip. One by one the men filed up to the stage and gently placed money on the stage. A knowing smile touched Sybil’s mouth when she bent over to retrieve her tips. Physically the men were superior, but it was Delectable who’d established that she was totally in control.

  CHAPTER 61

  Karla glanced at the telephone display when a call came through on her private line. Smiling, she picked up the receiver. “Good morning, darling.”

  “Good morning to you, too. I forgot to tell you that we have a meeting tonight.”

  “I don’t want to go, Ronald.”

  There came a pause. “This is the second time you’ve canceled on me, Karla. What’s up?’

  “Nothing’s up. I just don’t feel like going anymore.”

  Karla didn’t know when it’d happened, but she’d tired of the swinging scene, tired
of having to decide who she was going to sleep with. Once she and Ronald returned home, she compared him to the man with whom she’d had sex. And that’s all it was—sex. Swinging had become even less stimulating now that she’d resurrected Chocolate Ice. Whenever she performed, she felt empowered, in control.

  “Why didn’t you say something before I renewed our membership?” Ronald asked. He hadn’t bothered to disguise his annoyance.

  Karla picked up a pen and began doodling on a pad. “I don’t know. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to feel differently about sleeping with other men.”

  “Don’t tell me you got a dose of morality all of a sudden.”

  “It has nothing to do with morality, Ronald. Why can’t it be that I enjoying sleeping with my husband?”

  “As I enjoy sleeping with you, Karla. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to sample something else every once in a while.”

  “Don’t let me stop you, Ronald, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “Are you giving me permission to cheat?”

  “It wouldn’t be cheating. After all, we do have an open marriage.”

  There came a pause. “You’re right, Karla. We’ll stay home tonight and I’ll think of something fun to do.”

  Her expression brightened. “Okay.” Whenever Ronald came up with idea for a fun thing, it always meant a new game or sex toy. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Karla stared at the object cradled between layers of tissue paper. Her gaze came up and fused with Ronald’s. “What do I need with that when I have you?”

  “It’s not for you,” he said mysteriously.

  “Who’s it for?”

  Dimples winked in his cheeks when he winked at her. “It’s for me.”

  Her eyelids fluttered. “You want me to strap on a dildo and do you?”

  Crawling onto the bed, Ronald lay down next to his wife. Although his mouth was smiling, his eyes were serious—very serious. “Yes.”