“Self-evident.” With pursed lips, Madame Z gazed a good twenty seconds at Emily’s derriere, and then gave a great sigh. “Gonna have to do it with the shoes.”
“Stilettos?” Emily’s voice squeaked the question.
“Too short. Spikes.”
Emily swallowed, hard. “I do think we’ll need to practice that.”
“Elliot paid for the whole afternoon, sweetie. Just you and me and the catwalk.”
Forty-five minutes, thirty painful trips up and down the runway, really a strip of carpet across the back of the store, and Emily was ready. The heels jammed her legs into her spine at such an angle it looked as if she really did have a perfect peach of a bottom. Shoulder blades kissing in back, chin up, she thought she could see a decent cleavage, as well.
Madame Z nodded in approval. “You’ll do fine. Ice down tonight and warm tomorrow, then practice again for a half-hour. Rinse, repeat until the big day.”
Emily bent at her hips and used her hands to lever herself off the shoes and onto the carpet. “Thank you so much. I actually think I might be able to do this.”
Madame Z’s eyes narrowed to nearly black slits. “Why do you even want to? Just because your Elliot thinks it would be ah-dohr-ah-bull?”
Emily frowned. Was that all it was? “Not only. I’m curious. I have to hide – well, I’m always playing down my looks, and, you know.” She shrugged. “I need the men in my field to respect me. And the women.”
“So, you fake it as a man. Well don’t we all, toots.”
Emily couldn’t help laughing. “You are so much the better woman than I am the man.” She shrugged. “It’s easier that way. But sometimes I wonder, what would it be like? What do those women feel like inside? Would I like it? Just for one night?”
“What if you do like it? Would you participate every year? Keep the parties going?”
“No.”
Madame Z’s lips turned down. “Elliot has been a good customer. I never worry about my girls at his events, and they like doing them.”
For a moment, Emily felt washed with shame. She was taking money out of these women’s mouths. Then she straightened her spine, feeling the soreness already starting between her shoulder blades. “It’s time for the next generation to throw the parties. Most of Elliott’s colleagues are family men now, more interested in sleep than sex.”
“Every man is interested in sex, sweetie. Even the cross-dressing ones.” Madame Z gave a sigh worthy of the stage. “I had such hopes for your Elliot, but he does persist in falling for the ladies. And you’re such a pretty beanpole. What’s the difference? But I never got even a whiff of curiosity. Odd in such a perceptive man.”
Emily had to smile. “Wouldn’t do to consort with the clients, would it?”
“Baby, that’s what I do best.”
****
Friday night, and Emily was almost ready to go on. Or to run.
In the ready room, the home office on non-party days, she watched the ladies from Madame Z’s Fabulous Friends escort service put on their personas. They spent a lot of time on their eyes, which seem to pop from their faces. She borrowed a blue stick from a gorgeous blonde one who was singing a lullaby into her phone. Clicking off, she looked at Emily and shook her blond mane of hair. “Gotta build up your eyes, with you so pale. The mask darkens everything.”
Now a redhead, and with eyes rimmed in shimmer blue, Emily looked nothing like her everyday self. She’d reminded herself again that the bustier did not allow bending from the waist, knocking herself breathless while trying to tighten a strap on one of the Grecian-laced spikes.
The hard back-beat and bass pounded through the walls. Elliot’s sound system was powerful, of course, and even at this volume not distorted. But the echo seemed to distort Emily’s thoughts. One moment, raw fear. The next, a shock of excitement.
Can I really do this?
What if people recognize her, despite the hot rack and new hair and towering height? What if they said something and she answered and they recognize her voice? She pressed her lips together.
What if Elliot didn’t like how she looked?
What if he did?
“Now or never,” Madame Z announced with a wave of an arm. “Let’s go make some men happy.”
Taking her cue from the ladies ahead of her, Emily sauntered, carefully, into the room, swaying her hips as wide as she dared. All twenty-five women had reached the center of Elliot’s bamboo-paneled Great Room, open now with all the sofas and seats pushed to the walls, before she dared lift her gaze from the asses and shoes ahead of her.
Oh.
All the men, shouting and grinning, were wearing half-masks. She didn’t know they would be masked as well, and her wobbly smile grew a little wider. True anonymity. There looked to be four or five dozen men here, two-thirds the number Elliot said he had invited. They come and go during the night, so to speak, he’d said.
The women formed into a tight circle. At the leader’s signal, faced out and struck a pose. A couple catcalls, a couple of whistles, while most of the men grinned and soaked them in. And then went back to their drinks.
“That’s it?” Emily whispered to the woman next to her.
“Don’t sag. They have to pretend not to care. Mas macho.” She winked, and on the signal Emily took another pose, so forward she nearly overbalanced herself. This act was hard.
After voguing for the length of an interminable techno tune, somehow raising the temperature in the room about ten degrees, they broke the circle. As Emily stepped forward, she felt a hand at her waist.
“Where’d you find those breasts?”
Elliot was unmasked, of course, as he was the host. Emily almost sagged into him with relief, but at the last minute remembered her role. “Madame Z’s.”
“She told you to smoke, too?”
“To change my voice.”
“My own little Lauren Bacall. And you’re even taller than me.” His hand slipped over her hip, finger flicking the edge of the silkiest thong Emily had ever worn. Her racing heart skipped. “Want a drink?” he said.
“You know it.”
Hand on her ass, he guided her past the short line and right up to the bar. “Stoli, and a creamsicle for my honey.”
“Creamsicle?”
“Vodka with orange and coconut juice.” He handed it to her. It had a straw. She pursed her lips, so thick with blood-red lipstick she could feel it, and took a sip, or rather, a suck. His breath hitched – and so did the man’s behind him. Elliot’s eyes narrowed and he turned. The other man quickly looked away. Emily tried not to smile, but her heart gave her away.
Elliot threw back his drink. “Drink up,” he said roughly, but quickly reconsidered. “No, give me that.” He set his glass on the bar and took hers. Hand on her upper arm this time, he guided her away from the line and the men and the other women, closer to the wall. “We need some space.”
The wall was all window, and by far Emily’s favorite part of the penthouse. Standing here she could see the pyramidal Transamerica building and lights of ships far out on the fog-striped bay.
“Put your hands up.”
“Going to arrest me?”
“Only fair. You nearly put me into cardiac arrest when you strutted out here.”
She pushed her palms into the glass, its cool surface shocking. She was so hot already she couldn’t see why there wasn’t a thunder-boomer between the glass and her palms. Elliot covered her left hand quickly, and slid the ruby ring off her finger. She’d forgotten. He slipped it into his pocket and then reached under her arm to bring the drink, the straw, to her lips.
“More?” he purred. Emily pursed her lips again, pulling on the straw. The drink was sweeter than she cared for but Elliot’s reaction was all she could desire. He pushed his chest into her back; she felt the chamois of his shirt on her bared shoulder blades and the rumble of his low growl. She did it again, feeling quite the femme fatale, and was rewarded by a familiar bumping near her ass.
“Happy to see me?” Her voice sounds like some other girl’s. Or rather, woman’s.
“I wasn’t sure you’d go through with it. I’m so... glad... you did.”
The drink was small, and soon enough she was sucking at the dregs. Leaning her head into his shoulder, she licked her upper lip, slow. There was no way this lipstick was coming off easy.
In the reflection of the window Emily could see others watching, not staring but stealing looks. Smoldering looks. She must be doing this right.
Elliot dropped the glass, which must be solid crystal because it didn’t shatter. Shaking his head as if waking from a dream, he looked up, into the window, and then over his shoulder. Everyone who had been watching quickly turned away.
He cleared his throat, and then shouted out, over the relentless house beat. “Find a friend! Make a friend! I’ll get back to you.” She thought she heard a few chuckles as he turned the whole of his attention back to her. “You’re mine tonight.”
“You’re so sure.” She flicked her glance over his shoulder, as if to check out the rest of the room, and he moved his head, blocking her view.
“Positive. Now, show my city what a pretty ass you have.”
She didn’t understand at first, so he took her by the hip and spun her to face him. He licked across her lower lip. “Missed a spot.”
“You don’t like coconut.”
“But you do.” His hands cupped her shoulders, and she gasped, remembering how bare she was here, all legs and arms and nearly all chest, and with all these people around. Here, with Elliot, who couldn’t keep his breath under control for once. She smiled with what she hoped was Lauren Bacall sass, and raised a brow.
Elliot moaned. “Not playing fair. Now keep your feet where they are.” He took a step back, pulling her shoulders forward. “Bend, baby.”
Now she saw what he wanted. As she bent from the hips, she huffed through the silk shirt at the divot of fair hair on his chest between his nipples. He shuddered and pushed her lower.
“Arms around my waist.” She did as he said, and added her own little huff to his belly button. Would her tongue reach? She shifted her weight onto one hip, trying to keep her balance for the experiment. Then she felt his palm hot on her bare bottom. Her ass was exposed. To the city!
For a moment she froze in near-panic. But the moment quickly passed, and the music kept going, and she was and here he was here and didn’t she want this? She most certainly did.
She pressed her new bangs into his waist for balance and, well, access. “Don’t be a bad girl,” he said. She had no idea what he meant. Could he be talking about his cock, doing the crazy let-me-out bulge right below her? She ignored it and instead moved her attention to his ass. It was only fair. She flexed her fingers and slipped them under the waistband of his trousers. Shit, should’ve thought to loosen the belt first. But there was just enough give, and she didn’t have to reach far to touch skin. She tried to match in her little field the circle rhythm of his hand on her. But then his hand vanished.
She heard the smack before she felt it, or before she recognized what she was feeling. Her face flushed red with embarrassment. Or was it excitement? She wondered if the thin strip of material covering her slit was as wet as she felt inside.
“Told you not to be bad,” he whispered, and started the circling again. She started to pull her arms back, sliding her fingers towards his hips. After a moment, he seemed to realize what she was doing and reached back to capture her hands. She could smell his excitement.
“Up,” he commanded, and she lifted her strange new chest. His eyes were blazing. She’d done that. “We’re not supposed to kiss the girls on the mouth.” But she saw how much he wanted to. And she wanted him, too.
She managed a pout. “Earlobes?”
“Yes,” he sighed, almost in relief, and spun her around to face the window again. Her palms were soaked against the window now. This would leave a mark.
Elliot pushed into her, nipping her ear, kissing her neck, gripping her shoulder, hard. She wondered if he knew his hips were grinding hers in time with the primal throb of the music. She decided not to tell him, because then he might stop.
Her eyelids fluttered, and then it was just them, deep in the music, flying over the city. In a moment, in a minute, she didn’t know, she’d gone from liking his grinding to not being able to survive without it. She grabbed his hips and pulled them close, but they were already as close as they could be. She wouldn’t let go.
His hands covered hers, gripping. She felt his breaths, in and out, pushing her new hair forward and back. She turned her head so her mouth was nearer his, so she could whisper. “Are you allowed to touch me?”
“If you consent,” he croaked out. “Do you?”
“I do.”
His hands slid from his hips to hers, the shortest of distances, and she bucked. He licked the divot between her shoulder and her neck, and then suddenly she felt his fingers over the front of her thighs.
“You do? Here? Now?”
“I do.”
A hand slid over the satin covering her pussy. It cupped her, and she groaned slow. Though the beat of the music was heavy in her ear, she heard felt his chuckle in her spine.
Another hand slid behind the first, and under the satin. “Stay still,” he said, as if that ever worked. He locked his legs outside hers to support them, wisely, as her knees had turned to jelly.
“Might want to grip the window again,” he said, but she reached for the back of his neck instead. He was going nowhere. His kisses along her collarbone turned to nips, and there it was, a matching nip on her clit. She gasped, and arched, pushing back, throbbing.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
She tilted her head up again and opened her eyes. It took a moment for her vision to clear, and then she caught his gaze in the reflection. He looked down, and her gaze followed him. Her hard, hungry nipples teetered out of the bustier. In front of the whole city. She laughed, but all that came out was a throaty huff.
“Think it’s funny, exposing yourself?” He moved his outside hand to hug across her breasts, brushing both nipples at once. His forearm mirrored the circling his fingers were doing to her clit, matching the pulse of the music, of their hearts, of their blood. She was rising and rising, her hips grinding and grinding.
The lights were dim, but behind her eyelids it was flashing daylight. She was going to come. She couldn’t come.
She did come.
Elliot caught most of her hoarse scream behind his hand. His arms squeezed tight, blanketing her bucking. So quick, so deep, and oh, so good.
When she came back to consciousness, breaths still heavy, he had his arms wrapped around her front. Her Elliot modesty bra.
He lifted his fingers to her lips, and she sucked gently. She tasted good.
He met her gaze in the window’s reflection. He looked like he’d just been fucked, but good. She shook her head at him, and he grinned. She coasted on the feeling a long moment. So right.
It couldn’t get better than this. She sagged against him. “Oh, El,” she said on a sigh.
“Oh, Em.”
She heard a sudden intake of breath. It wasn’t either one of them. Someone had overheard.
Someone was listening.
Someone was watching.
The chuckle sounded familiar. Was it – could it be – Elliot’s stepfather? “El, man, don’t tell me you’re fondling your fiancée at your own stag party.”
Emily went from overheated to ice cold in under a second. He knows. He’s going to tell everyone. Everyone knows. They will judge. This is what I didn’t want. This is what I never want.
Her limbs went heavy as lead, but still the ground didn’t swallow her up.
Elliot grabbed the man’s arm. “Not my fiancée. Never say that. Never.” But it was, indeed, the other Elliott. The one they’ve had Thanksgiving dinners with, the one who didn’t play dumb. Or nice.
“You might share. That’d keep my mouth
shut.”
“No. She’s mine.”
“She isn’t, though. She’s Madame Z’s, right?” The older man smiled, his pretty mouth like a Komodo Dragon’s.
“Don’t do this.” Elliot’s voice was razor-sharp, but his stepfather shrugged.
“Your mother, I think. That’s all who needs to know.”
His mother. The perfect hostess, with flawless skin and incomparable manners. And now she would know this about her? Emily’s mind shied away from the thought.
“Stop it,” Elliot growled. At her? At his stepfather? He stepped toward the older man – or away from her, she wasn’t sure.
“Kidding, kidding, kiddo. No harm, no foul.” Emily twisted out of Elliot’s grasp. He wasn’t fast enough to grab her back, even with her on these pogo sticks.
Leaning against the window for support and to get as far away from people as possible, she skirted the room. Finally, she reached the foyer and walk-ran down the hall. She passed the room set aside for the ladies and went straight on to the master bedroom. It wasn’t until she got to the bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it that she realized she’d just given up her identity to anyone who was watching her go.
****
She fell against the door, and for a moment her overloaded mind went blank. Two long breaths later, the door banged and she jumped.
“Let me in.” Elliot’s mutter sounded like a demand. Or desperation.
“I need a shower.”
“Let me in, Em. Now.”
“After.”
A thump. Elliot must have rested his forehead on the door. “Fine, after. How long?”
How long? Forever. “Twenty minutes,” she heard herself say. “It’s a lot of makeup.”
More voices in the hall. The party was spilling out into the private areas. She heard Elliot push off the door. “Eleven-twenty now, so eleven-forty. No more.”
No more was right.
Under the hottest water she could stand she scrubbed off the makeup, the sweat, the cum, the life she used to have. Everything was changed. This was impossible. She’d made the biggest mistake of her life.
She scrub, scrub, scrubbed – and then stopped. A thought banged into her head, and she turned the water down.
Out of Her Comfort Zone Page 3