Blue Angel

by Logan Belle

  “I don’t really care,” Bette said, looking up from her iPhone, fixing Poppy with her unnerving cat-eyed glare. “I’m not working here to make a hundred and fifty dollars a night for the rest of my life. Do you know who that was at that table?”

  “The girl you pulled on stage? No—is she an actress?”

  “Not her! The guy in the stupid suspenders.”

  Poppy was the one who felt stupid. Was he an actor? She’d barely even noticed him. She decided it was best to say nothing. She knew Bette was going to tell her, regardless.

  “It was Billy Barton,” Bette said. When Poppy still showed no sign of recognition, Bette sighed in exasperation. “The owner of Gruff magazine. You know Gruff, right? They have that annual ‘Hot’ issue. I think it was Megan Fox on the cover last year.”

  “Oh, yeah—sure. I read it all the time,” Poppy lied.

  “Well, the publisher was here—tonight! That’s a big deal, Poppy. If the magazine writes about the club, we could get some industry people in here. Not just these horny NYU kids.”

  “Cool. So . . . do you want to get a drink?”

  Bette turned abruptly in her seat, looking at Poppy closely. She eyed her up and down, her gaze lingering at her chest. Poppy, wearing a pink satin robe over her pasties and G-string, felt more naked than she had on stage in front of fifty strangers. She forced herself to stand still.

  Bette stood so they were almost face-to-face. She reached out and slipped her hand under the robe, cupping Poppy’s breast. Poppy couldn’t even breathe. After months of being ignored, then barely getting conversation out of Bette . . . this! Poppy had never been so invisible to another human being.

  But not anymore.

  “Take these off,” Bette said, her thumb brushing over the red sequined flowers hiding Poppy’s nipples. Bette sat back in her seat, content to be the audience, while Poppy slowly removed her pasties. In the background, Poppy could hear the chords of “Fever” by Peggy Lee; it was Cookies ’n’ Cream’s number—the final act. Usually, Bette closed the show. But she and Cookie had made some crazy bet, and Cookie won. They wouldn’t even tell Poppy what the bet had been about. She felt like such an outsider, and wondered when that would change. How long would she have to be at the Blue Angel before she understood the place? Before Agnes spoke to her? Before the customers shouted her name? A year? Two?

  But none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was that her robe was on the floor, her pasties were in her hand, and Bette was staring at her bare breasts.

  Poppy decided to be proactive. That was her new mantra, proactive. She’d heard it on Oprah, or read it in Cosmo. Or someplace important like that. Don’t wait for things to come to you.

  She stepped forward, her eyes locked with Bette’s. It was disturbing to admit it, but she was, for once in her life, faced with someone hotter than herself.

  “I’m not really in the mood to drink tonight,” said Bette.

  She turned back to her iPhone.

  2

  “Never a dull moment with you guys,” Billy Barton said, hailing a cab on the Bowery. It was midnight, and it seemed the entire city was out and about. The taxis were scarce, but Mallory wouldn’t have minded walking a few blocks. She was still high on adrenaline.

  “Getting less dull by the minute,” Alec said. She couldn’t tell from his tone if he was happy about the evening’s turn of events, or annoyed with her. He’d barely said a word since that woman had pulled her on stage, but with Billy Barton monopolizing the conversation, it was hard to read too much into his silence.

  “True that,” Billy said. Ugh, he annoyed the hell out of her. She hated his foppish clothes and the way he talked down to waiters. She hated that he signed Alec’s paycheck, and that he knew so much more about New York City than she ever would. Billy Barton was one of those native New Yorkers who believed he was a breed apart from the rest of the universe. And she hated that he was tagging along on her birthday. “Do you two want to join me? I’m meeting some folks at the Standard. Might be some interesting guys for you to meet, Alec.”

  Mallory looked at Alec, and to her relief, he didn’t hesitate before saying, “Another time.”

  “Well then, happy birthday, love. I can’t believe I almost got to see you in your birthday suit.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  Alone, finally, Mallory and Alec walked silently to the corner. He pulled her to him.

  “So, birthday girl. That was quite a show.”

  “Yeah, it was really . . . interesting.”

  “I meant your show.”

  “Oh . . . that. Are you mad?”

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “I don’t know. It showed a certain lack of decorum.”

  “Mal, you went with it. That took nerve. To be honest, it was hot.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes! What else would it be to me? My God, any guy would kill to see his girlfriend up there like that. The only thing that would be better would be if we got that dancer back to our apartment for a private show.”

  “Alec!”

  “What? I told you I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “Do you have to bring it up on my birthday? And I don’t need to hear about the specific women you have in mind.”

  He stopped and pulled her close to him, kissing her on the forehead.

  “You’re the only woman I have in mind. And speaking of, I was going to take you out for dessert somewhere and toast your birthday over champagne but honestly, all I want is to take you home. Is that okay?”

  Mallory looked at him. There was nothing in the world she preferred to do over sex with him. Nothing could compare to that feeling of walking into the bedroom, knowing he was going to touch her. Knowing how he would touch her.

  “Of course it’s okay.”

  He hailed a cab.

  In the backseat, he took off his seat belt and moved close to Mallory. She resisted the urge to tell him he really should wear his seatbelt. Her friend Julie’s ex-boyfriend was an ER doctor at Mt. Sinai, and had told her that not wearing a seatbelt in a car accident increases your chance of dying by some huge percentage that she couldn’t remember—probably because she’d blocked it out because it upset her.

  Alec started kissing her, and she felt her stomach jump. He still had that effect on her—even after four years. When she told that to Julie, her friend hadn’t believed her.

  She glanced at the cab driver. He was talking into a hands-free headset. Clearly not paying attention to them.

  But when Alec’s hand slipped under her skirt, she pushed it away.

  “Alec!” she said.

  “Shh . . . he’s not looking. Believe me, people do a lot worse in the back seat of cabs.”

  His fingers brushed over the front of her underwear.

  “Seriously, stop,” she said. He pulled his hand back and moved to the far end of the seat.

  “What? You’re mad at me?”

  “I wish you could just go with it. You were fine to push the envelope when a strange woman pulled you on stage.”

  “I just don’t want to do it in the back of a cab.”

  The rest of the ride home was silent.

  As was the elevator ride up to the tenth floor of their apartment building on East 83rd Street.

  Alec opened the door and went straight to the couch, where he sat and looked at Mallory expectantly. She wondered how to diffuse the situation. He should be the one trying to mollify her, but she decided that wasn’t a fight worth having.

  Mallory stalled by rearranging a vase filled with long-stemmed yellow roses. That morning, Alec had sent her three dozen of her favorite flowers. She fanned out the stems, and asked, “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to dance for me,” he said with a smile.

  “Shut up,” she said.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “When you were up there on stage, I kept thinking I just wanted you to do that for me.”

  It was classic Alec. He was always pushing
her just past her comfort zone when it came to sex. It was one of the things she’d come to love the most about him. She’d slept with a few other guys before Alec, but all of her important “firsts” were with him: First simultaneous orgasm. First sex in a public space (library stacks one weekend when he was visiting her at law school). First time she let someone take a nude picture of her. (She made him erase it, but it was surprisingly hot.) He’d even talked her into getting a Brazilian bikini wax not too long ago. She was angry when he suggested it. She found it offensive that he would tell her what to do with her own body. But after consultation with Julie, she decided she should try it. And she loved it—not the actual process, but the result felt so smooth and clean. When Alec suggested she try something, he was usually right. And everything he opened her up to made her feel closer to him, and closer to her own sexuality. But this whole threesome with another woman thing . . . she was afraid it would have the opposite effect—on her and on their relationship.

  “I thought you were thinking about getting that woman home with us,” Mallory said, her stomach tightening.

  “No. I was thinking about you.” His gray-blue eyes had that cloudy, intense look they got sometimes. It was incredibly sexy. She remembered the first time she got on top when they were having sex, and he had looked up at her with that heavy-lidded, cobalt gaze, and it made her come.

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I’m serious, Mal. I’m not going to fuck you tonight unless you dance for me.”

  She knew he was serious.

  “Oh, my God. Fine. Put something on.”

  “You should pick the song,” he said, tossing her his iPod. “I’ll get us some drinks.”

  She scrolled through his playlist while he uncorked a bottle of red wine. It only took her a few seconds to know what she was looking for.

  Alec settled back on the couch, handing her a glass. She dimmed the lights and cued up the Mos Def song “The Beggar” on the iDock. She took a gulp, and pressed Play.

  It was ridiculous after all the times he had seen her naked, after all the different ways he had fucked her—but standing there like that, she felt nervous taking off her shirt, despite the fact that she had just done it in front of dozens of strangers. But somehow, being on the stage made it impersonal. She had felt, for a few moments up there, like someone else. But now she was just Mallory.

  She tried to imagine that she was someone else. She pictured Bette Noir, and somehow that put her in the right frame of mind to sway to the music and slowly unbutton her blouse. Thankfully, twelve years of ballet muscle memory gave her some idea of what to do with her body. Shrugging out of her top, she moved her arms into bras au repos. It was amazing to her that, seven years since she’d last set foot in a dance studio, her limbs still ached for the positions that had been imprinted on them.

  Alec watched her with a look she’d never seen before, and it made her incredibly hot. She dropped the ballet arms and eased out of her skirt. Wearing only her bra, underwear, and the silver Elsa Peretti heart pendant he had given her earlier in the night, she swayed in front of Alec to the lyrics about love and devotion.

  She tried to think of a burlesque move she’d seen at the club, but she couldn’t find the right motion. Instead, she did a piqué turn, and even though she felt silly doing it in her underwear, it was exhilarating to use her body in that way. With Alec’s eyes following her every move, she felt more beautiful than she had in a long time. Moving to the music, she connected to something she’d thought was long gone, a feeling of power and inspiration that she had pushed away as an indulgence of adolescence. She’d quit ballet when she went off to college. After all, as her parents had constantly reminded her, there was no “real world” application, and it was a major time commitment. Her love of dance was something she packed away with her high school journals.

  “Come here,” he said softly, pulling her onto his lap. She straddled him, instantly feeling his hardness. She rubbed herself against his erection.

  He ran his index finger along the edge of her panties, then slipped it easily inside of her. “You’re so wet,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Take these off,” he told her. She eased out of her underwear and tossed them to the floor. He pressed her gently back, parting her legs so he could look at her pussy. It used to embarrass her when he did that, but he always told her how beautiful she was and how much it turned him on to see her, so she had stopped being shy about it. Besides, the way he touched her made any moments of bashfulness short-lived. He could send her over the edge in less than a minute, and once he had her in that state she couldn’t care less what he was looking at.

  She closed her eyes. He rubbed the outside of her pussy with his first two fingers, then eased his middle finger in and out of her slowly, brushing her clit with his thumb. She had the urge to pull his hand in deeper, but he didn’t like when she tried to control the pace of things.

  “Mal, watch this.” He handed her his iPhone.

  “What?”

  “Just check it out.”

  She took it from him and looked at the screen, which was filled with the image of Alec’s beautiful hands playing her pussy like an instrument.

  “What did you do?”

  “I taped myself touching you.”

  “Oh, my God, erase this right now!”

  “I swear I’ll erase it after you watch.” He pressed a button to start it from the beginning. “Lie back down.” She complied, and felt his hands on her again. This time, instead of closing her eyes, she held his phone in front of her, watching him stroke her clit on screen as his hands repeated the same motions on her body. Then he inserted his finger slowly, in and out, in and out, onscreen and off . . . and she dropped the phone down. Within seconds she felt the spasms building in her cunt, contracting against his hand, his fingers feeding her orgasm in their expert, practiced way. Yes . . . oh, yes!

  When the tremors died away, she sat up, fumbled with his belt, and he helped her, pulling off his pants and boxers. His cock strained against his stomach. She ran her hand along the length of it. She could tell how incredibly turned on he was, knew that if she took him in her mouth, she would already taste it.

  “Put your panties back on,” he said, his voice husky. Confused, she looked around the floor and scooped them up, wiggling into them while half on her back. Didn’t he want to have sex?

  He pulled her onto his lap so she was straddling him, her breasts in his face. He undid her bra, his mouth moving to suck her nipples so hard it almost hurt. She tried to remove her underwear but he stopped her. “No—like this.” He pulled her underwear to the side, and she lowered herself onto him.

  “Oh, my God,” she moaned. There were some nights, like tonight, when he felt so big it made her gasp. She felt like if she moved just an inch she would come again. It was like that with him—so intense, so right every time. She told him that she was embarrassed by how crazy he made her in bed. He told her it was the most beautiful thing he’d experienced in his life.

  As she swayed her hips, the friction of her underwear rubbing against her pussy intensified the feeling of him inside her. She opened her eyes to look at him, and as if sensing her gaze, he looked up at her. The expression on his face was filled with such lust and passion and love, it sent her over the edge; shudders moved from her pelvis through the rest of her body, explosive, incredible, better than ever before.

  Her release triggered Alec, and she felt him come, crying out the way he always did—loudly, with complete abandon.

  Mallory rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes, relishing the feeling of absolute contentment that always washed over her after they made love. It was usually the rare time when her mind was absolutely blank.

  “I hope you had a good night,” he said, kissing her head.

  “Are you kidding? It was incredible.”

  “I’m thinking of interviewing that dancer for the article,” Alec said.

  “What?” Mallory a
sked, although she knew exactly what he’d said—and who he was talking about.

  “That dancer who pulled you on stage—Bette Noir. I’m going to interview her for my article.” Mallory pulled away and looked him.

  “Were you thinking about her just now? When we were making love?”

  “What? No—of course not. I just started thinking about work.” Mallory didn’t know if he was telling the truth, but what was she going to do? Turn it into a cyclical argument in which she accused him and he denied it? She didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  Instead, she said, “Thanks for a great birthday,” and kissed him.

  “I think it’s the beginning of your best year yet, Mallory.” He smiled at her and stroked her hair.

  “I just need one more little, tiny thing from you tonight,” she said.

  “Anything, my love.”

  “Erase that video from your phone.”

  “Aw, Mal, you’re killing me. It’s an instant classic.”

  “Erase!” She leaned off the couch to find the phone, and he scrambled to find it first. He retrieved it, and held it up and away from her while she reached for it. She finally tackled him and wrested the phone away, pressing the buttons randomly.

  “Hand that to me before you destroy the phone—I’ll erase it, scout’s honor.”

  “You swear?” she said, holding it just shy of his reach.

  “Yes. Fine. Have it your way. But I think you’re underestimating the potential of a law / porn career. . . .” She handed him the phone and watched him erase the video.

  “I’ll admit, you are a very skilled cinematographer,” she said.

  “Well, I did have a great subject. Very inspiring. Now I know how Hitchcock felt behind the camera with Grace Kelly. Or Woody Allen with Diane Keaton . . . or Scarlett Johansson. Yeah, that one I get a little more.”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “You know what I’m saying, though—” He smiled—“we’re a great team.”

  3

  Mallory used to feel a thrill walking into the tall, glass Park Avenue building that housed the law firm of Reed, Warner, Hardy, Lutz, and Capel—known within the industry simply as Reed, Warner. There had been a time when she’d felt an absolute sense of belonging there—of destiny, even. Since the first day she’d started at Penn as an undergraduate, she’d known she would be an attorney. Like her father and mother. Like her father’s father. What else would she be? And then acceptance at Villanova Law. And then the summer associate jobs at Reed, Warner. And then the job waiting for her there when she graduated.