by Dean Covin
“Right, we were hoping you’d come by.” The husband degloved and offered his hand. “Matt Garrett.”
He pulled his wife in close. There was a tangible affection between them—so infectious that, to Vicki, Hank’s hand actually looked inviting. Not only misery loves company.
“Where are you from, Mrs. Garrett?”
Her flawless English was laced with a soothing French accent. “Please, call me Anita. I am from a small village in the South of France, near Béziers.”
Matt Garrett smiled at his wife. “I found this jewel working in her uncle’s bakery twenty years ago, while I was confronting an early midlife crisis at twenty-eight. I sold it all, lost myself in France and found this fresh seventeen-year-old innocent with the friendliest early morning smile. We were married a week later. We started a new life in New Brighton, far from both our homes, and we haven’t looked back.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale,” Vicki said.
“He is my prince,” Anita agreed.
Seeming too in love to be swingers, Hank hoped they would be as forthcoming about Ivy and this town’s penchant for perversion.
Matt Garrett pulled the large glass storefront closed and turned out the sign. The agents were invited to sit in a plush lounge waiting in the back. Vicki recognized “Moi … Lolita” by the popular French pop star Alizée playing in the background.
She looked at Matt Garrett’s petite wife and thought of the picturesque young virgin plucked as a budding blossom from the warmth of Languedoc, corrupting her into a lifestyle not of her choosing. She looked far happier and more in love than she ought to be.
Anita turned to Vicki. “What shall we discuss first? Ivy?” She looked at Hank. “Or the lifestyle? I assume you’ve gotten that far or you wouldn’t be here already.”
“So you admit to being swingers?” Hank asked.
“Why not? It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Matt said.
“Not surprised you’re fine with it.”
Matt grinned. “Because, of course, the lifestyle was my idea.”
“Wasn’t it?” Vicki interjected.
“You should know better than that, Agent Starr.” His eyes sparkled. “All the best ideas come from the woman.”
Vicki had assumed that the older man had manipulated his young consort for his own indulgences. Vicki wasn’t against adults playing their own games. The age they were when married had shaped Vicki’s assumption.
“Okay,” Vicki said. “Let’s go with lifestyle first. Give us the lay of the land.” Her smirk received the anticipated chuckle from the Garretts.
The couple’s candor was revealing. They belonged to one of two groups, theirs casual while the second was formal, wearing tuxedoes, evening gowns—and masks. The Garretts suspected the town royalty as being a secret third, but, regardless of their desirable appearance, the Garretts were happy to exclude the four conceited couples.
“You don’t like them,” Vicki said.
“I think they probably hold hands when they piss together, those bitches.”
Vicki liked this woman.
Her outrage wasn’t finished. “Can you believe they secretly call themselves the new Pieces of Eight—the women and their daughters? Because they, too, feel they are New Brighton’s greatest treasures. It’s disgusting, insensitive and immoral.”
The fact that these women believed themselves so coveted in this town that they would choose to secretly delight in aligning themselves with New Brighton’s eight former victims should have shocked Vicki more than it did. But it did sicken her.
“Was Miss Turner involved in the lifestyle?”
“Folks in this town would love that, wouldn’t they?” Matt growled. “They make her sound as if she was a slut, throwing it around everywhere—she wasn’t.”
Anita agreed. “Considering Ivy’s energy, vitality and stunning looks, she could have sex with anyone, anywhere, anytime.”
“The sex she did have, in the grand scheme, was nothing,” Matt added.
“I’ll tell you, if I had a body like hers, I’d be fucking nine times a week,” Anita said.
“You already do.”
“Yeah, but not just with you.”
They grinned at each other.
“So she wasn’t involved with either group?”
“From a club perspective, Ivy would have been an extraordinary unicorn—both clubs wanted her,” Anita said. “For her entertaining skills alone, if she didn’t want to actually engage in sex.”
“But she’d have no part of it,” Matt added.
“Entertaining skills?” Vicki asked.
“Dancing—she was a former stripper.”
Vicki’s eyes widened as much as Hank’s. A blemish on the schoolteacher’s shiny reputation?
“Who knew about this?”
“Anita and I have known for over a year, but it came out a couple of weeks ago. One of our members met her at parent-teacher night and recognized her right away.”
“Awkward.”
“No kidding,” Matt said. “Unfortunately they remembered her from one of our posters. We had all of them for our favorite dancers framed—Ivy’s we got from her show in Atlanta.” He smiled. “Anita got it right from Ivy’s loving hands for being her most enthusiastic patron that night—she was the most amazing dancer of our four-city tour.” He answered Vicki’s stare. “A little trip we treat ourselves to each year—better than any date night.
“That was before we knew her, of course. Ivy was not her stage name. We put it away as soon as we realized we had our new schoolteacher naked on our club wall. It’s actually surprising it took this long for any of the membership to recognize her.”
“Do you still have the poster?” Hank asked.
Anita nodded and disappeared into their tiny office.
“We kept it our secret for as long as we could, but envy and pride, you know? Someone—not sure who—bragged to the Masks.”
“So the entire town knows?” Hank asked.
“I hope not. I don’t know that it’s left either club, but it’s a juicy bit of gossip—it’d add fuel to the fire. So, if this is the first you’ve heard about it…”
Anita handed the rolled poster to Vicki. The unfurled image revealed a flawless nude goddess flashing her playful smile, leaning provocatively along the sparkling cursive name, Crystal Dream.
“So you didn’t try to get her to dance for your club?”
“Of course we did,” Anita said. “When we first figured out it was her, we promised Ivy complete discretion. She could wear a mask, even though that is not our thing.” She paused with a mixed gaze of longing and sadness. “If you ever saw her dance … Her face didn’t matter—as long as you could see her eyes.”
“That girl was gifted,” Matt agreed. “She owned it. When she was on stage, it was as if her sole purpose on the planet was seduction.”
“What else do you know about that time in her life?” Hank asked.
“Only that she had had a rough start,” Anita said. “She left home early and started dancing part-time when she was refused student loans. I think she said she was twenty when she started. She was dancing full-time, across the country, by the time she was twenty-four.”
Matt nodded. “She spoke about it with pride, but she was smart to hide it—given her career choice. Not many schoolteachers get hired with exotic dancer on their résumé. Crazy, I know!
“It turned out that Ivy managed to walk away from dancing with a heluva lot more in her jeans than her degree and that the time she spent dancing full-time gave her a far better start than she had ever imagined.
“Anita asked Ivy why she bothered walking away from it. She agreed it was better than she thought—when she finally made it to the top level, at least. Apparently starting out and surviving throug
h the lower echelons was difficult and corrupt, and she only had her well-honed street smarts to thank for getting through it unscathed. Regardless she insisted her passion was teaching kids, and the two didn’t mix.”
Vicki thought about Ivy having to dance her way through school. Vicki had got a free ride at the best school in the country from her mother, who had insisted on supporting Vicki whether her father approved of her choice of vocation or not.
“I get it,” Vicki announced. “I had a different life from her, but I get it. There are worse ways to make money. The problem is the creeps on the floor, not the girls on the stage.”
Hank’s expression asked who she was trying to convince. She wasn’t sure.
Hank stared down at his notes bringing him back to the circled word. “You called Ivy a unicorn.”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “It’s a term we use to describe the near-mythical being that is a stunning unattached bisexual woman who is deemed unattainable yet available, sexually vivacious and experimental—willing to throw herself fully into the swinger mix for her pleasure and theirs. It’s every red-blooded swinger’s greatest fantasy—the most coveted prize in our respective swingdoms.”
“Sounds like a lot of swapping,” Hank said. “Risky, if you ask me. You probably need to get pretty cozy with the doc.”
“We don’t like Doc Collins—he’s one of them,” Matt said.
“Them?”
“The Masks.”
Vicki couldn’t help let “Gross” slip beneath her breath. She shuddered, thinking of the ashen white hairs sprouting from the top of his cratered, bulbous nose, protruding above his sour breath.
“I know, right?” Anita agreed, mirroring her revulsion.
Matt continued, “My understanding is he’s only allowed to observe.” Watching Vicki for impact, he added, “And take matters into his own hands.” He snickered at her wince. “He’s rumored to provide them with the discrete service of ensuring the participants remain clean and nothing catching is brought into the mix.”
“Smart,” Hank agreed.
“For that, he’s allowed his own voyeuristic pleasures.”
“You must be a couple”—Anita overtly appraised Vicki—“or a woman, to be invited to either group, ours or theirs.”
“No men?” Vicki asked.
“They’d have to go to one of the bigger city clubs for that.”
“Doc Collins gets a pass with them because of his discrete services,” Matt added.
“But not with you guys.”
“No way. We trust our membership to take care of themselves.” Then Matt considered for a moment. “Come to think of it, I heard Collins endlessly lobbied the Masks to continue their pursuit of the Ivory Unicorn, as they playfully called Ivy.”
Vicki deduced the wordplay: Stripping down Ivory to Ivy. Suddenly the mythical sketch in the doctor’s office made sense. The bizarre additions to the carefully drawn rearing unicorn had been breasts. Vicki shuddered.
“Did your Ivory Unicorn join—either group?”
Matt shook his head. “No. Ivy was open but didn’t want to play that way.”
Anita nodded. “We discovered it had nothing to do with desire or shame. She loved her students and her job, and wouldn’t do anything to tarnish it.”
Matt draped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “This is adult play, and she didn’t want to role model it to a group of kids who were already struggling with hormones and promiscuity—and drooling all over her.”
“Besides swingers are parents, too,” Anita added.
“Yeah, would make for awkward parent-teacher nights,” Hank agreed.
“Who else is in your group?” Vicki attempted.
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.”
Vicki decided not to push while the Garretts were being so forthcoming. “Okay, but Ivy had relationships, right? What about boyfriends, lovers? Was she seeing anyone you knew of?”
“She had no open relationships with anyone in town, even though she had endless pursuers. Ivy had a short fling with a local author, Richard Manor, whose divorce was not as finalized as he had claimed.” Matt threw up his hands. “That’s a dead end. He’s been writing in the Bahamas.”
Anita snarled, “With his wife.”
“You have a problem with that?” Vicki asked, surprised.
“I have a problem with lying.”
“Did Ivy have a problem with it?” Hank asked.
“Of course,” Matt confirmed. “But again, Manor’s overseas. Ivy was a beautiful single woman with a healthy libido. What should she do? Go home with a man just for a physical connection, like most lonely girls do? Become another notch? Or worse—become saddled by unwanted future expectations?”
“Or,” Anita said, “she could hook up with a nice, clean, safe established couple who love each other and want nothing more from her than to enjoy her physically, but also treat her with kindness, appreciation and respect.”
Bizarre as it felt, Vicki, being single—and having had a string of disappointing men—couldn’t find much to argue against that logic.
Then she realized the statement was an admission, not a pitch. She remembered the multiple hairs found at Ivy’s place. “You had sex with Ivy.”
They both nodded. “But only a few times,” Anita added.
Thirty-nine
“I’m gonna swing by Roscoe’s and print off a few hard copies,” Vicki said.
“Can you drop me off at my place first?”
“Not a fan?”
“Just some personal stuff to take care of.”
Vicki scanned his face, but chose not to pry.
† † †
Her signature high-speed park job announced her arrival at the sheriff’s office. Smiling at the deputies, she enjoyed her acquired legal egress.
“The sheriff’ll be back in a couple minutes. Rose is in his office if you want to wait with her.”
“Dreamy as ever.” Rose Roscoe greeted Vicki with a warm embrace. “You certainly know how to wear a pair of jeans, girl.”
“Thanks … I think.”
“What brings ya by?”
“Need a few hard copies.”
“I can help you, sweetheart.” She swung around Roscoe’s desk and punched in his private passcode—an obvious breach. “Print away.”
Vicki pulled out her phone and starting scanning for—suddenly her eyes were on fire. She couldn’t stop the tight, futilely restrained whimper.
“You okay?”
Unable to respond, Vicki dropped her iPhone with a clatter to the floor. “Uaaaaahnnn!” Searing pain spun the room into a translucent glaze of white gloss as blades carved away the flesh around her eyes.
“Vicki!”
Her gaze darted around the room, seeking escape from the intense, dry burning. She snapped her lids shut, but, to her horror, she could still see Rose rushing forward trying to catch her. Her eyelids were gone.
Vicki felt Rose grab her. She strained to shut out the pain, but the room continued to swirl with her wild thrashing. She squeezed her eyelids tighter but still saw everything. “Are my eyes closed?” she pleaded through her agonizing screams as she swayed in Rose Roscoe’s arms. “Are my eyes closed?”
“Yes!” Rose replied straight into Vicki’s embattled expression.
Vicki could see the terror stretched across Rose’s face. Roscoe’s cluttered walls turned in Vicki’s burning periphery.
“Aaaaah! It burns! Into my skull—it burns!” She tore away from Rose’s embrace. Seeing through her closed eyes, deftly rounding Roscoe’s desk, she collapsed onto her hands and knees, staring at the spilled papers on the floor as she struggled to gulp air between howls.
Her facial muscles marshaled everything to squeeze her eyes tighter but she could
still see the black polished boots enter her vision.
“What’s happening?” Roscoe’s voice cried.
Her stomach churned in painful, unrelenting anguish. About to expel her guts, Vicki gained instant relief as her vision winked shut and the pain vaporized. Drawing in rapid breaths, she felt the two of them gently raise her to her feet.
Letting out a long, wavering breath, she blinked at them, her eyes red with stinging tears.
“You okay?” The sudden compassion from this scoundrel was jarring. “What happened?”
She could only nod, taking in a few more labored breaths before attempting to speak. She patted him on the arm and nodded again. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She barely shot a glance at Rose. “I must have gotten something in my contact lens. Hurt like a sonofabitch.”
Rose stared at her.
“Whatever it was is gone.”
Their faces remained unconvinced.
“Honest,” she lied, collecting her phone and leaving without another word.
She held her composure as she crossed the street and until she finally heard the growl of her ignition. Then she fell forward against the steering wheel and cried.
† † †
She rapped twice on Hank’s door, and the door swung open before her knuckle could hit a third.
He looked at her.
“You ready to go?” she asked.
He eyed her for a moment then nodded, grabbing his jacket.
“You okay?” he asked as he slid into the passenger seat. “You need me to drive?”
The question came as a complete shock. “Why?”
“I just got off the phone with Rose Roscoe. She said you got something in your contact. It was pretty bad, the way she tells it.”
Caught in a lie, Vicki struggled for something to say.
When no response came, he added, “I didn’t know you wore contacts.”
She didn’t. Picking up on his skepticism, Vicki could only manage a quick nod—and feel him staring at her. She was saved by the tickle of her phone vibrating against her left breast.
“Hi, Charlie. What do you have? Wait just a second—Hank’s with me. I’ll put you on speaker.”