by Nina Pierce
“So you say, Damon. We’re both marked the same, because we agreed to the same sexual lifestyle.” Elvis removed his shirt and turned his left shoulder toward them. “Does this look familiar, Julie?”
Julie gasped and stepped away from Damon. “You? Or you?” Julie’s finger swept the air between the two men. “One of you has some explaining to do. I knew I should have been more suspicious of you, Damon. The tape doesn’t lie.”
“What tape?” both men asked, in unison.
“The video tape of Jason with…with…a man.” The accusation burst from her mouth even as Julie’s feet moved her farther from Damon. “A man with the same tattoo and dark hair you both have.” Her gaze darted from Damon to Elvis and back again.
Elvis hastily covered the ink he’d been so intent on exposing to Julie. “Where’d you get this tape?”
“It was in the box with the stuff you gave me.”
“You didn’t say anything about it to me.” Damon said.
“There was only the high school video,” Elvis said.
“Someone taped over it,” Julie said in a shaky whisper. “There’s sex…two men…here in this office.”
“Elvis?” Doubt crawled up Damon’s spine and wound around his throat. “What the hell, man? You told me Jason had nothing to do with the business. Tell me you had nothing to do with his death.”
“Me?” Pain shimmered in Elvis’ eyes. “How could I hurt Jason? I loved him!”
Chapter 7
Julie stared at the video camera aimed out of a hole in Elvis’ desk drawer. It was primed and ready to record. Her suspicions had been confirmed, even as disbelief fogged comprehension. She’d been taped without her knowledge and the thought boiled her blood. But it was the pain of Damon’s betrayal that was making it hard for her to catch her breath. He should have told her about the camera before now. Then again, she’d kept the recording of Jason from him as well. Swallowing hard, she tried to corral her conflicting emotions and make some sense out of the situation.
“So the motion sensor triggers the camera to record automatically?” she asked.
“Every time.” Elvis walked around the furniture, activating it.
Heart hammering in her ears, she turned to Damon. Pain and anger clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak.
“Shit.” Damon snapped it off. “Yes, I knew about the camera, Julie. Elvis showed it to me once when we were talking about his business. But I wasn’t thinking about it last night when we…” His hand swept out toward the couch, but it was the remorse sparking in his eyes that held her gaze captive. “Well, let’s just say, I had other things on my mind.”
The corner of his mouth lifted with his shoulder. That boyish charm of his was definitely softening her resolve, though she wasn’t ready to forgive him yet. The camera had recorded their most intimate moment and she wasn’t sure who to hold responsible for that debacle.
“Do you use these tapes for business purposes?” she asked of Elvis.
The smug smile he shot her just pissed her off. He may have been one of Jason’s friends, but something about the man sent a cold shiver of disgust sliding down her back.
“Let’s just say the business conducted in this office is taped for everyone’s protection.” He straightened the cuff of his silk shirt. “But it isn’t often I get to do a favor for Damon, here.”
“Fuck you, Elvis. You make it sound like I laid Julie out on the couch and recorded everything on purpose.”
“Didn’t you?” she asked at the same time as Elvis.
Damon stared at her. “Of course I didn’t. Julie, you’ve got to believe me. Whatever you’ve heard about Demon Jones, well, I figured you’d realized by now, that’s just not me. I had every intention of coming back here and destroying evidence of our…” His hand waved at the couch again, but words failed him and she wondered how he would define their night together. He didn’t try. “Anyway, we’ve taped over the digital copy, so no harm no foul. And you have the DVD.”
Heat flashed in Julie’s cheeks, and she tried to push away thoughts of Elvis watching her and Damon as he transferred the digital image to the disk she now held in her hand. She turned to Elvis. “I assume this is the only copy?” Eyes narrowed, she glared at him.
Elvis simply nodded, but there was no apology in the action. What he did in this office was despicable, and his relationship with Jason—confusing.
She turned back to Damon, but he didn’t cower under her hard gaze either. She really needed to work on her angry face. “Anyway, at this moment, Damon, I’m finding you just as culpable.”
“Julie, I don’t know how many ways I can apologize and make you believe I wasn’t thinking about the consequences of making love to you on that couch. Elvis makes it sound like I do this sort of thing all the time.”
She quirked an eyebrow.
Damon sighed. “Seriously, even Demon isn’t that despicable. Despite Elvis’ offers, I’ve never taped an evening with a woman.” Damon turned to Elvis. “Tell her.”
“Yeah, whatever you want me to say, Damon. Business is business. I make no apologies to anyone. The camera was there. How the hell do I know what you intended?”
“Fuck you.” He turned back to Julie. “It’s done. I didn’t intend to video tape last night, but there it is. I’m sorry.” Damon leaned in close and whispered. “But trust me when I say, I have every intention of trying to make it up to you.” Snatching the DVD from her, he flashed a dimpled smile. “But now that we have this, I think I’d rather not destroy the evidence of our evening together. I think I’d like to watch this with you and see if we can improve our performance.”
The man was incorrigible. She wanted to hold onto her anger, but with his breath feathering over her cheek, Damon was making that difficult. Besides, the thought of watching the two of them together sent heat straight down her core. “You’re not off the hook, mister,” she whispered. “When we get someplace private—”
“Isn’t that sweet.” Elvis stalked back to his desk. “But I suspect Ms. Tilling that you didn’t join Damon simply to complete a search and destroy mission. Now that it’s out in the open about the tape you found, I suspect you have some questions for me.”
Damon lifted his shirt and tucked the DVD in the waistband of his jeans before straightening and crossing his arms over his chest. “I have a couple. Let’s start with you explaining why the hell were you trying to make Julie think it was me on the tape?”
“Hey, how would I know my frat brother wasn’t sleeping with my lover?” Elvis asked.
“Cut me some slack.” Damon said. “Agreeing to a fraternity tattoo and having sex with a guy aren’t even on the same planet. You know damn well I never worked over a guy at any of those fuck-fests we had in college. Or vice versa.”
Elvis shrugged. “There’s always a first time. Something happened to Jase. I guess I’m grabbing at straws.”
“Okay, enough male posturing,” Julie said. “We get it, Damon. Heterosexual all the way. You da man.” Julie patted his inflated chest. She didn’t want to confess that his admission that he’d never been with any man, let alone Jason, relieved her on several levels. Julie wasn’t sure she could be with someone who slept with her one night and his frat brother the next. Or more shocking—both of them at the same time. She flushed at the thought, ignoring the desire the mental image aroused. “So then the question becomes if neither one of you went through the hassle of transferring the digital image to a video tape, who else knew about the recordings?”
“Well, only a few people even know I installed the camera.” Elvis held up his hand, counting on his fingers. “Me. Jason. Damon. My head bartender and my partner.”
“Maura knows about the camera?” Damon looked shocked.
“Yeah, I hardly think it’s fair I tape our business meetings without her knowledge.”
Julie puffed out indignation. “But sexual conquests don’t tweak your moral gauge?”
Elvis rolled his eyes at her naiveté befor
e turning back to Damon. “You think Maura knowing about the camera is something to be concerned about?”
“Her name just keeps popping up,” Damon said.
“Yeah, well, she is my partner,” Elvis replied.
“And Jason’s doctor.” Julie added.
“That’s how we met initially.” Elvis’ face betrayed no emotion. “Jase had been seeing her for about seven years before she bought into…” His head swiveled and caught Damon’s eye, color once again rising in his face. “Before she bought into the business.” His Adam’s apple jumped with the last word.
“There’s something about Jason and Maura you two are not telling me and I want to know what it is right now.” Julie’s tone left no room for discussion. Both men turned to each other and nodded in resignation.
Crap. From the somber look on their faces, Julie wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the truth.
* * * *
“I wish I hadn’t let you talk me into leaving my cell phone at home tonight,” Julie whispered as she and Damon followed Elvis into the bowels of Starry Knights. “I feel naked without it.”
“Your family can live without you for a few hours.”
“But I should have called my mother before we left the house. She won’t know why I’m not answering.”
Damon wrapped his arm around her waist. “Will it be so awful if she figures out you’re with me?” His lips grazed the shell of her ear, sending shivers down her spine.
Elvis stopped at the last door in the hall of the basement. He turned and smiled. “Here we are.”
Embarrassment burned in Julie’s cheeks, and she nudged Damon away. “And where is that exactly?” she asked, smoothing her hands down her sides.
Keying in a code to yet another number pad, Elvis spoke, “My secret lair.”
Apprehension squeezed the air from Julie’s lungs.
“He’s kidding, Julie.” Damon smiled at her before turning to Elvis. “Tell her you’re kidding, Elvis.”
“Julie can be the judge of that.” Elvis pushed the door open. “Welcome to Knights in Paradise dot com.”
Julie wasn’t sure what she’d see behind the door, but this den of iniquity and fantasy hadn’t even pinged her sonar. The television studio they entered had two live sexual performances unfolding before her. Everywhere she turned, scantily clad or naked women roamed. Men leaned against the walls, chatting amicably while nonchalantly stroking their erections. What the hell?
“Mind your step, Julie.” Elvis pointed to the floor and stepped over the mass of television cables snaking their way around the room. “This is live, so keep your voices down,” He pointed to the control center against one wall. “Let me take you over here. It will give you a better idea of how this works.”
“Did you know this is where he was bringing us?” Julie asked Damon through clenched teeth.
“Elvis has wanted me to visit this place on countless occasions,” Damon said. “But up until this moment, I didn’t really think I needed to see anything down here.”
“You knew—”
“Shhh,” from the camera crew.
Julie inhaled, reining in the anger flowing from her. “You knew he televised porn from down here, and you didn’t think to tell me before we traipsed into the depths of Starry Knights on this little field trip?”
“I didn’t want to cloud your judgment,” Damon said. “Have an open mind. We might learn something.” Amusement sparked in his eye, but quickly faded with her withering look. “I mean find something out about Jason or Maura. You asked what else connected Maura and Jason. Obviously Elvis thinks you need to see the business to understand.”
Julie walked up behind Elvis and stared dumbfounded at television screens filled with naked people.
A ménage with two men pumping themselves into a woman whose screams of ecstasy could be heard from across the room filled one set of monitors. Next to them, another set of monitors showed two men from several different angles, in the act of fellatio.
“This whole thing was Maura’s brainchild,” Elvis confided. “It’s what finally convinced me to bring her in as partner three years ago. The money we take in here is ten times the income from the night club and the private rooms upstairs that we rent to the patrons.”
The moans of male orgasms filtered over from the ménage, and as the three actors collapsed together onto the pillowed floor, others walked in and began an elaborate striptease.
“Who’s watching this?” Julie couldn’t disguise the disbelief in her voice.
“The feed goes directly out to the internet.” Elvis pointed to the cameras and the monitors. “These controls here allow us to determine the best angle for the action.” His finger indicated a man with a headset. “We have some special viewers who pay big bucks to control the action from here. They request a particular angle, and this guy,” he patted the tech on the back, “makes sure they get the action or close-up they want. Our big rollers dictate, to a certain extent, what other people will see.”
“And this is all legal?” Julie asked.
“Freedom of expression, free trade and all that.” Elvis smiled. “Provided everyone is over eighteen. And believe you me, we check and recheck their IDs.”
“So what was Jason’s part in all of this?” Damon asked without tearing his eyes from the live action across the room where two women were provocatively peeling clothing from one another. Julie smacked his stomach.
Elvis pointed a finger toward a back wall. “Let’s talk over there.”
Winding their way around cameras, cables and bodies, Elvis stopped them in a shadowed corner of the room. The feeble light playing on his stark features created a sinister profile.
“I don’t want my actors to think there’s a problem,” Elvis said. “They were already spooked when the cops showed up here asking about Jason.”
“The cops came down here?” Julie asked.
“No, not here in the basement—Starry Knights.” Elvis’ voice was firm. “The cops don’t know about this place. We scramble the feed so it can’t be traced back to our computers. I have no intention of the local authorities discovering this business.”
“But what about Jason?” Julie asked. “What was his role in this?” She grabbed Damon’s chin and brought his wandering attention back to their conversation.
“Other than doing the well-checks on my actors, he didn’t really have one.” Elvis leaned in close to them. “But he wanted in.”
Damon finally focused on Elvis. “Jason wanted a piece of the action?”
“Right now we only have the two rooms. Jason suggested I add another two or three. Even with the money we bring in right now, it isn’t enough for the digital upgrade on the equipment and the added personnel. I needed more capital. Jason wanted to be that person.” Elvis shrugged. “He figured the added income would help with his school loans. Med school’s not cheap. All he wanted in exchange was to be brought in as a full partner.” Elvis’ brow furrowed. “Maura was vehemently opposed. I don’t think she wanted to split our profits three ways.”
“Opposed enough to get him out of the picture?” Damon asked the question weighing on Julie’s heart.
Elvis looked at them, sadness clouding his eyes. “She was his doctor and my partner. But truthfully, I don’t know.”
“Do you know what she was treating him for?” Damon asked.
Elvis massaged the back of his neck. “Do you think it matters?”
“Any information could help Julie and me.”