She was energetic, dynamic, and acrobatic. She had done a lot of gymnastics training and cheerleading in high school, and she had always loved to dance. The transition from being a full-time college student to being a full-time exotic dancer had been quite easy, at least in that sense. She had learned a few fancy moves from the other girls and she had focused upon the most advanced and showy ones. Her favorite trick was a slow, hands-free, inverted spiral down the pole that ended with her planting her hands upon the floor, kicking her legs over, and settling upright upon her feet. That move in particular was potentially dangerous, and she had seen others get hurt trying it before, but it always got people’s attention (unfortunately including Mister Giovanni) and brought a lot of tips her way. She hadn’t used it in her last set but was planning to do so this time around.
And then they finally appeared.
She had only just leapt at the pole and done a quick spiral-down that ended with her upon her knees when she saw a group of people enter the club, headed in the front by two familiar faces. She knew Duchess Serenity from having seen her so many times on television and on the Internet, but she had never seen her in person. She only recognized her for who she was by her proudly displayed High Court ears and the individuals she had brought along with her.
Raina, however, she recognized immediately, even more so now because she had apparently hidden her new pointy High Court ears with her thick, dark mane of hair. The dim lighting of the club made her appear much less pale than she did in the photos and videos she had seen recently. Really, aside from a few subtle differences – apparently, she didn’t need to wear glasses anymore – she looked very much the same as she had the last time she had seen her in person.
It took her a few moments, but she realized that she had completely frozen up in her actions upon seeing Raina. She arose to her feet and did her best to try to recover gracefully from the pause in her routine, but when she saw Raina’s attention gradually drift in her direction, she felt herself hesitating again. She hadn’t taken anything off yet. Now, suddenly she was wondering if this idea for a cover had been a bad idea. The timing was simply awful. If they had entered just two or three minutes earlier, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Now, however, she couldn’t very well just dive off the stage, run up to her, drop to her knees in front of her, and beg for her protection. She didn’t want to cause a scene and ruin the whole arrangement. People would take note, someone would call Mister Giovanni, and everything would become a complete mess in short order.
Just as well, she now feared that if she went ahead with her routine and proceeded into the full-nude portion of her set, Raina might form a negative opinion of her. Yes, she was a stripper, no, she could not hide that fact now, and yes, it was to be assumed that her job entailed getting naked in front of total strangers. But knowing that and actually witnessing that were two completely different things. What if seeing her “at work” wasn’t the only thing that could make Raina think less of her? What if she simply didn’t like what she saw? Did it matter whether or not Raina found her to be attractive? She hadn’t known Raina to be interested in women at all in the past. They had been out of touch for quite some time, and obviously a lot had happened since they’d last spoken – one of those things being Raina’s Change. Maybe what everyone was saying about Raina was true? She had already heard many of the details about Raina’s relationship with Brenna. Maybe Raina was into girls as much as she was into guys? Again, that didn’t seem like Raina, but … well, honestly, Raina had also never seemed like someone that could ever make internationally televised public speeches or engage in duels to the death with High Court vampires.
She decided to give it a gamble and play it out. She had made the decision to use this angle, so it appeared that she was going to have to stick with it. She kept her eyes upon Raina almost exclusively as she danced, watching as the Grand Duchess and her entourage stood around for a few moments, everyone apparently searching the area for someone in particular. They were looking for her! She felt like jumping up and down and waving to them, but again, she didn’t dare cause a scene. She did her best to catch and hold Raina’s attention with her smile and her movements. One of the bouncers approached the group to speak with them. Duchess Serenity had to lean in close to the burly Sabertooth’s ear to address him over the loudness of the music.
Meanwhile, Raina’s attention had again fallen upon her. This time, her stare lingered. Raina watched her with a rather blank expression and simply stood there amongst the others, clutching a small black purse in her hands with her usual nervousness – the one thing about her personality that had not seemed to have changed at all. Her outfit was classy, although it was far less formal and looked much less expensive than anything she had usually been seen wearing in the months since her Change. Really, they hadn’t dressed all that differently – skirt, blouse, stockings, shoes, all black – and she wondered if this had been an attempt to appear less conspicuous and low-key in light of the circumstances, or if she had simply decided to dress down a bit for once.
All she needed to do was get through this set. After that, she was free. She could put on her clothes, grab her stuff, introduce herself, and … well … hopefully, everything would be fine from that point onward. She backed up to the pole, feeling the cold length of brass nestle between her buttocks, and she slithered around it until her back was toward most of the audience. She parted her feet wide upon the floor, using the pole both as a brace and as a minor concealer, and slowly bent forward as she slid her hands down the front of her legs to her ankles, looking back to Raina with a playful smirk that she hoped was seductive.
Raina’s facial expression didn’t change. In fact, as she stood upright again and slid around the pole to face her again, Raina looked … well … puzzled. It took a few moments to realize it herself, but apparently there was at least a spark of recognition. She looked very different now – well, they both looked very, very different, actually – but the memories had to be there. They had seen so much of one another in the past, meeting almost daily. Had it really been so long since then that Raina didn’t remember her at all? Or had their casual friendship been so casual as to be easily forgotten? Hadn’t she meant anything at all to her as a friend? Or had that been a one-way interest, just as she’d figured it had been? Raina had always been a terribly shy and distant girl, someone that didn’t tend to have many (if any) close friends, and…
No. Raina smiled and gave a discreet little wave with her fingers. She recognized her. She remembered! She knew who she was! So … was this it? Was this finally the assurance of her redemption, the sure sign of her salvation?
Raina finally turned away when Duchess Serenity tapped her upon the shoulder and gestured toward the other individual that was now approaching to meet them. Sam? What was Sam doing out there? She was dressed quite formally, a bit more dolled-up than she usually was … which was saying a lot, really, because Sam was always overdressed for every occasion. She had actually changed outfits since she had arrived earlier in the evening.
Sam knelt before Raina … er, Grand Duchess Raina Fallamhain, and when she arose, she offered a warm smile and a professional handshake. Raina accepted both greetings with an almost stunned expression, as though the sight of Sam was truly that impressive to her. To her dismay, Sam quickly led Raina and Duchess Serenity toward her office at the back of the club, followed by the four ravishingly handsome males and lone blonde female that comprised their entourage.
This wasn’t what had been agreed upon. Sam had made it fairly clear that she did not wish to stand in the way of things once Raina and the others arrived. This wasn’t a heavily scripted event, of course, but the plan had been simple enough to make this change unsettling. Originally, the idea had been for everyone to be led to sit down at one of the tables. She was supposed to casually stroll over and pretend to be keeping them company as a part of her job duties, whereupon she would reveal her identity and, presumably, she would thereafter be protected by them.
Sam had previously expressed her desire to meet with the Grand Duchess, but she had figured that Sam would be considerate enough to wait until later to meet with this visiting vampire celebrity. She didn’t understand why Sam’s brush with fame couldn’t wait. Sam wasn’t the one risking her life by defying Dante Giovanni. Did a meet-and-greet opportunity really take precedence over thwarting an assassination plot and rescuing someone from virtual slavery?
Any minute now, Mister Giovanni could have decided to show up. He would see her there upon the stage, and he would be incensed. He would be angry about the damage she’d done to the wall in his home, the mess she had left, and the fact that she had slipped out of his home. In fact, she expected that she would be less surprised to see him show up than she would be to find herself alive the next morning, as his temper had been growing quite short with her, lately. He might elect to skip the whole process of becoming her Maker. Instead, he might simply make her “disappear.”
Why? Why now? Of all the people that could have possibly complicated things, she would have never expected it to be Sam, the very person who had helped to make this entire escape from Mister Giovanni a possibility. But then, now that she thought about it, she really didn’t know Sam half as well as she should have before entrusting her own life to this woman. She knew almost nothing about Sam’s personal life, her family history, or her upbringing, any of which could have been a vital factor. In short, her own failure to know adequately know and understand Samantha Schwarz as an individual made her that much more susceptible to betrayal.
“Hey, baby! Down here!”
She blinked out of her momentary trance and looked down at the man standing below the stage, holding up a few bills. It was Mister Hotshot-in-a-Suit. He was holding a pair of twenties.
“I got something for ya’,” he said, wagging the folded bills at her, “but you gotta earn it.”
She couldn’t even begin to force herself to smile, now. “If you want a lap dance, you’ll have to wait.”
“How ‘bout a private dance, back in one of them rooms?” he asked with a nod toward the rear of the club.
“Sorry, cutie. I still have one more song after this,” she told him, now simply gyrating more than actually dancing at that point. The stress she placed upon that term of endearment made it sound like an insult.
“Oh yeah?” He pulled out a money clip made fat with many bills and held it up with a grin. “What if I make it worth your while? For a little bit of time alone with you, I’ll let you take as much of this as you want.”
She was not impressed. She had been offered a lot more money by much kinder men asking far less of her – a thousand dollars, in fact, to accompany an elderly man all night on a dinner date. She had never prostituted herself out to customers at a club. Even though it was, of course, against the law and Sam’s policies for the club, she knew that some of the girls were willing to do almost anything for money. Cameras had been installed in the private rooms, not only for legal purposes but also so Sam could monitor her employees’ conduct. Even so, there was nothing to stop the girls from meeting guys outside the club. More than once, she had found herself being one of only two or three girls in the place left working at a time when all of the others had elected to leave early to go out for a “date” with higher-paying customers. Of course, Sam often fired these girls if she ever caught them doing this – more than once in the parking lot or in an alley behind the club – but it didn’t make things any easier on the remaining staff.
There had been nights when they had been left so short-staffed that she had found herself onstage for almost her entire four-hour shift … and then, after all that, she had still been obligated to satisfy Mister Giovanni at home. In fact, it was one such night when Sam, herself, had taken to the stage for awhile to give her a break. In fact, that had been the start of their friendship. At thirty-six years of age, Samantha was a “retired” dancer, not because her looks had begun to fade or because someone had forced her to quit, but simply because she could afford to choose not to dance for a living. And now, tonight was another such night … except the tables had been turned, and she had needed to come out of “retirement,” herself, so that Sam could take a “break” of her own from her managerial duties … and from her role in the plan upon which they had agreed.
“C’mon, sweet thing,” he persisted with an overconfident grin. “I ain’t gonna do anything bad to ya’. I promise! I’m a nice a guy.”
“Nice guys always finish last,” she replied, edging closer to him and sticking out her hip as she lifted the corner of her thong.
He laughed, sliding the bills under the elastic string. “Does that mean you like bad guys, then?”
“Who ever said that I liked guys at all?” she teased him.
The man appeared shocked but amused as he laughed loudly, gave her a thumbs-up, and made his way clumsily back to his table to tell his companions about what she’d just said.
No, she shouldn’t doubt Sam. She didn’t know what was going on yet. Yes, this was different than the plan they had discussed earlier, but it didn’t necessarily mean that Samantha was betraying her. If anything, she was probably just taking them away from all of the distracting noise and lights of the main area to explain things to them.
Perhaps this was better. Sam could explain who she was, what the situation was, and then they could make a much cleaner and less obvious exit. The other girls wouldn’t question seeing her leave with these people, surely assuming that she was “going on a date” just like anyone else.
Vampires were no strangers to this club; in fact, others had joked that strip joints and nightclubs were like an “all-you-can-eat buffet” for vampires, as it was an easy means of scoring steady blood. Of course, if Mister Giovanni found out about her leaving with anyone else, especially with another vampire, he would be insanely livid. But then again, if nobody suspected her actions, or even her very presence there in the club, then nobody would think to contact him and he would be none the wiser unless he thought to ask around.
She managed to refocus upon her dancing and settle back into her routine. This was her last go, her last set. She could do this. She had to do this. And dwelling upon the “what if” questions of her situation would only continue to distract her and detract from her ability to effectively do what needed to be done. She was there to dance, to entertain, and to look like she belonged there. She would own that stage and make it hers by sheer force of will.
And so she went about the rest of her set, pulling out all the stops. As she unclasped her bra, she decided then that she did, in fact, wish that Raina would be there to watch her. She wasn’t going for seduction; she just wanted to share this historic moment. Not only was this potentially the last time she would ever grace a stage, it was also the first time in a long, long while that she had actually enjoyed the experience. Every movement was right, every stunt spot-on, and every man in the house was on his feet and applauding at the end of this first song. Anyone who had been clinging to their spare ones and fives decided in the second song to turn loose with them and lay them at her feet as she untied the corner strings of her bikini and dropped it aside midway through the second song.
She wanted Raina to see, to bear witness, because she wanted her to know what she was capable of doing. She could handle herself under immense pressure. Not only could she do it well, she could do it with an infectious smile upon her face. Sometimes bravery wasn’t just a matter of how well someone handled physical combat; sometimes it was simply a matter of being able to bare oneself before a crowd of strangers, to not give a damn how they judged her, and to feel free and confident enough to be smiling the entire time. For the first time in so very, very long, she was in complete control of the situation … even if only for a brief while.
* * * *
Chapter Twenty-One
Raina had intended to take a rather casual tone in meeting this much-fabled Mistress Monsoon, now introducing herself to Raina as Samantha Schwarz. H
owever, Raina was too sharply stricken with a feeling of déjà vu and bewildering familiarity since she’d walked into the club that she simply couldn’t think of a thing to say to break the ice.
For one thing, the girl on the stage had looked very, very familiar. In fact, she was absolutely certain that the way that girl had looked at her had nothing to do with being flirty or overly friendly as a consequence of her job, nor was it because she recognized Raina as a celebrity. Raina knew that girl. She was sure of it. Sure, the girl had looked very different now than she did in the past, for her hair was much longer than before and the eyeglasses were gone. And of course, seeing her at the start of an onstage striptease also took her completely out of context from whatever she may have remembered about her. But Raina swore that she knew that girl.
Was it someone with whom she’d gone to school, either junior high or high school? A former co-worker? Perhaps simply a friend of a friend? Maybe something as innocent and random as an employee of some business that Raina had frequented? Oh … that wasn’t good. What if she was the receptionist from her former psychiatrist’s office? Yeah, that was all she needed at that point: her former shrink’s secretary telling the world that the Grand Duchess was a certified nut with a history of panic attacks and a laundry list of other psychological issues. No matter the rush, and regardless of anything else, she would make it a point to at least try to say hello. She hated to forget anyone’s name. She wasn’t so important or so popular that she couldn’t remember a friendly face – not as a human, anyway – but she hadn’t ever been the best at remembering names.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 42