“That’s…quite worthwhile,” I managed to say.
He reached a hand across the corner of the end table. “Bill, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” As we shook hands, he smiled a broad, slow smile, and it made my flesh crawl. He stood up suddenly. “This calls for a toast. Our lovely waitress seems to have forgotten us. Let me go get us a fresh round. You sit tight; I’ll be right back.” He stepped through the curtains and out the doorway before I could protest.
I slumped back in the sofa, spent from the coughing and dismayed by the deal I’d just made. It wasn’t that I disapproved of the surgical training—quite the contrary, in fact. It was myself I disapproved of: I had just agreed to exploit donated bodies for my own personal gain. I rested my head against the back of the sofa and closed my eyes.
“Jet-lagged?”
I jerked my head up and opened my eyes. It was the pretty waitress in the librarian outfit. She set down a fresh Coke and another scotch on the end table. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“It’s okay. I’ve just had a long day.”
She smiled. “You do look like you could use something to perk you up.” She turned and took a few steps, then stopped at the wooden stand holding the massive dictionary. Reaching out a hand, she touched the back of the stand. The lights dimmed, and the room filled with the driving beat of dance music. The young woman was standing with her back to me, her feet slightly apart, the skirt stretched tight. One leg began to keep time to the music, and then—as the Pointer Sisters burst into the lyrics of
“I’m So Excited”—she spun to face me. She widened her stance, and a slit in her skirt parted all the way up her left thigh. With one hand she removed her glasses and laid them on the dictionary; with the other she reached up and unpinned the bun, giving her head a toss that flipped her long hair into a high, sweeping arc. Then she began to move toward me, undulating and shimmying across the few feet of space that divided us.
“Wait,” I said.
She held one finger to her lips and pursed her mouth in an exaggerated “shush” expression. Then she yanked the white blouse open—I heard the sound of Velcro letting go—to reveal a sheer, low-cut black bra underneath.
“Wait, stop,” I said. “What are you doing?”
Instead of answering, she planted her right foot between my own feet, then wedged her left leg between my knees and levered them apart. Next she tugged at the top of the slit in her skirt, and the garment came off in her hand and fell to the floor. She was completely nude underneath.Dear God, I thought desperately and absurdly,what would Sir Galahad do?
“Stop,” I said. “Please stop now.”
She turned her back to me again, bent her knees, and arched her back, pushing her bare bottom toward me, swirling and swaying closer and closer in a sensual, primal rhythm.
“Stop!”I shouted. “Stop dancing and put on your clothes. Right now.”
She froze in mid-sway, inches away from me.
“I’m serious,” I added. “You’re a beautiful woman, but I didn’t ask for this, and I’m not comfortable with it.”
She stood up straight and spun to face me, looking skeptical and confused and maybe a little mad.
“You’re saying you didn’t ask for a lap dance from me?”
“No,” I said, “I really don’t want a lap dance,” though that was no longer quite as true as it had been two minutes before. “Thank you, though.”
Suddenly she looked embarrassed. She took two steps backward. With one hand she pulled her blouse closed, then stooped to pick up the skirt with the other. She wrapped the fabric around her hips and fastened it, then smoothed the blouse’s Velcro fasteners into place
Just then the curtains in the doorway flew open. I was expecting—hoping—that Rankin and the rest of the FBI cavalry was riding to my rescue, but I was wrong, and disappointed, and very nervous: The burly man from the club’s entrance rushed toward me. Planting himself between the dancer and me, he held a meaty hand six inches from my face, opening and closing his fist like some beating heart of violence and menace. “What’s going on, Brenda? Is this guy giving you trouble? Did he paw you?”
“No, it’s okay, Vic,” she answered.
“I heard shouting,” he said. “What happened?”
“Really, it’s okay, Vic,” she said. “He…he was on the phone, talking loud over the music.”
Vic looked dubious. He lowered his hand, though it continued to clench and unclench.
“Really. He didn’t do a thing. He’s a good guy.” Her face filled with sadness suddenly—sadness about this misunderstanding? sadness about the things she had to do for money?—and in her sadness she seemed more exposed than ever. “He’s a good guy,” she repeated with a shake of her head, making for the doorway.