“Ah . . . I’ll take a look downstairs first. Thanks.” She headed for the throbbing stairwell. Heat emanated up the well with the sound.
As Angie descended into the pulsing, smoky miasma of the basement club, something made her stop. She glanced back over her shoulder. The concierge smiled at her again, then slowly the woman’s grin faded as she held Angie’s gaze. Shrugging off the odd sensation that she’d just been afforded a glimpse of a future version of herself through some hideously distorted funhouse mirror, Angie turned and resumed her way down the stairs. But the sense of disquiet followed her below ground.
Angie stopped at the bottom. The area was dimly lit with a hazy red glow. Music was from the eighties. A bar counter fronted by plush stools ran the entire length of the back wall. In the floor space in front of the bar, smaller tables and booths faced a stage that was lit from the bottom, colors undulating and shifting across the surface. Upon the stage two topless women wearing only G-strings and Perspex platform heels gyrated and swung from chrome poles as the light pulsed beneath them. About two dozen patrons, more males than females, nursed drinks as they alternately conversed and ogled the dancers.
Angie felt as though she’d stepped back in time into some seedy Las Vegas strip club.
She made for the bar at the rear, slid up onto a vacant stool, and ordered a vodka tonic. The bar guy smiled, but she ignored him. Turning on her stool, she sipped her drink, watching the dancers for a few moments, wondering how they’d gotten here—who they were. She shifted her attention to evaluating the obviously single and hunting males in the establishment.
“Drink?” said a deep voice near her ear. She jumped and spun her head—she hadn’t even seen or heard him approach. She was off her game. The owner of the voice smiled. Light-hazel eyes. Good haircut. Gym body. Small gold cross nestling in chest hair between the V of a pristine white golf shirt. Maybe early forties, she guessed. Her attention flicked briefly to his hand resting on the bar, a little too close to her. A slightly paler indent marked his ring finger. It was also devoid of hair. Long-term wear from a band. Her gaze ticked up to his face.
“Sure. Vodka tonic.”
He waved to the barman and indicated another for Angie and a refill for himself. She swigged back her drink and picked up the second, a nice buzz beginning to lift the edge off her brain and ease her body.
“I’m Andy,” he said.
“I’m sure you are.” She gave him a seductive smile.
He hesitated. Uncertain. Then laughed. It was a nice laugh, a nice look. It warmed her. “I suppose you’re waiting for the Do you come here often line?” he said.
“I was hoping for something a little more original from a married father from the suburbs.”
His smiled faded. A dark look flickered through his eyes. And she wondered, is this what it came down to—the until-death-do-us-part-in-sickness-and-in-health shit? She’d encountered enough “Andys” and “Antonios” in her life to know the farce of that promise and the futility in thoughts of happy-ever-after. No doubt “Andy” here had himself stood in front a priest or marriage commissioner and made the same vow. Maybe he’d actually believed it at the time. Now here he was. Did it matter—a bit of sex on the side? Anonymous. Edgy. Thrilling. A risk. A break from the humdrum.
Would it relax him? Make him a better dad and lover at home? Keep him nice because he had a secret? Or would it just excite him—fuel him only until he started jonesing for another fix? Perhaps he didn’t get any at home, poor boy. Wifey might be too busy feeding kids, dropping them off at day care, struggling to put in a full-day’s work, and falling into bed each night exhausted. Or wifey was happily fucking her own lover in the tennis clubhouse or doing some underage stud from her classroom where she taught at some secondary school. Or maybe she’d hooked up with a first love she’d rekindled via a surprise I-found-you! Facebook connection that reminded her what it had felt to be seventeen and in lust and have the world at one’s feet.
The thoughts flattened her nice booze buzz, so she took another deep sip of her drink and turned to watch the strippers. And the men watching them.
I want a normal relationship when things settle down. I want us to see if this can work . . . I’m coming to love you . . . I care, dammit. I want you around and in my life.
James Maddocks’s face shimmered into her mind. Those deep-blue eyes. The warmth of his touch. The power in his movements. What he could do to her in bed.
Wasn’t it just the same timeless farce playing out?
He’d already tried to play the game. To be a good dad. A husband. And failed. Maybe like Andy here he’d also hit the clubs for a bit of fun after Sabrina took up with that accountant of hers, hell knew. What was it to be human, to love? To be touched, to commit, to copulate. It could both nurture and hurt. It could create life, and it could kill.
She glanced at Andy. He was watching her intently. She imagined him naked. Upstairs on a bed. Two hours. Cuffed. Get her fix. He goes home to wifey. She goes . . . back to her hotel. No job.
She sucked back her drink, plunked the glass on the counter, and waved at the barman, eyes watering slightly. When the barkeep looked her way, she jabbed her finger at the empty glass. He nodded, reached for the bottle.
“Hitting it hard tonight?” Andy said, still watching her keenly. He touched her arm, trailing his finger along it. His pupils darkened as he held her gaze. “What does bring a woman like you here tonight, then?” he said.
“Sex.”
He blinked.
“You?”
“I ah . . . yeah. Let off some steam.”
Conflict warred inside her. Should she do it? Pick someone up again? Blow her brains out and numb her body and emotions with hot intercourse? Or should she draw her line right here, right now, get up and walk away, go home to the island, drop her walls and allow herself to love Maddocks . . . and brace for the pain that might cause her? Should she take that dizzying tumble into that abyss, just to see if she could survive?
“So, Andy,” she said, reaching for her third glass of vodka tonic, speaking more slowly now as the edges around her tongue blurred. “Does it work for you?” She sipped, watching him.
“What do you mean?”
The music changed. Fresh girls on stage.
“You come here. Get laid with . . . with some anonymous bitch, go home—helps you be, like, what? A good dad, husband? Until the next fix?”
His brow crooked up. “You’re kinda weird.”
“So they say.” She sucked back another sip. Do it. Get blind drunk. Screw this guy senseless. Do it to hurt Maddocks, to kill this thing between us that’s messing with my head and heart and mind . . . just like I’ve damaged every other relationship I’ve attempted. Angie Pallorino—the black thumb to relationships.