Bling Addiction (8 page)

I
don’t pop my cork for every guy I see…”

Star Baby had taken the holiday off. Tonight Pippa was Charity Hope Valentine.

Sexy Charity. Hot Charity.
Sweet Charity.

“Hey big spender/Spend a little time with me…”

She ran through the intricate choreography like a Broadway darling. Step-turn-spin-kick. She belted out the sassy lyrics like a stage diva.

“What is this shit?” a fat loser shouted. “I feel like I’m watching ‘American Idol’! Just show us your tits, baby!”

Customers who showed up on Thanksgiving made for a tough crowd. Men
without
a family at home got drunk because they were lonely and unsatisfied. Men
with
a family at home got drunk for the same reasons.

Oh, sack it! Pippa ripped open her blouse and gave the swamp donkeys exactly what they wanted. It was bloody amazing what boobs were capable of.

Every molecule of restlessness evaporated from the room. At the mere sight of two pouting and ambitious cones of female flesh, their hopelessly dull lives were instantly steamed up.

The music stopped.

Pippa approached the lip of the stage to collect the cash. After every dance, she’d grown quite accustomed to money raining down. But tonight it only drizzled.

The tepid response infuriated her. Strip club trolls were so gross. The vile pigs just sat there—drinking, smoking, eyeballing, groping, yelling. How could she expect such a sorry lot to appreciate a
real
song and dance? Chances of that were about as likely as these pervs watching a porno movie to enjoy the plot.

Pippa’s new-girl novelty at Cheetah seemed to be fading a bit. The diehards wanted her to be more like the other dancers. Ha! Keep dreaming, spunk monsters. She had no intention of hitting the stage in a neon green tube top and whipping her hair around so dramatically that she developed a bulged disc. Pippa happened to be the only girl in the club who didn’t have neck problems. And she planned on keeping it that way.

So what if her big number from
Sweet Charity
didn’t give the assholes a stiffy. At least she got some practice in
and
earned enough to buy a new pair of Fendi sunglasses. Not her best night. But still productive.

MACPA’s winter spectacular was set for early February. Pippa burned with anticipation for her chance to bring the audience to their feet with her two rip-roaring showstoppers, “Big Spender” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now.”

Oh God, she loved being part of a big-budget musical. And snaring the
lead
in her first year? Loads cool. Luckily, the theater department had a new head, Bill Booker. As far as he was concerned, none of the students deserved to be in the program until they proved otherwise. The man was a swishy, bitchy black fag who insisted that everyone call him Miss Bill. He worked his cast and technical crew like cattle, rarely dishing out praise.

Pippa maintained a constant state of amazement over the grand scale of a senior MACPA production. This was no school play with PTA mums knitting homemade costumes at the last minute. MACPA’s state-of-the-art auditorium seated nine hundred, and the backstage capabilities included closed-circuit television monitors, fly rails for raising and lowering large set pieces, and a scene shop with its own loading bay.

“You are
professionals
,” Miss Bill hissed at the beginning and end of every rehearsal. “I expect you to be serious, confident, and daring on this stage.”

At first, everybody hated him. But as opening night loomed closer and closer, they loved him silly. Miss Bill ran a torture chamber, but the end result was a cast blossoming under his pressure, having the time of their lives, and pushing themselves to the peaks of their talents.

“Lady P, I need you to
project
!” Miss Bill had snapped this at least a million times. “Don’t rely on the microphone, girlfriend. What if it’s not working? They paid twenty-five dollars for those seats in the balcony, and they want to hear Miss Charity sing!”

And so she practiced
projecting.
Anywhere she could. Miss Bill would absolutely die if he knew that her dedication extended to giving it a go at Cheetah, singing for her supper in a g-string to a bunch of horny bastards still sleepy from their turkey dinners.

But Pippa was prepared to do whatever it took, because the stakes were high. Miss Bill had just informed the cast that the show was in the running for a weeklong slot at a professional summer stock amphitheater in upstate New York.

The exhausting
Sweet Charity
gauntlet had almost—but not quite—crowded out Pippa’s obsession with money and shopping. She loved playing Charity Hope Valentine, the taxi dancer with the heart of gold who was torn between a handsome movie star and an ordinary desk worker.

The show was based on a Fellini film called
Nights of Cabiria,
and Miss Bill had reworked the book and music to give it a modern edge, transforming Charity’s movie star love interest into a Jay-Z mogul type and the accountant she meets in an elevator into a FedEx courier. Beyond that, Miss Bill had spiced up the musical arrangements with funk flourishes, especially in the final number, when the entire cast performed the Missy Elliott version of “Big Spender,” complete with Ciara-inspired hip-hop choreography.

It occurred to Pippa that the demands of starring in a Miss Bill production
and
working at Cheetah had become so all-consuming that she seemed to be rotating in her own extended orbit, far from Max, Christina, Dante, and especially Vanity, who still remained missing in action.

The once-reigning queen of the fabulous five had isolated herself from everyone. For weeks after the accident, Pippa had made every overture possible—phone calls, home visits, e-mails, text messages, special care packages. But never once had Vanity responded. Finally, Pippa stopped trying. And now she found herself in a new rhythm of life, albeit one that included a constant stream of lies to keep her racy job a secret.

Of course, the
Sweet Charity
show was a glorious alibi for late-night absences. After all,
nobody
could know that she was strutting her stuff at Cheetah for fistfuls of dollars. The default response to her mum and her friends for not being around had become the play. But she also made up a job as a part-time assistant to an entertainment promoter. That helped explain the sudden appearance of expensive new clothes and accessories.

God! Keeping all the lies and half-truths straight had become exhausting. Pippa was pulling down squillions at Cheetah, and the shoe boxes of cash tucked away in her closet were big to bursting. The truth was, she could afford a car now. A brand-new one! But she had a feeling that such a purchase would be the tipping point, the one conspicuous move that might arouse too much curiosity and expose her secret life. So she rammed around Miami in a beat-up Chevrolet, a total spazmobile that made Dante’s Honda look like a luxury ride.

Poor Max. Sometimes Pippa felt downright witchy for dodging him so often, but what else could she do? Between nailing down her role in the play and working shifts at the club, there was no time. And, to be truthful, the little matter regarding his father had become more complicated. Pippa much preferred the man to the boy, so she was hardly killing herself to spend time with Junior.

Max
could
have been starring in
Sweet Charity
as Vittorio, one of her character’s love interests. He won the role hands down, thanks to his electric charisma and effortless comic timing. But his smart-ass mouth and lazy work ethic did
not
go over well with Miss Bill, who promptly booted Max out of the cast and assigned him the thankless job of promoting ticket sales. Being the son of a movie star got you nowhere with Miss Bill.

“Sweat and tears, people!” Pippa could hear Miss Bill’s constant refrain boomerang in her mind at random points throughout the day. “That’s all I want to see. Sweat and tears. Add some blood to that and you just might have a chance in hell of doing this for a living.”

The DJ cranked up hard-charging rock music, blasting Miss Bill’s voice out of Pippa’s head and breaking her private reverie. Every night she left Cheetah with a ringing in her ears. It was a minor miracle that she could still hear.

She exited the stage in a huff, ran straight into Vinnie, and decided to let her displeasure about tonight’s cheap customers be known. “This crowd totally sucks shit!”

“What were you doing up there?” Vinnie asked.

“Something different!”

Vinnie pointed to Brandi, a new girl who had the patrons roaring like lions as Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” exploded from the speakers. “Stick with the tried and true, Star Baby. Singing is the last thing these guys want to see your mouth do.” He cackled and pinched her ass. “Now go freshen up. There’s a VIP waiting upstairs just for you.” He gave her a knowing wink.

Pippa dashed into the locker room.

Hellcat was busy fastening the top of her American flag bikini. “Loved your number, honey,” she said with a sneer. “But I think that act would go over better at a gay cabaret.”

Pippa ignored her. Brilliantly. It was either that or stomp on the bitch. She stripped down, redressing quickly in a La Perla Marvel bra, Roberto Cavalli satin roll-up shorts, and Michael Kors suede slingbacks. Then she flashed a wet tongue over her lips to make the Galaxy Girl lipstick by Nars shine brighter.

Twirling in a tight pirouette, Pippa surveyed the goods. She looked hot. Scorching, in fact. A fiery, sun-burnished, sex bomb blonde. Oh, yes. Star Baby knew how to give off killer heat.

She could practically feel Hellcat’s hateful gaze sizzling between her shoulder blades. The scabby whore was crazy mad with jealousy. Pippa was younger, hotter, Vinnie’s favorite, and the Lair girl of choice for the club’s most important customer—Max Biaggi.

Knowing that he was upstairs waiting for her—and her alone—filled Pippa with a heady satisfaction, and if she thought about it long enough, then she just might start gushing like a Roman fountain.

Max Biaggi did something to Pippa. Something that his son didn’t do. And that was set her body on fire with lust. Just being in the same room with him sent delicious quickenings into the pit of her stomach.

Often Pippa wondered if those butterflies were feelings for him or anxiety over the dangerous game she continued to play as private dancer to the father and best mate to the son, a game that went on with both of them blissfully unaware that they shared her.

Unlike the junior version, big Max seemed to have all the time in the world when it came down to the matter of sex. He was in total control and in no rush to do anything.

Pippa found this exquisitely appealing. Here it was, a few months since their first meeting, and Pippa had barely touched him. Last time she was allowed to faintly graze his body with her breasts during a dance. Yet the whole time all she wanted to do was cling to him passionately and beg him to take her…any way that he chose.

“Got another private dance with Mr. Hollywood?” Hellcat asked, blocking Pippa’s path as she turned to leave.

Pippa attempted to move around her.

Hellcat stopped her with a snake-bite grip to the arm, fake nails digging into the skin, nearly breaking it. “Not so fast, Star Cunt. I’m talking to you.”

Pippa winced at the pain. “I would appreciate it very much if you would let go of me.” Her voice remained calm, even though she wanted to scream bloody curses at the stench trench in front of her.

“Oh, how proper,” Hellcat said with a snort, mocking Pippa’s British accent as she let go of her arm. “You think that giving private dances to a big movie star makes you better than the rest of us?” She stepped closer, blowing her warm, stale Marlboro Lights–infused breath directly into Pippa’s face. “But one day you’ll find out the hard way what you really are.”

Pippa matched Hellcat glare for glare. “Well, right now I’m sick to my stomach. So please excuse me.” And then she stalked toward the exit.

“Keep dreaming, Star Baby,” Hellcat called out. “That’s right. Keep dreaming about Mr. Hollywood. Every whore has to hold on to something.”

Pippa refused to look back, banishing Hellcat from her mind as she made her way up the stairs to the Lair, filled with a delectable wonder. How far would Max Biaggi take the fun tonight?

When she stepped inside, music wafted softly from the iPod stereo. The Eagles were his favorite band. Tonight’s song was “Life in the Fast Lane.”

Pippa smiled.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Star Baby.”

Max Biaggi’s voice drove her crazy. Every time he spoke, she felt a little thump in the gut.

With a quick zap of the remote control, he tuned out Don Henley. “What are you thankful for tonight?”

Pippa was suddenly struck by the strangeness of the circumstances. Max Biaggi Jr. was home alone on this holiday, drinking himself into oblivion and missing her company. Meanwhile, his father was front and center, paying top dollar for it. “I’m thankful that you came to see me.”