Missed Connections (36 page)

"When you carry equipment that's worth a couple of thousand dollars every day, it seems like a good idea to know how to defend yourself," White kissed Reeds gently for a couple of seconds. "Though that negotiation was straight from fixer school."

Reeds ginned boyishly, another expression that was unfamiliar to Sam. "You liked that?"

The next kiss was more aggressive; Sam saw Reeds's wince when it jarred his arm, but White was already herding him onto a boat in the distance. Reeds didn't look back to see his fallen enemy, his entire attention focused on White; Sam didn't doubt that if he had a hidden weapon he would be dead before he could draw it. And Sam did, at his ankle, but he couldn't reach it, seeing as he practically fell on it. He sighed and watched them sail off into the freaking sunset.

When Sam heard the hurried footsteps of Detective John Archer—who would surely be his new partner after however long he got suspended for and/or was needed for his medical care—he closed his eyes and laughed. Perhaps he didn't have all the information after all. Maybe he really had gone too far with this one.

Vi scowled the moment she stepped through the door. A woman teetered up the stairs in front of her on five-inch heels, pulling at the hem of her dress as if that would make it any more decent. A remix of Rihanna pounded out of the speakers, and Vi felt her frown deepen. She had no idea what she was doing here.

"Let's grab a table!" Greg said, raising his voice to be heard.

Shrugging, Vi followed her friend. At least if they were sitting, she wouldn't have to feel as self-conscious about her skinny jeans and band T-shirt amongst the sea of microminis and platform heels.

Greg pounced on a table in the corner and Vi gratefully sank into the seat, hoping if she slouched low enough she'd be invisible to the crowd around her. A pretty blonde server paused beside them, raising one perfectly-sculpted eyebrow disdainfully at Vi. So much for invisibility.

"I have to pee," she told Greg, standing quickly. The server towered, her long bronzed legs going on for what seemed like miles, her feet tucked into sky-high heels. Next to her, Vi was pretty sure she looked like a twelve-year-old boy.

"What about drinks?" Greg protested.

"Get me whatever." Vi cast her eyes about the club, looking for a telltale restroom sign.

"Bathrooms are downstairs, sweetie," the server said, and Vi wondered if she was imagining the condescension in the woman's voice.

Vi pushed through the crowd and descended into the depths of the club, following the server's rather vague directions. She nodded in passing to a man stationed at the foot of the stairs, his pristine suit and vacant stare marking him as an employee of the club. A translucent door with the silhouette of a pinup girl etched into the glass caught her eye and she shuffled towards it, her Converse squeaking on the slick black floor. She felt out of place in the chic interior, its painfully hip décor clashing miserably with her shorn hair and casual, comfortable clothes. She didn't know why Greg had dragged her downtown when she was perfectly happy to hang out at their neighborhood pub. She could be tucked into her favorite booth, nursing a beer and getting ready for quiz night right now.

Vi pushed the frosted glass door open and was immediately confronted with flesh. Everywhere. A dozen girls stood before her in various states of undress and Vi gulped at the sight. It didn't matter where she turned her gaze:  there was a bare breast here, an expanse of sleek thigh there, and the perfect round swells of an upturned ass right in front of her.

"Sorry, sorry!" She gasped, stumbling backwards and letting the door swing shut, blocking the sight from her eyes. The girls hadn't even glanced up, completely unfazed by her presence.

Vi blinked dazedly at the door in front of her, her brain momentarily struck dumb by all that naked flesh. Finally she turned, her eyes sweeping the dim room for any sign of the
actual
ladies' room. The only other door was clearly the men's room, and Vi sighed, heading back towards the stairs. The bouncer politely tipped his gaze in her direction as she approached.

"Um, I'm looking for the ladies' room?" She asked, embarrassed. 

"Right over there, ma'am," he replied smoothly, nodding towards the door she had just pushed open.

"Oh." Vi frowned. "No, I mean… the women's bathroom?"

"Yes." The man nodded towards the door again.

"But there are, um, girls? Changing in there?" Vi said, scrubbing a hand miserably through her hair. This was exactly why she never braved the club scene. She felt like every move she made was wrong somehow. Only, she didn't know what kind of behavior was
right.

"Yes," the man said again. "The dancers are getting ready to go on."

Vi frowned. Dancers? She hadn't thought she was in
that
kind of club. 

"Oh. But…"

"You just go right on in," the bouncer encouraged, breaking from his stoic gaze to give her a small smile. "They know they're not supposed to get in the way of the customers."

"Um, okay. Thanks." Vi bit her lip. All she wanted to do was run back upstairs to Greg and demand to leave, but she didn't think she could with the bouncer's eyes on her.  She
had
announced to him she needed to use the bathroom.

Vi took a deep breath as she turned back to the door, steeling herself as she pushed her way into the bathroom.

The dancers crowded around the space between the sinks and the stalls, bags and purses strewn around their feet. The time she had spent dithering outside had at least given most of them the chance to get dressed. However, 'dressed' was a relative term. They all wore identical costumes:  their rounded hips and perky asses were clad in skimpy brown panties, with various leather and suede bits dangling off of them. Patches of the same brown suede barely covered the swells of their breasts, with similar straps dangling across their taut stomachs. In fact, their lower legs were the most covered parts of their bodies, clad in furry boots that completed the Tarzan-esque 'wild woman' look Vi assumed the costume was meant to invoke. All in all, it left large expanses of skin bared to her eyes:  tight, tanned, and glistening.

"I, um…" she stuttered, trying to tear her eyes from the long lines of the dancers' bodies. The girls barely looked up, more intent on fixing their hair and makeup than sparing a glance for the tomboy standing awkwardly by the door. Grateful for small favors, Vi lunged for the nearest stall, slamming the door shut behind her. Taking a deep breath, she dropped her forehead against the door, trying to calm the frantic beating of her heart. 

Vi was barely out to
herself
, let alone other people, and the sight of all that girl-flesh so openly on display had her head spinning. She would kill Greg if he had brought her to a strip club; there was no way she could sit next to him and pretend to be totally straight while one of those girls took her clothes off right in front of them. 

The mere thought had her shuddering, the image of the fullness of the dancers' naked breasts, the curves of their slim waists, and the firmness of their shapely behinds burned into her brain. Fear and arousal churned in her stomach, and she closed her eyes, taking another shaky breath. She would just wait until the girls left the bathroom, and then she would go back upstairs and plead illness to Greg. She would go home, and everything would be fine.

Vi listened to the dancers packing up, talking and joking as they gathered their belongings and prepared to start their shift. The noise reminded her of her high school locker room. It was the tumultuous sound of a dozen girls crammed into a small space, the cacophony of their giggles and the clatter of makeup being dropped into purses and shoes being tossed on the floor. It made Vi's stomach clench; she never felt more like an outsider than with a large group of girls, when it became painfully obvious that she just didn't fit. Other girls talked about clothes and makeup; they didn't shoot longing glances at each other out of the corner of their eyes, or allow their gazes to linger on the curves of each other's bodies. No, it was only Vi who couldn't repress her desire to look, her whole body trembling as she fought the urge to reach out and
touch
. 

She waited in the stall, hoping the girls had forgotten all about her, until the noises in the bathroom died down. Finally the room was quiet, the only sound the dull throb of the pulsing music upstairs. Chiding herself for her cowardice, Vi pushed the stall open, ready to flee back to Greg. 

The sight of a lone dancer standing at the sinks made her freeze where she stood, fighting the urge to dart back in the stall.

She couldn't, not without looking ridiculous, and so she reluctantly moved forward, taking her position at the next sink over to wash her hands. 

The girl was different than the others; she was long and lean, without the obvious curves the rest of the dancers had flaunted. She barely filled out the top of the skimpy costume, and the curves of her waist and hips were almost nonexistent. Her long, dark hair hung in her face as she stood before the sink, her head bowed and her body tense.

Vi looked forward pointedly, meeting her own eyes in her reflection. She refused to let her gaze linger over the girl's body:  the ridges of her spine along her naked back, the long lines of her bare thighs, the delicate grace of her bent neck. 

"It's my first night," the girl blurted. 

Vi looked over, startled. The dancer was looking back, her dark eyes wide. 

"It's my first night," she repeated. "I'm really nervous."

"Oh, um…" Vi faltered.

The girl huffed, a frustrated sound, pushing her hair back from her face. "I'm Cassidy."

She had a devastatingly beautiful face, high cheekbones, large dark eyes, and full, plush lips. Vi felt her mind go blank, words catching in her throat as she stared into the girl's eyes.  "… Vi," she finally managed, flushing at the way her voice cracked. It was entirely distracting talking to the dancer while she was wearing that costume, the expanse of her sternum and the gentle swell of her small bosom exposed to Vi's gaze.

"I don't know if I'm going to be any good at this," the girl, Cassidy, continued, shaking her head. "I'm not like the other girls, you know?"

Vi blinked, surprised. It was a feeling she was more than familiar with, but she couldn't imagine this beautiful, perfect girl feeling the same.

"They're all tits and ass. Not that there's anything wrong with that." Cassidy smiled ruefully. "They're just two departments I'm sadly lacking in."

"I think you look great," Vi blurted, blushing as the words flew out of her mouth. She hadn't meant to say it, hadn't meant to engage in this conversation at all. But she couldn't believe that a girl as beautiful as the one next to her was at all self-conscious. Sure, she didn't look like the other dancers, but that didn't make her any less gorgeous. Frankly, Vi thought she looked like a supermodel.

"Thanks. My parents don't know I'm doing this," Cassidy said, fiddling nervously with one of the strips that dangled down from her skimpy top. She turned the piece of leather in her hand, pulling on it absentmindedly. The movement drew Vi's eyes down her body to the flat planes of her stomach. There, vivid against her pale skin, was the outline of a dancer in perfect arabesque, peeking tantalizingly out of the bottom of Cassidy's costume. Vi could hardly tear her eyes away from the tattoo, following where it dipped into the waist of Cassidy's suede panties. She gulped, wrenching her eyes back to the dancer's face. 

"Not that there's anything wrong with being a go-go girl," Cassidy said quickly. 

Vi let out an internal sigh of relief; this wasn't a strip club, and Cassidy wouldn't be taking her clothes off for the crowd upstairs.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you all this," Cassidy said, sweeping a hand through her long hair, pushing it back away from her face.

"It's okay," Vi assured her. "Why… why don't your parents know you work here?" she prompted. Girls like Cassidy never talked to girls like her, and she wanted to keep the conversation going as long as possible, if only to be given an excuse to keep looking at her.

"I'm classically trained." Cassidy gave a bitter little laugh. "I'm at Joffrey's. The school," she quickly added. "But, I mean, I hope the company will hire me."

"Really?" Vi's eyebrows rose, impressed. She wasn't much for the ballet herself, but she was aware that the city boasted a prestigious company. Cassidy must be good, to go there. 

"Yeah. But I've got to pay my rent somehow, you know? Only, I can't bring myself to tell my dad that I'm getting paid to shake my ass in a club, when he thinks I'm becoming a famous ballerina." She gave Vi a wry smile. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Vi asked, surprised. 

"Well…" Vi felt her face heat as Cassidy's gaze trailed down, then back up to meet her eyes. "You don't exactly look like you belong here either."

The rejection stung, and Vi dropped her gaze, trying to push the feeling away. She suddenly felt ridiculous, standing there in a faded boy's T-shirt, trying to talk to a beautiful girl.

"I scoped out the club before I came down to change," Cassidy continued blithely. "It's all suburbanites in too-short skirts and too much makeup, trying too hard. And you're just so naturally gorgeous. I mean, what are you even doing at a place like this?"

Vi didn't register the question, didn't register anything beyond one word. "You think I'm gorgeous?" she blurted.

"Oh," Cassidy bit her lip coyly. "I mean, of course.  Look at you."

Vi stared at her, dumbfounded. She
had
looked at herself; she didn't know what Cassidy was seeing, but it certainly wasn't what Vi saw whenever she looked in the mirror.

"But I'm so… I mean," she ran a hand over the side of her hair, buzzed close to the scalp.  "I don't even know how to put on lipstick!"

Cassidy laughed, her whole face lighting up. "Why would you need lipstick?" She asked, her eyes dipping down to Vi's mouth. Something coiled hot in Vi's stomach, and she licked nervously at her lips.