The Art of Sin (16 page)

     She warily cocked her head to the side. “Not if you keep calling me Allison.”     

     “Especially if I keep calling you Allison.”

     She stepped out of his arms. “We’ll see about that.”

     Al left the bedroom and retrieved her flip-flops from the living room floor. She gave him one last smile before darting out his door.

     Grady let out a long breath while silently thanking divine intervention for bringing them together. When he turned for the bathroom door, he shook his head in disbelief over his good fortune.

     “Hell of a woman. And now, she’s mine.”

Chapter 13

     As Grady studied a map of the Audubon Zoo, the bright spring sun was beaming down on a circular pond, with a dark green elephant sitting on a rock in the center, spewing water playfully from its trunk. Beside him, Al was taking in the children splashing around the edges of the pond while watchful mothers looked on. The sounds of animals calling from other parts of the zoo floated in the air, along with the intermittent squeals of happy children. Grady was still trying to decipher the map when a gentle breeze from the nearby Mississippi River made the flimsy paper billow in his hands.

     “We can head to the Asian Domain for the elephants … which is this way.” He motioned to his right. “Or we can go left and see the primates.” He nodded to Al. “Your call.”

     She waved to her right. “Elephants. You always have to start with the elephants at Audubon Zoo. It’s a tradition.”

     Grady folded up the map and took her hand. “Elephants it is.”

     They strolled down a wide sidewalk surrounded by tall oak trees and lush green gardens with signs pointing to the Asian Domain.

     “Who brought you to the zoo when you were little?” Grady probed, squeezing her hand.

     “My dad. It was the one place we both loved. We were the animal freaks in our family. My mother and Cassie were allergic to everything under the sun, so my Dad and I would run away to the zoo and take in the animals.”

     “Sounds like you two were pretty close.”

     She shrugged. “When I was little, yeah, we were close, but about a year before he took off, he pulled away from me. By then, he was fighting all the time with my mother.”

     “Fighting? What did they fight about?”

     “Money. He never made enough of it, and she never liked to stop spending it.”

     “I thought your mother had money.”

     “When they first got married, she had a lot of it. After a while, I guess they just went through it all. My mother never worked a day in her life, until my father left. She had a business degree from Tulane, but when the time came to look for a job, all she could do was secretarial work. She worked for an accounting firm in the Central Business District.”

     “You ever hear from your father?”

     Al shook her head. “Nope. The last day I ever spoke to him was the day he left. I hugged him good-bye and then went to school. When I came home, he was gone. I think my mother knew where he went, but she never told Cassie or me.”          

     Grady tried to think of something encouraging, but his mind went blank. What could he say about a man who walked away from his children?

     Ahead, a circular ring was filled with huge rocks and dirt. Rising behind the ring was a square, red-bricked building with an arched open entrance in front and a small cupola on top. Running around the perimeter of the ring were smaller red-bricked housing facilities for the elephants.    

     Grady stuck his nose in the air. “You can smell the elephants ahead.”

     “I love that smell. Makes you know you’re in a zoo.”

     “I’m surprised you didn’t become a vet, instead of a nurse.”
     “That would have taken way too long in school,” she maintained. “I needed to hurry up and make money to help Cassie pay the bills.”

     “What did Cassie do for a living?”

     She let go of his hand. “She was a dancer, like you.” She steadied her eyes on the elephant enclosure before them. “She got into it when the money started running out. In the beginning, a few of my father’s old friends gave her jobs waiting tables in their clubs. One thing led to another, and she eventually ended up on the stage.”

     He reached up and turned her face to him. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

     “Does it matter?”

     “It matters to me, Allison. It explains why you have a soft spot for everyone in our business.”

     She gave him a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I always try to rent to dancers because of Cassie. She would have wanted that.”

     He stood back from her. “What was she like?”

     “Cassie?” She rolled her eyes and softly laughed. “A big kid. She was outgoing, beautiful, goofy, and had a million friends. Boys were constantly following her, and she was the life of any party. She was the happiest person I’d ever known.”

     Two small elephants came out of the main gate and entered the ring in front of them. The lumbering animals picked up dirt from the ground and tossed it over their broad backs.

     “It sounds like you loved her a great deal,” Grady voiced, observing the elephants.

     “I adored her. She was my big sister.”

     One of the elephants let out a long, loud cry.

     “How did she die?”

     Several children began running toward the ring, anxious to see the elephants. Al smiled as the children scurried around them. For several seconds she said nothing, but simply took in the exuberant faces. When her gray eyes returned to Grady, they were swimming with sadness.

     Devastated by her sorrow, he put his arm around her shoulders. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked you that question.”              

     “No, it’s all right.” She raised her head and shook off her melancholy. “I just don’t like talking about how Cassie died. I know it happened a long time ago, but sometimes there are moments it feels like yesterday.”

     Grady draped his other arm around her. “What do you say we go and see the monkeys?”

     Al nodded. “I like monkeys.”

     Grady took her hand and led her away from the elephants. “Come on, we’ve got lots to see.”

*     *     *    

     They had stopped at the Cypress Knee Café inside the Louisiana Swamp Exhibit for soft drinks, and were sitting on the pier overlooking the green, algae-filled swamp below. Across the swath of water, a narrow shoreline was covered with a handful of alligators and a few brave turtles, catching the afternoon sunshine.

     “Did you like to go to the zoo when you were a kid?” Al queried, sitting across a wooden picnic bench from him.

     “My father didn’t believe in wasting time on things like going to zoos or on vacations. When we had free time, my brother and I were expected to fill it with profitable pursuits, like part-time jobs or doing chores to earn our allowance. After we graduated from high school, Dalton and I were expected to pay our way through college. That’s why I took up dancing, because the grants and loans weren’t cutting it.” He explored the small crowds scattered about the pier.

     “Sounds like your father was pretty strict.”

     Grady put his paper cup of sweet tea down on the picnic table. “Not strict, disciplined. He grew up poor and worked hard to get ahead. Dad was an executive with a big advertising company in New York City. He started as an accountant and worked his way up to CFO. We lived in an affluent part of Connecticut, belonged to the nearby country club, and were always seen at the local charity fundraisers my mother was involved with.” He shrugged his broad shoulders as the sunlight glistened in his short, blond hair. “I’m not knocking how we were raised. My dad made sure me and Dalton appreciated what it took to have the kind of life we did. He fought to make us tough, perhaps a little too tough.”

     “What makes you say that?”

     Al noticed how more than a few of the women seated around them kept turning their hungry eyes to Grady. His good looks and ripped body beneath his snug T-shirt had attracted more than a few second-glances as they had meandered around the park.

     “After I found out my parents were killed in that car accident, I kept hearing my father’s voice in my head saying, ‘Be strong, stay tough, and no matter what, don’t show your emotions.’ Took me a while to realize that my father was wrong. If you don’t acknowledge your emotions, you just end up alone.”

     “You father sounds a lot like my mother. She always taught us to never to get too close to anyone, because they would only hurt you in the end.”

     He rested his thick arms on the picnic table. “Is that why you kept pushing me away?”

     “Partly.” She shrugged, making her silky blonde hair fall about her shoulders. “I also needed to know that I wasn’t going to end up as just another … Cathy.”

     Grady grasped her outstretched hand. “You are so much more to me. I hope you realize that now.” He shook his head. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this before, instead of torturing me?”

     Al coyly smirked. “Sometimes a man needs to go through a good bit of hell before a woman can let him know heaven.”

     His heart soared. “I like that. Might have to—”

     “Excuse me?” a dark-haired woman with beady green eyes intruded. She pointed at Grady. “Aren’t you a stripper at that club? What’s it called … The Flesh Factory? I saw you there the other night.”

     Grady sat back and crunched his lips together, appearing irritated.
Great. This is all I need.

     “Yeah, I, ah, dance there,” he told the woman.

     The woman’s small eyes immediately twinkled with interest. “You were really good. I saw you dancing with this woman on the stage and the two of you were … well, really hot.”

     Grady stood from the table, angrily snatching up his paper cup of sweet tea. “Glad you liked the show.”

     Al took the hint and rose from her seat, holding her soft drink in her hand.

     “I even told my girlfriends about you,” the woman gushed. “I’m gonna bring them back to see you. You’re incredible on stage.”

     Grady forced a polite smile on his lips. “Thanks.” He reached for Al’s hand. “We’ve got to be going.” Pulling Al away from their picnic table, he headed to the garbage cans at the end of the pier.

     “Does that happen a lot?”

     “At least once in every town,” he confessed, throwing his paper cup into a trashcan.

     Al pitched her soda into the black barrel of trash and observed his pensive brow. “You don’t like being recognized, do you?”

     “No. It’s not like I’m an actor or politician. I take my clothes off for a living. It’s not something to be proud of.”

     She came up to him and squeezed his hand. “I like what you do.”

     Unable to look at her while his anger festered, he kept his eyes on the swamp. “Well, you’re the only one. When my old man found out what I was doing to pay the bills at Yale, he called me a worthless son of a bitch and never spoke to me again. He never came to my college graduation or attended my wedding.”

     She tugged on his hand, pulling him toward her. “He was wrong about you, Grady. You’re not a worthless son of a bitch. You’re a very special … son of a bitch.”

     Pivoting his eyes to her, he chuckled. “How come I only feel special with you?”

     “Because you make me feel the same way,” she declared. 

     Grady reveled in the way her hair shined in the bright sunlight, and how her features glowed with affection. He yearned to capture that moment. To lock away the memory forever, so he could look back and know for that brief instant he had been happy.  

     Al sheepishly grinned and then pulled at his hand, urging him down the path.

     “Where are we going now?”

     Al said nothing, but kept grinning at him as she guided him off the path. She hastened across the grass to the side of the path, and moved toward a row of trees and shrubs that were planted in front of a small structure. When they came around the ridge of greenery, a storage shed built out of cinderblocks manifested before them.

     Grady spied the isolated building. “What are we doing here?”

     Al nudged him behind the shed, and he laughed out loud at her bravado. When she pushed him up against the wall of the shed, pulling at his T-shirt, Grady quit laughing and started getting turned on. He liked her this way; forceful and demanding.

     “The way that woman looked at you back there, it reminded me of that night I went to your club,” Al said, her hands on his chest. “I saw all of those women wanting you, but they couldn’t have you.”

     He tossed his arms around her. “I could only see you that night.”

     Al nestled against his body. “When you danced with me, I fantasized about you taking me, right there on the stage so everyone could see. I wanted to show all of those other women that you were mine.”

     He breathed in her lavender-scented hair. “That would have been a hell of a show.”

     “Still could be.” Her hand went to the crotch of his jeans, fondling him. “You ever want to do it in public?”

     Grady gaped at the minimal covering of brush in front of the shed. “Here?”

     “I’ve always wanted to have sex at the zoo.” She nuzzled his neck. “Are you afraid we’ll get caught?”

     Grady could feel the blood rushing through his veins when she said those words. He crushed her to him. “Hell no.”

     She nipped his chin. “Prove it.”

     Taking up her challenge, he spun her around and pressed her body into the wall of the shed. Quickly lowering the zipper on her jeans, he tugged the snug material down her hips, and then let the jeans drop to her ankles. Pushing her panties out of the way, he grinned as his hands squeezed the cheeks on her smooth, round ass. Al groaned when he spread her cheeks apart, and slipped his fingers into her folds. He got hard when he felt how wet she was.