Fallen Angel (Club Burlesque) Read online

  Mallory tried to make a quick getaway. The sight of Violet killed her post-performance buzz.

  “Hey—that was very cool,” Violet said, grabbing Mallory’s arm. Mallory pulled back as if touched by something hot.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re not still upset about last night, are you?”

  “I wasn’t upset. I was just tired.”

  “Okay, cool. Listen, I’ll do the tip jar tonight.”

  “Really?” Mallory waited for the catch. The tip jar was everyone’s least favorite job at the Angel. At the end of the show, someone had to stand at the door in all of her naked glory and hold a can to collect tips. Tonight was her turn.

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Okay. Whatever.”

  Was this her way of apologizing for crashing Mallory’s night out with Alec? Alec insisted he mentioned offhand where they were going, that he had no idea she would show up. But Mallory couldn’t help but wonder if he was falling back to old bad habits.

  There was a time—a brief, chaotic time—when they had tested the boundaries of their relationship with the occasional three-way. It had started as Alec’s idea, and she had gone along with it. Alec would argue that she more than went along with it—that she had enjoyed it as much as he did. But the truth was, she had always had mixed feelings about it. Her girlfriends thought she was crazy, that she was asking for trouble. And then a few months ago, she and Alec had both agreed that the adventurousness of it wasn’t worth the tricky emotional terrain. But her best friend, Julie, had told her it wouldn’t be that simple.

  “It’s like what Chris Rock says in the HBO special… . Once something is ‘on the menu’ for a guy sexually, it’s impossible to take it off.”

  “It’s off,” Mallory had insisted. But last night, when Violet had showed up at their dinner date at the Stone Rose, she had to wonder.

  Alec was almost finished with his MC segue between acts, and Violet squeezed Mallory’s arm with a wink before slinking onstage.

  “Hey, Mal. Great costume,” said Poppy LaRue, her arms full of discarded clothes. Usually they had a designated “stage kitten” to clear the stage after each performance. It was the stage kitten’s job to clean up the stage after each act, to clear it for the next performer, while she waited for the day when she would get the nod from Agnes to take the stage herself. But this natural order had been disrupted when their stage kitten was poached by the rival club, the Slit. “I love Cinderella,” she said.

  “Cinderella? Oh—no, Poppy… It was Marie Antoinette.”

  Seeing no flicker of recognition, Mallory told her, “Never mind.”

  Her friendship with Poppy had come a long way. Poppy LaRue was a tall, pretty blonde straight from the cornfields of Arkansas who had started at the Blue Angel a year before Mallory. She had been so threatened by Mallory’s appearance on the scene and the attention Mallory got from Bette Noir—the object of Poppy’s excruciating crush—that Poppy tried to sabotage Mallory at the club and even, Mallory suspected, made a play for Alec. But Poppy had mellowed once she fell into a great relationship with Patricia Loomis, Mallory’s former boss at her old law firm. Mallory and Poppy had become genuine friends lately. Poppy had even confided in her one night, over strong mixed drinks at a bar after a show two months ago, that while she loved Patricia and had never had a relationship like the one they shared, it bothered her that Patricia wasn’t pretty.

  “Can you believe Ryan Ellison is in the audience tonight?” Poppy said, stretching her long legs like a colt after a run. “I’ve never seen a movie star here before. There was that musician once… .What’s his name?”

  “Ryan Ellison is in the audience?” Mind clicking, Mallory looked back at the stage curtain, where Violet was doing her thing. “Who else knows about this?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard Agnes telling Violet.”

  The tip jar. Standing at the exit after the show: the perfect way to meet Ryan Ellison.

  That bitch. What an operator. And she was trying to operate her way right into Alec’s bed.

  Violet squinted at the audience, trying to single him out while she moved through her performance to the Faint song, “Erection.” It was impossible to see with the stage light in her eyes. Some of the girls liked that—made it easier to show their pussies without looking someone in the eye. Violet thought they were pussies. But not her. That’s why Agnes had told her that Ryan Ellison was in the audience. She knew Violet wouldn’t fold under pressure—unlike Mallory. No way could Mallory handle performing in front of the hottest actor in Hollywood. Hell—she couldn’t even handle the suggestion of a threesome with her own boyfriend! What was that about? The way she looked at Alec and her last night … It was like they were suggesting making a sacrifice to a demonic cult, not some harmless fucking.

  She’d have to work on her.

  In the meantime, she would be working on Mr. Ryan Ellison.

  Violet exited the stage to applause, foot stomping, and whistling. She loved being the showstopper—the final performer. She knew she would be the one the guys were thinking about later that night as they fondled their still-hard dicks. And hopefully she was the performer the girls thought about when they ate each other out. They were the ones she was really performing for—all those cute lesbians who came to the show every Friday night as a warm-up to their own lovemaking.

  Like that couple who came every Friday night last month, a redhead and an Asian who sat in the front row. On the last night, the Asian came up to her and said her friend was going back to Ireland. Did she want to come to the going away party?

  Yes. She did.

  The next night, Violet followed the directions from the Asian girl’s text to a shitty apartment off of Avenue A. She climbed six flights of stairs to a small room filled with drunken undergrads dancing to bad house music and drinking cheap booze and flat beer from a keg. Violet hadn’t hung out at parties like that even when she was in college, so she certainly wasn’t going to start now that she was three years free of that scene. She was just about to hightail it out of there when the Asian girl appeared by her side, taking her by the elbow.

  “The real party’s in the back. Wait here a sec—don’t leave, okay?”

  Violet nodded, watching her slip back in the crowd. Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” played off the iDock. She began a mental countdown from twenty and resolved to leave at one.

  She had reached three when she spotted the Asian girl weaving back to her through the crowd. The Asian girl grabbed her hand and led her to the bedroom. It was dark—only a desk lamp was on, and a black T-shirt was tossed over the lampshade—and smelled like cigarette smoke. Violet had hated cigarettes ever since she quit three months ago.

  The Irish girl was on the bed. She was naked and blindfolded, her arms tied to the headboard.

  “Your going away present has arrived,” the Asian girl said to Irish, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.

  Violet was about to give her a piece of her mind—tell her she was a performer, not a call girl. Then she looked more closely at the girl on the bed. With her dark hair and pale, cream-colored skin, she reminded Violet of someone else she knew. Someone she had fantasized about getting in this exact same position.

  She moved to the edge of the bed, peering at the girl. She reached out and cupped her breasts. The girl stirred only slightly, mouth open and nearly breathless. She hadn’t made a sound since Violet had entered the room.

  Her breasts were bigger than those of the woman Violet really wanted—but that woman’s body was an impossible standard. This girl was close enough—close enough for Violet to close her eyes and take a nipple into her mouth. Close enough for her to slide her mouth down the length of the redhead’s lean torso, pausing at her hips.

  Violet sat back on her knees, and lifted off her tank top. The girl shifted her hips impatiently. Violet turned back to her, placing her hands on her thighs and gently spreading her legs.

  “Take off your jeans,” breathed the Asian
girl from behind. Violet considered telling her to fuck off, but then thought better of it. As long as she was here, she might as well increase her chances of getting off as well. She hopped off the bed, easing off her white jeans. She kept on her black thong, and turned back to Irish, who had spread her legs wider. Violet got on her knees, ass in the air, and flicked her tongue against Irish’s pussy. She wondered what Asian thought of the view.

  She pressed her tongue deeply into Irish’s cunt, and the girl finally emitted a sound—a short, breathy gasp. Violet felt a stirring between her own legs and was happy to sense Asian moving around behind her. She didn’t know what the woman was going to do, but anticipated it would feel good.

  She focused on Irish, moving her mouth to her inner thigh and slipping her finger in her. The girl clenched her thighs against Violet’s hand, and Violet made her motions quicker.

  Asian moved behind her, grinding her slippery cunt against Violet and reaching around to feel her breasts. Violet just wanted her to finger fuck her and get her off quickly.

  Violet put her mouth on Irish’s clit, and the girl yelled out, “Don’t stop,” in her thick accent. It jarred Violet, breaking her fantasy that she was sucking off the woman she dreamed about, reminding her that she was instead with an exchange student in a crappy apartment building filled with people chugging beer. The woman she wanted would never be in this situation.

  And because of this, even when Asian moved her fingers expertly inside her, even when she tasted Irish coming, even when they were finished and both women gazed at her with adoration and told her she was the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen, Violet felt nothing.

  And she was tired of it.

  Sometime between the end of her set and the time she got to the door with the tip jar, the crowd discovered there was a celebrity in the house. Ryan Ellison was surrounded by audience members, although this was New York, so they were all busy pretending not to notice him.

  Violet stood by the door, wearing only combat boots and a black thong. A few people filed out, stuffing singles and the occasional five in the jar. Cheap bastards, she thought. She didn’t know how the other girls tolerated this job. It wasn’t that she thought it was demeaning—she just wanted to punch these people who spent an hour watching them flash their pussies and then couldn’t part with a few bucks on the way out the door to go drinking.

  Which brought her to a momentary dilemma: What if Ryan Ellison didn’t fork over some cash? Could she still go through with it if he fell into the “cheap bastard” category? It was one thing to be a starfucker (literally), but another to be with someone who exhibited her pet peeve of behavior: cheapness.

  Did Bette Noir worry about things like this? No, of course not. If she got hung up on the details, she wouldn’t have managed to fuck her way to a six-figure Dolce & Gabbana contract.

  But Violet had nothing to worry about. By the time Ryan Ellison reached the door, he was holding a fistful of twenties.

  “Great show,” he said to her. It was surreal talking to him—she had to remind herself it wasn’t the character from the last movie she had seen him in. The one about the six college kids trapped on a beach along with a drug cartel. The press made fun of it, but it was number one at the box office all summer. Ryan looked gorgeous in it, but even better in person. He wasn’t just cute or sexy. He was handsome in the way most movie stars weren’t, not really. And he was tall. Much taller than her, which always got her a little hot.

  “Thanks,” she said, meeting his eyes. To his credit, they were looking at her face.

  “We’re going to catch another show—wanna come with?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I have to change… .”

  “I’ll wait for you out front. Black Escalade. Take your time.”

  She pretended to think about it for a beat. Thirty seconds. Then she said okay.

  Mallory found Alec waiting for her by the front door. She was carrying her beat-up Danskin duffel bag over her shoulder, and he took it from her.

  “Is that what you’re wearing?” he said.

  “What do you mean?” She looked down at her jeans and UGGs. Perfectly suitable for the car ride home. And she couldn’t wait to trade in her jeans for sweats. She was exhausted. Her post-performance high had evaporated like cheap perfume.

  “We have the Baxter party tonight.”

  “Oh, my God, I totally forgot!” She shook her head. “I can’t go. I’m just—I’m not dressed for it, and I’m not in the mood for a party. There will be so many people there… .”

  “We can’t be no-shows, Mal. Not for them.”

  Mallory had met Justin Baxter and Martha Pike through Bette Noir. The couple was well-known on both coasts for their lavish parties and connections in media and the arts. The Baxters were multibillionaires, thanks to Martha’s sex toy and accessory empire. Most famously—and lucratively—she’d invented the Pike Kegel Ball, a device to strengthen and tighten the vagina. While Martha didn’t invent Kegel exercises, she made them cool, sexy, and fun with accessories. And she was living very well because of it. Her handsome husband, Justin, was a huge fan of burlesque. Their private parties were notorious for performances by the best up-and-coming artists in New York and LA. Rumor had it that on more than a few occasions, movie stars and models had spontaneously tried their hands at burlesque at the parties, getting on stage and shedding their clothes.

  The Baxters had, in a sense, given Mallory her start in burlesque; she had done her first performance at Justin’s birthday party in LA last year, when Bette met her girlfriend, Zebra, and bowed out of the lineup at his party so she could join Zebra on the start of her world tour. That was around the time when Bette quit the Blue Angel, and Mallory had only seen her a few times since.

  She liked the Baxters, and she would always feel somewhat indebted to them for the chance they gave her to become Moxie. Alec was right—they couldn’t bail on the party.

  “Okay, you’re right. But what should I do about my clothes? Should I go home and change?”

  “We can’t go all the way back uptown and then turn around to go to Bond Street. It’s already eleven o’clock. You know what? Put your costume back on. They’ll love it.”

  It sounded crazy, but he was right. If there was any place she could walk into on a random Friday night wearing a Marie Antoinette costume, it was the Baxters’ house.

  “Okay. Give me ten minutes to get dressed again.”

  Even though Violet took a half hour to clean off some of her body glitter and put on jeans and a simple black tank top, the Cadillac Escalade was parked outside, just as Ryan had promised.

  He opened the door from inside the backseat, and she climbed in beside him. The driver was a beefy guy with a crew cut. He wore sunglasses even though it was close to midnight.

  “Hey,” Ryan said. He was smoking a joint and offered it to her.

  “No, thanks. So where are we going?”

  “Well,” he said, taking a hit. “The Blue Angel was sort of the preshow for us. I’m meeting some buddies at the Slit.”

  The Slit was a club on the edge of the East Village. It was a much trendier and more high-profile scene than the relatively underground Blue Angel, complete with velvet rope front door, bouncers, and a dress code. It called itself burlesque, but it was really just a high-end sex club. Violet had gone a few times. Most of the acts were borderline misogynist: girls sticking knives in their pussies or getting tied up and whipped by guys calling them whores.

  But that wasn’t why she was going to say no tonight. Even when she was out with friends for a casual night, she had very little patience for sitting in an audience while other women were the center of attention. And that dynamic was out of the question for her night with Ryan Ellison.

  “I’ll pass,” she said.

  “What?” He looked at her like she had just sprouted a second head.

  “I’m not interested.”

  Ryan told the driver to pull over.

  “What’s wrong?
Are you offended or something?”

  “No—not at all. In fact, if you want another show tonight, I can suggest a better one. Very exclusive. Very, very exclusive.”

  They exchanged a look. It took a minute, but Ryan’s million dollar movie star eyes clicked with comprehension.

  “Back to the Rivington,” he told the driver.

  3

  A man dressed in a white tuxedo showed Mallory and Alec into the Baxter’s infamous art deco apartment at 40 Bond Street.

  “Please remove your shoes,” he said. Mallory looked at where the man was pointing, and sure enough, there were racks of expensive heels by the door. It looked like the shoe department at Bergdorf’s.

  Mallory and Alec removed their shoes and placed them on one of the racks. She felt strange in just her stockings, but was distracted from her discomfort by the sight of the giant “fishtank” hanging in the foyer. Bette had told her about this, but still, it was startling: it wasn’t actually a fishtank; it was a giant glass cube that housed a constant rotation of gorgeous young women. They lounged around inside, doing their nails or their undergrad homework or talking on their cell phones. Mallory found the concept incredibly offensive, but Bette had told her how much the Baxters paid the girls, and suddenly they seemed a lot less exploited. Tonight’s exhibit was a busty redhead wearing black yoga pants and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt from Barking Dog café. She was either watching a video or reading something off of her iPhone.

  “Interesting,” Alec said.

  Mallory shot him a look.

  “What? Is it not interesting? I’m just stating the obvious. Jeez.”

  Mallory looked around the room, taking note of the boldfaced names. Marc Jacobs. Jessica Szohr. Arianna Huffington. Graydon Carter.

  And Billy Barton.

  “Ugh, Billy is here,” Mallory said. Billy Barton was an affected, twenty-seven-year-old Manhattan trust fund kid who owned and published the men’s lifestyle magazine Gruff. Which made him Alec’s boss. “I knew we shouldn’t have come.”