Out of Her Comfort Zone(9)

Emily had to smile. “Wouldn’t do to consort with the clients, would it?”

“Baby, that’s what I do best.”

****

Friday night, and Emily was almost ready to go on. Or to run.

In the ready room, the home office on non-party days, she watched the ladies from Madame Z’s Fabulous Friends escort service put on their personas. They spent a lot of time on their eyes, which seem to pop from their faces. She borrowed a blue stick from a gorgeous blonde one who was singing a lullaby into her phone. Clicking off, she looked at Emily and shook her blond mane of hair. “Gotta build up your eyes, with you so pale. The mask darkens everything.”

Now a redhead, and with eyes rimmed in shimmer blue, Emily looked nothing like her everyday self. She’d reminded herself again that the bustier did not allow bending from the waist, knocking herself breathless while trying to tighten a strap on one of the Grecian-laced spikes.

The hard back-beat and bass pounded through the walls. Elliot’s sound system was powerful, of course, and even at this volume not distorted. But the echo seemed to distort Emily’s thoughts. One moment, raw fear. The next, a shock of excitement.

Can I really do this?

What if people recognize her, despite the hot rack and new hair and towering height? What if they said something and she answered and they recognize her voice? She pressed her lips together.

What if Elliot didn’t like how she looked?

What if he did?

“Now or never,” Madame Z announced with a wave of an arm. “Let’s go make some men happy.”

Taking her cue from the ladies ahead of her, Emily sauntered, carefully, into the room, swaying her hips as wide as she dared. All twenty-five women had reached the center of Elliot’s bamboo-paneled Great Room, open now with all the sofas and seats pushed to the walls, before she dared lift her gaze from the asses and shoes ahead of her.

Oh.

All the men, shouting and grinning, were wearing half-masks. She didn’t know they would be masked as well, and her wobbly smile grew a little wider. True anonymity. There looked to be four or five dozen men here, two-thirds the number Elliot said he had invited. They come and go during the night, so to speak, he’d said.

The women formed into a tight circle. At the leader’s signal, faced out and struck a pose. A couple catcalls, a couple of whistles, while most of the men grinned and soaked them in. And then went back to their drinks.

“That’s it?” Emily whispered to the woman next to her.

“Don’t sag. They have to pretend not to care. Mas macho.” She winked, and on the signal Emily took another pose, so forward she nearly overbalanced herself. This act was hard.

After voguing for the length of an interminable techno tune, somehow raising the temperature in the room about ten degrees, they broke the circle. As Emily stepped forward, she felt a hand at her waist.

“Where’d you find those breasts?”

Elliot was unmasked, of course, as he was the host. Emily almost sagged into him with relief, but at the last minute remembered her role. “Madame Z’s.”

“She told you to smoke, too?”

“To change my voice.”

“My own little Lauren Bacall. And you’re even taller than me.” His hand slipped over her hip, finger flicking the edge of the silkiest thong Emily had ever worn. Her racing heart skipped. “Want a drink?” he said.

“You know it.”

Hand on her ass, he guided her past the short line and right up to the bar. “Stoli, and a creamsicle for my honey.”

“Creamsicle?”

“Vodka with orange and coconut juice.” He handed it to her. It had a straw. She pursed her lips, so thick with blood-red lipstick she could feel it, and took a sip, or rather, a suck. His breath hitched – and so did the man’s behind him. Elliot’s eyes narrowed and he turned. The other man quickly looked away. Emily tried not to smile, but her heart gave her away.

Elliot threw back his drink. “Drink up,” he said roughly, but quickly reconsidered. “No, give me that.” He set his glass on the bar and took hers. Hand on her upper arm this time, he guided her away from the line and the men and the other women, closer to the wall. “We need some space.”

The wall was all window, and by far Emily’s favorite part of the penthouse. Standing here she could see the pyramidal Transamerica building and lights of ships far out on the fog-striped bay.

“Put your hands up.”

“Going to arrest me?”

“Only fair. You nearly put me into cardiac arrest when you strutted out here.”

She pushed her palms into the glass, its cool surface shocking. She was so hot already she couldn’t see why there wasn’t a thunder-boomer between the glass and her palms. Elliot covered her left hand quickly, and slid the ruby ring off her finger. She’d forgotten. He slipped it into his pocket and then reached under her arm to bring the drink, the straw, to her lips.