Wildest Dreams

by Blake, Toni

  He didn’t know why it surprised him that Tina was a knockout. Probably because he hadn’t quite believed she could be as pretty as her sister. Whereas Stephanie was a classic beauty, Tina struck him as the sort of girl most men would fall for faster—her eyes were filled with invitation, her clothing cut to garner attention.

  He handed the photos to Tony. “Seen her anywhere?”

  His friend studied the pictures. “Afraid not. Sorry.” Then he raised his gaze. “Who is she?”

  “An escort. Gone missin’.” Sort of, he added in his mind. Jake still wasn’t convinced the girl was missing at all, but if he wanted to find her, that kind of detail wouldn’t help.

  Tony handed the pictures back to Stephanie and looked to Jake. “Haven’t heard about any missing girls lately.”

  “I called the police,” Stephanie volunteered, “but they didn’t seem concerned. She’s my sister.”

  “I am the police,” Tony informed her kindly, “but yeah, they might brush off a missing person in that line of work quicker than not. How long has she been gone?”

  “A few weeks.”

  Tony nodded, shifting his eyes to Jake. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said.

  “You might, uh, show those to Fat Eddie before you go.”

  “Oh?” Fat Eddie worked homicide these days.

  “Girl down by the river last week.” Tony spoke low, clearly trying to sound casual, and not saying the girl by the river was dead. Jake still thought it was pretty obvious, so he hoped Stephanie couldn’t hear over Gregg Allman’s gravelly voice.

  “Listen, beb, I’m gonna show these around the bar a few minutes,” he said, plucking the photos back out of her hand. “You sit here and drink your drink, chat with Tony.”

  “I wouldn’t trust me with her if I were you,” his friend quipped.

  “I’m not worried.” Friendly banter, his way of saying Tony was no competition. They’d once exchanged similar conversation over Becky. The memory made his gut clench lightly, and for the first time since walking in the door, he remembered there was a good reason he didn’t go out, didn’t see people—it still hurt too much. For now, though, he pushed away the recollections and focused on what he’d come here to do.

  Approaching the bar, he placed his hand on Fat Eddie’s shoulder. As always, the man wore a cheap suit and a tie with a spot on it. He held up the pictures. “Seen her?”

  Eddie leaned in to look close, shaking his head. “A hot cookie like dat, I’d remember.”

  Jake swallowed. “Tony said you had a homicide down by the river.”

  Eddie looked again, then gave his head a solemn shake. “Girl we found was heavier, didn’t look like dis at all.”

  Relief on Stephanie’s behalf rushed through him. He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten emotionally involved in this, but he couldn’t imagine having to tell her Tina was dead. “You see a girl looks like this one, you let Tony know, okay?”

  “You got it, pal.”

  As he started to walk away, Eddie grabbed his wrist and Jake looked up. “Really is good to see you, Jake. You should come around more, shoot de bull wid me.”

  Jake pressed his lips together tightly. It was good to see Eddie, too—but as for coming around, he wasn’t planning to make it a habit. “Maybe,” he said anyway.

  Fat Eddie slapped him on the back and laughed. “Dat’d be good, real good.”

  AFTER LEAVING THE Pirate’s Den, they stopped at a couple of other out-of-the-way haunts, but not places where Jake seemed as well-known or warmly regarded. He showed the pictures to one or two guys inside each place, still with no luck.

  As usual with Jake, Stephanie found herself experiencing warring emotions. Her hope deflated a little at each shaking head they encountered, and at the same time she was shamefully overcome with an attraction to her companion that escalated with each passing minute. How could she be thinking about that at a time like this?

  Each small touch of his hand, every meeting with those dark eyes, carried her a little deeper into desire. Such an unfamiliar territory. Unfamiliar, at least, for a very long time. It made her remember that as a teenager, she’d never really gotten hold of it, never reached a place where she could push it away with any success. And as an adult, she’d had no practice with it.

  So when they turned a corner onto Bourbon Street, suddenly thrust into flashing lights and a street party that happened every night, she didn’t flinch when Jake took her hand. She hated being unable to control her reaction to him, but at the same time she loved succumbing to it.

  Although it was September, heat and humidity still soaked the air where people stood in clusters, drinking, laughing, eating. Open-air storefronts offered T-shirts, Mardi Gras beads, and frozen daiquiris in countless flavors, while music spilled onto the closed-to-traffic thoroughfare—rock, jazz, and Cajun all vying to be heard the loudest.

  They passed a strip bar where two young women wearing skimpy bras and thong panties posed provocatively in the doorway. Just as she felt her face growing warmer with embarrassment, one of the girls smiled at Jake—and Stephanie wanted to kill her. Could she not see they were holding hands? And—

  Oh God. This was it. She was losing her mind.

  You and he are not a couple.

  And the only reason he tried to seduce you the other night was to teach you a lesson.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked, growing uncomfortable in the heart of the red-light district.

  “Place just up ahead here. The Playpen.”

  She came to a dead halt, jerking Jake to a stop as well. He turned to look at her.

  “Is that a strip club?”

  He nodded easily. “Yeah. Why?”

  She pulled in her breath. “Why on earth would we go to a strip club?”

  Jake blinked, tilted his head, his look making her feel childish. But she couldn’t help it—she couldn’t imagine going into such a place.

  “Chère, you remember the last guy we spoke to, at LaFitte’s?”

  She thought back to the bar, and the guy—a handsome man in his late thirties with curling brown hair—then nodded.

  “Danny Richards, my boss at Sophia’s. He’s a decent guy, I’ve known him a lotta years, and he’s pretty familiar with the clientele on the third floor. What I’m sayin’ is, he knows the high-end escort business in this town.”

  “And?”

  “I mentioned Tina by name and showed her picture, and he’s never seen her.”

  Stephanie’s heart plummeted a little further.

  “Makes me think we’ve exhausted our resources in the high-priced escort market,” he said. “But what happens to some girls is—they try turnin’ tricks, can’t handle it, and take the next highest-payin’ road, which is strippin’.”

  “Oh. Oh God,” she murmured as the idea settled over her.

  It shouldn’t seem worse than prostitution, but she couldn’t imagine taking her clothes off for a roomful of men. At least at Sophia’s, there was some semblance of elegance. She shook her head. “I don’t think Tina could be a stripper.”

  He narrowed his gaze on her, pointed but kind. “Did you think she could be a hooker?”

  Another flood of ugly acceptance washed through her as she whispered her reply. “No.”

  “Then we best start checkin’ some of these places out. The Playpen’s the classiest in the Quarter, so if a girl knows anything about the business, she’d apply there first—and Tina’s pretty enough to get hired on.”

  She began shaking her head. “Even so, I can’t go into a place like that.”

  He lowered his chin, looked matter-of-fact. “Not a big deal, chère. There’ll be other women inside.”

  “Naked ones.”

  When she least expected it, he laughed. “No, not just them. There’ll be couples, groups of peo
ple. More men than women, sure. But otherwise, almost like any other bar.”

  “Really?”

  He gave her a gentle nod, and only then did she realize he’d never dropped her hand and now stroked his thumb gently back and forth over the top, trying to comfort her. “Hate to tell you this, but it’s not like on TV. Not just a seedy place where old guys in bad sport coats hang out. It’s more like . . . a tourist attraction.”

  Unfortunately, his attempt at comfort couldn’t override her shock. She opened her eyes wider, feeling as if she’d been born in some other universe and couldn’t begin to comprehend the things happening in this one.

  “It’s like Eddie told you, chère—you’re in the Big Easy now. Some things are just different here.”

  Not that she had the first idea what a strip club was like at home, either. She’d just assumed they were patronized strictly by men. She took a deep breath and looked into Jake’s warm brown eyes. Despite herself, for some reason, she trusted him. “So you’re saying men aren’t going to gape at me if I go in this place with you?”

  “Right, chère. You’re not what they came to see. And I wouldn’t insist so much, but you’re gonna recognize your sister a lot quicker than me. Same reason I took you everyplace else, too. Figured there might be questions only you could answer, or that somebody might say somethin’ I wouldn’t hear in the same way as you—know what I mean?”

  She nodded, the night air seeming to thicken still more around them. You’re in the Big Easy now—don’t be a prude. Do what you have to do to find your sister. “All right—let’s go.” Not wanting to give herself a chance to back out, she grabbed his hand and started briskly through the throng of Bourbon Street partyers until they reached the bright lights and cherry red awning of the Playpen.

  To her surprise, the place was large, crisp, and clean-looking. Two men in suits stood at the open door. Between them, in the distance, she caught sight of a woman in silhouette, dancing around a pole. Her heart dropped to her stomach, but she worked hard not to hesitate, dragging Jake right up the red-carpeted steps.

  This was even harder than going to Chez Sophia the first time. Perhaps due to the abject fear of walking through the door to see her baby sister swaying naked on a stage. If she’d found her at Sophia’s, it wouldn’t have seemed much worse than spotting her at a cocktail party. She suddenly missed the veil of dignity, however thin, that hung over Sophia’s third floor.

  “Good evening, folks,” a large, bearded man said. “Welcome to the Playpen. Ten dollars for you, sir. The lady gets in free.”

  She watched nervously as Jake peeled a ten from his wallet, then placed his hand at the small of her back, gently propelling her onward.

  Inside, red and pink lights swirled, but soon her eyes adjusted, revealing, to her shock, that the room possessed more than just the one stage she’d seen from outside. Instead, there were five, six, seven—a lot—each holding a girl in a different state of undress. Frightfully young girls. Baring their bodies on small stages all over the room. The sense of being surrounded by crude sexuality that had no relation to romance or love overwhelmed her instantly, tightening her stomach. On impulse, she turned and ran smack into the hard wall of Jake’s chest. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  He gently curled his hand around her elbow. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Can we sit down?” Given that she was hardly the main attraction in the room, she felt strangely in the center of the action and experienced a burning urge to blend in.

  “Sure, beb.” Jake pulled her down into a small one-sided booth and she breathed a short sigh of relief. “Take a look around,” he told her easily, “see if she’s here.”

  What Jake had said was true; the room held a mixed crowd, both men and women. But she looked past them, scanning the various stages for Tina. Thankfully—or not, she couldn’t decide how to feel—her sister inhabited none of them.

  It felt unbearably bizarre to be watching strippers at Jake’s side. Unlike the other couples in the room, they barely knew each other. The girls on the stages were impossibly thin and beautiful, peeling off scant dresses and lingerie, down to nearly nonexistent flesh-colored G-strings. She watched in fascinated horror as they swayed with slow precision, tweaking their bared nipples, running their hands down perfectly flat stomachs and shapely thighs.

  Soon enough, though, her eyes were drawn to the men in the room. Jake was right about that, too. Not a bad sport jacket among them. They were . . . guys she would date. They wore khaki shorts and golf shirts. They were corporate America after hours. But the most unsettling part was their expressions.

  She’d once gone to see the Chippendale dancers with some women from work. They’d giggled all the way through it, laughing at the costumes, at the forced sexuality the men worked so hard to convey. It had been, for all of them, a silly, crazy thing to do.

  But this was not that. The faces of the men here shone with a raw, ugly lust she’d never quite witnessed before. Their eyes turned the girls into nothing more than animals in an obscene zoo.

  “Any luck?” Jake finally asked, oblivious to all she was experiencing.

  She absently shook her head. “No.” Then uttered her thought aloud. “These girls look so young.” Eighteen or nineteen, maybe.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, solemnly enough that she could hear a calm hint of concern in his voice. “College girls from Tulane or Loyola, most likely.”

  College girls. She almost laughed with horror. At nineteen, she’d been studying hard and hanging onto the last shreds of her virginity. Things were different here.

  “Something to drink?”

  Stephanie looked up to find another college girl, this one wearing a red sequined bikini top and a matching micromini. The coed smiled down at her as if they were chums.

  “Chère?” Jake deferred to her.

  She started to order a glass of wine, but felt desperately hot inside and, for the first time, realized Shorty had been right—the hurricane had made her a little drunk. “Just a glass of water.”

  “Bottle of Bud,” Jake said.

  “I’ll have them right up,” the cheerful waitress replied.

  But as she started to walk away, Jake called her back. “Hang on a minute.”

  She smiled down at him. Still chummy, sweet, as if they weren’t all surrounded by naked young girls and a lust that permeated the air. “Something else?”

  He turned to Stephanie. “Chère, your pictures.”

  She scrambled to open her purse, glad for the brief distraction.

  Jake held them up for the girl to see. “This girl work here? Name’s Tina.”

  The waitress looked closely at each photo. “Pretty,” she mused. “But no, I don’t think so.”

  Jake nodded, murmured his thanks, and let her go on her way. “Merde,” he mumbled under his breath, passing the pictures back to Stephanie. “Thought sure I might be onto somethin’ comin’ here.”

  “What now?” She concentrated on getting the photos back in her purse without looking at Jake, somehow unable to meet his gaze given all the gyrating nudity in the room with them.

  “Tempted to try talkin’ to one of the doormen,” he said on a sigh, “but I’d have to be careful—unless I give it the right finesse, they’ll think I’m a cop and that she’s in some kinda trouble. Let me think about it a few minutes.”

  At that moment, her eyes landed on a naked girl straddling a guy in a small, plush easy chair, undulating in time with the sexy music that played, her firm breasts swaying dangerously close to his mouth, his eyes gaping up at her, lost in vulgar desire. And somehow she saw the girl who writhed on a total stranger for money as Tina—and broke out in a cold sweat.

  She couldn’t stay in this room any longer. There was too much sin here, too much ugly lust. Just like at Sophia’s, veiled or not—it was more sex for money. It was just harder to handle here because there was
no jazz or expensive furniture to mask it. Here it was more raw—on the table for everyone to see. Shared, public sin.

  “I have to get out of here.”

  Jake turned his eyes on her, clearly confused. “What?”

  She swallowed past the lump that had grown in her throat. Her body had gone so tense that her chest ached. “I have to go. I can’t be here. Let me up.” The booth set against the wall and Jake blocked her exit.

  He simply gaped at her. “What’s wrong?”

  She widened her eyes on him, wondering if she was going to have to climb over him. “Please get up. I have to get out of here.”

  Dark eyebrows knitting, he finally pushed to his feet, eyes puzzled. “You don’t want your water?”

  “No, I don’t want my water.” She thought she probably sounded a little hysterical, but that’s how she felt, suddenly—as if it had all come tumbling down on her at the sight of that lap dance, twenty dollars for simulated sex.

  She bolted toward the door, not giving a damn if she looked hysterical, too—she had to get out now or she’d smother.

  By the time she’d rushed past the doormen and hit the busy street, tears streamed down her face. She wanted to hide, but had no idea how in such a crowd. The scents of pralines and beer met her nose as she wove a jagged path across the street, desperately seeking someplace quiet, private.

  Her eyes were drawn to a darkened storefront, big glass windows filled with junky-looking antiques on either side of a deeply receding doorway. She made a beeline toward it, figuring the little alcove was as good a retreat as she would find.

  She’d just reached it, turning to lean back against the peeling paint of the wide wooden door frame, when Jake arrived, hot on her heels. His expression remained baffled. “What’s wrong, chère? What happened?”

  She shook her head, unable to look at him, since she had no explanation that would make sense to most men. Not even some women, she supposed, since there’d been plenty of females inside the Playpen in addition to the strippers.

  “Talk to me,” he insisted.

  She simply kept shaking her head. She wanted to be at home. She wanted Tina there with her. She wanted her safe life in her safe world, where she could keep everything under control. “I can’t,” she said.