by Nancy Martin
“Don’t be silly, Jerry! Flynn is a mechanic in a garage, right? Shall we go?”
The driver didn’t argue further, but continued to shoot glares into the rearview mirror.
The taxi sped across town in record time and dropped Dixie at the stage door of the theater where The Flatfoot and the Floozie was playing.
They were admitted through the stage door by an elderly man who’d been reading a racing form. Dixie explained who Flynn was and why he should be allowed into the building.
“Mr. Torrano didn’t say nothing about somebody named Flynn. I got my list right here.” The guard held up a clipboard. “See? There’s no cop listed here.”
“Flynn isn’t a cop! For heaven’s sake, Dwayne, what gives you that idea? He’s my bodyguard, that’s all!”
“He looks like a cop,” Dwayne said stubbornly.
And Dwayne looked like an ex-con to Flynn. They faced each other like a couple of wild animals who knew each other by instinct.
“He’s not a cop.” Dixie put her hand on the clipboard, forcing it back down onto the guard’s desk. “Let’s just forget the rules this once, Dwayne. Can’t you do me a favor?”
The guard tried to glower at Dixie, but it was impossible to look at her for more than five seconds without grinning. Dwayne manfully fought back his inclination to admire her. “I’m supposed to do what Mr. Torrano says. He pays the bills around here.”
“Money isn’t everything, Dwayne.” Dixie widened her irresistible smile. “Remember that white-lightning cough syrup I made when you had bronchitis last week? It did the trick, right?”
Dwayne wavered. “Well...”
“Flynn’s harmless, Dwayne. Trust me.”
The twinkle in her eyes coaxed a smile from Dwayne at last, and his resolve melted. With a reluctant smile, he waved them through. “All right, all right. Just for tonight.”
“Thanks, Dwayne!”
Over his shoulder, Flynn cast a glance at Dwayne and found the old guard glaring at him from behind his desk. There was a look in his eyes that Flynn knew well. An ex-con, all right.
Dixie led the way through a labyrinth of hallways and staircases—dark, echoing passages that seemed to tunnel deeply under the theater. Flynn made a mental note to memorize the layout as soon as possible. A cop never knew when he would need a back door. He could hear an orchestra warming up in the distance. Two men carrying an extension ladder hurriedly brushed past them. They called hello to Dixie, and she answered cheerily, not noticing how they nearly dropped the ladder and stared after her with goo-goo eyes.
Her dressing room lay midway along a hall lined with other doors—all of them decorated with pinups, greeting cards, cartoons and tinfoil stars.
A girl wearing a faded bathrobe, orange hair and elaborate stage makeup poked her head out of one door. She took one look at Dixie and squealed. “Dixie! Thank heavens, you made it! Hey, everybody! Dixie’s here!”
At once, all the doors flew open and Dixie was engulfed by a crowd of chattering, cheering people dressed in wild outfits or very little clothing at all. Flynn had no hope of rescuing Dixie from the mob. Fortunately they all seemed delighted to see her.
“Tell us everything!” gushed a young man in a lime green zoot suit.
“Oh, Dixie, I can’t believe you made it!” A petite young woman hugged Dixie with all her strength. “Thank heavens, you came! We thought we might have to cancel tonight’s show.”
“The evening paper’s got your picture—the whole story—everything!” A burly man with muttonchop whiskers and a handlebar mustache waved a newspaper over the heads of everyone.
“Dixie, Joey’s going to kill you!”
“Is he going to close the show?”
“Who’s this handsome hunk, Dixie? The one on the motorcycle who helped you escape the church?” The girl with orange hair smiled flirtatiously at Flynn. “His picture in the paper didn’t do him justice. Hiya, good-lookin’.”
Dixie quelled the voices with a cheerful shout. “Calm down! Take it easy, everybody! We’ve got a show to do. We’ll talk about all this stuff after the curtain!”
“But—”
“She’s right,” commanded a man in work clothes. Flynn guessed he was the stage manager. He held up his wristwatch. “Places in one hour!”
“An hour!” Dixie yelped. “I’ve got to get ready!”
She dived into her dressing room and Flynn followed. The rest of the actors breathlessly scattered into their respective lairs to prepare for the show.
“Sit down anywhere,” she told Flynn, moving quickly to her cluttered dressing table.
Dixie had a routine for everything at the theater. She considered it bad luck to deviate from her regular schedule. First order of business was to make her dressing room cozy enough to relax in.
Opening her shoulder bag, she began by unpacking. First came her extra wig, her tap shoes, her makeup bag. Then came all her framed photographs, which she proceeded to line up amid all the junk on her dressing table.
“Who’s this?” Flynn asked, surprising her by coming over and picking up the first photo.
“My father.” Dixie proudly removed the handsome walnut frame from Flynn’s hand. She smiled at the portrait—a photo that caught the infamous “Downhome” Davis looking particularly dashing. The photographer had managed to catch his character perfectly—half Wild West sheriff and half elder statesman. “Papa’s the mayor of Sweet Creek. Doesn’t he look wonderful in that hat?”
“Um,” said Flynn, apparently unimpressed by her father’s sartorial splendor. He reached for the second picture frame. “Good Lord, who’s this?”
The second photo was a professional picture of Dixie’s mother, Darlene Butterfield Davis, taken two decades earlier. Dixie leaned close. “Why, Mama, of course! She still looks just as fabulous. You should see her in a swimsuit!”
“Wow.” Flynn seemed mesmerized by the astonishing length of leg, the thrust of bosom, the wide grin of Dixie’s mother. Her satin evening gown managed to gleam on the curves of her hips. Most men had found Darlene Butterfield Davis irresistible. Apparently Flynn wasn’t immune to her charms, either.
“Doesn’t she look great? Mama was Miss Texas two years running! Nobody’s ever done that but her. She won’t say what years, of course. She’s sensitive about her age.”
“She’s very...pretty.”
“Pretty! She’s drop-dead gorgeous!”
“I can see where you got your, uh, your—”
“The famous Butterfield boobs? I know. They’re a blessing and a curse. My granny Butterfield was in the Ziegfeld Follies and became one of the first topless dancers in Texas. She got herself arrested four times. Mama always said topless was tacky, so I’ve never done it. It does seem pretty silly, don’t you think? Waving your chest around?”
Flynn was seized by a coughing spasm.
Dixie patted him on the back. “Mama got me started in show business.”
“She must be, er, proud of you.”
“I hope so. I have to do the Butterfield boobs proud, don’t I?”
Flynn coughed again, but controlled it this time. He reached for the last two photos. “And who are these guys?”
“Oh, they’re my—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish. The telephone by her mirror rang once. Dixie jumped, startled, but made no move to answer the phone.
“What’s the matter?” Flynn asked, instantly on guard.
“It’s Joey,” she replied, staring at the phone as if it might jump up and bite her. “He always calls before the show.”
“Don’t answer,” Flynn ordered. “I’ll get it.”
“Wait, Flynn. I’m not ready yet—”
He picked up the receiver on the third ring.
Flynn wasn’t sure what to expect. But he hated the look of panic on Dixie’s face. “Hello?”
A long pause. Then a gruff voice rasped, “Put Dixie on.”
The voice was full of disdain, full of arrogance.
&n
bsp; “Sorry,” Flynn said, sure he had the infamous Joey Torrano on the line. “You’ve got the wrong number.”
“Listen, whoever you are,” the voice snarled. “This is Torrano. Put that ditzy broad on the phone right now.”
Flynn hated the voice at once. He hated the contempt that dripped from every word. “Sorry, but you’ve got—”
“Let me talk to her now,” Torrano ordered. “Or I’ll come down there and—”
Flynn hung up before the threat was finished.
The phone started to ring again almost immediately.
“Don’t answer it,” Dixie begged. “I don’t have time to get upset right now.”
“You’re the boss,” Flynn replied, absurdly glad she didn’t want to talk to the mobster. He waited until the caller gave up and then turned to Dixie. “Now what?”
“I have to get ready for Sven.”
“What’s a Sven?”
“Not a what. Who. He’s the masseur Joey hired for me. He’ll be here any—oh, that’s him now.” A short knock had sounded on the door and Dixie scooted to open it. “Hi, Sven, honey. Come on in!”
The already small dressing room was invaded by a huge young man who looked like a professional wrestler. In addition to a bright yellow headband that contained a spiked blond mohawk, he wore a clingy Gold’s Gym T-shirt that showed off the glistening ripples of his chest and arm muscles. Skintight bicycle shorts clung to his massive thighs. He carried a portable massage table effortlessly under one bulging arm.
“Ready, Dixie?”
“Sure. Just give me a minute. Sven, this is my new bodyguard, Flynn. He’s going to look after me for a little while.”
Sven gave Flynn a long, measuring look. “Hi.”
Flynn couldn’t begin to guess the message in Sven’s humorless eyes. “Uh, hello.”
“Set up your table, Sven. I’ll get undressed. Flynn, would you be so kind—”
Flynn heard the word “undressed” and forgot about trying to figure out Sven. He knew he’d better escape the confines of the dressing room before he was inexorably trapped with a naked Dixie—a fate worse than death if he had to keep his hands to himself.
But he found his path blocked by Sven, who unfolded his table and plunked it directly in Flynn’s way. “He can stay,” Sven ordered, eyeing Flynn with a stony glitter in his gaze.
“Maybe I’d better wait outside until—”
“No, put on the music,” Dixie said, blithely peeling off her T-shirt. “See that pile of tapes on my dressing table?”
Flynn had never spent any time in the company of show business people. In the hallway, he had already noticed how casual the other actors seemed to be about their bodies. Half-dressed seemed good enough for them, and Dixie soon proved to be equally unconcerned about displaying her figure. She took off her shirt and tossed it onto the dressing table.
Flynn didn’t have time to ogle the way her generous breasts strained at the flimsy lace of her bra before she kicked off her boots and reached for the zipper on her jeans.
Flynn spun around and pretended to search for the music she wanted. His hands fumbled through a pile of cassette tapes that was partially hidden under the huge mound of Dixie’s extra wig. He knocked over a perfume atomizer and got a pair of silky pink panties tangled around his thumb.
“Find something suitable,” Dixie suggested.
Suitable for what? Flynn wondered. Torture? He turned to ask, but realized Dixie was climbing onto Sven’s massage table in no more than panties and bra. As she lay facedown, she unfastened the bra and let it fall to the floor.
Flynn found himself staring at the most beautiful backside in the civilized world. The smooth shape of Dixie’s white back blended into a luscious dip just above the twin perfection of her buttocks that were barely covered by her powder blue panties. Suddenly Flynn couldn’t breathe. A sun-ripened peach hanging on the warm branches of a fruit-laden tree couldn’t have looked more delicious than her bottom at that moment.
Sven took a bottle of oil from the dressing table and proceeded to squirt a generous amount onto his large hands. His huge body blocked the door, and he watched Flynn suspiciously.
Flynn tried to tear his gaze from Dixie and held back a groan. He realized he was trapped in the dressing room with a near-naked Texas Tornado—and he was about to experience the worst agony any man could possibly endure.
Watching someone else massage her body.
Overheated already, he took off his leather jacket.
“Plug in a tape,” Dixie suggested from her prone position on the massage table. “Something soft and sexy, okay, Flynn? I need to get into the right mood for the show.”
Flynn didn’t bother to look through the collection of cassette tapes. He wasn’t sure he was capable of reading at that moment anyway. He simply grabbed a tape and tried to plug it into the machine. As he fumbled with the tape player, he stared at Dixie’s lithe body. Sven used a white towel the size of a dinner napkin to cover the curve of her bottom.
She wriggled out of her panties, dropped them on the floor, then stretched to get comfortable. Flynn’s mouth went very dry. She was completely naked under that postage stamp of a towel.
Then Sven put his hands on her back and began to rub the warm oil into Dixie’s skin. The music started and the small room was soon filled with the sensuous sounds of a soft guitar accompanying the husky voice of a woman Flynn did not recognize. She seemed to be singing in French.
Dixie gave a quiet, satisfied moan. “Oh, Sven. You’re the best.”
Sven didn’t respond. He had his eyes closed and seemed to be lost in his job.
And what a job!
Hypnotized, Flynn watched Sven’s hands smooth gently along Dixie’s muscles. He could actually see her body relax beneath Sven’s expert massage. He circled each muscle group in her back, isolated one after the other, and stretched them until Dixie sighed with pleasure.
Flynn wanted to strangle Sven for making her sigh like that.
He began to imagine his own hands performing the task. As Sven progressed up her spine, Flynn could almost feel each delicate knob of bone, each satinlike inch of skin. The oil melted on her flesh. Sven’s hands were graceful as they stroked her supple shoulders and rubbed the tension from her slim arms.
Then Sven started down her back again.
Dixie murmured, “Wonderful. Would you turn the lights down, Flynn?”
Still staring at her, Flynn stumbled backward, groping along the wall until his hand connected with the light switch. He fumbled with it, then finally managed to shut off all the lights except a single bulb that cast warm shadows along the slender length of Dixie’s back.
Then Sven hooked his thumbs under the towel and pulled it down over Dixie’s bottom. His hands kneaded her there, leaving a slick trail of oil on her glowing skin. As Flynn watched, a large droplet of oil slowly, slowly disappeared between her buttocks.
Flynn bit down a groan of desire. He wanted to chase that droplet with his own fingers. He wanted to fill his hands with the soft flesh of her bottom. He wanted to shove Sven aside and caress her himself.
Most of all, he wanted to turn Dixie onto her back so he could feast his hands and eyes on the other side of her body. He longed to see her breasts, to touch them. He wanted to stroke her belly and find all the soft, most sensitive spots on her skin.
Sounding drowsy, Dixie asked, “Did you say something, Flynn?”
“N-no.” His voice was little more than a rasp. To steady himself, Flynn leaned back against her dressing table. He could see her face from that angle, and a dreamy smile played on her lips.
He wasn’t sure how much more he could stand. Every fiber of his own body was tight with urgency. With every muscle that loosened on Dixie’s frame, another grew unbearably taut on Flynn’s.
Sven worked silently, his hands dancing fluidly down Dixie’s thighs, her sleek calf muscles, and finally to her feet. He paid careful attention to the arch of each foot and all her toes. Flynn thought
about hurling Sven out the door.
Dixie seemed lost in a haze of sensual pleasure.
“Enough?” Sven murmured at last.
“Oh, yes,” she sighed, sounding satisfied. “Yes, Sven. You’d better wake me up now.”
“You got it,” said the young man.
He quickly began to revive Dixie with a brisk rubdown that brought a pink glow to her skin. He was surprisingly rough with her, but Dixie seemed to awaken refreshed and energized. She made a wisecrack, and Sven laughed.
They traded jokes for a few minutes, but Flynn didn’t listen. He was burning with jealousy.
“Lights,” Sven said at last, jolting Flynn out of his fog.
“Oh, uh, sure.” Flynn hit the switch and blinked unsteadily.
Sven handed Dixie a larger towel, and she sat up, neatly wrapping it around herself with the air of a modest Southern belle who wouldn’t dream of indulging in such sensual pleasures as the woman who had moaned on the table just moments before. Her face shone with vitality. Her eyes danced with energy as she caught Flynn’s gaze.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he answered hastily, aware that Sven was watching, too.
“You’re sweating,” Dixie observed.
“It’s hot in here!”
“Is it?” She seemed surprised. “Do you think it’s hot, Sven?”
“I’m always hot,” Sven said with a grin.
Dixie laughed. “Well, open the door, Flynn, while I take a fast shower.”
“A shower?”
Flynn hadn’t noticed the connecting bathroom, which Dixie appeared to share with an adjoining dressing room. She slipped into the bath and flipped on the shower while Sven proceeded to wipe the oil from his hands with the small towel. Then he packed up his equipment.
When Dixie disappeared into the shower, Flynn ventured to use his voice. “How often do you come here, Sven?”
“I do Dixie before every performance,” Sven answered. Apparently, Flynn had passed some kind of test, because the masseur began to talk in a friendly fashion. “Every actor needs to prepare before a show, and this is her way. There are a couple of actors I do after the performances, too.”
“Nice work if you can get it.”
