Cat In An Aqua Storm

“You don’t really think Crawford might have done it?” Temple asked Molina’s already retreating navy blue back.

The tall lieutenant turned and paused a few feet away. “Anybody might have done it.”

“Not me,” Temple couldn’t resist pointing out. “This time I didn’t find the body.”

“But Buchanan did. Rivalry, remember? Maybe you wanted his job. You got it, didn’t you?”

“Hey!” Temple was on her feet, indignant. “I turned this puppy down. I was offered it first and refused.”

“You did?” Lieutenant Molina stalked back to stare down at Temple. “Why?”

“I find the ambience a little cheap, all right?”

“True, pasties aren’t as highbrow as books.”

“And I’m not sure women would do this for a living if they weren’t exploited.”

“What about the men?”

“I don’t know,” Temple confessed. “I hope to find out.”

“Stick to your amateur sociology,” Molina advised, amusement seeping through her stoic facade. “Keep out of amateur crime-solving.”

“Yes, sir.”

Molina no longer looked amused. She turned on her sensible heel—Temple had checked her footwear out: navy-blue, low-heeled matron-issue for fallen arches, ick!—and left Temple teetering atop a coil of heavy cable.

She picked her way among the cables, trying not to let the bulky tote bag overbalance her.

Where to start in such a wonderland of overexposed flesh? Despite Temple’s theatrical background, which inured her to casual states of undress backstage, she found this single-minded focus on presenting the naked flesh disconcerting.

She’d have to get over that. Anything Crawford Buchanan could do, she could do better.

In the next hour she met and quizzed a confusing array of acts. Bambi and Thumper, a rare man-woman stripping team, explained that some local ordinances decreed women-only and men-only stripping nights to skirt the X-rated area of live sex shows.

Wholesome and smiling like insurance sellers, the couple sported matching glossy brown tans and bright lime thong-style bottoms. Bambi had submitted to donning a tight, cutoff T-top for the rehearsal, but the thin material left nothing to the imagination but the placement of any identifying marks.

Near the stage, an arresting pair of gilt-haired twins in gold lamé bikinis were mirroring each other’s moves through and around the prop of an empty-looking glass frame.

“Bikinis?” Temple asked. She didn’t consider beach-wear imaginative enough for a stripping costume, despite the fact that some current bathing suits seemed designed to give local decency codes a workout.

The twins immediately posed as if modeling the swimwear, stomachs taut, rears firm, and bosoms high, wide and handsome.

“I’m Gypsy,” said one.

“June,” trilled the other in the exact same vocal tone.

“Wait’ll you see our act,” Gypsy added.

“Gold body paint from head to toe,” said June.

“And we don’t wear the bikini top for our act.” Gypsy.

“Just darling little golden cones.” June.

“With gold chain tassels.” Gypsy.

“Gold paint?” Temple interrupted their informative duet. “Isn’t that stuff dangerous? Didn’t a body double die from it in Goldfinger?”

“We’re a body double and we’re not dead,” June resumed in turn.

“Say,” said Gypsy, flashing perfect teeth. “That’s cute: Body Double. Maybe we should have named our act that.”

“Our name is cute, too,” June insisted, executing an eerily identical smile.

Temple tumbled. “What is it?”

“The Gold Dust Twins,” they declaimed together, turning cartwheels in opposite directions, so spokes of bare brown legs flashed by.

They finished and came together, clonelike.

“How did you get into stripping?” Temple asked.

“Easy,” said Gypsy.

“As pie,” June added.

“We did dance and gymnastics together,” Gypsy said.

“And cheerleading and modeling.” June.

“And our bodies were great.” The modest Gypsy.

“And the money is great.” The practical June.

“How much?” asked the curious Temple.

The twins regarded each other and shrugged in tune.

“Depends on the quality of the clubs, but five hundred a night,” Gypsy said.

“Special dates, up to fifteen hundred.” June.

“One thing is sure.” Gypsy.

“Beats Doublemint gum commercials. Have you seen those yucky green maillots the latest twin models were wearing?” June’s expression grew pained.

“Vile,” Gypsy agreed, also wincing. “Like fifties girdles.”

Temple nodded, too. “You’re right. Gold’s the only way to go, onstage and off.”

She moved on, unable to resist computing what five to fifteen hundred a night added up to compared to her off-again, on-again freelancer’s income. Maybe she could do a Munchkin act. But before she got carried away, there were more mysteries to conquer in the art of the striptease.

An earnestly bouncy young woman in a pearl-dotted fuchsia spandex cummerbund that somehow had been stretched to cover the essentials, however barely, top and bottom, answered Temple’s question as to how she got started.

“Majorette,” said the girl who performed by the name of Racy. “And I played golf and tennis in high school.”