Cat In An Aqua Storm

“We make money.” Stetson added. “We show off what we worked on, our bodies. We get to be somebody, not just some body. It’s the same for the women, except... a lot of them use stripping to work out deep identity and self-esteem problems. And when the men pant and pay, it’s not a harmless joke, like it is for us. It’s history. Some men can prey on women in nasty ways.”

Temple nodded. She liked these young men. Their work/art/identity was much more clear-cut than it was for the women. They were earthy, attractive, and they knew the score. They would be safe to fantasize about. And to not take seriously.

“Thanks,” she said. “You’ve helped.”

They couldn’t understand that they’d helped with more personal issues than understanding the urges to strip or make money.

“My card.” Cheyenne handed her a plain white two-and-a-half-by-three. Cheyenne, it read. And a phone number.

Everybody, she thought wearily as she walked away, is an entrepreneur.

22

Golden Girls and Boys . . .

She was“Barred” from the ballroom, so Temple headed, like a lemming toward her irresistible doom, for the part of a theater she knew, loved and understood the best. Offstage. The dressing rooms. Why was she kidding herself? The dressing room was the only murder scene accessible to her.

Something still nagged her, and tugged at her subconscious like an advertising ditty you can’t forget.

Downstairs, the hard-surfaced halls broadcast the same eerie sensation of desertion. Temple’s heel clicks echoed, duplicating the sound of her progress through the parking ramp. She had thought herself alone then, too.

Suddenly, unintelligible voices joined the echoes.

She paused, and heard arguing tones, even some hot words: “You’re not doing it!”

“I will!”

“Won’t.” The sounds came from the very dressing room she had wanted to visit alone, darn.

Behind her, other footsteps were charging down the stairs, although less noisily. Temple ducked through the nearest door and pulled it almost closed behind her—not all the way. That would make a betraying click. She had never suspected she was so good at subterfuge.

Her heart pounded as if following in her earlier footsteps while she waited behind the door, glancing around to make sure that her shelter was truly safe.

Her worst fears were realized when she spotted a pair of peacock green sparks glimmering from the shadows. She was not alone! Luckily, she had seen this phenomenon before. Temple’s retinas may not have reflected as spectacularly as these, but they did eventually adapt to the dimness.

She made out a sphinxlike piece of darkness that never lightened even when she could discern the glimmer of the mirror and the glitter of hanging costumes.

“Lou-ie!” she whispered. She tiptoed nearer.

One and the same. He lay like a sultan on the former Max’s erstwhile wicker loveseat, his tail flexed in a graceful curve. Another double green glint flashed. Temple came nearer, bent down, and strangled a groan as she recognized Louie’s sofa partner.

“Lou-ie! That’s Yvette. Savannah Ashleigh’s Yvette.”

Louie blinked gravely.

“What? Once is for yes. Twice is for no?” Her next question would have made the parent of an errant teenager proud. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer, of course, and resumed grooming the pale cat’s ruff. The overbred little hussy lounged on her side, slitty aquamarine eyes indolent, a throaty purr rumbling just above the subliminal level.

“Lou-ie! You’re not fixed!”

He yawned and applied his tongue to his forepaw.

“I could get hit with a paternity suit. You don’t know Savannah Ashleigh. Out!”

She picked him up. Weighed a ton. Still. At the door she listened, looked and found all quiet. She yanked it open to set the big black cat down on his four, fat furry feet.

The skin on his spine twitched indignantly. Then he stalked away without a backward glance, tail erect and quirking just at the tip. Okay, Temple thought, we’ll see if you’re as good at getting out as you are at breaking and entering.

“All right, Juliet.” Temple turned back to the dressing room and sighed in exasperation. She swept the dainty Yvette off the loveseat. It was like lofting an ostrich plume, so insubstantial was the shaded silver pedigreed Persian compared to Midnight Louie. “You little minx. How did you get out of your carrier? And where’s your devoted Momsy when you need a chaperone?”

The carrier sat on the floor beside the sofa, unzipped. Temple prepared to whisk Yvette back inside and hope for the best. Maybe she was fixed. That made a lot of sense.

Yvette’s limp little body thrummed like a cello string. Temple couldn’t resist pressing her face against the frothy fur so like a silver fox’s. Yvette’s tongue felt like warm, wet Velcro as it licked the tip of her nose.

“All right, so you’re irresistible. I won’t take it out on Louie. But now back to your home-away-from-home. There.”