French Quarter (3 page)
Authors: Lacey Alexander
“Well, I’ve never…” She decided to let that rest—she didn’t want him to think she was any less worldly and wild than he currently did. “I presume women
do
go to this particular club on occasion?”
He gave a short nod. “I’m sure there’ll be a few other women there.”
She tried to hide her nervous swallow. “All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” Rising to go, she glanced down at the pictures still in her hand. “May I have these?”
“Sure. If you look at ‘em and decide you’re convinced before tomorrow night, let me know and we’ll cancel.”
“All right, but…I’m not expecting that to happen.”
With that, she turned and walked back out onto the street, nipples and crotch tingling for more reasons that she could easily identify. She should be upset, she thought, or livid, or
something
—at Todd. Instead, though, she was concentrating on the way Jack Wade had made her feel. All hot and crumbly inside. The flesh between her thighs heavy and aching. Something about this man made her feel so dirty—in a delicious way.
As for Todd, there was a part of her that almost
wanted
to find out he was cheating. She’d once thought she loved him, but now she doubted she ever had. She’d had worries and misgivings for a while now, yet her reaction to Jack Wade these last couple of days had shored up her certainty. She couldn’t truly love her fiancé and at the same time want to get naked and sweaty with Jack Wade.
But she still didn’t think the guy in those pictures was Todd. And she needed more solid evidence before she broke off the engagement. Their lives were too closely intertwined. Todd was from a good family and their parents got along famously—their fathers had even gone into business together, financing a chain of dry cleaning stores back home in Maryland. As far as both their families were concerned, Liz and Todd were as good as married already. So it would be a lot easier, a lot more cut and dried, with proof that he’d done something wrong, and the pictures Jack had taken weren’t good enough.
Liz’s heels clicked down the street toward a nearby deli—she wanted to grab a quick salad before heading back to the office. As she sat eating at a small corner table, she thought more about the pictures. When she’d eaten her last bite of lettuce, she lay down her fork, dug the photos back out of her purse, and looked through them, more carefully this time.
The man in the prints was slouched deep in a small, plush chair, head leaned back, mouth open. Even without being able to make out his face, she could see the raw lust in him. Soon, however, her focus shifted and she found herself studying the women in the pictures. One was large-breasted with big, pointy nipples which dangled teasingly above the man’s face. Her body was so lush and curvy that something seemed sinful about it, even in the still, dark photo. Another had smaller breasts, perky with hard pink nubs at their centers. She looked lithe and acrobatic, in some shots rising up on her knees, in others grinding her crotch against the man in the picture. Despite the shadowy quality of the images, this particular girl looked like a blonde and Liz had the impression of her being young—twentyish. A third stripper was ultra-slender with medium-sized boobs, pretty and pert. She might be a redhead. In the fuzzy darkness, she looked very attractive, sensual. In some of the shots, she touched her breasts or tweaked her large nipples, in others she leaned her head back, looking impassioned. In one picture, she rubbed between her legs.
Looking at something so blatant, dirty, and sexual between strangers began to turn Liz on against her will. Her crotch hummed and her panties felt damp. The women were so lovely, so sexy, so bold and hot. She wondered if Jack Wade had enjoyed watching them writhe on top of the guy in the photos, enjoyed watching them touch themselves. She wondered if he’d gotten hard, if he’d gone home wishing he had a woman—or maybe he’d
gotten
a woman. For all she knew, he’d had a private dance himself.
A vision of the difficult-to-see redhead straddling Jack Wade’s lap rose to her mind. Had the woman perhaps thrashed about on him, making him hard? Had he gazed up at her, watching her work, letting himself get lost in lust? The image was wildly arousing, even as she felt a mild pang of jealousy—irrationally, she wanted him to lust only for her.
God, what if he was married or something? It was the first time the thought had even occurred to her. He’d been flirting with her, undressing her with his eyes, but married men misbehaved all the time. And she hadn’t noticed him wearing a ring—but some men just didn’t.
Please don’t be married
, she thought.
Please be available
.
And…for God’s sake, what about
Todd
? Why wasn’t she even thinking about Todd? He might actually
be
the guy in the pictures, yet she’d gotten more caught up in looking at all those round, pretty breasts, smooth stomachs, and curving hips, and wondering if they’d excited Jack Wade the same way they were exciting her right now.
And to think, tomorrow night she was actually going to Club Venus with him. She was going to watch all this with him, live. One part of her was petrified—what if she was repulsed by what she saw there, what if she wanted to run screaming into the street away from the lewdness? But another part of her—the part she was just discovering over these past couple of days—was anticipating it.
Shoving the photos back in her purse, Liz emptied her lunch tray and went into the bathroom to freshen up before catching a cab back to work. Standing before the mirror, she fastened her hair back from her face and touched up her make-up. Then she noticed that through the sheerness of the blouse and the lace of this particular bra, she could actually see the dark shadow of her nipples.
Normally, she’d have been mortified to think she’d been walking around the streets that way. But instead, an undeniable and naughty warmth stole over her as she found herself hoping Jack had seen them, too.
Chapter 2
That day after work, Liz met Lynda, back in the Quarter. Lynda ran an antique shop on St. Peter, but she lived out in the Garden District, just next door to the historic home Liz and Todd had purchased when they’d moved there together six months earlier. Todd had accepted a relocation to his investment advisory firm’s New Orleans office without even asking Liz. Looking back on it now, that seemed to have been the beginning of their problems.
Even so, she’d gone along with him, quitting her advertising job and finding a new one upon her arrival, packing up and leaving everything she knew in Maryland, where she and Todd had both been born and raised. If only she’d been smart enough to question the move more, maybe protest, not always be so easy to get along with.
But she’d never really been taught to stand up for herself—her parents had been strict disciplinarians and Liz and her two younger sisters, Diana and Carrie, had been expected to obey their parents’ rules, to always do what was expected of them. Diana had been a rebel, but Liz and Carrie had both allowed themselves be poured into the mold their parents had created for them. And somehow, without quite planning it, Liz had let that carry over into her adult life.
But she had a feeling that finally, at thirty, that was about to change. Todd was cheating on her…or something, and whatever it was, it would provide the ammunition she needed when she told her parents she wasn’t going to tie the knot with him. It wasn’t that she couldn’t simply decide not to marry him on her own, but she wanted to make this easy on herself, wanted to hear as little argument from her family as possible, so she could simply get on with the business of living once this was over.
Before moving, she and Todd had shared a happy, respectful—even if lukewarm—relationship, so pulling up her roots when he asked hadn’t seemed like a large sacrifice. Only now that he seemed to be changing did Liz realize that perhaps she should have made her decisions more carefully. Having so much time alone in the evenings to contemplate his whereabouts and examine the core of their relationship had finally opened her eyes, made her want to be a more independent woman. And getting to the bottom of Todd’s evenings away from home was going to be a big start.
Although Liz and Lynda had little in common, they had become fast friends. In fact, Lynda was the only person Liz had chosen to share her suspicions with. Now, they were meeting in order to…
initiate
Liz into the wild nightlife of Bourbon Street. Liz had never even ventured toward the red light district since moving to the Big Easy, and even as the newly-awakened wild side of her was almost itching to see what went on in a strip club while at Jack Wade’s side, she needed a pep talk from Lynda; she needed to know what to expect.
“So,” Lynda said, locking up her shop and tossing her waist-length blonde hair over her shoulder to look up at Liz, “that Jack’s a hottie, isn’t he?”
Had Lynda read her mind? Liz couldn’t help letting out a small giggle. “
Very
hot, as a matter of fact. Which you might have mentioned to me, by the way.”
Lynda flashed a mischievous grin. “I thought you’d enjoy the surprise. And I bet
he
enjoyed your sexy little outfit.”
Liz felt heat color her cheeks, but decided not to lie. Lynda had never liked Todd anyway, and she especially didn’t like him now, so Liz didn’t mind letting her friend know she’d flirted with another man. “Well, if the way he looked at me was any indication, yes, he did.”
“Don’t those dark, penetrating eyes just go all through you? And don’t those little bits of Cajun he peppers his speech with just make you wet? Doesn’t everything about him just make you want to hold him down and have your way with him?”
“Well…” she began, uncertain exactly how
much
she wanted to confide in Lynda, “I suppose that…”
Lynda laughed. “Oh come on, Liz, quit trying to keep secrets. You wanted to fuck his brains out right there on the desk, I know you did. I did, too, the moment I met him. So just tell me.”
Liz couldn’t help laughing, too, and finally said, “Okay, I admit it—I’ve never met a man so…fuckable.” Dear God, where had that come from? Certainly not from her usual vocabulary. Must be Lynda’s influence on her, she decided.
As they strolled up the cracked, broken sidewalk of the French Quarter toward Bourbon, Liz was struck once more by how unusual her reaction to him was. Remembering the way she’d felt as soon as he’d laid eyes on her was nearly enough to make her cream her silk undies again. Now that she took the time to thoroughly recall that first meeting in his office, she’d had the same sensual reaction to his blonde friend, too, instantly thinking sexual thoughts, wishing for a physical connection—although her attraction to his friend seemed somehow
linked
to her desire for Jack in a way she could scarcely understand. She’d never experienced such emotions—it had been almost as if she’d become another person.
“In fact,” she added, deciding—oh, what the hell, why not just be totally honest? “part of me is almost tempted to…”
Next to her, Lynda smiled. “Good. You should.”
“Well,” Liz reminded her, “I’m still technically engaged to Todd.”
Lynda shrugged. “Whether he’s banging some high society chick in the back of her Rolls Royce or paying strippers to wiggle around in his lap, we both know he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, and we both know that once you find out exactly what it is, you’re going to dump him. In the meantime, I say all bets are off. If you want to let Jack Wade into your panties, go for it.”
Liz cast her friend a skeptical look. “If you haven’t figured it out already, Lynda, I haven’t exactly had a lot of wild affairs. A few relationships where sex was involved, sure, but…”
“Doesn’t matter. All you have to do is follow your urges, honey. It’s all good. And if you find out that creep is cheating on you or paying for simulated sex with strippers, you definitely need to let go, let loose, and live it up. Lose all your inhibitions.”
Liz wished she were as bold as Lynda. She knew from late night talks over bottles of wine that since Lynda’s divorce ten years ago, she’d taken the very advice she was now giving Liz—she’d sought out wild times, wild sex. She’d been with another woman on more than one occasion, she’d told Liz, and she’d even once taken part in an orgy. Each time she’d told Liz one of these stories, Liz had secretly shivered with excitement, wondering what it was like to be that daring.
And Lynda’s lack of inhibitions was the exact reason Liz had known Lynda could help her with sexy clothes when she’d wanted to look good to go hire a P.I., and why she knew now that Lynda was the perfect person to fill her in on Bourbon Street’s sin dens.
Together, they perused the clubs that lined the street. It was broad daylight and many of them weren’t yet open for business, but some had pictures in glass cases outside their doors. The cases displayed photos of naked girls—some had shots of girls kissing and touching each other, and one smallish building even exhibited numerous pictures of a man and woman actually having sex. “They really do that in there, on a stage?” Liz asked, a little taken aback.
Lynda smiled at her naïveté. “There’s not much they
don’t
do down here in N’awlins, honey.”
When they reached Club Venus, Lynda said, “You’ll be fine here. It’s one of the more sophisticated establishments, basically just a classy strip joint. Pretty girls taking their clothes off for tips, that’s basically all you get in here. Well, and lap dances, of course.”
“Of course,” Liz said, remembering Jack’s pictures.
Linda tilted her head. “So, what if you go and Todd isn’t there?”
