Winter Jacket: Finding Home (18 page)

“No, never complaining,” I clarified. “Just making an observation.” I took a tentative sip from my brandy Old Fashioned. I tended to shy away from hard liquor in favor of craft beer and wine, but the club had a limited selection of libations.

Along one wall was the tiny bar, crowded with men in tailored suits who looked like they’d come straight from the office. It made me thankful that Troian had reserved a table service booth for us so I didn’t have to fight the suited crowds whenever my beverage ran low.

“Someone just grabbed my ass,” Troian announced.

Nikole leaned closer to her fiancée, looking amused rather than offended. “Can you blame them? It’s pretty grabbable.”

Troian yelped and Nikole smiled broadly. Her hands were out of view, but I was pretty sure she’d just taken firm control of the situation. The interaction instantly made me miss Hunter. Just when I was starting to forget about the heartache, little things or sweet, funny moments had me wishing she was there. It snuck up on me like an unexpected beer buzz.

I followed my two friends away from the bar to a bottle service table Troian had called ahead and reserved for us. The VIP table was large enough to accommodate at least eight people, and I felt conspicuously self-important with just the three of us around the table.

“Hey, isn’t that Lucy Denario over there?” Troian called out.

I squinted my eyes to cut through the darkness of the club. I spotted the dark-haired woman to whom Troian had referred. She was smiling and laughing with one of the dime-a-dozen suited men in the bar. There was nothing unique or remarkable about the man. He was attractive, albeit a generic handsomeness that became everyday the longer one lived in California. It was how working at a strip club could desensitize a person to nudity. After a while, you simply stopped noticing all the pretty faces. If we had been back in Minnesota, he probably would have been considered one of the state’s most eligible bachelors, but here in La-La Land he was simply another attractive person.

“Who’s Lucy Denario?” Nikole asked.

“One of the actresses from the show,” I explained.

When Lucy noticed my stare, it took her a moment to recognize my cohorts and me. Not only did the bar’s low lighting make it difficult to recognize facial features, but also I imagined looked different here than in the writer’s trailer.

She said something to the milquetoast man and left his side to cross the club over to our table.

“Hey you guys,” she greeted with a smile. “Small world. Mind if I join you?” Not waiting for a response, Lucy slid into the table with us. She fanned her hand in front of her face. “God, it’s a sausage-fest here tonight.” I couldn’t tell if she was complaining.

“There was a burlesque show earlier,” Troian said.

“Now it makes sense.” Lucy nodded and brought her drink to her lips. “I suppose guys feel less creepy about burlesque than a straight up strip club. They can explain it off to their wives that it’s historical or art or something,” she laughed.

“And the lesbians, too,” Nikole inserted.

Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “Have we met? Do you work for the show, too?”

Nikole shook her head. “No, I’m just with this one,” she said, jerking her thumb in Troian’s direction.

“Ahhh, the girlfriend.”

“Fiancée,” I corrected.

Lucy laughed. “My bad. When’s the wedding?”

“Middle of November,” Troian noted.

“Getting nervous?” Lucy prodded with a bright, infectious smile. “Have everything planned?”

“The invites are out,” I supplied.

Troian shot me an exasperated look. “I swear I didn’t know she’d sent her an invitation.”

“I told you it’s okay,” I dismissed. “She was Nik’s friend before we even met.”

Lucy looked back and forth between Troian and me. “What am I missing?”

I took another slug from my drink. “It’s nothing. My ex-girlfriend is coming to their wedding. It’ll be the first time we’ve seen each other since the break up.”

“Awesome,” Lucy exclaimed. “I hope I’m invited to the wedding. I love lesbian drama.”

Nikole leaned toward Troian and whispered something in her ear, and Troian nodded at whatever she’d said. Nikole grabbed her clutch from the tabletop and made a move to stand up.

Lucy noticed the motion. “You guys aren’t leaving already, are you?” she pouted.

“I’ve got to get Nik home,” Troian said. “She has an early meeting with a potential client, and I’ve got production meetings all day.”

Lucy looked to me with large, expressive eyes. “What about you, Elle?”

“I drove, so I should probably be going, too.” Troian’s car didn’t have a backseat and Nikole’s SUV wasn’t ideal for city driving, so we’d taken my car to the downtown Los Angeles club.

“We can take a cab home,” Nikole assured us. “You don’t have to cut your evening short on account of us.”

Lucy turned back to me, waiting my response.

“I don’t have any place to be,” I shrugged. I had a brainstorming session with the other writers in the morning, but it was nothing that required I be presentable or be at the top of my game.

“I’m supposed to meet up with some friends at a club across town,” Lucy said. “Do you want to come with?”

“I don’t know; am I dressed for it?”

She grabbed my elbow and grinned. “You look great.” She hopped up from the table and tugged at the bottom of her fitted dress, which had crawled up her thighs while she’d sat. “Let me just go to the bathroom and then we can go.”

Troian cleared her throat when Lucy had disappeared for the restroom. “You know what I’d recommend.”

“I never like your ideas.” I tipped my glass and drained the rest of my drink.

“You’re relatively young and attractive.”

I made a face. “And your point is?”

“This is your opportunity to get out there and sample the local fare. I’d stay out of Lucy’s bed,” she qualified, “but I’m sure she’ll introduce you to some interesting people tonight.”

“It’s too soon,” I insisted.

Troian shook her head. “No such thing.”

When Lucy returned tableside, we hugged our goodbyes, and I followed her to the exit.

“My car’s with the valet,” I said when we stepped outside. “Do you want to give me this place’s address and I’ll meet you there?”

“You’ve still got a lot to learn about LA living,” she laughed, white teeth gleaming. “I’ll drive.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The evening was clear, and Lucy drove with the moon roof of her sporty coupe open. It had been hot in the club, but now the night air chilled my overly stimulated skin. As she zipped around the night traffic, I held tight to the rollover bar.

“How long have you lived in LA?” I asked, making conversation to fill the silence.

“All my life,” she said.

“Did you always want to be an actress?”

“Pretty much. I started going on auditions when I turned eighteen. I didn’t think I could balance classes and a career as an aspiring actress, so I didn’t go to college. My parents freaked, but it’s their own fault for raising me in Hollywood.”

We had driven only a few city blocks before Lucy pulled the car to a stop. We could have easily walked from Batch 19, but I kept that observation to myself. Lucy left her car keys with a dark suited man who stood in front of a nondescript building. It was constructed of large grey stones that made the three-story walkup look a little like a castle. The front windows were dark, and I could see no signage that indicated the name or even the existence of a nightclub.

I followed Lucy, feeling a small amount of trepidation. I didn’t know her all that well. We’d worked together at table reads and had exchanged a few words during shooting, but that didn’t mean we were friends.

Instead of walking up a concrete flight of steps, we climbed down another series that led to a dark red door. It looked like the entrance to a garden apartment, the fancy name given to basement rentals. She knocked twice on the door and a small window slid open. The night was too dark and the street poorly illuminated to see who was on the other side of the window.

“Gretchen Von Neumann. And she’s with me,” she said, jerking her thumb in my direction.

The small window slammed shut.

“Is that some kind of password?” I asked.

“Gretchen is my alias,” she explained. “No one uses their real name here. If we did, and the media ever got their hands on the membership roster, more than a few careers would be ruined.”

“Membership?” I echoed. “Like a country club?”

A shadow of a smile found its way onto her lips. “This ain’t your parents’ country club.”

The door opened with a metallic clank like a drawbridge being lowered.

“By the way,” she remarked, “they’ll probably make you leave your phone at coat check and have you sign a confidentiality clause.”

The door opened wider, and I could hear the low thrum of bass. I stared at the dark entryway. It might as well have been a wormhole. “What is this place?” I asked.

“It’s a sex club, silly.” Lucy’s hand was solid in the small of my back, and she urged me to step forward through the darkened door.  “Welcome to Nightshade.”

“You’re meeting friends at a
sex club
?” I asked incredulously as she pushed me inside.

She shrugged, looking nonplussed. “Security is tighter here than any other club in the city. You can drink, dance, have fun, and never have to worry about waking up to find your picture on TMZ.”

“So you go to a sex club for the privacy,” I said, still in disbelief.

“And the sex,” she smiled. “It’s hard being a single ingénue in this city. Sleep with the wrong person and your reputation and budding career is ruined. Every member and their guests have to sign a confidentiality clause. What happens at Nightshade stays at Nightshade.”

“Like Vegas, only better,” I remarked.

“
Much
better,” she purred.

She hadn’t been exaggerating about security. I had to turn my phone over to club staff so I couldn’t record the going-ons in the club, and I had to sign a number of legally binding documents before we were allowed admission.

Beyond the darkened lobby area was the main bar, a circular-shaped room. Padded seating lined the perimeter and couples in various stages of dress were engaged in a plentitude of extracurricular activities. In the center of the large room was a similarly shaped bar, staffed by somber, practically bored-looking bartenders.

Behind the bar staff, inside of the bar’s circle, was an elevated platform that served as a stage. The overhead spotlights shone down on a tall, dark-haired woman whose eyes were obscured by a mask. She wore long red gloves that reached her elbows. In one hand she held a cat of nine tails whip that she rotated between two submissives—one man and one woman.

The man was muscled and oiled so his skin shimmered beneath the spotlights. He wore only a gold Speedo that nearly matched the color of his shaggy, surfer hair. The woman was similarly blonde—a typical California bronzed blonde. She was bent over a sawhorse and the dominatrix flicked her bare back with the light, biting touch of a whip.

“See anything you like?”

I knew I had stared for too long at the bound woman and the ball gag she strained against. “Maybe.”

“So what’s your type?” she asked as we maneuvered deeper into the club. “Stone butch and packing? Studs? Bois? Lipstick? Pillow queen? Someone to train, perhaps?” It surprised me that for someone whom I believed to be straight, she knew the lingo.

My eyes fell to a woman wearing only a pencil skirt and black bra. The corner of her mouth lilted in a small smile as our eyes connected. I felt under a spell like they were pumping aphrodisiac directly into the club.  My gaze followed the shirtless woman as she sauntered away, backside swaying with each step. 

“I’m not picky.” I licked my lips. “I like women.”

Lucy didn’t blink. “I think there’s a few of those here.”

She left me to get us some drinks while I hung back and waited at a corner couch. I ran my hands over the front of my skirt. I felt overdressed, not because I was in a cocktail dress, but because I was wearing anything at all.

I had no idea where to look. Everywhere my eyes landed, I saw sex. It was like a recovering alcoholic in a liquor store. I had successfully navigated the past few weeks without going on the rebound, but this club was rapidly chipping away at my resolve.

Lucy returned with a tray of shot glasses, each filled with mystery liquids, and two people in tow.

“These are my friends, Jasper and Corinne,” Lucy introduced nodding to the woman and man who flanked her. I assumed the names were aliases. I’d have to remember to refer to Lucy as Gretchen. “Guys, this is …” She trailed off and arched a waiting eyebrow at me. I guessed I was supposed to give myself a new identity.

I said the first name that came to mind: “Sylvia.”

Jasper whispered something in Lucy’s ear. He was an attractive black man with a shiny, bald head and a manicured goatee. He wore tight jeans and an even tighter t-shirt that accentuated his pectoral muscles.

Lucy giggled at his words and slapped at his bicep. Her face became neutral a split-second later. “Jasper and I are going to make the rounds and see if anyone else we know is here tonight,” she announced. “The only downside of having to leave our phones at the front door is not being able to find each other once we’re here.” Her eyes leveled on me. “Will you be okay on your own?”

I probably wouldn’t, but I wasn’t going to admit that out loud.

Lucy set the tray of shot glasses on a low table. Jasper offered his arm to her, and I watched them disappear in the crowd.

“They’re going to go fuck.”

The voice startled me. I returned to Corinne’s emotionless face. “I guessed that, too.”