Chapter 8
The last day of rehearsals was filled with tension for everyone concerned. Nothing seemed to go right. Natalie became a tyrant, demanding one-hundred and ten percent of everyone, including herself. Sabrina thought it was because of frustration.
But the younger girl soon found out that wasn't the case. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Natalie was acting this way because she felt that if Sabrina really wanted to make the big time, then she was determined that Sabrina would get what she wanted.
When Natalie told her this, Sabrina was truly moved. "Thanks, Nat, believe me," she said, kissing the older girl full on the lips and hugging her. "And I've got my reasons... good reasons for doing what I'm doing. I hope some day I can tell you about them."
That night, after rehearsals, Nick took everyone to a hotel for dinner. It was a resort near the lake.
Most of the singles, men and women, were hustlers and most of the businessmen combined their business with the kind of pleasure found in Nick's club.
Consequently, the lounge and the dining room were full of hungry, oversexed women whose husbands were out doing the very thing the wives wanted to do, if they could find the right man.
Gertie surveyed the crowd and picked out several possibilities for herself and for Nick. But, to her surprise, Nick didn't seem interested. That worried her. It wasn't like him.
But she had known him before when he was like this. When they had both loved Connie. When one woman had been able to monopolize his mind and his desires.
Sabrina was calm and cool, actually cheerful. She joked with everyone around the table. She told everyone that they should take notice because they were dining right beside America's next number one singing star. Then she leaned across the table and gave Nick a huge hug and a kiss; a long, passionate tongue-lashing kiss that had everyone looking around the room in embarrassment.
Then Nick astounded them. He did something that, in public, was not like Nick. He snapped at her breast where it nearly fell free from her low-cut, braless gown. He acted as though he would devour it right there in front of the whole table.
There was silence. Then Sabrina kissed Nick again, and said, in a voice loud enough for half the room to hear, "That's right, my man, eat 'em up! Lick 'em if you want to. But don't worry about it too much. I plan on taking care of the problem you have later on."
Gertie fumed, but Nick continued to make a fool of himself, fawning over Sabrina. When the last course had finally passed and they all stood up to go into the lounge, Sabrina calmly disengaged Gertie's arm from Nick's as they left the dining room.
Natalie fell in step beside Gertie. "Well, well, well," she said, to no one in particular.
"Well, well, well, what?" Gertie said.
"It looks like Nick is really interested again."
"Don't count on it," Gertie replied, staring straight ahead.
"I'm not... I'm not," Natalie replied. "In fact, as you know so well, I don't give a slit."
"Then tell your little girl friend to go to bed with him and get it over with... or I might have to do something drastic."
"What would that be, Gertie?" Natalie asked scornfully. "You mean you might give up your sacred cunt to a cock?"
"You know, Nat," Gertie said, her voice dripping ice, "you should be careful. You're liable to die one of these nights."
"I fully expect to," Natalie said, "one of these nights. But not until Nick has completely used me up."
The lounge was as full as the dining room and Sabrina managed to position herself beside Nick. By the time the second drink was finished, it was obvious to everyone that Nick was going to finally put the make on his new protege.
It brought on a general sigh of relief. The past two weeks had been hectic and Nick had been on everyone's back.
Natalie bided her time. When Sabrina headed for the powder room, she waited for a few minutes and followed. Inside, she moved into the cubicle beside Sabrina's, lifted her skirt, pulled her panties down, and sat.
She tapped an the steel wall.
"Sabrina?"
"Natalie?"
"Yeah. You know you're playing with fire?"
"Why?"
"Are you going to fuck him tonight?"
"I think so," Sabrina replied from the adjoining stall. "But if I do, it'll be my way, on my terms. If he wants my cunt, he'll have to work for it."
"Just be careful. Gertie'll kill you if she thinks you're putting him on."
"Fuck Gertie," Sabrina said.
"I have," Natalie replied and giggled. "She's real good. But it isn't gold like she thinks it is."
A giggle erupted from the other booth. "Don't worry! If Nick thinks there's a chance of getting into my pants tonight and getting me to respond at the same time, he won't let Gertie interfere. But you could help."
"How?"
"Stay over at Paul's tonight. I'm not going back with him, but I'm sure he'll show up before the night is over. Okay?"
"Sure. But all Nick has to do is say so and everybody will steer clear. Everybody knows all he can taste, smell, or see right now is your pussy."
"That's the whole point," Sabrina replied. "I don't want him dictating anything. I want to call the shots."
"Okay," Natalie said.
Sabrina got out of her stall and moved to a sink. "Nat?"
"Yeah?"
"The other t... it was good."
"I know," Natalie replied, smiling. "It was real good." Then she giggled.
"No shit," Sabrina said, "if I swung that way... I mean if I dug pussy... it would be you."
"If it's any help, kid," Natalie said, "if I didn't dig pussy, it'd be Nick. Go to it!"
Natalie left the rest room just in time to see Nick being claimed by Gertie for a dance as Sabrina sat down.
"Sabrina?" Oakie said, sliding over one chair so he was beside her.
"Hi... what's happening?" Sabrina planted a kiss on his cheek, her eyes on the dance floor.
"Sabrina?" he said again, this time with enough insistence to grab her attention. "You ever been to Oklahoma?"
"No... no, I haven't."
"I mean, there was a time, 'course, when everybody back there was poor... and they was all... but now seems like everybody's goin' ..."
Something in his voice drew her attention. The sad eyes were red now under droopy lids.
"Are you going back there, Oakie? Some day?" she asked.
"Soon as I got enough to buy me a couple oil wells," he laughed.
"Good. It's nice to have some place to go back to."
"Listen, it looks like you're gonna have some influence with Nick. I wonder if you could do me a favor?"
"I wouldn't be too sure about that influence," she said.
"There's this girl... she... Well, she works upstairs, but she's a good girl, really... an', well, we been meetin' on her days off."
"You mean she works the third floor, Oakie?"
"Yeah, but like I say, she just got some bad breaks..."
"You can do better than that, Oakie... lots better."
"I don't want to," be said. "Just like the rest of the girls up there, she owes Nick. If you could get him to let her go..."
"Jeez, Oakie, I..."
"Her name's Fay an' I'd really appreciate it. I'd pay everything..."
He never got a chance to say more as Nick sat down in a chair on the other side of her.
"GO get me some cigarettes, Oakie!" Nick said, putting his arm around Sabrina's shoulders.
"Sure, Nick," Oakie said, rising and staggering away.
When he was gone, Nick whispered in Sabrina's ear, "Oakie's got the hots for you. I can see it in his eyes."
"Look around you," she said. "Every man here has the hots for me. He just wanted to ask me a favor... of you, really. He knows I've got you wrapped around my little finger!"
"Conceited little bitch," Nick said, angry. "Yeah, an' most of the women. But you're out of Oakie's league."
"I kind of like him. He's got sad eyes."
"Not sad," Nick said. "Weak. Know what happens when you take a frog off his lily pad and put him in salt water?"
"He shrivels up and dies... can't breathe. Let's dance!"
They moved onto the floor and started to dance. It was a slow number and their bodies melted together.
He could look straight down between their bodies and see her glorious tits jiggle above the built-in cups of her dress. It was cut so low across her breasts that her nipples were clearly visible from his angle. That, and the occasional brush of her thigh against his groin, gave him a raging hard-on.
"Feel that?" he said.
"How could I not feel it?" she said.
"That's gonna split you tonight. Or did I forget to tell you? Tonight's the night."
Sabrina smiled up at him. "Tonight might be the night... if I say so."
His teeth clenched. He pulled her closer to him and slipped a hand into the front of her dress. "Why do you think I'm gonna make a star out of you?"
"I don't have the slightest ..."
"So you can be seen with me, that's why. So start learning to behave."
"First of all," she said, leveling her voice cold and steady, "I don't learn anything. I know. And, as far as this star shit goes, you can shove it, when and if you ever do fuck me, you'll come to me. Not the other way around. And, secondly, get your fucking hand out of my dress."
He slipped his hand from her breast and put it on the small of her back. "You bitch." He said it somewhere in the gray area between anger and laughter. As they continued to dance, he held her tighter and tighter until she was bending back away from him.
Each time they turned, he ran his thigh between hers, rubbing it up and down against her pussy.
"Quit it!"
"Why? Turning you on?"
"People are watching us!" she said.
"Fuck people!"
"Are you going to stop it?"
"When I feel like it," he said, nearly lifting her off the floor with his knee between her legs.
Suddenly Sabrina ground her heel into his shoe. He jumped away from her in pain.
Calmly she turned and walked back to the table. He gritted his teeth, started after her, thought better of it, and headed for the bar. As he walked across the room, he gritted away the pain.
"What'll it be, Mr. Jennings?"
"Rye, Bruno."
The bartender poured and Nick grabbed his wrist.
"Leave the bottle."
"Sure thing, Mr. Jennings."
Nick downed the first shot neat, and a second. Then he poured a third and sipped it, letting the fiery liquid roll on his tongue as he devised ways to torture her. The opening was the next night. He would let her open, get her the gig in Cleveland, and then, when she was on the edge of the top, he'd break a scandal about her.
Maybe he wouldn't even wait until the next night. He'd just have Genie get some of her boys and work her over tonight. Or maybe he'd just turn Gertie loose on her. Or... or... or, nothing.
He knew he wouldn't do a damn thing. The bitch had gotten to him.
"Bruno?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Jennings."
"Lot of room keys floating around tonight?"
"You know it, Mr. Jennings. Had more than I could handle already. Half the husbands in the hotel are probably down at your place."
"Got three extras?" Nick asked.
"Hell, yes. But..."
"What?"
"You tryin' to get some kind of record?"
"I got a big itch," Nick said. "It'll take three to scratch it."
The bartender nodded and moved away. Before Nick could finish another drink, Bruno was back with three room keys and their owners' description on a piece of paper.
Nick dropped a fifty-dollar bill on the bar and walked away.
He was almost to the elevator when Gertie caught up with him.
"Where are you goin'?"
"To get laid," he said.
"What about her?"
"Fuck her."
"Are we dumpin' her?"
Nick paused. "No."
"She's gotten to you... hasn't she. Nick, she's a cunt. A cunt just like Connie was. Isn't that what you told me? No cunt is worth it."
The elevator door opened and Nick stepped inside. "I'll see you later."
"Nick, this is no good. It's weak. I don't like to see you weak."
"I'll see you later."
"Don't waste it on some dumb broad, Nick. Get what you want. That's what you've always told me."
"Fourth floor," Nick said to the elevator operator.
"Nick," Gertie begged, holding the door. "You can have me."
"What?"
"Yes... me. All prior agreements gone. You can have me... now, tonight. No blow job. I'll let you screw me, any way you want to... I promise."
He stared at her. She meant it. He could see it in her eyes. He reached out and freed her grip from the door. "Fourth floor," he repeated, and thought he actually saw a tear slip from Gertie's eye as the elevator doors closed.