Chapter 11

Opening night was packed.

Sabrina stood in the wings, fidgeting, while she watched Oakie and his group warming the audience for her entrance.

Sabrina wore only a gown and slippers. There wasn't room for anything more. She had been practically sewn into the dress. It accented every curve of her voluptuously streamlined body.

Her breasts weren't pushed and squeezed into two unsightly bulges above the material. Rather than bulge, they seemed to flow in an arching line of pure white from her shoulders down and out.

Nick leaned on her shoulder and kissed her on the chest. "You're beautiful," he whispered in her ear.

She took in his handsome face and broad shoulders in the finely tailored tuxedo and imagined what they must look like together: two beautiful animals. "You don't look so bad yourself."

"Nervous"

"Of course."

"Don't be," he said. "You got it. We both know it."

Then she turned and stepped close to him, her body melting momentarily against his. Tenderly, she kissed him long and hard. Their tongues met, the tips darting demandingly against each other.

"Jesus," he said, at last breaking the kiss, "you're a hard bitch to figure out."

"Things are always set aside for opening nights," she said, kissing him again briefly.

Someone coughed at Nick's elbow. He turned and Sabrina saw a dapper little man with slick black hair and a narrow, pencil-thin mustache.

"Sabrina, I want you to meet Cary Dayton."

"Mr. Dayton," Sabrina said, offering her hand.

He took it between wet palms. "Nick tells me you'll go all the way."

"That can be taken two ways," she replied with a smile.

The little man chuckled. "Smart broad."

"Cary owns the Blue Light Club in Cleveland. And he controls some of the bigger rooms around the country. He can do us a lot of good if he likes you tonight. Be good."

Nick and Cary Dayton moved away from her and passed through the backstage door into the club.

"Good lookin' cunt," Cary said. "Love to get a little of it."

"No go, Cary," Nick said, "it's private stock. You know that. Here's our table."

They were barely seated when Oakie started Sabrina's opening music. Then the band lights went out and another set of spots picked up Sabrina on the opposite side of the stage.

She started into the first number, a breathy ballad that caused the front of her dress to rise and fall with the tempo of the music.

The audience was hers from the second she opened her mouth. Her voice seemed to drive every word of every lyric straight into the guts of the audience, men and women alike.

The men saw in her the woman they had all secretly dreamed about... the unobtainable Venus that all men want to fuck.

The women were mesmerized by her voice, her style, and her appearance. She was the mystique that they were sure lay hidden somewhere in themselves. They saw in Sabrina freedom and wildness, an escape from their own humdrum lives.

And then she was silent.

And there was momentary silence in the room.

And then pandemonium.

They wouldn't let her off the stage. Encore followed encore before she finally left the stage, leaving them with an eager anticipation for the second show.

Oakie met her in the dressing room. "Jesus, when you're up there, all the way, remember me down in Selbeth, will ya'?"

"Selbeth?" she said, laughing. "What's that?"

"Selbeth, Oklahoma," he replied. "That's where Fay and me are go'... tonight after the show. We figure Nick would never find her down there. An' he wouldn't dare try. I got a lotta kin-folk in Selbeth. Besides, I'm just country."

"I have a feeling, Oakie," she said, "that, before this is all over I'll wish I was just country again."

"No way. You've got it. You're big time, and you'll make it, if you do like we're doin' and get away from Nick."

"I might just do that," she said, kissing him. "Good luck to both of you."

Out front, Cary Dayton was being difficult. "Yeah, sure, Nick. She's good, very good."

"Why not, then?" Nick said.

"I just can't do it any more. My rooms have just gotten too big. I gotta have names to get the prices I'm askin'. She's gotta have more exposure before I can use her as a headliner."

"Now, bullshit," Nick said. "You've said that before and we were always able to work it out."

"What do ya' mean?" Dayton asked.

"You've seen the first show... you know how good she is. No need to see the second show, is there?"

Dayton smiled knowingly. "You got something better planned?"

"Don't I always?" Nick said. "I'll be right back."

Nick threaded his way through the tables. He spotted Gertie at a corner booth and slid in beside her. She was guzzling booze.

"You've been going at that stuff a little heavy, haven't you?"

"Maybe," Gertie replied, starting on another glass.

"Well, get your head straightened out. Dayton needs a little persuasion, as usual. Is the party with Fay all set?"

"No? What do you mean, no?"

"Gertie's two brothers got busted this afternoon. It'll have to be her and one of the other girls."

"No good. That won't turn him on enough. You do it."

"Me?"

"That's right... you! Go all the way with it, too! Burn the shit out of her! Don't worry, you won't have to fuck him. When the time comes, just back off and he can have Fay. You know I'd never make you take a cock."

"But I want to take a cock... yours. I told you before... tonight's the night. The night for you and me."

"Sabrina said the same thing," Nick replied.

"She'll screw you up, Nick," Gertie said. "She'll screw us both up... I got a feeling."

"Nothing can touch us, honey," he said. "You know that. As long as I don't bed you down nothing gets messy. You made the rules, remember?"

She looked up at him with the closest thing to pleading he had ever seen in her eyes. "Nick," she said, "I made 'em... now I wanna change 'em."

He studied her face and figure. She had everything Sabrina had, plus maturity and moxie: that's why he had never fucked her. They had something between them that held everybody else at bay. Only Connie had ever come between them.

And Connie was dead.

"Do it," Nick said, sliding from the booth.

"What's up?" Cary Dayton asked when Nick returned.

"You," Nick said, "very shortly. My apartment third floor. You can go on up. Use the elevator in my office."

"Right on," Cary said. "Are you comin' too?"

"Gertie will be there."

"Jesus... you're really goin' all the way for this chick ain't you, Nick?"

Nick stood at the bar seething. He was mad, bull mad. He had taken the congratulations from the press and all his friends as fast as possible and then hurried back to Sabrina's dressing room after the second show.

She had already split.

"She's done gone, Mr. Nick," the maid said.

"Gone... what the hell do you mean, she's gone?" he demanded.

"Just that. She come back here, changed like a whirlwind, and grabbed that bag."

"Bag?"

"Yeah. She come in tonight with a suitcase like she was goin' travelin'."

"Shit."

"She and that Mr. Oakie, they done flew outta here right after the second show."

He downed the sixth or seventh Scotch, he had lost count, and then he called for a phone.

"Gertie?"

"Yeah, boss."

"How's it going?"

"Good, I guess," Gertie answered. "It sound like all hell is breakin' loose in there though. Your boy, that Dayton, had enough, I guess. He's probably back downstairs by now."

"Okay," Nick replied, watching Dayton came into the bar. He hung up the phone as Dayton slid onto the stool beside him.

"Jesus!" Dayton said. "That was some workout. That girl."

"No, the other one. Your secretary. She's crazy. Wouldn't let me fuck her though. Said I was just like you, no fuckin' good. Weird, man, weird."

Nick thought about Gertie and Fay and the fun and games that were probably still going on in the upstairs apartment. Suddenly he decided he would take Gertie up on her offer after all.

He started to leave.

"About this..." Dayton said. "Yeah? What about her?"

"It's a deal... I'll book her."

"No you won't," Nick replied. "She opened and closed tonight. She retired."