Xylophone (8 page)

turn led to bigger and more frequent tips—he’d

also made over a hundred bucks in thirty seconds.

Not bad.

He worked the sleaze angle tonight, a dirty-

dancing Daisy Mae or Davy Ray, strutting her/his

stuff.

As he slithered up one of the stage’s three

poles, his arousal freshened. Clinging near the top

with his legs spread, he made a show of slowly

lifting and lowering his body. The audience

obviously knew he was rubbing his cock against

the metal. And they were getting an eyeful of

booty, to boot.

Then the drama began. A burly masked man

decked out in leather stormed onto the stage, his

face contorted in anger. He was part of the act, of

course—an employee named Kirk who was

actually a soft-spoken, gentlemanly guy. The

bouncers would never let an audience member get

on stage. Glaring up at Pepper, Kirk appeared to

order the “misbehaving” dancer off the pole.

Timorously, Pepper made his way down.

Kirk smacked his bare ass, and Pepper dropped to

all fours. Kirk then ordered him to crawl into a

raised cage. Once inside, and with Kirk gone from

the stage, Pepper again got his raunch on,

extravagantly feeling himself up, climbing and

rubbing against the bars as music continued to

throb a perfect erotic accompaniment. Responding

to the pressure of his clever body, the cage door

popped open. The rebellious dancer was free!

He leaped and twirled across the stage and

shimmied up another pole.

What Pepper saw from his perch nearly made

him lose his grip.

The house lights weren’t moving as

frenetically. They’d been keeping pace with the

performer’s movements. Now, pulsing slowly in

time to Pepper’s sliding motion on the pole and his

hand’s sliding motion within the pouch of his G-

string, they allowed him to see to the back of the

audience. The theater section of the Sugar Bowl

wasn’t cavernous. Management wanted to give

customers that up-close-and-personal feel.

Jonah Day stood against the rear wall, staring

at the scantily clad bombshell who was frotting

with a steel tube. He looked like he wanted to fade

into the wall and was close to accomplishing it,

except that his eyes shone like the twin moons of a

distant planet.

What the hell was he doing here?

Within seconds, Jonah peeled himself from

the shadows and inched his way around the

audience perimeter. He appeared to head for the

bar.

Pepper spiraled down the pole before he fell

down, then executed a few front-walkovers to

leave the stage. He’d gotten himself too worked

up, taken his act as far as it could go, taken it to the

maximum allowable limit. Jonah had looked

aghast.

Jonah. Fuck! What had possessed him to

come to a place like
this
?

Dare took what employees called the back

alley to the barroom. It was half the size of the

theater and had a more intimate atmosphere,

conducive to cruising. After grabbing a towel from

the small kitchen that lay in his path, Dare

swabbed his forehead and neck, chest and belly.

His nipples still felt taut; his nuts ached. Yeah,

he’d been into it. And the very man who’d

indirectly, and inadvertently, tweaked him toward

this edgy state of arousal had apparently been

shocked by it.

Dare pushed open the swinging door that led

to the bar. Alban “Alby” Morris, the bartender

closest to him, hiked up his pierced eyebrows and

went about his work. Jonah was there, all right,

and Dare breezily approached him.

“Hi. What a surprise.”

“Uh… hi.”

“Scotch and soda, lots of ice,” Dare said to

Alby. As much as he didn’t want to, he again

turned to Jonah. “How’d you find out where I

work?”

“Deductive reasoning. And not much of it.”

Jonah emptied the glass around which his hands

had been curled. The liquid was clear, the glass

hung with a slice of lime. “It’s the only male strip

joint on this stretch of 94.”

“It isn’t a strip joint.”

“If you say so.” Jonah refused to look at him.

Dare started feeling a little testy. “Can I buy

you a drink?”

“No, thanks. I don’t drink.”

“Figures,” Dare said to himself. Alby

delivered his watered-down scotch, and he

gratefully took a long swallow. “Well, what do

you think?”

Distress knotted Jonah’s features. It seemed

an effort for him to face Dare. “Why are you

dressed like that? Why do you let strangers touch

you so… intimately? You actually
encourage
it.”

Cold descended. Dare stiffened, but definitely

not in the way he’d stiffened on stage. “Because

it’s part of my act. And my act pays the bills. Plus,

I enjoy it.” He downed his drink. “If you’re so

fucking appalled and offended, Jonah, why are you

here?”

“I… wanted to see you dance.” He slid off

his stool, lifted his jacket off the backrest. “That’s

all.”

“Bullshit!” Dare stopped himself from

spitting out the words that had clumped on the back

of his tongue, words he knew he’d regret:
You’re

as queer as I am. You just don’t have the guts to

admit it!

Jonah shook his head as he donned his jacket.

“No, it isn’t bullshit.”

Damn it, why did he have to look so stricken?

Dare’s throat tightened. “Don’t try to make

me hang my head over what I do for a living. Don’t

even go there.”

“You don’t understand.”

“The fuck I don’t! My fucking brother is the

same way!”

Jonah headed toward the front entrance.

“What did you expect to see, huh? Me in a tux

doing a foxtrot with a Ginger Rogers lookalike?”

A wall of burn built against the backs of Dare’s

eyes. To counter the pressure, or at least try to

ignore it, he raised his voice to Jonah’s retreating

back. “Why won’t you answer me? Because you’re

a….” And again he bit off the flow, swallowed his

vitriol.

“Hey.” A large hand came across the bar and

clamped around Dare’s wrist.

The hand belonged to Alby, he of the shaved

head and mountainous muscles and tribal tattoos.

Dare glared at him.

“Relax,” Alby hissed, glaring back. “You

make a scene in front of the clientele, you’re

history.” The beefy hand loosened its grip. “You

know damned well how Sparks feels about that

kind of shit.”

Truman Sparks owned the Sugar Bowl, and

the reputation of his establishment, not to mention

his establishment’s profits, meant far more to him

than cutting his employees any slack.

Nodding, Dare rubbed his temples.

“What’s up with you?” Alby asked, leaning

on the bar. “You’re not the high-strung type. You

never
lose it. You just zing the assholes with a

saucy word or ten.”

“He isn’t an asshole.”

Alby eased back with big eyes and a

prolonged “Ohhh” of revelation.

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“Looks like perky Pepper found a boyfriend

but maybe has been keeping secrets from him.”

Dare expelled a limp “Ha.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Hm. A Mormon cousin?”

“Close.” Dare shoved his empty glass across

the bar. Alby didn’t refill it. Sugar Bowl

performers were limited to one alcoholic beverage

between appearances. If customers offered to buy

them drinks, they had to accept tokens.

The other bartender, a slightly older but

equally pumped-up guy named Marsh, called over,

“Can’t you at least work while you flirt?”

Alby got indignant. “You know I don’t flirt

with the talent.”

A customer three stools down leaned over the

bar and smiled at Dare but addressed Alby. “Then

why don’t you move on and let
me
try?”

Alby ignored him, but Marsh refused to

ignore Alby. “At least slide those sticks down

here. I got drinks lined up.”

“Stir ’em with your dick,” Alby muttered. He

nudged a glass bristling with swizzle sticks in

Marsh’s direction. “It’s the same size.” The two

bartenders got along only as well as they needed

to.

Dare chuckled and shook his head. “On that

note….” He got off the stool. “I need to spruce

up.” One more performance and this shot-to-hell

night would be over.

“Hey, pretty baby!” someone down the bar

called out. “Can I catch you a drink?”

Dare turned. It would’ve been inexcusably

rude, a breach of the Truman Sparks Code of

Conduct, for him to ignore the offer. Didn’t matter

that the last thing he wanted to deal with right now

was a come-on. Sugar Bowl employees weren’t

allowed a range of temperaments or preferences.

“Maybe later,” Dare said, applying a

seductive smile and a voice to match. He didn’t

bother approaching the guy, who wasn’t at all bad-

looking, to schmooze for a token. Flirting required

time and patience Dare didn’t have.

He sashayed through the swinging door

marked Employees Only. The back alley was the

only way to get to the dressing room without

having his ass or his package grabbed every three

steps.

His mood turned sullen the minute he thought

of Jonah—lurking abashed at the back of the house,

coming forward only to ask questions laden with

Carver-like implications.
“Why are you dressed

like that? Why do you let strangers touch you so

intimately?”

“Why are you such a cocktease, Daren?

Haven’t you learned…?”

Of course Jonah hadn’t asked the last two

questions, would never say anything like that. But

he must’ve been thinking it.

Angelique Demone did a double take as soon

as Dare strode into the dressing room. She’d just

gotten off stage and was the only one there. The

other queens were performing a group number, a

takeoff on
Nunsense
.

“You look out of sorts, sugar. What’s wrong?

Someone stiff you with funny money?” Angelique

leaned toward Dare’s dressing table and flicked

out a hand. “Hey, don’t draw your lips together so

tight. You’ll get pucker creases. Look like a mean

old woman fixin’ to rap somebody upside the

head.”

As soon as Dare relaxed his mouth, his brow

contracted. He couldn’t stop seeing the expression

on Jonah’s face, hearing those loaded questions.

Refusing to let them get to self-possessed Pepper

Jack, he touched up his light foundation to

eliminate any splotches or shine, then reapplied his

eye makeup, lip gloss, and blush. He could barely

stand looking at his image in the mirror.

This reaction, Dare realized, didn’t have to

do with how Jonah Day perceived him. It had to do

with how he perceived himself.

“Not gonna put on more of that body

shimmer?” Angelique said more gingerly. Dare

must’ve seemed fragile enough to crack. “It’s so

flattering on you.”

She’d read him right. Suddenly, Dare sucked

in a breath, the prelude to a sob. He swallowed

and stretched his eyes and slapped his cheeks,

trying to yank himself back from the brink of tears.

What the hell did he have to cry about?

“Honey, you okay?”

Oh fuck, a hug will come next.

“Yeah.” Dare grabbed a tissue and blew his

nose. “I’m all right.” If somebody hugged him, he

didn’t know
what
the hell he’d do.

Angelique wouldn’t stop watching him. She

was a sweetheart with an upbeat attitude and a

depth of sensitivity few people possessed. As the

man Rodney Humphrey, s/he eliminated the ribald

drag queen humor but remained just as kind.

Dare liked both Angelique
and
Rodney.

“What’s wrong, darlin’? Did you get some

bad news? Did you lose someone close to you?”

A jarring question. “Yes.”

Angelique’s face fell in sympathy. “Aw, shit.

Who?”

“Myself. Thirteen years ago.”

The group performance ended and the other

girls, all poof and prattle, fluttered into the room.

Chapter Nine

BY THE end of Dare’s shift, at least his hard-on