Chapter Five
Poppy sits on the edge of the bed applying a second coat of Essie “A-List” red nail polish on her toes. Her phone buzzes with a text from Bette.
Call me asap.
Poppy nearly knocks over the nail polish bottle in her haste to make the call.
“How fast can you meet me at the Angel?” Bette says.
Poppy fans her wet toenails. “An hour?”
“Half hour. Meet in the dressing room. Oh, and wear a black pencil skirt and white blouse. And a long brown wig if you have one.”
Poppy can’t imagine what this is about, but she’s not going to waste time asking questions. Bette’s rejection of her in the dressing room last night stung … badly. But now it seems like maybe she’s reconsidered. And for the first time since moving to New York City, she feels special.
It had been easy to feel special in Arkansas.
Poppy was always the prettiest, the most adventurous, and thanks to her German, film-fanatic grandmother, she was the most cultured.
And no one else in her hometown had ever heard of burlesque.
But once she arrived in the city, she felt invisible.
She was no longer the stand-out blonde, the most interesting, the most ambitious.
She was just like everybody else—until she stepped onto the Blue Angel stage as a performer.
Even that gig was thanks, in part, to her grandmother. She’d lived in Berlin, and she’d cultivated in Poppy a cosmopolitan sensibility. And so Poppy had impressed Agnes during her first audition by referencing the old Marlene Dietrich film The Blue Angel.
Now she’s really arrived.
She just has to find a clean white blouse.
Forty minutes later, Poppy finds Bette already in the Blue Angel dressing room, seated at one of the vanities.
She’s wearing a sumptuous black velvet trench coat Poppy’s never seen before.
Poppy feels ridiculous in her stupid blouse and skirt.
Why did Bette ask her to dress like a bank manager?
Is it some kind of power play—only Bette can be hot?
The first thing Bette says to her is:
“Why didn’t you wear a dark wig?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Hmm. I thought that might be the case. So I brought this for you.” She hands her a long brunette hairpiece. Poppy reluctantly secures it on her head with a few stray bobby pins she scoops up from the vanity.
“Perfect.” Bette stands and unbuttons her trench, revealing her nude and perfect body.
Poppy hasn’t ever hooked up with a woman before—she never particularly thought about it before Bette.
But now, seeing her incredible breasts, creamy and pert and perfectly round, she feels as attracted to her as she’s ever felt to a man.
And when she touches them, cupping them gently and then brushing her hard nipples with her thumbs, her pussy quivers more intensely than with the last few guys she slept with.
Bette pulls her face toward her and kisses her, deep and hard and with a surprising urgency. Poppy can’t get enough of her mouth. Her lips are full and soft and she inhales Bette’s unique scent—vanilla and nutmeg, but also something earthy.
Bette unbuttons Poppy’s blouse and squeezes her breasts, then moves her hands under her skirt. She strokes her pussy over her underwear, and Poppy’s shocked that it’s enough to make her wet.
“Take off your skirt so I can make you come,” Bette commands. Poppy fumbles with the zipper, her hands shaking as she eases off her panties.”
No man has ever spoken to her like this.
Bette turns her around so that her ass is pressed against her own pussy, and Poppy looks at their reflection in the mirror. Then Bette slides one finger inside her, and she closes her eyes.
Her knees weaken as Bette works her finger slowly in and out, her thumb stroking her clit.
Bette is no doubt watching Poppy’s physical response in the mirror, and this would have made her self-conscious, but the throbbing pleasure between her legs turns her mind into a total blank.
She moans as she comes, a sound that shocks her because she’s usually so quiet.
Bette moves to stand before her, then kneels down and licks her pussy with a single stroke of her tongue, like a lollipop.
“Oh my god,” Poppy says.
Bette stands up so they’re face to face.
“Now you’re going to make me come.”
Bette leads her by the hand to the faded red damask couch and proceeds to stretch out on it like a cat in the sun.
“Use your tongue,” she commands. Poppy kneels in front of the couch. With her own pussy still throbbing, she takes one breast in her mouth and touches the other one with her fingers. Bette slaps her hand away. “Just your tongue.”
Poppy moves her mouth to her other breast, flicking her nipple with her tongue, then gently biting it. Bette emits a soft sound and presses the top of Poppy’s head.
“Eat my pussy,” she says.
If Poppy weren’t in such a state of heightened arousal, she would doubt she’d be able to do it. But the way she feels in that moment, she wants to eat Bette. She wants to be with her in every way. She just wishes one of them were a guy, so they could fuck properly—fuck in a way that hurts.
She kisses her breasts, then makes her way down to her stomach.
When she reaches her pussy, she licks the outside of it the way Bette had done to her.
The smell of her is surprisingly exciting—foreign but familiar at the same time.
She presses her tongue against Bette’s clit, and Bette places her hands on the back of her head, urging her closer.
Bette moans, and Poppy moves her tongue to the center of her, sticking it as deep inside as she can, trying to fuck her with it.
Bette’s hips move rhythmically, and Poppy slips her hands underneath her body to grab her ass.
She feels her start to come—she tastes it.
She can’t resist slipping one hand down to her own pussy, fingering herself hard so she comes just as Bette shudders, her entire body racked with the orgasm.
Poppy rests back on her heels and looks at Bette, who has one arm draped over her eyes. Her chest rises and falls heavily. Poppy’s own heart beats hard. She feels around on the floor for her underwear and pulls it on.
She’s still wearing the stupid blouse. And the wig. She unpins it and shakes her own hair loose. Bette looks at her lazily.
“I like your pussy,” she says.
Poppy has no idea how to respond to that. Thanks?
Bette lets out a long sigh.
“I was at a party earlier,” she says. “It made me so horny.”
“What party?”
“It was at the Standard Hotel. This insane room—all the beautiful people were there. I told you that guy Billy Barton and his friends were worth making an impression on.”
Poppy thinks of the woman Bette pulled onstage last night. With the long brown hair. The conservative clothes.
She suddenly feels sick.
“Billy took you to a party?”
“Not exactly. He was there, but it was that woman I brought onstage and her boyfriend who brought me. Alec—that’s his name—wanted to interview me for some article.”
“So the party made you horny.”
“It was the party, it was the conversation. I don’t know—maybe it was Mallory. I didn’t think she was that pretty at first but found myself wondering tonight if I could get her into bed.”
Poppy looks around for her skirt. She doesn’t know who she hates more in that moment—Bette, or that stupid bitch from the audience.
Bette sits up and smiles at her.
“Thanks for hanging out. That felt good.”
“Yeah, sure,” Poppy says. “I’ll see you later.”
She leaves the dressing room quickly, closing the door behind her. Outside, in the dark and empty backstage area, she leans against the wall and puts her head in her hands. When she looks up, she finds Agnes watching her.
Agnes shakes her head at her slowly, as if saying, You poor fool.
Mallory is propped up on pillows in the bedroom, working on her laptop, when Alec joins her after his shower. She closes the computer.
“Thanks again for coming along tonight, Mal,” he says, turning off his bedside light.
“You’re going to sleep? I’m totally wound up,” she says.
It’s an understatement. The party, the conversation …
the bizarre kiss in the bathroom. She feels like she’s had three espressos.
Or done coke. Not that she’s ever done coke, or would really know what that feels like.
But she imagines it would feel something like what she’s experiencing—like she were jumping out of her skin.
Like she’ll never fall asleep. Ever again.
She also feels like having sex. And usually, after a night like the one they just experienced, Alec would be all over her.
He would have told her on the ride home that she was the hottest woman in the room that night—and he would have meant it.
But he’s deep in his own head, something that happens a lot since she moved to New York City.
Maybe she’s being overly sensitive—and more than a little hypocritical. After all, she’s the one who let a strange woman kiss her. Although it barely could be considered a kiss.
“You really think I should go to that burlesque show next Saturday night?” she says. Alec rolls over to face her.
“I do. The way I see it is: Any schmuck can go to a show. But how many people actually get backstage? That’s the kind of inside thing Gruff readers expect from us.”
“Okay.”
“Why? Are you having second thoughts?”
“No,” she says. “I mean, yes. In a way.” She sets her laptop aside on the nightstand.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
Good question. What is it, exactly, that’s nagging at her?
Maybe it’s the awareness that deep down, she actually does want to go.
Very much. And it scares her. It doesn’t feel like herself.
So she has to wonder if this is some kind of defensive response to Alec asking her to bring another woman into their sex life.
“I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.”
“What are you afraid of ?”
“Nothing!” she snaps. He knows her too well. The truth is, she is afraid: for herself and for their relationship. “I just don’t want our whole lives to start revolving around this. We spent my birthday at a show, then tonight, and now this.”
Alec turns the light back on.
“What’s this really about?”
“Nothing. I mean, I just told you.”
He’s silent for a minute. She can see his mind clicking away. Alec is intelligent. He’s a problem solver. And it takes him less than a minute to deduce the root of this whole conversation.
“Is this about the three-way? You’re afraid all this nightlife is leading to that and so you’re backing away from it?”
“No. Of course not.” Why can’t she just be honest?
“I wish you’d just be honest with me,” he says.
She sits up straighter. “I wish you’d be honest with me. What’s this whole three-way thing about, anyway? Are you bored? I’m not enough?”
He reaches out to touch her and she shrinks back. She crosses her arms, waiting for an answer. He runs his hand through his hair, thinking. Finally, he says, “That’s not it at all.”
“So what, then?”
“We got together really young. And I’m so glad we did and wouldn’t change a thing. But I think it’s important that we still make room to grow and have interesting experiences. Together. This isn’t about other women. It’s about moving through life with you, but keeping it fresh.”
She feels herself burning with indignation.
“So that’s a yes. You’re bored.”
“Mallory! That’s not what I said. Do you want to argue about this all night?”
“I don’t want to argue at all.”
“That makes two of us.” He pulls her to him, kissing her face. She looks into his eyes, that complicated pool of blue and green, and knows she can’t stay angry.
She’s hopelessly in love.