LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Special thanks to Anna Dudey and Scott Bodyfelt, who provided invaluable information on their professions.

      To my extraordinary agent, Linda Kruger.

      To my friends, whose experiences were rich sources of inspiration.

      And to all the poor saps who’ve gone out with me, not knowing any better.

      Contents

      One: Sequins and Gossamer

      Two: Orange Tiers with Bric-a-brac Trim

      Three: Gypsy Scarf

      Four: Black Leather

      Five: Mourning Clothes

      Six: Silk vs. Spandex

      Seven: Green Plaid

      Eight: Rubber Boots

      Nine: Synthetic Fur

      Ten: Tighty Whities

      Eleven: Walking Shoes

      Twelve: Embroidered Linen

      Thirteen: Polyester Brocade with Garters

      Fourteen: White Satin

      Fifteen: Nasty Sweater

      Sixteen: Blue Uniform

      Seventeen: Pink Panties

      Eighteen: Tapestry with Fringe

      Nineteen: Shoulder Pads and Falsies

      Twenty: Latex

      Twenty-One: Wet Terry Cloth

      Twenty-Two: Blue Medallion Print

      Twenty-Three: Old Denim

      Twenty-Four: Green Piqué

      Twenty-Five: Percale Sheets

      Twenty-Six: Running Tights

      Twenty-Seven: Pale Gold Accessories

      Twenty-Eight: White Silk for Another Day

      One

      Sequins and Gossamer

      Portland, Oregon

      “A noint your sacred body parts,” Sapphire said, passing ’round a small blue-and-white Chinese bowl. “I made this rose water with the petals of flowers from my own garden, plucked under the full moon to call forth the power of the Goddess.”

      I slanted a look at Cassie, seated cross-legged next to me on a cushion on the wooden dance floor. She was wearing a short top that ended just below her breasts in a row of dangling, shimmering silver disks, her slightly poochy belly bare above the heavy belt of coins around her hips. She narrowed her tilted elf-green eyes at me in warning.

      The bowl came to me, the rose water a dark burgundy that smelled safe enough when I gave it a cautious sniff. I dunked my fingers in the water and dabbed the stuff on my throat and wrists like perfume, and passed the bowl on to Cassie.

      With reverence, Cassie anointed her breasts and her crotch, then bowed over the bowl and shut her eyes before passing it to the next novice belly dancer.

      “I never knew you had sacred boobs,” I whispered to Cassie as Sapphire invited the class members to share their experiences of the past week. “I would have paid them proper respect, if I had. Shouldn’t you be wearing a more expensive bra, if you’re carrying around holy orbs?”

      “Hush!” Cassie scolded.

      A long-haired woman with hurt-looking eyes started talking about the telepathic conversation she had had with her dog.

      “You’re going to have stains right over your nipples.”

      “Hannah, be quiet. You won’t experience the Goddess if you don’t open yourself to Her.”

      That didn’t sound a particularly awful threat at the moment. The belly dance/goddess worship class of ten women was sitting in a circle around a small terra-cotta sculpture of figures linking arms around a lit votive candle. I’d seen the same piece in Robert Redford’s Sundance catalog.

      The psychic-dog woman finished, and a middle-aged woman with about fifty extra pounds showing between skirt and halter top started to weep. “My fiancé had to go to court this week. My neighbor says he flashed her, that he stood in our front yard and exposed himself to her. But he wasn’t naked, and he didn’t do it on purpose! He was wearing panties and gartered hose. He went out to get the paper, that was all.”

      Sapphire made soothing noises, while the other women murmured and cooed.

      “If she’s in touch with the Goddess, why is she dating a pervert?” I asked Cassie.

      “Hannah!”

      I shrugged. It seemed a reasonable question.

      “It’s time for the affirmation,” Sapphire said, and everyone put their palms together in front of their chests, fingers pointing upward. Cassie hadn’t told me there’d be an affirmation. I put my palms together and tried not to feel like I was praying.

      “The Goddess has blessed us with wisdom and compassion,” the women said in unison, touching their prayerful hands to forehead and heart. “She has taught us to nourish—” here the hands parted and everyone cupped her breasts “—and to create.” The hands came back together and inverted, pressing down into bespangled crotches. Pervert-boyfriend woman parted her thighs to get her hands down in there.

      I lifted my hands away. I didn’t want to create with my loins, not while I was still single. Good God, that’s what being on the pill for the past eleven years was all about. Didn’t the Goddess know how to create with the mind or the heart? Or the hands? How about the hands? Leave the womb alone, for God’s sake, at least until I got a husband.

      And that, of course, was the whole point of my being here and subjecting myself to Cassie’s belly dancing class of Goddess worshipers.

      “If you get in touch with the Divine Feminine within you, men will sense it,” she’d told me. “You’ll loosen up the energies in your chakras, get them flowing. Men won’t be able to take their eyes off your lower belly, the center of your sexual power, and they’ll be swarming all over you.”

      Sounded good. I was twenty-nine, and it had been six months since I’d had sex. Something had to be done.

      I didn’t know if warming up my chakras was going to help things, but floating in the back of my mind was a vision of myself in a gauzy costume, strings of tiny bells wrapped around my hips, the faint shadow of my pudenda visible through the fabric, nothing but heavy jeweled chains concealing my breasts. Some strange, thumping, wailing music would be playing in the background as I put on a private, belly-undulating show for Mr. Right, working him into a froth of reproductive urges.

      Whatever Sapphire wanted to say about belly dancing being about getting in touch with the Goddess and discovering one’s inner self, I’d seen my Desmond Morris on The Learning Channel. I knew that, anthropologically speaking, this hip rocking was about showing a man I was young and healthy enough to bear his children.

      That was fine by me.

      Once

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