LITMIR.BIZ

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it’s a no-no for customers to touch themselves, or us, even in the privacy of the Champagne Room. If any of the bouncers—or, gah, the floor manager—saw the lewinsky drying on my dress, Ranger would be banned from the club. Forcibly. Premature ejaculation aside, Ranger was a decent guy; I didn’t want him to get roughed up.

      Besides, the poor dear had been so embarrassed that he’d emptied his billfold to make up for it. A five-hundred-dollar tip goes a long way to forgiving such a faux pas.

      I rounded the corner and saw the women’s room at the end of the hall. One of the other dancers kept a supply of oxi-something in one of the bathroom cabinets for just such a stainage emergency. If I had another gown in my locker, I simply would have shucked the dress off, poured another one over my body, and not looked back. Problem was, all my clean gowns were currently balled up in the hamper at Paul’s apartment, doing their dirty clothing impersonation. Mental note: Do laundry.

      Mental note, part two: Learn how to do laundry.

      Yanking open the door to the bathroom, I was greeted with a stink foul enough to curl my hair. Yow, someone recently visited the fudge factory. Waving a hand in front of my nose, I beelined it to the sink—the one farthest from the rows of toilet stalls—and was about to turn on the water when I heard a soft groan.

      Breathing through my mouth, I saw Circe seated in the far corner of the room, at the end of the huge vanity table. The raven-haired beauty was staring intently at her reflection in the wall mirror, clutching something to her chest. I glimpsed her pale face and dark eyes in the mirror, but it was the hugely muscled man looming behind her that grabbed my attention.

      Dressed in a sleeveless tank and biker shorts that left nothing to the imagination, he stood behind her, massaging her shoulders. Leonardo da Vinci would have creamed his pants to have this guy model for him. His body was perfectly proportioned, perfectly sculpted, and he radiated confidence almost to the point of arrogance. Slurp! Score one for Circe. After her shift was over, I’d have to corner her and get all the juicy details about her latest love. Last I’d heard, she’d fallen hard for some skinny blond guy. Guess that was yesterday’s news.

      Mister Gorgeous bent over and whispered something in Circe’s ear. She sucked in a hitching breath, then let out a soft moan, closed her eyes.

      Humph. Maybe there was no sex in the Champagne Room, but it looked like the ladies’ room was up for grabs. I must have missed that memo.

      I opened my mouth to ask Circe how she could even think about foreplay with the smell in the bathroom as overpowering as it was, when I realized three things. One, Circe was crying. Two, Mister Gorgeous cast no reflection. And three, there was a dull red glow around Circe. This wasn’t a freshly fucked glow, either. It pulsed around her like a dying heart—slow, sickly, erratic.

      Shit.

      I didn’t know which was worse—that the aura around my pal meant she was perilously close to dying, or that there was a demon giving my pal a backrub. Of course, the latter explained the former.

      Okay, Jesse. Play dumb. Most mortals can’t see the nefarious. Ignore the obscenely huge—and hello, very turned on—demonic entity. Hmm. Actually, there was one place where he wasn’t so huge. Must be the infernal equivalent of steroids.

      “Circe? You okay?”

      “Ignore her,” Mister Gorgeous said, casting me a long look. “She couldn’t possibly understand the pain he’s caused you. He doesn’t love you.”

      Circe said, “He doesn’t love me.” Her voice cracked, shattered into a thousand pieces.

      “Who doesn’t?” Right, keep your voice steady. Don’t look at Mister Gorgeous. You don’t see him, la la la…

      “Larry.” Circe said his name with a sob.

      Pasting a smile on my face, I did something very brave, and completely stupid. I walked over to her, sat in the chair next to her, within spitting distance of the hulking demon. Pay no attention to the evil creature behind the curtain. The stench emanating from him was strong enough to make my eyes water. Now I recognized it for what it was: brimstone.

      I said, “Larry? You mean the skinny blond guy? Sweetie, you can do better than him.”

      “You gave him your heart,” the demon said. “He chewed it up and spat it at your feet. Show him how much he hurt you, how you can’t live without his love.”

      Circe’s breath was coming in hitches. I reached over to pat her hand, and that’s when I saw the bottle of prescription pills she was holding in a death grip by her chest. “Whatcha got there?”

      “He doesn’t love me,” she said again. “I gave him my heart, and he chewed it up and spat it at my feet.”

      Uh oh. Cyrano de Bergerac, infernal style. Very bad news. “Sweetie, there are other guys out there.”

      “I can’t live without his love.” Her voice faded as if someone had turned the volume way down, and something went dead in her eyes. She unscrewed the bottle cap. In a tiny voice, she said, “I’ll show him.”

      I grabbed her arm, but she wrenched it away. Shit, she was strong. Massaging my sore hand, I darted a glance over her shoulder. Yup, the demon still had his hands clamped onto her shoulders. Not quite possession, but definitely influencing her actions.

      The cheating bastard.

      “Show him you still have your pride,” Mister Gorgeous said. “Swallow the pills. All of them.”

      “I still have my pride,” she said, her voice a monotone. She opened the bottle.

      I touched her elbow. “Circe, listen to me. Unrequited love is a bitch, but it’s not worth dying over. Come on, girl, this is stupid.”

      She spilled some blue pills into her palm.

      Fuck. Okay, let’s try some shock therapy. I slapped her, hard. The crack echoed in the room.

      Blinking, she turned away from the mirror to look at me. My handprint stained her cheek an angry red. “Jesse…?”

      “Forget about the skinny blond asshole,” I said. “He’s not worth it.”

      “She doesn’t understand how he hurt you,” Mister Gorgeous said.

      Circe echoed, “He hurt me…”

      “Sweetie, he has no idea what he’s missing out on. You’re a sexy, funny, wonderful girl. And if he doesn’t want a part of that, he’s an imbecile.”

      She looked down at the bottle, at the pills in her hand. “You think so?”

      “Probably impotent too.”

      That brought a faint smile to her lips. “Yeah?”

      I said, “I read it somewhere, in one of those business magazines, that it’s been proven that the higher the level of imbecileness, the higher the likelihood of impotence.”

      “‘Imbecileness’?”

      “What, it’s a word.”

      Her smile slipped. “I really love him. Why doesn’t he want me?”

      “Because he’s an imbecile. I thought we covered this. It’s not even his fault. Imbecileness runs rampant in the male sex. Comes with all the testosterone.”

      “Think so?”

      “Yup.” I held out my hand. “Care if I hold your pharmaceuticals for you?”

      In her ear, the demon roared: “Swallow the pills!”

      Circe frowned, turned her head. “You hear something?”

      “Just the hum of the fluorescents. Know what you need?”

      She shook her head.

      “A glass of wine and a good vibrator.”

      Circe barked out a surprised laugh. “Jesse!”

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