Breath on the Wind (4 page)

“The pleasure was all mine, doll.”

“Not all, baby.”

And with that she left. 

Chiz watched her let herself out of the room, and finished the last of his cigarette, wondering idly whether he could be bothered jacking off to relieve the hard-on that remained after watching her dress.  He decided that his cock had had enough excitement for the night and that he needed to sleep.  Actually, sleep was becoming quite an urgent need.  His eyelids were refusing to stay open each time he blinked.  He figured this was as good a place as any to spend a couple of days.  He didn’t feel like going home just yet.

Chapter Three

It was the early hours of the morning by the time Andy locked her front door behind her and dropped her keys into the ceramic bowl on the low table just inside the door.  She hadn’t taken a bag or a jacket out with her, just a few bills and her keys.  She’d wanted to feel free and unencumbered.  She’d certainly achieved that.

With her little Miata parked securely in the concrete driveway of her tiny, one-bedroom house, she skirted the small sectional sofa that took up most of the space in her living room and walked through to her bedroom, her heels making a dull tap on the laminate flooring.  Dawn was a few hours away yet, and she had a few hours beyond that before she needed to be up.  It was time she got some sleep.

Her house was out in the suburbs, an entire subdivision of teeny Monopoly houses.  They were almost literally the size of Monopoly houses.  The site had once been a trailer park, until a tornado had come whirling through and obliterated everything in its path.  A developer had bought the land at about the lowest price that dirt could cost, and had crammed it with minute, single story, detached, one-bedroom properties that cost three times as much as a trailer that fit a family of six. 

Each property was a slightly different style, in a vague attempt to ease the cookie-cutter compound vibe, and they were painted in various bland shades of pastels, predominantly blues, greens and grays, nothing quite so exciting as pinks, oranges or yellows.  The areas on either side of the pristine blacktop were brutally landscaped between concrete and mulch-covered beds that contained a few anemic bushes that hadn’t yet had chance to find their roots.

It was perfect for Andy. 

She had no interest in spending her free time keeping house or gardening. She didn’t need more than her own bedroom, she never had guests that stayed the night.  She didn’t want the sociability of an apartment, of having to run a gauntlet of communal areas to get to her front door.

Although these properties were piled virtually on top of each other, with not more than four feet between her wall and her neighbors, it was the most private place in which she had ever lived.  The entire neighborhood was populated with yuppies, singles and couples, most barely more than kids starting out on the housing ladder with some help from mom and pop.  Everyone was at work all day, usually six days a week, in some bland corporate box in the city.  There were no soccer moms, no retirees.  Andy could go a whole month and not see one of her neighbors on the sidewalk.

Her encounter tonight with Chiz, whatever fucking sort of name that was, was typical of her style, too.  A hit and run.  It had been a natural inclination to keep her real name secret.  The sex had been surprisingly good, which more often than not wasn’t the case with one-night stands.  There was something about his overabundance of self confidence, coupled with a body that he obviously took some pride in, that had made her want to find out if he lived up to his own hype.  And he had, deliciously so.

Feeling sated and at peace, she shed her clothes, dumped everything that she was wearing into the laundry hamper at the end of her bed, and made sure that its lid was closed properly.  She couldn’t abide clutter at the best of times, but in a space this small, it was anathema.  Neatness was essential to her ability to maneuver around rooms.

She closed the heavy, plum velvet drapes across the window behind the head of her bed and climbed beneath the downy white comforter without bothering to shower.  Truth be told, she enjoyed the lingering scent of Chiz on her skin.  It was undeniably male, an aroma she was well used to, but didn’t usually retain as a matter of choice.  She fell asleep while she replayed the night’s events in her mind, too tired to bother masturbating to the memories.

~o0o~

Andy’s alarm woke her at eight a.m.  Christmas was over, and this was the odd limbo period before New Year’s Eve closed the festive season for good.  Some people would be on vacation for the entire holiday week; she was not one of them, she had a business to run. 

She showered, slicked on black mascara and scarlet lipstick, and blow-dried her hair before dressing.  Her personal style was similar to the décor in her apartment, simple and no fuss or frills.  She preferred clean lines and block colors over patterns in all things.  However, there was an element of playing up to her role that she needed to take into account when dressing for work.  A quick expedition into her closet resulted in a black pencil skirt, sheer black stockings, complete with seam running up the backs of the legs, a stiff red blouse with cap sleeves and a wide neckline that did obscene things for her cleavage, and her beloved black patent Louboutin Pigalles.

Her heels struck a staccato tempo on the fake wood of the flooring as she wandered into the kitchen.  She’d given up caring whether or not she left tiny dents in her wake.  It was an unavoidable side effect of wearing spike heels in the house.  Deciding that breakfast was optional and best imbibed as liquid since she’d already done her makeup, Andy fixed a cup of strong, black coffee and flicked through the news apps on her phone while she drank it.  There was frustratingly little to distract her since it was the holiday season.

Outside, the street was silent.  There were few cars in her neighbors’ driveways.  It was more than likely they were all back home visiting family.  Andy took a moment to bask in the absolute silence, and wondered if this was what the zombie apocalypse would feel like before the tide of shambling undead turned up.  But she didn’t have time to relax.  She slid into the driver’s seat of her little, cherry-red sports car, and headed to work.

There wasn’t a great deal of traffic on the roads leading into the city.  Only the most diehard of visiting family members were up and about, and businesses were slow to open 

Andy parked her baby in the private lot at the opposite end of the block from her building.  The street was silent except for the sound of her shoes on the sidewalk echoing off the empty, locked buildings.  The establishments in this section of the street were nightlife-oriented, mostly clubs, bars and restaurants.  Some would open around mid afternoon, to provide sanctuary to the disenfranchised, or as a refuge for those who’d had enough of making nice with Great Aunt Mabel, but most would stay closed up until the early evening.

The street itself encompassed many blocks, leading from the center of the city to the outskirts.  It was part of the historical district and oozed personality, although the section that her business was located in was closer to the outskirts, and therefore more rundown than the tourist trap at the other end, which was overshadowed by the glass and chrome monoliths of the business district.  The structures on this street were predominantly red brick, and many had been painted vivid colors, lots of greens, lilacs and golds, a year-round commitment to the spirit of Mardi Gras.  The ornate ironwork which embellished each block, either in the form of awnings or balconies, was generally painted deep green, and it lent a cohesiveness to the vibrantly different personalities of each business. 

Andy’s building was on the corner of the block.  The red brick had been painted a muted mint green by a previous owner, but it suited her to keep the shade.  The intricate ironwork formed a balcony around the second story on both sides of the building.  At this time of day, the lower windows were unlit.  The windows in the second story were permanently blacked out.

The whole street was known as the place to find a party, but some patrons came to Andy’s club to find a different kind of party, and regardless of the holiday, or maybe because of it, some would arrive within an hour or so.

Andy fished a large bunch of keys of all shapes and sizes from her handbag and unlocked the front door.  As soon as she was inside the foyer she was greeted by the muted sounds of vacuuming and chatter.  As early as she was, she’d known she wouldn’t be the first person here.  Her club was open every day of the year; it was one of the attractions for her more abstract clientele.

The business, or businesses, that Andrea Broussard owned comprised a strip club that was located in the ground floor of the building, and a BDSM ‘dungeon’ which, because not many buildings had actual basements in the area due to the flood risk, was located upstairs on the second floor.  Both enterprises operated under the name the Pumpkin Patch.

Andy locked the heavy, reinforced doors behind her and passed through the foyer to the main room.  Josiah, one of two bouncers that guarded the door of the club on rotation, was sitting at the bar.  Andy knew that he would be drinking coffee.  He was almost as big a caffeine addict as she was, and he preferred his drug of choice straight up and uncontaminated as she did.  He was a massive man, six and a half feet tall and almost as broad.  He had to turn sideways to fit through most of the doorways in the building.  His skin was as dark as the coffee he was drinking.  When he was working the door, his expression was dour, verging on menacing, but when he was relaxed, as he was now, his smile and rolling bass laugh filled the whole room.

The cleaners, with whom Joe was currently sharing gossip, were almost done.  The area dedicated to the strip club was decorated in an elegantly ornate palette of crème and gold and bronze.  Pillars of faux bronze guarded the sides of the booths where patrons could purchase a lap dance, and comfortable crème, faux suede chairs surrounded burnished gold tables in front of the polished bronze stage that was punctuated with chrome poles.  The effect should have been gaudy, but the simplicity and lack of ornamental fussiness countered the overtly rich décor.

As Andy walked up to the bar, Joe saluted her with his cup, and one of the House Mamas she employed to look after the day-to-day business of the strip club walked in through the door that led to the rest of the building. Jacqueline Montrose had more of the look of the girls that worked the poles than the woman that managed them.  She was tall and willowy, a natural blonde with eyes almost as dark as Josiah’s.  She was in her late thirties, but her flawless skin and open expression regularly led people to mistake her for much younger.

Andy preferred to manage the dungeon.  It required her specific skill set.  She’d been working as professional dominatrix for years, since college.  For fifteen years she’d been perfecting the art of punishment for pleasure.  She still took clients, but she no longer booked her diary through the whole day. 

Andy didn’t employ staff who waited around all day for any John Doe off the street to walk in.  She had a collection of professional dominants and submissives, who offered their services on an appointment-only basis at the dungeon, and gave her a percentage of their fee in return for the use of the safe, clean and managed facilities.  Andy had clients booked for the day, but she knew none of her professionals would be in.

“Hey, boss.”

“Hey, Joe.  You have a good Christmas?”

Jackie was carrying two white porcelain cups with steam wisping above their rims.  She handed one to Andy. The richly bitter aroma of Kenyan roast rose with the vapor.

“Sure did.”  He beamed.  “Mama cooked up a storm.”  Her huge bear of a doorman was a mama’s boy through and through.  If she hadn’t personally seen him deal with drunken and abusive members of the public without flinching, she almost wouldn’t have believed him capable of doing the job.

Andy smiled, both in appreciation of the coffee, and of Joe’s enthusiasm.  She took a sip and turned to Jackie.  “Thanks for the java.  You have a good day?”

“So-so.”  Jackie made a rocking motion with her flattened palm.  “Family.  You know how it is.”

“Say no more.”  Andy groaned in sympathy.

“What time’re you starting today?” Jackie asked.

“I’m booked at ten, one and four.  Guess no one’s spinning the line about working late today.” 

“Anyone else in?”  Joe asked.  The strip club wouldn’t open for business until two p.m., but Andy had decided that there was a good chance they’d need his presence early today.  In the meantime, he could look after the door at the rear of the building, which was generally used by visitors to the dungeon, who usually didn’t want to advertise their proclivities.

“Nope, just me.”

“Quiet day, then?”

“Hopefully.  Yesterday was too quiet.  I guess the holy rollers were all off celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus, but I’ll bet they’ll be back full of festive fire and brimstone today.”

One of the advantages of setting up her business so far away from the commercial district was the lower rent.  The downside was that a higher percentage of the buildings near hers were unoccupied.  In their wisdom, the city officials had worked with the owners to provide a subsidized rent scheme to attract entrepreneurs into the vacant properties, so that they would not be continually vandalized.