Whispers in the Night (15 page)

“No, well, yes. I've been here a few times.” Noir looked back at him, her gaze disapproving.

“Okay.” He shrugged. “More than a few.” She was a fantastic dancer and a lie detector all rolled into one.

Moving beyond the beaded veil entrance to the VIP, the best-furnished room in Tamales, Noir led Damon to the long black leather couch placed against the back wall. First taking care of securing access to the room by greasing Vern with the remainder of his cash, he hoped this dance was worth it. He had known what to expect with Hypnotize. It had been one of the things he liked most about her. But Noir was a totally unknown quantity.

For a few terrible seconds, he wondered if Marie would find out. He had been so focused on the stage that he wouldn't have noticed if an elephant had shambled in behind him. What if she had seen him, giving all his money away to this new girl, treating Noir like he had once done her? Would she be mad? Jealous? Or would she feel anything at all?

Staring up as Noir leaned over him, her eyes glinting in the variegated light of the disco ball twirling from the ceiling, he realized that he really didn't care what Marie thought. If she wanted it to be business, then he would keep it at that level.

And he was going to have his fun, whether she showed up or not. When the music started, Noir tossed her sarong to the floor before unhooking her satiny bra, an ebon nipple grazing his lips. “Take it,” she whispered. He complied, sucking the hard, salty aureole into his mouth. Noir pounced on him, grinding her pelvis slowly against his groin.

He moaned, breaking contact as he seized her firm ass in both hands. She roughly grabbed his head. “Continue,” she rasped.

Following her directive, he was proud when her moans quickly outpaced his own. Lips locked on her nipple, his hands roved her slick back, even chancing a few ventures beneath her black thong panties. He paused; afraid she would stop him, by slapping his hand away, cursing him out, or even worse, calling for Vern. But she didn't.

Her tacit permission opened something deep within him. He began nibbling on her breast, as one of his fingers sought her asshole. He delicately spread her labia with his other hand. When he poked a thumb inside her, the depth of her heat and wetness stunned him. Damon hadn't thought he could ever get a woman so excited.

His thumb made circles around her clitoris, her body moving in sync with the questing digit. She groaned so loud that Damon thought Vern might hear them. He knew the big man didn't give a damn about what happened in the VIP so long as everybody kept things quiet.

But he wasn't about to tell her to be quiet. Her gasping was turning him on.

“Do you want more?” she managed between breaths as the song faded.

Gazing at the panting girl, with flagging disappointment, he said, “Honey, I would really like to, but I don't have any more money.”

The look she gave him was sad, pitiful. But strangely, not detached or condescending, a reaction that similar admissions had engendered in other dancers.

“I don't care about that.”

What?
“What?”

She cupped his face in her hands; her touch was still reptilian, but no longer cold, as if the heat he had created between her thighs had suffused her whole body. “I don't care about money,” she repeated.

“What's going on here?” He looked around, scared that cops were going to storm in at any second, or maybe Vern or another dancer.
Was this some kind of joke
? Perhaps Marie had put her up to this, to teach him some kind of lesson. She might be waiting just beyond the beads at this moment, ready to spring in and prove him to be the lout she tagged him as.

“I
want
you. I
need
you.”

“Is this a joke? Hypnotize put you up to this?”

“Marie,” she whispered. Even in the poor light of the disco ball, Damon saw her dark features twist with displeasure. She leaned her torso away from his still hungering lips.

“You know Marie.” Damon nodded, things becoming clearer. “She put you up to this, didn't she? Trying to teach me a lesson about not wanting a woman just for sex, right?”

“I
know
Marie,” Noir said, her voice icy. “Is she what you want?”

“Just what the fuck is going on here?” Damon asked again, anger beginning to simmer. “Is this some kind of game?”

“Only if
you
want it to be,” Noir said, her voice filled with accusation. “I'm here because I'm not into games, and I thought you were the same way, but if you want to keep on chasing after Marie, then go ahead.”

“So you do know Marie.”

“Didn't I just tell you that?”

“I'm sorry,” Damon said, on reflex. Noir grabbed his head again, this time more gently, caressing his cheeks.

“I know her, and I know you. I've seen your longing. Tasted your dreams.” Her voice trailed off as her eyes glazed over.

Great, the one woman I've had success with is crazy
, Damon thought, already whirling contingency plans through his mind to toss this woman off his lap and tear out of the club if she got violent. “I don't understand.”

She smiled. It was one of the most serene expressions he had ever seen. Her eyes twinkled as she leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “I'm not supposed to tell you, but this is a dream.”

“Bullshit!”

She twisted his head roughly, her nails digging into his bald pate. Damon bit back a yelp.

“Don't do that again,” she warned. “I'm serious. This is a dream. You are my charge. I have been with you for a long time . . . since you were eleven in fact.” She paused, peering deeply into his eyes with wistful fondness. “I was there for your first wet dream. And every one since.”

His erection a memory, Damon didn't even try to hide what he thought of this strange woman's revelation. “Noir, I've never seen you before in my life. This shit isn't funny.”

“My name is Nahema. Please call me by my given name. It is only fitting, since I know so much about you, and you know almost nothing about me.”

“Bitch, I don't know shit about you!” Damon's anger felt soothing. He needed it to get some control back over this spiraling situation.

“I know about Mrs. Harland, your sixth-grade teacher, Tomika Simmons, your first crush . . . Aria Jenkins, the little cheerleader you jerk off over during your lunch breaks, and so many others.”

“How . . .” The rest of the question hung in his throat.

She smiled, nodding with approval. “They were me. Well, actually I assumed their forms.” She tapped his right temple. “In your dreams. Your fantasies. I fulfilled your every desire, performed, suffered, and
enjoyed
your most deviant whims.”

“How . . . what . . .”

“I've seen how these mortal females treat you.
They
don't understand you.
They'll
never accept you.” Her voice was filled with an unfathomable sadness. “They don't appreciate your passion. I do.”

“You . . . do?”

“I want to be here for you. Forever.”

“Forever.”

She smiled, nodding. “Yes. Forever.”

“How . . .” Damon didn't know whether to laugh or cry. If this was a dream, it was the weirdest dream of his life.

“Right now, in the corporeal world, you are dozing on your couch, preparing to disgrace yourself by apologizing to Marie, a
mortal
, who has never known your heart like I have.”

He took in his surroundings. The black leather couch, the murky carpet, the disco light, the music blaring through the VIP's thin walls and beaded entrance, and the salty tang of Noir/Nahema's breast on his lips . . . It all seemed so real to him.

Damon shook his head, trying to clear his mind. But how did she know those things about him, about the women he had secretly fantasized over since his first strand of pubic hair had sprouted?

“Fine, don't believe me,” Noir/Nahema huffed, pouting as she lifted off his pelvis.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm. “Let's say this is a dream. How can you be with me? What do you want from me? How can you be here for me? Forever?”

She hopped back on him, pushing him into the plush leather. He couldn't help but feel like he was drowning, being swallowed up by something far beyond anything he had ever known or believed possible as Noir unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick, stroking it back to aching readiness. Pushing aside her panties, she mounted him, her heat engulfing his manhood, spreading out from his shaft to envelop his entirety.

As she rode him, slowly at first, increasing in force and rhythm with music only she heard, Damon had never felt closer to a woman. In fact, he felt outside himself, his whole existence becoming a pulsing, throbbing sun, entwining with her fiery star, exploding in an orgasmic supernova that he feared might incinerate the club around them.

For dizzying, terrifying seconds afterward, Damon couldn't see, he couldn't breathe or feel anything around him; only the slackening pulse of his heartbeat told him he was still alive.

“That's what it can be like, Damon,” Nahema whispered into his ear. His vision clearing, he saw her looking at him, her dark skin aglow and smile beatific. “Every night.”

“My . . . God . . . what do I have to do?”

“I live in your dreams, sustaining myself on your essence . . . in small doses.” She lowered her head, her voice tinny, penitent. “I've been imbibing more of your soul lately in order to puncture the walls of the dreamscape to be able to talk to you like this . . . that's why you've been so tired,” Noir admitted, her haughtiness subdued. She looked at him again, her gaze searching for acceptance. Damon nodded impartially, forcing himself not to roll his eyes. “For me to be with you permanently, in your world, a bigger infusion will be required.”

“Infusion . . . like blood or something?” Damon was still dazed from their frenzied lovemaking. He wasn't sure what Noir was talking about, but if it allowed him to continue fucking her, he was down with it.

Nahema pursed her full lips, her confidence now resurgent. “Not quite . . . I need a body, a vessel to live in. I need you to find a person for me, with a soul I can consume totally so I can be with you on your plane.”

“You're serious?”

Noir merely looked at him. Damon felt his intestines twisting. A frost layered his skin. “My God, you are serious.”

“The only question you really need to ask yourself is, are you?” Noir replied, her eyes eager as she took him in again. Damon readied himself for another session, but the dancer slithered off him. Her hungry gaze never left him as she walked backward out of the VIP, saying nothing else, the clinking of the beads the only sound in the club, in Damon's whole world.

Her voracious eyes lingered long minutes after he woke up, on his couch, a damp stain soiling the crotch of his jeans.

Taking in his surroundings, his heart stalling in his chest, Damon forced out a breath. “My God, that shit was real,” he whispered. “
I
was dreaming.
She
was right.”

His thoughts a muddle, Damon stumbled to his bedroom. He glanced at the glowing red digits on his alarm clock: 9:30 p.m.

He still had time to make it to Tamales, still time to find Marie and attempt another apology. Still time to hear her curse him out, or laugh at him, or even worse, ignore him, dismissing him for the scrub he feared he was.

“
There's another way. . . .
” The words wafted through his ears, coiling around his mind, piercing his heart.

“There is another way,” he muttered to himself. If Nahema was right, then there was a woman waiting for him, wanting him, who knew all of his faults and secrets, and still found him desirable.

Wake up
. His sanity tried to push through the fog.
It was a dream. And since it was a dream, wouldn't it make sense that Nahema would know everything about you?

“You're right,” he mumbled, the haze dissipating with the thought. He chuckled. Damn, was he that hard up for a woman that he was actually considering a dream woman to be real? “I really am pathetic.”

Hoping that he had at least laid out his Tamales wardrobe before he had fallen asleep, Damon yawned as he entered his bedroom. He smiled at the neatly folded blue shirt and olive khakis lying in the midst of rumpled sheets and torn pages from the latest
Black Tail
magazine.

The shiny pages, each featuring a different nude black stripper/ model in various forms of invitation, ringed his Tamales gear, almost like a shrine to his lust. Damon usually bought two copies of each issue, one to keep and the other to play with. He could be frenzied at times in his quest to get off, but he didn't remember tearing through the magazine after work.
But I don't recall laying out my clothes, either.
He shrugged. He was a little off tonight, but he would get back on track once he had a beer in his hand and an ass swinging in his face.

He untied his shoes, pulled off his shirt and socks, and tugged out of his jeans, leaving them all in a heap. Damon also doffed his sticky underwear, holding them with a hooked finger as he put them in the hamper beside his closet. He knew he should take a shower, but he didn't feel like it. He was already behind, and he wanted to get to Tamales and see if he could make amends.

When he reached across the bed, his penis twitched as a glossy image caught his eye. He picked up the picture of the smiling, honey-colored model, her head cocked to the side as the camera captured her from the plump backside. “
Every night
,” Nahema's voice purred, as the image on the page transformed into Noir right before his eyes, a current surging off the page, running down the length of his arm, and squeezing his dick in an electrifying spectral grip. His ejaculation strafed the picture.