The pretty clerk in the small boutique flipped the sign in the door from open to closed.
She took Jane's hand and led him back to the dressing room.
She said she had fifteen minutes. He'd never met a woman that he couldn't bring to orgasm in seconds.
As soon as someone he found attractive showed interest, which was often, he would start sizing her up. The set of her hips, the rhythm of her gait gave him all the information he needed.
He knew beforehand the angle of entry and where his hand should go.
Most women would be scandalized to know just how much information he could glean about their bodies and their preferences just by looking at them.
Up against a wall was his favorite position. It had been so since he was a teen. Born out of doing it in close carny quarters. It worked well for him. He liked to keep the act efficient and satisfying for both parties.
32-year old Mademoiselle Belle Poitrine, in English, Miss Beautiful Bosom, a trapeze artist, had been the first woman to seduce him at the age of fifteen. His father had been furious. Not because it was statutory rape but because he felt he was due a stud fee. Mademoiselle obliged by giving Alex Jane regular payments for the services of his son.
Carny folk were indeed different. One could call it a sex-positive culture. There was nothing taboo about sex. Everybody had it with everybody else. It was used to say "hi," "thanks for painting my trailer," or "sorry, I punched your brother." It was completely disconnected from love.
Carny's didn't masturbate. They had sex.
Carny's weren't faithful to each other. Sex with someone else's wife was like borrowing the man's lawnmower; not his toothbrush. Fidelity. That was for marks.
Unlike most frustrated teenagers, Patrick had sex whenever he wanted. Sometimes collecting a fee for dad but mostly because he enjoyed it and it was there. He had the legendary Jane looks of his father combined with the legendary Hayworth looks of his mother. He was irresistible.
So when he met Angela, sex was no big deal. Not to either of them. Carny men and women shared the same attitudes and she came to Jane fully versed in the ways of the flesh.
They were in love and Angela was desperate for a baby, so they married and quickly produced one.
His career as a psychic was taking off and he wound up sleeping with most of his female clients. Lonely well-off women looking to be led were happy to have Patrick Jane as a lover. He didn't charge extra but it was a good customer retention strategy.
Anything that cemented their financial position was fine with Angie and they lived in a loving platonic carny marriage each taking partners at will.
After his family was murdered, his world became a revolving door of women.
Once he joined the CBI, he was careful to keep that life separate from his law enforcement life.
The grieving monk was a more appealing image than the depressed man taking multiple partners to distract himself. Nobody on the team would like that. And he needed maximum sympathy to get his revenge.
This went on for years, four or five times a week. Never seeing the same woman twice. Always sending them off happy.
When he went to Vegas, he was in his element. Cocktail waitresses and showgirls and dealers passed through his doors. Lorelei was just one of many.
The fact that she'd been sent by Red John was bad but the worst of it was what it revealed to Lisbon. She thought Lorelei was special, someone with whom he'd sullied his chaste existence. That the sex meant he had feelings for her. Lisbon didn't know it was quite the opposite.
Of course he had feelings for Lorelei. They had everything in common. Aside from the fact that they'd both been brutalized by Red John, they also viewed sex as enjoyable and meaningless.
Now, he was back working with the FBI with Lisbon by his side.
He knew she wanted more from him. Commitment. Fidelity. Romance. The whole non-carny shebang
Poor Lisbon. She would never understand. Would never accept the ways of a carny marriage.
Love he could give her.
But sex. He couldn't do that. He loved her too much.