Parallelogram : Day Two : Chapter 17
Five Days, Nineteen Hours, Nineteen Minutes
Elbowing her way past the thick-haired tan-skinned bouncer flashing his pectoral muscles under a skin-tight silk tee, Indiri stormed into the Sanction. Dispensing with any courtesy, she ignored the hostess's offer of assistance and marched past the booth, directly into the club. The interior was lit in a dark, pulsing amber. Thick ebony tables, lit with an array of differently colored candles, were all over the floor, surrounded by thick black leather chairs. Most of the patrons were men – men who were immaculately groomed and attired in the best suits money could buy. Scantily clad women – servers – were everywhere, and, despite their blatant lack of material, Indiri was surprised to find the statuesque knock-outs tastefully garbed in outfits that left little – but enough – to the imagination. Each waitress was a bombshell. Each flaunted a desirable waistline and impressive breasts. Scanning the place, Indiri found Iceland Flaherty standing near the bar, the secretary's purse clutched close to her chest. Brushing off a waitress, she strode over to where her assistant waited.
"Where is she?"
Iceland didn't speak. Her lips didn't move save for a momentary twitch. Quickly, she averted her eyes, choosing to stare at the floor instead.
"Iceland," Indiri demanded her attention.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am."
"Don't apologize," she insisted. "You have nothing to apologize for, Iceland, and I want you to understand that, despite what has happened, I'm not mad at you. All I want from you is one simple answer to one simple question."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Where is Ulrika?"
Sheepishly, the bookish woman glanced up at her boss. "I'm so sorry ... but it's too late."
Suddenly, the grinding of guitar music eclipsed the noise of the chattering, flirting, philandering men and the giggling, cajoling, and evasive waitresses. The sound system came alive, and three spotlights immediately curled their massive beams across the Sanction to land on the curtains at the head of the runway in the middle of the club. Briskly, the curtains were drawn back, and there stood Ulrika Von Senden – in all her poised glory – wrapped in only a series of crimson veils, strategically covering all of the private places, and lustrous stiletto boots laced with blood red straps all the way up to her hips.
"Oh, no," Indiri muttered.
"I'm sorry," Iceland replied.
"Please tell me this isn't happening."
"I'm going home," her assistant said. Quickly, she shuffled around her boss and scuttled for the exit.
The music grew in intensity, a slow grinding guitar rhythm – definitely a rock and roll song with a hint of blues. Indiri had heard it before. As a matter of fact, she knew precisely where she had heard it before: Ulrika had played it for her on an MP3 player in the office. It was a little known ZZ Top tune called 'Breakaway' ... and it was perfect was what Indiri guessed was about to happen.
Gripping the long red sash that was slung over both shoulders, Ulrika pranced slowly, methodically, sexily down the runway – a fashion model intent on abandoning the fashion in favor of baring the perfectly shaped gifts great DNA had given her.
"It's a chemical attraction I just can't slide by
Every time I look into my baby's eyes
I'm helpless, so helpless, so I surrender ..."
The model-turned-virtual-stripper draped the long red sash as she walked, reaching the end of the runway and striking a pose in the beams of the crisscrossed spotlights. She stared – with lusty eyes – out across the men in the audience, and she made her first move, throwing her arms up in the air and dropping the sash – throwing it to the stage floor behind her.
"There's a visual attraction and she's branded my soul...
Simply can't deny it, she has control...
I'm helpless, so helpless, so I remember ..."
Slowly, Ulrika raked her fingers through her luscious head of hair, shaking it to the left and to the right in time with the slow pulse of ZZ Top's song. Gracefully, she spun toward one side of the stage, loosing another of her many veils, trailing it toward the runway's edge, until she finally released it in an arched throw at her captivated audience.
Despite her best interests, Indiri had to give the woman credit: she knew precisely what she was doing to capture the hearts and imaginations of the predominantly male crowd.
"She won't let me breakaway...
She won't let me breakaway...
I said break away, yeah, ah yeah..."
Her hips swaying in time to the tune, Ulrika retreated sexily back up the runway, several more of her veils trailing in her wake. She stopped, briefly, and struck another pose, locking eyes with the dark-suited man in the crowd, pointing at him, and slowly blowing him a kiss. He smiled, nodding at her, and then she walked on, allowing the veils to drape more loosely about her torso until several of them slipped away to reveal patches of her perfect porcelain skin. Someone in the audience cheered.
"We were working it though, baby we had a groove
Movin' to the moment when we make our move
But it happened, something happened
And I'm not lying 'bout the pain ..."
Twirling back to the men, Ulrika swung the veils even further away from her perfect body. She was, however, careful not to reveal the most sacred parts of her anatomy. This wasn't about displaying herself to man. This dance – this tease – was about the seduction of innocents, appealing to their most basic instincts, driving them insane with glimpses of something they couldn't have, they couldn't possess. If the model knew anything, she knew that the power-brokering men who populated Washington sought to conquer all, but she wouldn't be a slave to them. The dance – and the titillation – was meant to liberating for her ... not submissive to their desires. She worked her arms, her legs, her hips, her chest, her head, and her body to the tune, and she was obviously pleased as the men started to applaud well before the song and the act were over.
"She won't let me breakaway ...
She won't let me breakaway ...
I said breakaway, yeah, oh yeah ..."
The lights were pulsing almost in unison with every shake of her tempting body. With as seductive a smile as she could find, Ulrika crossed to the end of the runway once more, the veils even more slack, looking less and less like fabric and more like a miraculous mist covering her shape. Indiri couldn't imagine how her prized model managed to keep her feminine essentials from display, but, whatever her trick was, it worked. It worked to perfection.
"I want the answer, I want my stuff ...
I'm dealing with a feeling deeper than love ...
But I'm helpless, so helpless, but I remember ..."
The song rose to its finish now, the last refrain coming from the thumping speakers, and Ulrika took advantage of every thump to grind herself back down the length of the catwalk in the direction of the drapes.
"She keeps saying breakaway ...
Something's saying breakaway ...
Telling me to breakaway ...
Keeps on saying breakaway ..."
As the guitars blared out their final rocking notes, Ulrika daringly went all the way: her back to the audience, she threw her arms up into the air, sending the loose veils raining like exploding fireworks in every conceivable direction, and she only treated the drooling men to the merest glimpse of her perfectly round, taut buttocks and muscular thighs as she slipped offstage and behind the safety of the curtain.
'My, my, my,' Indiri thought as she covered her ears from the deafening cheers of the hungry men. 'How my little girl has grown up.'
After the roar died down, Indiri made her way backstage. The other dancers were crowded around Ulrika. Clearly, they were congratulating her on a performance like no other this evening, and Indiri imagined that no one – not a single one of the professional dancers on the Sanction's payroll – wanted to follow that act. Swimming in the sea of beautiful women, mostly adorned in sequined outfits, the model looked up and found her boss waiting for her. Taking the congratulations in stride, she quickly made her past the gracious dancers and over to where Indiri stood.
"I know what you are going to say," the model shot before Indiri had the chance to offer any words.
"Do you?"
"I only ask that you spare me the curse words."
Pursing her lips, Indiri nodded. "In that case, I have nothing to say ... except let's get the hell out of here."
Outside, the two women walked briskly toward the agent's waiting limousine. Ulrika kept trying to protest, she kept trying to offer up a few words in her own defense that would justify throwing her career away for the sake of one five-minute strip tease – even a five-minute strip tease that legends are made of – but Indiri stopped listened. Instead, she was fuming over the way the evening had ended. A few hours ago, she enjoyed a good meal with a ravishingly handsome man. He had invited her upstairs – or was that her idea? – to a room, and they had made, perhaps, the most passionate love she had experienced in her lifetime. Granted, reality overtook all of her perceptions when she woke to find that he was gone, but, in the ride over to the Sanction, she convinced herself that something had gone wrong. Something must have happened that had called Richard DeMarco away. He wasn't like other men. She was convinced of it. And while she walked quickly toward the waiting car – the driver already had opened the rear door for the two ladies – Indiri kept ticking off a multitude of reasons defending the man she barely knew for doing the unimaginable: he slipped out on her after he had apparently finished with her for the evening.
'There must be something more,' she thought.
"I swear to you, Indiri," Ulrika tried. "I will never, never, ever do anything like this ever again."
'Maybe he received an emergency telephone call,' she continued, oblivious to Ulrika's convictions. 'Maybe a family member had fallen ill ... or maybe his business – what did he do? – maybe there was a crisis.'
"It was impulsive, I know," the model ranted. "And you've always told me that impulsiveness is what my career was lacking. So, in a way, this was your idea!"
'Or maybe ... maybe I was just a fool,' she told herself, her heart sinking in her chest. 'Maybe I was a fool ... living in a fool's paradise.'
"If you give another chance, Indiri," Ulrika offered, "I give you my word that I will never disappoint you in the future."
Nonchalantly, the talent agent stopped outside the limousine. "What?" she asked. "Were you talking to me?"
Ulrika stepped forward, taking her boss into a firm embrace. "I give you my word, my sweet, sweet friend, that I will go wherever it is you tell me to go ... I will pose for whatever magazine it is you tell me to invest my time wit ... I will become a slave to your every command, Indiri, if you will just say that you forgive me."
If she didn't know better, Indiri would've guessed she saw a tear slipping down Ulrika's beautiful face.
Resigned, she nodded.
"You're forgiven," she said. "Now, get in the car."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Ulrika leapt forward, and ...
... and, abruptly, her head rocked backward, snapping violently at the neck. The woman gasped, a guttural sound erupting from her throat, and Ulrika felt the wet splash erupting from Indiri's skull being cracked open by a sniper's bullet.
Watching the model – a vision of perfection – slip to the asphalt in a macabre slow motion, Indiri screamed.
Suddenly, the driver's arms were on her, pushing her, forcing her into the back of the limousine.
"Get down, miss, get down!"
She felt the 'thwack' as her own head struck the top of the doorframe, and the world swirled violently as she fought to remain conscious. As she took in another breath, she heard the explosion of glass as another bullet tore into the car window only inches above her head.
"What the hell ...?"
The driver climbed across her, scampering on all fours over the limousine's cushion, and he slipped over the high seat and dropped behind the wheel of the car. Righting himself as quickly as possible, he turned the keys in the ignition, and Indiri listened as the car's engine roared to life.
Her vision still tumbling wildly out of control, she found her wits enough to cry out, "We're not leaving her!"
Rolling toward the still-open door, she reached out and grabbed Ulrika's leather-clad leg. Ignoring the fact that she could be inflicting any more harm on the model, she pulled with all her might, dragging the now lifeless body up from the street and laying the still form on the rear seat as the driver stomped on the accelerator. The limousine lurched forward, tires screeching in the darkness, and the car howled away into the Washington night.
END of Chapter 17
Five Days, Nineteen Hours, Nineteen Minutes
Elbowing her way past the thick-haired tan-skinned bouncer flashing his pectoral muscles under a skin-tight silk tee, Indiri stormed into the Sanction. Dispensing with any courtesy, she ignored the hostess's offer of assistance and marched past the booth, directly into the club. The interior was lit in a dark, pulsing amber. Thick ebony tables, lit with an array of differently colored candles, were all over the floor, surrounded by thick black leather chairs. Most of the patrons were men – men who were immaculately groomed and attired in the best suits money could buy. Scantily clad women – servers – were everywhere, and, despite their blatant lack of material, Indiri was surprised to find the statuesque knock-outs tastefully garbed in outfits that left little – but enough – to the imagination. Each waitress was a bombshell. Each flaunted a desirable waistline and impressive breasts. Scanning the place, Indiri found Iceland Flaherty standing near the bar, the secretary's purse clutched close to her chest. Brushing off a waitress, she strode over to where her assistant waited.
"Where is she?"
Iceland didn't speak. Her lips didn't move save for a momentary twitch. Quickly, she averted her eyes, choosing to stare at the floor instead.
"Iceland," Indiri demanded her attention.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am."
"Don't apologize," she insisted. "You have nothing to apologize for, Iceland, and I want you to understand that, despite what has happened, I'm not mad at you. All I want from you is one simple answer to one simple question."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Where is Ulrika?"
Sheepishly, the bookish woman glanced up at her boss. "I'm so sorry ... but it's too late."
Suddenly, the grinding of guitar music eclipsed the noise of the chattering, flirting, philandering men and the giggling, cajoling, and evasive waitresses. The sound system came alive, and three spotlights immediately curled their massive beams across the Sanction to land on the curtains at the head of the runway in the middle of the club. Briskly, the curtains were drawn back, and there stood Ulrika Von Senden – in all her poised glory – wrapped in only a series of crimson veils, strategically covering all of the private places, and lustrous stiletto boots laced with blood red straps all the way up to her hips.
"Oh, no," Indiri muttered.
"I'm sorry," Iceland replied.
"Please tell me this isn't happening."
"I'm going home," her assistant said. Quickly, she shuffled around her boss and scuttled for the exit.
The music grew in intensity, a slow grinding guitar rhythm – definitely a rock and roll song with a hint of blues. Indiri had heard it before. As a matter of fact, she knew precisely where she had heard it before: Ulrika had played it for her on an MP3 player in the office. It was a little known ZZ Top tune called 'Breakaway' ... and it was perfect was what Indiri guessed was about to happen.
Gripping the long red sash that was slung over both shoulders, Ulrika pranced slowly, methodically, sexily down the runway – a fashion model intent on abandoning the fashion in favor of baring the perfectly shaped gifts great DNA had given her.
"It's a chemical attraction I just can't slide by
Every time I look into my baby's eyes
I'm helpless, so helpless, so I surrender ..."
The model-turned-virtual-stripper draped the long red sash as she walked, reaching the end of the runway and striking a pose in the beams of the crisscrossed spotlights. She stared – with lusty eyes – out across the men in the audience, and she made her first move, throwing her arms up in the air and dropping the sash – throwing it to the stage floor behind her.
"There's a visual attraction and she's branded my soul...
Simply can't deny it, she has control...
I'm helpless, so helpless, so I remember ..."
Slowly, Ulrika raked her fingers through her luscious head of hair, shaking it to the left and to the right in time with the slow pulse of ZZ Top's song. Gracefully, she spun toward one side of the stage, loosing another of her many veils, trailing it toward the runway's edge, until she finally released it in an arched throw at her captivated audience.
Despite her best interests, Indiri had to give the woman credit: she knew precisely what she was doing to capture the hearts and imaginations of the predominantly male crowd.
"She won't let me breakaway...
She won't let me breakaway...
I said break away, yeah, ah yeah..."
Her hips swaying in time to the tune, Ulrika retreated sexily back up the runway, several more of her veils trailing in her wake. She stopped, briefly, and struck another pose, locking eyes with the dark-suited man in the crowd, pointing at him, and slowly blowing him a kiss. He smiled, nodding at her, and then she walked on, allowing the veils to drape more loosely about her torso until several of them slipped away to reveal patches of her perfect porcelain skin. Someone in the audience cheered.
"We were working it though, baby we had a groove
Movin' to the moment when we make our move
But it happened, something happened
And I'm not lying 'bout the pain ..."
Twirling back to the men, Ulrika swung the veils even further away from her perfect body. She was, however, careful not to reveal the most sacred parts of her anatomy. This wasn't about displaying herself to man. This dance – this tease – was about the seduction of innocents, appealing to their most basic instincts, driving them insane with glimpses of something they couldn't have, they couldn't possess. If the model knew anything, she knew that the power-brokering men who populated Washington sought to conquer all, but she wouldn't be a slave to them. The dance – and the titillation – was meant to liberating for her ... not submissive to their desires. She worked her arms, her legs, her hips, her chest, her head, and her body to the tune, and she was obviously pleased as the men started to applaud well before the song and the act were over.
"She won't let me breakaway ...
She won't let me breakaway ...
I said breakaway, yeah, oh yeah ..."
The lights were pulsing almost in unison with every shake of her tempting body. With as seductive a smile as she could find, Ulrika crossed to the end of the runway once more, the veils even more slack, looking less and less like fabric and more like a miraculous mist covering her shape. Indiri couldn't imagine how her prized model managed to keep her feminine essentials from display, but, whatever her trick was, it worked. It worked to perfection.
"I want the answer, I want my stuff ...
I'm dealing with a feeling deeper than love ...
But I'm helpless, so helpless, but I remember ..."
The song rose to its finish now, the last refrain coming from the thumping speakers, and Ulrika took advantage of every thump to grind herself back down the length of the catwalk in the direction of the drapes.
"She keeps saying breakaway ...
Something's saying breakaway ...
Telling me to breakaway ...
Keeps on saying breakaway ..."
As the guitars blared out their final rocking notes, Ulrika daringly went all the way: her back to the audience, she threw her arms up into the air, sending the loose veils raining like exploding fireworks in every conceivable direction, and she only treated the drooling men to the merest glimpse of her perfectly round, taut buttocks and muscular thighs as she slipped offstage and behind the safety of the curtain.
'My, my, my,' Indiri thought as she covered her ears from the deafening cheers of the hungry men. 'How my little girl has grown up.'
After the roar died down, Indiri made her way backstage. The other dancers were crowded around Ulrika. Clearly, they were congratulating her on a performance like no other this evening, and Indiri imagined that no one – not a single one of the professional dancers on the Sanction's payroll – wanted to follow that act. Swimming in the sea of beautiful women, mostly adorned in sequined outfits, the model looked up and found her boss waiting for her. Taking the congratulations in stride, she quickly made her past the gracious dancers and over to where Indiri stood.
"I know what you are going to say," the model shot before Indiri had the chance to offer any words.
"Do you?"
"I only ask that you spare me the curse words."
Pursing her lips, Indiri nodded. "In that case, I have nothing to say ... except let's get the hell out of here."
Outside, the two women walked briskly toward the agent's waiting limousine. Ulrika kept trying to protest, she kept trying to offer up a few words in her own defense that would justify throwing her career away for the sake of one five-minute strip tease – even a five-minute strip tease that legends are made of – but Indiri stopped listened. Instead, she was fuming over the way the evening had ended. A few hours ago, she enjoyed a good meal with a ravishingly handsome man. He had invited her upstairs – or was that her idea? – to a room, and they had made, perhaps, the most passionate love she had experienced in her lifetime. Granted, reality overtook all of her perceptions when she woke to find that he was gone, but, in the ride over to the Sanction, she convinced herself that something had gone wrong. Something must have happened that had called Richard DeMarco away. He wasn't like other men. She was convinced of it. And while she walked quickly toward the waiting car – the driver already had opened the rear door for the two ladies – Indiri kept ticking off a multitude of reasons defending the man she barely knew for doing the unimaginable: he slipped out on her after he had apparently finished with her for the evening.
'There must be something more,' she thought.
"I swear to you, Indiri," Ulrika tried. "I will never, never, ever do anything like this ever again."
'Maybe he received an emergency telephone call,' she continued, oblivious to Ulrika's convictions. 'Maybe a family member had fallen ill ... or maybe his business – what did he do? – maybe there was a crisis.'
"It was impulsive, I know," the model ranted. "And you've always told me that impulsiveness is what my career was lacking. So, in a way, this was your idea!"
'Or maybe ... maybe I was just a fool,' she told herself, her heart sinking in her chest. 'Maybe I was a fool ... living in a fool's paradise.'
"If you give another chance, Indiri," Ulrika offered, "I give you my word that I will never disappoint you in the future."
Nonchalantly, the talent agent stopped outside the limousine. "What?" she asked. "Were you talking to me?"
Ulrika stepped forward, taking her boss into a firm embrace. "I give you my word, my sweet, sweet friend, that I will go wherever it is you tell me to go ... I will pose for whatever magazine it is you tell me to invest my time wit ... I will become a slave to your every command, Indiri, if you will just say that you forgive me."
If she didn't know better, Indiri would've guessed she saw a tear slipping down Ulrika's beautiful face.
Resigned, she nodded.
"You're forgiven," she said. "Now, get in the car."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Ulrika leapt forward, and ...
... and, abruptly, her head rocked backward, snapping violently at the neck. The woman gasped, a guttural sound erupting from her throat, and Ulrika felt the wet splash erupting from Indiri's skull being cracked open by a sniper's bullet.
Watching the model – a vision of perfection – slip to the asphalt in a macabre slow motion, Indiri screamed.
Suddenly, the driver's arms were on her, pushing her, forcing her into the back of the limousine.
"Get down, miss, get down!"
She felt the 'thwack' as her own head struck the top of the doorframe, and the world swirled violently as she fought to remain conscious. As she took in another breath, she heard the explosion of glass as another bullet tore into the car window only inches above her head.
"What the hell ...?"
The driver climbed across her, scampering on all fours over the limousine's cushion, and he slipped over the high seat and dropped behind the wheel of the car. Righting himself as quickly as possible, he turned the keys in the ignition, and Indiri listened as the car's engine roared to life.
Her vision still tumbling wildly out of control, she found her wits enough to cry out, "We're not leaving her!"
Rolling toward the still-open door, she reached out and grabbed Ulrika's leather-clad leg. Ignoring the fact that she could be inflicting any more harm on the model, she pulled with all her might, dragging the now lifeless body up from the street and laying the still form on the rear seat as the driver stomped on the accelerator. The limousine lurched forward, tires screeching in the darkness, and the car howled away into the Washington night.
END of Chapter 17
