Claudine by Barbara Palmer

dildo as it popped out. “You’ve really got me going,” Frankie said huskily. “But now I need my man.”
    She moved out of the way while Frankie straddled Tyrell on the divan. He toyed with her dark ringlets, her tits and the nest of wiry black hair at her pubis. The animal in him took over for real this time. With few more preliminaries than that he pushed her on her back, pinned her arms above her head, and pushed into her. She gasped. Their bellies slapped together. After a moment, he flipped her around, pressed her head into the divan so that her tush was up in the air. He screwed her noisily from behind, his arms, abs and chest glistening with the sweat of his efforts. His wife grunted with each of his powerful thrusts, and as he came, she collapsed beneath him with a loud cry. She lay underneath her husband, his arms and legs entwined around her body. He nuzzled her and rubbed his cheek on hers.
    Claudine blew them a kiss good-bye, scooped the red frock coat off the floor and Andrei, waiting in the wings, draped it around her shoulders, ready to escort her back to her dressing room.
    She got a rush out of knowing her most intimate moments were shared with strangers. In a few weeks if she recalled Frankie and Tyrell at all, it would be indistinctly. It was best not to remember faces in her business. Call it professional forgetting. Clients didn’t want their faces remembered. They hoped to be forgotten; that was the whole point. Sex without obligation was exhilarating. Soon, the faces of the tiger and his pale, black-haired wife would fade. That’s what she loved about it. The heat of the moment dissolving to blissful forgetfulness.
    But what of Frankie’s compliment about her feather brand? An innocent remark or did it have a deeper meaning? She banished the thought as soon as it arose. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up paranoid, imagining every new customer an enemy.
    M aria and Andrei found Lillian curled up on the cot in the dressing room, asleep. Lillian’s petite, compact little body was perfectly relaxed: her mouth was slightly open, and her tiny, strong hands were tucked under her cheek. In sleep, she looked younger than her years.
    Lillian had left her family in the Philippines at the age of eighteen, newly married to her cousin. She was the sacrificial lamb, earning money in America as a makeup artist to keep her parents, siblings, in-laws—fifteen people altogether—alive. She saw her husband once every three years when she went back home. He had another woman there with whom he’d fatheredthree children. Lillian’s parents insisted on her marriage to bond her more closely to the family, the strings that kept her attached, crucial for their survival. That was the difference between Maria and Lillian. Lillian accepted her bonds; Maria refused to be tied down.
    Her eyes lit on a white envelope with her name typed upon it, propped against the mirror on the dressing room table beside a white gardenia, a bow tied to its stem. She picked up the envelope and tore open the flap. Inside, on a simple piece of notepaper, were the words: This flower is one of many but you are the finest of them all. Irreplaceable to me. A gift awaits.
    She thought immediately of Reed. It was the kind of gesture he’d make although she doubted he’d use such stilted language. But why did he think it necessary to flatter her anymore? And how on earth did he know where she was?
    She woke Lillian gently. “All done. Time to go back to the hotel.” Maria gestured to the table. “This note and the flower—who brought them?”
    Lillian sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “One of the waiters from the lounge. He didn’t get the name.”
    She picked up the flower and inhaled in its pungent scent. Likely one of the customers from tonight, too shy to meet her face-to-face. It was a sweet gesture.
    While Lillian packed up their cases, Maria dressed in her street clothes and Andrei called down to the limo driver. In