“Thanks for what?” Suzanne asked, entering the room without knocking. In other families that could be a cause for death by stoning, but Cher made room next to her, passing Suzanne a third magazine as she continued her search.
“Olivia’s trying to decide if she wants to munch rug, but first she’s looking for cheap sex with a stranger and no strings attached, just to make sure.”
I blushed under Suzanne’s startled gaze and held up a hand. “That’s not true. I’m just…adding a service to my web business that makes it easy for potential visitors to find what they’re looking for when they come to Vegas.”
“How entrepreneurial of you, darlin’,” Suzanne settled next to her daughter and picked up her weekly. “Sex does sell, and it’ll certainly spice up that racketeering thing you have going,” she said, flipping open her magazine. I stared.
“Yeah,” I said slowly, trying to shake off the image of my sister, the mobster. “Anyway, I’m looking for some place kind of illicit. Something that reeks of secrecy and intrigue. One where you have to know a secret password or handshake or something to get in.”
“Well, you’re not going to find it in one of these rags,” Suzanne said, and tossed her magazine aside. I looked at her. “You’re not.” She crossed her legs, flashing lean thighs. “What you want is something exclusive. Invitation only. Like a sex club that meets every so often to masturbate together, or a same-sex meeting.”
I wrinkled my nose. “There’s such a thing?”
She looked at me like I was hopelessly naive. “Honey, there are fringe groups for anything that tickles a human’s fancy, and a few things that shouldn’t. Bondage, bestiality, sometimes both.” I shuddered at that, and Cher let out a horrified squeal. “They don’t advertise because they know society wouldn’t approve. But there’s a whole subculture of people who indulge in fetishes others try not to even imagine.”
“I don’t really want something that…uh, extreme. A little more vanilla. Regular people looking for a good time, but lots of them.”
“Oh, you mean like partner swapping?” That sounded about as vanilla to me as a double-caramel-mocha frappuccino, but before I could say so, Suzanne went on. “What you want is a swingers’ club, though they often have an interview process that takes weeks, and you’ll have to send in a picture as well.”
Interviewing? I thought. To be a sex partner? I began to look through my magazine again. There had to be something else.
“Of course, anyone can register for the yearly swingers’ ball. People from all over the country come to those, and if you belong at a national level you’re automatically allowed in to any local gatherings.”
“How many people?” I asked, angling my head.
“What, at the big balls?” she said, causing Cher to snort. Suzanne arched a brow in her direction, but continued speaking to me. “Thousands. People plan it into their summer vacations the same way they would Disneyland, though here they don’t bring the kids.”
Here, I thought, where they could die wrapped in a stranger’s embrace. It was perfect. Perfectly horrible, I thought, correcting myself, but perfect for the Shadows’ intentions. Joaquin might even see such an event as a mass suicide. Thousands of people putting the metaphorical cup to their mouths, and him on hand, goading them to drink. “That’s it,” I said quietly. “That would be perfect.”
“Really?” Suzanne tilted her head. It made her look younger than her years. “You’d be interested in that?”
I nodded, then quickly added, “For my website, of course. Strictly professional research.”
“Of course,” she said, standing. “Well, you’re in luck. The ball’s this weekend, and this one’s a huge to-do in the swingers’ community, an anniversary of some sort. Troy’s been trying to get me to go for a month now. He says it’ll ‘strengthen our relationship’ and ‘add another dimension to our knowledge of sexuality.’”
Troy was full of shit, but I wasn’t going to say that to Suzanne. I made it a rule to never say anything bad about my friends’ boyfriends until I was sure they were well and truly out of the picture-preferably dead. Or gay. Or both. And while her voice was neutral as she talked about him, Suzanne might still be interested in the little jerk. Though at least she didn’t sound bowled over by the idea.
“Oh, I have an idea,” Cher said, sitting up on the bed so fast
Alarmed, I sat up straight as well. I didn’t want these two anywhere near a place where both Joaquin and the virus promised to be running rampant. “I don’t know if they let you pretend to be someone you’re not,” I said, thinking quick. “They probably ask for social security and health cards and everything down to your latest medical exam.”
“No, they don’t. Troy’s already checked it out,” Suzanne put in, and I thought,
“Some make-believe slut who reminds Olivia of this girl at the gym,” Cher said, and picked up the manual she’d thrown aside. “See?”
“Oh my.” Suzanne clasped her hands in front of her, managing to look startled and dumbfounded all at the same time.
“Isn’t her outfit cool?” Cher said, leaning over so they could both look at the same time.
“Oh. My.”
“Uh…it’s a comic book, Suzanne,” I said, because her expression had suddenly shifted from puzzled to alarmed.
“Y-Yes, but…why?”
She meant why was it here, sullying the posh, urbane feel of her house. I couldn’t fault her. Most people thought they were geeky, but I’d done a lot of reading since becoming a superhero, and I’d found the plots and action to be more engaging than most thrillers. Not to mention they were based on fact. Though I left that part out when explaining this to Suzanne.
It didn’t seem to help. She bit her lip, backing up even further. “But only certain people read those things…and you guys aren’t them.”
“What kind of people?”
Her pretty mouth screwed up with distaste. “Virgins.”
“It’s not an affliction,” I said, leaning back on my palms, amused now.
“And Dawn doesn’t look like a virgin,” Cher pointed out. “I bet if I show up to the swingers’ ball in that get-up I could pop a few cherries.”
“Can you please stop talking about that woman? Here…try this one.” I dug around in my bag until I found a manual of Light, careful to toss it to Cher so I was no longer touching it when she spotted it. I didn’t need laser beams spilling out from the pages and blowing my supercover.
“
“She’s more than hot,” I said, unreasonably miffed that Cher should prefer Dawn over Vanessa. I still felt loyalty toward the agents of Light, and still saw myself as part of that troop…even if I was the only one. “She’s tough and she’s kind, and she has the coolest condu-er, weapon out of almost anyone. You should dress up like her.”
“You really read these things?” Suzanne asked me, bending over Cher’s shoulder.
“They’re pretty good, Momma,” Cher said, saving me for answering. She held out the manual to her mother. “Here, try one.”
Suzanne drew back, looking from Cher to me as if we were patients in a psychiatric ward. “You know,” she said, backing away from the bed, “come to think of it, I bet a day trip to a nice little sex club would do us all some good. Olivia, you in?”
I thought about it, still not liking the idea of them accompanying me, but at least I’d be around to help if anyone tried to murder, infect, or draw them into a threesome. It looked like Troy had already planted the seed, as it were, anyway. And now that I thought of it, if Troy was so interested in sampling other people’s partners, what’s to say he wasn’t already a carrier? I could keep an eye on him, as well as my friends, plus have a pretty good cover for attending in the first place. There was power in numbers, as they say, and this time the power happened to be anonymity. Just what I needed. “Sure, I’m in.”
