Сюзанна Бэк - Desert Storm

She was, after all, a woman who believed in using, to the fullest, every asset at her command. And she wasn’t disingenuous enough to overlook the blatant fact that her body was one of her most dangerous, and compelling, assets.

That didn’t mean, however, that she had to enjoy being packed into a dress half the size of a respectable cocktail napkin, but if it got her the results she wanted, the minor sacrifice of her comfort would be a small price to pay.

Gracefully stepping out of the driver’s side, Ianna rose to her full height and twitched the soft fabric of her spaghetti-strap dress into place. Brushing her hair back over her shoulders, she walked around the front of the car and came face to face with a vision in black. Her eyes took the full measure of the taut muscles and sumptuous curves before her, and her lips stretched into a full, awed smile.

“Mmm. That dress on you gives new meaning to the word ‘delicious’.”

Kael smirked. “Save the pick-up lines for someone who gives a shit.”

The priestess laughed. “The body of an angel and the tongue of Satan himself. You are a worthy prize.”

She felt her hand, which she’d raised in an attempt to brush off a stay piece of hair from Kael’s dress, captured in a grip strong enough to crush bone.

“I am no one’s prize,” Kael hissed through a smile dangerous enough to belong to a hunting shark.

“A figure of speech,” Ianna attempted to reassure, her voice and tone as strong as she could manage.

“Remember not to use it again in the future, witch,” the American responded, giving the hand she held one final, strong squeeze before thrusting it away from her.

Instead of answering, Ianna turned away, and rubbed the feeling back into her hand.

Kael started forward, sharp eyes missing nothing. The exterior of their destination resembled hundreds of similar mock-ups of American discotheques scattered liberally around the world, down to the bright neon sign and the long line of people waiting to be noticed. The only thing holding the crowd, beautiful and non, back was a thin velvet rope and a small, bespectacled doorman bookended by two mammoth bouncers who took scowling to an art form.

Smiling, Ianna bypassed the line, stopping before the doorman and bending down to achieve an eye-level conversation with him, showing generous cleavage as an added incentive. “May we pass?” she purred.

He froze in the act of waving her away, his eyes becoming glassy as he stared down the front of her dress.

Catching something in the periphery of his vision, the doorman turned his head slightly. His jaw dropped as he watched Kael stride toward him like a model fresh out of a magazine. The sounds his throat was making were completely unintelligible, but their meaning was crystal clear.

Ianna’s smirk turned into a grin of triumph, and she straightened to her full height, placing slim hands on her shapely hips. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’, then?”

Still gobbling, the man reached out a less than steady hand and unlinked the velvet rope from its support post, allowing the two beautiful women to pass unhindered, to the great displeasure of most of the crowd who had been waiting for hours for just such an invitation.

Immediately upon entering the building, Kael’s ears were assaulted by the heavy bass thump of a disco tune which drilled down into the marrow of her bones and set up residence in the roots of her teeth. She followed the priestess down a short, dimly lit hallway as a gauntlet of men leered at them from along the walls. The men were dressed in nearly identical costumes, from polyester shirts opened almost to the navel, thick gold chains nestled in greater or lesser mats of chest hair, skin tight pants and matching jackets. Thick black hair was greased back in the latest “disco-pompadour” fashion, and crooked, nicotine stained teeth gleamed in the dim lighting. The stench of unwashed bodies beneath cheap cologne would have been enough to drop a team of lathered horses in their tracks.

The American came to an abrupt stop as she felt the rude caress of a hand up the back of her leg. Quicker than thought, she turned, grabbed the offending hand out of thin air, and bent the man’s wrist and fingers back, forcing him to his knees, gasping in pain. Her eyes were glittering diamonds; her smile cruel and cold.

The rest of the men shuffled in embarrassment at the ease with which their compatriot was taken down. The overblown machismo faded from their puffed up bodies like water through a sieve.

“Touch me again, boys,” she purred, voice low and soft and full of menace, “and you die.”

The threat was reinforced by the audible popping of bones as Kael drove the man’s wrist past its breaking point.

The man’s howl of pain was drowned out by the blaring music, but the American knew her point had been well made.

With a final smile, she pushed the panting man back away from her, then turned and started forward again, collecting the staring Ianna with a curt, yet somehow regal, nod.

The narrow hall opened out into a huge, multi-layered room. Directly in front of the two women, though against the opposite wall, was a very tall platform, atop which the DJ looked out like a ruler surveying his kingdom. Below him was the dance floor; a huge rectangular number lifted straight out of Saturday Night Fever, lighted floor tiles and all. The obligatory mirrored disco ball hung down from the high ceiling, reflecting the dancers below in hundreds of split-screen images.

Ignoring the insipid, crushing press of sweaty bodies, Kael made her way to the bar, which was on the third level of the discotheque. “Scotch. Neat.”

As the bartender nodded and bustled away to fix her drink, the American surveyed the rest of the bar. The top was mirrored, and reflected both the glasses hanging above, and the beams of light which shot through the disco in time to the beat of the music.

There were courtesy bowls every two feet or so, only instead of being filled with the usual pub fare of chips and pretzels, these bowls were filled with pills of every description and color of the rainbow. As she watched, hands dug into the myriad of pills like grandma’s Easter candy dish. Uppers and downers in dangerous mixes were all washed down with healthy swigs of alcohol.

Further down the bar, she saw lines of cocaine being cut and snorted through rolled bills or tiny silver spoons.

Nearby, the sweet smell of opium perfumed the air, and in an out of the way corner, a junkie was shooting heroin into an arm vein as her friends urged her on and laughed as she nodded off before she could undo the rigging.

“Oh, very nice,” Ianna murmured as she finally squeezed in beside Kael. After ordering her own drink, she handed Kael’s scotch to her, then turned and surveyed the crowd. “Very nice indeed.”

“What are we looking for?” Kael asked, sipping her drink.

“We’ll know him when we see him.” At the American’s questioning look, she continued. “Women’s fears are much closer to the surface. Easier to bring out. They’re good for a quick fix, as it were. But men … their fears are buried deep, hard to dig up. But the reward is well worth the effort.” Receiving her wine, she smiled and toasted her partner. “Besides, what is it you Americans say? Good things come to those who wait?”

Kael smiled into her drink. “Indeed.”

*******

“There he is,” Kael said softly, with surety, her eyes narrowed and pinned to the dance floor.

Ianna leaned closer, melding her body to the American’s delicious form and following her line of sight. A smile, dark, predatory, and extremely sensual, curved her full lips. “Oh yes,” she whispered, lips just touching the perfect shell of Kael’s ear. “Perfect.”