As they walked, she noticed a gallery to their immediate right, several sculptures showing in stark relief. What looked like a good-sized function room was on their left. Her eye for interesting property was curious, and quietly impressed. The place had the feel of an old cinema—a conversion, perhaps.
The auditorium was packed, the atmosphere humming. A bar at the back of the space was five-deep, tables closer to the stage full.
"We better hurry," Marcy urged. "The show's about to start. Our table is reserved."
Abby followed the direction she pointed out, to where one table was vacant.
"How did you get such a good table?"
Marcy lifted the camera on her shoulder. "Press pass. It's an event. I immortalize events." She gave a naughty grin and hurried Abby along.
Muddling through the crowd, Abby scanned for the courier. While they settled a
t their table, she barely had time to glance over the crowd before the lights went down. Tension and expectation were high in the atmosphere, not least in her, but she hadn't honed in on that one particular onlooker she'd hoped to find.
A single spotlight on the stage lit a figure dressed in a black suit and bowler hat, poised in front of a large vaudeville sign painted in lurid neon colors announcing: Cabaret.
The Mistress of Ceremonies bowed. Beneath her suit jacket she wore only a bow tie, her breasts visible as she moved to one corner of the stage, followed by the spotlight.
"Willkommen! It is so nice to be able to see such a fine-looking audience," she extended her hand around the venue and the spotlight following her lead, picking up smiles and the laughter of surprise on its passage across the audience. "We are The Candy Shock Tarts and we hope you enjoy the show. Tonight the girls are beautiful, oh but the girls are beautiful." She growled seductively, drawing more appreciative laugher. "On with the show. Allow me to introduce The Fraulein."
In true cabaret style, The Fraulein was dressed in stockings and suspenders, a bowler hat and bow tie, satin shorts and a corset that molded itself beneath her breasts. She was a vivacious brunette, her make-up emphasizing her big brown eyes and delectable pouting mouth.
She sang her lament which told the audience of her many lovers in the past, summing each up with a witty phrase and a physical gesture that was part dance and part display. She cavorted her way back and forth across the stage to the soundtrack, periodically posing against a bentwood chair to focus the audience on her body in an exotic pose. The theatre troupe had taken the play and stripped it down to the bare essentials, physically and literally, and the audience was on the edge of their seats to take in every delicious detail. The music paused occasionally and the Mistress of Ceremonies would interject the performance with a trumpet blast or a comment.
Marcy loved it, taking candid shots every now and then. She turned to Abby, winking. Abby covered her hand with hers, squeezing her fingers in response. She looked around at the spectators, now as interested in their reactions to the show as to finding that one familiar face. Almost. The onlookers were titillated by the decadent show, it was fun, camp and outrageous and the audience loved it. Still no sign of wolf-smile, but her skin burned up with the notion that he was there. Maybe he'd spotted her. The idea made her heart tick that much faster.
On stage, two female suitors courted the Fraulein. The innocent suitor was a demure redhead, dressed in a sheer white net smock and ballet slippers, her virginal body on display through the light gauze. A strong blonde punk who wore a rubber Nazi uniform played the Playboy suitor, so skin tight that each line of her athletic body was shown off to absolute perfection. She wore a Commandant's hat and toted a riding crop that, by scene two, had already undertaken service on the redhead's perfectly formed and naked buttocks.
The adaptation was a marvelous spoof, giving the women every opportunity to show off their bodies and demonstrate how confident they were about doing so. Abby was already totally engaged with the eroticism of the performance, when in the final scene the punk woman stepped on to the stage wearing nothing but a pair of rubber khaki-colored shorts, storm trooper boots, and a massive strap-on penis. A rush of sheer horniness hit Abby.
A handful of people in the audience clapped while others murmured admiringly to one another. The punk threw a decadent smile out to them, one hand gliding up and down the scandalously large cock she wore. Her nipples were rouged and coned into peaks. The audience responded with more delighted laughter. The punk began to sing about her jealousy of the other suitor. The spotlight followed her as she clicked her boots over to the left-hand side of the stage, where the circle of the spotlight slowly enlarged to reveal the other two women down on the floor of the stage. The Fraulein was hunched over, her breasts hanging free as she knelt between the virgin's thighs, stroking her body through the white gauze. The redhead lay on the floor with her face turned to the audience, her eyes wide, her mouth mimicking a comically shocked open-mouthed gasp.
Another ripple of delighted laughter ran over the audience, the erotic tension heavy in the atmosphere. Abby couldn't hide a kernel of desire to be up there with them, cavorting about and declaring herself as liberated and sexy as they were.
A hush fell over the audience while the crop fell, six times, across the plump satin-covered behind of the Fraulein—who gasped and moaned and wriggled in delight. The punk then threw the crop to one side and knelt down behind the Fraulein. She grabbed her hips and led, as the three women began to simulate a chain-reaction interaction. The punk began to sing: "come to the cabaret, old chum," while she thrust her cock at the Fraulein from behind. The Fraulein bent over the virgin's hips and made loud lapping sounds. The audience adored their outrageous love triangle and showed their appreciation by demanding three encores of the final bows.
Marcy was on her feet as soon as the lights went up. "Come on honey, backstage passes."
Abby shook her head in amazement when Marcy waved the laminated badge at her, her camera ready in the other hand.
She felt flushed and lightheaded—self-aware as the lights went up—following Marcy as she squeezed through a door stage right. They emerged into a hospitality room between the stage and the dressing-room area. A bar ran the length of the room, with trays of champagne, Evian and orange juice. People gathered in tight clusters, chatting and flirting—carrying with them the heady atmosphere of the show. She hadn't seen any sign of Wolf-smile. Was he even here? Her instinct said yes.
Marcy wandered when she saw someone she knew in the crowd. Abby picked up a glass of champagne and looked around expectantly. The champagne was good and she let it fizz on her tongue while her gaze flickered over the crowd around her. She felt the urge to blend in, put the empty glass on the bar and began to edge round, her eyes sucking in all there was to see. A journalist who was doing a piece on the show for a variety magazine asked for a moment of her time as she passed by. Abby gladly stopped and chatted. She was thrilled when he asked her reactions to the show and scribbled her appraisal down enthusiastically. He took her card and promised to send her a copy of the magazine. When he left, she couldn't see Marcy anywhere. Or the sexy courier.
"Come out and play, wherever you are," she murmured to herself as she moved through the crowd.
* * * *
Zac stood with his arms folded across his jacket while he watched Abby on the closed circuit televisions that lined up in the security room. She was there. Was it coincidence? When she wandered toward the backstage area and out of his view, a hankering need to follow took hold of him.
By the time he caught up with her, she'd disappeared into the corridor that led directly onto the stage. She was alone in the space, standing by a table of abandoned props. She looked fabulous, clothed in tight leather pants and a snakeskin top that left her midriff bare.
He paused, observing her appreciatively. As he did, she picked up an object from the table. His eyebrows rose. It was the strap-on cock from the play. He'd been about to announce his presence, but instead stepped back and rested one shoulder against the wall, curious to see what would happen next.
She turned it in her hands, looking at it from all angles. She ran her finger over its head, tracing the ridges, the line of its crown.
He was quickly getting hard. When she put her hand around its girth as if to measure it, he couldn't stifle a quiet laugh. "That's quite a sight."