The Harlequin   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

«Where's the other car?»

«I had Micah drop me off, so he'll have the car if he needs it. I knew you'd drive me home.»

It made sense. I turned on the car so the heater would start working. I finally realized it was a little chilly. My anger had kept me warm even with my coat flapping open. «What do you mean, Arnet came to the club?»

«She paid to have a private dance.»

I stared at him. «She did what?»

Detective Jessica Arnet worked on the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, RPIT for short. It was the branch of local police that I worked with the most. I'd known she had a crush on Nathaniel, but I'd been so busy trying not to admit that I was living with a stripper that I'd kept him too much a secret. Until I brought him as a date to a wedding that Arnet was at. Then the secret was out, and she was mad at me for not telling her we were an item sooner. She seemed to feel like I'd let her make a fool of herself. She hadn't made a fool of herself, but she had come to Guilty Pleasures for the first time that one night that Nathaniel got me on stage. She was now convinced that I was abusing Nathaniel. Chain someone up on stage and hit them with a flogger a few times, and people think you're abusing them. Of course, the flogger had been Nathaniel and Jean-Claude's idea. A part of Nathaniel's regular show, apparently. What I'd done next had been all me, and Nathaniel. I had marked him, bitten him hard enough to bleed him, on stage. It had been the first time I'd voluntarily marked him like that, not just because the ardeur got out of control, but because he liked it, and I liked it, and I'd promised.

Arnet was convinced that I was Madame de Sade and Nathaniel was my victim. I'd tried explaining that Nathaniel was only a victim when he wanted to be, but she hadn't bought it. I'd been convinced she would tell the other cops and out me, badly. Living with a twenty-year-old stripper with juvenile arrests for prostitution was bad enough, but getting on stage myself, well, that would have been… oh, hell, bad.

«How private a dance did she get?»

He grinned. «Are you jealous?»

I thought about it for a second, then had to say, «Yeah, I guess so.»

«That's so sweet,» he said.

«Just tell me about Arnet.»

«She didn't want the dance. She wanted to talk.» He seemed to think about it for a second, then added, «Okay, she wanted the dance, a lot, but she was too uncomfortable with me to ask for what she wanted. We just talked.»

«About?» I said.

«She tried to get me to admit that you were abusing me. She wanted me to leave you and save myself.»

«Why didn't you tell me?»

«You were already worried about Arnet telling Zerbrowski and the other cops what she'd seen. You were in the middle of some messy murder investigation. I didn't figure you needed the hassle, and I handled it.»

«Has she been back?»

He shook his head.

«Tell me next time, okay?»

«If you want.»

«I want.»

«She can't tell on you, because she'd be afraid you'd tell them that she has a thing for your stripper boyfriend. She doesn't want to admit that what bothered her the most about the show you and I did is that she liked it.»

«I didn't think Arnet swung that way,» I said.

«Neither did she.»

I looked at him, studied that face. There was a look on it now. «Just say it, the look in your eyes, just say it.»

«You hate most in others what you don't like in yourself.»

«Huh.»

«What?»

«I thought something almost identical to that earlier tonight.»

«What about?»

I shook my head. «Do you really think giving Greg and his girlfriend a stage name for me will keep them from making the connection to Anita Blake?»

«Yeah, I do. They'll think of you as a stripper named Nicky and that's it. You won't be anything or any more to them than that.»

«Strangely disturbing, but why Nicky, why that name?»

«Because I knew I'd remember it.»

«Remember it, why?»

«Because it was my name when I did porn.»

I blinked at him. «What?»

«Nicky Brandon is the name I used when I did movies.»

I did the long blink, the one that meant I was thinking hard, or too surprised to think. «You gave me your pornography name?»

«Half of it,» he said.

I didn't know what to say. Was I supposed to be flattered, or insulted? «I declare this fight over until I figure out if we're actually fighting.»

«Trust me, Anita, this isn't a fight.»

«Then how come I'm angry?»

«Let's see: there's some bad vamps in town messing with us, you always hate it when fans recognize Brandon the stripper, but tonight, for the first time, you got recognized from the one time you went on stage. If you're embarrassed by my job, you're even more embarrassed that anyone would think you could be a stripper.»

«I'm not embarrassed about your job.»

«Yeah, you are,» he said.

I started the car. «I am not.»

«Then next time you introduce me to your friends, don't call me a dancer, call me an exotic dancer.»

I opened my mouth, closed it, and started backing up. I wouldn't do it. He was right. I'd keep introducing him as simply a dancer. «Do you want me to introduce you like that?»

«No, but I want you not to be ashamed of what I do.»

«I'm not ashamed of you, or your job.»

«Fine, have it your way.» But his tone said clearly that he was letting me win, but that I was wrong, and hadn't won anything. I hated when he did that. He just stopped fighting in the middle of the fight, not because he'd lost, but just because he didn't want to fight anymore. How do you fight with someone who won't fight? Answer: you don't.

The real trouble was, he was right. I was embarrassed about his job. I shouldn't have been, but I was. When he was a teenager, he'd been a runaway, and a prostitute, and on drugs. He'd been off drugs for nearly four years. He'd been out of «the life» since he was sixteen. He'd done porn, and I knew that. But I didn't dwell on it. I assumed he'd stopped doing the movies about the same time he stopped hooking, but I wasn't sure of that. I hadn't really asked, had I? He was a wereleopard, which meant he couldn't catch any sexually transmitted disease. That helped me ignore his past. The lycanthropy killed everything that could injure the host body; it kept him healthy. It made it so that I could pretend he hadn't had more sexual partners than I wanted to know about.

I was trapped at the light across from St. Louis Bread Company when I said, «Want to hear what Jean-Claude told me about the mask?»

«If you want to tell me.» He sounded mad.