It Had to be You Read online

  The dress is cut straight across the tops of her breasts, and would have had nothing to display if I had allowed Alice to bind them. As it is, the fit, while flattening Lena’s natural curves somewhat, has more than made up for it by the resultant mouthwatering cleavage shoved above the neckline.

  The rest of the ankle length dress hangs straight. The center, however, is cut up to just below the knees in a slightly M-shaped hemline that is partially filled with fringe to give it additional flare. The straps keeping the dress up are formed by sheer panels of inverted V-shaped fabric. And a series of little eighth-inch ribbons wrap the entire length of her left arm, connecting another sheer, spider-web type contraption sewn into the side seam of the gown.

  “Raise your arm,” I instruct.

  Lena sweeps it up and to the side with a theatrical flourish, displaying an abbreviated one-sided butterfly effect.

  “Ho-ly shit,” I whisper and bend for the folder to set it back on my lap. “You look absolutely—” Good enough to eat. Downright juicy “—gorgeous.”

  She beams at me. “Isn’t it the prettiest?”

  “The dress is stunning,” I agree. “You did a grand job selecting it. But Lena, it’s you. You are the one who makes the dress. Not visa versa.”

  “I heartily concur,” Alice says. “And Mr. Jameson, you were correct in not binding her. Lena’s natural curves in the straight lines of this dress are a refreshing change from the boyish silhouette so prevalent today. She looks very womanly without appearing the least bit trashy.”

  “Yes. Well stated, Alice—that is exactly the look I was going for.” I smile at the tailor and sit back. “So, what’s next?”

  14

  susan andersen

  Smoldering like a banked fire

  LENA

  With each new gown I try on, it becomes a little harder to walk out into the alcove and parade it in front of Booker. If I were a gold digger, this would be one of the best days of my life.

  I muffle a snort. Who am I fooling? This is a darn fine day, regardless. I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. To make myself believe all these gowns, each one of which seems even more impossibly beautiful than the one before, are going to be mine.

  I never owned a single piece of clothing that wasn’t a hand me down before I left the B of C foundling home. For the longest time after, it still remained a rare day I could afford to buy anything new. And when I did manage to save up the funds, it was a single ready-made purchase at a time, unless I was buying staples like soap or toothpaste.

  It never occurred to me to expect more.

  Over the years, I’ve studied other singers I admire. And one of the things that’s jumped out at me from the beginning is how each one has her own style. Not merely their singing style; they all seemed to have their own fashion—oh, beans, what, what, what is the French word the fashion writers like to use?—panache as well. I watched the way their selections helped set them apart. How it imbued a status that drew the audience’s attention.

  It took me a while to find what worked for me. Having grown up with the austere uniforms of the Blood of Christ, I had a heck of a time with the first few dresses I was handed to wear onstage. I will never forget the very first one. It was a cheap, used gown cut low on top and high on the hem. Having spent most of my life up until then covered from neck to ankle, I broke out in horrid red blotches upon seeing myself in the mirror. Then I used so much powder trying to cover the redness up, I could barely sing that night for inhaling the clouds of talc it put into the air every time I moved. But when I protested to the manager after the show, I was told to take it or leave it, because my choices were simple. I could wear the gown, or I could look for a new job.

  I love to sing—and even more to eat—so I wore the gown.

  Breaking into this business is a huge, on-going learning experience, but luckily I have always liked learning new things. The lesson that paid off the most was giving in to the spirit of a tune. I came to understand each song needs adjustments, because the emotional tone of music changes between one melody and the next. And each tone calls for a different...presentation, I believe the word is, which also varies from song to song. I get to play a wide range of roles onstage, depending on what I sing. Roles that range from earthy, to vamp, to angel, to tease. Every single one has the ability to take me out of myself. I love that.

  Up until now, I had exactly two stage-worthy dresses of my own to play all the different roles. Still, sewing is something we did a lot of in the foundling home, so while I have rarely been able to afford enough fabric for a dress, I can almost always find remnants on the cheap. From those, I’ve made a variety of accessories to change things up. To give the gowns different looks that add believability to each role. Over the seven years I’ve been doing this I have gotten pretty darn good at making my two gowns—three, after last year at the Tropic—do the work of ten.

  Now here I am, about to be the proud owner of not one, not two, but five brand new gowns! New is not a word I get to use often. And that doesn’t take into account the sheer number of accessories Alice keeps pulling from her never ending stacks of boxes. She has affixed fancy little hair bands and cloches on my head, has tugged long, silky gloves up my arms. She’s attached jewelry to my ears and around my neck and wrists. All to demonstrate to Booker how the pieces complete the look of the gown of the moment.

  And he keeps giving the majority of them the nod.

  So, yes, this is far beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

  Yet, thrilled as I am with all this bounty, Booker is turning me into a nervous wreck. Okay, not a wreck, precisely. And nervous isn’t the correct word I’m searching for, either.

  But I know this much. Booker is making me edgy. Aware. God, so aware. Of what exactly, I’m not quite sure. But I am definitely aware of him.

  Maybe it’s because he’s dressed less formally than usual. Instead of his usual bespoke suits, today Booker has on a white collarless shirt, tweed slacks and suspenders. And his shirtsleeves are rolled up. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by the sight of his strong forearms and hands, but they definitely have my steadfast attention. Maybe it has to do with the way the former is feathered with dark hair. He usually looks elegant and sophisticated. Today he looks... Rugged. Physically competent. And, oh, my.

  So darn male.

  It’s likely this virility that has me on edge. And it was made worse the last time I came out by the way he crossed his hands behind his head, his elbows and strong thighs spread wide as he leaned back in that undersized chair they’ve put him on. Well, that male display in addition to the fact there is simply something about the way he sits there looking me over every time I model a new gown. Something unnerving—and a little bit titillating. Because, that look.

  I swear, it’s as if he’s The Sheik and I’m the fair Englishwoman he’s contemplating sweeping onto his horse and spiriting away to his tribal home in the desert.

  “Oh, for gosh sake, Lena!” I mutter under my breath—and beneath the tenting of the gown currently covering my head while Alice cautiously maneuvers its skirt down my body. “Can you be any more fanciful?”

  “What’s that, miss?” Alice asks around the pins in her mouth as she clears the fabric from my face. Plucking them from her lips, she returns them to their nearly empty little case. They are all that is left after she used the rest for the two adjustments Booker asked her to make in this gown.

  Or, more like decreed. Which plays into this stupid, yet nevertheless persistent, Sheik imagery playing in my head. But not nearly as much as the manner in which Booker has been smoldering like a fire banked, yet still a long, long way from extinguished.

  “Oh, for—” I fling these silly thoughts aside as Alice lowers the rest of the dress into place. “It was nothing really,” I reply. “Sorry, I’m just talking to myself.” I shake my head. “I’m afraid I do that far too often.”

  Alice’s face lights up. “As do I! When someone catches me at it,
I simply admit to what I’ve done, then say it was a mighty fine conversation.”

  A tickled laugh bursts from my throat and I beam at the other woman in delight. “Oh, I will have to remember that the next time someone catches me having a ‘mighty fine conversation’ with myself.”

  Over the course of my appointment here, Booker has put the kibosh on two of the dresses I selected ahead of time. Or I guess one and a half would be a more accurate description at this point. The first was a pale pink number I’d chosen, which he pronounced an unflattering shade that washed me out. The current gown, whose fit Alice is carefully adjusting so as not to prick me where she’s pinned it, is the last of the extras she originally included. Booker vetoed it as well, then changed his mind and asked her for these adjustments and to show him again. After a moment of fluffing and straightening its fit here and there, she sends me out again.

  I walk right into that look again. His gaze covers me from neck to ankle, then slowly climbs back up again, pausing on some exceedingly personal territory on its way. When it reaches my face, he shakes his head. “No.”

  Just no. I blow out an exasperated breath and stalk back into the dressing room. Where I close the door behind me perhaps a little harder than I needed to.

  Alice helps me out of it again and hangs it on the door hook. Then she gathers the final dress, the one she made a special trip to collect after telling Booker she thought she had something he would very much like in light of the direction he has taken us this afternoon.

  She stoops to pool the hem of the gown’s short train on the floor in front of me and lowers the skirt portion atop it. Keeping hold of the bodice’s short sleeves and a couple straps whose use I can’t quite figure out, she manages to further drop the gown enough for me to step into the space she arranged in the middle without treading on the fabric. Somehow, she simultaneously prevents the entire gown from forming a big black and tan puddle atop the dressing room carpet.

  Once she has me lined up with the way she’s lain everything out, she slowly works the dress up my body. The first stop is at my waist, which it turns out has a cunningly disguised side zipper where the gown’s black bodice meets its golden-tan, sparsely patterned skirt. When she zips it up, it fits my hips like a glove before flowing to the floor in a widening A shape that rounds into a small train in the back. The black top has a fairly modest V in front once the sides are wrapped first across one breast and tied at the waist on the opposite side, then repeated on the other. It gaps a bit until Alice lifts the two black straps I wondered about. They attach to either side of the neckline, and Alice crisscrosses them over my chest, then lays them over my shoulders. Moving behind me, she crosses them again and fastens each band to the opposite side of the deep V in back. She also fastens a thin beaded chain across the widest, upper portion of the V.

  Then she turns me toward the narrow full length mirror behind me.

  “Oh.” I stare at my reflection. “Oh, my!”

  In all honesty, this dress probably has more fabric than most of those I’ve tried on today. It has short fluttery sleeves, the V in front isn’t all that deep and it contains no sheer illusion fabric to show my legs from my ankles to above my knees like in the gold dress Booker approved.

  And yet...

  My God. And yet. “Oh, my,” I whisper again.

  “Wait here a moment,” Alice whispers back and steps out of the dressing room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  “Mr. Jameson,” I hear her say. “Before I have Lena step out, I would just like to say this dress is quite different from the rest we have had her model today. It is not, perhaps, as up-to-date as the rest. Or perhaps it’s the vanguard of the next big thing—I’m not really certain. All I know is, it hasn’t been our biggest seller precisely because it isn’t in the boyish style currently so popular. I, of course, believe that is the very thing you will like about it.” Alice raises her voice. “Lena? Come out, please.”

  Taking a final look at myself in the mirror, I raise my chin, then turn around.

  And darned if I don’t throw a little extra swing in my hips as I saunter into the alcove.

  15

  susan andersen

  She could bring one of those eunuchs to his knees

  BOOKER

  Lena strolls out of the dressing room and my heart stops. The damn thing literally stops—I am ninety-damn-nine percent sure of it—before picking up again at an elevated rate.

  “Fuuuck,” I breathe, then glance guiltily at the women. Luckily, neither appears to have heard me. But Christ on a cracker. That gown, on that body...?

  I am pretty sure it could bring one of those eunuchs I’ve read about in the Orient to his knees. Couldn’t elicit an erection out of the poor buggers, since they’ve been uniformly castrated. But in all other ways, I’m betting Lena would have them at her feet.

  The front of her gown by all accounts should appear modest. And yet the slight V between Lena’s breasts displays a hint of their inside curves. Then there are the narrow black straps, contrasting starkly against her pale skin as they rise out of the wrapped front to bisect her breasts’ gentle upper curves, as well as the sweep of her chest and delicate collarbones. And nothing can disguise the fact those beautiful breasts are unrestrained beneath the top, not one damn millimeter of them constricted by artificial means.

  Then there’s her hips. I draw a loop in the air with my index finger. “Turn in a circle for me.” I lick my bottom lip and my voice involuntarily drops to a lower register when I add, “Slowly.”

  She does and I suck in a breath. The back of her gown is all but nonexistent. The long, smooth trench of her spine points the way to hips and an ass that take my breath away. Both are deliciously rounded, a fact highlighted by curve hugging fabric and the stylistic leaf-like patterns curving over portions of them. There is also some zig-zag border thing going on that frames the splendid anatomy and the occasional black diamond shape in the soft folds draping to the floor from where the material widens beneath her butt. But while I’m sure the additional flourishes add to the total appeal, I don’t give them more than a cursory glance except for where they emphasize Lena’s curves.

  I have only done this gown thing for two other singers, and then only allotted two dresses each, since the rise in business wasn’t as remarkable as it has been with Lena. Okay, maybe the fact Lena has been given damn few, if any, pretties in her life factored in to my decision. But only by one gown. Maybe two.

  The point is, I sat in on the other singers’ fittings as well. It’s just good business. I know what I want for my club and the best way to get it is to direct it from start to finish.

  But this is the only time I have ever sat shifting in my chair, hiding a damn hard-on at every little glimpse of skin. Every womanly curve. How the hell has my control been reduced to the level of a fourteen-year-old boy’s?

  “This one definitely,” I say and wave Lena back to the dressing room. Not until the door clicks shut behind her, do I draw a full breath. My brain is not currently firing on all cylinders, but I know one thing for sure. Come hell or high water, I am getting Lena back.

  Back in my life.

  In my bed.

  16

  susan andersen

  We thought the joint was on fire!

  BOOKER

  Lena’s final fitting was yesterday and the department store just delivered the dresses to my office. As the delivery man walks away, I spot Roger, one of my stage crew, passing by and call out.

  He sticks his head in the doorway. “What can I do fer ya, boss?”

  Roger is a big, burly fella and I indicate the large, bulky package sitting on my desk. “This just came for Lola. Take it to her dressing room for me, will you?”

  “Sure thing.” He swings the awkwardly shaped if not particularly heavy package up to balance atop his beefy shoulder and heads out. Figuring that’s that, I’m displeased to discover I can’t seem to settle down. The numbers on the ledger page in front of me just look like so
many squiggles. After a few minutes tick by with no improvement, I head toward Lena’s dressing room as well, berating myself all the way.

  I’m losing my edge. Here I had another golden opportunity to present myself to Lena in a positive light. And what did I do instead? Sent Roger to deliver her gowns instead of taking them to her myself! “You’re not exactly genius material, Jameson,” I mutter as I charge down the hall. Maybe I should have attended university after all.

  I’m approaching the corner where my hallway T’s with the corridor hosting the dressing rooms when I hear Lena yelling the Brasher girls’ names. Poking my head around the wall, I see her running down the hallway. I grin, both at her enthusiasm and because she runs like a girl, all legs and coltish technique, her arms and hands inefficiently flailing. She is still shouting Clara and Dot’s names in urgent tones as she directs them to “Come on, come on, get out here!”

  They do, but probably not in the manner Lena expects. They bolt out into the hallway though their dressing room door. Both women are wild-eyed as they jerkily try to look everywhere at once to get a take on their surroundings.

  When they find the passage empty—and threat free, I’d wager—Dot stops dead. Hands on her hips, foot tapping an impatient, rapid tattoo, she hones in on her friend. “What the hell, Lena? We thought the joint was on fire!”

  “No, that would be me! One look at me tonight in one of my new gowns and the audience is gonna be running for the fire extinguishers to make sure I don’t go up in flames, I’ll look so hot!”

  I can hear the laughter, the pure joy, in her voice. It makes something warm and satisfied expand in my chest, just like it did the night she had drinks with me at my table. Her open joy with me then, simply because I had supported the change in her song she’d been damn right in wanting, had been a treat to see. And there had been something moving about her pure delight with Dot and Clara’s dancing and the band and the proposed poster and—well, bloody near everything, really.