Betrayed Chapter 4

"A garment bag?" my lover intoned with a smile. "Sure; no problem."

She hefted the coat and examined the label inside.

"Men's Wearhouse, right?"

"Yeahhhhh," I responded cautiously.

"Perfect!" she chirped. "One garment bag, coming right up."

She gathered the pile together, wadded it up into a compact ball, then stuffed it in her now-empty Capezio bag.

"They'll press it for free," she purred. Then, with a smirk: "I guarantee it."

She carried the bag in one hand and her red sequined evening clutch in the other. She slipped the latter arm through mine. She glanced down at the larger bag, containing my compacted clothes, then back at me, smiling.

"Ritchie will keep this behind the bar for us until it's time to leave. It will be safer there than in here among the vultures. Now, it's time for 'Lisa Layne' to meet her Brave New World, and vice-versa."

I had never been so completely terrified in my life as Dianna and I slinked arm-in-arm through the dressing room door and into the main lounge. I felt a pale imitation of a woman, compared to the one on my arm. Aside from the Annie Lennox number Dana was lip-synching to on stage, you could have heard a pin drop as the crowd beheld us. Then again, I will swear I heard the sound of a few male jaws hitting the floor. The place had gotten crowded in the interim, as Dianna had told me it always did on a Saturday night. Surprisingly, there were a goodly number of genetic females in the audience; in pairs or small clusters, even a larger group gathered around a couple of pushed-together tables.

"The GG's like to see us, too," Dianna revealed. "They eat up the performances and how flawless we look – as long as we don't compete for their men. That larger group is either a birthday or bachelorette party. From here, they will most likely work their way uptown to see a men's strip show."

"Do they ever... " I began haltingly.