“I thought you said everyone called you Jack?”
“Jack?” The giant clutched her chest and threw back her head. Her laugh boomed from her chest shaking the blonde ringlets of hair that had to be a wig. “Oh girl, you must be new to this ride if you think everyone calls Michael, Jack. Is that what you told her? My but you are the devil.”
“So which is it?” I gave the pseudo-groom a shove so hard that he fell off of me and onto the dirty linoleum floor. I pulled myself upward dusting myself off and cursing my self-betraying lady parts. Hadn’t I gotten in enough trouble because of my inability to say no to the lust coursing between my thighs. Now I was in some whorehouse on Jarvis mountain with a killer Mafioso named Joey ‘the Worm’ and his medusa-like daughter Lorraine hunting me down. Jack lay on the floor staring up at me and the tranny.
“It is Jack.” He shot the woman at the door a sharp look. “Madam Asia meet,” Jack paused, in my opinion, for a half beat too long. “Beth”
“Really? For real? You put me in a situation that could end in me losing not just my career but my life and you can barely remember my name?”
“I remember it. I know it. Don’t worry, I won’t ever forget it. The cute florist with the bad dye job,” Jack flashed me his killer grin, obviously trying to charm me back into submission. And, with those eyes and that jawline part of me was definitely willing to be submissive.
“Honey, now you know Mich…uh, Jack.”
I examined Madame Asia more closely. She did look like a close relation to the late Divine or perhaps a player in La Cage Aux Folles. But her make-up was exquisite. Over done, yes, but not one blemish, follicle, or shaving bump showed through and with chest hair like that, you know she had to have a mean-looking beard.
“You aren’t a working girl are you?” Asia surmised my now even dirtier jeans and my t’shirt. Feeling self-conscious I touched my hair, trying to push the flyaways from my face.
“Flowers. I do flowers,” I stammered out. “I don’t do…” I looked past Madam Asia where a gaggle of women had gathered in the hall. All of them had the same make-up artist as Madam Asia and they definitely all shopped at the same store.
“Men,” Madam Asia finished my sentence. “Baby, we do men. And we do them well. Right Jackie?” Asia looked past me. Jack now stood with a sheepish expression on his face.
Jackie? From Michael to Jackie? What was he a regular? Did he have a frequent flyer discount with Spooner the pimp and Madam Asia the tranny?
“So baby, I’m not sure how you got yourself mixed up with this-” Madam Asia paused and gave Jack the once over, “troublemakin’ man. But let me tell you the sooner you get yourself unmixed the better your chances are of living through today.”
Unmixed? Oh but if I could. I felt pretty sure that either the Feds or the Mob or whomever else that Jackie had managed to betray were camped out at both my place of business and my tiny one bedroom apartment.
“Aren’t you supposed to be getting married today?” Madam Asia asked.
“Long story,” Jack said and pulled off the tie that hung loose around his neck and his now dirty tux shirt. “Asia, you got some jeans?”
“Madam Asia doesn’t ever wear jeans,” she sniffed and examined her three-inch long blood red nails.
“Okay, well what about Terrence Meyers? Hmm? You know the guy with the rap-sheet a mile long? Does he have any jeans I could borrow? I need to get out of this polyester-blend monkey suit. I’m starting to itch.”
“Baby, Terrence Meyers is dead. Madam Asia killed him.”
“Fine,” Jack said, “but could I have some of your leftover ‘man’ clothes. You know the ones you wore when you were still Terrence Meyers and not yet Madam Asia?”
Madam Asia took a deep breath and sighed. Jack now stood shirtless in his black tux pants. Neither Madame Asia nor I could force ourselves to look away from this fine looking man. Damn you lustful ladyparts!
“Michael Francis Xavier Jackson, if you didn’t look like a piece of chiseled marble I would have strung you up by now. You know that?”
Jack smiled and ran his hand over his jaw. It seemed by the expression on his face that Jack knew just how far he could push any woman without her saying no or throwing him out of her bed.
“Thank you Asia,” Jack said in his low gravelly voice.
Madam Asia snapped her fingers and turned to the pile of women still standing in the hall. “Tabitha?” A tiny blonde who looked like Tinkerbell sans wings jumped forward. “Go get me some of Terrence’s old jeans and bring them to Jack.”
Tabitha took a long slow look at Jack standing half naked in the room. And really, what woman wouldn’t? All of us gazed at him as though staring at a Godiva chocolate bar after a two-week juice fast.
“Go on girl,” Madam Asia said and gave Tabitha a gentle swat on her tush. She turned her gaze back to Jack “I don’t know where you think you can go. If the Worm is after you, there isn’t no place safe.”
Jack crossed his arms over his chest and his muscles bounced outward. I bit down hard on my lower lip. I hadn’t seen a shirtless man in such close proximity in well over a year. I’d forgotten how they looked. All flexing pectoral muscles and strong arms. I wanted to reach out and gently stroke my hand over his bicep. Just give it a little squeeze.
“Uh, that’s my arm.”
I looked down at my hand that now lay on Jack’s arm, with a firm grip on his bicep muscle. Both Jack and Madam Asia looked at me like all my marbles now rolled around the floor.
“Oh,” I said. “Just…uh. Checking to see if-” What could I say? That I’d lost myself in a state of arousal because after two years without sex you could actually call yourself a virgin again? Lucky for me Tabitha burst back into the room, breathless and holding a pair of jeans. She looked first at Madam Asia and then at Jack.
“Spill it girl,” Madam Asia took the jeans from Tabitha and tossed them to Jack.
“The VIP’s are here.”