AXEL

I’d never been to a fashion show before. This one, I gathered, wasn’t the norm, but I couldn’t tell you what was. The show was in a funky modern theater space where the audience sat in four banks of seats around a central stage with a long runway from backstage that kept going on the other side. The backstage area was complete chaos, as five different designers each worked to get dozens of models ready. Makeup, clothes, accessories, shoes. And this was only the dress rehearsal.

The vast majority of the models were women, and most of the designers, too, which made sense since this was all a fundraiser for that group Christina was always going on about, Women in Empowered Media or whatever it was called.

Sakura hustled me into one section of the backstage area that was divided from the others by two rolling racks hung with outfits and costumes and a row of folding chairs. “Diff! Dara!” she yelled to two people talking to another designer a few sections over.

The woman, Dara, was tall with spiked platinum blond hair except for the parts where it was long and jet-black. Her eyes were heavily lined in black, and she was dressed simply, in a plain black T-shirt, yoga pants, and slip-on shoes. “This the rock star you said was coming over?”

“Axel Hawke,” I said, holding out my hand.

Dara shook it. “Dara, and this is Diff.” She turned but her partner hadn’t followed her. “Diff! Get your ass over here!”

The guy hurried over, waving good-bye to someone he’d been talking to as he tiptoe-ran the agility test of chairs and people. He had a measuring tape over his shoulders. Like Dara he had short blond spikes in his hair, but they were softer, possibly more natural, and he was also in a plain black shirt, black jeans, and Doc Martens. “Diff,” he said as he shook my hand. Then to Dara, “Who’s this again?”

“Sakura’s pet rock star,” Dara drawled.

“Ooh. Well.” He kissed the back of my hand then and bowed and I laughed. That was my shtick! “Welcome to our humble duchy.”

“I won’t get in the way, I promise.”

“Sure you won’t,” Dara said with a sigh. “Sakura, we’re done fitting you for now. Just don’t go far.”

“We’ll stay right here. Axel brought this.” She pointed to the pizza box I’d set on a chair. “Want some?”

Dara’s expression brightened. “God, yes. Axel, you’re a sweetheart.”

Apparently the way to a fussy fetish fashion designer’s heart was through melted cheese.

After we’d eaten, Dara and Diff went off to discuss tech requirements with the venue and Sakura and I talked. I told her all about the party at the Governor’s Mansion. Well, maybe not all, but pretty close to it. I wouldn’t have if she and Ricki weren’t so close.

“What am I doing wrong? If I come on strong we go straight to D/s sex. If I don’t, she doesn’t even deign to notice I exist.”

Sakura didn’t have a lot of advice to give me. “Maybe it’s not you,” she said. “Maybe it’s something she’s got to figure out for herself.”

“Any idea what?”

“No. But if I had to make a guess, maybe it’s not that easy to be the third generation of kinkster in a family that’s made a tradition of it?”

“I suppose that’s possible.”

Dara came and sat in the chair next to Sakura, while Diff sat down next to me. “Hey, Axel, question for you,” Dara said.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Nothing, why? Should I come see the fashion show?”

She twirled the end of a jet-black lock of hair around her finger. “Well, we’re having a little bit of a problem, which is that our male model got the flu, and the thing we want to do, it takes a while to get into, so we can’t just grab one of the other guys off the runway.”

“And you look like you’re probably a similar size to him,” Diff added.

“You’re asking me if I’ll be in your show?”

“It’ll be the hit of the night,” Diff said excitedly. “We’re the last in the show, and you’ll be like a finale. Plus, you know, your image.”

“My image?” I asked. I knew what he was talking about: the album cover, the Details spread; this would be one more thing that said “edgy-sexy.” But I wanted to see what he would say.

“We need a bad boy,” he said, and I swear he added a little flirty pout to it when he said it. “We need … you.”

I grinned. He knew how to get me. “What do I have to do?”

“We dress you, and when the time comes you walk,” Dara said. “Come with me and I’ll show you the route.”

“One condition,” I said. “There’s music while the walking is going on, right? You have to use one of my band’s songs.”

Sakura burst out laughing. “They already are! Christina made us promise to.”

“Great! Oh, you know, I kind of promised her I wouldn’t do anything without her approving it first. But I’m sure she’ll agree, don’t you think? This is her organization’s fundraiser, after all.” There, I had just convinced myself my manager would agree. “Okay, it’s a deal. Show me where I’m going.”

“Excellent. Welcome to the Dare 2B Diff crew,” Dara said. “I’ll show you the stage—”

“How about you let me measure him first, so I can get started while you do that,” Diff said.

“Oh, all right. I’ll come back and get him in a minute.”

Diff hopped up then and asked me to step onto a small riser. “Off with this, rock star,” he said, flicking at my shirt.

Gay men do this thing around me, trying to see if it’ll freak me out if they flirt.

It doesn’t. “No problem.” I stripped to the waist and stood there, feeling glad I did that abs workout at Mal’s every day this week. “I can lose the pants, too, if you want, but fair warning, I’m not wearing anything under them.”

“To quote George Takei, ‘oh my,’ ” Diff said. “Glad to know you’re not shy.”

“It’s a rock star’s job not to be.” I wasn’t even joking.

“Ahem.” He hesitated. “Just hitch ’em down a little so I can get your hip measurement.”

Another woman, one of the models, came in and sat down at the makeup table, getting a nice eyeful of my torso before she turned her attention to touching up her mascara.

When Diff was done measuring me, he left me and Sakura there for a bit. “You are too much,” Sakura said with a chuckle.

“Too much what?”

“I’ve never seen Diff blush like that before.”

“You don’t think my abs are blush-worthy?” I asked, looking down at them as if to check.

She whapped me on my bare belly. “Yep. Better put a shirt on before you make anyone faint.”

The titters of the model sitting behind us made me glad someone knew we were joking.

RICKI

Monday morning hit hard. I was nearly late for a crucial meeting, then at the meeting I promised to turn a report in by lunchtime but then my phone would not stop ringing, and when it did colleagues were sticking their heads into my office to talk. The last thing I had time for was sex-life drama.

But when I saw I had a text from Sakura, I closed my door and called her back immediately.

“I’m being stupid, I know,” I said before she could start haranguing me, “but somehow knowing that isn’t keeping me from being stupid anyway.”

“I wasn’t actually calling you about Axel,” she said with a laugh. “I was calling to find out if you’re bringing anyone besides Gwen to the fashion show.”

“No.”

“Well, I should give you one heads-up, then. Axel got roped into being a model.”

“Roped into? Was that a pun?”

“Or was it completely literal? You’ll find out at the show.”

“Okay, but didn’t you just say you weren’t calling me about Axel?”

“I’m only calling you a little bit about him.” That didn’t even make grammatical sense, but I knew what she meant.

I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see the clock. “I’m being stupid, though, aren’t I?”

“If you mean it makes no sense for you to deny yourself the attention of a hot dude you want, then yes.”

“But … I shouldn’t tempt myself.”

“What are you, a nun? Ricki, you deserve all the love and pleasure and sex you can get. So he’s a rock star. So it’ll be tabloid fodder if the news gets out. So what? How about you actually see if you like each other in a non-sexual conversation before you even worry about that? How about you just get together and talk like mature adults?”

“Does Axel Hawke do ‘mature adult’?”

“Yes, he does. I know, I know, he’s better at ‘reckless playboy’ but …” There was a pause before she went on. “I have to ask one last time, is he really being a jerk to you? Are you afraid to be alone with him and you’re afraid to tell me?”

“No.” That was the truth. The actual stupid truth. I couldn’t “blame” this on him being a pushy jerk who didn’t know how to take no for an answer. If anything, Axel Hawke was ridiculously good at picking up hints, and it seemed like the thing necessary to satisfy me was someone who would push just enough to get me past my own reluctance. Which made no sense. “No, it isn’t him. It’s me.”

“Why don’t you just give him a chance, then? Talk. Find out if there’s something there besides chemistry, besides playboy.”

“All right.” That sounded so reasonable. “But this week has started off crazy and it’s only going to get crazier. I’ll … I’ll have him over for tea on the weekend.”

Tea, right. And then we could talk and maybe I could finally get the guts to explain why I couldn’t get into a BDSM relationship with him.

I had just put my phone down and was waking up the computer from the screensaver when another text came in. This one was from Paul. My stomach clenched as I read the words: I got a tip that tomorrow’s Tinseltown Tab is going to be a concern.

The Tinseltown Tab, or TTT as it was known, was a weekly entertainment industry magazine that had once thrived on insider news and business columns. Nowadays, though, it was too often a platform for scandals and exposés. Tomorrow’s?

The cover design leaked. Let me see if I can get a better shot of it and I’ll e-mail you, he replied. Give me an hour.

All right, fine. I’d work for an hour. I shut off the phone and forced myself to concentrate on the report. Digging through spreadsheets was not the most thrilling occupation, but I felt it was one way to prove I didn’t get my MBA on my looks. I could number-crunch with the best of them. Analyzing demographic data and correlating it to revenue was an inexact science only because some of the ratings and reporting we had was spotty. I was surprised Blue Star wasn’t tracking audience and purchase data more carefully. Granted, we couldn’t tell if the person who bought a DVD at Target was a man or a woman, but I wondered if Target could. I made a note to myself to look into whether that information could be accessed or purchased.

Meanwhile, the results I had looked almost skewed in my favor. Movies with more female characters had better return on investment than movies with fewer female characters. Could that really be right? I’d only done the analysis for two years. Would it hold up if I ran the numbers back ten years? Twenty? And would that even matter? The point was that right now women-friendly media seemed to mean earning power, but no one in the film industry wanted to believe it.

I hit send to e-mail the compiled results to my boss, and then switched my phone on again. I checked my private account to see if Paul had sent anything.

He had. The subject line read “TTT cover” and there was an attachment. While I waited for the attachment to open I fretted, expecting the worst. Would there be a photo of Axel carrying me off and a snarky headline? Or had someone at the party been enticed into snapping photos to expose the dungeon and the whole existence of the club?

I was wrong. That wasn’t the worst thing that could be printed. There, in a tiny inset on the front cover, was a wallet-sized portrait photo of my mother and the headline: 20 Years Ago: We Remember Anna. An entire article was about my mother’s death. A “tragic accident” that I’d hoped everyone had forgotten.

That’s what they’d told me as a child. Your mommy had an accident on the set. I had always accepted that explanation when I was younger. For a while I’d even fantasized that there was a special heaven where all the stars who had died on set or on stage went, and that she was there with Brandon Lee and Selena. The story I was told was that she had broken her neck in the rigging. I imagined she had fallen from a catwalk, I think.

It wasn’t until I was much older—a rebellious teenager, I suppose—that I started to question the story. On the tenth anniversary of her death I pried at my father with questions. Some of it was curiosity; some of it was me being angry at him for being so absent. What movie were they filming? I asked. He said he didn’t remember. If my mother had given up her career as a model and actress to marry him, what was she doing on a movie set in the first place? She was there to visit him, he said. What were you doing there? He had consulted on the writing of a screenplay, he claimed.

That was typical of my father. He didn’t write the screenplay, but he tried to make it sound as if his contribution to it had been even more important.

The result of my questions, which had gotten more and more vehement until I drove him from the table, was that my father drank himself into a stupor. Well, truthfully, he might have done that anyway. The more important result was that after dinner Grandpa Cy asked me to come into his office.

I knew this was something serious and grown-up if we were going to his office. Gwen and I were never allowed in there as children. And I knew I wasn’t in trouble. If he had planned to scold me, he would have done that right there at the dinner table. Plus he said, “I have some things to tell you.”

I don’t remember why Gwen wasn’t at dinner that night. So it was me, alone, getting the invitation. I was fourteen and in high school and considered myself as smart as any adult and I craved being treated like one. So it was a big deal to me.

Grandpa didn’t sit behind his desk. He went to a file cabinet, unlocked it, riffled through a series of folders and then pulled one out. Then he sat in a chair by the fireplace. I had never seen a fire lit in the fireplace: it was imposing Italianate tile with sculpted lion heads and a marble mantel. The whole purpose of it was, I think, to have a mantel to put his awards on. It was meant to look expensive and impressive, and it did.

He motioned for me to pull the other wing-backed chair closer to him so he could show me the clippings in his lap. But first he said, “Ricki, I want you to know that there are some things that are, for lack of a better term, family secrets. That means secrets from the outside world. The only reason they’ve been kept from you so far is because you weren’t old enough to know them.”

“Oh,” I said. “You mean like the orgies you have in the basement?”

He didn’t act shocked that I knew that or that I’d said that. He did frown slightly and ask, “And just how much about these orgies do you know?”

I acted like the jaded, twenty-first-century teenager I was. “I know they happen. It’s not a big deal, Grandpa. Everybody has sex.”

“All right. You do understand why it’s a secret, though, don’t you?”

I recited like the schoolgirl I was: “Because the public’s attitudes about sex are messed up. And it could hurt our social standing and the family’s worth.” I couldn’t help adding, with a sigh, “Like Dad’s drinking isn’t already doing that?”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Cy said. “And you’re exactly right. Your father’s drinking is an embarrassment, not because of what people think about it, but because he’s proving himself to be a disgrace. You want to know more about your mother’s death. That’s natural. I want to be very clear with you, though, Rickanna”—he used my full name—“that there’s a difference between the truth, what people accept as the truth, and what people think or say. And all three can be damaging.”

That sounded intriguing. Dangerous. And this was to do with my mother’s death?

He still had not opened the folder. “In some ways it may be a small miracle that the press were not more interested in this than they were. Money and influence can only do so much. Tell me, Rickanna, if you were the police, and a young woman was killed in an accident on a movie set, would you investigate whether there was foul play involved?”

My heart jumped into my throat. “There was foul play involved?”

He held up his hand. “Remember what I said about there being a difference between the truth, the truth people can accept, and what people believe? One thing at a time.”

I forced myself to think like a police detective. “Well, if there was evidence, I suppose.”

“The coroner ruled the death was an accident, though.”

“Does that hurt the case?”

“It certainly doesn’t help it. Let’s back up. It’s possible no one living knows the full truth of what happened. I’ll answer some questions for you. The movie your father was a so-called consultant on was going to be called Hell Bent for Leather.”

“Like a porn film?” I asked.

“No no, more of an art film with a … sexy edge.” Cy cleared his throat. “The film never got made. The title of the film never even made it to the press because they were working under a fake title. They were also filming overseas. The Internet wasn’t such a big thing yet in nineteen ninety-five. Newspapers weren’t online yet. The gossip columnists didn’t have e-mail yet. We didn’t even all have cell phones yet. A friend of your father’s was the director. A jaunt to Italy to party and hang around a movie set was just the sort of thing your father liked to do.”

“Uh-huh.” That certainly sounded like him.

“So when an accident happened and your mother died, the foreign police looked into it a little, but not very deeply. Your parents weren’t considered famous enough in Italy to catch the interest of the local tabloid press, and those who got slightly interested never found out what kind of accident it probably really was.”

“ ‘Really was’?”

Here he paused and looked around the room, but there was no help for him in explaining things to me. “You know what bondage is?”

Having already played it off like orgies were no big deal to me, I of course said, “Yeah. Whips and chains, right?”

“And ropes … and you get the idea.” He cleared his throat again and I got the feeling it wasn’t because he had post-nasal drip. “The thing we kept hidden was that the rigging wasn’t your typical theatrical rigging. It was an art film but the argument ‘it was art’ doesn’t make much of an excuse in the tabloids. Your mother’s accident may have involved, well, simulated rope bondage of some kind.”

“Oh.” That got through my teenage armor. He stayed quiet while that sank in. I eventually said, in my most mature and grown-up voice, “I can see why you’d want that to be kept quiet.”

He seemed relieved I understood. “Exactly. Even if everything was completely innocent, just for artistic effect, even if it wasn’t ‘real,’ if that got out, you know there would be all kinds of stories, including completely made up ones, just because people like sensationalizing anything that might have a hint of salaciousness. They don’t think of your mother as a real person with feelings. They’d turn her into a … a joke or an old wives’ tale.”

He paused there and had to collect himself and I felt my eyes sting with sympathetic tears. My unflappable grandfather was flapped.

“So that’s one reason we keep the story to just ‘she had an accident with some rigging.’ They couldn’t sensationalize it if people didn’t have such outdated attitudes. But they do, so we have to live with that. The other reason is God forbid somehow your father should get blamed for the accident. That would have really blown it into a scandal. Thankfully, the police didn’t pursue it and neither did anyone in the press.”

This was all a lot to take in. I looked at the folder. “Okay, if neither of those stories got out, what’s in the folder?”

“Every clipping that did appear. There aren’t many, but there are a few. If you’d like to read them, I’ll give them to you. But I wanted to answer your questions first.”

The silence while he waited for me to ask a question felt oppressive, like I could feel the heavy wood paneling of the office pressing in on us. “Do you think it was Daddy’s fault?”

He spoke in measured tones, so measured that I knew he was tamping down his emotions. “I believe it was an accident. I believe your father harbored no ill intent toward your mother. If I’d thought for one second that Richard had willfully caused her death, I would have disowned him.”

“You would?”

“Absolutely. Your father had a sacred trust to protect her—” He broke off then, suddenly, as if he couldn’t keep his emotions in check any longer. He stood stiffly and handed me the folder.

I had taken it and fled to my room. And I had read, and re-read, the articles many times. In them I could see what my grandfather had been talking about. The beginnings of hints, the insinuations, but none of the stories had panned out. It didn’t have “legs,” as the expression goes. Probably Cy had paid for influence in some places, too, which might have helped.

The rift between me and my father had widened then. Because despite what my grandfather had said—that he didn’t believe my father had done anything willfully to harm her—I began to harbor the idea that the accident had been his fault. My father was a walking illustration of irresponsibility. Of course he hadn’t meant for anything to go wrong, but did that mean it wasn’t his fault? Why had they even risked it if death could be the result?

I imagined my mother as a trusting soul, an innocent woman who had loved her husband completely and put her complete trust in Dad’s hands. Dad, who I loved but who I didn’t even trust to make his own breakfast without shorting out the toaster or burning himself. In my mind I could easily imagine him offering to spice up the film by putting her into rope bondage and botching it somehow …

This was what I didn’t want to get out in the press and this was what I was so reluctant to tell Axel. It wasn’t just that my mother’s death and family secrets were hard to talk about. It was that I could never give Axel total trust. Even if I wanted to, knowing what I did and the price my mother paid, how could I?

* * *

I drove myself to the fashion show from Blue Star’s offices. Nice as it might have been to have a driver limo me everywhere, it simply wasn’t practical. I followed the directions to the theater until the GPS told me, “Destination is on the right.”

I didn’t see the place yet, but more importantly I did see a sign that said PARKING. In fact, an attendant was waving me in.

“Is this the parking for the AWESM fundraiser?” I asked him as I lowered the window.

“Of course,” he said, and directed me to a space.

When I got out of the car he gave me a ticket to put on the dashboard and then asked for twenty bucks.

“Do you take credit cards?” I asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said, and looked expectantly at me.

That seemed a bit sketchy, and I guess I must have looked skeptical because then he quickly added, “Well, you can go to the front desk and they’ll charge you there, but I have to trust that you’re going to do it.”

“Front desk?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I realized then that I was in the parking lot of a small motel. The two-story building wrapped around the parking lot and a small, fenced-in swimming pool. Well, hopefully the theater was the next building over. “Okay, hang on, I think I have a twenty.”

I dug out the cash and gave it to him. As I walked to the theater, though, I suddenly wondered if he was legit. Well, he was wearing a uniform jacket and had a nametag, although I hadn’t noticed what it had said. And he had put an official-looking ticket on my dashboard. The hotel was probably used to making extra money any night there was a show.

If it was supposed to be a secret that Axel was in the show, it hadn’t stayed secret for long. The buzz at the pre-show reception was a rumor he was going to make a “guest appearance.” It was fascinating to see the word spread. “Well, you know, his manager is the secretary of AWESM,” one of the other VIP donors said to me, as if that confirmed it.

“Treasurer, actually,” I said. We were standing in the lobby, which was a little too small for a reception, but I suppose that conveniently forced everyone to “rub elbows” literally. “But then why haven’t we seen him? Christina’s over there.” I could see her talking to a caterer about the way he was carrying his tray of wineglasses.

“Oh, hm.” The woman glanced in that direction, and seemed impressed by my inadvertent name-drop. She sipped from her glass, leaving a fire engine red residue on the rim. “I’m Mandy Tink, by the way. I don’t think we’ve formally met.”

“Ricki Hamilton.” We each had to move our wineglasses to the other hand to shake, and I instantly liked her when she seemed to agree how ridiculous that was and we laughed a little together.

“I was at a tech conference a couple of weeks ago in Boston,” she said, “and it’s flu season, so they were telling everyone not to shake hands but instead to do the ‘elbow bump of awesomeness.’ ”

“How does that even work?”

“You’re supposed to swagger up to the dude next to you and give a sort of manly gesture like this.” She held her fist up to her chest so that her elbow stuck out to one side, and then she sort of shrugged and thrust her elbow forward. “What’s even more hilarious is that everyone did it. By the second day of the conference it had become totally normal. Which made me say, okay then, why couldn’t we have just made it a ‘handwave of friendliness’ or ‘thumbs up of salutation’ instead? Whatever. I guess it worked.”

“Are you in tech, then?”

“Sort of. I’m in content development for a tech site, which means I’m like a producer at a television station, except the video goes directly to your phone or computer.”

“That’s fascinating. I just started at Blue Star Pictures myself.”

“Do they have a streaming media division?”

“Not that I’m aware of. The company’s very focused on traditional feature film development, with some television mini-series and property spinoffs.”

We exchanged cards just as the lights dimmed to tell us to go into the theater.

Mandy and I were directed to take VIP seats, which meant in the front row on either side of the runway. There was a program booklet on each chair. I glanced through it. Five designers would be showing. Since Valentine’s Day was this week they were going for a common theme of—you guessed it—“edgy-sexy.” I could see why Sakura was involved and my guess was Christina had roped Axel into it, too.

A good many of the VIP seats were empty and I looked around for Gwen. She came rushing in just as I was about to call her and sat down next to me, fanning herself. I wondered if she’d parked at the motel, too. “Whew! Made it!”

I was envious of her ability to look great even when it was obvious she had just run two blocks in heels. No, actually, it was her ability to look great because she had run two blocks in heels. When she had a wisp of hair out of place it looked like a designer had Photoshopped it there on purpose. “They just started letting people in. You’re fine,” I said. “Meet Mandy Tink. Mandy, this is my sister Gwen.”

They shook hands and started to chat. I excused myself to the restroom, figuring I’d have just enough time before the show started.

What I went there to do really was text Sakura.

Did you see where the photographers’ pit is? Right next to me. Tell Axel not to do anything that would land us in the tabloids again.

I got a text back before I could even wash my hands. Tell him yourself. (I thought you were speaking to him now? Am I wrong?)

Right. Okay. I texted him, too: Axel. I’m right in the front row. Please be mindful the tabloids will have a field day. I’m right next to some photographers. Don’t attract their attention to me.

I got back two letters: OK.

It would have to do. I headed back to my seat with my lipstick refreshed. The lobby was deserted now except for two caterers who were folding up the hors d’oeuvres table. Inside, half the seats were still empty. I wondered if they’d made their fundraising goal. You’re not in charge of this event, Ricki, I reminded myself.

The lights dimmed again as I sat down, but then another few minutes went by before the emcee came on stage. She was a tall woman in a top hat and tails but the first person she introduced was the president of AWESM, a woman who didn’t know how to talk into a microphone and who promptly began a somewhat rambling recap of the organization’s activities of the previous year, then haphazardly thanked various members, went into a few side tangents about some of them … or maybe they weren’t tangents, but it was hard to tell because she seemed to have forgotten why she was up there. My mind wandered and I resisted the urge to check my e-mail on my phone.

Eventually she was ushered off the stage to polite applause, though, and the show began. Music began to pump and as each model marched down the runway—pausing every so often to turn and let the photographers catch poses—the emcee would describe various elements of the outfit: what it was made of, the technique or style, notes about the designer, and so on. The first designer had a lot of dresses that looked flamboyant and interesting but I didn’t really think any of them would be practical to actually wear anywhere.

The second one was actually doing lingerie, which at least was meant not to be practical. The third seemed to have mostly business wear for men and women but the outfits had subtle chain accents. Yes, chains, which you might not think meant anything unless you were looking for a meaning? Edgy without being revealing.

Then there was an intermission, during which volunteers went through the audience selling raffle tickets. Gwen and I each bought a strip and then went back to chatting with Mandy. Gwen was telling her about her theater classes in college. I wondered if she was ever going to actually get serious about acting. Ultimately it was going to be up to her. We certainly had the connections and she certainly had the looks and talent. I didn’t understand that urge, that desire to get up in front of people and have them all look at you. Gwen thrived on it, though, and even if it wasn’t what I wanted for myself, I’d do anything she wanted to help her reach her goals. She just had to figure out what those goals were, first.

“I don’t think I’ve even had a chance to tell Ricki yet,” Gwen was saying to Mandy.

“Tell me what?”

“I’m going to an audition! Oh, I’ll tell you later.” She made a shushing motion as the lights went down for the second half of the show.

I felt a prickle of nerves. The next designer’s collection was entirely corsets, which was unexpectedly fascinating. The first model wore a kind of Wild West showgirl outfit, in sepia and brown, as if she were stepping out of an old photograph, while the emcee described a little about the history of the corset. I’d always thought of them as a Victorian thing and hadn’t known they went back further than that. Apparently it was Catherine de Medici who brought them into the French court in the 1500s and made them all the rage. Back then the effect wasn’t so much about slimming the waist as pushing the breasts up, wouldn’t you know it. One model came out showing a “wasp waist” in a corset of molded black leather with giant translucent insect wings on her back.

Most of the ones after that were simply beautiful, though, including some designed for men. Fine brocaded fabrics, embroidered silk, velvet. The finale was a bridal gown and four bridesmaids, each showing a very similar corset style but with different treatments of the dress underneath, in different lengths and shapes of skirts and sleeves, elegant yet edgy at the same time.

Then came the final designer, listed as “Dare2BDiff,” who the emcee explained were two partners, Dara and Difford, who were “taking fetish fashion design to a whole new level!” A guitar chord tore through the sound system then and I recognized the song. I’d almost forgotten the whole business about Axel’s “guest appearance.”

Sakura was the first one through the curtain, in a latex dress that made my jaw drop. For one thing, it made her look like she had lost fifteen pounds overnight. For another, it was a recreation of a classic evening gown style: except it was all smooth, shiny, curvy latex. Sakura had an unlit cigarette on the end of a holder in one hand and a tiny clutch purse in the other. She clearly knew how to work a runway, too. She didn’t just walk—or even strut—she somehow drew everyone’s attention to her even when what she was doing was pretending to look for something in the purse. She was an icon of elegance. She handed the cigarette holder to one of the photographers who, mesmerized, had forgotten to keep taking photos, and said something to him, after which he began snapping away again. When she had gone all the way to the end and then had made her way back to the circular stage at the middle, she pulled a lipstick from the clutch purse and reapplied it while looking into the purse: it must have had a makeup mirror built in.

Then she smirked wickedly and wrote in lipstick across her chest and down her front “Sex? Wear Your Rubber” provoking laughter from the audience.

She was just a warmup, though, for what was to come. A parade of models in all variety of outfits followed—many with intricate, artful rope arrangements as part of what they were wearing. I suppose that followed the fashion show rule of “not practical for everyday wear,” unless you had a macramé expert helping you get dressed.

Then suddenly Sakura burst out from behind the curtain in a 1940s gangster gun moll style outfit—also made of latex—complete with a fake “tommy gun.” She gestured to unseen accomplices behind her, and six more women, similarly dressed, carried out a body bag. While we were watching them make their way to the center stage someone had put a chair there and a single light was shining down on it from overhead. Some kind of kidnapping-interrogation scenario?

They laid the bag down. Sakura knelt daintily—a skillful move in a skirt that tight and with boots like those—and unzipped the bag, then pulled Axel up by a fistful of blond-streaked hair. There were a few gasps and excited chirps from the audience, which made my own sudden rise in temperature and the skip of my heart even worse. He was recognizable even with some kind of gag strapped in his mouth and a strip of black cloth tied over his eyes.

When they put him into the chair we could see his entire body was bound in rope. No, not just rope: rope art, crisscrossed with artful knots and designs. The others retreated, taking the empty bag with them, and Sakura vamped for a bit, running her hand under Axel’s chin, then removing the gag. She ran her hands over his cheeks and then made him suck on one of her fingers. I was as entranced as the rest of the audience. She circled him as she unwound the blindfold and then slapped him across the face. She really smacked him, too. Maybe it was intended to be a theatrical slap but I heard her make contact, even over the raucous music.

Axel grinned. If he was supposed to be playing the part of victim, he’d forgotten.

Sakura pulled him to his feet by his hair and gave him a matching slap on the ass, prompting a giddy-sounding “Ow!” from Axel and laughs from the crowd. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying not to laugh too hard myself. They were clearly having fun and their playfulness was infectious. It didn’t feel like I was watching a sex scene, more like two friends were playing a round of charades.

Then Sakura pulled a knife from her boot and held it up menacingly. There was an audible “ooooh” from the audience as she waved it in sinuous curves in the air. She went around behind Axel and snip-snip-snip, the ropes magically fell away to reveal the outfit he was wearing underneath. It appeared to be styled as a sort of suit, almost military-looking, with leather accents along the lapels and tastefully placed studs. Sexy. Sultry. Powerful. I know I wasn’t the only one there whose jaw dropped but I think I probably had a better reason for a strong physical reaction to the sight of him. My thighs clenched.

Axel did a turn in place while the volume of the music went up even more. I suppose Sakura left the stage with the chair but in my mind they simply disappeared as a set of footlights came up on Axel, my eyes and my mind focused entirely on him. Many in the room were transfixed. If I thought Sakura was magnetic, Axel was on a whole other level. It probably helped that he was one of the few men in a room full of mostly heterosexual women, and also that he was the “name” guest celebrity, but he also knew how to work a crowd. He stalked along the very edge of the stage, making flirty eye contact with individuals, posing, popping his lapels, running his hand through his hair. When he got to the very end of the runway he made a show of undoing a button. One button! When he shrugged the jacket back off his shoulders women screamed. I was as caught up as the rest of them. He slung it over one shoulder and began working his way back up the runway, taking his time. Every phone camera in the place was out by that point, and he seemed to take a moment to glance at each one as he went. At the rate he was going he was going to make eye contact with every woman in the place.

Except me. I felt a sudden stab of disappointment as he winked at Mandy Tink but breezed past me and Gwen, draping the jacket over the head of the same photographer Sakura had given her cigarette holder to earlier before continuing toward the curtain. He took another turn at the center section, showing off the sleeveless skin-tight PVC shirt, crisscrossed with strips of embedded leather and studs. His muscles shone with sweat in the lights and the tail of the dragon that showed on his upper arm seemed almost a part of the outfit. He took a few steps in my direction and I had the sudden, nonsensical hope that he was going to give me a look or a wink, but no, he was grabbing the jacket from the photographer.

And then, with a last wave to the now-screaming crowd, he disappeared through the curtain. I caught my breath. Quit it, Ricki, I thought. He did what you asked. You told him to ignore you.

He was back a moment later, first to take the group bow with Dara and Diff and their whole group of models, and then for the final walk for everyone in one huge parade. They stuck with music of Axel’s band for the good-bye walk. I was no longer absorbing anything the emcee was saying. My eyes were glued on Axel.

I wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe I wasn’t even thinking at all. And what on earth was this feeling, this gaping, burning feeling that only his eye contact, his touch, his attention could cure?

I texted him before I could stop myself. I need to see you. Now.

Then I pretended I had an urgent text, pretended I took a phone call, gave Gwen a quick kiss on the cheek and ran to the lobby as if I were trying to hear what the urgent phone call was.

I went out onto the sidewalk and looked around. I needed a plan, fast. Right. The motel where I had parked. Perfect. Funny how these things happen.