This tale was inspired by a story prompt on another website and I want to thank the lovely young woman whom I wrote it for and who encouraged me to keep going. I should warn you that it's a long tale and it takes a fair while to get to the sex but I hope you'll find the story worthwhile and the sex exciting. Constructive Feedback is, of course, very welcome.
*****
He really needed another drink but he wasn't going to give Tony the satisfaction of putting any more money in his pocket than was absolutely necessary. At least he was no longer breaking the law by having whisky, Danny reflected as he rolled the tumbler in his hand. Prohibition may have ended a few months previously and America was in the grip of the Great Depression but in Tony Colonna's Olive Grove nightclub it was permanently 1928. Tony was still in boom time no matter how bad it was out there for ordinary folk.
While Al Capone and other mobsters had gone down, Tony remained free and on easy street. Looking around the Olive Grove, even on a quiet night like this, it wasn't hard to see why. There at a prominent table near the stage, a stupid grin on his fat face, was Mayor Holder surrounded by various business cronies of Colonna. On another table was Kanesboro's young DA whose ambitions seemed to be focused more on getting rich and powerful quickly than on upholding the law.
The law. Was that what motivated Danny Sloan? Looking out for the little guy? Justice? Maybe it had been, years ago. Now, though, it was just about getting his man. Nothing more and nothing less. He'd been trying to put Colonna away since he'd come to this damn town four years ago. He'd got close but never been able to nail him. Gradually his glittering reputation as a man to watch had eroded as each plan had failed and Tony had slipped through his net again and again. The corruptible members of his team had ended up in Tony's pockets while the incorruptible ones just ended up dead. Sometimes Danny wondered if Tony hadn't killed him too because he liked having him around to laugh at, a symbol in human form of the extent to which Tony Colonna ruled over Kanesboro.
To be honest, Danny wasn't even sure why he come tonight. Maybe it was just to show Tony that he wasn't beaten yet but more probably it was because he had nowhere else to go. He had no real friends in town, not any more, no wife, not since the 'accident' on the bridge two years back, and at least the ambience in the Olive Grove was better than the empty rooms of his house in the suburbs.
The Boss was at his usual table, a booth in the corner, near the stage and the exit in case of trouble. There were several of his business associates with him, no doubt plotting his latest scheme, and there was a smattering of broads at the table as well. The usual molls, no wives of course, either long term 'girlfriends' or some of Tony's girls there to show the guys a good time.
She wasn't there, though. That must mean she was going to be singing and dancing tonight. Danny couldn't help but feel his heart beat a little faster at that thought. She, as much as anything, kept him coming back to the Grove. Rose her name was. For the last three years she'd been Tony's girl. Everyone knew it or if they didn't they soon did, especially if they wanted to stay alive. Several men who'd looked too closely at Rose had turned up in the morgue.
Danny couldn't really blame them for wanting to get to know Rose better, nor Tony for keeping them away permanently. Rose was a knockout. Tony was married - to a cool classy Italian lady called Maria and had two kids by her. But Rose was much more than a bit on the side. She was Tony's just as much as the Olive Grove itself. He owned her lock, stock and barrel since he'd fallen for her on that very stage just a few feet away. She had a voice to die for and Southern Belle looks to go with it. Her voice was like honey and could break your heart or make it sing with joy depending on what the song called for. The Sirens weren't a patch on Rose, there was nothing you wouldn't do for her if she asked it after listening to one of her songs.
She'd been 18 when she'd first sang at the Grove and was 21 now and even more lovely. She had a sweet and innocent face in which were set the bluest of blue eyes and you wouldn't imagine that butter would melt in her mouth until she gave one of her knowing smiles or twinkled those sapphire eyes and then you could only think about what else might go between those scarlet lips. Her platinum blonde hair framed her heart-shaped face in a stylish bob.
The band was playing with an upbeat tempo that didn't match Danny's mood at all. He let it drift over him as he thought. He'd heard whisperings that all was no longer peaches and cream between Rose and Tony, that Rose wanted to try for the Big Time in New York or even Hollywood but that Tony would not hear of it. He had it good in Kanesboro and was going nowhere and if he was staying put then Rose sure as hell would be too. Maybe he could take advantage of that somehow. It would put the girl in danger of course but why the hell should that worry him?
He looked up from his whisky and there she was. Danny gripped the tumbler hard and had it not been made of glass it would have crumpled in his strong grasp. Getting close to Rose would certainly have its upsides. She was dressed the full cabaret, black sequinned one piece, stockings and suspenders above shiny black ankle boots, all of which emphasised the shapeliness and length of her pins. Her dark, smokey makeup contrasted with her pale cheeks, baby blue eyes and blonde bob on which was perched a black top hat with a face veil.
She sat on a high stool, legs together, hands on knees, her demure posture juxtaposed with her revealing outfit and the wicked playfulness of the gaze which took in the whole audience but which made every man present think was for him alone.
She sang a haunting melody about how her one true love had died in the war and each verse was a sorrowful story of her misery but the refrain suddenly turned upbeat and sexy as she sang about how she was now free to have fun and good times, all of which involved some fairly risqué dance moves and kick steps.
Everyone in the club was mesmerised, the men all transfixed, the women with jealousy at the effect she was having on their dates. Rose looked down with delight in her eyes but contempt in her heart. She was bigger than this, better than a seedy club in the mid west. She had a voice and a look for a bigger stage than anything Kanesboro had to offer. Her blue eyes scanned the room and saw nary a real man among them. Pathetic older men pawing at bored young whores, young goons trying to impress by flashing their ill-gotten cash. And there, sitting at the centre of events, if not the room, was her lover.
She sighed inwardly as she continued to sing like a wicked angel. Tony had been so exciting when they'd first got together. She was so grateful for the chance to sing and perform. It was all she had wanted, having come from a farm in Oklahoma, an early victim of the dust bowl and the Depression. An orphan, she'd migrated north and found a job at the Olive Grove. The first night Tony had seen her, he'd taken her to bed. He had been good to her and was good in bed, at least to start with, and she had flourished for a time. She hadn't wanted for anything except male company, something she'd always enjoyed.
Tony was jealous, that was the problem. He'd go crazy if a guy so much as looked at her the wrong way. Gradually she found herself being suffocated, her life reduced to the club and Tony, nothing more was allowed to her. She'd heard rumours about what had happened to one or two of her more persistent admirers but, for her own safety and sanity, had chosen to stop her ears. What she couldn't ignore was that her talent was being wasted in Kanesboro, especially when a theatrical agent from out west had given her his card after a show and told him to call him right away as he had big plans for her.
Tony had refused point blank to listen. A few weeks later she read that the agent had just turned up in a barn a few miles outside Kanesboro and that suicide was suspected, though no one was quite sure why given his successful book of clients in LA. That had frightened Rose and she'd kept quiet for a while after that, but the dream still gnawed away at her and she couldn't let it go, even though it made Tony mad. Tony never took his anger out on her, just on anyone foolish enough to get close to her.
Rose's eyes drifted away from Tony and over to the other side of the room. Angry with him, they settled on Danny Sloan. She knew a little about Danny, enough to know that Tony laughed at him and his pathetic efforts to put him behind bars. Maybe it was her frustration at her situation she was in that made her look at him more sympathetically than she would have done otherwise. He wasn't half bad looking, a little crumpled and craggy perhaps but nothing that a scrub and some decent clothes couldn't fix. He had penetrating green eyes that stared up at her and sent a little shiver of excitement down her spine for a reason she couldn't quite explain. Even the two-day stubble on his chin had a certain roguish attractiveness to it. He rolled his whisky glass between his fingers and thumb as he watched her and she couldn't help but wonder what it might feel like to be between those strong hands. Jeez girl, she thought, get a grip. He's a loser and you've no business getting involved with losers. If she was ever to get away from Kanesboro and hit the big time she'd need a better ticket than Detective Sloan.
The set continued, Rose didn't need to concentrate as she went through it on autopilot, still good enough to enthral the audience, however, and left them standing on their feet, all the men anyway. Well, nearly all of them. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance that neither Tony nor Danny had got up. Tony sat there nodding smugly, taking in the plaudits she had earned from those around him. Danny, on the other hand, just watched her thoughtfully and she suddenly felt naked, as if he could see right through her.
She headed backstage and to her dressing room. She knew that Tony would join her soon enough and it wasn't long before he did. She knew also that he'd want sex - he was always randy after one of her sets, he got off on knowing that others wanted her and only he could have her. She wasn't in the mood, however, she was too pissed off and as he began to paw at her she started to ask again about them heading to New York, to see if she could make it on Broadway.
Tony tried to brush it off and continue kissing and fondling her, but she persisted and soon they were yelling at each other. Rose was the only person, other than Maria, who could raise their voice to Tony and expect to get away with it. The row did not last long, she stormed out of her dressing room, still in her stage costume with just a fluffy white dressing gown covering it, and down the corridor, past the side of the stage and out through the side fire escape near the gents' toilets.
