Confederacy into a newly united America.
Savannah had escaped Atlanta’s fiery fate during Sherman’s March to the Sea, and as such had seemed the logical place to focus efforts to begin the nation’s healing process. The Risqué Theatre had been one such effort, a place to celebrate culture and art at a time when the city’s morale had been low and people’s faith shaken. Culture and art hadn’t seemed especially important while coping with husbands and sons lost in the bitter struggle to preserve the Southern way of life. Not when many faced the difficult task of rebuilding homes, careers and lives from the ashes of defeat.
A dark period in the nation’s history, the goal had been to rebuild America into a nation stronger and more united than ever before. Savannah’s insightful politicians of the time had caught their city’s attention by targeting men’s—and women’s—fundamental interest in sex.
Nick had researched the history of the theater back to its conception, a task he both enjoyed and found integral to starting a project of this magnitude. The Risqué Theatre was a part of history and he was obligated and honor bound to maintain not only the structure, but to preserve the essence of the time period that made this and every historical project unique.
He’d worked on a variety of buildings through the years—churches, museums, private mansions—but the Risqué Theatre presented a new challenge of retaining the distinctive flavor of a building that had provided a home to an eclectic variety of theatrical venues through the years. From vaudeville, burlesques and gangster films, to modern film noir, performance art and improvisation, the Risqué Theatre had been home to them all.
“Whoa, buddy.” Dale peered up at the ceiling moldings once inside the theater, at naked cherubs who grinned maniacally while pointing golden love arrows at them from every direction. “The thought of spending the next few months fixing every erection in this place is killing me. Damn good thing the media has stopped sniffing around your love life.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you were a real pain in the ass when you gave up dating to avoid the press. I can’t imagine tackling this place if you were living the celibate life. I’d quit right now.”
Nick frowned. A close friend and valued employee, Dale Emerson might clean up well in his expensive tux, but his background was firmly rooted in construction, where men worked with men and spoke their minds freely.
“What choice did I have? You know how the media zeroed in on me after I accepted the presidential appointment. That sort of notoriety isn’t fair to any woman. If I didn’t give them news to report, I knew they’d replace me as playboy of the month.”
“Try playboy of the year.” Dale rolled his eyes. “I told you to think hard about accepting that appointment.”
Nick handed the tickets to a uniformed usher and said dryly, “I didn’t see a choice about that, either. Besides, the presidential appointment gives ADF prestige and credibility, which has been good for business. And it gives me a chance to get out of the office and into the field more often.”
“Yeah, yeah, gotcha. The only thing more important than your sex life is ADF. But I still say we weren’t without prestige and credibility, whether you’re on-site or not.” Dale glanced around the foyer, where the crowd already gathered, though they’d arrived early. He let out a low whistle. “Looks even more risqué than when I conducted the site analysis. Would you look at that.”
Nick glanced at a column supporting the semicircular arch above a sloping spiral staircase. At first glance the sculpture appeared to be no more than an intricately worked column, but upon closer inspection the plasterwork depicted a life-size bodycast of a nude couple joined at the genitals.
Sex was everywhere at the Risqué Theatre, in the architecture, on the stage, in the walls that displayed playbills of naked bodies and edgy artwork from decades of erotic performances. If Nick had anything to say about it, sex would be in his immediate future, too.
Dale shot him an amused glance. “Buddy, we’re in for a treat if all Southern belles look like her.”
Nick followed Dale’s gaze to an opening in the crowd where a woman stood amazingly alone, a woman who made every drop of blood in his veins plummet south.
“You’re not kidding.” This Southern belle was a vision straight out of a wet dream with her long slim curves swathed in a red leather dress designed to make men crave sex. Supple leather clung to every sleek curve of a body equally designed to inspire thoughts of tangled limbs and sweaty skin.
She wasn’t exactly tall, rather lanky and very feminine with long dancer’s legs and creamy skin that swelled over her bodice and made his breath catch hard.
And her hair. Nick had never seen hair like hers, deep-auburn hair that made him yearn to do a lot more than run his fingers through it. Rather he wanted to run his naked body through it. Falling far below the sassy short jacket she wore, her hair shimmered beneath the lights and inspired images of that mass of wanton waves playing peek-a-boo with lots of bare skin.
“Why don’t you introduce yourself?” Nick managed to grind out, wishing like hell he’d caught sight of this red devil first. If she and his senior project manager became an item, he’d be hard pressed to curtail all the fantasies he’d be having about her.
“Life just isn’t fair, is it?” Dale stared like that red leather had been magnetized. “But she’s more your speed, buddy. Expensive champagne, fancy restaurants and suites in five-star hotels. Too high ticket for grabbing a six-pack and taking a spin in my classic Mustang.”
Nick thought Dale sold himself short, but couldn’t bring himself to disagree. Not when it meant his senior project manager would take himself out of the running. This red devil exuded class if ever he’d seen it, and he had. Loads of times. She exuded class, and expensive seduction, and provocative, mind-blowing sex.
Watching her sweep that magnificent hair back from her shoulder and move along with the crowd, Nick decided Dale was wrong. Life was fair. Very fair. Otherwise he might be somewhere else in the world, instead of in this theater with a growing hard-on before the show had even started.
PROFESSIONALLY DIMMED lighting and a ceiling that replicated a black velvet night filled with twinkling stars made even Julienne’s not-so-great orchestra seat seem like a gateway to a magical world. The American variety stage show that would close the Risqué for the first time in its illustrious history celebrated the evolution of the theater’s unusual performances.
A turn-of-the-century strip show brought to life the exotic dance entertainment of Gypsy Rose Lee before segueing into more family-oriented vaudeville—though there wasn’t much family-oriented about this sketch, with off-color jokes and women tap dancing in fringed costumes that shimmied over lean muscles and lots of bared skin.
The theatrical years passed. A short gangster film yielded to a segment that was an adaptation of the theater-in-the-round so popular in the fifties and sixties. The actors actually filed off the stage, milling around the musicians in the orchestra pit, all of whom good-naturedly continued playing despite actors miming various sex acts all around them and their instruments.
Beautifully choreographed and skillfully executed, the sight had Julienne stripping off her jacket and wondering why she’d ever worried about getting cold. Then again, her rising body temperature may have more to do with the man sitting in the loge than the performance.
He sat in the very front row of the balcony to the left of the stage with a dark-haired gentleman
