The fetish party is actually turning out to be a lot of fun. They all have costumes, so it’s kind of like Halloween, only with less candy corn. Frank loves Halloween, he has no objection to having two of them in one year.
Frank had wanted to be a monster, but Travis told him sternly that monsters weren’t sexy and sent him back to the dressing room. The thing is, Frank’s had a lot of Halloweens now, all of them important, and he hates the idea of re-doing something he’s already done before. He wants to be original.
Not to mention, everyone else has already taken the easy ones. The girls have fetish nights on a regular basis, so they’re basically taken care of. Lyn’s dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl, hair in pigtails and wearing some serious fuck-off boots. Maja’s gone the angel route, although with that much skin showing, Frank’s not entirely sure she qualifies. White is a good color on her, though. He hasn’t seen Alicia yet, but he’d seen the naughty nurse costume hanging in the dressing room, so that’s not a huge mystery. Victoria’s dressed as a French maid, and half the staff had watched her walk in with their tongues already hanging out of their mouths. Frank had given her two thumbs up.
Pete’s dressed as a police officer, although his costume consists basically of tight pants, a hat, and a vest. Frank had expected William to go as a cowboy, since he already had the outfit, but Butcher has taken that one, wearing jeans, William’s hat, and a red bandana around his neck. William is wearing bell bottoms with a floral-print handkerchief tied around his leg, a loose, flowing shirt, and a bead necklace. He has a daisy tucked behind one ear.
“Free love hippie,” he’d explained when he caught Frank looking. It’s a good look on him, Frank has to admit. Gabe obviously agrees; five minutes before the club had opened for the party, they’d been making out on the floor, William perched on the edge of the bar and tilted into Gabe so that his hair fell forward and hid their faces.
Travis had said philosophically, “Better than on my desk,” and left them to it.
Frank waffles over ‘sexy doctor’ for a few minutes, but he’s not really feeling it. He shimmies into skin-tight leather pants instead, strapping on matching wrist cuffs and borrowing Pete’s makeup kit to color around his eyes. His hair only takes a few seconds to wash, the dye streaking bright colors through the brown, and then he thinks he’s set.
Pete raises his eyebrows when Frank walks out. “Emo Stripper Rainbow Brite?” he asks, twirling his rubber nightstick in one hand.
“Fuck you, I’m a rock star,” Frank informs him, tugging at the cuffs reflexively. He’d wanted to be a zombie rock star, actually, but he’d had a feeling Travis wouldn’t deem that sexy either.
“And a fine-looking rock star you are,” Ryland says somberly from behind the bar, all done up in a proper tuxedo with his hair slicked back and a black bow tie. “Albeit a very short one.”
Frank gives him the finger and checks out what’s going on in the club. There are people coming in more or less steadily, mostly nerdy types who seem too shy to actually approach any of the staff. “Where did they come from, Mars?” he asks, watching a wide-eyed cluster of guests practically crush each other to avoid Butcher as he walks past with a tray of drinks.
“Better,” Pete says, grinning. “They’re artists or some shit. They draw cartoons.”
“Huh,” Frank says. This seems an odd choice for a corporate cartoonist party, but it’s not like he’s complaining. These will probably be the easiest customers he has all week. Although maybe it’s not so odd, on second thought. He can see three separate people from here with sketchpads out.
Ryland drops the last cherry onto an arrangement of what looks like Blue Hawaiians. “Practice,” he says, holding out another cherry to Pete. Pete catches the end of the stem in his teeth and returns it a moment later, spitting the neatly-tied knot out between his lips with a smug smirk. “Well done,” Ryland says, with one of those faintly lopsided smiles he seems to save for Pete. “Go get ‘em.”
