Butterfly Read Online Free Page B

The endless and demeaning cycle of one-night
    stands with men who never called back, or who proved to be disappointments in the light
    of dawn, had Trudie Stein on a winding track leading to nowhere. And she desperately
    wanted to go somewhere— with someone.
    Well, that first step had to be taken.
    So she took it, right through the glass doors of Fanelli, the posh Beverly Hills men’s
    store with the enigmatic butterfly on its plain façade. Trudie was familiar with the store;
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    Kathryn Harvey
    she had come here years ago and purchased a Loire Valley work shirt for her boyfriend,
    and he had turned around and given it to his boyfriend. The store was elegant in a brass-
    and-mahogany way, and was at the moment crowded with customers returning or
    exchanging holiday gifts.
    Trudie paused a moment to calm her racing heart. She recognized a few of the faces in
    the crowd: there was the movie director whose swimming pool she had designed and
    built; there was that famous rock idol Mickey Shannon, trying to look inconspicuous;
    and over by Toiletries, Trudie recognized Beverly Highland, the famous society hostess.
    For an instant Trudie wondered if she was a member of the secret operation upstairs.
    But everyone knew what a staunch supporter of Good News Ministries Beverly Highland
    was, and what an exemplary, moral life she led. Besides, Trudie saw that the telltale but-
    terfly bracelet was absent from her wrist.
    Most of the customers in the store, Trudie knew as she pushed her way through, did
    not know about what went on upstairs. The director had assured her of that. These peo-
    ple were actually here to buy things—very few were like herself, heading for the back of
    the store and making sure her bracelet could be seen—the bracelet made of delicate gold
    links and displaying a small butterfly charm.
    She finally reached the back, where live mannequins modeled fashions for seated cus-
    tomers. This part of the shop was overseen by special staff members, women in black
    skirts and white blouses with butterflies embroidered over the pockets. These, Trudie
    knew, were separate from the staff that worked the rest of the store. Only these knew
    where the private elevator led.
    Trudie had seen male models before. In fact, a few of the guys who subcontracted for
    her worked as models on the side. Perpetually suntanned, sinewy from hard labor, and
    usually with golden locks, they tended to look as good in silk blazers and gray flannel
    slacks as in dusty jeans and T-shirts. But Butterfly’s models, Trudie had always thought,
    could have put her he-men to shame. And now she knew why, the real reason why they
    looked so good. It had nothing to do with modeling clothes.
    Trudie took a seat, declined an offer of tea or Perrier, and watched the fashion show
    that was a daily feature of the classy Fanelli.
    Spellbound, she kept her eye on the doorway to the models’ dressing room. The men
    came out one by one and slowly passed among the seated customers, the majority of
    whom were women. The models sported a variety of fashions, from leather bomber jack-
    ets to Savile Row pajamas, and the men themselves covered a range of types, in age and
    physique and manner. Something for everyone, Trudie thought as her excitement mounted.
    The brass ship’s clock on the wall ticked and the men came out of the hidden dressing
    room, strolled about, smiled, posed, and disappeared again. Customers got up and left,
    more came in and filled the seats. Most left with purchases under their arms (but none,
    Trudie saw, stepped into that special elevator at the back of the store).
    As she looked the men over—the one with the Arnold Schwarzenegger physique in
    the fisherman’s pullover, the short wiry Asian in kung-fu lounge wear—Trudie became
    aware of two other women who had sat there for as long as she had. Her eye went to their
    wrists. They wore identical butterfly bracelets.
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    And then she saw him.
    He was silver-haired