Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Bridesmaids Revisited

By now the parlor scene has settled down.

The Fontana brothers and Uncle Mario have been stripped of all the heavy metal on their persons, which I see includes a few switchblades. These weapons and primo examples of the watchmaker’s art are piled on the big round table with a fringed cloth. They are guarded by a single sylph in black spandex bearing a single Uzi.

A whole lot of tall, rangy Fontana brothers are hunched unhappily on the various blue velvet Victorian settees intended to be draped by skimpily-clad ladies of the night. And day, here in Las Vegas.

Macho Mario Fontana is established in a low-slung Victorian chair, attended by the madam herself.

The resident “girls” are arrayed along the walls, eyeing the Uzis at the archways to the bar and the foyer with edgy respect.

Only us felines are cool. Like the kidnappers. Wait! How can you “kidnap” a roster of fully adult brothers? An interesting question.

I send Satin to the kitchen to eavesdrop on the other distaff kidnappers and remain to see how the men of the party are reacting.

“This is ridiculous,” Macho Mario blusters. “We have a lot of outside firepower to call on.”

“If you could call,” a guard in masked spandex purrs, pointing to the pile of RAZR cell phones on the table. “Take a gun, a watch, and a cell phone from a tough Las Vegas wiseguy, and he is limp linguini.”

Yup. This dame purrs. Like the lead femme fatale on a soap opera.

A lot of Fontana fingers twitch at that taunt. They not only are not trigger fingers, or itchy cell phone fingers, but well-buffed champagne bottle fingers. I must admit it makes the hair on my hackles rise to see so many dudes cowed by a bunch of distaff desperados. Desperadas.

Then out from the kitchens via the empty barroom strides the full posse again: I count seven altogether. They are all either anorexic muscle boys, or women.

I notice the Fontanas notice the same thing, and breathe out mutual sighs of relief.

Premature.

“We can cuff you if you need it,” a woman’s voice says. “There are plenty of cuffs around here.”

“Even gentle baby blue-dyed, rabbit fur-lined cuffs,” another lady desperado lisps, flaunting a few pair. “We like live rabbits.”

A few Uzis focus rather unnervingly on both the Fontana boys and the brothel girls.

“Faux fur!” the madam shouts, like a team coach crying “Foul.” “No rabbits were injured in constructing our erotic handcuffs! I have a paper that guarantees that.”

“What about the girls in those handcuffs?” one black-clad figure asks, twirling the silly artifact in question.

I will never understand the human notion of naughtiness. If they had ever had to wear a collar for real, or get their ears clipped or rear branded for identification purposes, they would see that S&M is really just Sad and Mean. But maybe these toys are for B&D. My canine cousins know about Bondage and Discipline all too well. Luckily, we felines are usually the S part of S&M.

However, the whip hand, so to speak, is held by the little ladies with the captured Berettas and switchblades and even metal nail files, oh my.

Well, Satin is hissing along with the commando girls now, and we dudes—the Fontanas and myself—are seriously outnumbered.

Aldo takes the lead and answers. “We were bound for a harmless little bachelor party at a harmless little bar. Not here. Not for a brothel, however well staffed and really well decorated and, er, manned by such lovely ladies. If you want to condemn anybody, condemn yourselves. You picked this place.”

There is a long sentence.

Then one clear soprano answers, “But you didn’t pick us!”

The nasty black spandex masks peel off.

I gaze upon beauty bare, an octet of lovely ladies in the prime of their twenties and thirties. Their expressions are intense.

“Why are we always the bridesmaids and never the brides?” another demands.

“Aldo may be tying the knot—the only real man among you!—but you younger brothers are still playing the field. And we, the field, don’t like it,” says another.

Silence prevails.

The Fontana brothers eye the women they chose to play bridesmaids to their groomsmen in the imminent wedding.

“Hey!” shouts Macho Mario. “I’m not even in the wedding party. I am an innocent victim. Take my nephews. They are philandering dogs! But I am innocent. I should be sprung.”

“He is ‘sprung’ all right,” one woman says, sashaying over to cluck Macho Mario under the chin with the business end of a confiscated Beretta.

While he sputters his indignation, she eyes the ladies of the house arrayed along the walls.

“Okay. Here’s the deal. This is between us and these handsome but sadly maritally backward guys. We can confine you in the house B&D room, or you can put these sweet baby blue and pink faux rabbit-fur cuffs on our hairy-wristed guests. It is up to you, ladies. Nine ought to do it, if we include Mr. Macho shaking on the lounge chair over there.”

Fontana brothers pale in unison as the blue and pink fuzzy handcuffs are flourished.

I sympathize, observing with a low growl to Satin, “These rogue bridesmaids are mean. Real guys do not wear pink. Especially in fetish wear!”

“Really? I think the baby blue at least goes rather well with black hair.” She bats her eyelashes at me.

Yes, we felines do have eyelashes outside of cartoon representations of our kind. Take a close look at yours sometime, if you can do so without a faceful of shivs.

Me? Bound in baby blue? Pretty in pink? I do not think so!

One thing I find consoling: Mr. Nicky Fontana is also missing. In a blitz of brothers I can understand how the berserk bridesmaids overlooked a married one they seldom saw. Those full-coverage masks and bug-eyed sunglasses do not permit much peripheral vision. And these little dolls are totally focused on the objects of their frustrated affections, not any spare and ineligible dude.

“This is just a girls’ idea of a bachelor party they can control,” Miss Satin sniffs. “They have no criminal intent and are paying for the staff’s time.”

“Fur-covered or not, those handcuffs are effective,” I say. “I do not like to see dudes of my gender, if not my species, lose their dignity, not to mention their hardware. What do these dames hope to gain by this?”

“Have a little fun at the guys’ expense and remind them that the girls have been taken for granted. That is why many of our gentleman callers visit the Sapphire Slipper. They feel taken for granted.”

Satin slips me another long-lashed look. I have a sick feeling that she is also referring to my amorous attentions back in the day when we were an item on and off the Strip.

It is likely true that no real mayhem is intended here, except that Mrs. Nicky Fontana will be anxious if her wandering spouse is not home by the wee hours of the morning, and it sounds like this captivity is shaping up to be a twenty-four-hour deal.

I would not want to be hanging around the penthouse suite at the Crystal Phoenix when Miss Van von Rhine discovers that Mr. Nicky is not only not coming home tonight, but the Gangsters’ limo is lost in space.