I kept looking back at the new girl. She sat there, alone, on her stage, legs folded across each other.She sat on the side stage, the one that was separated from the other four main stages.
She sat there at the far end of the smoky stage, in her black slip and black lingerie, looking down at the illuminated patch of light near her small feet from one of the focused beams above her. She had long, straight black hair and pretty, dark eyes. Her skin was fair and soft to the eyes, like the porcelain skin of a doll. I watched her exhale a deep sigh, and bite down nervously on the corner of her mouth, her dark lips spreading thin.
You don't belong here, I thought.
Why are you here?*****
The entire night of my best friend's bachelor party, I'd stayed in the background. I let the guys have their fun, and I kept passing wads of cash to the night's men of honor for their enjoyment. I drank my free drink that came as part of the cover, and watched quietly from the shadows.
Seven years ago, I was much too involved.
I spent much of my youth in the smoky darkness of a handful of clubs scattered throughout the urban night. As the years passed, I descended deeper and deeper. With a thick stack of bills in my pocket, direct access to certain
commodities, a reputation for being a bad motherfucker, and a foreign sports car parked outside, I quickly became the surrogate man for a couple of the girls. I'd take them for late-night dinner afterwards, and then back home. I was that guy.
I'd lived that empty life seven years ago. These places held no more intrigue for me.
Until this night.While the guys had their fun, I stayed hidden. I like to watch from afar. And every so often, whenever I handed out a fresh stack of bills, the girls would make eye contact with me and smile or nod. And I'd nod back. Other than that, there was no interaction between a dancer and myself; not by my body, not by my mind, nor by any other part of me. In my mind, the dancers were doing business providing entertainment for men seeking entertainment. Nothing more.
And I'd take another sip of 151. And another drag off of my cigarette.
And I'd watch.
*****
Erin's life path changed after we parted.
She quit the job that I got her when we first got together. The allure of hundreds and possibly even thousands of dollars a night struck her. She knew she had what it took to make men do what she wanted. She demonstrated that by manipulating me, and the two other men that became interlopers in our relationship.
Some time later, when I found out that Erin had become a stripper, our relationship resumed again. Although this time, it was no longer in the capacity of boyfriend-girlfriend. We were now in a client-server relationship. I hung out at her club, kept her company when she wasn't on stage, or trying to seduce some poor guy into forking over his paycheck -- and she hooked me up with her co-workers and friends... who ultimately hooked me up with their friends who danced at other clubs.
It never struck me that our relationship had become so unconventional. It also never struck me that somehow, all the love I had for her just evaporated once I put her away. I could watch her wrapping her legs around a stranger's head, while I sat just feet away smoking a cigarette and having a conversation about where to have dinner after work with another dancer I eventually ended up with.
Her name was Skye.
And she too didn't belong in that world.
*****
I watched the new girl sitting there on her half of the stage, staring down at her feet.
I felt so bad for her. For the first time in years, I actually felt something for one of the girls. It was the same feeling I had when I first found out about the mess Erin's life was. The same feeling that I felt when I met Skye. Erin proved my feeling wrong, because in the end she really did belong on stage. Skye, though... never did. And once I got her off of the stage, her life got so much better.
Skye wasn't the first I helped pull from the darkness. She wasn't the last either.
I didn't know her stage name -- the new girl. I never found it out that night. The guys wanted to leave. All I could do, as I walked down the hallway and out of sight, was look in her direction and try and beam a telepathic message to her to tell her to quit. The guys didn't know how to get back to our suite. I wanted to stay. I didn't want to be in any of the clubs that night; until then -- one minute before leaving the last club, all of a sudden I found a girl that actually interested me.
Scenarios played through my head.
I wanted to walk up to her as she sat and hand her a twenty dollar bill and tell her to cheer up and have some fun. I wanted to tell her how to get into her clients' minds. I wanted to tell her how to make money doing this. I wanted to tell her the worst thing she could do was what she was doing at the moment -- just sitting there doing nothing and looking sad. But I also wanted to tell her to quit. I wanted to tell her that she didn't belong here, and that she'd be better off not being in this place.
I could tell she was a new girl.
I wanted to walk up to her and sit down at her stage. And let her dance for me. And I'd talk to her. And try and cheer her up. Try and make her night a little bit better than it'd been going. I wondered what was going through her head. I wanted to know.
I wanted to ask her what was wrong with her life -- what had gone wrong? I could tell that she wasn't there because she wanted to be there. She wasn't there for the same reason Erin was. I could tell that she was there because she was grasping for the last end of the last rope in desperation.
I had a little over five thousand dollars still left on me.
I wanted to tell her that I'd give her
all of it if she quit tonight.
*****
Coma White
Something is cold and blank behind her smile
She's standing on an overpass
In her miracle mile
"You were from a perfect world
A world that threw me away today
Today to run away"
A pill to make you numb
A pill to make you dumb
A pill to make you anybody else
But all the drugs in this world
Won't save her from herself
Her mouth was an empty cut
And she was waiting to fall
Just bleeding like a polaroid that
Lost all her dolls
*****
Seven years ago, I would have stayed.
I stood outside of the club, staring down the dark driveway in the neon-lit alleyway leading to the six-lane boulevard beyond. The groom-to-be and the rest of the crew that decided to return to our suite was making their way down the shadowy asphalt toward the street. I stood there for a few moments longer, contemplating my duties as Best Man -- having to escort the groom-to-be everywhere on the night of his bachelor party; against the calling that gripped my chest.
I cupped my hands and lit another cigarette.
I glanced over at the three girls taking a break at the vending machine in the rest area outside the main door. One ultra-tall Russian girl with hair down to the top of her boyshorts. A petite Vietnamese girl with the bob who I remembered from years before. And a Filipino-Chinese girl with a full-back tattoo. They all had the look. They all had the feel. They all belonged there.
You didn't. You had the little tattoos here and there. You had the piercings. You had all the markings of somebody who desperately sought attention... of somebody who suffered from years of neglect.
You were a flower, thirsty and starving.
You were a girl who'd lost all her dolls...
...and I knew the first thing you needed was somebody to remind you that you were still beautiful, and that you were still worth every bit as much as you were on the day you were born.
She sat there, through the doorway, just thirty feet away from me.
She sat there, with men passing her by in a blur, ignoring her.
Seven years ago, I would have been serving her breakfast in bed the next morning. But I'm not that guy anymore. No, I'm not that guy anymore. I don't go around saving people anymore. Now I'm just a burned-out shell of who I used to be. That man died years ago.
I threw my cigarette into the puddle of water at my feet, and walked away.
