It was late Sunday night when the train pulled into the city station.  Michelle sagged in her seat, feeling tired.

It was still winter, and the cold air bit her lips as she walked back to her apartment, her mind racing.  All my dreams over I should have died when I was 18 it’s been all downhill ever since middle school no one cares about me all my friends have left and now even Jake it’s all gone why do I get out of bed even because I forgot because I’m a stripper for God’s sake and so I have to wake up sometime or else of course or else who would shake their tits for the old perverts that’s retarded of course there would be someone else there always is and I’m twentyfuckingthree which is like a fucking grandmother in ballet and every second I’m closer to twentyfour and then forget it and me still a fucking virgin well not a fucking virgin that doesn’t make any sense but then I never make sense what’s so great about Rachel she’s just like a cardboard cutout well I guess if that’s what he wants if he’s really just like a guy just not thinking taking the first thing that comes along those éclairs look good do I have any cash on me God I’m a fucking heifer and mom commenting when she’s a fucking fatass herself who does she think she is she doesn’t know how hard it is she’s never worked in her life far as I know Jesus that fucking bruise fucking hurts every time I go like that I’m pathetic walking around like a battered wife or whore like crackwhore or whatever no if I were on crack I’d be much thinner like Crystal can’t believe anyone even thinks I’m sexy with these bruises and my belly and God I feel a zit coming right in the middle of my fucking forehead and it’s going to be a big one shit it hurts everything hurts fuck it all.  

Her apartment felt arid and unwelcoming.  She slept uneasily that night, and the next day, she went to work, passing the time in a haze of disinterest and vodka. 

“Is something bothering you?” Sam asked as they walked briskly home through the freezing air. 

Michelle thought a moment, then said, “No, I’m just tired.”  Later, she wished she had said more.

 

Tuesday, free from work, they returned to the Fish Ho.  As they approached on the dirty boulevard, the sidewalk in front was clogged with glassy-eyed people attempting to hold poorly constructed signs of protest with dignity against the accosts of the frigid wind.

“Jesus freaks,” Samantha said quietly as they approached the small crowd.  “You’d think they’d have better things to do.  There must be an abortion clinic around in need of a bombing.”

Michelle surprised herself with a high-pitched laugh, but was intercepted stepping past by a birdlike woman with drooping eyes.

“Whore!  Do you know what God thinks about whores like you?”  The woman spat when she spoke.  Two young children, one girl, one boy, clung to the bottom of her long calico skirt.

“There’s still hope,” said the woman, glaring through her sagging, sad eyes at the dancer with venom in her voice.  “Repent!  Leave your life of sin!  We are here for you.  To help you.  To save you.”

The dozen or so people behind her erupted in a small cacophony of affirmations and amens. 

“And are you sinless?” said Samantha’s rich steady voice from behind the ballerina.

 A deep crease appeared in between the woman’s eyebrows.  “Of course not.  I am a sinner, just like everyone else.  No one in this world is perfect.  None of us.”  She stopped, looked, and added, “But I am not a whore.”

The wind blew, throwing Michelle’s hair into her face and across her chapped mouth.  She pulled it to one side and saw Samantha, now inches away from the bird-like woman.  “Neither are we,” she said, her voice low and controlled.  “Don’t go casting stones.  You don’t know a thing about us.  You don’t know if we’re mothers or wives or virgins.  You don’t know why we’re going into this place,” she glanced down at the girl and boy at the woman’s feet, then leaned in closer, speaking in a whisper almost through her teeth, “just like we don’t know if you secretly hate those children of yours.”

The wind whistled by, tossing paper and plastic bags.  The woman drew her coat closed and buttoned it with one hand, glaring all the time at Sam.  She moved her tongue in three stilted circles around her flaking, dry lips and clutched the collar of her daughter’s coat tightly.  “How dare you!” she hissed.  “I love my children!  Love them more than life!  They are blessings, blessings from God, each one.  But what would you know about it?  This proves you people will stoop to any depth.  Any depth!  What do you know?  You’ll probably never know you – you whore!”

Samantha shook her head.  “You’re right,” she said.  “That was out of line.”  She looked at the woman and sort of half smiled, head tilted.  “I’ll see you on our way out.”

The dancers walked into the store.  “It’s not that bad once you get used to how they think,” said the pale woman.  They began silently to browse. 

“Sam?” Michelle asked, after a while.

Sam was holding up a tiny sailor outfit against her chest.  “Hmm?”

“What you said about that woman’s children?  I mean, it really did seem to bother her.  How – how did you know that?”

Sam shrugged.  “I didn’t know.  I just guessed.  The kids looked sad and a little scared, and I couldn’t imagine someone choosing to stand on a street corner and shout obscenities at strangers without having some very serious regrets about their life.  I just took a stab.”

“Oh,” said Michelle.  “Are you like a psychologist?”

Sam laughed hard, closing her eyes, bending backwards.  “No, I’ve just been around.  You should try on those purple shoes.  You could use another pair.”

 

The next night, Michelle wore a new costume.  It was a blue chiffon, Arabian Knights inspired style, with puffy, flowing pants, a bikini top, a tiara, and several veils.  The name on the bag was Empress Jazzmine, cleverly sidestepping direct copyright infringement.

At the makeup table, Michelle looked at herself with disgust.  A pimple had grown and mutated into a swollen red and white knob right in between her eyebrows.  As she did her makeup, trying semi-successfully to sweep her eyeliner out to create a Persian effect, she realized that there was no hope of covering this monstrosity with concealer.  It was a shining stoplight in the middle of her face.  She raised her fingers to pop the offender when a flash of inspiration came upon her.

She pulled a blue eyeliner from her case.  Carefully, gently, she colored in the pimple and the skin around it, creating a nearly perfect bindi.  An exotic Eastern goddess, she smiled at herself in the mirror and prepared to take the stage.

That night, she tried her best to channel all her anger and frustration into her performance.  Fuck Jake, fuck Rachel, fuck Mom, fuck the Jesus freaks, fuck the companies, fuck strippers, fuck money, fuck me.  She danced and flirted and drank.  This life was not so bad, she decided.  The money was good.

Once she was tipsy, she walked out onto the floor looking for her regular.  He was nowhere to be found, but she did see Mr. Sides of Beef and Julie sitting on a loveseat and a sofa, respectively, and talking.  She ambled over, trying to be inconspicuous. 

It didn’t work.  As soon as she reached a point where she could hear what the two were saying, Mr. S. o. B. called over to her.  “Hey, you dwinking?”  His voice was much higher than it had any right to be, and he seemed to have some difficulty with the pronunciation of his R’s.  Julie was expressionless, looking at her.

“…You buying?” she said, shocked at her own nonchalance.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julie smirk.

“This is Michelle,” she said to the enormous man, not using the fake Japanese accent that she usually affected with clients.  “Be nice to her.”

He nodded at the ballerina, who took a seat on the sofa as far away from Julie as possible. 

“I’m Willy,” he raised his countertenor voice over the noise of The Caribou, simultaneously extending a massive arm and catching Lucy by the wrist as she passed.

“Hey,” he said to the waitress, who did not seem pleased by his manner of attracting her attention, “I want another Guinness, Julie’ll have more club soda, and Michelle –” he looked at Michelle.  “What’ll you have?”

“I – a vodka tonic.”

“Michelle wants a vodka tonic,” he said.  As Lucy began to walk away, he caught her arm again.  “Make it a double,” he added.  “And make it stwong. We don’t want no stwipper dwinks with a dwop of alcohol to the gallon.  I want to get my money’s worth, understand?”

Lucy looked bemusedly at the large man.  “You got it, partner,” she said, and walked away. 

A silence traveled around the small group.  Julie crossed her legs absently (a movement which seemed to last several minutes, though it really took only 4.5 seconds) and said to Willy, “That bitch stole something else from my locker last week.”

Willy breathed.  It seemed to be difficult for him to breathe properly, one breath being divided into spurts, and involving a lot of shifting in place in between. 

“What was it?” he asked.

“A shirt,” Julie said.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“How do you know she took it?”

Julie chuckled.  “Dumb whore wore it in front of me the next day.”  They both laughed.

“Who’s stealing your stuff?” asked Michelle.

Julie looked at the blonde as if she had forgotten she was there.  “Princess,” she said, then sipped her club soda.  “That bitch hates me.”

Can’t imagine why, Michelle thought.  But she said, “Why?”

Julie rolled her eyes.  “How do I know?  I didn’t do anything to her.  I’ve never even spoken to her.  She probably doesn’t even have a reason.  I fucking hate strippers.”

“You know,” Willy said, smiling, “I could kill her for you.”  A dead chill shot up Michelle’s spine. 

“No, that’s okay,” said Julie.  “If you went around killing every stripper who’d been a bitch to me over the years, the streets would be littered with fake boobs.”  She laughed to herself. 

Lucy returned with the drinks.  Willy gave her far too much money and told her to keep the change.

“He’s only kidding,” Julie said to Michelle, whose shoulders were drawn up to her neck.  “Not all the rumors about Willy are true.”

“I heard he’s a sociopath,” said Michelle, voice wavering.

Julie took a beat.  “Well, that one’s true,” she said, and started to laugh again, palms raised in a shrug.

“But I’ve never killed anyone,” added Willy, drinking a glass of black beer with a white head.  “Come close, but never killed anyone.  And I’m on medication now.  How’s the school going, Julie?”

The dancer’s eyes rolled.  “Boring as fuck, but I’m getting there.  This might finally be a program I can finish before getting too bored or having to move.”

Willy nodded.  “A fucking stwipper with a degwee,” he said with a white foam mustache.

“Yeah,” said Julie.  “It might shatter the world.”

“What’s it like?” said Michelle.  The other two turned.

“Huh?” said Julie.

“Being a sociopath.  I just wondered what it was like.” 

Willy took a long drink of his beer and wiped his mouth with his forearm.  He leaned in through grunts and deep breaths and looked at Michelle, unblinking. 

“I have no sympathy for humanity,” he said, a tremor in his high voice.  He gestured around the main floor of The Caribou.  “I could walk around this woom and stwangle every person in here and not feel a thing.  It would be no diffewent than stepping on a hill of ants.”

Michelle swallowed.  “Why?” she ventured, clutching her glass tightly.

Willy breathed.  The process took about ten seconds.  “Humanity is the world’s biggest pawasite.  We’re a viwus, and the planet is twying to kill us off.  All we do is eat, shit, bweed, and destwoy.  I see the people in here as bactewia, and I could stwangle any one of them without feeling guilty.”

“Come on, now, Michelle’s all right,” Julie interjected.

Willy wheezed and nodded.  “Once I know someone, even as well as I know you now,” he said to Michelle, possibly trying to comfort her, but it was hard to tell, “then I see them as human.  Like, now, I see you as human, so you’re in on a twust with me.  I’ll pwotect you and wespect you, but the minute you do something that lets me down, that betways my twust, then you’re wight back out there with them.”

He was sitting hunched over, leaning in toward Michelle with his elbows on his knees.  His face seemed to be pinched in toward the nose, with squinty eyes, a downward-sweeping ridged forehead, and an upward-sweeping chin.  In the middle of the chin was a dimple. 

“Willy’s a fucking comic book character,” Julie said.  “Show her your arms.”

Willy smiled and extended a giant forelimb across to Michelle.  “Feel it,” he said.

Michelle touched an ancient god’s arm carved out of stone.  Most people’s skin, no matter how muscular they are, gives a little when pressed.  Not Willy’s.

“I have a layer of cystic fiber that gwows beneath my skin, over my muscle.  It’s like a layer of wock – a natuwal armor.  Feel this.”  He ran his hand over the inside of his forearm, from wrist to elbow.

“You don’t have that muscle,” he said, as she felt his arm.  “Most people only have two main muscles in their fowearms.  I have thwee.  This one keeps my arm fwom hyper-extending.  I have extwa muscles all over my body, and my bones are twice as thick and dense as a normal man’s.”  He withdrew his arm and took another drink of his Guinness, finishing it off.

“Why?” asked Michelle.

“I’m a fweak of nature.  A genetic mistake.”

“You’re a killing machine,” said Michelle, her drink nearly gone.  She started to laugh.  “A killing machine!”

Willy began to laugh a little too, and if she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn she heard Julie chuckle once or twice. 

“Annie May.”

The laughter stopped.  The interrupting voice belonged to no one in the small group.  It came again.

“Annie May?” said a young businessman, tapping Julie on the shoulder.  “You remember me?”

Julie snapped around and looked at him.  “Oh, yes.  You ah Meesta… Thompson?” 

“Johnson.”

Julie giggled and covered her mouth with her hand.  “Oh, solly, my engrish is no so goo.” 

The man was practically winding up his lolled out tongue on a crank like a wolf in a forties cartoon.  His eyes wanted to bulge, to pop out of his skull and grow enormous, pulsing and throbbing in front of this girl.

“ANNIE MAY.”  His voice was too loud, his words too slow.  “DO. YOU. WANT. TO. GIVE. ME. ANOTHER. PRIVATE. DANCE?”

Julie cocked her head in exaggerated confusion, then opened her mouth with a silent gasp, lowered her eyes, and nodded.  “Oh, yes, Meesta Johnson.  I woo rike to velly much.”

The dancer stood up, straightened the pleats on her schoolgirl outfit, and tossed her pigtailed hair.  “Ret’s go,” she said, and led the man back to the private rooms, head bowed.

Michelle watched them go.  When they disappeared, she looked at the mammoth, the beast next to her.  “You don’t want a dance, do you?”  Immediately after she said it, her mind began a spinning rotary of women’s network TV movie titles.  Danger in the Dark.  Murder in the Metropolis.  Psycho in the Strip Club.  Killer in The Caribou.  Michelle Browne: Too Young to Die.

Willy only shook his head.  “Naw, thanks.  I never get dances from girls I like.”  Another chill flew up Michelle’s arched back. 

Finally she excused herself to make some income.  She scanned The Caribou for her regular, but he was still nowhere to be seen.  She was about to approach a group of older businessmen when a snakelike hand found her hip and she turned around.

“Hey, baby.”  She recognized the man vaguely; he once asked her to suck his cock.

“You wanna give me another dance?”  His face was red and his eyes seemed unfocused.

“No, not really.  I’m on in a few minutes.”

“Come on, baby.”  He practically leaned on her.  “Sorry about last time.  Lemme make it up to you.  Ima gentlemen.  I’ll make it worth your while.”  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a money clip, extracting two hundreds.  He shoved them into Michelle’s hand. 

The dancer considered the money, and decided it was worth it.  “This is just for a dance.  Just one.  You want another, you have to pay for that, too.”  The man nodded with his eyes closed and a big wet smile. 

They found a room.  The first song started and Michelle stripped.  The man’s hands strayed a few times, but his mouth remained shut, and for two hundred dollars, Michelle could deal with him.  Before long, the third song was over.  Michelle gathered her clothes, thanked the man, and started to walk out.

“Wait, I wanted another dance,” said the man, stumbling up out of his seat. 

“You paid for one,” she said.  “That was our agreement.  If you want another, you can pay for that, too.” 

The man staggered over to Michelle.  His erection was visible through his pants.  “Babe, I gave you over five hundred dollars.  The least you could do is give me one more tiny dance.”  He was standing close.  She could smell his foul, hot breath as he spoke.

“First of all, you gave me two hundred dollars, and I thanked you,” she said.  Her voice was shaking, but she tried to sound like she imagined Samantha would.  “Second of all, we agreed that it paid for one dance, and you could buy another one if you wanted.”  She took a breath.  “But now I don’t even want to do that.  So I’m leaving.  Bye.”  She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her arm.

He pulled her back into the room and pressed her against a wall.  He had about sixty pounds on her, and she tried to twist free, but he held her tight, one hand caressing up and down her arm.  His eyes were bloodshot, and his saliva misted Michelle’s face as he hissed, “You know what that money was for, little girl.”  He held her to the wall with his right hand.  With his left, he reached down and cupped her g-string covered vulva and squeezed.  “You know you look like a little girl, doncha?  Beautiful face.  A beautiful little girl.” 

His arm pressing into her chest was enough to make her pass out.  She couldn’t get enough air to scream.  Little girl.  Pretty little girl.  With horror, she felt his left hand slide beneath her g-string and start to travel down and down and down and…

Suddenly, the door flew open.  Light poured into the private room, revealing the silhouettes of Claudia and two large men.

“Him,” Claudia said.  “Out.” 

The bouncers grabbed the man by his clothes and pulled him off his feet, dragging him out of the room as he cried like a baby.  “We were just talking.  I was just talking to her!”  Michelle wished they would break his neck.

“You okay there, doll?” asked Claudia when the men were gone. 

Michelle’s mouth was agape watching the place where the man had stood.  “Uh-huh.”  She felt her crotch.  Yep, it was still there.

Claudia nodded and started to walk out.  “You can take the rest of the night off, if you need it,” she said over her shoulder as she left.

Michelle slowly and carefully put her costume back on and walked back into the dressing room.  She sat down in a chair in the corner and stared at the floor, then she cried and cried.  Fucking men.  I hate them!  Fucking beasts!  Horrible beasts!  I’m glad I’m a virgin if I’d have to lose it to one of them.  No respect.  I’m not even a person to them.  I’m just a cunt with freckles and blonde hair and a child’s face.  Fucking sicko.  Fucking pervert.  Who does he think he his?  Fucking sick pervert.  I hope he dies.  Sicko.  All freaks.  All animals.  Jake’s the only one, I swear.  He’s the only fucking one who isn’t a fucking animal.  I knew it.  I knew it. 

She stopped sobbing and looked around.  None of the other girls had even raised a head to see who was crying.  Behind her, Julie was sitting on the counter in front of the mirror with her legs crossed and her foot resting on a chair, filing her nails.  When Michelle looked at her, she glanced down at the ballerina.

“Your bindi bead is leaking puss,” she said, and went back to filing her nails.

Michelle looked past Julie into the mirror.  Her pimple had burst, and a stream of puss, blood, and blue eyeliner ran down in between her eyes.  Her makeup was running, and her Persian look was smeared across her cheeks in shapeless blobs.  An announcement came over the club’s sound system.

“Up next, we have Isadora!  Isadora, please make your way to the stage.  We have a real treat for you guys, and once this lady gets up here, I hope to see everyone by the stage with dollars in hand.”

Michelle looked at herself once more, splashed her face with cold water, and made her way to the stage.

Filed under: Julie Han, Michelle, Samantha, Willy, alcohol, clothes, dancing, sex, weight by Jade