Princess came in late that night wearing a cropped Playboy bunny t-shirt that showed off her lower-back tattoo.  When Michelle said hello to her, she didn’t even turn her head.

Great, Michelle thought as Princess passed, staring forward.  Now she’s one of them, too.

The club was different without Sam.  When she was present, there was at least a moment or two every evening when Michelle didn’t feel like she was at a strip club.  When she felt like what she was watching was something sacred, something ethereal, something that transcended time.  The moment would pass and the reality of where she was would return, but somehow the feeling of sacredness would linger, bleeding into her surroundings and imbuing them with comfort, with warmth.  When Samantha was there, even the bleakest day at the club was manageable.  Now, girls like Angel were even more insufferable.  Julie Han was bitchier.  The omnipresent eye of Claudia seemed intrusive instead of protective.

Michelle hardly differentiated the features of the faces of the men who threw dollar bills at her and who paid her to grind against them in the private rooms.  The only person she recognized in the club that night was her regular.  After drifting for a while through the crowd of ghost-faces she sat down next to him.

“Hey there,” she said, leaning on the chair in front of him with one arm, shoving out the other hip, resting the other hand suggestively on its bone.

“Hi there, young lady,” the man said as he tucked a handkerchief into the pocket of his brown jacket.  “How’s this warm weather treating you?”

The warm weather was a reminder of her brother’s wedding and the unstoppable cycle of time, old age, and death.  “Pretty well,” she said.  “You know us girls, we love the sun.”

The man closed his eyes and smiled, his head nodding once in a short chuckle.  “Well, it’s nice to see that some things haven’t changed since I was your age.”  When he opened them, his eyes were glistening pale blue orbs reflected in the stage lights.  He turned them to Michelle.  “My wife used to love the sun.  When I met her, I was even younger than you, believe it or not.  Now, I know when I was your age, I could never imagine us old dinosaurs as young men and women, but believe me, I remember being your age just as clear as day.  In fact, I remember being your age more vividly than I remember five years ago.” 

His words were as intricately fluid as his movements, and both combined like the trickling of two streams that flowed into a single river.  He sighed.  “My wife, she was a pretty little thing.  She was petite and blonde, like you.  And could she dance!”

“She was a dancer?”

“Well, not professionally, no.  But she was a fine dancer recreationally.  We used to have dances back then.  Real dances, with boys and girls all dressed up.  And we knew steps, too.  Nowadays, you kids, you just wiggle every which way, but I’ll tell you, when my wife was a girl, she blew all of us away with her steps.  I watched her dance for months before I mustered up the nerve to approach her.  I practiced my steps, and when I thought I was good enough, I asked her to dance.  And well, you know, the rest, as they say, is history.”

“You got married?”

“Oh, yes.  Only three months after I first asked her to dance.  And we were very happy.  Just… very happy.”  He let out a deep sigh that rattled within his chest.  “Then one morning she wakes up with a lump, and before you can count to ten, she’s gone.  That was ten years ago, and I swear on her soul that I haven’t been with another woman since.”

“I’m sorry.”

The man snorted and wiped his nose with his creased, yellowed handkerchief.  His mouth was dry, and he licked his chapped lips to wet them.  “Well, that’s all right.  You know, these things happen.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of life, it’s that it takes you in directions you never thought you would go.  Let me tell you while you’re young, planning is useless, and it’s foolish because time doesn’t follow your plan.  When I was your age my head was filled with plans, and I’ll tell you, my life isn’t anything like I pictured it would be when I graduated from college.”

“When was that?”

The way the man breathed, every breath was a sigh.  “A long time ago.  Before you were born, I’m sure.” 

He bought a dance from her and she did her best to touch him, to move against him like a maybe-lover, him who moments earlier had spoken to her like a father to a daughter.

Princess still wore her Playboy bunny t-shirt, only with a bikini bottom instead of jeans.  The world was buzzing, and the people passing her looked like the same face over and over, on a hundred different bodies.  When people spoke, it was as if they were shouting at her from an aquarium full of cotton.  She saw a face, just some face floating past, and it started to shout, distantly, dreamily, through that muffled chamber.  The face contorted as sounds arose, the muted voice growing louder until finally she heard,

“Babe!”  It was Lucy, stern-faced and impatient.  Princess nodded.

“You got some customers, see?  In the back there.”  Lucy raised her thin, dark arm and gestured to the location of the customers.  Princess nodded again.

Drifting back toward her table of customers, she recognized one of the men.  A thirty-something suit-and-tie with a dirty blonde crew-cut.  He smirked out of the side of his mouth at his friends as Princess approached.

“Hey!  Baby, come on over here,” he called waving her over.  He looked in her direction, but had no regard for whether his gaze caught her in the face.

She remembered.  She had fucked him in a booth two weeks ago for five-hundred dollars.  Her stomach betrayed her and she grew nauseous, the absence of her lunch, bile, rising in her throat.  She swallowed it back down.

 “My little slut!” the dirty blonde man called, squinty and red-faced.  He raised his beer bottle and swung it back and forth like a boat on rough water.  “Come ‘ere.  It’s my buddy’s b-day.”  He opened his hand and struck one of his companions hard on the back.  The slap sounded like a popgun.  “You gotta give ‘im a freebee.”  The dirty blonde man made an exaggerated wink.

Princess sat down between them and drew one of her cards out of her bra, handing it to the birthday boy.  He read it, looked at her, then read it again.

“Well, this is all fine,” he said.  “But my pal here says you do more than dance.  And seeing as how it’s my birthday, I figure it’s the least a little ho like you can do.”

Princess crinkled her forehead and shook her head.  She took a pen from the table top and wrote on the back of one of her cards, Dont do that any more.

Birthday Boy read his note and raised his eyebrows.  He sneered at his friends.  “You don’t, do you?  Little dumb slut don’t fuck anymore?”

“Come on, now,” the blonde man said, moving his chair closer to her.  “You’ll warm up to Barney.  I bet we can change your mind.”  His arm leaned against the table, nearly touching Princess.  She shook her head again.

“Don’t be a fucking tease,” Barney said, and he leaned toward her like a falling building.  “You stupid slut, I know you fucked Kyle the other week.  He told me.” 

“Ha!” a third member of the party said, holding a glass of yellow beer.  He sat behind Princess looking down at her back.  “Those Chinese characters.  Every dumb slut’s got them these days.  I bet you don’t even know what that means, do you sweetheart?”

Inside, Princess growled.  O hime samatte kaite aru desho?  O hime sama mitai ni atsukatte yo!

“All right,” Barney said loudly and suddenly.  “I don’t have time for this.  You know what I want, babe.  Either give it to me, or get outta here.  Fuck, I’m not picky!  You can give it to me like this, real easy.”  His hand flew up and wrapped around the back of her head, drawing her face violently toward his crotch.  All his friends laughed around them.

Princess thought she was going to cry, but instead she drew her arm forward and elbowed the man in the stomach.  He groaned and doubled over, releasing her.  She stood up, ran her fingers through her violated hair, and choked back her tears until she was far away from the table of men who shouted both mockeries at Barney for being taken down by a woman, and obscenities at Princess for taking him down.

Princess curled into a corner of the dressing room and cried to herself in silent sobs.  Across from her, Michelle put on her makeup and Julie changed into her street clothes.  The mouth-shaped scab on her forearm had fallen off almost completely, leaving only a shiny pink outline of the wound.  She lifted a small stack of books and shoved them into her green corduroy satchel.  Michelle’s eyes wandered idly to glimpse the books’ titles.  (One Card Drawn, Three Aces Down, Two Cards Left)

“Those are mystery novels,” she blurted.

Julie looked at her and cocked an eyebrow.  “Literate, huh?  Well, that’s more than I can say for most of these girls.”

“No, seriously,” Michelle said.  “I mean – did you quit school or something?”

Julie’s mouth formed a smirk.  “Well, not that it’s any of your business, but I graduated.  It was a nine month program, I finished last month.  I don’t go broadcasting it around like Vivian or whatever her name is, but yeah, I’m done.  I’m a stripper with a degree.  Probably the only one you’ll ever meet, at least in here.”

“What’s it in?”

Julie pulled her t-shirt over a white bra.  “Business.”  She gave Michelle an ironic look.  “I’m going places, I tell ya.”

A sudden shout rose over the constant murmur of the dressing room.  “It burns!”  Julie and Michelle looked to the corner.  Vivian sat on the counter by the mirror with Angel.  In her right hand she held a rolled-up bill, her left pressed into her nostril as a line of tears streamed down her cheek.

“S’alright baby,” Angel said.  “You get used to it, and you feel like a fucking queen.”  Vivian slowly stopped shaking her head from side to side and blinked her heavy-lashed lids twice.

“It’s such a fucking shame,” Julie muttered and turned around. 

Princess stood in front of her with a clenched jaw and a damp face.  Her mouth quivered and she bit her lip.  Her eyes met Julie’s, then traveled down until they stopped at the pink bite mark on her arm.  She burst into slow, loud, painful sobs.

“I’m so solly!” she cried, throwing herself to her knees in front of Julie and embracing her around her thighs. 

The dressing room stopped, all eyes focused on the mute girl who spoke.  The dancers slowly formed a circle around Princess and Julie, closing in tighter and tighter watching the wonder, the only sounds in the room the shuffling of hesitant feet and the ringing, despondent moans of Princess Sakura Nakamichi.

“Praise God,” Angel said, standing over her.  “It’s a miracle.”

Filed under: Julie Han, Princess, The Caribou, sex by Jade