The headlines read like tabloids.

Madman attacks dancer in city club

Dog fends off attempted murder in gentleman’s club

Giant sociopath runs amok in Caribou

Service dog saves woman’s life at expense of own

Superhuman schizo strangles stripper

And, in one publication,

Pit bull attacks!  Is no one safe from this deadly breed?

The following night, business was normal.  A few customers asked about the previous evening’s occurrences, but the hours passed uneventfully.

The next night, the club was busier than usual.  At the door, every other customer asked if they had found the place where the Hulk attacked the Playboy bunny.

The girls could barely fill the demand for dances, and Princess had a line at least six deep all night.  Most of the customers who requested her dances were first-timers at The Caribou, and treated her with respect.  Even the few patrons she recognized spoke to her differently, and not one expected anything of her but a dance and a few moments conversation.  No one laughed at her accent.  Instead, they asked her life story and how she came to be a dancer in America with such an exotic background.

Most of the newspapers and stations had run her picture, a pouting blonde headshot, alongside the story of her attempted murder.  In most publications she was quoted, regarding Leon, as saying, “I wish I could have saved his life.”

The next day, Michelle took off work.  She stood in a stuffy hallway smelling smells of molded books.  She followed a hall down to room 404, which was not a proper office, but a large converted classroom with several partitioned desks belonging to different graduate students.  At the last desk, under florescent light, Gracie Solomon sat talking to a dull undergraduate.  Michelle stood just outside of the door and waited for the student to leave.  After a few minutes, she heard a “thank you,” and the young man brushed past her without acknowledgement.  She took a breath and walked in.

Gracie was less attractive than she looked in the blurry photo.  In Michelle’s opinion, her features were too sharp, her teeth too yellow.  Her body seemed angular in her slimly cut trousers and blouse.

“Can I help you?” she said.  “Are you in my class?”

“Um, no,” Michelle said.  She walked into the room and sat down in an uneven, wooden chair next to the woman.  “My name is Michelle.”

Gracie crossed her arms.  “All right.  I’m Grace Solomon.”

Michelle pulled her shoulders back like in ballet, filled her chest with air, and spoke.  “Hi, Grace.  I’m here for a friend.  Her name is Samantha Feranutos, and I know about your history with her.  I know what she said to you the last time you spoke, and I know the impression she gave.  Before you say anything, know that she is a good friend of mine, and I think I know her pretty well.  Let me tell you, she’s heartbroken.  She’s quit dancing, and I think you know how much she loved that.  She stays in her apartment all day and won’t see anyone.  She’s gotten pale and thin – well, paler and thinner, and she’s just… off.  I can’t really explain it in words.”  Her chest empty now of air, she refilled it.  “She – she knows she’s made a mistake.  She wants you.  Without you, nothing matters to her.”

Gracie’s face was calm as stone.  She nodded and said, “I figured you were one of her friends when you walked in the door.  You’re like her.  You have that… something.  Understanding eyes.”  She lowered hers and sighed.

“It’s very nice of you to come here,” she continued.  “Sam’s very lucky to have you.  But I don’t think it would work.  I don’t think she’d be happy tied down to me.  I think she needs that connection she has with everyone at the club, or in her bedroom.”

A static pause filled the room.

“It’s possible,” Michelle said.  “But Sam said no one else, not ever, has come back to her after being with her once.  Out of so many – so many – no one has ever wanted more.  You came back.  You wanted more.  Even after… even after you got what you got out of it.  And…” she hesitated, “and you still want more now, don’t you?”

Gracie’s expression changed.  She stared over Michelle’s shoulder and nodded slightly.  “I do,” she said.

“I mean, don’t you see?  You’re something different, and with you, she becomes something different.  She’s tired of her solitary life.  She’s tired of belonging to the world.  She wants to belong to herself.  She wants to belong to you.”

The woman bit her lower lip, and after a moment or two, she shook her head.  “I’m thankful to Sam for what she’s done to help me, but I know she’s done it for many others.  It was foolish of me to think our relationship would be different.  It was just a romantic dream.”

“Okay.  But does romance equal invalidity?”

“I suppose not.  Not always, or else why all the literature classes studying romantic poetry?  Why do people still read it?  Why does it still move people?  There must be some truth there.”

“Truth is beauty,” Michelle said involuntarily.  She didn’t know where the words had come from.

“Brilliant,” Gracie said.  “That’s Keats, isn’t it?  Very true.  You’re well-read, aren’t you?”

“No.  Not at all.”

The woman, growing somehow more attractive every moment, drew her finger to her chin.  “I suppose I can meet her, if she still wants to.  I suppose there’s no harm in that.  Even if we can only be friends.”

That night, The Caribou was even more crowded than the day before.  Princess had a steady line of a dozen people.  One woman paid for twenty solid minutes of conversation, in which Princess told of her heritage, her upbringing, her prostitution, and even her disease.  As the woman left, she handed Princess her card.  She was a journalist for one of the city’s leading newspapers, and she wanted to write an editorial on the dancer for its weekly feature, Our City’s Most Interesting People.  Princess’s story would take up a full page of the paper, and her picture would be enormous on everybody’s doorstep.  Princess shook the woman’s hand, tears welling in her eyes.

Abe sat king-like at a high stool at the bar overseeing The Caribou.  Every seat was filled.  Every hand held a drink or a dollar bill.  Every eye was focused on a dancer.  Somewhere inside of him, a little boy smiled.

Michelle sat in Samantha’s living room drinking tea.  Lily rubbed against her leg and purred, then dug her nails with popping snaps into the carpet.

“I have her phone number, and she said she’d meet with you.”

Sam sat behind a hot cup of tea, almost as thin and translucent as the bending wafts of steam that rose in front of her.  Her face was tired.

“Where and when?”

“Anywhere you want.  Just not during the day on weekdays.”

Sam moved to take a sip of her tea.  As soon as it touched her lips, she pulled it away.  A few drops fell onto the sofa.  “Ow,” she said.  “Too hot.”  She wiped her mouth with her hand and set the cup down.  “I won’t meet her at The Caribou.  That would be bad.”

“Yeah.  That’s a good idea.”

“But it shouldn’t be here.  It should be somewhere neutral.”

“Like a bar?”

“Maybe.”

“How about that place you took me?  Maybe during the early evening.  It wouldn’t be so crowded then.”

Sam paused.  “I guess it’s as good as anything.  That’s a fine idea.  I’m not so good at making decisions lately.”  She drew her teacup to her lips again and blew gently.

“When?” asked Michelle.

“Hmmph.”  Sam finally took a successful sip of tea.  “Soon.  I’d like to see her soon.  My schedule is open.  Whatever time is good for her is good for me.”

“Do you want me to call her and arrange something?”

“That would probably be the easiest.”

“Okay.”

Michelle took a long drink from the cooling cup of Darjeeling resting between her knees.  “Sam, can you do that to me?”

Sam smiled.  “Do that?”

“That thing you do.  The sitting.  I mean, if you’re not going to do it anymore, I’d like to see what it’s like.  Maybe it would, I dunno, help.”

Sam leaned back and studied Michelle like a mother looking at her daughter on graduation day.  “Maybe,” she said at length.

Before she knew what was happening, Samantha’s fingertips were touching Michelle’s forehead.  They felt soft and weightless like flower petals.  Her breath stopped.

Michelle could have sworn the hair on her neck was standing on end.  It was as if a charge was conducted through their skin.  She felt suddenly wide awake, and she opened her eyes wide to see that Samantha was doing the same, and she stared into the dark irises.  A small world opened in an instant succession of ineffable images that ran through her mind as the two were connected.

Michelle reached up and touched Sam’s face.  Her skin was parched and cold, but as the seconds passed, she felt warmth return to her cheek.  When they finally pulled back from each other, Michelle sat quietly for a moment.  Slowly she fell into herself, feeling the dry air of the apartment, the warmth rising from the tea on the table.

Sam was staring at her.  Her face, no longer chalk-like, seemed to glow faintly golden, in her cheeks the pink hint of a flush.

“Well,” Sam said, nearly gasping, “did it?”

Michelle reached up and felt her own cheeks, burning and covered in cold sweat.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I think it did.”

Filed under: Michelle, Mlle X, Samantha, The Caribou by Jade