Alice- The Jabberwalkie

Somehow the narrow hall from the stage to the dressing room collects all the air from the club. Everything from the stairs to the lobby, even the smell from the private showrooms gathers here. I leave the stage and move toward the hall, breaking the vortex of smoke, bravely spinning its silent witness to the desperate fantasies we sell, as I pass. Upstairs I pull my next outfit from my locker and make sure Layla’s mousy brown hair is still hidden beneath my wig while trying not to really see the mirror, sometimes you see too much when you look too hard, and sometimes someone else looks back.

Layla thinks she’ll win; Layla has always been a little blind. She gives every day to her little plan, she thinks she’ll kill me, or fix me, or something. Six days a week it’s high schools, shelters and old folks homes; servitude. Those hands the Mommy insisted were bred for holding tea cups and babies are getting rough and red from the scrubbing and scraping Layla fills her days with. I use strong lotion to fix the damage. Six days a week she pays. She pays for what she thinks are my sins and Silvie’s, she pays for her compliance. She keeps herself elbow deep in shit, and cries herself to sleep every night from loneliness. And she’ll keep paying, even though she knows there’s no one manning the till, as long as she thinks its working. She hates us that much.

Finished changing, wearing the blue dress now and having traded the black leather knee boots for clear sling back stilettos, I make my way back downstairs and into the lobby, different dress, different shoes; same animals drooling in the dark on cheap vinyl benches and lounge chairs. I missed last month’s moon, but tonight one of these dogs will bleed for me. Three nights a week I steal her sleep. Before she locked me in, I tried to tell her that it doesn’t matter what we want from this life; my God has a plan of its own, and true deities can’t be denied. She might have found a window, but I was given a key. My laughing Lord is proving its plan, paying back all those years with Layla’s band of jumping whores in green. And with the green It brings me choices, oh so many choices, all those dirty dogs and filthy bitches that need to be put down. It wants them all, but I discriminate, sometimes less is more.

Phoenix is up next. She’s a cute brunette with a tight ass and great moves, I hate this music, but I love this bit. She’s playing schoolgirl to Britney Spears, and sporting that classic catholic uniform, knee socks, glasses, pig tails, lollipop, the works. Its camp, but the spoons love it. With her back against the mirror, and her hands on her knees, she lowers herself, its one fluid movement that finds her squatting, knees open hands crossed, and lifting her skirt just enough to let the cat tease the dogs. Then she rolls forward and begins crawling, shoulders so low her pigtails drag against the stage, that crisp white top opening to give the spoons a peek at her artwork. At the edge of the stage she tucks her head and pulls a somersault, landing legs open, straddling the shoulders of the dog sitting at the foot of the stage. Pulling his head into her navel lands her another five spot, and with a nod and a wink she’s got him on the hook for a private show when she gets off stage. Anyone can use these moves, but Phoenix takes the time to use the music, to actually dance. Just for that she takes more tips off the stage than almost any other girl here. It’s with a slight edge when she tells me that she makes less money when I work; I tell her she needs to use the pole. We’re both only half serious, she’s got moves to spare up there, but when it comes to the pole, I fly.

After Phoenix is Candy; awkward as always with shoes as cheap as her name. Her song is short with heavy bass and lyrics that barely meet the rhythm, she moves like she’s never heard the music she chose; no commitment to the character. She looks like a girl trying to be sexy instead of one that just is. She doesn’t understand why she doesn’t make the kind of money we do, and often begs Phoenix and me to teach her. Phoenix might help, but I settle the girl with a dismissive glance, the last thing I need is another Silvie. I was watching from the window that day, I heard her trashing me to Layla when she should have been thanking me for sending her there instead of making a gift of her. That twisted fuck almost ruined everything with her ‘Legacy of Pain’; if I’d let her play her cards she would have gotten us both the hot needle. Layla couldn’t see it, but when you’re as close to your monster as I am, these things get easier to see.

Silvie wanted everyone to see her pain. I thought at first she cut herself because she was lost and hurting, but she needed the badge. She said ‘People won’t learn, Shadow, until the scars they make on the inside cut so deep they show on the outside too.’ After Lucy came the tattoos; smiley faces, each with some injury or defect, a scar, a bullet wound, one of them had a cancerous tumor bulging from its forehead. One smile for each of her ‘lessons’, she was eight deep by the time I had to stop her. The calling I’ve been given made it easy to understand most of Sadistic Silvie’s punishments, but when she wanted to take those two little boys for fighting in the park I knew I had indulged her too long. I nearly threw up when I saw those twin smiles on her hip; she had them clawing at each other’s eyes. Lucky for me, Silvie could barely maintain, when they came for her she broke quickly and began to rant so deeply they soon stopped paying attention to anything she said about me. It hurt to have to lose her, she was the only human that ever knew me, but I need to be free to serve my purpose, I have a higher calling.

There’s a pair of spoons in the corner, desperate dogs these two. The one on the left straightens when we make eye contact; it’s a done deal before I even reach the table and all I have to do is quote a price. Taking one grubby paw from each of them I lead them into a private room, using my hip I topple the first onto the bench seat and apply a little leverage to fling the second into the space beside him, I give Charlie the bouncer the nod and he draws the red velvet rope across the entry. I position them knee to knee, straddling the seat, and place myself on the smaller one’s lap with my back to him. I’m going on memory, now, using the movements and expressions I remember this body making when Layla let the boys play with our body. The big dog is almost a cliché, broad shouldered and slightly intimidating, dark shaggy hair, thick stubble across cheeks that feel like sandpaper, and eyes as dark as midnight; his partner is slight, at least a head shorter with long bright hair and a neat little goatee. As the music begins to climb I raise my arms and grab the ceiling rail, I use this to control my weight against their laps, making my movements more fluid. I present my bosom to the greedy eyes before me and rest my shoulders against the other one’s heaving chest. Using a combination of my memory and the music I slide my hips back and forth between them, the first and second beats of every measure belong to the darker one, the third and fourth to his companion. These dogs are well trained and although I can feel their appreciation clearly, they both keep their hands at their sides; I can tell the larger one is having a hard time being good, his big meaty paws clench and release in spasms and his breath begins to grow ragged against my nipples. The lesser one has better self control, and proves his nerve as I feel his lips against my ear; his hot breath delivers the question I’ve been waiting for, “So how’s a guy get a little more friendly with hot little piece like you?”

“612 Foccia Point, midnight, and its double for two so make sure you bring at least a thousand.”
“ Foccia? Like the bread?”
“Just like the bread.”
“A thousand sounds steep-"
“A thousand gets you both. Vanilla, you get me? You want more, you pay more. You want to pay less go find yourself a cheap whore and you’ll get what you pay for.” As I’m saying this I’ve turned to face him, I speak the words with my lips pressing against the creature’s smooth white belly, I feel it tremble and know I own him now.

When I turn my face up to him the world spins slightly and suddenly I feel like I’m using a mask; another face, another us, I’m pulling her strings like she’s some kind of sex puppet. I feel the heat growing in her thighs as I rub her ass against the silent partner’s chest, there’s something awake in her now; some deep need I can only vaguely feel. It’s not the same as sharing with Layla, there’s no person here, no other mind; there’s just a doll. But somehow the energy feeding from her sex is guiding me, helping me know what strings to pull; giving reason for my movements and lessoning my need to rely on the memory of those hot, sticky fumblings with high school boys that I found need to excuse myself from at the time. The smile my face shows is truly mine for a moment, another gift; another tool to serve my Master’s purpose.