“Who thought this was a good idea?” Lilly demanded as Sam laughed at her, picked up his drink and walked off.
She scowled at his back the whole way, as he left and found one of the dancers, beginning to move with the half-naked woman. Lilly was not impressed, not in the least. She looked like she was about to start throwing the furniture.
Which was the only reason that I wasn’t about to threaten to do the same.
Sam and Grace, the bride and groom, had agreed to have their bachelor and bachelorette parties and I couldn’t fathom why. Neither seemed like the type, but Sam had wanted Grace to go out and have a party with her friends, get drunk and maybe do something stupid. He had said she should experience all of human life because the next life might be dull in comparison.
I didn’t think Heaven was boring. I missed it even.
So there weren’t naked women dancing about. There were also no drugs, or murder, or rape, or prostitution of girls too young to help themselves escape. Heaven was perfect, hence its name. How could Sam have suggested it was boring?
And because Sam went, we all had to go. I tried to argue that we weren’t brothers, and therefore nothing could be expected of us, but Grace had pointed out that she knew that and we still had to go because we were brothers in arms, and that meant we were closer than brothers.
While I might agree with that statement, I did not enjoy sitting in a cesspool of human garbage. They didn’t even choose a classy strip club, just some shady thing on the edge of town where no one would expect them.
Looking around the strip club, I grimaced in disgust, sneering into my drink as I brought it to my lips. Lilly made a very similar motion and picked up her drink.
“This is your fault, Michael,” Lilly said.
She had volunteered to come.
We had been clear with her. This anger could not be blamed on me. It was not my doing.
“How is it my fault?” I protested. “I don’t want to be here either!”
“The accent doesn’t turn me on, drop it,” she snapped.
I sighed and clenched my teeth. I had used that accent for forty years. It didn’t always work great, but darn it, when I turned it on thick, the women responded very well. I struggled for a moment, then slipped it out and sighed again.
“It’s not my fault.”
“Holy… holy shit, you can actually drop your accent?” she demanded.
“It’s not a part of the body, it’s a part of the mind and vocal cords,” I said with a shrug. “Actors do it all the time, why not us at the drop of a hat?”
“I never thought of it like that.”
Satisfied that I had diffused the situation, I relaxed and looked out over the club.
It was a Wednesday, strange day for a bachelor party, but at least there were fewer humans around.
Lilly had argued that she and Sam were old, good friends, therefore she should go. Sam had relented because Ralph had also crossed that bride-groom line in the sand. Lilly and Ralph would be heading out the next night for Grace’s bachelorette party, which would likely have a similar theme. The difference being that Lilly liked looking at half-naked men.
Her idea of a good time did not involve watching her own gender prance about and get naked while being used and manipulated by men. I saw her eyes flit from one stripper to another, head shaking just a little as the small, unpleasant events that happened in most strip clubs were unfolding.
Sam, Gabe, and Ralph ignored those signs.
They either chose not to see them or didn’t realize they were there. But they were also hot-blooded males, as Sam put it. They enjoyed the female form in all its states of undress.
That was what Sam said.
I did not much enjoy watching women dance with that distant look in their eyes as if they wished to be somewhere else. Sam and Gabe could enjoy it all they pleased and tell themselves what they wanted, but I didn’t believe it.
How can he just sit there with her in his lap?
Ralph already had a dancer in his lap, straddling him as she giggled and he smiled up at her. One of his hands was on her hip, the other firmly on the seat he had claimed, giving her a clear route of escape if she so desired. He seemed enamoured with the woman, his entire focus on her but only for a moment.
I couldn’t help but watch the way Ralph’s fingers trailed up the woman’s side as he watched another move. That wasn’t his sex face, that was the hard eye of a healer, judging proportions and movement. He put on a good show, but I don’t think Ralph volunteered to go so that he could get a lap dance.
But I had never entirely been sold on the idea that he was comfortable in his male skin. He might have thought being female would be more comfortable than male, but we had known for most of time that the female, while not weaker, was treated like half of a whole. I had witnessed children be treated with more respect and choice than some women.
“If only he’d make up his mind,” Lilly said with a sigh.
Startled, and wondering if she had read my mind, I turned to Lilly and found her watching Ralph. One of her eyebrows quirked upward, she turned to me and gave me a look that dared me to deny that I had just been looking at him as well.
“I thought he was gay,” I responded.
“As an angel, it’s not exactly possible for any of you to be any sexuality,” she said. “Your bodies are gender fluid.”
I knew that, but I was used to speaking to mortals and using mortal terms. If I had had that conversation with Grace, it would have made so much more sense. Lilly knew the other names and the other ways to be. She knew we could change, just as she changed over the years.
Though she had only ever been female.
“That’s not what gender fluid means,” I countered.
“Not in this day and age,” she said. “But if you wanted to, you could become a woman, march on over there and crawl into his lap.”
“Shut up, Lilly.”
Apparently, I didn’t calm her anger.
I must have just redirected it from Sam to me. Maybe she was thinking of things before, things we weren’t supposed to talk about for the sake of Grace. If that was the case, I should not have snapped at her. I should have allowed her annoyance. I deserved it, I knew that but she caught me off guard, and her mood seemed to be swinging all over.
None of us were ever mind-readers. Not even Gabe, for all his power to influence the dreams of others.
“I’m not saying you would, just that you could,” she said. “That’s pretty gender fluid to me. You have all just been male for so long that you’ve forgotten. I’ve seen you all in skirts before. Best month of my life.”
“You forced us into female flesh.”
“And? What’s wrong with that?”
“My breasts got in the way.”
“Welcome to being a woman,” she said. “Being a man has always been easier, that’s why you’ve only been men. Humans relate manliness to strength, which I think has also contributed to you remaining men.”
“What’s your point?”
I was hoping to drive her to the end of the conversation, to the part where she stabbed me with the closest object and called me all kinds of rude things. I would have preferred to avoid it, yes, because after stabbing me, Lilly would go crying to Grace and I’d be in trouble again.
But, if it were coming to that point anyhow, I’d rather just get there sooner than later.
“Gender and fluid together says that you can slip easily between the genders,” she said. “Humans are now exploring the notion that there are not binary genders in their world. That’s, I mean, come on. I know for a fact that in Heaven, you and Samael—”
“Stop!” I snarled at her. “We have no bodies in Heaven. It’s certainly not the same damned thing. We carried on no relationship either. Don’t you dare try to tell me that this all started because I was the jealous ex. I was following my orders. And I certainly am not hung up on Samael. He talks a big game, but let’s face it, his spear is not all reaching.”
Lilly giggled.
At least I had that going for me. Better a giggle than that scowl pointed in my direction again.
One of the conditions of Grace and Sam staying together meant that Lilly and I had to work out our differences. I had no problem with the woman, it was all far in the past, but she still didn’t trust me, which I knew was entirely understandable given our history.
I didn’t push the matter. I wouldn’t have even been sitting beside her if we hadn’t had to make a point of playing nicely together. The wedding wouldn’t happen if we were fighting. Or more of, if Lilly was yelling at me. It made me uncomfortable, to throw us together like that, but I understood that Grace didn’t want to leave Lilly behind, and refused to make Sam leave me behind.
In a way, it was kind of adorable.
Which was probably what Lilly also said about the situation and why she was sitting with me in a strip club.
If I had to have that conversation with Lilly, I had discovered that making Lilly cry was all right. Better than anger, I mean, not that I believed it was right to make a woman cry. If Lilly were crying, she’d go to Grace and blame me, but then afterward, after I had been thoroughly chastised by everyone in the estate, everything would settle back down again.
“Look, he dropped the pornography, right?” Lilly asked. “That’s a start.”
“Pornography, if one enjoys being filmed while having sex, is nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “My problem was that we were supposed to keep a low profile and he was a star. People still recognize him in the street, for crying out loud.”
“True.”
“And he only gave it up because he thought that someone like Grace was out there for all of us. He didn’t do it because he realized being a public figure was a bad idea,” I added.
Lilly was quiet a long moment, then said, “Also true.”
We sat in silence for a time, as our drinks were replaced with new ones. The girls tried to get my attention, but that’s what I saw them as, girls. They were barely legal. I felt like I should be tucking them into a bed and reading them a story to put them to sleep, not eyeing them up as they were half-naked. I did little more than glance as they left, and then only to confirm that they were leaving.
“That one’s not even legal,” Lilly said in disgust.
I followed her gaze, then turned very quickly toward the stage. After a moment, I cast Gabe a desperate look and he looked up and followed my gaze. Then I refocused on the stage once more.
Just because we were out enjoying a show, didn’t mean our duties were left behind.
Gabe was the only one who could deal with underage humans. He didn’t even have to touch them, just slip into their dreams and plant one little suggestion, then get out of there before they fell asleep. Demons didn’t often possess those who were underage because they didn’t like not being taken seriously. In the modern time, a demon was more likely to find themselves drugged up with antipsychotics than they were to have free reign in the body of a child.
Who knew, she might not have even been possessed.
In which case, Gabe would make a phone call the next day, and if it still didn’t get sorted out, he’d report it to Sam after the wedding, and we’d do what we did best.
Clean up the mess.
“And now, welcome to the stage, Seraphina!” a man out of sight shouted over the speakers.
Trying to get the clients to pay more attention, and prepare them for her entrance. It sounded so stupid to my ears, like every bit of him was fake, but it seemed to have an effect on everyone but those receiving lap dances.
Those gathered went quiet. They focused on the stage as the woman walked out in a military-style uniform. It was one of those shortened ones that was made to be obviously not the real thing. No one would have looked at her and thought that she had served in the military, they would have known that she was a stripper, or thought that they had just walked into a pornographic movie.
Her hair was up under the cap. Her skin was slightly darker that Sam’s, just a shade beyond olive. Her eyes were almost hidden by the brim of the hat, but appeared almond shaped and as she scanned the crowd. As her eyes flowed over me, my pants tightened. I whimpered and adjusted as her gaze slipped past me and around.
“Well, now,” Lilly said as she sat forward in her seat, “there’s a woman who likes taking her clothes off.”
And why not? Her body wasn’t built to be hidden. She was long in the leg and muscled. She obviously worked out, walked, biked, ran, something. A backside like that on any other body and I would have suspected that surgery had been involved. Not on her, though. Her breasts were perky, but not obscenely large.
Unlike many of the dancers in the club, she was clearly a natural woman.
Not, uh, no, I don’t mean that there were transgendered women dancing, or that if there were, I had a problem with that. I meant that she hadn’t had any work done. There was no silicone or implant in her.
Why do I feel the need to defend that?
I glanced over at Ralph to see if he was paying attention, but he was focused on the woman in his lap once more. None of the others seemed to realize that there was a woman on the stage. She at least was worth the look. There was life in her eyes, one that flickered to burning anger when someone tried to reach out to touch her.
She was present and cared about what was going on and what she was doing. She wasn’t dead inside.
Her face was overly done in a gaudy sort of way. She had done herself up to change the way her face looked. It was one of those almost-magic jobs that Sam always complained about. Women were better with makeup than most artists were with paint. The look likely helped her get through her day-to-day life without being harassed by men, because her clients would have a hard time recognizing her.
The way she danced was so fluid. It reminded me of how we once moved with the flow of Heaven. Of how our wings would shift with that multidimensional existence, always knowing which way to turn and move. The motion of her body reminded me of the daily prayer and meditation that the Thrones would perform.
A wave of homesickness hit me right in the gut. I missed that, watching that daily ritual go through the motions and knowing that Heaven was un-phased by everything going on outside. I missed the comfort that we all found as the Thrones seemed to become one, of the calm that rippled across the landscapes of Heaven as they completed their dance.
She went through her dance routine as almost everyone in the club watched her. Some were focused on the dancers in their laps, like my brothers and a few others.
It must have been the regulars who were watching her. A strip club was nothing without the regulars.
She was stripped down to a bra and underwear seemingly all too quickly, her smooth skin un-adultered, unscarred.
Until she turned around.
Are those…
“Wings?” Lilly gasped out as the men around the stage began furiously trying to get her attention to stuff bills into her g-string.
The woman had wings tattooed on her back, a full set of wings. They were done in exquisite detail, right down to the threads of fate that all angels grew from the very tips of our wings. Those threads of fate were harvested by the Heavenly host in charge of fate, and woven into the tapestry of time.
Only the Heavenly Host tasked with removing them, and the angels knew. Few of us would allow the threads of fate to grow long enough to be visible among the feathers. It was basic grooming, yet there they were.
Inked into a woman’s back.
My heart stopped in my chest. I’m certain it was a full minute before it beat again. When I glanced at my brothers, they were all engaged with the women in their laps. No one but Lilly and I had seen the wings, and even that was such a brief motion that it was there and then gone again before we fully realized what we had just witnessed.
“Oh. My. God.”
“Those were wings,” I hissed out.
“What do we do?” she asked. “Kidnap the poor woman?”
“Heavenly host don’t get wings on the physical form. So, she’s what, a new type of demon trying to lure us out, right?”
“Fallen angel?”
I considered the curtain of the stage as the woman slipped behind it and out of sight.
My first assumption was a human possessed by a demon. They might know the look of wings if they had worked with a fallen angel. She didn’t feel possessed, though. We were drawn right to those before they took their clothes off. Chewing my bottom lip, I glanced at Lilly, who shook her head.
If she were a fallen angel, she wouldn’t have been there. Even after the events of almost four years previous.
We didn’t actively hunt fallen angels, and they gave us a wide berth. I don’t think either side knew what to do with the fallen angels. They had followed Samael into Hell and chosen to stay. Unlike the four of us, a fallen angel had done terrible things which caused their wings to rot away. They couldn’t get back into Heaven if they wanted to.
Following that example, I had been very, very careful. The others might do whatever they please and claim their wings were fine, but I swore I saw a dimming in the feathers, and I did not want to become a fallen angel.
Even if the dancer was a fallen angel, I doubted that her wings would look like that.
“No, don’t do anything stupid,” Lilly said in the long silence that followed.
I stood and left the table, headed toward the back. At the door leading into the dressing room, I was stopped by a man. I knew he was there to keep the perverts out of the back, but I had also witnessed several men leaving the floor by that route. I also assumed that the strip club offered other services, and that those men were seeking those services.
“Mike Angelica,” I said, sticking out my hand to the man who stopped me.
The man was tall and broad, with muscles that were threatening to rip through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Except, I knew the shirt was too small for him, he was wearing platformed shoes to make him seem taller, and even the lighting had been changed a little so that he looked more looming.
He eyed the hand suspiciously, which I understood.
“You know the Angelicas, don’t you?” I asked.
“You’re the ones who donated the money for that building to be rebuilt after a meteor struck it,” he said. “Own a bunch of businesses and such.”
His tone of voice told me that he was thoroughly unimpressed with my pedigree. The other men who had gone through the door hadn’t looked any better off than me, though they may have greased his hands a little. I was hoping I could get in without having to part with any money, as I assumed I would need it on the other side of the door.
“Yes, that would be us,” I said, dropping my hand. “I’m just wondering if the services of the dancers might be purchased. Specifically, the one who was just on stage.”
“Seraphina doesn’t do private shows for nobodies.”
“Which is why I introduced myself as Mike Angelica,” I said, holding up a hand to stop him when he opened his mouth.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my identification, handing it to him. He looked at the card, then frowned over it at me. He still seemed thoroughly unimpressed.
I gave a little shrug.
“You know my brother’s getting married in a few days,” I said. “I need a date. And I might only be a younger brother, but there are lots of men for her to introduce herself to at the wedding, which I’m sure she’d enjoy.”
The man considered me for a long moment, then stepped to the side.
“She’ll hit you if you’re a fool.”
“Got it,” I said, slipping past him.
Behind the door was a dressing room for the strippers. It was one large room with several makeup mirrors and counters. There were bags on the counters, the makeup clearly claimed and orderly. There were racks of clothing sitting along the edges of the room. Several dancers were in various states of undress, talking over costumes and makeup like they were gossiping around the water cooler.
Several of the dancers paused in what they were doing, smiling at me knowingly.
I looked around the room, searching for Seraphina among the faces. Brushing past a rather bold dancer who tried to press up against me, I slipped deeper into the room. I spotted her in the far corner, reapplying lipstick in one of the makeup mirrors.
More than an arm’s length away, I stopped. I waited in silence as her focus shifted from her lips to me. To her credit, she didn’t jump in surprise.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me through the reflection of the mirror.
“Michael Angelica, to what do I owe this meeting to?” she asked, turning in her chair to look me up and down. “You’re the one who gardens, right?”
“I am, yes,” I said. “I also run the club two days a week, and am responsible for all hiring for the club.”
“Are you looking for a special dance for the groom?” she asked.
She asked it a bit like I was stupid, or annoying her. Like I should have known the answer to that question or that others in bachelor parties had asked that question once too often in the past.
“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m the only one without a date for the wedding. I’m wondering if I might be able to purchase your services for that night. Whatever you need in price, I can do it.”
“What you’re saying is that, despite being a younger brother, you’re still loaded?” she asked.
“Very much,” I said. “Sam may be the face of our company, but that’s because others don’t respect a business with more than one face.”
“How do you decide things?” she asked.
“We vote.”
“But what if there’s a tie?”
“It never is,” I said.
She made a little sound and turned back to the mirror, looking over her makeup. She removed her hair. It took a moment for me to realize that it had been a very good wig. The wig had been an auburn colour. Seraphina’s natural hair was long and black. Her hair spilled down her back as her fingers worked their way through those silken locks.
The smell of artificial cherry blossom reached my nose, sending a little shudder down my back.
She turned as I leaned in close, for a better smell.
“You haven’t paid yet,” she said, her tone cutting me to my core. “That means you don’t get to touch the goods.”
“Sorry,” I said, cramming my hands into my pockets. “Your smell caught me off guard, that’s all.”
She studied me through the mirror again. I think she was considering whether she would take the job. I knew that she would take it, but that it was the consideration of how much to charge me, and if it’d be worth it.
“It’s five thousand for the night, half up front, half at the end,” she said.
“I can do that, of course.”
“Do you want a story?” she asked. When I gave her a confused look, she sighed and turned back to me. “What are you going to tell your family about me?”
The truth, then I was going to tell Sam and Grace about the wings and swear them to secrecy so that it was a surprise for Gabe and Raphael. I couldn’t tell her that, though. She might find it strange that I was describing her in detail to the groom. Or that I had chosen to ask her out because of the wings alone.
“That I met you at the strip club,” I said with a shrug. “My family isn’t judgemental about that at all. It’s no one else’s concern how we met.”
“Then why have a date at all?”
“Because we’re supposed to have dates for a wedding,” I said. “And preferably dates that make fools of us, Grace says, because the brothers of the groom almost always have dates that make a mess of things unless they’re in a long-term relationship, which none of us are in.”
“I’m sorry, are you hoping I’ll cause a fuss?” she asked. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Oh, no, Ralph has one that will cause a drunken scene. An actress of some sort that is looking to get some free publicity and likes an open bar. We have that covered. I just meant that I need a date, but no one is expecting you to act a certain way. And, of course, there’s an open bar. No drugs, though from the look of you that wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, I don’t do drugs, or smoke, rarely drink alcohol.”
“You like this life?”
“It pays well,” she said with a shrug. Then she glanced at me. “What, are you going to offer me a new job?”
“That’s not my place,” I said.
“Is there something shameful about taking my clothes off for money?”
“Not if you enjoy it,” I countered. “History just teaches us that women typically don’t enjoy this line of work and just do it out of necessity, or because they are forced into it, so my response is almost always to offer a way out. However, it’s not my place to do so.”
She made a sound and stood, pushing in her chair before she turned her full attention to me.
“You’ll need to provide the address, and if there’s something specific that you want me to wear, you’ll have to send the dress to my place. Are there any other requests?”
“I’d like to be able to see your face, maybe more subtle makeup,” I said. “I will send you a dress. I’d very much like to show off your tattoo. It’s gorgeous work and shouldn’t be hidden.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then back to me, an eyebrow quirking upward. “Fair enough. My name is Sera.”
“Sera, nice to meet you,” I said, offering my hand.
Sera took my hand and shook it once. “Hey, I thought the younger brother had an accent.”
I flushed with embarrassment, having not brought the accent back before stepping into the dressing room. It had gone completely from my mind as I scrambled for an explanation as to why I would have suddenly been speaking in a different way.
“Uh, we get a lot of questions about it,” I said. “We decided the best way to deal with that was if we worked with some speech coaches to speak the so-called proper accent.”
It sounded like a bullshit answer because it was one. I just hoped she wouldn’t press any further than that.
“That’s a silly thing,” Sera said.
“I know it is, but it keeps people from asking questions, which is what we want to avoid.”
“People asking too many questions?”
“Yes.”
“Yet, you’re going to take a stripper to your brother’s wedding?”
“Yup, because among the rich, somehow that’s expected. But I don’t think anyone is going to look at you and think stripper. Not unless you tell them you are one.”
“And if I did?”
I shrugged.
“Have at it. I just need to tell you some rules about the wedding, like it is Grace’s day and you can’t ruin the cake or the toasts or the first dance. Don’t hit on Sam, everyone else, besides Grace is free game. You want to start an orgy in a side room, by all means.”
“Wow, this is starting to sound like a pretty wicked party. Don’t brides usually want to control every little aspect?”
“Not Grace. There are no children attending. She said because of that pretty well anything can go as long as it's in side rooms and such. Anyone who crosses her will be removed by security.”
“Okay, this is starting to sound like fun. I can honestly say that I might enjoy this job.”
“Great, just let me get you those details you need, and you can give me an address to ship the dress to.”