Chapter Five - Tyler
“Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you! For your service!”
At present, my personal space is being invaded aggressively by a drunk, recently-turned-twenty-one-year-old firefighter in a strip club.
Jeff’s shouting at me over the top of ZZ Top’s “Legs,” which is so hilariously cliché that it’s almost quaint. This Raven chick (I think the DJ said Raven. Coulda been Condor or Hawkwind or something equally stupid) is giving it all she’s got though. Bear and Rod are clearly in love with her. They’ve probably both already dropped half a week’s pay on her and the dancer before her and we’ve been here like ten minutes. Dean’s too cool for that shit, which has made her notice him even more than she naturally would and now she’s got her titties all up in his face, which is causing Bear and Rod to spend even more dough to get her attention back. It’s kind of incredible to watch in a stupid way.
New guy Brandon is just sitting by himself, off to the side, staring. I’m actually kind of surprised dude showed up. He’s a for-sure-weird fucker, I’ve decided. Which is fine. Who isn’t? But he definitely gives off a chop-’em-up-stick-’em-in-the-freezer vibe. But then again Evan said that at the emergency call they got yesterday, he kicked down the door of a makeshift meth lab that had caught fire, went tearing inside, and came back out carrying two tiny kittens like they were priceless jewels. Then I guess Brandon said he’d take ’em home himself and take care of them. Evan thinks he might have gotten a little choked up over it.
People, man. People.
Anyway, Jeff must have been drinking all afternoon before we came here because he is WASTED.
“YOU’RE the hero, man! You’re the hero!” He’s hugging me now.
Evan is smirking. He leans in so that I can hear. “He tried for Ranger Training School but washed out. He’s got a soft spot for the military.”
That’s all well and good, but I hate this shit. I don’t care that he’s drunk. I pull him off me and square him up.
“Hey! I’m not a hero. And neither is Evan or any of you. You understand? They pay you to do a job and you do it. That’s it. The moment you start believing in that hero bullshit, you will try to live up to it and you will fucking die. You get me?”
He blinks like he’s trying to figure out what I’m saying and then his expression changes. I know that expression. It’s the one of someone who realizes they’re about to throw up.
“That way. Go.” I turn him around and point him to the bathroom. He takes off running. Evan eyes me.
“Give the kid a break, man. It’s his birthday,” he says.
“Fuck. I know. I just… I can’t stand that crap. From anyone. He’s like your little mentee or whatever? You need to fucking educate him on that shit.”
Evan steps back and looks at me hard. He’s got dark, almost black, eyes, and sometimes it’s impossible to tell what’s going on behind them. If we’re going with the metaphor that eyes are the windows to the soul, Evan’s have blackout curtains over them. If he doesn’t want you to know what he’s thinking, you will not know. It’s one of his superpowers.
“What?” I ask, with some annoyance.
“Is this about something else?
“Like what?”
I know exactly like what. We both know like what. It’s why he’s been so all over me this whole last week. It’s the real reason he wanted me to come to the station house yesterday. It’s why he’s keeping tabs on me. It’s why he’s so insistent that I “hang out with the fellas.” And as much as I appreciate the concern, I also resent the shit out of it.
“He reminds me of him too,” says Evan.
I don’t need this shit. I really don’t. Not now.
I’m about to respond when one of the strippers (dancers? Do they call them strippers or dancers? Artisans of Pole Manipulation? I’m gonna call them that. Pole Artisan for short) approaches Evan.
“Feel like a private dance, sugar?” She’s eye-fucking the shit out of him. Probably not because he looks like the more good-looking version of what would happen if Keanu Reeves and Johnny Depp’s DNA got mixed in a lab and was artificially inseminated into Salma Hayek (although it likely doesn’t hurt either—I’m saying, dude is offensively handsome), but because he looks like he has money.
Robert, his husband, is one of the hottest-shit land developers in Vegas and Evan is a self-proclaimed clotheshorse, so being married to a rich dude affords him the chance to indulge his textile addiction.
(First time I thought Evan might be gay: We were ten and a bunch of us were in Joey Butler’s basement/his dad’s home gym looking at a dirty website. This was like ’97, so dial-up took forever—you’d get the slow reveal as the pixels loaded: part of a tit, then a belly button, finally the muff shot, and the room would explode with pre-teen boys going “Ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”—and I looked around to share the moment of crotch-shot exultation with Evan to find him eyeballing a Men’s Fitness magazine. Dunno if I grasped it at ten, but in retrospect… Pretty decent tell.)
Anyway, point is, Evan dresses really, really fucking slick when he’s not at work. And this Pole Artisan can clearly smell the money. (Why I never upgraded my wardrobe when I got all my cash. Don’t wanna send up any smoke signals to the gold-diggers. That and I just really could not give a fat baby’s ass.)
“C’mon, sweetie,” she coos, “you’ll be real glad you did.” She starts grinding on his hip with her pussy. I can see Evan getting stressed that his thousand-dollar pants might get pussy juice on them. He gently but firmly pushes her away.
“Uh, that sounds… super. But I’m OK. Thanks.”
Some people can’t take a hint.
“Awww, c’mon now, baby.” She goes in to pitch him with her pussy again. Evan stares at her with those midnight eyes.
“I appreciate the offer, but unless you’ve found some secret place to hide a cock in there, I’m all set. Thanks.”
You ever see a dog tilt its head at you trying to figure out what the fuck you’re saying? That’s what she offers back before she blinks twice and walks away. It’s wonderful. Evan smiles and waves goodbye as she leaves. Then he turns to me.
“I’m gonna go check on Jeff. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t.”
The hell I won’t. As soon as he walks off to tend to Jeff I turn to the bartender to get my credit card back.
“Hey! Bro! Lemme get my card? Tyler Morgan. But, uh, go ahead and just run it for like two grand, and those two guys I was just with—and those guys over there…?” I point at the quartet of Brandon, Dean, Bear and Rod. Bear and Rod are looking desperate and sad as Raven or Parakeet or whatever her name is supposed to be leaves the stage and blows them a kiss. “Yeah, those idiots? Whatever those guys all want, just put it on the card? If there’s any left over, add it to the tip. Cool?”
“You got it, chief.”
Christ. I hate it when guys call me “chief.” Not sure why. Feels condescending. But I don’t wanna get into it with a fucking bartender at a strip club. I just wanna get the fuck outta here and go somewhere with actual women who will at least fuck me tonight for the money that I’ll spend on them.
“All right, gentleman…” The DJ is as cheesy as I’d expect. You can hear the herpes in his voice. “Let’s get ready to give a nice, big hand to the lovely, the seductive, the naughty girl next door whose parents are out of town…!”
Are you fucking kidding me?
“The innocent harlot! Magnificent Scarlett!”
Kill me. Just get the bartender to bring my card back so I can get the fuck out of here and—
And…
And…
And then…
Time.
Stops.
It’s her.
She’s ditched the blue shirt for a push-up bra and almost nonexistent panties, and she’s covered her hair with an unnaturally blonde wig, but the eyes. The smile. The wings. The halo. It’s her.
My angel.
What. Is. Happening. Right. Now?
It seems like they’ve plunged the rest of the room surrounding the stage into complete darkness because she’s the only thing here anymore. All the light in the place is shining directly on her. Shit, all the light in the universe is shining directly on her.
I can’t breathe. My chest is tightening. Just like it did when I smelled the smoke last week. And my hands are shaking, just like they did when I heard the alarm at the firehouse. But unlike those times, I feel… peaceful. I’m at ease.
I can’t tell if I want to smile, cry, or just… breathe. So I don’t do anything. I just stare at her. And then…
We lock eyes. She’s looking directly at me. Only at me. She pounds forward to the edge of the stage, fierce, powerful, in control, but still soft and beautiful. There’s no music, there’s no sound at all. Just my breathing and my beating heart.
She walks over to the pole and she climbs up. She hooks her legs around the top, letting her head list toward the ground. Her halo and wings shimmer in the golden glow of light surrounding her.
She splits her other leg open wide, and she slides slowly towards the earth.
An angel falling from Heaven.
She arrives on the floor with a graceful release from the pole, resting on her ass, her torso lifted, head tilted forward, her beautiful, perfect stomach holding her aloft as, facing me alone, she spreads both legs open. Open as wide as the gates of heaven itself. Inviting me to enter inside.
And I know this is impossible, but… I can smell her. Even from as far away as I am, I have her scent. It’s an odd mixture of fragrance that shouldn’t be so intoxicatingly beautiful blended together, but it is. She smells like fresh cream, and sea salt, and cotton candy, and sunshine, and innocence.
And now I can feel the blood rushing to my cock. The inside of my jeans starts pulsing in time with my beating heart. I’m not wearing underwear so the tip throbbing against the rough denim is just making it even harder. It’s like a divining rod leading me toward the oasis that is her perfect body.
I begin walking toward the stage. She’s asking for me. This is what the dream has been about. It’s not a dream. It’s a premonition. This is why I have come home. I didn’t understand before now what my true purpose has been in returning to this place. But it’s so I can find her. Suddenly it’s all so clear. I’ve heard of people’s lives changing in an instant. In war, you hear that all the time. But until now, I didn’t understand.
I push my way past the other men standing rudely between me and my angel and reach the edge of the stage. My dick feels like it’s going tear through the cloth. I want it to. I want to tear out of my own skin and into her. I want to take her in my arms and press myself deep inside her until we become indistinguishable from each other. Until she has taken all of me, deep, and I have filled her with my blackness and poison and together we have turned it into light.
She is now on all fours, crawling over to me. No, not crawling. She floats. Her wings ferry her to where I stand. The pulse that I feel in my shaft is quickening. I can feel the churning, urgent need inside me racing to get out. My breath catches as she is inches from my lips now. She smiles and I’m afraid I’m going to come right here. I open my mouth to receive hers, but she pushes her lips past mine and lands at my ear.
She whispers, “You feel like sliding any cash in here, baby, or you just gonna stare?”
She spins to the side and the silhouette of her perfect ass is next to me. She cocks her hip out and offers up the side of her G-string. I do as she says. I want to do what she asks of me. Anything she demands, I will provide. I reach into my pocket and pull out—
Shit.
I don’t have any cash. I rarely carry cash anymore. I mean… everything’s done electronically and on my phone, and… fuck! My angel requires cash and I have none! Goddamn it!
“I’ll be back!” I shout. And I run to the ATM in the corner of the club.
As I’m putting my card into the machine and withdrawing the five-hundred-dollar maximum withdrawal, a small voice in the back of my head (I think it’s in my head) calls out that I’m acting like a mentally ill person. I crush it before it can say more. This is the most rational, logical, sane moment of my life. I know it is.
When I turn back to the stage… she’s gone. What the fuck? She’s gone. The rest of the club has emerged from its blackness and all the sad, pathetic losers who think they’re somehow going to get a stripper to fall in love with them are back in my eye line. The stage is no longer awash in its golden hue, but just in the lame glow of the gelled Klieg lights. And the sound of “Me So Horny” blares over the loudspeakers as the DJ announces the arrival of Honey Walls to the fucking stage. I run over to the bartender who walks toward me with my credit card.
“Here you go, boss. Sign here.”
I grab the receipt and sign. I ask, “Where’s the girl? The one who was just up there? The angel?”
“Scarlett?” he says. “She’ll be out in a second, probably. For lap dances.” He hands me back my card and says, “Thanks a lot, pal.” (I have a brief moment where I consider that I am neither this guy’s chief, boss, nor pal, but again, I let it go.)
I see a kind of fat guy in a dark, rumpled, stained suit, sitting by what I imagine to be the dressing room door. He’ll presumably know where my angel is. I head over.
“Hey,” I say, as I approach. “’Scuse me? That girl, um, Scarlett. She back there?”
Big guy eyes me like he’s sizing me up. I know exactly what that looks like. I’ve seen that look more times than can be remembered.
“Who’s asking?” big guy wants to know.
“Nobody. She’s… She just… She back there, bro?”
Big guy seems unsatisfied with this response. He rises from his stool in the way that almost always happens after the sizing up part is concluded.
“Dude…” I begin. Because here’s the thing: I don’t wanna have to take this guy down. Well, that’s not exactly true. I kinda do. Because he’s fucking underestimating me. I can tell. And that drives me crazy. But just like with the bartender, I’ll let it slide because I’ve got other fish to fry. Also, if shit jumps off now, then Evan and his brothers will step in and have my back. That’s just a fact. And those guys have to work in this town and it’d be terrible PR for LVFRescue if the Review-Journal ran a story about how one of its engine companies got into a fucking melee at a strip club. So I’m trying real, real hard to be the shepherd. (That’s a line from Pulp Fiction. Samuel L. Jackson says it. Every time I take the high road in a situation like this I think of that line. I love that movie. So many good lines. People say the phrase, “I’m gonna get medieval…” all the time now and forget that it came from THAT movie. So rad. I haven’t seen it in a while. I’m gonna watch it later when I get home. I think I’m rambling in my head again…)
And just as it looks like shit’s about to go to a place it can’t be rolled back from…
… she walks out from behind the curtain.
It’s weird. She’s still just as beautiful and magnificent as she was a moment ago—perfect lips; taut, toned stomach; incredible, real tits; emerald-green eyes—but she seems less… angelic… somehow. More of this earth and less like she was in my dreams. More, I dunno, human. I decide not to think about it too much.
“Hey, Scarlett,” says big guy. “This him?”
“Him?” She eyes me for half a second. “Oh. Oh, no. No. No. S’not him. Thanks, Otis.” She gives big guy a pat on the arm, eyes me with more than a little suspicion, and crosses into the room where she plasters a big smile on her face (not sure why it looks painful) and starts talking to the losers.
I give old Otis a look that says “you’re lucky, buddy” (totally unnecessary, but fuck it, he is), and follow Scarlett. Whose real name simply cannot be Scarlett. I’ll bet it’s Persephone or, like, Ephigenia or something. Something real elegant and biblical.
I come up behind her just as she’s reaching this douchebag wearing a gold chain.
“Hey,” I say as I lightly touch her shoulder. She feels like baby powder. “Can I—?”
She turns around and interrupts me before I can finish. “You. The guy who took up my attention for almost half my song only to have no money. Whattayou want now? I’m all outta free lap dances. Go ask her.” She points at a girl who’s currently shoving her comically oversized fake breasts in some poor schmuck’s face. “Name’s Charity. Maybe she’ll give you some.”
“I’m sorry,” I say in return. I really do not feel like myself all of a sudden. I feel nervous and awkward. Which has simply never been me. The weirdest part? I don’t hate it. “I wasn’t actually planning on staying, but… Whatever. I went to the ATM and got out some cash. I feel bad. Here. Please take this.”
I pull out the wad of cash. (I never carry a wallet. I wind up losing money in the street all the time.) She eyes it with some skepticism. Then she eyes me up and down with the same skepticism.
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m, uh…” Fuck it. “I’m a lumberjack.”
I hand her a hundred bucks. She takes it. Stuffs it inside her bra. I get a glance at her nipple and remember that I’m still rocking a savage hard-on.
“Lumberjack, huh?” she says. She glances down at my stiff cock. “I buy that. Looks like you’re packing some serious wood.”
I simply can’t be anything be proud of her observation.
I come back with, “I’d love to take you to the forest sometime.” Jesus. That was pretty fucking weak.
She rolls her eyes. “So,” she says. “Looks like you have a couple more dollars there. You want a dance?”
(No. I want to fuck that halo off your head and die in your arms.)
“Sure. Is there a, whattayoucallit? A champagne room? Like, y’know, someplace more… private?”
“We call it a VIP lounge. But it’s very expensive.”
“OK.”
“It’s three hundred dollars for the hour.”
“OK.”
“Plus the cost of drinks.”
“Sure.”
“Bottle service only.”
“Fair deal.”
She continues to eye me with uncertainty.
“Yeah. OK, lumberjack. Let’s go.”
She takes me by the hand and my dick freaks the fuck out. As she’s leading me to the back, I see Evan emerge from the bathroom carrying a spent-looking Jeff. He sees me heading back with Scarlett and a smile threatens to completely overtake his face. Until… Jeff heaves and throws up on Evan’s fifteen-hundred-dollar Tom Ford shoes.
This night is not turning out like anybody planned.