The lights go down for the night, the adrenalin of performance still burning in my stomach as I drown out the vacant cheers of another faceless audience. It somehow just isn't the same anymore. I feel myself losing my bravado, feel the rehearsed passion draining, and I crank the façade into gear again with a vicious swing of my ample hips as I strut off to the seedy place they call a dressing room.
'What the fuck did you expect, dollface?' I think to myself, that self-loathing little excuse for a conscience flitting about my shoulders on her discouraging wings. 'This isn't nothing but a damn titty bar, so stop trying to tell yourself you're an artist. Burlesque is just what strippers say to feel less pathetic.' There isn't an ounce of my being that doubts that truth, but I push it back to the corners of my mind in favor of the more convenient comfort of cigarettes and gin.
By the time I realize I need a drink, I notice one already waiting for me at the makeup counter, a brilliant oasis in the desert of lipstick tubes and stockings. Smiling to myself, I grab the drink and sit in the chair, long and shapely legs swung over the side, teetering pendulums of flesh and fishnet and patent leather.
I light my cigarette and the long-awaited nicotine blurs the doubt and regret for a beautiful but brief moment before I throw back the drink and relish the delicious, perfect numb like the reassuring whisper of a lover. Through the haze of smoke and second thoughts, I catch a glimpse of myself in the elegant, Victorian looking glass—their failing attempt at vintage class—and the revolting surrender in my doppelganger's eyes makes the two of us cringe in unison.
I search the mirror desperately for something more in those large, dark eyes, silently begging my reflection to restore some of the decency once held in the onyx orbs. After a moment, I break the staring contest with a flutter of lids shadowed a shimmering violet like a fairy's tell-tale signs of sleep deprivation or a mermaid's contusion. I stop for a moment to bring myself back to reality, focusing on the sensation of long, ebony lashes against my alabaster cheek bones and the flickering light behind my eyes. With a sigh, another veil of blue-grey smoke escapes my full, cherry-painted lips and obscures the porcelain face of my looking glass twin.
Three tentative knocks grace the dressing room door, and an equally uncertain voice timidly inquires, "Zoe? Are you decent?" as though I hadn't just disrobed for an entire audience only moments ago. The voice's cautious, antique chivalry makes me feel more like some coquettish, Renaissance beauty than a cheap cabaret act, and I smile.
I wonder for a brief instant what he means by 'decent', and look down at my exposed breasts before tugging gently at one of the silver rings interrupting the soft, dusty, rose color of each areola, enjoying the slight sting that runs up the ivory curve of my breast like an electrical current.
"You can come in, Nate," I assure him, and the door swings open. His eyes widen in surprise, and he drops the armful of my discarded clothing to the floor, freeing his arms to shield his eyes.
"I-I'm s-s-sorry," he says, swift and nervous.
"Nate," I purr, the fabricated seduction in my voice as thick as old honey, "It's okay." His eyes meet mine, shy grey and unyielding ebony. Nate's pupils grow with some emotion or feeling I can't quite identify, oil drop obsidian spreading across eyes the perfect color of statue stone without the slightest hint of the material's hardness. Nate has always had the charming ability to be innocent and vicious in one conflicting instant. It showed now, his nervousness and raw desire taking stage in his storm cloud eyes like twin contortionists in a Vaudeville show, a precarious knot of clashing philosophies. I hold his gaze for a perfect moment before he blinks rapidly like a man waking from a dream, and rushes to pick up the dropped garments.
"Still, I'm sorry," he says, the pseudo-calm in his voice just as much an act as the passion served up on the stage earlier. "It's just that you said—"
"It's fine," I assure him, crimson lips spreading in a genuine smile, and he nods, setting the clothing on a vacant table. He looks at the empty glass still clutched in my delicate snowflake fingers, nails polished the dangerous color of vinyl tapping gently at the side.
"I figured you'd need that," he says, and his voice has a bitter tone I'd never heard before.
"Yeah," I said, feeling guilty for no direct reason. "Thanks, sugar." I part my lips slightly, but the words die on my tongue, and the stillborn thought is forgotten.
"I'm getting a new job," he says, as he rifles through the assortment of clothes, finding my corset, "at a theatre." He stops to look me over, his gaze vaguely scrutinizing.
"We'll miss you, sweetheart," I say, and for once, it isn't a lie. I rise from the chair slowly like a predator or a harlot being lead to the guillotine, and we begin the tired routine. He brushes my raven hair to the front, careful with his touch as though the strands are spun from black, volcanic glass and are more precious than their reality.
With the movement, my violet-dyed bangs fall into my eyes, and he reaches to tuck them behind my gauged ears. It reminds me of something a mother would do, something out of place in this house of ill repute. I look at myself for what feels like an eternity, looking much younger than twenty-two in that moment, eyes wide with anticipation for things I can't place.
"I like it," he says, and I'm not sure what he means until I feel his cool fingers drag along the fresh ink scar slowly, reading the tattoo like braille enclosed in the skin of my shoulder. I don't answer for a moment, and I see him frown in the mirror. "You always get beautiful tattoos," he elaborates, trying to solicit acknowledgement, and punctuates his sentence by running his broad hands across my back and down my arms, as though I may have forgotten where the tapestries of art and pain were located.
"Thank you," I say, finally, and he wraps my corset around my waste, his fingers working their swift and practiced dance, a frenzy of buttons and snaps across my abdomen. I briefly wonder why he's snapping it from behind until I remember the look he gave for that tiny instant our eyes had locked.
"Is it too loose in the back?" Nate asks and I move a bit to test its fit.
