"KILLING TIME AT THE BLUE SHADOW"
A few months ago...
With the arm sleeves of his mechanic's coveralls tied around his waist, Orpheus occupies himself in his sketch pad, sitting on an old folding chair in facing a rusted derelict Studebaker. He loses his focus when he notices Angel walking to him from the front of the gas station. Orpheus feels a sudden small rise in his body temperature as he watches Angel in her blue maid's uniform, giving a friendly smile.
"Hi." Orpheus greets, closing his sketch pad.
"Your boss said you come back here on your lunch break." Says Angel.
As Angel nears the sitting Orpheus, she gets the full view of the back field of dirt behind the Lakeside Gas and Grill. Along with the Studebaker, nine other derelict vehicles as well as an ice machine and pin ball machine are scattered around what Orpheus calls
The Field of Eyesores
. As unsightly as Angel finds it, she continues to gaze at the graveyard of rusted cars.
"I know, not exactly a Robert Bateman painting, but it's better than leaving them out front." Orpheus states as he stands up and faces Angel. "So, what brings you to my side of the road?"
"I just wanted to apologize for how I was with you yesterday." Angel says. "I know you were just trying to help me with that creep and I should have been more grateful."
"Don't worry about it." Orpheus assures. "That asshole clearly got you rattled."
"Well, I'm not that good when I'm...rattled." Angel explains "That's why I left Plutopolis."
"A lot of people here in Lakeside use to live in Plutopolis, including me." Says Orpheus.
"Why'd you leave?" Asks Angel.
"Health reasons." Orpheus vaguely answers.
A loud double-ding is heard from the gas station, indicating to Orpheus someone just drove to the gas pumps.
"I should take that. I'll see you around." Orpheus walks away but stops after a few steps and looks to Angel. "I know that this isn't much to look at," Orpheus gestures to the field of eyesores. "but if you climb on the top of that van over there, you'll get a nice view of the Benny Bill Bridge."
As Orpheus resumes departing, Angel spots his sketch pad left on the folding chair, curious of his artistic talents, Angel takes the sketch pad and opens it to determine the range of his talents.
Starting with the drawing of a beautiful Thai woman with a dragon tattoo on her right arm leaning back naked on a Triumph motorcycle on the first page, Angel flips to Cowgirl Jesse wearing only her hat, chaps, boots and her vest barely covering her fully rounded breasts, firing her six-shooter.
Continuing flipping through the pages, Angel glimpses through illustrations of cars, motorcycles, naked women, the front of the gas station, the Ben Williams Bridge, naked women, a long view of Holland Park, the house in Mariner Park where Orpheus grew up, Stevie Ray Vaughan rocking on his guitar, Jason Voorhees with his machete slaughtering through a horde of acid-drooling aliens, Gil sleeping on the hood of his tow truck, Jay and Silent Bob sharing a joint with Gaucho Marx, more naked women, Marilyn Monroe wearing a leather and chain vest, leather lace up shorts, leather thigh-high boots over fishnet stockings and leather biker hat posing on a BSA Shooting Star.
At the last page, Angel assumes it to be a drawing of the Studebaker but discovers instead it to be of a woman standing on a pedestal of rock wearing a string bikini top over her magnificently rounded boobs, tight low-cut pants over her lovey slender legs, her beautiful feet in stiletto shoes, and a pair of wide and majestic wings spreading out from her back.
Admiring the drawing of what is either an angel with a provocative sense of fashion or a sexy bird-motif superheroine, it becomes clear to Angel that Orpheus was working on it when she walked in. Examining the face of the winged woman closely, Angel notices the striking resemblance between her and the drawn woman.
This is me.
Angel thinks.
With wings.
Surprised by her discovery that she has clearly been on Orpheus's mind since the incident at the motel, Angel wonders whether to be flattered or to worry. Could Orpheus be the same guy who heroically stepped in to scare off the letch harassing her or he is just as bad, or worse, than the creep he saved her from.
Recalling her conversation of the incident with her boss Rita, which Rita somehow changed the topic to Angel's interest in Orpheus and a possible relationship, sexual or otherwise, with him. Rita then concludes the discussion with
You could do worse
.
Angel admits to herself when she noticed the lean muscles of Orpheus's bare arms, she felt her nipples immediately poking against her uniform and hoped Orpheus wouldn't notice. She also acknowledges she hasn't had any sex since she moved to Lakeside and ponders if a relationship with Orpheus is worth the risk.
Angel takes another look at the illustration of her.
At least I'm wearing clothes.
* * * *
Standing across Marine Street from the Blue Shadow Show Lounge, Orpheus watches the male patrons entering or leaving under the blue glow of the strip club's neon sign and the neon outline of a naked woman above the door. Along the front wall of the club are framed posters of semi-dressed exotic dancers of the Blue Shadow.
Orpheus pulls down his goggles and hood as he crosses the street and nears the front door to enter the strip club. He does a sudden stop as a bouncer slams open the door and roughly throws out a drunken customer clear across the sidewalk.
Just as I remembered it.
Orpheus thinks.
After going through the door and giving his ten dollar admission to the bouncer, Orpheus walks into the lounge area of the bar, filled with the smell of cigarette smoke and stall beer along with other scents he'd rather not know.
Orpheus was no stranger to places like the Blue Shadow and held no animosity to the strip club. In fact, he had his first lap dance here at age sixteen and one time had an unforgettable one-night stand with one of the strippers a few years later. But the thought of Angel dancing naked on the stage of such a sleazy strip joint didn't sit right with him. Orpheus doesn't mind his girlfriend being a stripper that he would be more than okay with, but would have preferred it if Angel worked at a more high-end strip club like Tigers or the Pink Champagne Cabaret.
"Gentlemen and gentlemen." The DJ calls out through the unbalanced speakers. "Time for another naked lady to get you hard and get you wild. So give a warm applause, with
both
hands out, to the Blue Shadow's very own...Superstar Nova."
As all eyes, including Orpheus's, shifts to the stage, the Van Halen song
'Human Beings'
blasts from the speakers as a petite girl with bright red shoulder length hair pushes aside the curtains to make a grand entrance to the stage for the cheering audience. Provocatively swaying her hips as she proceeds down the stage, the overhead lights shows the bright red-haired exotic dancer in a tight blue long sleeved crop top with yellow trim, a blue microskirt which barely covers her ass (not that anyone minds), red high-heel shoes...and a long red cape.
Approving of the stripper's superheroine-motif costume, Orpheus tries to make his way closer to the stage but with the crowd of men surrounding the stage, he can only take a few steps. Figuring he can't get any more closer to the stage, Orpheus accepts his viewing spot and watches the cape-wearing Superstar Nova spin herself around the brass pole, captivating the audience.
The first song of Superstar ends and is followed by
'Learning to Fly'
by Tom Petty. Halfway through the song, Superstar wows the crowd by seductively pulling off her microskirt, revealing a red thong underneath. Tossing the microskirt aside, Superstar pulls her cape aside to show her ass to the cheering men as she playfully shakes it. Then slaps it, rousing the men more.
As the crowd of men around Orpheus becomes more unruly, he decides to back away. Moving to the less occupied space of the show lounge, Orpheus spots a wide bulletin board on a nearby wall, covered with posters and 8x10 photos of various strippers. Making his way to the bulletin board, he sees the pictures of the current exotic dancers tacked or stapled over the pictures of dancers Orpheus recognizes but hasn't worked in the Blue Shadow in years.
Orpheus surveys the images of the exotic dancers displayed on the board, connecting the names labeled on the photos and posters to the beautiful women shown. Kat Storm, a tall black woman with long platinum-white hair in a leather corset. Amethyst, a lavender-hair girl in purple latex bikini. Monica Red, a copper-red haired woman in a blue sling bikini. Amber Shivers, a petite girl with ponytailed dirty blond hair in a skimpy white top tied in the front, a red plaid miniskirt, long white knee socks and black pumps, carrying several books while pseudo-innocently sucking on a sucker. Jen Thirteen, a flaxen blond woman in a green bikini flexing the firm and toned muscles of her arms.
Orpheus moves aside the tacked photo of Superstar's to find a black and white poster of a beautifully statuesque woman in a leather body harness crossing her slender arms under her fully-round breasts with perky nipples. Orpheus focuses on the beauty mark on her upper left cheek of her smooth and lovely face, knowing where to look, as well as her mesmerizing eyes looking out to anyone who gazes at the poster as Orpheus and the alluring smile of her lips giving a hundred promises of love and pleasure. Her shimmering hair tied up over her head, allowing a curl to elegantly drape over her right eye, despite the monochromatic set of the poster, Orpheus mentally colors the semi-naked woman's hair in the lightly-shaded brunette he remembered.
Although there is no name is on the poster, Orpheus remembers the name of this particular stripper. Chase Montgomery. With a fond heart and a hard on, Orpheus reminisces of his first private dance with her. The first time seen a naked woman up close. He recalls the captivating scent of her perfume, the seductive whispers she said in his ear, how hard his heart fluttered as she slowly and teasingly grinded her naked ass against his lap, causing his erected cock to pre-cum.
Even though it wasn't allowed, Chase allowed the young and enthralled Orpheus to fondle her beautifully bulbous boobies. At that moment, Orpheus worshipped her like a goddess.
Snapping back to the present, Orpheus wonders what became of his beloved lap-dancing goddess. Hopefully, now she's married to a loving husband with a loving family in Westward or Chaykin, living a safe and happy life.
Or as safe and happy as anyone can get in Plutopolis.
Ending his stroll down sex memory lane, Orpheus is about turns his attention back to Superstar on the stage, hoping she's halfway naked by now, when he suddenly spots another familiar face among the sea of sexy pics. Angel's.
Orpheus quickly pulls a photo from the sole staple keeping it on the board and is shocked by the picture of his blond girlfriend showing her entire backside, looking over her shoulder with a smile, wearing a hole-net body stocking and a black G-string.
Orpheus looks at the face of the girl he thought he knew and finds the smile to be faked. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on his part.
"Hey, I remember her. Really great tits."
Orpheus looks away from the board to look at a scruffy-looking man with drooping nearly-long light brown hair and a beard in need of a trim leaning against a nearby round pedestal bar table, holding a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.
Resisting the urge to punch the scruffy man in the face, Orpheus guesses that he could be a regular of the sleazy strip club and may have some information he needs.
"She used to work here?" Orpheus holds the photo to the scruffy man.
