I'm not sure when she came inside. I just got here myself; I'm standing by the curtains to the dressing room waiting for the other girl to finish her pole dance. From here I can see everyone, starting at the bar then to the small circular tables in front of the stage then to the red velvet cushioned seats along the far wall.
That's where I spot her, having entered the club and sat down in the time it takes for me to glance down at my phone and fire off a text message to Cheryl.
It's not uncommon to see women in this club but it is rare to see them alone. We're a busy, downtown Philly club so most of our traffic consists of businessmen and yuppies and construction workers. Women usually come late, with their boyfriends, or in groups during bachelorette parties visiting as a gag.
But as I take the stage I see this woman is lethally serious. Under the silver-gray fog of cigarette smoke I can make out her bright emerald eyes. She's got long black hair, dressed in all black, juxtaposed with porcelain skin and lips the color of murder.
As I start my routine and the dollar bills start hitting the stage, I see that it's difficult to tell where the woman ends and the shadows start, as if she's bled out of that darkened corner. A shadow queen.
One of my coworkers sits beside her hunting for tips but the Shadow Queen's green eyes are on me as I work the pole. I try to not to stare back and wait until I turn my back to the crowd, my gaze settling on the mirror behind the stage, and I see her, ignoring my coworker, her moonlight-pale face blazing red as she lights a cigarette.
My song ends and that's my cue to start working the room. Since we're a small, busy club, the owner prefers we stick to the script; exit the stage, work the bar, then make your way around the room.
Tonight, I decide to break protocol. I have no choice, not after the green-eyed sorceress beckons to me with a slight, almost imperceptible nod. I shift my eyes briefly to the girl next to her, implying that it's bad form to step on another girl's toes. The Queen understands this and waves off my coworker.
She gets more beautiful the closer I get, emanating a dark radiance, an ageless perfection. As I sit down next to her, I think that she could only exist in dark places. I try to imagine her on a beach, bikini-clad, and cannot.
She lights another cigarette and sips a cocktail and doesn't look my way. I try to judge her age. She's got at least fifteen years on me, perhaps early-to-mid forties, but her age only shows in her posture, her gaze. Her milk-white skin is unblemished.
"I'm Isabella," I say as I scoot my chair closer to hers. "What's your name?"
The Shadow Queen exhales and plumes of smoke snake up from her nostrils. "Your coworker told me there are rooms here where anything goes."
I stutter as I try to answer. The woman's right, of course. Normal lap dances are thirty. VIP rooms run at a hundred and twenty-five bucks. But the big rooms, the back rooms, those were different. Back there you got, as they say, what you paid for.
I stay away from those rooms and customers who inquire about them. Not that I judge the girls who go back there, far from it; I tried it once and found it depressing. The men who ask for that aren't necessarily creepy, but they tend to have an air of desperation about them.
The Queen finally looks at me and she laughs, though her red lips remain taught. "You're one of the clean ones."
I shrug. "Those back rooms aren't really my style."
"How much to change your mind?"
Before I can answer, she reaches over and runs her fingers down my cheek, the way you might touch a new car in a showroom. I see that her nails are painted black as well. I break out in goosebumps the moment she touches me.
"I, um..."
"Maybe we can work it out once we're back there," the woman says. She promptly stands up, gathers her drink, and turns her stern eyes toward me. "Well? Let's go."
And so, I follow her.
#
The back room we take is reserved, 'officially', for bed dances, it even says so on a big neon sign. A nice cover-your-ass strategy on the owner's part if the vice squad ever comes in to investigate.
It's got a queen-sized bed with silk sheets, changed as needed, and a plush leather sofa on the opposite side of the room with an oak table before it. I follow the woman, slightly nervously, inside.
She's tall, confident. She takes a long look around the room and lights another cigarette. She almost looks like a businesswoman in her attire; coat, knee-length skirt beneath, high boots, all black.
When she looks back at me, suddenly, with those shimmering, cutting eyes, I jump a little. I laugh to mask my nervousness but she doesn't even smirk.
"Sit," she says.
I instinctively head toward the bed.
"On the couch," she says with a touch of impatience.
And so, I sit. Suddenly I'm embarrassed to have tried her patience. I'm embarrassed of my one-piece fishnet outfit, my neon pink heels, my tattoos, my plain brown hair. I'm even embarrassed that she is unequivocally smarter than me.
I wrap my arms around my midsection, afraid to look her in the eyes, yet aching to gaze upon her beauty.
She sits next to me, crosses on leg over the other, and sips her cocktail while she stares at me.
"My name's Isabella," I blurt out stupidly.
The Shadow Queen says nothing. When I raise my eyes to hers, I half-expect a black halo, outlined white, to suddenly glow over her head, that I'd fall into her pulsing green eyes, into her depths.
"Shall we start?" the Shadow Queen asks.
I get up on two wobbly legs, nearly stumbling, and gyrate toward her.
"Stop," she says.
I do.
She dwells in a long, pitiless silence then pats her lap. "Sit on my lap, Isabella."
I sit on her thighs and she puts a hand on my back, I feel her flesh on mine through the fishnet and I quiver at her cold, delicate touch.
"You're very beautiful," I say.
She says nothing but then she sets her cocktail down, her eyes boring into me, her red lips parting slightly, and I'm mesmerized by a glimpse of her soft pink tongue beyond. The Shadow Queen exhales sharply as she walks her fingers up my belly, eyes closed, as if she were touching the softest silk for the very first time.
She massages my lower back, fingers creeping farther down with each motion, until she cups my ass cheek. Her other hand moves toward my breasts, but she's in no hurry, and I feel the warmth of her breath on my chest as she pulls me closer.
My chest rises and falls quickly. I run my fingers through her infinitely dark hair, surprised that she lets me, and I lick my lips as I stare at her mouth, and finally her eyes open and she looks into my eyes.
I can't help it, I move to kiss her, but she grabs a handful of my hair and jerks me back then shakes her head.
But I like the way I feel as she holds me there, and I nod, breathing heavier as I watch her free hand move toward my left nipple. She circles my areola with a black-tipped fingernail with a quiet patience, biting her bottom lip as my nipple stiffens, before she cups my breast in her hand and puts her soft red mouth on it.
She holds me firm as I moan. She sucks me, flicks her tongue, then kissed my chest, up to my neck, while her hand drifts down. I'm vaguely aware that I'm digging my fingers into her thigh but she doesn't seem to mind. She only kisses me, sucks at the flesh of my neck, and if she suddenly sprung fangs and tore into my throat, I don't think I'd pull away.
When her hand arrives between my thighs, she finds me more than ready for her. She makes one slow circle around my clitoris before slipping her forefinger inside me.
In the distant lands in the back of my mind, I know that this is breaking the one rule Cheryl and I have regarding my line of work, but in the clutches of the Shadow Queen, such things seem meaningless.
She takes her finger out and stares into my eyes. She raises that finger to her mouth, closes her lips around it, and sucks off my dew. Then she palms the back of my head and pulls me in for a long kiss. Her mouth is sweet. I taste myself on her. Our tongues come together briefly and, as we part, she sucks gently on my bottom lip.
Then she pushes me off her lap, back onto the cushion, and stands up. She drains her cocktail. "Alright then," she says.
Shocked back into reality, I sit there, stunned. "We still have twenty minutes," I say, almost begging her to stay.
She glares at me, as if I questioned her intelligence.
Of course
she knows how much time she has left. She's simply done with me.
Even so, the Shadow Queen produces a small flip phone and hands it to me. "I'll call you."
A rush of excitement, a fluttering in my chest. "You will?"
"My number isn't programmed in there yet," she says. "But even so, when I do call,
never
call me back."
I nod and clutch the phone to my chest.
"Alright then," she repeats and heads to the door. She pauses before leaving, digs into her coat pocket, and pulls out a big roll of money.
She tosses it to me before she leaves. I hadn't thought to ask her for any money. When I count it, I see that it's more than double what I normally made on a night like this.
Yet the money doesn't concern me as much as the phone. I check it often for the rest of the night, praying to hear from my Queen.
#
I hide both the phone and the money in the trunk of my car before I go home. Cheryl is still awake, as always; she works from home and makes her own hours so she makes an effort to stay up late on the weekends.
Cheryl's a few years older than me but I already share her aversion to clubs and bars. We prefer a quiet Friday night on the couch, curled up in PJs and sipping wine and eating late-night takeout. And we've been together long enough to comfortably sit in silence.
Yet, she knows my silence is different.
She comments that I seem distant. Just a little tired, I assure her.
But I can't stop thinking about my Shadow Queen. My fearsome woman in black, the one who devours souls. I've concluded that she must be an artist of some sort. She's got that air about her, ethereal and almost haunting. A writer? Painter? Poet?
Cheryl asks if I'm even listening. Of course I am, I assure her, just a little tired.
Before we end up in a fight, I kiss her. Some wine sloshes over the rim of her glass as she puts it on the coffee table. Cheryl takes me by the hips, kisses my neck, but before she can lay me down I stop her.
I want to try something different, I tell her, and I slide onto her lap. As I guide her hand to my sex, I close my eyes and imagine black halos, red lips, and a warm darkness.
