Lovely Without
By
Matthew McFarland
Everything was a swirl of fabric, a
haze of nicotine, and a pulse of music.
Anything else - the patrons, her co-workers, her own thoughts - all
nothing. Misha Webster only dimly
recognized the men hooting at her, holding up their dollar bills for her to
take in her mouth and between her breasts.
It wasn’t the money. No one ever
believed that, not even Misha herself sometimes, but it wasn’t. It was the freedom, not just of dancing, but
of dancing naked. On a good night, she
didn’t even notice the odors of sweat and smoke and three-dollar perfume. On a really good night, she didn’t think of
Adam. This was not a good night.
Actually, it wasn’t Adam who was
distracting her so much tonight. She
had just come from another man’s home.
He was shy, smart, very cute, and French. He was also only seven years old. She smiled to herself, quietly, a smile for the young man who so
enjoyed it when she was the babysitter, but everything she did was noticed, and
the men at the edge of the runway cheered and produced more dollars. They can tell when I’m enjoying myself,
thought Misha. They probably think this
is some big exhibitionist thrill for me.
While that was sometimes true, Misha
felt that strippers fell into the same category as radio disc jockeys and game
show hosts - they were always expected to look and sound as though they loved
their job, even in the face of the overwhelming monotony. Yes, it was sometimes a real turn-on to do
what she did, but it was much easier to feel that way during the first dance of
the night than after five hours of it.
Even so, the crowd that comes in at 2:00 AM has the right to the same
show the crowd at eleven got, as her manager was fond of saying. A lot of girls got around that by getting
high or having “one little drink” before every dance. On a busy night, you could pick up a dozen bottles in the
dressing room and not have a drop left in any of them.
Misha grabbed the pole at the end of
the runway and swung around and up.
Someone down below said “whoa” quietly, and she smiled again, thinking
how amazed they’d be if she landed on her hands and walked back down the runway
upside-down. León had been floored when she did that earlier.
She had at one point harbored dreams
of being a professional dancer or gymnast.
She certainly had the talent, she thought as she dropped to the floor
and writhed her body in the strange, serpentine fashion that men seemed to
enjoy. What she didn't have was the
drive, the burning desire to be a professional athlete. She kept herself in
shape because she enjoyed feeling healthy. She danced because she loved to
dance, and she showed off because she could. But, Misha did not wish to spend her
life working her body in athletic competition; she was not a horse.
A cat in a show, she thought, but not a horse. She
wiped the bitter look off her face; a pout was fine, even a hint of anger was
arousing, but bitterness tended to make guys “lose their wood” (another of the
manager’s sayings).
It was amazing how long three
minutes could feel. Misha was used to
that principle; that time on stage was different, a few seconds felt like a
full minute. The rule of thumb was to
spend half of her three minute song undressing, and the other half completely
naked. But a ninety seconds felt like
ten minutes here, and Misha was glad she was in shape. Some of the girls retained a bit too much
water to do some of the acrobatics she did.
A man holding a dollar bill between
his teeth caught her eye. She did a
splits in front of him, fell over on her palms, and landed an inch away from
his face. He was probably eighteen or
nineteen years old, but without the goatee he would look much younger. He was not here with college buddies,
though; in fact, if he was here with people, they were absent at the
moment. She tried to remember if she’d
seen him come in with anyone, but wasn’t sure.
She leaned forward, took the dollar
bill into her mouth, and closed her teeth around it, gently brushing his lips
with hers. She threw the dollar into
the pile near the end of the stage, and kept dancing. Some girls wore garters to keep their money it, one even rolled
the bills up and stuck them through her nipple rings, but Misha always felt
naked should mean naked.
Misha
wondered where her relief was.
Normally, another girl joined in about halfway through the dance. At present, however, she was alone. They had paged Sadie to the stage, but Sadie
was probably so stoned right now that she forgot to respond to her stage name.
Misha’s stage name was Dixie. When she danced, she affected a thin,
Southern lilt. Men often asked if it
was “true about Southern girls”. Misha
was never quite sure what that meant.
That Southern girls gave good head?
That they took it up the ass?
That they enjoyed any of the rather kinky proclivities that men in the
Midwest read about but never did? One
of the other girls - Wendy - pretended to be British, and got the same sorts of
questions. Wendy’s accent didn’t fool
anyone, but it was a nice idea.
Sadie stumbled onstage just as
Misha’s dance was ending. She gave
Sadie a playful slap on the ass on her way out; Sadie turned and smiled in an
attempt to look seductive. That was
another thing; you always had to play bi.
Sadie wasn’t, so her look was more stoned and confused than seductive. Misha wasn’t really bi either, but she faked
it well.
On another night, she might have
worked the crowd a bit, tried to get someone to pay for a lap dance. Tonight wasn't such a night. It wasn't busy, Misha was a bit tired, and
she needed to sit down. She walked
backstage and collapsed onto the faded brown couch against the far wall. Wendy was seated at her mirror, applying
more makeup.
"Any more of that junk and
it'll fall off your face like a mask," mused Misha, still using her
accent. May-ask, she told herself. Lack a may-ask. It took practice.
"Well, I can't bloody well sweat it off, can
I?" Wendy needed more
practice. She sounded somewhere between
British and Southern. Maybe accents
were infectious, thought Misha.
"It isn't really that warm." Misha dropped the dialect and stretched out
on the couch, still naked, her clothes in a ball by her side. "It's gonna rain tonight."
"Great," muttered Wendy, her voice
clogged by lipstick. "I hope Ray
closes the windows."
Misha sat up and began dressing. "What's Ray think of you dancing?"
Wendy smirked.
"I think he beats off thinking about it. Why?"
"Nothing."
Wendy turned around to face
her. "Bullshit. What's Adam's problem now?"
Misha shook her head. She really did wonder what Adam's problem
was. She suspected his biggest problem
was that he was walking the primrose path to alcoholism, and was very clearly
locked into thinking that he didn't drink very excessively at all. Misha was considering saying this to Wendy
when the loudspeaker clicked to life.
"Wendy, to mainstage,
please. Wendy, to mainstage."
Wendy stood. "That's me, love. 'Ow do I look?"
Misha smiled. "Oh, you look love-ly, dear," she answered in her best British.
"How do you do that? You really sound British."
"Yeah, I'm a regular Spice
Girl. Go get 'em." Wendy flounced out. "Doormat Spice, that's me."
Misha didn't really feel like a
doormat. Adam didn't walk over her, but
that was only because he didn't do a lot of walking. He stumbled more often, lurched his way around like the upper and
lower halves of his body were a few seconds out of sync. And when he was sober, he loped. Gorillas lope, thought Misha. Bears lope… no, they really gallumph. She smiled; she would have to use that word
with León, he'd love it.
"Gallumph," she said aloud.
She thought maybe she'd heard it before. The word sounded much too familiar on her tongue for her to have
made it up. Children's book, maybe?
Her smile faded
when she realized that she would probably never see León again, at least not as
his babysitter. She had walked out of
there tonight, without so much as a by-your-leave. His mother had been late, but that really wasn't any excuse. And it wasn't as though she had a real
emergency, she just had to get to work on time and dance naked for a bunch of
googly-eyed college boys. Hardly
anything to merit leaving a seven-year-old boy alone in a big house at
night. Hopefully he wouldn’t wake
up.
Misha realized she was tearing up and stopped it,
dabbed her eyes with a tissue and stood up.
She pulled on her dancing clothes – black shorts, white top, very simple,
easily removable – and took a step toward the door. She was wondering where she was going - she didn't need to be
seen again for a little while longer - when the manager walked in.
Arthur Schiavelli was his name, and everybody
called him "Vel." There were
rumors about Vel, that he was a child molester, a rapist, a former porn star
who couldn't get it up, and so forth.
Whatever the truth, Misha knew that he ran the East Lake Theatre in the
northeast part of town, because Lila occasionally worked the counter
there. Misha guessed from the price of
his car that he was doing very well for himself, so perhaps he did have a stash
of money tucked away somewhere. She
didn't buy the ex-con story, though; Vel acted more like a stage-struck parent
than a lecher. She didn't buy the porn
star rumor, either. If Vel was a porn
star, even from the '70s, she was sure she would have recognized him from
Adam's tapes.
"Hiding out?," he asked, pleasantly
enough.
"No.
Just not real into it tonight."
"Too bad. You could make some money. There
were a lot of guys watching for you after you left." He sat down on a
chair and smoothed his hair. Whatever
the truth was about his penis, though Misha, his hair had stuck with him. It was very thick, still mostly black, and
had more body than hers usually did.
"Yeah?"
She sat down again and slouched in her chair. "I should start a fan club."
He chuckled.
"Yeah, well." He
looked at her - she wasn't looking at him, but she could see him in the mirror
- and cocked his head slightly.
"Hey." She turned to
look at him. "If you want to go
home, I can do without you. Tonight,
anyway."
"You sure?" As nice a guy as Vel often was, this was uncommon. There were enough girls here tonight to get
by, but they'd be stretched pretty thin if it got busy later.
"Yeah.
I'm sure. You look like you need
it." And then the obvious
question, which Misha mouthed along with him, "Are you OK?"
"Yeah, I'm good. I just...I don't know.
Ever reach a point in your life when you feel like taking off for points
unknown, just to have some new problems?
Even if they're just as unsolvable as you old ones?"
"Actually, sure. How else does anybody get to Ohio from California?" They both laughed, her a small giggle, him a
silent breathy chortle at a joke he'd made time and again. "All
right. You get out of here and I'll see
you...tomorrow? Or is this your last
night?"
"Oh, no." Misha stood up and began gathering up her clothes. "You'll know my last night. You'll be throwing people out on my last night."
Vel chuckled again and left her alone to
change. She didn't, though. She decided to go straight home, dig out her
copy of her college transcript and her catalogs, and see how much more she had
to take before she could finish her degree.
Misha felt a strange sensation in her stomach which took a moment to
place, but when she did, she smiled.
She beamed, really. The
expression felt strange on her face and she realized she hadn't smiled this
widely in a long time.
The feeling in her stomach was something like
anticipation, a little like hope, with a good splash of ambition thrown
in. When everything worked nicely, even
for the moment, that was when she felt this way. The debts weren't paid, the loose ends weren't tied up, but damn
it, they could be.
Misha stuffed her jeans and shirt into her gym
bag. She pulled her pager out of the
pocket of her jeans almost as an afterthought, and checked it. She still had voice mail from earlier that
she hadn't checked, and there were two more messages.
Sighing, Misha swung into Vel's office on her way
out. He wasn't there, but he wouldn't
care if she used the phone. She punched
in the number, then her password, then the code for new messages.
The most recent message was a hang up. The one before that was Adam. He wanted her to come to the old house when
she got done babysitting. He sort of
spat the word "babysitting", too, like he didn't think that's where
she was.
And that was the thing, of course. She wasn’t babysitting, not at the
moment. Misha hung up the phone a
little harder than was absolutely necessary, without listening to any further
messages. She sat down in Vel’s
imitation leather chair and stewed.
“I am not property,” she said. She barely heard her own voice; the bass
from the song the DJ was playing was so oppressive that the desk was
quivering. She said it louder: “I am
not property.” Adam seemed to thing she
was. He often referred to her as “my
girl.” Sometimes “my lady” when he was
really drunk, sometimes “my woman” if he wanted to sound progressive. But always that possessive prefix, and never
did he call her “Misha.” She had read a
lot of letters to Ann Landers and the like, letters from women complaining that
their husbands never called them by name, but always by a pet name. Misha understood that, and felt a creeping
distaste for the term “pet name”.
She stood up, and walked back into the dressing
room, and dropped her gym bag on her chair.
Ambition or no ambition, Adam or no Adam, she’d be damned if she was
leaving just yet.
Wendy walked in as Misha was freshening up her
makeup. She stood behind Misha and
looked her up and down. “Thought you
were leaving,” she said, with no hint of England.
“I was,” replied Misha. Her tone wasn’t curt, but firm.
Confident, she thought. “I
decided to stay for a waall.” Both
girls giggled at the drawl. “Maybe just
to do one or two couch dances. Who’s on
stage now?”
“I didn’t look.
I just did a dance for some poor guy who just turned eighteen. I swear to god, if he’d been any harder, my
leg would be bleeding.”
“Maybe I should find him.” Misha smirked. Young guys like that weren’t always good money, but were surely
fun.
“I think he left.
He tipped me fifty bucks.”
Misha groaned.
“There’s no justice.”
She finished her touch-ups and walked back into
the main room. Janie, the girl with
nipple rings, was on stage, and no one had joined her yet. Misha walked the room, running her hands
over men’s shoulders, sometimes their faces.
She was looking for someone. Not
one of the old perverts, not even some barely post-pubescent kid who would
cream his jeans, she wanted someone she’d enjoy.
She found him next to the runway. Misha guessed him at twenty-five, and she
had no idea what he was doing here. He
was not an Adonis, but certainly attractive, and she wondered if he was tagging
along or if he just had a fetish. He
watched the girl on stage with an intensity that Misha had never seen. He never blinked, even in the smoky bar,
just absently sipped his cola (liquor was illegal at strip clubs by city
ordinance) and gazed at her. He wore a
blue denim vest over a white T-shirt, and a leather coat was folded over his
chair.
Misha caught his eye from across the runway and
found herself unable to break away. She
felt almost violated for a moment – no one should stare that way, no one ever
did, not even when she was dancing.
Gaped, gawked, but never like this.
She walked around the runway and towards him; he turned slightly in his
chair and kept his eyes on her. She
almost stopped in front of him, and then realized that there was no way he’d
hear her unless she was right next to him.
She climbed onto his lap – she really should have
asked first, she reminded herself, but he didn’t mind, and shifted his legs to
accommodate her. She leaned over and
said into his ear, “Do you want a couch dance?” He ran a hand down her back – his touch was gentle and light
enough to tickle, and she squirmed a bit.
“What took you so long?” he whispered back. Misha bit her lip. I will not become aroused, she thought. That’s not what this is about.
Still repeating that mantra, she led him into the
back of the club, into one of the small rooms containing a couch and a
television set which continually showed porno movies. Misha had always found that unnecessary, and at times
annoying. The man didn’t even
acknowledge it, he just sat down and looked up at her. The gaze was still there, but now he was
smiling, a small, non-threatening smile that warmed her as she undressed.
Naked, she straddled him and put her hands behind
his head. Rather than staring at her
breasts, the way a lot of men did, he looked up at her face. Again she found herself locked into his
gaze. This time, she did break it, and
asked, “What’s your name?”
He shrugged.
“It’s not important. What’s
yours?”
“Misha,” she replied, and then gasped. She had committed the most laughable,
unthinkable, dangerous mistake, the mistake of the first time lap dancer. She had told him her real name. And he knew it. He looked surprised for a moment, and then the intense gaze
returned, stayed even while he spoke.
“I’ll forget about that. I’m very bad with names.”
She was expecting him to demand a free dance or a handjob or something;
if he told Vel that she had used her real name, Vel might well fire her. He had a real fixation about that, for
whatever reason. But the man demanded
no such thing. He merely smiled a
little wider when the next song began, which was Misha’s cue to start the
dance.
She writhed on his lap, stood up in front of him,
bent over in front of him, dropped to her knees and put her mouth within an
inch of his crotch. She used every
trick and position she knew, and he never said a word, not a catcall or hoot like
some men, not a proposition, not a question, nothing. The only time he spoke was at the very end when she sat on his
lap and he leaned forward and kissed her neck before she could pull away. It wasn’t a slobbery kiss, anyway, it was
warm, dry and pleasant. And he
whispered, “God, you’re lovely,” to her.
And then the song ended.
He tipped her thirty dollars – not bad, although
she’d done much better. They walked out
together and he picked up his coat and left.
Some men said goodbye to the girls as though they were friends, as
though the girls’ promises to come see them at whatever restaurant or store
they worked at were genuine. He left,
and Misha walked back to the dressing room, gathered up her things. She paused at the door long enough to pull
on her long, tan coat – it was really too cold out to be dressed as lightly as
she was – and then she left.
She reached her car and was fumbling with her keys
when she decided her hadn’t really existed at all. He was a spirit, some lonely soul who had only needed to feel
what Misha had helped him to feel. And
Misha, likewise, had needed to feel that irritatingly simple yet impossible to
describe rise that she got from
dancing. So he had appeared, gotten
what he needed and given her what she needed, and now he’d disappeared forever,
like a character in a movie when the star had no more need of him. An uncredited cameo, she thought.
“Misha?”
She dropped her keys, and dove after them so fast
that she jammed her fingers into the gravel parking lot. It was him.
He wasn’t a spirit, he was a psycho, he had been waiting for her, and
now he’d rape her in the parking lot –
“Misha, it’s me.”
She knew the voice. But not from
in the club. She turned around, her
heart swollen and throbbing against her throat. It was not the man from the club. It was Casey.
Misha breathed a sigh of relief so deep she
thought she’d collapse. It was Casey,
standing there in his red windbreaker and grungy jeans. She gave a throaty laugh and said, “You
scared the hell out of me, Casey.
Jesus,” she leaned on her car, trying to catch her breath.
“I’m sorry.
I was just about to go in and try to find you. I’m glad you’re out here.”
He looked around, uncomfortably.
Misha began to wonder what he wanted.
The last time she had seen him, he’d been in the hospital after Adam had
sliced his face open with a broken bottle.
It had been another of Adam’s macho explosions: he had come storming
into the back room of the club and thrown Lila up against a wall looking for
Misha, who hadn’t been there. Lila had
gotten Casey to wait in the alley by the back door and wait for Adam, and Adam
had put Casey in the hospital. Two
broken ribs and a very nasty slice to the face, plus a tooth knocked out and
two more chipped. Casey didn’t look too
bad, considering, although his face was still a mess.
He shuffled a bit, looking like a boy with a
crush. Oh, God, thought Misha. That
must be it. When she had seen him in
the hospital, he’d woken up and seen her and said she was beautiful or
something. She hadn’t thought about
that until now, she had thought it was just Casey reacting to the
painkillers. “What’s up, Casey?”
“I wanted to tell you,” he mumbled, then stopped
and laughed, and winced; apparently smiling hurt his face. “I wanted to say thanks for coming to see
me, and…” he trailed off, and then raised his eyes to look at her.
Misha really had no idea what to say. Casey’s face was intense, just as intense at
the man in the club, but not nearly as reassuring. Casey looked like he might just kiss her, and she didn’t want
that. She wanted to get away, to be
alone, even to find Adam, but she didn’t want to be kissed by Casey. She was trying to think of a good way to say
that when he leaned forward, his arms rising up, maybe to hug her, and she
said, “Don’t.”
She said it much too sharply. He winced, and not from the pain in his face
this time. “I have a boyfriend, you
know,” she said. Not as sharply, but
not kindly. Stop it, damn it, she
thought. You deal with lonely guys all
the time, stop hurting him so much.
“Yeah, I knew that.” Casey probably meant for her to laugh, but
she really wanted to get away. She
looked up at him – Casey was very large – and she had no idea what her face
looked like. Too much makeup and not
enough compassion. She tried to say
something, but only shook her head.
It had an effect. Casey turned and walked to his car, threw
the door open, got in, slammed the door shut, and took off, the tires spraying
gravel and the speakers spouting loud industrial music. Misha got in her own car and locked the door,
and sat there for a long while.
What she had needed to was to feel
“lovely”. Not “beautiful” like Casey
said it, not like she was a savior or a nurturer. That wasn’t what she was, not now. Not after harboring Adam and abandoning León earlier. She’d needed to feel lovely, and she didn’t
care if she was a cat in a show, just as long as she wasn’t a pet as well. All right, there it is, she thought. You’ve felt it. You know it. You can do
this – dance – and be happy with it, and fuck Adam if he can’t cope. Now all you’ve got to do is tell him.
There was a crunch of gravel behind
her car. She glanced up at the mirror
and saw Lila walking towards to door.
Probably coming to get her check.
Misha got out and called to her.
Lila walked over. Misha clucked
sympathetically at Lila’s face. It was
still bruised. Lila just nodded, but
she seemed preoccupied. “What’s up,
girl?”
“Oh,” Lila said distantly,
“boys. You know. Boys.
They’re….”
“Yeah they are,” said Misha. They both laughed a bit, but it was short
laugh. “You here for your check?”
“Yeah. Where are you headed?”
“To go see Adam.” Lila rolled her eyes. She made no secret of her opinions. “I’m having a talk with him.”
“Talks aren’t going to help.”
“More of an ultimatum.”
“That’s better. Listen,” she dropped her voice and cleared
her throat. “Has Casey called you?”
“He just left a few minutes
ago.” Lila looked taken aback. “Yeah, he walked up and…”
“What?”
Misha shrugged. “Not much, really. He seemed like he wanted to tell me he had a crush on me, and I
told him I had a boyfriend, and he left.”
There was more to it than that, but not without explaining how pitiful
Casey was next to the man she had danced for, and Misha didn’t want to go into
it.
Lila looked concerned. “I’ll call him later on. He might need to talk it out. He’s not great with words, you know?”
Misha chuckled. “Yeah.
He’s a good guy.”
“Yes he is.” Misha couldn’t place Lila’s tone, couldn’t
tell if Lila was agreeing or reminding herself.
“Listen, I need to go.”
Lila looked up, as if out of a
daydream. “Ok. You working this weekend?”
Misha thought about that for a
moment. “Not sure yet. Probably.”
“Ok, then I’ll see you then.” Lila turned and crunched across the gravel
to the bar.
Misha drove away faster than she
ever had before. The feeling was back
in her stomach, now almost a lump in her throat. The debts could be paid.
The loose ends could be tied. I
can go back to school. I can dance and
be lovely. A tear rolled down her face
and she turned up the music and got on the expressway to the south end of town,
driving to see Adam. With or without
Adam, she thought, because I am not his.
I am lovely without him.
She wiped her eyes and looked in the
mirror. The smeared makeup didn’t
change things one bit, she decided.
© 2000 Matthew McFarland
No reproduction is allowed without
the author’s express permission.