The address turned up above a metal door with chipped green paint at the end of a dark alley. To buy a few minutes, I messed with my lipstick, which was down to the dregs.

“I’m supposed to ask for Ignacio,” I said to the fat guy who answered the door. I pulled aside my leather jacket to show the bare skin between my breasts.

The dude opened the door wide enough for me to pass. I left the chilled alley and stepped inside. A black fox with a white-tipped tail greeted me from the wall. The heavy spice of cigar smoke from the table did its best to cover the smell of death. I took my time shedding my jacket. Opera seeped from the back.

“Iggy, your girl’s here,” the bouncer announced.

The guys were old and heavy lidded. Something comes over old smart dudes with money to burn. It’s almost like they turn into zombies.

“Hello, gentlemen,” I cooed. They liked that. I leaned forward and rested my scantily clad chest on their table and ran my hands over the pile of cash in the middle.

Ignacio smiled around his cigar and turned to eye me up. I inhaled his smoke with a grin. “Watch it, young lady,” he glowered at me. “You have a job to do.”

“Yes, sir,” I licked my lips when I smiled. Zombie on the other side pulled out his cigar, then leaned in and ran the wet end between my breasts. Luck was on my side.

I stood up and moved toward my little podium with a bronze dance pole in the center. This was a first, stripping to opera.

“Can one of you gentlemen fill me in on the rules?” I made my voice all innocence and honey. I batted my lashes at zombie dude for good measure. He death rattled deep in his throat. “Honey, you gotta line ‘em up, make a match, or get outta here,” he stared at my breasts. Girl’s best friends.

“What’s the minimum?” I slurped, shaking slowly along with the opera.

“Fifty for newbies,” the dealer shot out.

“Maybe someday,” I replied wistfully, feeling more like a sculpture than a stripper. The zombies went around calling and raising. No one folded. Fifteen minutes in I was down to just my thong and heels. I pretended the arias were dance numbers and worked my shoulders and hips. An hour passed like that, maybe more, and my feet began to burn. To distract myself, I thought about gene expression for my bio exam Monday.

I stepped off the podium to give the zombies what they were paying for, and right then Puccini came on. Maria Callas’ voice made the perfect accompaniment to my own.

“I can never remember,” I said, doing my best to sound thoughtful. “What comes first, Queen or King?” Several of the zombies laughed around their cigars at that one and the smoke hung over the pot.

I made the rounds, breaking hearts with Maria, careful not to touch any old guy parts. When I got to Ignacio, he smiled and laid down his cards, thoroughly enjoying the close proximity. “Young lady, you are to die for,” he said in my ear, then reached into the pile of money in the center of the table. “This is for you,” he announced, and then flung a bill into the hazy air. The crisp G-note hung there in its little two-dimensional plane of reality, Grover Cleveland’s face superimposed over the watery-eyed zombies, all clamoring for a look as I reached across dimensions for my reward.

It fluttered for a moment, magnificent in its struggle, then wilted and lay still. With my red-tipped fingers, I grabbed it. “Thank you, sir,” I gave him a quick smile. I shoved the money into my handbag, pulled on my dress, and slowly put on my jacket.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Maybe one day you’ll let girls play,” I laughed. They snorted collectively. It was kind of cute.

I waltzed to the door, nodded to the fox, and slipped through the gap that the bouncer dude offered. I headed back down the alley and stopped to peek at the money inside my bag. It was enough for this month’s tuition bill plus a little left over. Dumb as it sounds, all I wanted was a new lipstick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN9Dipgqdtw

 

Thanks so much for the love, Speakeasy readers and editors. I really appreciate the win!

I shoved the door way open to fit baby girl’s stroller through and damn it was hot. Hot like you just want to rip all your clothes off and squeeze into the ice cooler at Benny’s. Baby girl was only in a diaper but she started wailing right off with the sun in her eyes and all that heat cooking her.

The heat was nothing to me, not compared to the itching inside and that deep, deep ache knowing what I was about to do. Oh yeah, I knew it, I did. I kind of appreciated the sun and heat, you know? It got my mind off the itching.

We walked real slow to Benny’s, me pushing baby girl’s little stroller without a damn sun shade and her just wailing, crying so much you gotta think she knows where she’s headed. Babies know things, my grandmama used to say.

She was crying so much and sweating too, so she was wet all over like she just had a bath only I knew the truth. When we got to Benny’s, first thing I bought her a juice and stuck a straw inside even though she makes a mess with straws. She grabbed it and started slurping away like she used to do when she was on my tit way back before I got itchy again.

All the time I’m buying her damn juice and sticking that straw in so she can drink it, you know, I’m thinking about Quenty outside, with his bags of junk. I want some so bad, so bad damn it, right here before I go any farther with baby girl. I want it so bad my hands are shaking as I throw down the quarters on the counter for baby girl’s juice. No, I want to rip my fucking shirt off and scratch away the itching. I want to dig my fingernails into my skin until I’m bleeding and everyone is staring at me, even baby girl.

It’s okay. Soon it’ll be better.

Baby girl don’t look up from her juice as I slip Quenty my second to last $20. He slips me the junk and smiles at baby girl. “Hi there, beautiful,” he says all nice to her.

“Shut up, don’t you talk to her,” I swat him off her. It’s a good thing this is the last time.

I start walking again, the stuff in my pocket. Every so often I slip my hand in and run my fingers over it. Knowing it’s there makes it easier. If only I already had it, if only, I think again and again. It would be so easy if I weren’t so damn itchy. It would be so easy if I were already there.

Baby girl finishes her juice and quiets down. She looks real sleepy in her stroller, her eyes half closed against the sun, and so pretty. She’s real pretty, you know? She’s gonna find a new family real easy. They gonna love her better than me.

I see the station coming up ahead and don’t you know those firefighters got a party goin on? They got the hydrants on and water pouring out of the hoses full blast. They got some disco music blaring, talking about stayin alive. Kids everywhere. Being near it makes me want to tear my shirt off again. I want to scratch so bad. I stick my fingers in my pocket instead.

I push baby girl’s stroller right up to the water so she can get some of the spray on her.

“I love you, baby girl,” I kiss her little head. She’s asleep so she don’t have to see me go.

Her new people gonna get her a sun shade.

 

There was a time when things were different. Not so long ago, she could not possibly have imagined the joy she would feel after locking herself back into a cell.

When she was little, her grandpa taught her magic – real magic, not potions and spells. He taught her to manipulate perceptions, to create illusion. “You have to get the sun in their eyes, kid. The rest is easy,” he told her with a sidelong glance. Grandpa’s magic was gritty and real.

As she pressed the heavy lever on the drill, making hole after hole, she remembered the day he taught her to pick a lock, out on the front porch, the sun glinting off chrome bumpers on the street and the heat gathering under the shingled roof. She started on Grandpa’s old treasure chest, where he kept his cards, trick knives, and his fake parrot. When she mastered the small keyhole, they moved on to the deadbolt on the front door. Within a few hours she could open it quick.

“You could work your way out of anything, kid,” Grandpa announced proudly.

Grandpa’s magic skills proved worthwhile in prison. She had an uncanny way of showing people what they wanted to see. Good behavior got her where she was today, here at this workshop out in the middle of nowhere. She worked through the afternoon, time seeping in a slow drip and the heavy air wrapping itself around the benches, spliced through with the electric jolts of the power tools. Her hands burned where they held the hot lever of the drill. The sun slanted low in the sky as they cleaned up their tools and wiped down their benches. Grandpa would have liked it here, she thought.

Before she headed for the dingy white bus, she slipped the sharpened sliver inside her sleeve. Aboard, she sat down near the front, staring at the sun through the window. The older woman’s hand on her wrist jolted her.

“Hi Amy,” the older woman said, as she slipped in beside her on the sticky vinyl seat.

Amy gave her a dry, knowing smile. “Hey, Jill.”

“It’s killer hot today,” Jill said, and ran her hand up Amy’s arm to her shoulder, then her neck, stopping at her hair.

At her touch, Amy got chills. She gave Jill another dry smile and turned back to the window. They rode the rest of the short trip in silence, Jill’s hand twisting Amy’s hair, pulling it.

Back in her cell, Amy shoved the shard of wood into her mattress, hoping that she’d be able to find it later in the dark. Time slowed down again as she waited to make her move. Finally, in the night, after the guards made their last check, she ran her fingers along the seam of her mattress until she felt the familiar prick. It took only seconds for her to pick the lock of her cell, moments for her to scurry silently to Jill’s cell next door and repeat her lock trick. She wove her tool into the waistband of her pants.

Inside the cell, Jill stood, waiting. Neither of them spoke. The older woman lifted Amy’s shirt over her head and dropped it to the ground. She pushed Amy back, hard, against the wall and ran her hands over her breasts, her belly, and down. She pinned Amy’s arms to the wall and silently went to work, driving Amy over the edge again and again. Afterwards, after Amy had returned the favors, she snatched up her shirt, retrieved the sliver from her pants, and slipped back to her own cell, grinning now.

Grandpa had been wrong about magic, Amy thought. You don’t always have to get out to escape. She stashed the shard in the seam of her mattress for next time and slept.

I picked up where I left off on this post for my submission to the Speakeasy this week. All the great feedback on my snippet really got me wondering about how much trouble this girl was getting herself into.