by Lee, Corri
I slipped into a period of bereavement, feeling the same loss I had felt when my parents died, and I would mourn him the only way I knew how- through self-destruction. If there came a time where I was forced to see him to deal with the novel, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to care, nor for him to love. I would obliterate it all until I couldn’t feel, and as before, Aiden would be right there with me.
“I hope you have a plan, Cici.”
“Of course I have a plan,” I breathed, blowing a smoke ring into his face. I had felt myself harden the minute I’d taken that ring off and, devoid of love, I had slipped back into the wreck that Aiden had saved me from before.
But this time, I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted to live fast and die young, experience all that I could before I expired, most likely prematurely. I had achieved my goals- I had found fireworks and the Alexander’s had poured too much into promoting my novel to withdraw it from publication now. I was happy with that, I could die knowing that I’d ticked all the boxes and lived all the dreams. Like the protagonist in my novel, I would die heartbroken, most likely lonely through my untrusting and uncaring actions, and incredibly famous- not for writing, but for rubbishing a billionaire. I would be the physical embodiment of my own imagination and I loved how tragically poetic that concept was. It was a legacy I was more than happy to leave behind. Lived for love, died for her work. It was almost heroic.
“Look,” I laughed, pointed to a large poster on a wall just to the left of the Cherry Vine entrance, “I’m practically promoting a strip club.”
The poster was of me sitting in the confessional. I remembered the exact moment that I had looked so distraught- it was the moment Isaac told me that I’d never have Nathaniel. And, my god, he was right. But what tickled me the most were the lines from my novel that had been emblazoned across the shadows.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…
… and my biggest sin is that I love too much.
She had sought absolution from a priest before she had killed herself over her heartache, desperate to be cleansed so she could be welcomed into God’s arms, right before she committed an act- the worst possible expression of wrath- that would send her straight to Lucifer’s pits of sulphur and decay. If there had been a better way that I could have depicted the fragility of human nature- how desperately we seek salvation in death from a God we largely ignore on a day to day basis- I was sure that Mr Alexander would have pointed it out.
That’s where we were now. Back to formality.
“Seems pretty apt to me. You’re going to let me feed you deadly cocktails of drugs and take you to meet seedy dealers just because you can’t deal with the intensity of your own emotions.”
I climbed out of Aiden’s Maserati- a car that had looked like a beauty six years ago but now looked like an old knacker- and gripped onto the roof to lean down to look at him to address his scathing comment. “Why are you complaining? It means you get to fuck me again. How do I look?” I pulled my sunglasses off and pouted pretentiously.
Aiden’s hand slipped down to his groin and patted suggestively. “Hot and soulless.”
“Perfect.” That was exactly what I was going for.
I didn’t wait for him to get out of the car before I sashayed over to the entrance and attempted to step past the bouncer like I owned the place. I was stopped, of course, by one stubby fingered hand pushing me back by the chest. “Whoa there, miss, I need to see a membership card.”
“Do you really? Okay…” I stepped back out of the door way and pointed to the poster. “I think that’s my membership card.”
He looked at me blankly for a moment, and then cleared his throat. “Is Mr Maserati with you?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Enjoy your evening, Cecelia.” I can’t believe that worked. I winked as I stepped past him and stroked a hand across the repulsive beer gut that his shirt barely restrained. Aiden swiped at my behind, pushing me forward from my phase of chubby chasing, and we were immediately blinded by the highly fluorescent lights of the Cherry Vine interior.
Cherry Vine fit the generic specification of a strip club. The assortment of podiums and the three foot high runway that the dancers gyrated on were spotless brushed chrome and striped with pink and blue neon lights. There were poles everywhere, some in the middle of the room, some on the podiums, and each one was occupied by a drawn out waif with excessively large breasts and poorly administered botox.
Above the ground floor were three walls of closed off balconies with a cage at each end. It seemed almost inhumane, but when I saw the tips that these girls got, I lost all compassion. Fifties threw around like currency had been proclaimed obsolete and I wondered if maybe the strippers were smarter than they looked. They made more in one night taking their clothes off than I made in a month heeding the advances of old perverts and going home smelling of stale bitter.
The focal point was the large neon sign that flashed with two cherries and the compulsory ‘Cherry Vine’ in bright white letters. It stood over the runway and illuminated the two corridors to the sides that led to the ‘Cherry Rooms’ where men could pay for private dances.
Men, and two women, lounged out across the deep seated black leather couches with their drinks set on oval fairy-light rimmed tables and restrained themselves from touching the vixens who thrust their barely covered vulvas into their faces. Touching cost extra, and was an expensive privilege restricted to the Cherry Rooms. Whoever owned the club was clearly the ultimate narcissistic chauvinist who wouldn’t keep a woman in his shag-pad for any longer than it took to stick his dick in her.
When I saw a photo frame labelled ‘Proprietor’ by the bar that encased a picture of Isaac sandwiched between two scantily clad women with his tongue hanging out, I had to laugh and give myself a mental high-five for my accurate assessment of his personality. No wonder security was lax.
“Jesus,” I announced, “this place stinks of sweat, broken dreams and self-loathing.”
“You should fit right in then.” I punched Aiden in the arm and scanned the room for the prodigal boyfriend. Seeing him pulling a liquorice stick from the cleavage of some fish-lipped and overtly artificial fake blonde with a rear bigger than two beach balls in a sack only made my thirst for revenge deepen. Clearly, what I kept modestly buttoned under my shirt was too natural and flat for his tastes- I was two silicone implants short of being his preferred calibre of woman. I had been reserved as a humble housewife rather than a living blow up doll. That shouldn’t have offended me, but it did.
We found a free table that provided me with a good view of him and a clear run to the exit when all hell broke loose. I had a plan, but I needed participants. “Ade, check out the two other women in here. Who is bustier and stereotypically fuckable?”
He frowned at me, processing my words before he looked around quickly, examining the women with intense scrutiny. He spent maybe too much time looking, seriously risking detection. But he escaped unnoticed. “Blonde bombshell with a huge rack behind you. Seems to be single and no wedding ring.”
“I wanted to know which one was hot, not which one you’re staking out as prey. Jeez.” I ridiculed him with a stare before I placed my sunglasses back on my face and made a cautious beeline to the blonde, who sat with a significantly older gentleman and another man who may well have been his son. Pushing aside my curiosity over which one she was bedding, if not both, I swooped down next to her and nodded politely.
Peering over my sunglasses, I smiled slightly and brought out a crowd-pleasing side of me I never knew existed. “I love your hair, I’d love to go blonde.” I whispered, biting my lip with a slight wink. Her look of disdain was quickly replaced with the predictable gush of gratitude that I’d hoped for. I brushed my thumb across my lip and feigned shyness, hoping I smouldered as much as I was aiming for.
“This is embarrassing. See, I’m sure you know who I am.”
“Of course,” she squeaked, “you’re the Cecelia.”
T
hat brightened my day. “Just Cecelia will do. Anyway, if you know me, then you must know the Italian stallion over there who told me he was teaching tonight when he’s obviously here. He doesn’t look at me, the way he looks at them,” I sighed with exaggerated sadness and cast my eyes downward, forcing my voice to crack, “I mean, am I ugly? Am I fat?”
“My god, no- you’re beautiful!”
“He never tells me that.” I looked up at her with a pout. “I gave up a place on Nathaniel Alexander’s arm for him and he repays me by motor-boating strippers.” I swept away a tear I never cried and started to wonder if I should have pursued a career in acting. “Would you help a wronged woman?”
She stammered for a moment and half nodded, looking over at her escorts nervously. “I’ll do what I can, but I can’t leave my fiancé.” Fiancé but no ring. Odd.
Still wondering whose gold she was digging for, I nodded profusely and held up my hands. “Of course, I completely understand that. All I need is for you to smile and wave when he looks at you and then go to the bathroom when you see me take off my jacket, and then I’ll come and fetch you. Can you do that?” She smiled, eyes sparkling with confusion. The instructions were straight forward enough- I wasn’t really sure what was baffling her. “You’re a peach. Your next round is on the house.” I rose to my feet in a slow prowl and winked at Aiden as I made my way to the bar.
He was hot on my heels when I reached the glass fronted bar that displayed their full range of cocktails in a backlit cabinet. In a small container were my nemeses, cherry bombs. I could only presume that Isaac kept a stash of those demon fruits in all of his establishments, possibly for the purpose of wiping women’s memories and loosening their reservations. Unlike rohypnol, Everclear didn’t render a woman limp or useless. He had gone down in my estimations since his foolishness in the bistro- I still seethed over him forcing Natha- Mr Alexander to bed a prostitute.
“What are you planning, Cici?” Aiden curled an arm around my waist and pressed his lips to my ear. “And how long is it going to take?”
I swatted him away and pulled my sunglasses off my face to look at him properly. “You’ll see and not long. You can take me back to your shag-pad soon enough.”
“Promise?”
I snickered and leaned forward across the bar, waiting for the obnoxiously pug nosed bar man to pull himself away from his smartphone long enough to acknowledge my presence. He didn’t bat an eyelid at the sequin bikinied hussies that roamed the deep red vinyl floors, which I assumed meant only one thing. He was gay, and therefore a challenge. I couldn’t manipulate him with seduction or charm.
His overly feminine tone was confirmation of his orientation. “Can I help you?”
“As it happens, yes you can.” I removed my trilby hat and drummed my fingers across it. “I need three things. One,” I held up a finger, “a free drink for the hot blonde who’ll screw anything for diamonds,” I raised another finger, “two, a drink and a note sent to the beef cake up front in the cheap suit and bad aftershave, and three,” I put my hand down flat on the bar and cocked my head. “one of the Cherry Rooms reserved for me to humiliate an asshole.”
He raised an eyebrow at me and laughed, waving his hand like a diva. “Girlfriend, I don’t know who you think you are, but I can’t do any of those things.”
I sighed slowly and leaned my elbows on the bar, stooping over to rest my chin on my palms. Of course I’d known he’d say no, that was why I was prepared. “Ok, girlfriend, I’m really bored of playing the ‘do you know who I am’ game, so I’ll put my cards right out on the table. Your boss made me come by talking dirty to me and I can tell you the length and angle of his brother’s erection because it spent most of yesterday afternoon inside me. You now have that as a media bargaining chip if you do those three things for me and end up in trouble for it.”
The silence passed between us for a whole ten seconds before he pulled out a memo pad and a pen. “So what is this message saying?”
“Good man, I knew you’d see sense.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my phonebook, “ ‘Call me now’, this telephone number, and tell him it came from the Anna Nicole wannabe.” He nodded and scrawled down the number, peeling the memo from the pad and sticking it to a tray.
“So how big?” His face creased into a smile and he stuck his tongue out suggestively. “I’d always hoped that Nathaniel didn’t find a girlfriend because he was gay.”
I scoffed. “Not the way he fucks. Seven inches hard, recharges after an espresso and curves up just enough to brush my g-spot to trigger an immediate climax.” I blew him a kiss and pointed the drinks cabinet. “And if you want to know more, you can bring me two of your strongest cocktails.”
Grabbing Aiden’s hand, I skipped back to our table and pushed him down into a couch, leaning across him to lick his face and collapsing down by his side, kicking my legs across his lap. I felt devilishly delightful for my antics and my core reverberated with a swelling pride for so aptly performing a scene I’d never read before. He shuffled awkwardly and adjusted his trousers. “Man, you’re just awesome when you’re high.”
“Aren’t I though?” I laughed with a wide eyed flourish that showed exactly how conceited I was feeling and nodded to my new gay friend as he handed us two excessively large lime green cocktails before winking in Cole’s direction. My mind hatched plans to have the lying oaf unwillingly buggered, but that would have removed my opportunity to conduct the humiliation myself.
I pushed the hat back onto my head and bit the arm of my sunglasses as I observed the drink being delivered to Cole’s table. The bar man leaned down to his ear and whispered, pointing in the blonde’s direction. On cue, she smiled and waved, flicking her tousled mane over her shoulder then turning to wink at me. Cole’s face suggested that he was making some form of derogatory statement to Adam, who shook his head severely and threw an arm over the back of the couch to look around the room.
I threw a leg over Aiden and pulled him into a kiss as his eyes hovered over us- he was looking for me. Of course, I should have guessed that a psychology teacher might have figured me out, but how without the reason for suspicion? This scenario was average enough, countless men accumulated countless phone numbers from loose women on nights out, what made this shady?
Damn it, Bethany! He’d obviously already been warned that I’d be arriving to make a scene and he was making sure Cole would keep out of trouble. He scored himself an abundance of brownie points for being the morally righteous one of the pair.
Until he was satisfied by my ‘absence’. He turned back to Cole and I could definitely distinguish him saying the words ‘all clear’ as he laughed and patted him on the back. I had blended in well, too well for my cherry red shirt and hair tightly pulled back into a simple ponytail with a trilby on top, and as long as I kept my eyes covered, my scheme would go off without a hitch.
“Hmmm…” Aiden murmured beneath me, sliding his hands up to cup by backside. I had watched the whole show with his tongue in my mouth and he had always loved being toyed with. He knew that his weakness for me was being exploited but he didn’t care because this was enough. He was as self-destructive as I was and if he had to open himself up to more pain to have me, he would take every blow.
I would have pitied him, but that would have made me a hypocrite. Cole would willingly take the invitation to cheat on me and I’d still go back to him.
I pulled back from Aiden and rolled my eyes. “Oh, get over it. Quick,” I stood up and shrugged my jacket off, giving my blonde minion her cue to head to the bathroom, “give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Phone,” I held out my hand, “give it. I sent over your number, he’s going to call.”
Aiden stared at me, looking dumber than a box of rocks. “What, why?”
“You know, you have a pretty restricted vocabulary for an English Literature professor. Last night was a ‘Battle of The Bard’ with a billionaire, now I have Lurch Addams grunt
ing ‘whut?’ at me.”
“You can be a real bitch sometimes, Cici.”
I pouted disingenuously and ruffled his hair as he begrudgingly handed me his phone. “You love it.” His frustration was clear when he leaned down to pick up his drink, flushed and sour faced. “Hey.” He looked up at me moodily and I wanted to apologise. I wanted to tell him that I felt bad for teasing him with access to my body when he really wanted access to my heart. But I couldn’t. Something bitter blocked the words.
“I get it, Cici. You just want me around to get you stoned and keep you warm at night.” I didn’t answer, knowing that I couldn’t honestly disagree. I had never had a romantic interest in Aiden- he had always just been somebody to butt heads with over philosophical matters such as the meaning of life and where the universe ends. It wasn’t my fault that he’d fallen in love with me. “Relax, I’ll numb you and see you right. But you’re not hurting anyone but yourself.”
The vibration of his phone washed his words away. I could deal with the voices in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t cope with the nagging thoughts being spoken by someone else. Hurting myself was the intention, because if I hurt, I could numb it.
But I had to focus my attention on forcing a point- that no matter how spiritually feeble I may have seemed, I was nobody’s fool. I raised the phone to my ear slowly, hiding my hangdog frown under my hat and forced my voice into a hushed breathy drawl. “Hello.” The animosity between Aiden and I dissolved with his repressed laugh at my poor Cockney accent. It was loud enough to make Adam turn around and take another sweep of the room with his eyes, but brief enough to disguise as a cough.
“Thanks for the drink, but where have you gone?” Eager.