A ball of hurt, upset and betrayal grew deep in my belly, and then flew through my limbs and down the barrel of the gun.
I swung.
Lifted my arms.
And fired.
There was a loud bang. And then a smash, and a crash, as the glass front of his forty-inch flat-screen TV shattered onto the floor. I reeled backwards across the room as my shoulder nearly blew straight out of its socket from the sheer force of the cartridge moving through the barrel.
My ears were ringing. So much for the silencer, and all the movies I’d watched that had promised nothing more than a barely audible ‘phut’. The sound of the shot alone had reverberated like an avalanche through the apartment building and in my imagination, must surely have roused all the neighbours, not to mention the shattering of the TV screen over Chey’s polished wooden floors.
I wasn’t going to wait around to provide an explanation, to Chey, to the neighbours, to the police or to anyone, and in doing so, reveal the fact that I was now aware of his secret. The authorities might think that I was an accomplice. Chey’s enemies, of which he no doubt had many or else he would have no need for weapons, might think I was their enemy also. His friends might think that I had information that made me dangerous. Chey himself might think that I had discovered some secret that I couldn’t be allowed to keep.
And so I fled.
Gathering all of my possessions into the tote bag that he had bought for me to keep my work things tidy, I disappeared onto the streets. I always felt safest when surrounded by people, so I walked towards the bustle of Times Square and Midtown. I knew that I would be invisible amongst the tourists and commuters that packed like sardines onto the sidewalk, all moving in silent rhythm, faces transfixed on the surrounding screens playing their ceaseless procession of music clips and adverts, hands busy tapping into smartphones or fiddling with other gadgetry and no one paying the slightest attention to me.
At first, I was too afraid to be upset, or even angry.
Each footstep too close to my own, the clang of metal on stone as a dog raced by, its lead scraping the sidewalk and its owner struggling to keep up, the honk of horns as the yellow cabs vied for space on the surrounding streets made my pulse race and the blood hum in my veins.
I stopped to buy a cold drink and a bag of pretzels from a street vendor so that I would have something to do with my shaking hands, then I found a vacant bench to sit on and consider my options.
My insides were in turmoil, every nerve, muscle and sinew coiled and ready to spring, as though I was permanently waiting for the next beat in a song that was stuck on pause. My thoughts scattered like pigeons in the wind, tears streaked down my cheeks as my sadness mixed with anger and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to punch him or kiss him.
So this was how it felt to have a broken heart.
I tossed a piece of pretzel onto the sidewalk in front of me and ground it into dust beneath my shoe, imagining all the things that I would shout at Chey if I had the opportunity to tell him exactly what I thought of him, how much better off I would be without him, how little I needed him.
But moments later I would remember all the things that I had loved about him, and my heart would break all over again.
A kid with a purple Mohawk flew past on a yellow skateboard and spat, nearly hitting my leg with his spittle. I yelled an obscenity in Russian at him and he laughed and rolled away to join his friends, all of them smiling encouragement at him and yelling back at me.
This added provocation mixed with the nugget of fury that had settled in my chest and it grew and grew, overtaking my hurt and my broken heartedness and reminding me of the present and my new reality. I had no Chey to call on. I was on my own, and the first thing that I needed was a safe place to stay tonight where I could plan what to do next.
Blanca was the first person I thought to call.
The only person.
She was the lead hostess at the Grand, and the woman that I felt the most affinity with. Perhaps because she was also Eastern European and had left her homeland behind for New York. Most of the other girls at Sweet Lola’s and the Grand were American, and I had little in common with them. Selma and Santi hailed from Mexico and Gina was from Argentina, but they were new and had barely spoken a word to me and I to them. I supposed I ought to make more of an effort to be friendly but I saw little point when others were not inclined to be friendly to me, and when most of them didn’t last more than a handful of shifts anyway.
Blanca appeared on the doorstep as I approached her loft apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, not too far from my old quarters in Queens, but much more upmarket. She did okay for herself, I thought, as she showed me through to the kitchen with its shiny stainless-steel fittings and the airy living room adjacent where I would be sleeping on a fold-out couch. Probably scooped off some of the dancers’ tips as well as her own wage and the house fare that the other girls paid for each set. But, as far as I was concerned, she was worth every penny, for making sure the Grand kept its upmarket feel and not lowering standards as the other bars in the area had done for the sake of cheap girls and easy money.
It was the first time I’d seen her outside of work, where she usually dressed in long, flowing gowns with her ample cleavage displayed like two plump white bread rolls begging to be taken into a willing mouth.
Today she was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain white blouse, her auburn hair scooped up into a loose bun on top of her head. She was about the same height as me, but in contrast with my thinness, Blanca had a full-figured, ample form. I guessed she was in her thirties. I knew that she had danced for years at the Grand before taking over as the girls’ supervisor, and it showed; her figure was round in all the right places but also firm and meaty and when she turned to show me around the apartment my eyes drifted down to admire her buttocks, perky and wonderfully fleshy, sculpted tight beneath the denim fabric of her trousers.
As I watched Blanca’s arse sway with each step, it occurred to me that I might have another option besides men. My relationship with the male species had always been a matter of give and take. One asset exchanged for another. A matter of rational calculation, cold hard logic. Romance, sure, but more than that was the matter of survival, of sex in exchange for safety and comfort. Not that I didn’t like the sex. But even that was a transaction, my body for his, one orgasm granted in return for another experienced.
Maybe it would be different with women. Less of a power trip and more of a meeting of equals.
For the first few nights, I distracted myself from the pain with a mixture of fury and lust, remembering all the ways that Chey had hurt me and all the reasons that I had to hate him, or by wondering about Blanca’s voluptuous body standing nude under the hiss of the shower water in her tiny bathroom, questioning whether her nipples stood erect parting the flow of the droplets that ran over her skin as she massaged herself with soap, and whether her pussy was still shaved like a dancer’s or if she had allowed her hair to return, covering her inner secrets like a curtain. I would ease myself to sleep by slipping my hand under the thin blanket and caressing my own smooth mound until an orgasm sent me to my dreams happy and light headed quicker than any drug.
But Blanca didn’t give me any reason to think that she returned my affections, and her arse remained firmly zipped into her jeans for the duration of my stay. Worse still, I wasn’t the only girl that she provided a refuge for, and I was soon sharing the fold-out couch with Dee-Dee, a Jamaican girl who had just arrived in New York City and walked straight into the arms of a Lev or a Barry who had upgraded her to Blanca once they realised that she had some rhythm in her long legs and breasts good enough to appear in a lingerie catalogue.
With the sleeping Dee-Dee snoring alongside me and her thick limbs taking up most of the bed, my episodes of nightly self-pleasuring disappeared and my dreams turned darker, full of bullets and steel barrels that I pictured in all different forms. Sometimes I was inside the gun, dancing like a Bond girl, sometimes t
he gun was pressed to my forehead with Chey holding the trigger, and sometimes it was inside me, the icy length of the Sieg Sauer filling me to capacity and leaving me at the edge of a climax that was both terrible and immense in its pleasure.
Trying to keep the thoughts of Chey out of my head and the subsequent pain out of my heart was like trying to dam a river with clay. Certain to fail. I still missed him, although I tried to pretend that I didn’t. Missed his mind, missed his company, missed his hard body and his cock and all of the wonderful things that he did to me on the rare nights that he was home.
It was painful to know we lived in the same city and that, at any moment, our paths could cross. On the street, in a bar, anywhere. I kept away from both the Meatpacking District and Chey’s apartment, as well as the Upper East Side where the clubs he knew I had worked in were situated. I knew that if I came across him, I might not be strong enough to resist his attraction and I would listen to any old hoary story that he might conjure up to justify his periodic absences when we had been together, and the presence of the gun in the drawer.
Part of me begged for the opportunity of a fortuitous encounter, however unlikely the chances were in such a vast place as Manhattan, while the more sensible side of me feared such a thing happening and the way I might react.
Chey was under my skin.
He knew I liked to spend much of my leisure time browsing in bookshops, and in particular Shakespeare & Co on Broadway where the staff didn’t mind my hanging around and casually flitting from book to book reading a page here and a page there before normally settling an hour or more later for a cheap paperback. So I had to avoid the store and moved my allegiances to the Strand where I could lose myself in the heavy crowds. Moving between the aisles and floors or leafing through volumes there, I would sometime feel the gaze of someone looking enquiringly at my back, and every single time I thought it would be Chey, and, heart buzzing, I would turn round only to find it was just another man attracted by my looks and unaccustomed to seeing a foreign-looking blonde in a bookstore who didn’t fit the identikit pattern of female readers.
A couple of months went by and Blanca informed me that there had been no sign of Chey at either of the clubs attempting to track me down and that maybe I should return to work. Possibly, with a few weeks at places down on Long Island or out in New Jersey first, to get my dancing mojo back into gear and allay my nervousness at performing again in the city.
I agreed and began to peruse realtor’s lists and windows with the thought of finding myself a small place to live, a rental, maybe in the West Village. Alone. I wanted my own space, the opportunity to think, lounge, slob at will, and the past weeks staying at Blanca’s with her and the revolving door of other dancers with whom I had little in common was beginning to prove tiresome. The conversation was limited and I was growing weary of being asked to share some of my clothes and, invariably, make-up with them at the slightest opportunity. I needed breathing space.
I declined the out-of-town option.
‘No, I want to work the Grand again,’ I told Blanca. ‘If they’ll have me. I like the place and no man is going to stop me doing what I want. Anyway, they have sturdy bouncers . . .’
‘Oh, that they have, my dear,’ Blanca said.
My resolve had returned, and together with Blanca, we plotted my grand return to the dance floor. I perfected a new routine. Fine-tuned the music. Acquired the perfect outfit and discreet accessories for the occasion.
‘Luba’s Grand Return to the Grand.’
We giddily devised a small leaflet advertising my initial appearance and it was decided that following my one-off set on the Saturday night, I would only grant a single lap dance. To the highest bidder.
I was defiant, confident Chey would not dare come along and get involved.
And if he did, I would flaunt myself with every wanton sinew in my body, show him what he was now missing, provoke him even, display to every man all the things I would never grant him again. To prove I was no longer just his pony girl, but a woman every man desired.
There was a big corporate IT convention on in town, at the Javits Center, and the club that night was packed, lines of limos parked at the kerb, powerful engines roaring softly, chauffeurs at the ready, and a multitude of sharply dressed and suited executives lining up to enter the premises once they had satisfied the scrutiny of our bunker-sized bouncers.
While the other dancers did their thing, I sat in the dressing room, all dressed up, made up and with nowhere to go, with a posse of butterflies doing the tango inside my stomach. Still wondering whether his eyes would be in the audience, watching, lusting after me, missing me, maybe?
There was a resounding hush as the lights went out and I took my place on the dark stage.
The loudspeakers awoke and released my spoken introduction: ‘My name is Luba . . .’ My voice, my Russian lilt, my huskiness. It had taken me over an hour to perfect those four words as an overture for the Debussy music. I’d wanted to sound mysterious, remote, alluring, the very essence of me.
The performance went by in a dream.
It felt as if I was the only person present.
Buried deep within the cocoon of the dance, a prisoner of the searing spotlight, a white body connected to the red-hot circle of a private sun. I’d even got the management to dismantle the dance pole so that nothing obscured the sightlines or distracted the men’s implacable gaze while I performed.
I was flesh incarnate. I was the queen of the night. I was sex, breasts, cunt and arse. Every moment I had rehearsed was planned so that every single man present would desire me with a vengeance, would gasp, pant, grow hard like rock, lust uncontrollably for me with every atom in his body. I wanted them all to yearn, to want me more than they had ever wanted anything in their life before I had walked on the Grand stage and opened their eyes.
But, at the same time, I also danced for myself, alone, ignoring the waves of sexual greed washing across me, as they journeyed from the audience in sheer red heat across the stage, my domain.
It worked.
As I flew from the stage when the darkness returned and provided me with a safe harbour, sweat pouring from me, my cheeks burning, my scalp itching in sympathy, my insides literally on fire with sexual need, Blanca gave me a sideways glance and whispered, ‘That was on the borderline of totally obscene and beautiful, Luba . . . You keep on surprising me . . .’ And she winked at me in complicity.
The other dancers gave me curious looks, as if I had overstepped the bounds or personally offended them. It did not bother me. For them, dancing was just a job. For me, it was now an extension of who I was.
Over the Tannoy, I could hear Blanca back on stage enthusiastically orchestrating the auction for my unique lap dance.
His name was Lucian and he became my first millionaire and my second fuck.
From afar, in Russia, or more specifically in a shithole like Donetsk and the Ukraine, California was an unreachable paradise. An idealised place where the sun shone continuously over a landscape of blue seas, palm trees and ostentatious affluence. Much like the Caribbean, where Chey had taken me, but without the inescapable, surrounding poverty. A promised land that only gangsters and their molls could reach outside of their dreams.
And now I was there.
Courtesy of Lucian, my software geek extraordinaire.
I don’t know how much he paid for his private audience with me in the club’s lap-dance room; later Blanca just handed me a wad of notes which I didn’t even bother counting, not only the proceeds of the auction but also the barrage of green bills that had been thrown onto the stage by appreciative male members of the audience at the end of my set. I never bothered to stay around and pick up these tips, as I found it both undignified and degrading to have to crouch there still naked with the glaring lights back on and gather the notes. Blanca always took care of that for me. Said it gave me a sort of unapproachable mystique, another aspect of mine the other dancers heartily resented.
The lap dance was unexceptional. He did not attempt to touch me, and I barely ground against him as he seemed satisfied just watching me shimmy and squirm a few inches away from him, wearing my white bikini and my pale skin, allowing my own hands to travel seductively across my breasts, belly and thighs in a form of self-loving that I knew men appreciated, his eyes agog in a parody of worship, not even a faint smile on his closed lips. The music I had selected – a track by the English trip hop group Archive – faded to a halt and I stepped back from him. In the semi-darkness there was no way he could conceal the pronounced tent of his erection inside his khaki slacks. He wore his old-fashioned heavy-framed glasses slightly askew.
‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘I hope you liked it.’
‘You really are Russian?’ he stated.
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘I think Russian women are beautiful,’ he said. ‘Different.’
‘Exotic?’
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ he added. He paused, as if struggling for words. I came to his rescue.
‘We are all different. Like women everywhere, you know. I’m actually from the Ukraine. Girls from the other republics sometimes look very different. Some of us have very long legs, others have prominent cheekbones and those from the Asian borders can have slightly slanting eyes and low-slung arses. There is so much variety. You mustn’t generalise.’
‘I realise that,’ he said. ‘But . . .’
He fell silent. I was about to walk away and he called after me.
‘Is Luba your real name, or just a stage one?’
‘It’s my birth name, yes. Actually, it’s a diminutive for Lubov, but no one uses that much.’
‘Luba,’ he said, as he if was savouring every letter of the name on the tip of his tongue like a culinary delicacy.
He was in his mid to late forties but looked, and dressed, ten years younger, had made his fortune developing software and then licensing it to some of the leading corporations in the field. He had then invested some of the proceeds in other start-ups, including Google and Facebook, and no longer needed to work for the rest of his existence. He spent much of his ample spare time devising role-playing games, mostly for his own edification, seldom bothering even to take them to market. He had a large, rambling canalside house in Venice Beach where friends and hangers-on came and went at leisure. His soul had never grown up and he was still a worshipper at the altar of beauty and found it difficult to relate to women.
Eighty Days Amber (Eight Days) Page 8