by Brian Hodge
“Something bothering you, ma’am?”
Ma’am? I’m twenty-one years old. “No, I’m fine,” she lied.
“I’m from Philly,” the cabby said. “Just moved to Vegas last week. Only my third day on the job.”
A sick burning sensation welled inside Leslie’s gut. It rose into her throat in the form of a knot. She ran the fuzzy cotton ball that had skillfully replaced her tongue across the roof of her dry mouth, wondering if this man would live to see the world tomorrow. Passing the Venetian and its Grand Canal complete with gondolas captained by knicker-wearing Italian tenors, she gazed over the blurring hordes of tourists holding hands, clutched in groups and pointing in the direction of the exploding volcano at the Mirage Hotel across the street.
Fire and brimstone, she thought. The world just may come to know no other means of existence.
The cab made its way down Sin City’s famed strip, gargantuan hotel resorts giving way to the smaller and less popular—but no less crowded—hotels and motels at the south end.
“Where ya from?” the cabby asked. “I mean, originally.”
Her thoughts traveled back in time, to her years growing up an only child on Long Island. Back then, life had been simpler, more pleasant, from her toddler years all the way through high school, and then beyond as her devoted parents ultimately supported her decision to attend UNLV. Unable to acquire financial aid, she’d had to pay her way through college, and used her comely looks and feline sexuality to extract her earnings at the Olympic Garden Cabaret, Vegas’s most popular strip club. It hadn’t been a poor decision at the time; working only part-time, the money more than sufficiently covered her needs.
She’d never been ashamed of her body, and at the time enjoyed the exhibitive nature that came with the territory. She could pick and choose her customers, skillfully hunt down the thick-pocketed ones, clued in by their Rolex watches and gold chains, their Armani suits and Joseph Abboud shoes.
The night she spotted the dark handsome man in the black suit, striding into the club and parading all those urbane attributes, the dollar signs flew across her mind like a flock of crows, and she approached him before he managed to find a place to sit—before one of the other temptresses sank her talons into this prime piece of walking real-estate.
For the millionth time she cursed herself for being near the door at the very moment he’d arrived. He’d immediately locked eyes with her, smiled. She’d smiled back, at once enraptured by his piercing gaze, his chiseled profile, his Esquire looks. Without a word, they’d settled down together on a high-rounded sofa…and instantly connected, once and forever.
A hollow sickness filled Leslie’s stomach. It quickly melted into a hot, pulsing fear. Tears of indignation welled in her eyes, and she did her best to dampen them before they caused her heavily applied mascara to run.
“Ma’am?”
She shook away the living nightmare, feeling giddy, disjointed from reality. But what is real? The world is a cloaked facade, and beneath lies the harsh reality of it all. “I’m sorry?”
“I was wondering where you’re from, originally, that is.”
“New York,” she answered abruptly, gazing down at her toned thighs, at once wishing she could trade places with someone lacking of looks and charm for a life far away from the one she knew.
The cab crossed over Paradise, where the glitz and glamour of the strip gave way to the darker, less populated environs of Vegas. A half-mile of wedding chapels, liquor stores, dingy motels, and peeking street-walkers decorated the street—the membrane of Vegas’s iniquity—until the cab crawled into the fenced-in lot of the Olympic Garden Cabaret.
She paid her fare, then exited the cab, careful not to get her purse caught on the door. A cement canopy and two large wooden doors welcomed her, granting her access into the dark smoky habitat of OG’s interior. Fixing a loose strap on her high heels, she scurried inside toward the left of the red velvet rope. To the right, four men in cheap suits paid a fifteen dollar cover, grins as wide as the open flaps on their wallets. Doormaid Samantha, a dancer now past her prime, collected their donations and handed them tickets good for two free drinks.
Ralphie, five feet shoulder-to-shoulder and six feet from the ground, buttoned his tuxedo jacket and left his post alongside Samantha to meet Leslie. Despite the cool environment, a sheen of sweat had formed on his brow.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I know…”
“Your customer is here.”
Of course he was. He was always here…he came in every night at the same precise time, at six minutes after six. And she guessed that if she’d made an effort to time his exact arrival, it would’ve been six seconds after the minute too.
“In the VIP room?”
Ralphie nodded. “As usual.”
Leslie hurried across the club, weaving in and out of the leopard-spotted couches and gem-lighted hexagonal stages showcasing the dancers of the moment. Men of distinct persuasion sat solemnly atop pink vinyl barstools, hunched over their spirits of choice, eyes turned yearnfully towards the money-grabbing seductresses in no-win plights for intimacy. She climbed the small spiral staircase leading up to the Deejay’s booth.
“Rico…”
Rico lowered the headphones from his ears. His thin black moustache was as manicured as his eyebrows were tweezed. “You’re late today,” he said, eyelids fluttering.
“I know, I know,” she replied, feeling that hollow sickness in her stomach again. Something like lava seared her esophagus. “Next song, okay?”
“You got it, baby-cakes. Nothing over six minutes.”
“Thanks.” She rushed down the steps, back across the club, mindfully aware of the hungry eyes sizing her up like a piece of prey. Behind those eyes, dirty little minds drummed up images of what it must be like to have her grind one out for them. The whole scene was a common example of man’s primordial urges. It came with the territory…but so did the money. She wondered what level of income the dancers of ten years ago made when the physical contact between dancer and customer had been limited to three feet of airspace. A marginal amount, she’d always assumed—at least enough to afford the groceries and pay the rent.
But then, everything changed. Someone, somewhere, decided to push the envelope, and the no-contact gap in the clubs promptly vanished (along with the ten-dollar dance), turning the now obsolete table-dance into the expensive and somewhat exploited lap-dance. Soon strip clubs were opening up everywhere, offering up close and personal dances with the sexiest girls in town, and men of all shapes and sizes were flocking to them by the millions, shelling out the bucks for dry sex with the semi-naked woman of their choice. It all seemed to have happened overnight. The cabaret business had flourished from an outlet for temporary entertainment, to a lifestyle geared not only to men, but to women and couples alike. It became a monster that would never go away as long as there were women willing to feed it.
Her thoughts proved a viable distraction to the act she was about to perform. At first the anticipatory anxiety made the daily ritual seem undoable; each time she’d nearly swooned by the time it was over. But she soon found that providing herself with thoughts and images outside the bounds of her obligation to society—to the world—made committing the deed something she could get through, and still leave with her sanity intact.
Just six minutes…and then you can go home.
Until tomorrow…
She passed the front door, catching concerned glares from Samantha and Ralphie and two bikini-clad dancers whose names she did not know. She turned away from them, then reached into her purse and spritzed herself with his favorite perfume, Red. The glass doors of the VIP room loomed, a large script ‘OG’ etched in snowflake-white purposefully obscuring the personal activity about to take place within.
Leslie took a deep breath.
She entered the VIP room.
And there he sat, legs crossed, wearing his signature black suit. His hair was slicked straight back, fac
e tan and shaven. He provided her with a smug grin, making her feel even less comfortable with the now all-too-familiar situation.
“Hello Leslie,” he said, his voice dry and intense. “Are you ready to play?”
Leslie hesitated, feeling nauseous at the sound of his voice, then looked away in an effort to avoid his hypnotizing gaze. Quickly, she paced to the sofa alongside the far wall, placed her purse down, then stood there unmoving, staring at the carpeted floor and listening to the seductive groove of Rico’s current selection.
“I’m looking forward to our dance,” he said.
“Of course you are,” she answered angrily, removing her shirt. She could feel his gaze running along the lace fringes of her bra.
“I wonder what scourges you’ll impart tonight?” He always asked her that—his actions never strayed from the habitual nature of his routine.
The soft beat faded from the PA speakers, distorted guitars and booming drums quickly eating it up like a sudden storm smashing a window, stirring the VIP room into action.
Time for today’s dance.
Leslie skulked over, setting the curve of her hips into motion. She hooked her manicured thumbs beneath the silky fabric of her miniskirt and slid it down over the smooth bronze skin of her thighs. It landed on the carpet in a feminine drift. She used one heeled toe to gently shake it away.
Leaning forward, she placed her hands on his shoulders. She could feel the alarming heat of his skin through the European fabric and it nearly burned her palms. She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath and held it, mindful of the pain.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
She obeyed his command, hips swaying seductively to the song’s heavy rhythm. As the vocalist began to plead a tale of love long lost, his large brown eyes pinned her and took her to yet another vile place, one she’d never visited before, where rivers of lava flowed boundlessly over the undying bodies of those caught in its flow. She witnessed great agonies, of flesh sloughing away in blistering slabs, leaving behind tattered tendons, stark bones, and the rictus grins of a million immortal sufferers. He grinned lecherously at her clear awareness of the images imparted upon her, and the whites of his eyes went red with blood. She pulled her horrified sights to her swaying legs, trying desperately to wash the wretched imagery from her mind.
“You look wonderful tonight, my dear,” he said, his voice a low hush. “Perhaps tonight’s the night? The be-all, end-all?”
Forcing a smile, she reached over her shoulders and unclasped her bra. Her enhanced breasts stood firm upon their release, the sundrenched flow of her skin uninterrupted by tanlines. Nipples, dark and petite, stood perkily under the cool blow of the air conditioner. She leaned forward and pressed herself against his muscular chest, retracting slightly from the scorching heat emanating from his body. She could feel his breathing quicken, hot tempered breaths embracing her cheek, the slight odor of sulfur reaching into her nostrils.
His hands ran along her waistline—
She jerked back. “The rules,” she chided playfully. “No hands. Just like everyone else.”
Like a child told not to touch, he quickly returned his hands to the sofa’s armrests. “Then you too must play like everyone else.”
Leslie raised her arms in the air. Her all-over tan reached perfectly across her smoothly shaven underarms. In rhythm with the music, she pirouetted and stopped, facing away from him, arching over to exhibit the muscular roundness of her buttocks, the unblemished drift of skin leading from her ass-cheeks to her hamstrings, the black lace g-string accentuating the peachy blonde hairs riding finely up the small of her back. Placing her hands on her knees, she pressed her backside into his crotch and, keeping pace with the music, began to grind.
A low growl resulted, the odor of sulfur rising even further from his lungs. The heat from his crotch surged, nearly scorching her skin. With each downward grind, his hips pressed forcefully against her in waves of unbridled lust. Turning her head to the left, she could see his hand grasping the sofa, pointed nails now protruding from his angular fingers, clutching the already-damaged leather.
She could feel his erection growing, rubbing against her, the thin fabric of his pants marrying the heated lace of her panties.
“Yes, Leslie, that’s it…just like that. There are so many evils longing to make their way out.”
No…
She pulled away, twisted around…
…and shuddered at the sight of him. She’d witnessed his transformation dozens of times, yet still hadn’t found a way to accept it—to deem it a common circumstance in this ungodly routine. She swallowed hard, seeing his grin…a mouth rife with dark yellow points for teeth; green smoke seeping from his nostrils like a firecracker’s aftermath; eyes widening to twice their normal size, fully coated with blood. She stood motionless, shuttering her eyes, trembling uncontrollably as the song played on.
“The dance, Leslie,” he growled, his voice deep and unholy, “Continue the dance.”
Obeying the house rules by keeping one foot on the floor at all times, she leaned forward and wedged a gentle knee into his crotch, feeling out his full erection while keeping a hand against the back of the couch. Her breasts fell upon his waiting face, her knee dancing back and forth against the forefront of his burning staff.
“Oh Leslie…that’s it,” he said, flicking his forked tongue out against the side of her right breast. She closed her eyes in pain, in disgust, hot wet heat sending fear through her body. “The seeds of evil are starting to spill.”
He said that everytime. It was a sick, twisted analogy…yet so very real in its denotation. As a young adult entering womanhood, she’d always remembered from school that a woman could get pregnant from a man even if he didn’t ejaculate in her because the penis would leak a substance called ‘pre-emission’, and there’d be millions of sperm swimming around in this tiny drop of clear liquid—and all it took was one of those sperm to make a baby. Eventually Leslie discovered that most men were perpetually horny and could leak this stuff even if the wind blew against them the right way.
The seeds of evil, he called them. His sperm. When she danced for him, he would become aroused and would leak his vile semen, filled with millions of sperm, each single damned one manifesting itself into a unique evil act, released unto the world to wreak havoc amongst the human race, be it small or large, fatal or not. A rape, a murder, a kidnapping, a deadly fire, a car crash, or a building collapse. Plane crashes, fatal accidents, even acts of domestic violence like spousal battery and child abuse. Each instance would occur as a direct result to the release of a single seed loosed from the genitals of the man in black.
She pulled away, careful not to allow the act to carry too far. The song blared through the speakers, reaching a crescendo. He arched his head back in ecstasy, his atom’s apple jerking up and down like a pogo stick. Thick green smoke oozed from his mouth, the skin on his face growing coarse and scaly, cheeks red and swelling, eyebrows extending out into a chiseled ridge. His tongue, now eight inches in length, slithered from his mouth like an eel, lapping the fiery saliva pooling on his lips. “The song’s not over, Leslie. Dance!”
Careful not to touch him, she turned around, unable to watch anymore. She pressed her rear back into his crotch, feeling the ferocity of his burning spade, the searing throb within, the sharp point digging into her, the mottled bumps filled with venomous blood. She cursed herself for permitting this to happen…to be the one responsible for allowing evil into the world. Yet, if she refused his nightly demand, then she’d end up swimming the lavas of hell, suffering eternally in its sweltering flows, and some other dancer would become his regular channel for release—he’d promised her that.
Once she’d found the temerity to ask him, “Why not do it yourself?”, and he smiled and said, “Evil only exists through the lure of immorality. Without it, I am nothing.”
And what better place, she thought, for evil to thrive than Las Vegas?
The music began to fade i
n the speakers. Leslie pulled away in relief, staggering to the couch where she’d placed her purse. She collapsed there, knowing that for another day the world would continue on as it was, with only its fair share of evil making itself known across the globe, and nothing more.
The man gazed tiredly at her, now composed, appearance as neat and normal as when he first arrived. “Short song tonight.”
“It’ll never reach your required length. I’ll make sure of that.”
He grinned at her, laughing derisively. “Someday…oh yes, someday it will.”
Yes. Someday. It probably would. And she prayed it wouldn’t be her dancing for him when the song reached a total length of six minutes and sixty-six seconds, because that’s how long it would take for him to release his entire flow of corruption upon the world. There were enough evil seeds inside of him to conquer every last drop of good on earth, and if they came out, the world would quickly fall to unceasing evils, wars and fires and plagues and genocide and…
He stood up and walked over to her. He handed her a wad of bills.
Her tip for the dance. Six hundred and sixty-six dollars.
“See you tomorrow?” he asked.
She nodded, pocketing the cash. “Same time, same place.”
He paced away from her and exited the VIP room, leaving a soft trail of green vapor behind. Leslie gathered her things, and stood to leave, wondering if tomorrow would be the day the Devil finally reached his orgasm.
He won’t, she thought, as long as the song is shorter than six minutes and sixty-six seconds.
Leslie exited the VIP room. Out on the main floor, the dancers, in the midst of their lapdances, were looking around the club, seemingly confused. Their customers remained patiently seated in position: universally slumped, open-mouthed, and spread-legged. Ralphie and Samantha were looking up toward the deejay booth. Rico was there, hands held up in question.