by Purple Hazel
They both waved at the crowd one more time, taking the time to look around and thank everyone for coming. Then the two Center Backs—one the identical twin brother of a legend of the game and responsible for six of Dallas’ points that evening, and the other young man clearly the future of the program—walked through that tunnel together while fans yelled and screamed joyously…
Back in the locker room, it was certainly going to be an ordeal for Ozzie getting out of his body armor. He wasn’t looking forward to it at all. But that hot shower...oooooh was that going to feel nice. Especially on his neck and shoulders. That’s where he was still incredibly sore. One of his toes felt like it was broken from someone stepping on it. His hand was numb, like perhaps he’d sprained his wrist when he’d been buried in that pile of angry defenders. Yet, it was his head and neck that tormented him most of all.
Some time later, having wrestled with his armor to remove it—and with Haskeh occasionally helping him out—Ozzie finally realized that goal. He shuffled across the carpeted floor of the Wembley Stadium visitor’s locker room and made it into the shower. Past all the reporters he gingerly stepped, trying to look normal, trying not to reveal he was seriously injured. When he finally got to the entryway to the banks of showers, the steam wafted toward him. Made for a thick, soupy, London-style fog to envelop his body as he reached for a showerhead, grimacing and turning the water on as hot as he could stand it.
“Well”—gasp, sigh—“if I kin juss”—gasp—“get m’self showered off and outa this ’ole locker room,” he said to himself panting anxiously, “I bet I kin juss make it. Get m’self over to the arena ’cross the way ’n catch the last of Meeso’s show. Bet she’s already tearin’ it up over there...”
* * * *
“Wheeeuw!” yelled Shamiso in a sort of relieved sigh, the way performers often do when they’ve been working hard entertaining a large audience. After catching her breath, she then yelled out a triumphant, “Alright!” just to whip up the crowd...encourage them...show her appreciation, too.
She—and Rudo—had now finished their tenth song of the set. And, much like Rudo had taught her, Shamiso was now strutting back and forth along the front of the stage and staring down the audience, making eye contact with fans here and there, waving at some, pointing at others, shooting sexy looks at select individuals who caught her eye.
Working as a combo, they had pretty much mastered each other’s tendencies by now. Took a while! There was basically no way to know until they got up there—on that bright hot stage—just how it would go. It certainly had its moments! But then again, that’s why they rehearsed so hard—and even continued to do so while on tour.
There were times when Shamiso had to look back at her sister and hide her face from the crowd while she figured out where and when Rudo was coming back into the song. And there were also instances when Rudo wasn’t too sure if Shamiso was ready for her to jump back in. They never talked or sang over each other, though. That, of course, would have been a dead giveaway.
“WELL THEN, SLAPPERS!” she screamed, pausing for effect to let it sink in. “YOU ABOUT HAD ENOUGH YET?” Shamiso was now taunting them playfully in her East London accent.
Slapper? Not exactly a nice word in mixed company. But it was always a big thrill for Shamiso to call a person something like that and manage to get away with it. On the Santa Maria that had been easy: only a handful of Brits on the crew. She need only be selective. Now? It was even easier. The crowd were ecstatic when she addressed them in this manner.
“THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SOME MORE?!”
They screamed with delight.
“ARE YOU SURE?!”
They screamed even louder, desperately reassuring her.
“Now be careful, luvvahs!” she then added, stopping for a moment to let the tension build and allow the audience to anticipate her next words. When she began speaking again, it was slow, loud, deliberate, and ominous...as if she was warning them seductively. Shamiso made it even more alluring by then walking out a few paces along the catwalk, stopping to put one hand on her hip, and waggling an index finger teasingly before concluding her routine.
“’Cause you never know what you’re gonna get yourself into…” she then said huskily, raising her voice as she continued, “…when you go out partyin’...WITH A GIRL LIKE ME!”
After saying this, she bobbed her head side to side provocatively, allowing the fans to appreciate what she was inferring by that statement. Half the twelve thousand people in attendance got the message promptly and began cat-calling or screeching with joy. The other half slowly picked up on what she was talking about. As the waves of cheers grew and swelled like a rising storm, Shamiso turned slowly and walked back toward the band, hands on her hips, which swayed ever so sexily. This cued the band to begin a one-minute-long instrumental interlude to her next song.
As the crowd cheered louder and louder, many of them knowing full well what she’d just been alluding to, Shamiso picked up her pace, and the tunnel underneath the drummer’s stand opened up once again. Fog machines then began kicking in to create a man-made cloud, which billowed forth and flooded the stage in an eerie mist. Through this, Shamiso darted into the tunnel, down a short ramp, and into a makeshift changing area. She had less than sixty seconds to perform her third of four costume changes for the night.
The instrumental piece had actually been composed by the crew’s sound engineer, Claude Nobbs, and it was designed to run up to three minutes if necessary. It was also accompanied by a cacophony of sound effects, including thunder strikes and lightning strikes—also created by Claude, using lasers fired from racks secured in the ceiling overhead. All these meshed perfectly with the sound of the percussion riffs performed by the band’s drummer.
Meanwhile, the simulated fog cloud continued to spread and shroud the stage in obscurity while the drummer struck gongs, banged on a huge Scottish bass drum, soloed for a while on a set of synsonics pads programmed to sound like kettle drums, and bashed cymbals. After about sixty seconds, Shamiso emerged once again, this time dressed quite differently.
Now she had on red vinyl boots with a spike heel, red thigh-high stockings, and a red micro-skirt, which pretty much left nothing to the imagination. Her black panties underneath were the only major variation from Rudo’s usual choice for a costume during this part of the show. Shamiso had to draw the line somewhere. Nevertheless, the rest of her outfit was just as risqué. No brassiere. A London policeman’s jacket, which had been altered to taper off at the midsection and still expose her belly, completed the ensemble. A single silver button was fastened, right above the navel, allowing the cleavage to be visible. And to top it off, she wore a police constable’s “custodian helmet”...complete with a replica badge from the Metropolitan Police Service.
Naturally, after that, there was little doubt left in that audience of twelve thousand what song was coming next. It had to be “Club Girl”; they just knew it! Once the fans heard the opening bars of the song, recognizing the old-fashioned, funky blues beat which was so distinctive compared to modern club music—or Posh, as the media had nicknamed it back in the 2090’s—they began cheering wildly. Besides “Kiss Kiss Love”, this was generally believed to be her most famous song.
Rudo got a big kick out of their reaction, and smiled happily from up in the simulated keyboard pod in the back. It always amused her how fans had embraced the song more and more as the years passed. Shamiso launched into an opening dance routine, accentuating her movements to let Rudo know she was to come in on the next down beat. She’d let the melody line go an extra eight measures or so just to let the crowd begin gyrating and bouncing to the beat. During that time, she fired them up with her skillful taunting.
“Okay, cunts, you know what’s comin’!” She called out to them, signaling with an index finger in a swirling motion to let everyone in the band know as well. “Brace yourselves. It’s...CLUB GIRL!” Rudo was prepared, and launched into singing it while Shamiso lip-synced the cont
roversial lyrics:
Club girl, tell me why we’re hangin ’round
Ain’t got no time for muckin’ about I’m ready to see the town
All these pretty women, they’re so long and lean
Need to find them fancy types who like the ones that’s clean
Club girl, jump into the back of a cab
We gonna take a ride baby, you’ll never wanna come back
Club girl
Club girl
So...follow me down ta’ Soho baby. I'll show you my favorite thing.
Yes I will
The controversy surrounding the song “Club Girl” went back many years. This was always believed to be because it (purportedly) depicted a real-life event. Of course, most fans had long since written off those dodgy old rumors of Rudo Love being found by police in a Soho alleyway naked, “sitting with a prostitute” on a storage crate, stoned out of her mind. Most chalked it up to yet another one of those “urban legends” that always seemed to circulate on the macronet concerning celebrities.
Years ago, the popular rumor was that Rudo had been out partying one night, had gotten high on drugs with an unknown woman several years younger than her, and they’d gone “clubbing” together. Some businessmen, driving through Soho that evening, had picked them up and proceeded to take them out dancing. A wild sex party had followed this club-hopping junket, which supposedly happened back at a London flat, the location of which was never pinpointed. As word spread that the young men had found a couple of “club girls”—attractive single women looking for a wild time—several more showed up. Sending messages to their chums, the party eventually grew to quite a gathering...and continued well into the next morning.
Naturally, Rudo’s publicity machine had rushed to suppress such a story. But just like anything else, when it came to celebrities and their misdoings, if one person sees it happen, ten people will inevitably swear they were present at the time. If three people see it, a hundred will claim they witnessed the whole thing. But that only served to make the song more intriguing, as stories of Rudo’s apparent promiscuity seemed to be verified by the very words in the song!
Rudo, for her part, did little to dispel the gossip getting around about her. It almost seemed like she enjoyed hearing the stories people told! In a 2109 interview, she was purposely vague in her answers when questioned about the incident. For all intents and purposes, she denied everything...but she wasn’t too terribly adamant about it, as people couldn’t help but notice. To this day, Rudo still loved singing the song:
Club girl, jump into the back of a car
They gonna do things to ya’ baby that’ll stir your heart
All us party women, we’re so few and far between
Only need them city lights; only need ta’ make the scene
Club girl, don’t wanna be hangin ’round
I ain’t got time for sittin’ I'm too busy steppin’ in this town
Club girl
Club girl
So...follow me ’round Soho baby I'll show you a real love fling.
You know what I’m talkin about honey
Here we go
As time passed, and Rudo began exploiting the famous “story” surrounding the song, people began suspecting that it had all been overblown. Many assumed it was being exaggerated. After all, how could a famous pop music singer ever expect to pull something so daring? That she’d gone out on the town, by herself, and eventually got picked up by a car full of strange men, was quite hard to swallow. It was never reported in the news, only spread around on the macronet as hearsay.
Meanwhile, for years Rudo Love performed the song wearing outfits like that of a cheap hooker or a prostitute working in some sleazy Soho flat. Seemed like she was merely capitalizing on it. Thus, it became harder and harder to believe it was ever anything more than a personal fantasy of the singer’s: to be able to get out of her hotel, away from her guards, away from her handlers...and go have a wild night of drugs, booze, and sex.
After a while, folks even wondered if perhaps the song preceded the myth...instead of the other way around! That was quite plausible. Dressing like Rudo Love was incredibly popular, even before the supposed incident. Gay men, for instance—“Drag Queens” impersonating Rudo Love—performed at nightclubs around the world! Given that, most people would assert if anything like that really did occur, it could have been almost anyone pretending to be the famous diva.
That said, the lyrics were quite specific, one would have to admit: right down to the alleged contest between her and the Soho stripper back at the gentleman’s flat, where they challenged each other to see how many men they could finish off. She was either telling a true story or...God bless her...she truly had a rather vivid imagination:
Club girl, tell me how they’re hangin’ down
Been takin’ ’em on real steady; been so busy countin’ ’em down
They like kinky women, but we’re so few and far between
They got lots o’ Tequila shots, they doin’ it fast and mean
Club girl, jump into the back of that car
They gonna give you love baby that’ll thrill your heart
Club girl
Ooooooooh
Club girl
I want ya’ to follow me back to Soho baby I'll show you my favorite thing.
* * * *
Ozzie, meanwhile, finished his shower and stepped ever-so gingerly over to the lavatory stalls nearby. The nausea had returned, and the stiffness in his neck was only partially abated. Now he was feeling sickly.
Finding an empty cubicle, he quickly entered and doubled over, putting his hands on his knees. About all he had left to vomit was the few sips of water he’d swigged from a water bottle the trainers had kindly left in his locker for after the game.
As he stooped over the toilet, hands on his knees, Ozzie struggled and gagged repeatedly to expel the last of the fluids in him. And the gagging only made the pounding in his head more severe. How he was going to make it through this ordeal and get over to the Empire Arena to see Shamiso he had no idea. Nevertheless, he was determined to try. He knew he was going to need some “help”. He finally broke down and went to see one of the trainers to get some pain medication for his headache.
“Y’all thank ya’ could give me sumpin’ for a bad headache?” he asked a rather hurried young man from the Dallas staff, who spun around when addressed.
“Headache? God, yes. Seems everybody’s still got one from that damn jet lag. That what getting’ to you, Ranger?”
Ozzie nodded. He couldn’t believe his luck. He didn’t want anyone to suspect he was still affected by anything more than just a sore throwing hand—least of all a concussion.
“Wrist feelin’ better?” the trainer then asked as he scurried over to a plastic fishing tackle box that was loaded with packets of medications. They were organized into trays, stored in vacuum-sealed wrappers, and he shuffled through them like he was a burglar digging through a jewelry box looking for diamonds. It appeared that he had a drug for just about anything.
“Yeah, I’m doin’ alright,” replied Ozzie, head literally drowning in miserable, throbbing pain. “I can jack off pretty well with either hand, so it likely won’t fuck up my whole weekend. Just gotta find me a good enough titty bar in town to kick things off. Any ideas? Y’all...I mean we…been here lotsa times to play these ’ole boys before, ain’t we? You goin’ out with ever-body later?” He was only joking, of course.
The trainer laughed. “Nah, Ranger. I’m ain’t a bachelor anymore. Family man. Figure I’ll head back to the hotel and get some sleep. Might watch a movie or somethin’. Anyway...here. This ’ll take care of it. I been givin’ this to a lot o’ the guys tonight. Works on migraines pretty well, so it’ll likely take the edge off. One every four hours. Not more than eight in twenty-four hours—got it? Otherwise, you’ll have side effects. Dizziness. Nausea. Drowsiness. Muscle weakness—so watch out.”
“Woooh. Sounds powerful,” chuckled Ozzie, blink
ing and wincing in the bright lights of the visitor’s locker room. “What is it?”
“Treximet,” he replied with no hesitation, like he was some small-town pharmacist. “Sumatriptan and naproxen sodium. Doctors prescribe it for migraine headaches. But it’ll stop the pain ’n help you get a good night’s sleep. Oh...and don’t drink a lot tonight. Trust me on that one, Ranger.” At that point, all Ozzie cared about was how fast they would take effect…
The answer, it would turn out, was not long in coming. As he finished dressing and making his way out of the stadium into the humid London air, Ozzie felt the pain finally subsiding. His whole body tingled (like it had been earlier), only there was little discomfort. His wrist throbbed, but it didn’t hurt. His neck was stiff but it didn’t ache. His head had stopped pounding, too; that was the best news of all.
“Well I’ll be,” Ozzie mused to himself. “Always used to think only old folks had to take shit to cure what ailed ’em. Now look at me, poppin’ pills to get through the night. Fuck. I can’t believe it. ’N I bet ’ole Ranger—I mean Práxedis—would be givin’ me a ration of shit for doin’ this.” He then scoffed, “Well to heck with him. This is the best I felt in hours.”
Ozzie then made his way across Wembley Park Boulevard to the arena. Finding his way around the place, searching along mostly empty sidewalks, he finally located the main ramp, which trucks used to ferry equipment into the arena. Finding a security guard, he had the man radio in to the Rudo Love staff that he was outside. After a few minutes, the Englishman turned back toward him and said politely, “Okay mate, looks like you checked out with them geezers up in the VIP area.”