Dark Ink Tattoo: Episode 4

by Cassie Alexander

  I tried to throw myself into my work, trying not let her silences torment me – I had more than enough imagination to get by alone at night – and I had a lot of options, I appealed to a lot of types: girls my age who were every bit as tattooed as I was, older women looking to get into younger trouble, church girls with a secret devil-may-care side. I’d had them all, and could again, but they paled in comparison to Thea, my dancing Dorothy, who’d taken her ruby-red stilettos and pierced my heart.

  I got her next text while I was in line at the grocery store. I have two days off. Come out?

  Self-respecting Jack – the Jack I’d become since leaving my one-horse hometown – knew better than to respond. But high school Jack wagged his tail to agree.

  * * *

  And so for a while it was like that – her sending texts, me scrambling to buy flights and rebook appointments, ignoring when angry clients then cancelled on me. I didn’t have any other obligations, other than to Bruce, who started to radiate a sense of weary disapproval.

  My plane would land and I’d catch a cab or she’d pick me up, and go straight to her apartment. I didn’t ask why we never left it -- why she wouldn’t let me. I didn’t want to know what the rest of Vegas held – it was a happy blur of neon until I reached the soft cotton of her sheets, the softer skin between her thighs.

  Eight months passed like that, with me coming out and pounding her senseless every third or fourth week: Thea’s hands clawing my back, my breath on her neck, both of us fucking like we were desperate, like the fucking was our air. Each time leaving her was a little harder, a little heavier, like my cock was setting an anchor into her that I buried deeper with every thrust.

  In between we’d lay beside one another, her shoulder tucked into my armpit, her head leaning beneath my chin, and talk. I’d tell her about the tattoo studio I’d own someday, my own or Bruce’s, if he left it to me when he retired like he was always threatening to. And she’d tell me about a trip she was saving for, she had it planned out, city by city, a literal trip around the world – not just in hostels, scraping by, but in style, at four star resorts wearing designer clothes, sitting by pools and going to galleries, it was what she saved her tips for, while other girls spent theirs on diapers or drugs.

  But sometimes late at night she’d seem sad. Our first nights together were always wild, and often as not we wouldn’t make it to the bedroom, I’d end up taking her against her couch or on her floor. The nights after that though, I’d catch her staring into space and I’d feel distant from her, even though my arms were wrapped around tight. When I’d ask what was wrong, I could always sense the answer hiding right behind her teeth – but then she’d laugh and play it off. After that she’d rise up and devour me and her distractions worked – I couldn’t ask her any more questions when her tongue was in my mouth.

  I always wanted to push her away and find out more, but I was afraid I wouldn’t like the answer. And I liked the sensation of her needing me, even if it was needing to distract me – or then having me distract her -- which I was worried made me some sort emotionally crippled sick-fuck, but not enough to stop flying out.

  * * *

  Over that time, her collection of jewelry grew. I asked her about it in her bathroom one night, after she’d blown me in the shower, pulling back to let me shoot myself all over her perfect breasts.

  She smiled disingenuously and laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about that – it’s all fake.”

  I doubted fake jewelry felt so solid or was engraved with Cartier. But the things I wanted to say to her, the ways that I felt – I knew I had to keep them to myself. I didn’t deserve her, I never had, all of this was glamour and luck, and if I breathed on it wrong the bubble would burst. Just like that first night when I’d seen her spinning, when my eyes had glinted off of her because she was too bright – asking what this was now, if we were anything to each other, would break it.

  Somehow I managed to be okay with that, always holding my hopes in reserve, trusting in the way she made me feel, in the way I knew I made her feel -- until the day I landed and she didn’t come get me.

  Chapter 5

  I stood outside the terminal at ten PM, the desert heat radiating up from the ground, looking at my phone’s rapidly dwindling battery, waiting for a text. I’d already sent her several and gotten zero response. After fifteen minutes and no Thea, I hailed a cab and went to her apartment.

  The door was shut, locked – but her car was in the parking lot.

  “Thea?” I knocked politely at first, then harder, walking around to rap on her window with a worried fist. “Thea, are you okay?”

  Nothing.

  I didn’t know what else to do. Call 911? Have them break into the apartment of the girl that I was part-time fucking? The girl who always looked like she was about to say she loved me, but never quite managed to?

  “Goddammit, Thea –“ I pounded on her door with an open hand. When a neighbor’s light came on, I sank back into the shadows. If she wasn’t here, where else could she be? Or who else might know?

  I ran down the cement stairs and called another cab.

  * * *

  I hadn’t been outside of Vermillion in almost nine months, since the night Bruce and I’d first come there. I knew Thea danced – sometimes she had shifts when I visited – but I didn’t let it bother me. When I was in town she came home to me every night, even if that wasn’t until 4 or 5 AM. With my bag still on my shoulder, I pushed through the glass door.

  The music was just as loud and the lights as dim as I remembered. It was a slow Tuesday night and girls swarmed me in hope.

  “Hey,” I asked the nearest one, leaning over to be heard. “Where’s Thea?”

  She made a face. “Thea?”

  “Ruby,” I remembered, her stage name a not-so-clever joke.

  “Oh!” She brightened in recognition. “You don’t want her. Not tonight,” she said, trying to draw me further in.

  “Yeah, I do –“ I said, fighting her for my arm. She relinquished it with a pout.

  “Fine. She’s in the back. But she’s busy.”

  “Yeah?” Maybe she’d forgotten my flight, gotten the days mixed up – maybe she’d just gotten trapped here at the office.

  She walked her fingers down my chest. “Yeah. So come back to me later,” she said. “You’re cute.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and sidled through the room to the back, where the same Samoan bouncer blocked my path.

  “Closed tonight. Private party,” he explained.

  “I get that, but – is Thea, I mean Ruby, okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I just want to see her –“ I leaned forward.

  “No, you don’t –“

  But it was too late. I’d caught a glimpse of her beyond his broad shoulders as he moved ever so slightly to the side, at the center stage in the alcoved room, twirling sadly around a pole, with a group of men shouting on. My time in high school and my time on the streets had given me a sixth sense about the moods of crowds – there was tension in there. Something was wrong.

  “She’s not safe in there –“

  “Neither are you,” the Samoan said. But when I went to push past him, he gave way, content to let me make my own mistakes.

  Thea stopped, mid-swing, grabbing the pole and lowering herself to the ground, looking terrified as a monstrously sized man in a crisp suit behind her stood up.

  “I knew you’d show up.”

  He was shouting and I still had to practically read his lips over the music. But he was holding her phone – and I realized it was one of his necklaces dangling from her throat.

  All this time I thought there’d been some fool buying jewelry for her – instead of realizing I was some fool buying plane tickets.

  “Is this the guy you’ve been texting behind my back?” he shook her phone at her, before flinging it to the ground to shatter.

  Thea sobbed fresh tears, smearing her mascara, but not enough to cover what looked li
ke a black-eye.

  “Did you hurt her?” I shouted, stalking forward. There were five other men there, and two went for holsters in their waistbands.

  “He’s no one. He’s not anything,” I heard her say.

  “I think he disagrees.” The man in the suit smiled at me, his teeth glittering as whitely as the diamonds at her throat. “She’s mine. Turn around now and I’ll let you walk off. Don’t, and you’ll be lucky to crawl.”

  “Go!” Thea shouted at me, pleading. “Just go!”

  But going would mean leaving her there, with them. And I realized what my heart, soul, and cock had been telling me all along -- I was done with leaving Thea behind.

  I looked at the men. I didn’t think they’d actually start shooting in a private establishment. And me? I’d spent enough time getting beat to get good at giving beatings.

  “Fuck you,” I said, dropping my bag.

  The nearest man lunged up toward me, begging for a fight, hoping to make a quick show of things for his boss – but he’d had too much to drink, or was lazy and out of practice – he came high and I went low, punching him solidly in his gut, knocking the wind out of him and dancing aside, looking for the next contestant.

  He arrived on cue and feigned a headshot, before aiming for my ribcage. I spun away from him and pulled back, noticing another trying to circle in from behind. All of these guys had grease in their hair, like some pomade-based mob – I backed up and grabbed hold of a chair to swing it at the nearest man like a frustrated lion tamer. It spun him back and I sagged forward after it with the force of my swing, then heard Thea shout: “Jack!”

  Another guy lunged in and clocked my jaw. Only experience with having been hit before saved me – I went with the motion just enough to escape getting concussed – and I reeled down, coming up just as hard, inside his defenses with an upper-cut, as another man came in from behind to punch my kidneys.

  The man in the suit ignored all this, grabbing Thea’s waist, hauling her away like he was King Kong. “No!” she shouted, pounding at him, trying to get traction to resist in her heels.

  I turned to see this, leaving my back exposed. The Samoan guy stepped aside to let them through like this sort of thing happened all the time and I shouted as someone cracked the back of my skull. I ignored the blinding pain from this, running after her shouting, “Thea!” and tumbled into the next room due to the weight of the guys coming after me from behind – together all of us set the Samoan off balance.

  The music in the real club was even louder – but the girls on stage, doing some sort of duo act, stopped to gasp. I felt another blow land as Thea was dragged into the shadows. “Thea!” I shouted, as someone hit my chest.

  That was it. I whirled and I fought like a cornered animal. Eyes, ears, groins, kneecaps – I wanted to make a mess. A man grunted then howled, clutching his face as he stumbled blind, another staggered to one side, as his leg suddenly went soft. There were screams from behind us, girls, patrons – until the music came to a halt. There was a three second gap where the only sound was fists hitting flesh, and then the lights pointed away from the stage, blinding everyone at once.

  “This is my club.” Rosalie, Thea’s boss, strode out on stage in a golden evening gown, her voice booming over the newly hushed crowd. “And you all will behave. Look at me.”

  I wanted to save Thea -- but couldn’t look away from her, even as I wanted to – I tried! And as she scanned the audience, I knew she knew it – that none of us could – or the suited man’s thugs would still be beating on me. Instead, the one whose eye I’d nearly taken out stood beside me, a hand clutched to his face to cup blood while he watched her with his remaining good one.

  Rosalie started to sway as a piano came on – I was surprised when I recognized, ‘Put a Little Sugar in my Bowl’ – and she smiled indulgently as Nina Simone started to sing, reaching behind her back to unfasten something.

  She walked to the end of the stage – slinking was a better way to describe it – moving fluidly, like she had fewer bones than the rest of us, and two lights followed her. Then when she got there she lifted her arms overhead, all the better to let her dress shine, it made her look like a living flame. She rocked her chest and hips in time to the music, making her dress fall, inch by inch, revealing luminously dark skin. As Nina crooned about needing sugar, Rosalie mesmerized us all – I could barely remember why I’d come in to Vermillion, and my fears for Thea dimmed. Rosalie was the only woman here worth looking at tonight – and I wanted to see all of her.

  The dress fell from the edge of her soft breasts, exposing nipples slightly darker than the surrounding skin, with wide areolas, like butterfly’s eyes, and all the blood in my body sunk low.

  Thea.

  Thea in the arms of some stranger. A maniac.

  I wanted to leave, I had to leave – but as often as I told my feet to move, my eyes to look away, and my cock no!, all of me was ensorcelled by Rosalie.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” she whispered. The dress had taken a dramatic fall off of her hips, and she’d stepped out of it to move freely. “Now,” she said, and even though the music had stopped and faded, she still danced hypnotically, undulating like the ocean under moonlight. “Ladies, tonight is over. Take your tips and go home. Forget what you saw here, and come back next shift. That includes you, George.”

  I’d forgotten some of them were still in the room. I heard the sound of women following her commands, shuffling to pick up the wads of cash they’d dropped in the confusion, walking deliberately towards the back. A man tumbled out of the DJ booth to follow them.

  “The rest of you men – your night is also over. Forget what you saw here. Forget why you hurt. Go home, remember nothing, and never return,” she said, and I could feel her words clouding my mind, trying to make me obey.

  Thea! Part of my soul kept screaming.

  “Except for you, Bobbie,” Rosalie said, changing her mind on the stage. “You come back as often as you want. Fantasia would be very sad without you, and I would be very sad without your cash.”

  A man closer to the stage than I was shouted, “Yeehaw!” and lifted his arms in triumph.

  What the – Thea – where was – Thea – how did I – Thea – I stood still, fighting myself, as the men all around me trundled off like strange zombies, two of them helping the kneecapped third.

  The Samoan walked up to the stage pulling earplugs out and offered Rosalie a hand which she took, letting me see the lighter shade of her sex as she stepped down.

  Thea!

  “Now that that’s done,” I heard her say to him as I fought not to move. To move was to give in and if I gave in what next?

  Rosalie walked over to me, unabashed in her nakedness, with the Samoan close behind.

  “You want me to?” the Samoan asked, raising a meaty hand high.

  She pondered me for a moment. “No. But stay near.” Then she took my jaw, sore from where it’d gotten cold-cocked and twisted my head so that I was looking directly at her. “You. Follow me.”

  This command there was no disobeying. As she turned I followed without choice.

  Chapter 6

  We went through the back room, past the spatters of blood on the ground, the tumbled furniture, someone else’s tooth, and into backstage. It was like going a different world – it smelled like fruits and candies, and a mist of Aqua-net might’ve permanently been in the air. Vanity mirrors were surrounded by bright lights, some of them flickering, and the edges of the mirrors held feather boas and fresh thongs.

  Thea – my mind begged me, urging me to remember, to get to wherever she’d been taken to.

  Rosalie led me through one more doorway and I realized we were inside her private room. She had her own mirror and make-up, and the rest of the room held a couch, two plush chairs, and an overstuffed closet where clothes covered in sequins strained to get out. She closed the door behind us and pulled a white satin robe off a hook and on. And when she was done she turned to survey me. />
  “You are a good fighter – but a stupid man.” She lifted a casual hand and snapped her fingers. “There. Now you’re you. What’s your name?”

  I blinked, feeling free for the first time since she’d started talking. “I have to go.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Where?”

  “I – I don’t know. Wherever they took her. Do you know where?”

  “Yes.” Her head tilted and she gave me a smug smile. “But – you and what army, as they say?” Her French accent was amused. “Do you have friends? Ones willing to die for you and your stripper?”

  “Girlfriend,” I corrected, in case that’d make her more inclined to help me.

  “Really?” she said, with a tone of even more disbelief.

  “We’ve been seeing each other.”

  She tsked. “I hate to tell you, lover boy, but she’s been seeing a lot of people. It may come as a surprise, but your dearest darling is an attention whore.”

  Rosalie had just confirmed all my deepest fears – that while Thea was precious to me, I was not special to her, and yet -- “That doesn’t make him hitting her right.”

  She rocked back slightly, eyes half-lidded in concentration. “True. But your noble heart doesn’t change the odds. Still though, you must really love her, if you can remember her after my show.” She walked around me in a circle, tracing a hand over my arm, my chest, my back.

  “What was that tonight? What did you do to us?”

  “Just a trick. There’s a hundred hypnotists on the Strip that could do the same, easily.”

  She sounded dismissive – and I knew she was lying. I knew how I’d felt, how hard I’d had to hold on to Thea’s memory. But now that I was free of her ‘tricks’ I needed to do something quickly.

  “Are you going to help me? Or not?”

  “Yes,” she said, returning to stand in front of me. “But only because you may be of some use.”

  I had no idea what I could possibly do to help some stripper hypno-queen. But it didn’t matter – “Good. Tell me who took her and where, so I can tell the police.”