by Andrew Binks
“Fake blond swoosh?” Kent started to chuckle.
“Yes, and taking off my clothes.”
“Won’t you have to make some decisions eventually?”
“About my abs and chest?”
“You know what I mean.”
“You’ve changed your tune.”
“No. You might as well be good at what you’re doing. That’s fine. But you do have a future. Believe me. The voice of oldness, if not wisdom. Where to next? Is there a next? I can’t see you becoming an aging stripper in vieux Quebec. Even I have a Plan B.”
“I used to think I had a career.”
“Are you too proud to go back?”
“Are you pissed because of my pre-show blow job?”
“I’d give you a medal if I had one.”
“Then Daniel?”
“Daniel’s a loser.”
“Well then?”
“Well then. What next?” I was surprised that he cared.
“Maybe this will be all I ever have to offer this fucked up world.”
“That’s just laughable.
“Recently it’s what I tell myself.”
“Well I, for one, wouldn’t let you. You have no idea what you are capable of.”
“Why is it so important to you, anyway?” But I already thought I knew the answer. And maybe that wasn’t so bad.
“Sometime I want to show you something at my place,” he said. The cab turned up Sainte-Ursule and he fell against me, reaching for his pocket to get some cash
“You can show me now.”
That weekend I ran my ass off between shows. It excited my customers to have a half-erect man a touch away. The whole thing had finally become easy. I wished that table of bank tellers from my first night would come back.
Six
The power drawn from a dancer’s gluteus maximus enables everything from a strong port de bras during reverence to providing the source for the sauté or a simple tombé. The gluteus maximus maintains the line when a dancer does a tour jeté or a saut de basque. The gluteus maximus is responsible for holding the leg, pressed against a solid lower back, for a remarkable arabesque. The gluteus maximus provides the resistance needed to create momentum throughout a turn. The gluteus maximus curves away from the back to begin defining the lines of the leg. When the male dancer stands with his back to the audience, his right arm extended to support his partner’s grip as she developpés à la second, they are looking at his gluteus maximus.
What the removable stripes did for my cheerleading, what Kent’s cock ring did for my allure, what “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus” did for my centre, is what Brittany Barrymore did for everything else: the loose ends, the showmanship, the spaces in between. Brittany put the icing on this stripper’s cake.
The news on Thursday was that our featured dancer would be Brittany Barrymore. Most of her name was on the Marquis—Br’tny B’more en vedette. And by late Friday afternoon the parking lot was full. Men had left work early, called their wives to say they were held up at the office, or picked them up on the way out here and brought them along. Brittany was the draw. One of the circuit girls, she toured the northeast us and the Great Lakes while most girls only came from Montreal for the week, and others were stuck with rural Quebec—every town from Lac St. Jean to Trois-Rivières to Iberville to Chicoutimi to Rouyn-Noranda. The circuit girls usually had better moves, music and costumes, though it all got copied, borrowed or stolen. They stayed at the welcome-as-a-bomb-shelter motel beside the Chez Moritz, which was useful since they’d be wasted by the end of the night—a crawl back to their rooms was all they could manage. The only part of day they ever saw, if they were lucky, was sunset after they woke.
Starring—en vedette—that week was the perennial favourite, Brittany. She had driven all the way from Detroit in her white Cadillac, following a feature circuit she had blazed for herself. The place was buzzing with waitresses shuttling full trays of drinks from the bar to the floor, as if the demand never subsided. And middle-aged, middle-class couples, some in their Kiwanis and Shriners vests, occupied almost every seat not taken by the nightly regulars. The corps de ballets (as I started to call my co-workers) were happy there was less of their time wasted onstage and more time spent on the floor, and with everyone drinking more than usual, they were making good tips.
There was a mild commotion at the door. I laid down my last tray of empties to take a breather before heading downstairs for our first show. Vasili entered the club, hugging a huge fuzzy cushion, him all puffed up, leading Brittany through the room with a stuffed garment bag over her arm, blonde hair glowing the same unnatural shade as her fake fur jacket. Her small face was lost in all that plush.
In the basement she had the dressing room next to ours. Dressing room? Stained counter. Chipped mirror. Cold concrete floor. A suspended rod of wire hangers. She had respect downstairs, and the girls gave her space. It seemed not one of those women could compete with Brittany, so they made friends with her, trading drugs like baseball cards, with stoned promises of post-show companionship, too.
When I saw her onstage I understood the fuss: Steve announced her to the house, en vedette, like a circus emcee, announcing her most recent list of accomplishments: “Partymag’s Miss January”; performances “live from Detroit via Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Sherbrooke”; and attributes—“the lovely, trés sexy, bad-girl-gone-good, girl-next-door”—as the tiny follow spot swirled across the stage. After the noise subsided and Steve had caught everyone’s attention, the rhythmic intro to George Benson’s “Turn Your Love Around” filled the room and Brittany Barrymore slipped one long, smooth leg from behind the slit in the red velvet curtain (that curtain hid a space big enough for one stripper or a pile of discarded clothes). She twisted into the light in a tight-fitting blue sequined gown slit to her hip. The whole outfit was lined with silver and was probably worth more than all of the bikinis, g-strings, leather miniskirts, hot pants and thongs put together at the Chez Moritz. Every turn, the slit in her skirt flashed the line of her waxworks-perfect legs. In her open-toed Cinderella acrylic stilettos, she floated over the stage, and Steve shone a milky light that made her look like some kind of striptease angel, skin powdery and white.
After all these weeks of slowly becoming more and more used to my lacklustre routine, I finally saw some true professional showmanship. She put us all to shame, but I was the only one who cared. She’d skip a little, or stop and then pull back in her hips, knees together, as much as her tight dress would allow. She made you think she needed someone to satisfy her immediately, but didn’t want to give it away to just anyone. She made you think it was you who could save her. She strutted over to some guy at the edge of the stage and got him to reach up to unclip the side of her dress, then she got some other guy to unzip one of the seams until, with a little shimmy, the dress dropped to the ground to show her marble-white body from her tiny round tummy and breasts, to her perfect bum and thighs, to her toes. In a microscopic fringed bikini and still in her heels she stepped out of the pile of dress at her feet, knowing that doing very little was doing enough.
When the music changed to “Still” by The Commodores, you knew you were under her spell. Her hair tumbled off her shoulders, hiding that small face and upturned nose. The paleness of her skin and the white lights Steve used combined to make it seem like she was carved out of the softest marble. She unclipped the centre of her bikini top as she tossed her hair, with perfect timing, to fall over her breasts and her small red nipples. She kicked her large white cushion forward and then relaxed onto it, lying on her front, twisting her legs, knees bent, ankles crossed. She tugged at the tiny elastic of her g-string, pulling it down her thighs and calves, and finally over her feet. All this with shoes still on, and the guys up front staring right between her legs. Why not?
All the strippers were staring. The room was mesmerized with this living statue. Finally
she kicked off her shoes and playfully wrestled with the cushion. Everything about Brittany was holy. She took you away from your surroundings to a place where sex was pure and fun, and after that you could show her off at the finest of places, in her beautiful sequined dress, not that you would ever be able to. She wasn’t like the others. She never got involved with her body. No poking fingers, squeezing breasts or crude clinical examinations with legs wide open. She was as respectful of her beauty as she wanted you to be. At least that’s what she wanted you to think. The lights went down and came up again and she was gone.
She brought down the house. Brittany was a goddess.
For Brittany’s later number she donned a nurse’s outfit, with stethoscope and fishnets, to “Doctor’s Orders.” But some of the girls had already tired of the Brittany hoopla and were back on their boxes before she even finished.
Brittany revived herself in the in-between time with a cocktail or two, or she’d disappear. Soon the girls were in and out of her room one after the other, not even bothering to hide their nasty habits in the can—hits and lines—while everything got a little messier on those stairs: twisted ankles, broken glass, spilled booze running down bloody legs, over caesarean scars, stretch marks and bruises.
When I got up on the stage, I could just make out Brittany’s bleached hair glowing in the shadows at the back of the room. I sensed she was watching, like every ballet teacher who had psyched me out at one time or another. But it didn’t matter because the music took over and I had my cock ring. I had “Gloria,” my life’s soundtrack. My eyes stung late in the set, when I finally spun myself into that booze-induced trance. But I was sober enough to want to impress her and have her know I was on her team, the team that took itself seriously. But by song three the high was gone and I was trying to remember where I had thrown my clothes. And by the time I had collected everything—a woman holding my new tie in her mouth and someone waving my shirt at the edge of the stage—it was time to race downstairs and get ready for the second feathers show.
Brittany was back downstairs, too. She called out from her room, slurring her words, saying I was really good, saying I had to go for it, not be afraid. I knew what she was saying—only I was hoping she wouldn’t have noticed. It’s what had held me back, for every moment up to then, from punching Daniel’s beautiful nose sideways, to kicking Madame Talegdi’s ballerina ass. It’s probably what kept me from staying with the Company. It was the decision to stare blankly, or take flight, rather than stay true and focus and fight.
Brittany slurred more, said she had some chocolate. Said she was “not supposed to… eat chocolate.” It didn’t agree with her. And as the night went on she sounded more and more wasted, but after our show she was back up there onstage in a Catwoman body stocking for her last number. She earned her pay, goddess that she was, and then went back to being messed up in her room—crawling across the floor looking for her glasses. “I h-a-a-a-d some shoclut. I’m-m-m n-n-n-n-n-not shupposhed to ha-a-a-ve shoclut.” I guess Vasili took her back to her room that night at the motel. I didn’t think I’d see her again.
The next day, Saturday, I arrived early. They’d aired out the place so now it still smelled as bad, but it was cold. Marcel’s humpy bartender-boyfriend, François, was wiping glasses and had hockey on a television by the bar. The place was empty. Downstairs Marcel was fretting about the choreography for one of our numbers. He said he was getting lost onstage. Could I help it if the man was short? He squeezed my forearm. “We should have dinner sometime, talk about the Conservatoire.”
“You’re inviting me to dinner, while François is upstairs?”
“It’s just dinner.”
Marcel was cute, like dolls are cute. I wondered if I could go for him. He was a classic nice guy with a squeaky-clean dirty side. What is it with nice guys? The nasty ones are the ones we all end up falling for. The Daniels. From now on there would never be another nasty one. Daniels were made to break hearts. Daniels never belonged to anyone.
Brittany was early that Saturday night, at the bar in her faux fur. She drank a soda water, spoke clearly and didn’t slur. She didn’t even seem to remember the night before, about being out of it, or the chocolate. “I saw your strip last night—on the stage. You were really good.”
“You’re the pro.” I knew how to flatter a star. I’d had practice.
She moved closer, all small face and hair, lowered her voice. “But just go for it. Don’t be scared of them. Don’t hesitate. You’re good, but you stand in your way. God I sound like a preacher. But I mean it. Look them in the eye. Tease the bastards. Because that’s what they are, bastards. Kill them. Do it for them though. You’re being selfish, you’re holding back. It’s not just about your dick. That’s what you guys think. You have to scare the audience with commitment. No one here is going to tell you how to be better. They don’t give a shit. But I do.”
I nodded. I knew what she was saying. I just didn’t want to believe it.
“You’re so much like I was.” she said. “Be the fucking master. Don’t worry. You’ll always do well in a place like this. But you have to be more than just good enough. That’s all this place is about. Remember, not just for yourself. Share.”
Kent had said something about good enough, too. It seems that the world gets by on good enough, and I’d stepped into something where good enough wasn’t enough for me. She asked me, “Do you still dance?”
“I’m trying.”
“I danced for thirteen years, was in the corps in Pittsburgh. Look at me. Go ahead.” Instead I looked at my fingers weaving and tapping the bar. “No, I mean it. Closely. Literally. Look at my mouth. Look at my teeth. My fingernails.” Her lower teeth glowed in the black light. “Go on, say it. Don’t hold back.” He fingernails were shellacked a hard, dark colour.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lied.
“Perfect?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been here long enough to know what perfect teeth mean.”
“I have an unfair advantage. My father is a dentist.”
“This face isn’t mine.”
“The teeth?”
“The face.” She reached out, touched my tapping fingers. “I was in a car accident, years ago now. Rebuilt.” She laughed. “Like the bionic woman. Down to my pretty little fingertips. Believe it or not, I don’t actually have nails.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Prettier than the bionic woman.”
“It’s funny, those sayings, every face tells a story, and eyes are the windows of the soul. But not this face—it’s wiped clean. But my eyes are my windows, that part is true.”
Why would anyone lie about such a thing? I found it hard to believe.
“I’ve always thought all those damn wrinkles and spots are what tells your story. Dancers fear aging, yet they embrace it like it’s their cross to bear. It’s all they talk about. Look how fast it happens. The diet. The smoking. We all look like shit by thirty—it doesn’t matter—now I’m the one who’s ageless.”
“You’re beautiful up there.”
“You think so? Christ, even these tits aren’t mine. Everything was smashed, inside and out. I hate to say it, but the ‘after’ shot ended up being better than the ‘before’—I never had this figure with my old body, I was more of a square frame. Another price to pay is I can’t eat certain things, chocolate for example, because of my intestines. I’m not supposed to drink, or eat fatty foods. The good side is I never get very hungry. And I call the shots—no overbearing directors or choreographers.” She laughed lightly. “You understand. But it’s a trap.”
“It is easy.”
“Too easy. Do you have a friend?”
I had the impulse to whine about the bastard Daniel, but that was making me sick. I thought about Kent. He had become my guardian, if I didn’t check in. “Not really. Well. No. You?”
“Not with thi
s schedule. Well maybe a few, you know, spread out rather than one. One who took off to the coast. Anyway, forget that.”
“Took off? Yeah that’s my story, too.”
“You’re pretty. It won’t take long. Now, tonight I want to see you work with what you’ve got. You’ve got lots, but you can’t take forever to figure it out. The world won’t wait.” She smiled. Touched my chin. “Come down to my dressing room tonight.”
“You know I’m not that way.”
“Well if you were we’d be back at my room at the motel, right now—anyway nothing has really worked too well since the accident.”
I thought about my mother and how she had probably spoken similar words to someone at some point in her life. Then Brittany nudged me the way a sister would. “Cheer up, I get my kicks.” She draped her arm over my shoulder and gave me a squeeze.
Later, after we had driven Marcel’s new choreography into the ground and into our skulls, I knocked on Brittany’s door frame.
“I ate some shhhocolate.” She slurred her words.
“Okay. Don’t eat any more chocolate.”
“I can’t eat shhhocolate.”
“I remember, you told me.”
“I want you to put this on.” But she just stared at me, as if trying to assess something, my height, my personality, who the hell I was.
She wasn’t in her heels. Just barefoot on the concrete. She wavered, and everything from her breasts to her behind seemed to be sagging. Not what I saw onstage. She padded away from me, to that bar draped in costumes, hanging from the ceiling. She pulled something down, and tore the dry-cleaning plastic away. A short jacket and pants glowed like the inside of an oyster shell, trimmed in a gold-and-silver sequined swirl. Gold fringe dangled from the sleeves of the jacket and swished down the outer edge of the pant legs. It looked like some spaced-out cowboy costume shimmering with an otherworldly incandescence.