5 comments/ 20162 views/ 3 favorites Under the Tiger's Paw By: zagrebzagreb I never knew her real name. The first time we met – after she stumbled off the stage – she told me it was Lisa. The next time she said Sage, then Starr... ridiculous stripper names that mocked her half-hearted attempt at dancing. She signed her release forms with different names still, and I never did get a good look at her driver's license. She had 'It', as my boss would say. 'It' was the way she walked; the way she looked; the way she talked; and that self-conscious way she brushed strands of hair from her forehead whenever she felt nervous – which in her profession was constantly. She was a creature from a different planet, as far as I could tell. She didn't belong in this world, but somehow that pothole-infested road carried her up to the club and deposited her right under my nose. I wanted to consign her to some corner of my brain and shut her out until the next distraction arrived, but instead she stayed there - right in the center of my existence. And even after she left without a trace - simply missing one scheduled night, and the next, and the next into infinity - she stays right there, always in my thoughts. Now, when business slows to a crawl, which is often, I sit on that same barstool where I first talked to her and twiddle cocktail straws around my fingers and wonder which of the half-dozen names she gave me fit her best, and what I'd say to her differently if I ever got the chance to see her again. I might be driving some two-lane blacktop, concentrating on keeping my car on the road with that awful Wyoming wind trying to force me into a barbwire fence, and suddenly there she is in my mind. I see her as I last saw her. Her eyes are nearly closed in some sort of delirium, and her lipstick is smeared around her lips and onto her cheeks. I've pushed her legs apart - and to pin her beneath me - my arms are hung around the inside of her knees, which are now nearly to her ears. I grab a fistful of that crazy-sexy red hair just to feel it in my hands. And as my eyes take all of her in, I smile as I see that her little wispy top has finally been removed. I've pulled it up past her breasts, and she's pushed it back down to cover herself a few times now. I know this well: she doesn't want me to see. But I can't help myself, and so somehow – perhaps due to simple doggedness – I've won against her modesty and mystery. I've cajoled her top off, and it finally lays disused somewhere on the bedroom floor. Now when I look down I see those stunning, mouth watering breasts that landed her the job in the first place, and yet more importantly I see the mark – her signature - running like a zipper down the middle of her chest. It's a scar. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen. I've pondered over it from a distance and up close these many months - a cruel, long scar from some surgeon's knife - and even healed these years later the scalpel's cut still looks fresh. It runs from near her collarbone to a point just above her bellybutton and seems to split her ribcage in half. And I wonder – as I always have – if she ever understood just what that little disfigurement meant to me. ********* My boss liked girls with 'It', as he constantly reminded me. He wanted girls that had It - and he wanted them on the stage, serving drinks, or milling around in the back by his office as much as possible. Over the years I learned and adopted his view of It: I used it to fill the club, to keep his private dance card full, and to earn my modest - but safe - income. I learned that It varied considerably, and went far beyond mere looks or conventional notions of attraction. It was certainly different than a number/letter combination on the back of a bra, a dress size, or a girl's measurements - no matter how much men obsessed boobs and female statistics. My one big triumph in the world of It was creating Fresh Talent Nite - a so called 'open-pole' night every week, which brought in new girls and provided the perfect opportunity to search and find those few female souls that possessed those special characteristics.... Every Thursday night was the same. The girls stood around, or they nervously went backstage and looked in the mirror. They engaged in time-wasting conversations among their group and avoided eye contact with everyone else. When their names were called – a stage name only, of course – they either bounded or slinked up on the stage. They did their thing. They twirled on the stage; they gyrated; they kicked their legs in the air and adopted provocative pose after pose. It worked. The sad-sack men called-out; they clapped; they unanimously approved. There was something illicit and deeply sexual about ordinary yet attractive girls coming to a place like this and taking off their clothes. The unspoken suggestion was that these girls were innocent: last night at the grocery store they might have bagged your food or run your canned noodle soup under the scanner - or maybe in Casper last year one of them got you a great deal on your car insurance. Now look at them. They were done up and ready to take you places you could barely imagine. Yet the truth was usually less glib. Many had done this before, and it showed in their calculated moves and artificial flirtations. It was an act they learned once and never forgot, even if it had been a few years and several pounds ago. Others craved the attention. They got a thrill being lusted over, and as soon as they got home, took a shower, it was straight to the nightstand by the bed, where they pulled out a vibrator waiting on yellow alert and indulged their fantasies. I sat in judgment and followed my instinct on the topic of It. Some girls were returned to the big world outside. Some were kept for regular dancing at the club. And others... Well, they needed to be primed for the boss-man, and his dance card was all that really mattered. ********* The club was dark, as always. In the day, you walked in from the blinding light of a blizzard that sent snow sideways and twisted around you and then stepped into a blackness that made you stumble on the frayed carpet. Anyone over six feet walked bent over for the first few minutes, as if an invisible weight was pressing down. As your eyes adjusted the room always seemed wider than it should, and the ceiling lower; then there were the bodies; the girls; the abstract splotches of color that moved and flowed and suddenly became obvious as garter belts, pantyhose, shoes, and skin. My Thursday conversations with the boss-man on the topic of It remained oddly consistent from one Nite to the next. There he would sit, surveying the room like a gargoyle. His table was near the back, just by the door to his office and up a few feet on small rise; the location gave an unobstructed view of his domain. "Nick," he'd bellow – his voice cutting through the din of the room - and then gesture me over to his table with a nod of the head. After I made my way over to his side he would gesture the direction he wanted me to look, recognizing that a flat-out point with the finger was a touch indiscrete. I'd follow his gaze and then he'd murmur, "See that little lass standing in the corner? She's got that cute outfit on...", or some variation of the same. As usual, I'd look across the darkened room to find a woman standing by herself on the fringes of the herd of girls, waiting and semi-dreading the inevitable moment on stage. Most of the time his girl of choice was attractive yet non-descript - except of course, for the fact that she was in a strip club and donning a barely-there outfit. It was a combination of qualities that always gave a sort of power and star quality I doubted she'd ever recognize. On some occasions it might be a blonde in a ridiculously sexy bottomless white nurse's ensemble. Other nights it might be a brunet, her hair up in a bun, just like a naughty librarian before she lets her hair down and scolds you for an overdue book. The girls either wore the clothes with obvious disdain or a sense of utility for their job. I knew, however, that each girl wondered the same thing as she stood in that corner waiting to launch her new stop-gap career: 'What in the hell have I done to end up here?' There they stood, waiting to put on a show for a handful of wage-slave men. It was asking a lot to get up on that stage just for a few measly dollars; at the end of a slow night they might pocket just enough to cover the gas to drive the distance to the club and get back home. And so after following my boss's gaze to the girl in the corner with my cat's eye, I'd answer back with my usual: "Yup, I see her clear as day." I'd know too, exactly what his next words would be. He would paw his greedy gaze over her one last time and then exude his proclamation: "Why don't you ask her to come back to my office after a little while?" He'd sort of stretch and readjust at that point, knowing his bidding would be done and the world would go on as it always had. "Sure thing," I'd say, and that would be the start of something else altogether. ********* Inadvertently, the boss-man once laid out his shtick - his method. "Hey, Nick. You know how to get the best looking girl in a place to follow you around all night?" His question was a sure trap, so I thought for a moment before I answered. "Tell her she's beautiful and follow it up with a claim that you're a talent scout for MGM?" He barely cracked a smile; I didn't have the answer. My retort was a time-worn version of a pathetic seduction technique; it didn't even rate a courtesy laugh. "No," he rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You tell her she's NOT beautiful." My expression of doubt goaded him on. He wanted to teach me. I was a protégée. "You say something like: 'You know honey, you'd be a very attractive girl if you'd just change the way you wore your hair.' Something like that. Take her down a peg. Play on her vanity, because if she's beautiful and she knows it, she's vain." He thought about it for a while and let his words sink in: take away what she thinks is special about herself. "Hell... she'll follow you around all night trying to convince you she IS beautiful." I smiled at his guile; at his cynicism. The boss-man had an eye for human weakness and wasn't afraid to use it. When the recession really hit - and hit hard - I could tell. The weakness he courted was everywhere, waiting to be exploited and capitalized on. The crumbling economy took all kinds down. The newly unemployed showed up to both watch and to perform. It wasn't long before the boss-man was telling me the club had hit its golden age. He started reading the newspaper, just so he could gloat over layoffs, which inevitably created more meat for his grinder. I didn't begrudge either side. Five dollars got you in the door and if you were miserly with your beer tab, it probably beat sticking around the house watching reruns. As they say, at least it was social. The girls too, changed. It wasn't difficult to see that many of them were from a different place in the world. I always wondered what they thought on their first trip here, especially when they turned onto that final stretch of potholed road that dead-ended at the club. You drove past the refinery; past a rail yard; and then there you were. I wondered what bargain the girls made with themselves when they drew their car to a halt in a parking place, opened their door and breathed in that air laced with oil fumes. Just one mile away you could see the plant's chimneys and from their top the petroleum flames, which were as bright as a welder's torch. That was the refinery burning off byproduct; on an overcast day it was both beautiful and sickening. The girls knew this paid better than waitressing. It was simple math - they needed the money – and this place promised nothing else. ********* I'd always let her finish her dances and make sure none of the audience wanted her for a private session before I'd approach. Usually I'd offer to buy her a drink or two – standard protocol – to loosen her up as I laid out the spiel. It was an odious versions of the boss-man's 'you'd be beautiful only if...' gambit, but that was my job, and so I did it. "You've got great talent," I would start. I'd be enthusiastic. I'd be positive and hopeful, as if dancing at this place was the start of a new and better life. And then I'd hit her with the ugliness. "You're just what we're looking for, but..." For some girls, the 'but' landed hard, while others barely noticed, or more likely didn't care. Those were the girls that had my number and this whole scene figured out from the moment they walked in the door. For others - the innocents – I saw that it was crushing. I'd heap praise on their enthusiasm, their effort, their zeal. And then in a cruel twist, I'd destroy what had been built up. "But, I'm afraid," I would say, "you're too awkward up there...not sexy." It was a lie and a cheat. The routine depended on my read of the girl, and as such her 'problem' always varied. 'Inexperience' worked. 'Old' worked. Sometimes she was too heavy, too plain, too thin, or too tall. The secret was to find something that she couldn't change - an insurmountable problem and something out of her control. I presented the girl with a non-negotiable deal breaker, as they say. She was wonderful in every other way, except this one thing, and that one thing killed her. The possibilities to crush were endless, and it did crack my voice a little every time I said the words, but that was the job. We were all flawed, I told myself; I just delivered the coup de grace. I remembered a blonde in a nurse outfit. She took my words especially hard; I could see it in her eyes. There she was. She had just finished her set. She had surmounted the shame and climbed on the stage, and she didn't even need to get drunk to do it. I imagined that she was telling herself that she was too good for this place. She was standing there afterwards, looking around, wondering how long she'd have to work in this dump before she could save enough money to leave. Maybe she was already spending the money in her head: rent, her kids' new clothes, maybe an alternator for her mom's dead car, or heat for her place – just to keep life bearable in the coldest months of the year. And then, I sprung it on her. We don't want you. In truth, she was wonderful - too wonderful, for this or any other place. That's what made it bad. That's what made it stick right inside the chest. Her face just fell. Even here at this crummy little dive, where the smell from the refinery drifted in every time the doors were open, she was not wanted. It must have been heart breaking. Her whole life - whenever she was under the tiger's paw - she had told herself that, 'Well... at least I've got looks!' But then that too was taken away from her. That was when I'd offer her a chance to go in and see the boss. That was her chance at redemption; her only chance. His dance card happened to be open, if she was interested. If she really wanted to, I was sure he'd see what he could do for her. Maybe he'd let her dance a few nights and see how it went. Maybe she could convince him that she was sexy in whatever way she was capable. When I saw the boss-man's door open, the brighter light of his office shine into the darkness of the club and her silhouette framed by the doorway, I'd turn around and finish my own drink. His night was just getting started, but I was just about done with every last bit of mine. ********* At first, I didn't even notice her. Like the nurse and like all of the others, she was standing back in the corner, marking her time, waiting and gathering her courage. My boss made his wishes known. "Hey, Nick." He motioned me over towards his table. "See that little number over there? The red head, you see her there?" Yes, I saw her. I followed his gaze. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere within a hundred miles of this place. "After she's done dancing, why don't you send her back to my office?" I saw how she stood nervously in the darkest part of the room and I wondered how she'd manage to actually convince herself to go on. It was a house rule that all the girls were either topless or bottomless at all times. Already, she was covering up as best she could with her hands. She had, for some reason, chosen bottomless. The pervy side of me wondered if she was a real red head, as I couldn't quite make out subtle shades at that distance. I looked back at my boss. "Sure thing, I'll send her back after she gets off the stage." For once I turned around and watched as a girl danced. She was drunk, I could tell. She struggled with the poll, having little idea of what to do with it. The stage was unexpectedly smooth and slick and she fought with it. She spun like she had probably seen the girl who was on before her do. She kept her full-length top on, a corset-like piece of lingerie, but spilled her voluptuous breasts over and around its edges. She tried to seem together. She tried not to step awkwardly in her high heels. She goofed on her height. I saw how her fair skin seemed cold in the light. I saw how her red hair made a perfect pubic triangle; she was too new at this to know that all of the women shaved their hair back in a ridiculous affectation of erotic protocol. She was lustily built, and despite, or perhaps because of her gracelessness the sad-sack men catcalled, clapped, and shouted at a new level when she stepped off the stage. This time I didn't need to get the girl a drink. She was sitting next to me, talking, and she was slurring her speech. She had covered her breasts immediately, and I could tell she was thankful to be sitting on the barstool rather than standing out in view. Her skin showed goose bumps along her arms, and I asked if she was cold. It was then that I noticed the scar peaking from the top of her corset. There was just about half an inch of scared skin visible, about as wide a pinkie finger. The scar was raised and rough, almost like a zipper right in the center of her chest. She had covered it with makeup as best she could, but there it was. She saw me see it, and pulled up her top to hide it. I knew I had found her insurmountable problem. ********* She said her name was Lisa. Her dad was in the Air Force and they always traveled around; she had lived in a dozen states by the time she was in high school. She ordered another drink and stirred it with the little straw and avoided looking into my eyes. She talked like she was trying to fill the space and keep me from asking questions. She didn't graduate, she said. Years later she felt like a cheat and got her GED, although no one ever seemed to care. She married the first guy that she thought she could live with the rest of her life. She said matter-of-factly, "it didn't work out that way." She was, she said, a stupid rebellious girl with big tits and she paid the price. She laughed. She brushed the hair from her forehead. It was a drunken laugh, unaware of her affect. The world, she said - looking around and gesturing as if taking in the entire universe - treated stupid rebellious boys better. I smiled. There was no way I could argue with that. "What went wrong?" I asked this, not really wanting to hear a simple answer to a complex problem yet again, especially from her. She knew what I was really asking was this: 'Why is a girl like you in a place like this?' She considered the question for a moment, and then pulled her top back down to where it was before. An inch of the scar – the zipper - on her skin showed again. "They took me in to see a doctor," she said. "I had a heart problem when I was a kid. It was just a little flub when a valve closed, but he heard it with the stethoscope." "Oh," I said. Under the Tiger's Paw "If the doctor hadn't heard that little flutter, I'd be dead by now." She looked at me. "This runs all the way down to my bellybutton." She drew a line with her fingers from the top of her chest down to her belly, outlining the length of the scar. She watched my eyes as I imagined the description she was giving me. "It gets bigger further down, too. At the bottom are three little other scars where tubes came out. I called it my smiley face when I was young. It looks like a kid's drawing." I half-smiled, thinking what it must have been like as a child to be faced with that. She went on, "Normally scars from those operations aren't so bad, but they didn't have the right sutures to sew me up. It was all so fast." She studied me for a reading. "See why I didn't take off my top now? I know you were wondering." She laughed. "You don't know how hard it was to find something I could wear. Normally, I would have made an outfit myself, but I had to drive all the way to Gillette." "Yes," I said. "I can imagine." That would have been the moment. That would have been the time to drop the bomb. You're just what we're looking for. But you have this scar, you see? People don't want to see a scar, especially between those beautiful breasts and on such a beautiful girl. It disturbs them, you see. It's like seeing a wedding ring at a whorehouse - just when you're cheating on your wife. It just sort of kills the whole mood. Instead, I said, "Can I drive you home? I don't think you should be on the road." She shook her head no. "I'll be fine in a while, besides I live fifty-miles away. I sober up quick. And anyway, I want to see the boss. They guy who runs this place. I want him to know about my smiley face, and the rest of it. It just seems like the right thing to do." I nearly guffawed at the idea of the right thing. I pointed her towards his door. And that was when she stood up and left my side. I saw the brighter light of his office cast into the darkness of the room. I saw her silhouette in the doorway. I turned my back to them and got on with my own drink. I went home immediately after, feeling sick to my stomach. I didn't even watch her walk those few steps into his office before I was gathering my coat and heading out the front. ********* When I came in the following morning, the conversation with my boss was inevitable. "Hey, Nick." He motioned me over to his table. "Remember that red head last night? The curvy one?" I acted as if I was searching my mind for her when she had never left my thoughts. She and I had sat not far from where were now. "Yup, sure do," I said with feigned indifference. He re-adjusted in his seat, thinking his words needed even more impact than he usually gave them. "You know, Nick, you really should have warned me about that scar. It about gave me a heart attack." He leaned towards me, as if confiding a secret. "She's a Philly, that one. I tell you, she's definitely got it. Got it in spades." He was contemplating some great thing; I could see the change in his face. "There's just that damn scar," he said philosophically. "You know it runs all the way down to her belly? It's like she was gored by a wild animal." I bristled with the image, "Sometimes doctors call them zipper jobs." He regarded this and shook his head in amazement. "It's a hell of a thing on a girl like her." By way of nothing, I offered, "It's a hell of a thing on anyone." He shrugged that off, and yet I prodded him. "So, what's your take? You gonna have her come back, be a regular?" He hadn't decided yet. Even now he pondered the question. "I suppose if she just makes sure to keep that thing hidden away. Maybe." Maybe, meant yes. It also meant he was still trying to decide if he would make pains to try and bed her, if he hadn't already last night. I made a little prayer that wished her away from him; I simply hoped that her long tear down the middle was hideous to him. My boss was no Howard Hughes, but I saw in him a similar answer to the female question. Hughes made entire movies just so he could lay his mustached charm on some ingénue. My boss, on the other hand, merely opened the calendar he kept in his jacket pocket and re-schedule a few girls. This he did with a certain flair, like a car salesman calculating his commission on some posh options. "Sheryl moves to next week and we bump that Tracey-what's-her-name to a slow night. When does Monday football end? And oh, Trixie. You know her name really is Trixie? Can you beat that? " And so it went. He handed me the calendar. "Make the calls, let's get – what's her name? Sage? Let's get her in here tomorrow, day shift." "Lisa," I said. "Her name is Lisa." But still he wasn't satisfied, like me, he needed more. "So what's her story?" He asked, actually wanting my opinion. What could I say? "I don't know," I murmured. He persisted: "Come on... Hell. You talked with her half the night." I looked towards his office door before I answered: "She's a nobody. At best, a could-have-been." Words, I realized, that might equally have applied to me. ********* The next day she came in. The entrance opened, the light of the outside shown in and I recognized that silhouette in an instant. The place was nearly deserted. "Don't worry. It'll pick up later," I promised as she winked at me and showed herself backstage. At the bar, she hit a few drinks, and I tried not to stare. I kept as far away as I could urge myself. Again, she had a corset-like top on which hid both her breasts - and between those succulent peaks, her little secret. Her legs were covered in thigh-high stockings and finished with a pair of slipperish high heels that looked perfect, if you were a Palm Springs Sex Kitten circa 1955. Her whole look mocked the ridiculous hair band playing on the sound system. I stayed away knowing that I would succumb. From the side, I could see a hint of the red of her pubic hair. I wanted her to face me, stare at me full on. I imagined she would see my eyes and know everything there was to know about me. Last night she crumbled my defenses. She made me look at her awkward version of a dance, and her pale sun-starved skin seemed thin and delicate while all the rest of us were tough and thick. The DJ called out for Starr, and I helplessly watched again as my renamed dancer climbed the few steps to the stage. With less of an audience – just a handful of men – I could see she treated it as a dare. She took it half-seriously, half as practice, and wandered around the stage. She wanted to keep a beat to the music, cover up, and simultaneously disappear. She brushed the hair from her forehead repeatedly in a self-conscious gesture. My mind locked onto that absurdly lusty red triangle framed by those full hips and sheer stockings. My gut twisted with the sight of a woman I instantly desired without reservation or hesitation – until I wondered over that long and jagged zipper of a scar. I wanted that thing to kill whatever filled the fifty-odd feet that separated us. To my left I felt the presence of the boss-man. He had put aside his papers and I watched as he stared at her with an equal measure of curiosity and desire. Her breasts were out now; it was a show after all, and they swayed heavily - and due to help from the supporting corset – with an artificial perkiness. God, she was sexy, and we all knew it. I wanted to lock my lips onto her nipples, I wanted to taste her mouth and nuzzle my face into that sexy red-starlet hair. I turned my back to her and waited for the distance to assert itself. And then there she was, right under my nose, sitting on that same barstool, covered up as best she could. There was nothing I could say in my obsessed mind, and so I just managed a weak smile. In distraction - in a knee-jerk reflex - I peeked at that protuberance on her chest. It made its self apparent beneath layers of makeup before retreating under the fabric, and was like a magnet for my imagination. She caught my eyes and read my mind just as I knew she would; although how much she divined I was not sure. "You want to see it, don't you?" She said this like it had been said a thousand times before and I felt that whatever specialness I had in her estimation was suddenly gone. In an instant I had wrecked something I would never get back. She recognized the animal in me that only wanted to drag her back to my lair and expose all of her secrets. "Only if you want to show me," I answered, knowing how pathetic it was to cover my morbid curiosity in a lie she could see straight through. She thought for awhile and pondered her words. "No," she finally said. "Actually, I don't want to show it to you." I sat there stunned. My first thought was 'the boss-man got to see it, why not me?' It was if I was a spoiled child that was spurned from having the ice cream that everyone else got for desert. And then I understood that I was merely a friend – maybe an acquaintance in training – I was the hired help, just like her. Up close the darkness didn't matter and I saw the small wrinkles making their way alongside her eyes, and the barest hint of blue veins that traveled beneath that fair skin, as if an accidental cut at just the right location would end her life. "Maybe we could try dinner at a decent restaurant instead?" I studied her face for the reaction I was sure would say more than any words. She brushed the hair from her forehead. I received an "Okay" that meant the world to me. ********* I drove the fifty miles to her place, trying to limit the speedometer to an imprudent ten-over, scanning the road in the blackness of night for the telltale signs of a state patrol car on the side. And with every mile I noted my lapse of control. The accelerator seemed to push further down of its own accord, I imagined the feeling of her hair running between my fingers which sent a fizz down my spine, and I tried to dismiss the implications of a work related romance under the gargoyle gaze of the boss-man. She had It, he said, and I knew he wanted her even if he couldn't get his mind around that lapse of beauty and the sight of that scar - something gone horribly wrong on such a lovely girl. As soon as I knocked on her door she was there, throwing it open with an uncaring abandon so that it thudded against the side of the house. I laughed at the incongruity of her brute force and utterly feminine appearance; even with the temperature flirting with below freezing and her body bundled against the cold she looked lovely. Her coat was cinched tight around her waist and I was already telling myself not to ogle at the obviousness of her breasts pushing against the fabric, which gave her a shape that went straight to my gut. I vowed to be a gentleman – pretend if I must - no matter my barely contained lust. It only took a moment to realize my attempt at a 'decent restaurant' was an impossible goal. She listed our choices and we laughed as the list went from bad to worse, and from there we had a good chortle at my obliviousness for even thinking such a thing was possible. "It's Wyoming, for God's sake!," she cried. In the end we made the short order scene at the Waffle House, and as I opened the door with exaggerated faux gentility, she hit me in the arm and held my hand for a brief moment as we found a table. She filled in the blanks where she felt she could, and ran down the high and low points of her life as was prudent. For years she worked as a costume designer and fabricator for hire, often working with TV shows, until most of the 'make it' jobs were sent overseas. Now she did whatever she could with the help of ebay: alterations, special jobs, but mostly wedding dresses that needed to fit girls who hadn't quite slimed down to the anticipated size. "I'm really not very delicate or dexterous with a needle sometimes," she smiled and showed me her fingers that had tiny little pin marks that had not quite healed up on her skin. All of that was why she was here: Fedex worked wonders, it was cheap to live, and 'just a place' that worked for now. She laughed: these days it was just her, and her cat, Pickles, against the world. The god-awful yellow plastic seats of the restaurant told us it was time to go, and so we hopped back in the car without a course to follow until we spotted a hybrid used bookstore / coffee place and settled in for a couple of hours. We flopped into the old couch which seemed to swallow us up and listened politely for several minutes to the blonde, blue-eyed woman who told us she was a Native American - and then proceeded to serenade us with allegedly authentic Ute Indian flute music. During a lull Lisa confided to me her real name was actually Sarah – she was just never sure when to drop the stage name act. I said that Sarah sure fit her much better than Starr, or Sage... I held her hand at times and she didn't withdraw it. We sat close on the failing couch, pushed together partly by the springs sagging in the middle, and our legs brushed against each other. She stood to remove her coat now that she was finally warm, and I averted my eyes to avoid the view that was always playing in the back of my head. I had seen this woman on stage. I knew how her bare hips looked as they walked the floor. I had committed to memory the way her breasts moved as she turned side-side. I had seen nearly all of her, and still the view that provoked was the inch of scar that protruded above her corset as she moved across the stage. At night's end I stood with her on her stoop, holding her tight and then kissing her with a gentle tenderness that could not hide the beast in my closet. I thought of the boss-man's description: 'It's like she was gored by a wild animal.' I adored this woman, and yet I wanted to burst through her door, throw her down on her bed, rip her clothes off, and simply steal all of her secrets for myself. ********* And so it went - my chaste romance. She paraded around the club per orders with the entirety of the naughty bits of her lusty body on display - and I hovered around the fringes, loving her from my distance. She watched sometimes as I bought a girl a drink and then laid out the spiel and primed some innocent for the boss-man. It was an odd equilibrium we had. I'm sure she saw the fallen faces, the sudden 'but' - and then the color drain from their expressions. I'm sure she also saw the way they walked to the boss-man's office thereafter, and the way I watched the progression with a studied detachment. And I watched her as well: the private dances in the corner of the room, and sometimes the way she disappeared in the boss-man's office for longer than I wanted to admit. When our schedules allowed, I made the drive to her house, and sometimes she came to mine. We sat on the couch, we kissed like we were in high school, her cat sat on my long legs and purred with a deep rumble while we scratched under its chin and watched the latest dumb superhero movie on TV. She always did herself up, like we were actually going to find that decent restaurant someday, and I shaved and used all of the charm I could muster. There was an invisible line that neither of us would broach. We said our goodbye's before it got too late; I kept my hands on her back and on her shoulders and gently on her face as we necked and breathed in each other's air. She needed to be adored without compromise. And yet I burned with an intensity that probably frightened her when the music died down. And then one night we were saying goodbye among yawns and sleepy eyes and the snowflakes started falling. It was nearly an hour's drive for me back home and the wind was blowing with that horrible sound. "You know," she said, "Wyoming's got – I think – the highest suicide rate in the U.S. I've always thought it was because of that wind. It'll drive you crazy if you let it." And then she said it: "If you'd like, you could always stay over with the weather getting bad and all..." My newly formed restraint didn't take long to re-invent itself in a different mold. "I'd really like that," I said. "If you're sure it's okay and everything." She nodded and we shut the door behind us. I followed her to her bedroom – I had yet to even see it – and the moment we were in its confines she turned out the light. I heard her remove her belt and the jingle as it hit the floor. I heard her unzip her pants and fiddle with the buttons on her blouse. I said nothing as I stepped from my clothes in an instant, and only then in the pitch blackness of the room did I wonder what she expected of me. I pulled my boxer shorts back on, as if saying I expected nothing from her but a bed to sleep in. I crawled under the blankets and sheets, feeling my way along the length of her bed and laying out as straight and oblivious to sex as I could pretend to be. I heard a drawer open and I gathered that she was putting on a nightie, but when she lay down next to me, with her back pressed right against my flank, all I felt was the fabric of her panties. "Wrap your arms around me, will you?" Her voice had a softness that I had never heard before. Outside, the wind gusted and rattled the windows; it made me hold on to her with all I had. And that was how she fell asleep. My arms locking her in a sideways embrace, her forearms crossed in front of her breasts - and pushing against her backside was – I'm sure – the largest most insane erection of my life. I didn't try to hide it, I didn't try to force it on her; it was just there. I listened to her breathing slow down and felt her body make the smallest twitches and tremors as she fell into a deep sleep. I tried to follow her, but my mind raced. I imagined her breasts just there right next to me and felt her hourglass curves rise and fall under my arms. I smelled her hair and buried my face in its curls and strands. An improper movement would have hand my hands cupping her tits and tracing my fingers along that scar, and probably ruining everything for all time. ********* Sometime in the dead of the night there was a crash of pots and pans in the kitchen. We both staggered towards the noise in the dark. I convinced myself in dream logic that the wind had lifted the house and shook open the cupboards. When she turned on the light we saw lids, pots and dishes spilling out across the linoleum floor. And then on second glance, we saw her cat. He was on the floor standing, looking down, and beneath his paw there was a little grey mouse. There were panicked, scratching feet in the search for safety; but the mouse's tail was pinned beneath the cat's paw, as if in a cartoon. I caught an odd, blistered view of the scar between two pendulous swaying, breasts. She rushed to pick up her cat with a scolding, shocked, "Pickles!" - as if the animal should have known better – and suddenly free, the mouse went running into the shadows. She laughed at herself then, suddenly aware of the absurdity. "Those mice come inside when the weather gets cold... I know, I'm a softy." She looked up at me while she cradled Pickles in her arms, "You don't have to tell me - I should be more hard-hearted and let the cat do its thing." I looked at her in return. "No, I understand. I probably would do the same." She set the cat down on the floor and he ran towards the corner, instantly in search of the mouse. I shut the light off. I took her hand and led her back to the bedroom in the darkness, and thus avoided looking at It – her signature mark. We were back in the bedroom. I stumbled around and found the switch to a small nightstand lamp away from the bed and clicked it on. The lamp threw a delicate hazy light across the room. She sat on the bed and looked at me. I saw IT for the first time without disguise. She let me look and I walked to just in front of her, my cock suddenly pushing against my boxer shorts and somehow demonstrating everything I wanted her to know about how I felt. She rose silently, almost ignoring me, and went to a drawer and with her back to me pulled out a wispy little blue top that she slipped over her shoulders, hiding from me again. Under the Tiger's Paw We kept the light on. It showered a warm yellow glow through the room. It cast a half-light on heaps of clothes stacked on chairs, make-up jars and oddments scattered on her dresser, and two sewing machines left for dead in the corner. And the light fell on her too. Her red hair clashed with the blue of her top and the fairness of her skin; I ran my fingers through the tangled locks with an abandon I had never dared with her. I pulled her head back and brought her lips to mine and kissed her not out of love this time, but out of a need to taste her and keep her as my own. I pushed her back towards the bed. I hovered over her, looking into her eyes and then nuzzled in her neck. I ran my hands over her arms, across the flimsy fabric of her top and caressed and squeezed her breasts through the material. She arched her back, as if offering herself to me all the more and nothing in the world could have made me hold back at that moment. I removed her panties and greedily spread her legs, forcing them apart with only the barest of resistance from her. I brought my head down to her tummy, where I saw that delicate skin and just below the edge of her wispy top, the 'smiley face' she had described. There were three small divots arranged like a pair of eyes and a small mouth. And just below that, the tightly curled auburn of her pubic hair; a small little triangle that I had seen from a safe distance these many weeks at the club, and that I now ran my fingers through until finding the hot, soaking wet folds that I sunk into. She made a gasp and a sigh and opened herself wider and I slowly played with her, feeling that beauty and wanting to whisper something in her ear. I lifted my head and kissed the inside of her thighs. I brought my mouth closer and closer, savoring the feeling of her skin on my lips. I felt her tense and then present herself, moving her hips, her pussy, just that small bit closer, and I couldn't wait any longer, pushing my tongue deep inside her, lapping up all of her juices and tasting her just as I dreamed. She let me do it, and it still seemed as if I was broaching a line better left uncrossed. I pushed my fingers into her, I caught the scent of her, and I loved her with my mouth and thrilled at the pace she asked for more and more. It slowly became also about her - not only my cravings - and then I paid attention to the way the she moved, and how she pressed against my mouth and tongue. She breathed just that little bit different when I ran my fingers across a certain spot. I let her stay at that point, just on the edge, and ran my hands under her top, reaching for her tits, groping at her with abandon. I felt them, felt her nipples, and went ecstatic as she moaned with my lusty touch and reckless licks on her pussy. She let lose a sweetly tinted "Yes, oh yes," and I felt the wave wash over her as she reached down with her hands to steady my head and mouth at just the right spot. I sensed the heat roll through her body, starting right where my lips met her, and then up and down, into her breasts as I gave them a pornographic feel. She rested and let my eyes capture all of her. She caught her breath and I started to lose mine. I committed every last detail to memory: the folds and lips, the auburn of her hair glistening wet from her juices, the wide submissive spread of her legs, the chipped toenail polish on her feet, and the mounds of her breasts under her top, which was now pushed far enough up that I could see the bottom quarter of her scar. Yes, it was like a zipper. It still burned a painful looking red, and faintly visible were the suture marks. And from their thickness, and how the lines of the two halves of her did not match-up, I understood what she meant when she said it was 'rushed'. It was an incomprehensible thought with something so delicate. ********* The following day I counted down the hours until she was due to show her face. I sat on that same barstool and twisted straws around my fingers, trying to wish her through that door a half-a-day early. Last night she and I stood on the stoop and contemplated the snow and the wind, and then she opened the gate and I took advantage. I let my passion for her run wide and unchecked. We rested and then I threw myself at her; I turned her to my needs and urged my cock into her at every opportunity. I thrilled at the idea of it – my stripper girl become my sex kitten – and imagined her on stage and then opened my eyes to see her beneath me, eyes half-closed in pleasure, and those lips open in an invitation. Her lipstick was smudged enough to render it clear that her mouth was always waiting, and that I was always willing. I let my hands roam across her body, sometimes pushing her top up and then massaging her breasts as my mouth sucked and nursed on her nipples. But not for long, as she was soon covering and pulling the gathered wisp of fabric back down over her torso and thus keeping me at bay for another few minutes. I came in her pussy, I came in her mouth. I opened my eyes as I let myself finally succumb to the way her tongue pressed against my shaft and the insistent pull of her lips, but more than anything it was the sight of her, lost in the act the same way I was lost in her. Later I would realize I mistook her lust for love. I meditated on the way I filled her up completely and somehow imagined it was like a brilliant light that would guide us forward. I pulled her top up one final time and off her shoulders and flung it aside. I pushed her legs far apart, hung them around my arms and bent her knees near to her ears. I treated her as the sex-starved fantasy I saw her as - and deep inside, listening to her moan, seeing the little drops of perspiration on the top of her lip and grabbing a fistful of that hair, I pushed and thrust without thought. I felt her come and made a leap in my head. Before she was even ready, I was kneeling by her face, opening her mouth with the tip of my engorged cock, and wondering at the size she brought it to. I wanted to say, "Let's run away together. Let's put this whole damn barren place in our review mirror and never look back. " I wanted to stop everything and take the moment and confess my undying love. And without contemplation or care, I straddled her chest. I pushed her tits together and thrilled at their warm embrace and drove my cock between them with all of the burning need I felt. The scar touched my skin for the first time, and its roughness shocked me and then disappeared into the fog of my fantasy of her. It felt like a corrugated mess of skin and sinew against my cock, and yet it meant nothing like disfigurement. I said nothing. I came and throbbed and grunted in ecstasy. I nearly collapsed in a heap as my cum shot between her tits, onto her neck and cheek. It seemed at that moment I finally had all of her to myself. There were no more secrets between us. ********* I sat at the bar, waiting. She missed her scheduled night, and I put it down to weather. There was that wind, I told myself, blowing drifts across the road and there was all of that distance for her to drive. But then there was the next scheduled night, and the next that she missed. And when I called her number there was the inevitable series of beeps and the message that said her number had been disconnected or was no longer in service. And so I now wait and wonder over her names. I think back to the way she moved around the stage, the way she goofed on her height, and the near-complete-lack of grace she showed. And then I think about the way she sometimes disappeared into the boss-man's office for far too long. I think about that hideous, beautiful scar and what I never said or bothered to ask. I knew what upset her most was the helplessness. We saw and heard the sound of those feet scratching and looking for traction on the slick floor of her kitchen. And then there was her beloved cat. He was looking down – transfixed – on his prey. Her cat was toying with the animal and would soon follow the urge to lower its jaw and finish the game by tearing apart the mouse's neck. That was the nauseous moment in between life and death. But what can a mouse do at such a time? It's just a mouse. And so she swooped down and saved the little animal. It was the very thing I wished I had done for her. She ran away, I told myself, although that never stops me from turning to look as I hear the front door open and smell that acrid air moving in. I catch a glimpse of a woman's silhouette against the bright outside world - and I wonder what I'd say to her differently if I ever got the chance to see her again.