Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire (4 page)

I gathered him up onto my shoulder and walked with him through to the bedroom where I placed the shopping bags on the bed. I could hardly even hold the cat properly and, scared that I might drop him; I set him down on the window ledge and opened the shutters onto the balcony. Down below, the people of Old Berlin came and went as they always did. I sat there in my basket chair at the window for an hour, chin in my hands, gazing away dreamily at the traffic while Boris snoozed in the window box. I still felt scared, yet now in a good way – an invigorating way – a roller-coaster fairground kind of way. Olivia and I had shared something new and wonderful, something I still couldn’t define. I knew it was nothing I’d be able to speak to my mother about, so I would have to figure it out by myself, in my own time.

Eventually I turned back towards the room and looked at the big paper bags sitting on the bed, now more inviting – calling to me, enticing me. It was time to try those wonderful things on again.

I stripped and danced in front of the mirror, like I used to do at home. Except now I was imagining Olivia there with me, not any film star or racing driver, and I was moving for her, and for a public audience. I felt her warm breath on my neck and in my ear, her fingers and tongue inside me, and I started to drip and moan all over again. In the end I threw myself face-down over the bed and rubbed myself raw while imagining her there beside me, beneath me, all over me, doing those goddess-like things with her tongue while I wrapped her hair into braids and pulled them like bell-ropes.

I gushed my pleasure on the blankets, on the floor, on the rug, and my hands were dripping when I finished my chain reaction of climaxes. I had no sooner finished washing them in the bathroom when I heard a knock on the door. I grabbed the bathrobe from its peg and went down the hallway to the spy hole. It was Mrs. Groenenberg.

“Hello?” I asked, peering around the side of the door. I was just able to keep the black lace and satin frills out of sight, just in case she made the assumption that I was a prostitute or something, and carrying on illicit and illegal activities on her premises.

“Yes, hello,” she said in her brusque and hoarse voice. “A small matter of rent that we agreed upon, still unpaid. Yes?”

“Rent?” I had totally forgotten about that. What a horrible, mundane
thing
to have to contemplate in the midst of my most exotic, exciting daydream ever.

I batted my eyelashes to signify that I was confused, but she wasn’t accepting that as a viable excuse and waited patiently for a real answer. Boris went running out between us at that point. He was having none of the argument which threatened, and would return when the coast was clear. I nearly shouted him to come back, when I realized that he’d do better for himself hunting outside, than in the house with me – as I had totally forgotten to stock up on cat food that week. The whole business at the Kitty Klub had turned my brains inside out and my life upside down. Being bought so many lunches had made me forget that I was less well-off than the mice which lived behind the kitchen walls, and all the charity had similarly left Boris to snack on scraps and whatever he could catch. Suddenly I felt very guilty and selfish, a stumbling idiot who ought not to have been left to fend for herself. The cosmic order of the universe surely dictated that my mother would already be on her way to find me. She would batter my door down, grab me by the hair and hugger-mugger me all the way back home before I caused any more damage to myself and those around me.

“Oh, yes, of course,” I giggled, trying hard not to sound as though I’d totally forgotten all about it. “I’ll get it to you by next week,” and as I said that, I felt a flash of déjà vu: I was sure I’d told her that sometime before.

I’d only been in the apartment a few weeks and was still getting used to the shock of living alone, with no dinner ready for me every night, and no breakfast things all laid out in the morning. In fact, I hadn’t been eating well at all, picking up what I could find in the ‘reduced’ section of the local store. My mother would, of course, have screamed at me for it – neglecting myself, not planning anything, being scatterbrained and forgetful – all the things she used to scream at me for before. Well, just for once it felt good being able to do them all without the threat of an argument, although I did hope that I could soon become a little more self-reliant.

“You will? You said that last week.”

Had it really been a whole week? Well, at least I’d managed to do
something
in that time.

“Oh, but I mean it this time, Mrs. Groenenberg. I promise. I do have a job now, and I’ll be getting paid soon.”

“A paying job. Wonderful.” She chewed on the word, nodding to herself, as if I had fed her the most ludicrously unpalatable tale ever. “Good, good. I’m glad. Shop assistant? Nice bank job?”

What ridiculous notions. The very things I’d always scorned at school when the careers advisor came around – at different times I’d wanted to be a gymnast, an equestrienne, a dancer, a singer – like Suzi, of course – but never anything as boring as a bank clerk. I had to tell her just how wrong she was.

“No, no. Far more exciting. I work in an adult bar,” I blurted out, not quite meaning it to come out that way. “Er, I mean—”

“Oh, do you. Meaning, there are bars for children out there, hm?”

“No. There’s no funny business. It’ll be very good money. I promise you. One more week. In fact – I’ll get it to you as quickly as I can. Maybe even tomorrow.”

“Not on a Sunday, girl,” she hissed, looking at me sideways as though I was inviting her into a black magic ritual. “I’ll be in church. Leave it ‘til the week.”

“I will,” I said, nodding furiously. It was good to know that there was something the old girl cared about more than money. In that case I might be able to find some food tomorrow for Boris and me before she took the rest of it away from me. She waved me goodbye with a flick of her wrist and turned away, shaking her old-fashioned grandmother braids as she went.
Sunday girl
– the words returned to me and sparked a thought in my mind.

I rushed through to the bedroom and found my old Blondie cassette. Skipped forward to that song, then faced the mirror again. I was going to go through the routine once more – this time, with Olivia. I would use my imagination to extend our little rehearsal back in the WOW clothes store.

I must have played that song over and over, until I was sure that the tape would snap and the cassette would break. I finally stopped, exhausted, when I heard the kids who lived in the apartment upstairs come home. I took Boris to bed with me and fell asleep, wrapped around him like a lover, exhausted and satisfied with thoughts of Olivia dancing through my head and Boris’ soft fur warming my cheek.

I woke up with a start, wondering why it was so cold and dark. I grabbed at the bedside lamp and switched it on, then realized I’d fallen asleep naked on top of the bed, with the windows still wide open. The atmosphere of the city night drew over me like a damp heavy blanket, reminding me that I had important things to do.

“Oh my God,” I gasped aloud, and stared at the alarm clock, terrified as to what it might show me. My bleary eyes focused on the hands and the numbers with some difficulty. It was half-past eight. I was supposed to be at the Klub by nine, in time for the start of the show at ten.

“I’m going to be so late,” I screamed out in despair. “
Why
didn’t I set the stupid alarm?”

Boris looked at me, blinking from the middle of the pillows, as I raced around the room like a cyclone, trying to gather up everything that I needed. Garter belt – stockings – both pairs, just in case I put a run in one. Bra – gloves. Olivia’s favorite hot pants. My black velvet top.

I scooped them all up and laid them out on the bed. I struggled to reassemble the misty fragments of my thoughts into something coherent and sensible. I wasn’t going to have time to get dressed at the Klub, so there was only one thing for it.

I got dressed in my stage clothes right then, feeling my heart sink deeper with every garment I put on. I saw myself in the mirror a tired-looking, harried, messed-up rag who looked like she’d just been pulled through a prickly bush. Backwards. And several times over.

This was going to be a disaster. Olivia would take one look at me, roll her eyes and groan. The others would just point and ask what the cat had dragged in. Then I’d cry, and run screaming all the way back home to my mother, whereupon I’d never want to leave her side and spend the rest of my life baking cakes. And that would be what I deserved for being so ambitious and thinking I could ever possibly do something exciting and wild, like become a striptease artist.

But, I’d come this far – and I had to make the effort, right up until the bitter end, or I would hate myself forever. I dragged my flared jeans on over the costume and was just able to fasten them over the extra width of the hot pants. I wrestled my feet into the boots and pulled the zips up so fast I nearly broke them. I crashed through into the bathroom and stared in disgust at the flushed, freckled face which gawked back at me. The make-up would have to wait for when I was at the Klub. I grabbed my powders and sticks and flung them all into my shoulder bag. I had no money for a bus or a taxi, which meant I would have to run all the way there, over a mile and a half across town, through narrow and disjointed streets where the very buildings felt as if they were ganging up on you and daylight rarely shone – only the red lights burned perpetually, like evil flames beckoning moths.

I would be a wreck by the time I arrived. Well, everything had
nearly
started to go well, I thought sourly.

I blew Boris a kiss and threw myself out of the door, almost forgetting to lock it behind me. I plunged down the stone steps and out the front door, just managed to avoid knocking some kid off his bike, and started what I knew was going to be a horrible, nightmarish run through Old Berlin in the dark, where Mack the Knife could be hiding around any corner and the Beggar’s Opera was enacted for real.

I hadn’t gone three blocks at full speed when my knees and back started to hurt. These boots were made for walking and posing, not running. If I was in pain already, how was I going to manage ten minutes on stage? I slowed down to as brisk a walk as I could afford, scuffing and stumbling over the old cracked paving stones.

“Whoo, cutey,” a voice called from across the road.

“Bouncy, bouncy.”

“Hey, come here and sit on
this
, baby.”

Young male voices burst out laughing. I ignored them, staring straight ahead and swerved out towards the kerb, closer to the street-lights. I’d never ventured out this late before and my anxiety began to mutate into a horrible growing fear that something far worse than just being late for the show might occur.

I stuck my chin out, trying to look determined and tough in the hope that it would be enough to deter passing admirers. The nearer I got to the Klub, the darker the streets became, and the quieter, too. I passed little groups of women clustered around doorways, leaning against walls and strolling around slowly as if they were all waiting for someone. Their bare skin hung out of tight tops and under very short skirts. I got glared at by some of them, peered at curiously by others, and pointed at by a few.

“Who’s her?”

“No idea. Never seen the snooty cunt before.”

“Fresh young meat. Gotta be someone’s prime cut.”

“I’d like to see her face shoved in the shit.”

Whispered and muttered phrases that I barely understood, yet which nonetheless held a very sinister and troubling edge. It was directed at me, and I didn’t know how to react other than to try to ignore it all and know that the next time I came this way – if I was lucky enough to still even have a job after the next few hours – that I should come much earlier in the evening and kill time in the venue which had made me feel so at home.

And finally, with a faint glow of relief, I found myself turning onto Freudlose Gasse, and saw the red and blue lights of the Kitty Klub shining at the far end like lighthouse beacons. It lifted my sunken heart a little. I was almost there. I had run the gauntlet, and seemed to have survived my first night out in the Red Quarter, as I later found out it was known.

And just as I felt a little smile of satisfaction begin to warm my face, something grabbed at me from out of an alleyway to my right.

“Hey.”

I screamed as I felt a hand tighten around my upper arm, squeezing me tight and dragging me out of the street light and into the thick dirty darkness beyond.

It was one of those wolves my mother had always warned me about. In a flash, I only hoped for her sake that she wouldn’t read about me in the news next week, and cry over the fact that she had been finally and fatally proved right.

“What is it?” I squeaked, panicking, but still hoping that he might just be a harmless drunk or a bum, begging for a coin. I stumbled over piles of garbage and bounced into a metal rubbish bin as the mouth of the alleyway devoured me. I saw a flash of face – a staring eye, a moustache, and white bared teeth, like a wild animal ready to strike and rip my throat out.

“Make a sound, and I’ll slit you up the middle like a fish,” the voice snarled. I didn’t understand at first, and then I saw a flash of metal beside my head. Before I knew it, the flat edge of a metal blade had jammed itself against my neck, forcing my head back against a damp slimy brick wall. “Scream, and I’ll strangle you with your own guts, bitch.”

I didn’t know what to do or say. I couldn’t even see him, and I could only hear his heavy footsteps scuffing around me, felt his breath billowing over me. Fingers touched my belly, that exposed horizontal stripe of skin between my top and my jeans. Then I found myself being yanked away by the hair, spun around and pushed hard into the wall, face first. Hands grabbed at my jeans and pulled, baring my ass.

My head was spinning so fast and I felt so dizzy and sick that I couldn’t even tell if I was standing up any more or falling over. I kicked my leg out for balance and a terrible squawk of pain burst out of the wolf, the prowler, the bastard. The grip on me released and in a moment of blind instinct, I ran for it.