Pier Lights (3 page)

Caroline calmly walked away. At least mostly
calm. Her heart rate increased only the slightest bit. He hadn’t
followed her the night before; there was no reason to think he
would tonight. And he was out farther in the ocean. By the time he
could get to shore, she would be lost on the sidewalk with other
night wanderers. It was dark. He’d never know who she was. Besides,
she couldn’t imagine he’d walk the sidewalks with that thing in his
hand. It couldn’t be legal. Could it? She doubted it. Not much was
legal anymore, not like when she was a kid and the neighbor boys
carried their BB guns around town to harass squirrels and discarded
pop cans. They couldn’t even carry water guns that had any
resemblance to a real gun these days.

No way could Mr. Big Sword carry his weapon
around town. She was plenty safe enough. Maybe she’d come back
tomorrow night and ... take another swim. In return for making
herself set up her apartment and tread through shoppers to get what
she needed. The shopping itself she didn’t mind. The loud pushy
garish women who made a habit of shopping to the extent they
believed they owned whatever store they inhabited at whatever time,
she did mind.

She’d said once that people annoyed her. It
didn’t gain her any friends among her fellow dancers, but then she
wasn’t there to make friends. She was there to dance, and to beat
them out of lead positions she wanted. There was no point in acting
otherwise, although most of them did.

Caroline was glad to be away from the
falseness of girls acting sweet to each other the whole time they
had every intention of stepping right over them on their way to the
top if at all possible. They all had the same goal. She simply
admitted it. They hadn’t liked it much.

She supposed her fellow strippers wouldn’t,
either. And she supposed they’d be just as determined to walk over
each other to get to the top. Such was life.

~3~

“Yes, I’m coming.” Dio set the rake aside
and wiped his hands on his jeans. At the door, he shoved his shoes
off. He didn’t have the energy to have to sweep the wood plank
floor which he’d have to do if his shoes so much as touched it.

“What took you so long?” His mother shuffled
from the small kitchen counter to the small scuffed wood table and
set a platter in the middle. Steam rose from the dish and he
smelled cheese and ... spinach. Again, spinach. He supposed there
was rice or noodles at the bottom. Always rice or noodles. And
spinach, which she grew in the big greenhouse outside the small
kitchen. She grew almost nothing else in it, although Dio kept
trying to encourage other things. Anything. She said it was easy.
And fast. And healthy.

He didn’t mind it. Or he didn’t use to mind
it. At this point nearly anything dark green made him cringe.

“Well?” His mother’s drawn-in wrinkled face
met his.

“I’m not done raking the weeds.”

“No matter. Do it after dinner.”

“I work tonight.”

She sighed. “Must you? Why can’t you find a
normal job instead of letting all of those horrid females gawk at
you? If I’d known you would turn around and do that, I wouldn’t
have fed you so healthy.”

“A normal job is daylight hours. I need
those for the farm work. What do you want me to do? Let it all go
to weeds and rodents?”

“You should, yes. A young man should set up
a house of his own, not look after this awful big place. God love
your father, but I will never understand why...”

“He loved it.”

She stopped adding silverware beside the
plates and looked up again. “Yes. But you don’t.”

“I love the place. It’s the constant work of
it I have to do alone I don’t love.”

“Then hire someone...”

“We’ve tried that. It doesn’t go well.”

“Then sell the place and get yourself
something that’s less work.”

“Mom, it’s what we have left of him.”

“Oh Diomedes.” She shuffled over and reached
up to set her hands along his face. “Of course that’s not true. You
have your memories. And when I leave this earth, which won’t be
much longer, I don’t want you here alone working day and night for
what? For some land you work only because your father loved it?
There’s no sense in it. Skip work tonight. Go somewhere you’ll find
a nice girl and settle down so I don’t have to worry about you
being alone.”

“A nice girl won’t take me and you know
it.”

“That’s not so, and I know it’s not so.” She
backed away. “Go and wash up now. The weeds will wait.”

Bless her soul, she wouldn’t give up. Dio
obeyed orders and went to scrub the black dirt off his hands and
face. Drying, he caught himself in the mirror. No. A nice girl
wouldn’t want him. A nice girl wanted someone to hold hands with on
the beach, to show off to her friends. She wouldn’t want ... this,
what reflected back at him.

Why had they waited so long to have him? His
parents were nearly fifty by the time he came along. They hadn’t
the energy or patience to look after a too-curious uncontrolled
three year old. And he was only twenty when he lost his father. His
mother was closing in on eighty. She was holding up well for the
life she’d had, but like it or not, he knew the years were ticking
fast.

And he had nothing else. The farm. The night
job, on occasional nights. The occasional flings after the night
job. It was his life. He wouldn’t expect more from it.

Caroline pressed her face close to the
mirror, in the dressing room of Exotica, and carefully lined her
eyes with dark deep black liner. She loved the contrast of the
black lines against her pale greenish brownish flecked eyes and her
pale pinkish sallow skin. Many of her fellow ballerinas groaned at
the stage makeup. She loved it. She’d always loved to play in
makeup, to change it around, to make herself look older and more
polished than she was. With the right combination, she could turn
herself into the beauty she needed to be on stage.

During the day, she left herself unmade,
with no more than shiny gloss for her lips. She also liked the
contrast of her dull paleness with the shiny lips. Contrast amused
her, captured her imagination and interest. It was an obsession. It
was part of what attracted her to ballet. The contrast of the
beautiful delicate graceful movements as they appeared on the
exterior to the tight controlled strong muscle coordination she
felt inside. It had delighted her as a child. It still delighted
her.

The best reason to enjoy this new job was
the contrast with ballet. Ballet was elegant and sophisticated.
Stripping was primal and raunchy. She looked forward to the
challenge.

She didn’t look forward to the audience
reaction. That would be opposite, as well, she expected. Polite
applause and polite standing ovations from the well dressed was
unobtrusive. She didn’t notice it any longer. It was easy to block
out. Blocking out the raucous crowd in the club could become her
nemesis, if she allowed. She wouldn’t. She was in control of her
reactions. She wouldn’t let it to get to her.

It was that simple.

She’d told many people many times it was
that simple. You don’t want something to bother you? Then don’t let
it.

“Hey good luck tonight. And watch the guys
on the far left. They’re the rowdy ones, here every Saturday night,
and always mouthy. Don’t let ’em bother you.” A short busty girl
wearing a bright orange glittered bikini set a hand on Caroline’s
shoulder and then slipped into a few clothes she would soon take
off.

“Thanks. They won’t.”

A brunette in dark red glanced over. “Aren’t
we over confident for our first night out? Not as easy as you
think, honey. Don’t get cocky.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy, but I’ll be
fine, thanks.”

The woman with deep lines under her eyes and
on her forehead gave her a half snarl and turned away to rub on a
heavy coat of lipstick that matched the tiny strappy ridiculous
outfit.

“Don’t mind her. She never likes newcomers.”
The orange girl slipped into high orange heels.

“That’s ’cause she’s been here forever and
us younger girls make her feel her age.” A voice from somewhere
behind Caroline snickered.

“Careful not to trip tonight, Lovey.” The
dark red woman pursed her dark red lips in the mirror. “Gonna be a
hard fall if you do.”

Caroline blocked them out. At least they
didn’t act sweet to her face. She much preferred this. Maybe. She’d
heard a few names. Some of the girls offered them. She gave her own
as Lina, admitted she’d never stripped but she’d danced plenty, and
told them nothing more, no matter how a couple of them pried. They
were work acquaintances; they would not be more to her.

At least she was on early tonight. The best
girls were the closing entertainment, along with some guys thrown
in here and there to entertain the few women who came to the club.
It was the only strip club in the area. Hayes said they had to
entertain in both directions, in all fairness.

Fairness had nothing to do with anything. It
was about money.

Either way, she figured she’d go out and
earn her paycheck and then wash the makeup off, push her hair into
a ponytail and her body into jeans and a sweatshirt and join the
crowd to watch the other acts. She was new. Any tip she could pick
up would only help her progress to one of the girls at the end of
the show with the higher paychecks.

The orange girl took Caroline’s side again,
said Hayes must have really liked her audition if he put her on a
Saturday night for her first time. Either that or she had irritated
him and so he was looking for a fast way to test and get rid of
her. Most of the new girls started during the week with slow
crowds.

As if starting on a Saturday night for her
first time with a full house wouldn’t be hard enough, Hayes put her
on first. The very first act. Caroline couldn’t even watch anyone
else first. She supposed she should have come down to the club the
past two nights to prepare. She nearly did, but the pull of Mr. Big
Sword on the water was too strong. With five nights of work a week,
she’d barely be able to try to catch him there.

She wasn’t sure that wouldn’t be the worst
part of the job.

Dio sat in the shadows just behind the side
curtains. They had a new girl. He’d rushed through dinner, to his
mother’s chagrin, and come in earlier than he normally would bother
in order to see how bad Hayes screwed with her. The worst part of
working at the Exotica wasn’t the drunk loud men in the audience.
It was Hayes. On the outside he looked okay, decent. On the inside,
the guy was a huge asshole. Not many girls stayed long enough to
pass his test. Once they did, they were in and he didn’t bother
them. Word had it the girl who should have started on week nights
had never danced anywhere public before. She was not only new, but
very new. Hayes would eat her alive.

Dio figured he’d keep an eye out and see if
she was one who needed to be talked into a different business or
convinced Hayes would back off once she proved herself.

The girls called him the white knight of
Exotica. Some called him the black knight. He wasn’t either. He was
gray. Through and through gray. Bland. The only interesting thing
about him was his build and his one talent, a talent only useful in
a strip club entertaining drunks like a side show freak. He stayed
quiet enough, enhancing the tall, dark, and silent image they found
intriguing, that they would never know how gray he was inside.

“This new one’s gonna fall straight on her
face.” Sandy slid a hand up his arm, her normal way of greeting
him.

Dio scanned her. “Ever going to wear
anything but pumpkin orange?”

“Hey, it’s my thing.” She shook her
shoulders to tease, made her ample breasts jiggle over top her
bikini. “Ever gonna take that mask off and let me see you?”

“No.” Dio turned back to the stage. Lights
dimmed. Music started. Not music he recognized. Didn’t sound like
anything Hayes would choose. It was edgy, but sultry. He let her
use her own music? Already? He recognized the voice but couldn’t
place the singer, a female with an earthy tone. Not one of the new
little blonde twits who could only hold a tune with a producer’s
help, but one with a good strong voice. And passion. Deep sultry
passion.

“Ohhh, he’s gonna flip big time. He told her
not to do this. Bet this’ll be her first and last strip at
Exotica.” Sandy laughed.

“Can’t you all be nice to the new girl for
once?” Dio rolled his eyes. “You’re kind of in this together, you
know.”

“Like hell we are. We’re
all in it for ourselves. And if Little Miss Cocky don’t know that
yet, she better learn fast.
If
he lets her come back after this
stunt.”

Dio decided to ignore the comment about
being cocky. Sandy wasn’t the best character judge. She was about
the worst at reading people he’d ever met.

The new girl was pale under
the bright lights. Except for her overdone eye makeup, she had very
little color of any kind. Even her costume was tan with a black
scarf-like accessory she used to imitate the words.
In the shadow of a black crow
... Hayes wouldn’t like that, either. He liked bright and
showy. But her movements were stunning. She was controlled but
fluid. Graceful but aggressive. Her hip movement was maybe the best
he’d seen. She was small busted for a stripper and some of the
audience reaction reflected that, or reflected her tan costume that
still hid a lot of her. A long thin sarong skirt. A loose flowing
blouse.

Tan. Up and down tan, to include her
hair.

But this music was her. Or she became the
music, the song. Her dance fit the words. She released the black
“wings” and her hands flitted over her body, promising, teasing.
She tugged on the blouse, untied it as she moved without throwing
herself off the beat. Tossed it out of the way. Definitely small
for a stripper. But her arms were well toned, and her abdomen was
perfect.