by Ketty Rouf
3
Of all the girls, I like Fleur best. She’s different from the others. Fleur dances with her rounded, perfect ass, with her hands, with the curls that brush her shoulders, with her eyes. Especially with her eyes. When she sways her hips, her eyes glow brighter than the stage lights. She looks out at the audience, rests her chin on her shoulder, and flutters her eyelashes like you do when you’re just about to come. Fleur arouses desire with her whole body, arches her back, thrusts her ass at the audience, smiling at me—That’s for me, I think to myself—and I find my gaze drifting down to the soft fold that separates the top of her thigh from the curve of her ass. I look at that thrilling little expanse of pink flesh, and I think of the person who will run a tongue along it, wondering if her pussy is as perfect.
There’s shouting in the dressing room tonight. Late again, Fleur has gotten into a screaming match with Andrea. She’s stubborn as a mule, they say, and one day it’s going to get her fired. It’s almost happened many times already. But it makes me want to get to know her better. I don’t approach her, but I watch her: she caresses the back of the customer’s neck, runs her fingers through his hair as if every stranger is the man she loves. Fleur touches before she speaks. She gets intimate without being invited. The men smile, confused, already speechless except for the word yes repeated over and over and over. That’s what gets her whole nights in a private room. Fleur is a safe bet. And she brings a ton of money into the club, so they put up with her, for better or worse.
After the argument with Andrea, Fleur’s smile onstage is a little bit ambiguous. The thick layers of mascara and the under-eye circles she doesn’t conceal tonight make her gaze dark and troubled. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. She drops to her hands and knees on the Plexiglas platform, stands up, the blue stage-lights striping her arched back and bathing her naked breasts, which she caresses absently, mechanically. She slaps her own ass with both hands. Fleur is the animal you want to whip. That’s what gives her the advantage over the rest of us.
Stepping down from the stage, she drops a cigarette she had tucked away in her bra. Instinctively I bend to pick it up and hand it to her, wordlessly. She takes the cigarette and then laces her fingers through mine. “Come with me,” she says. “I’ve got a guy warmed up; he’s waiting for me. You can take care of his friend.” I don’t say yes or no. I have no real preference either way. I just let myself be towed along, like an object.
It’s four in the morning. We’ve been in the private room for about two hours now, drinking magnums of Ruinart with our customers. Fleur’s clitoris is pierced. I can see it gleaming in the semi-darkness. This is the first time I’ve ever seen her completely naked. I thrust my ass at my customer, my back to him, my eyes straining into the darkness for a glimpse of her pussy, her legs, her dancer’s foot, perfectly pointed. I follow her movements as she edges closer to her man, who stretches his hand toward her breasts. It annoys me. I remind him of the rules: no touching. Fleur laughs. She grasps the man’s hands and guides them closer to her body, toying with his desire, and maybe with mine, too. There’s nothing but one tiny, insignificant centimeter separating the man’s hands from her bare flesh. This girl is a vixen. I stop dancing and just stare at her. As soon as she lets his hands go, the customer seizes her and jerks her toward him. He sticks out his tongue, clearly desperate to suck her nipple, but stays sitting down, like a kid, focused on his ultimate desire, mouth gaping like a salivating dog, kept at a distance by the suddenly tensed length of Fleur’s arms. One of his hands manages to grip her thigh, the other scrabbling for her smooth pussy. I can’t take it anymore. There’s no more music. It’s just Fleur, and her body, prey for those ravening hands. In a matter of seconds, though, she exacts her revenge and reestablishes her supremacy. Lips curling in a disdainful smile, she grabs her half-full glass of champagne and dumps it on the client’s crotch. “Sorry,” she laughs. “That was an accident. But what the fuck are you playing at? You know it’s against the rules to get off in here! You’ll have to pay extra, or I’m calling the security guys.” Fleur draws me toward her and whispers: “Don’t worry, it’s no big deal. He’s just a man, look at him.” She hugs me and smiles at the customer, who pulls out two hundred-euro notes. I follow her lead. We extend our naked thighs with their rhinestone garters: here’s the piggy bank, thank you, it’ll be over before you can blink unless you buy some more tickets. We’ve had some fun tonight, haven’t we, you naughty boys? I cuddle up to my customer one more time, trailing my tongue along his neck. I’m not enjoying it—that’s because of the tingling between my thighs and Fleur, who won’t stop smiling, simulating desire with uncanny perfection. I gather my few things from the floor while she vanishes without a word. Another man is waiting for her impatiently at a table. Everything goes too fast. She doesn’t so much as glance at me again until the end of the night, when she suggests that I come with her to the afterparty at Queen with the DJ and an American friend of hers who’s some kind of house music celebrity.
“I thought you’d stay with that guy.”
“Which guy? The last customer? That numbskull from before?”
I feel like an idiot.
At Queen, everyone dances in the VIP area.
“You like Fleur, huh? You like girls?” The American asks questions without waiting for my answers.
I’ve never liked a girl.
The music makes everything blurry, and Fleur just keeps dancing, dancing, her arms flailing wildly; she’s gorgeous, bathed in psychedelic lights. The DJ shouts in my ear: “The American likes you! He wants you to go to Chicago with him! You should go!” I don’t say anything. I don’t have anything to say. I’m not sure I understand what’s happening. I don’t know what I want, either. And anyway, the sudden hammer-blow of reality comes slamming down to spoil the party: I have to be at school in about six hours. Fleur comes close, suggests a foursome. I pretend I don’t understand; I can’t stay; I really have to leave.
“Come on, we’ll both go,” she says. “Let’s go get a nice steak; that’ll perk you back up.” But I’m not hungry; I’m about to collapse with exhaustion. And steak isn’t really something I tend to crave at seven o’clock in the morning.
Fleur stops trying to persuade me and walks me out, holding my hand like we’re a mother and her little girl, her lips against my cheek. She scans the still-deserted street and hails a taxi. “Let’s talk soon,” she says, taking out her phone and waiting for me to give her my number. “I’ve got to take a few days off, but I’ll be back next week. Are you working then? I’ll have some customers requesting me, you’ll see; we’ll make good money together like tonight. Did you enjoy tonight?”
I don’t have time to answer. Fleur slides her left arm around my waist and kisses me on the mouth. Her tongue finds mine.
A taxi pulls up, waiting.
Just before leaving the private room tonight, Fleur’s customer dropped to his knees at her feet and licked her high heels. She hadn’t given him access to her toes—“That would cost more than you have,” she’d said, like a true vixen.
I’d love to be a vixen, too. Men don’t scare me anymore—not forgetting that, in places like my club where they choose who gets in the front door and who doesn’t, the customers are obedient, like dogs walking on their hind legs, and aren’t supposed to move a muscle unless you tell them to. They’re an annoyance. They’d rather whine and grope discreetly at their bulging zippers and close their eyes so they can’t see what they can’t touch. There are a lot of submissive men out there. It’s surprising. They pay to experience what they’d never put up with in the real world—a naked woman who makes them think she’ll fuck them and ends up being a tease instead. It’s a cruel game, but it has hidden virtues. In real life, desire isn’t likely to be perfect—but in here, that’s possible. That’s what they’re paying for. That’s what they’re buying. I watch them carefully. Their urges are absolute, their desire hyperbolic. In the many storie
s they tell about their private lives, the women often refuse to satisfy them, even making fun of their daily needs for love and eroticism. When a couple is solidly in a relationship, or after a pregnancy, the women—these men say—stop wearing makeup or taking care of their skin and hair and fingernails. They’d rather just be mommies; they become untouchable. On my knees in front of an erect cock I won’t actually see, entwined with a man, letting myself be penetrated by his eyes, begging, passionate, almost tearful sometimes, I know I will never feel what they do. A kind of crazed ardor that women simply lack. I dance naked around that lack, that empty space.
If the music didn’t stop, and the night didn’t end, if we couldn’t come out from behind the curtain, I’d go all the way. I’d give certain parts of my body, like gifts. Because Rose Lee has an entire harem of men at her disposal. She can help herself to them as she pleases. What would you do, women, with all these men on their knees before you, trembling and swooning? You, protected by anonymity and totally free? Have you ever thought about it? Have you wanted it? It scares you, doesn’t it—the idea that you might like it? Putting on the mask of Rose Lee turns me into a free woman. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I tell myself that over and over, to drown out the tiny, sly, shameful voice that sneaks in during those first moments after I wake up in the morning: am I a whore? For just a few moments, Rose Lee is the troubled memory of the night just spent nestled between the legs of strange men with stiff cocks and hungry, empty hands. Every morning is a chance to understand, to do the right thing. To end the charade, the night, to say to myself, Okay, there, you’re very brave, you did it, you’ve had your revenge, had the last laugh at all those little shits from the school yard, and every boyfriend who dumped you too fast, and the mirrors where you saw the ugliest girl in the whole world. But that doesn’t take into account my joy and pleasure, strong and intense as an electric shock. The customer, like a thousand other men, pressed against me while I’m totally nude, with the disarming tenderness of their helpless arousal, which shouldn’t please me, but does. That’s what banishes my shame behind the curtain of the private room, in the half-light where I’m intertwined with a man keeping his hands on the bench seat.
In his weary eyes, I’m beautiful.
4
The front door is broken, and I have to wait for the monitor to come let me in. I’m late. Still wrapped tightly in the night where Fleur was nothing but a dream, I didn’t hear my alarm clock. So much for my first hour of teaching. Six months ago, I would have shown up at school with my face ravaged by guilt, repentant as if I’d committed some horrible sin, begging for forgiveness. No longer. After quickly calling the school, I took my time getting ready. When I first wake up, I need time to remember who I am, to formulate my to-do list amid the chaos of my thoughts: wear loose, drab clothing, definitely nothing designer, definitely nothing fashionable, hair in a knot, little or no makeup. I need to give the impression of having just gotten out of bed. Measured smile, neutral expression, dull-eyed, if possible. In short, I need to play the part of my job so no one will notice me. There can’t be even a trace of Rose Lee in my accessories or the under-eye concealer that matches my complexion, not a hint of a sparkle in my eye. Every day I have to remind myself of this, because I feel like I’m disappearing beneath the power of the night. Jo is fading away because Rose Lee’s world is becoming more and more familiar, its emotions dispelling the boredom and bitterness of my days. At night, we talk. I’ve never talked so much. At night, we smile. In the teachers’ lounge, we hardly even say hello; we start the day with a grimace. And in the afternoon, as five o’clock approaches, we even stop looking at each other, too eager to get out of there, to run like cowards. Exhausted. A few might manage a smile that doesn’t reach their eyes. Do your job. Hang on. No question of laughing, not least because the pay, one more grudging concession from the law and order government, is right on par with the amount of recognition and thanks we get. It’s a truly wretched existence, one that drove me to seek stimulation by reading the great philosophers. Where the hell did I get the ludicrous idea of finding happiness in thinking? I wrapped myself up in concepts to forget my own misery, and the misery of existence. I added my voice to the doleful chorus of intellectuals everywhere: Life, what suffering! But no more suffering now. Here I am, stripped naked, finally. I’ve stopped taking antidepressants. No more therapy sessions. Now I buy makeup, and more lingerie. I need Rose Lee, her perfume that envelops me like a magical charm, my new inner life that’s like music I can dance to. The night is my brightest day, a perpetual present of brilliance and well-being. It’s life without classes and meetings and the worries that crush my spirit, where the world and my fellow humans have a presence like nothing I’ve ever known. It’s almost a kind of perfection, where there’s no longer any need to ask the metaphysical question Why? The truest luxury—the truest happiness, maybe—is to exist without sorrow, without limits: to linger around a drink, a game, an encounter in order to prolong the night and go to bed later and later until it circles back around to early, when the faceless masses are leaving for the office, or are already there. I see them, and I don’t want to see myself with them anymore, like all the others, my steps dragging along the metro platforms and corridors and escalators. Forever racing the clock, running red lights, wasting my life. They all look the same in their dark suits and Zara skirts, low heels with flats in their purses. People without smiles, with the pinched faces of city workers, only starting to smile at around one o’clock, when it’s time to wolf down a quick sandwich in the park, sitting on the grass, gazing at the sky for a few minutes if it isn’t raining. Smiling again during the coffee break, near the machine, the watch giving you the good news: only two more hours to go and it’s over. Small life, small joys.
In front of my students, everything changes. Rose Lee has to disappear.
“Madame, is that real?” The girl’s voice is coming from the front row, where she always sits.
“No way, she’s a teacher! She could never afford a real one!”
I think I know who has spoken, but I don’t look up. I pretend I haven’t heard. I forgot to switch purses. I should have brought my old, beat-up bag. A few people glanced discreetly at it when I was in the teachers’ lounge this morning. My silence and their astonishment. Now I take my lesson plan out of my Chanel bag. I’ve always dreamed of having one. It’s a present from Rose Lee. Only she could have managed it. A nice pair of tits can work miracles, it turns out. I’m absolutely dying to say, “Yes, boys and girls, it’s a real one! And?” You’d think the night would give me a little more courage during the day, but right now all I can do is hate myself for being so careless. Fear paralyzes me. My throat is bone-dry. A single teacher could never, ever afford a Chanel purse. As I organize my notes, taking my time before starting class, all I can hear is the girls, their ridiculous, ecstatic murmuring at the sight of the object of our hearts’ desire. My nose buried in the syllabus, I feel like I can hear their thoughts. They must suspect a rich lover, that I’m letting myself get screwed in return for pretty post-coital presents. Or maybe they think I’m just a teacher who buys fake Chanel to look fancy.
I try to stop the babble of words, writing on the chalkboard: We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.
“I’d like to start by analyzing this quote by Epicurus. Focus on the following questions: Am I responsible for my own happiness or unhappiness? Does our happiness come from within us? Can it get away from us? Give examples, please. Think about some examples.”
I open the door of the teachers’ lounge. People are gathered in a group at the far end of the room, gesturing and talking confusedly. My colleagues’ attention has clearly been drawn away from my Chanel bag; they’ve got better things to do. I join the huddle. In the midst of the group is Martin’s young intern, Claire Lopez, whom we recruited base
d on her results on the teaching aptitude test in French. These days, they can hardly recruit enough people to join the program, much less fill the hundreds of teaching positions available. Result: they’re even accepting applicants whose scores are below average. No one wants anything to do with the world’s noblest profession anymore. I wonder how much Claire is regretting it. Martin has been very open with me about the girl’s struggles to get the students’ respect, her problems with them, the humiliation she’s been subjected to. She’s getting hit in the face with the cold, hard reality of what it means to be a teacher, doesn’t yet realize that this could be the only reality everywhere in the national education system. Claire is in absolute hysterics. She’s crying real tears, big fat ones, because one of her students—and not just any student, but her favorite, the rebellious one who always apologizes, and starts listening again, and learns the lesson (only to forget it almost immediately)—shouted at her, after her umpteenth attempt to bring the class to order, “Suck my dick, bitch!” Claire broke down in front of the whole yelling, babbling class at that point, and the kid stormed out the door.
The assistant principal comes striding into the teachers’ lounge. She places a sheet of paper politely on the table and pushes it toward Claire, who looks up at her questioningly.
“I’d prefer for you to think about this a bit when your head is clearer.”
“Think about what?”
“Your complaint.”
“Is there a problem with the form?”
“I would strongly encourage you to withdraw it.”
“But . . .”
“I know this student quite well. He’s not a bad kid.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“And—” She leans closer and closer to Claire, so she can speak more quietly—“he’s dealing with a very delicate situation at home.”
