Shameless

by Nina Lemay

  “Come on. Your friend is buying, you know how lucky you are?”

  “Thank you,” he repeats. He lowers his gaze, staring straight ahead—avoiding me on purpose. “But not for me. Dance for him.”

  The grey-haired guy leans over. “What’s the matter here?”

  “I don’t think your friend is into it,” I say. My smile never felt more fake. There’s nothing more humiliating than having to give back money in public. “Maybe you should come with me instead.”

  “No freaking way,” he says with a laugh. “Take him. We’re here for him, and he’s going to enjoy himself even if I have to tie him down. So don’t listen, just grab him and…”

  The guy sighs and leans toward his friend, saying a few quick words in French. Grey Hair replies, and I can’t make out a single word. Grey Hair claps the guy—Emmanuel?—on the shoulder, says something encouraging.

  Emmanuel leans back with a resigned look on his face. “All right. We’ll go. Just because he insists.”

  He starts to get up, and a feeling of unease fills my chest. The reluctant ones tend to be the worst. One minute they’re moaning about how they respect women too much, and the next they’re trying to grope between your legs and asking how much for a full-service.

  But I lead him to the private booths in the back anyway, and he follows. The booths are almost all empty: the other girls aren’t having any better luck than me tonight. I pick the last one, where the lighting is soft enough so I don’t feel self-conscious.

  He takes a seat in the red fake-leather armchair that looks like something from an as-is sale at IKEA, and I let the curtain swing closed. Now it’s just us.

  “Sorry,” he mutters. “I usually don’t do this. You can just go. It’s okay, for the money, I mean.”

  My cheeks warm. Part of me just wants to take the money and run, the old stripper reflex. But another part of me, I have no idea why, says,

  “No.”

  The song begins—Where Is My Mind, by The Pixies. And I start to move.

  He watches me, a sober, reflective look in his eyes. I straddle him, my knees on the couch on either side of him, and lean in closer—so close I hear his sharp intake of breath. I meet his gaze, but I can’t tell what color his eyes are—one moment they look light, blue or grey, the next dark and impenetrable.

  I lean back a little, just enough to see all of him, how his hands tighten their grip on his thighs, fingers digging into his trousers.

  My gaze never wavers from his as I run my hands over my body, palms grazing my breasts through the skimpy fabric of my gold tank top, down my stomach, my sides, my hips. And he can’t look away.

  I don’t break the eye contact, even as I pull the tank top over my head and let it drop gently into his lap with a flick of my wrist. This is usually where they melt: the slack look comes over their faces, their gaze drops, their breath quickens, their pupils dilate like they just did a pound of coke, and I know they’re mine.

  But his gaze doesn’t waver. I see his throat move as he swallows, the tendons in his jaw tense, but he looks me right in the eye the whole time.

  I sway, like a cobra before a snake charmer, except in reverse, I’m the snake charming him. Reaching out, I softly run my hand along the seam of his trousers on the outside of his thigh. This gets them every time.

  He doesn’t stir.

  I flip back my hair, lean on my arms and lower myself, closer and closer to his face until I can feel his breath tickling my skin. His nostrils flare, but he still won’t move.

  Frustrated, I stand up straight, and at this moment his hands shoot up and catch mine, startling me and knocking me off-balance for a second. I feel his grip tighten in the moment before I regain my footing: he’s strong. Really strong. I feel the tension race through his muscles, up his arms and into his shoulders.

  And that’s when I glimpse what it says on the knuckles of his right hand: C-H-O-I-X.

  My gaze darts to his right hand, but that’s when the song abruptly cuts off. The moment tears like gossamer. And then it’s just me, in nothing but a lacy thong with a $100 tucked into it, and some random guy who has both my hands in a vise grip.

  We face each other for just a heartbeat. Then he lets go, as if embarrassed, and drops his hands back onto his lap.

  “Calisse,” he murmurs. “This wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t mean to behave inappropriately.”

  “It’s just my hands,” I say. “You’re allowed to touch my hands.”

  “I don’t know how it works here. Some places you’re allowed to touch everything…”

  Here we go, I think. Part of me is crushingly disappointed. The next song starts, some cheesy pop ballad.

  “That’s not on the menu,” I say coldly.

  “God,” he gives a nervous laugh. “I don’t even want the menu. No offense.”

  “Why did you go, then?” I ask. Color creeps over my face, and I’m glad it’s too dark to tell. “You could have told your friend no.”

  I’m relieved he’s not going to pester me for extras, sure. But at the same time, I’m a bit vexed. What, he doesn’t want to touch me—not even a little bit?

  I realize how fucked up this is, and mentally kick myself.

  “He’s one of my old Montreal friends. He used to be my boss,” he explains. “And he’s so determined that I have fun, I didn’t want to disappoint him. That, and I figured you could use the money.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “There are plenty of people in this club right now who actually want a dance from me.”

  He looks up and quirks just one eyebrow. “Really?”

  I must turn redder than the neon lights under the ceiling.

  “Okay. So it’s a slower night. It’s a Sunday, for God’s sake.”

  “Of course. And you’re absolutely beautiful. I’m sure you make lots of money on the busy nights.”

  “You don’t have to give me fake compliments, you know.”

  “I mean it. Just because I don’t want a dance doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re pretty.” He smiles. I realize it’s the first time he’s actually smiled, and it changes his whole face. That brooding, sad-puppy look vanishes. He actually has a dimple. Just one dimple, on his left cheek.

  “That’s nice, but if you think flattery will get you somewhere—“

  “I don’t want to get anywhere, remember?” The smile widens. I’m stricken with a feeling he’s laughing at me, not with me. “We’ll just sit out the half-hour or whatever he paid you for, I’ll tell him you gave me the time of my life, you leave with the money, and everyone is happy. And in the meantime, we can just chat like normal people.”

  “When normal people chat, one of them isn’t undressed down to her panties,” I point out.

  He chuckles. “All right then. Put your shirt back on.” He holds up my once-gold top. “If you can call this a shirt.”

  “Hey,” I say, snatching my top out of his hand. “We’re not in church here.”

  I turn around and start putting the gold top back on.

  “What’s your tattoo?” he asks. “On your side.”

  I pause, the top halfway over my head, and roll my eyes. So much for put your shirt back on, huh. I pull it back up and turn sideways so he can examine my latest tattoo, still unfinished.

  “Is it an angel?” he asks. He leans in closer to see, and somehow it doesn’t seem like a ploy to cop a feel. So I let him. His fingertips linger a quarter of an inch above my skin, and for a second I wonder if I was wrong—but he catches himself and pulls his hand away. Like he’d almost touched a flame. “No,” he says. “The wings are her shadow, right? It’s a swan. A girl with the shadow of a swan.”

  I run my hand over my tattoo, self-conscious. “It’s not finished,” I say, stating the obvious.

  “She’s turning into a swan?” he asks softly. “Is it Swan Lake?”

  I’m impressed he even knows Swan Lake. But that’s not it. Usually though, I feed guys the same lie every time: it’s an ugly duckling thing,
she grew up into a beautiful swan. Then they can say, I can’t imagine you were ever an ugly duckling! And then they can feel good about themselves.

  I don’t know why, but I tell him the truth. “It’s Leda,” I say.

  “Leda? Greek mythology?”

  “Yeah. The woman who turned down Zeus, so he turned into a swan and raped her.”

  The words resonate, strange and dark and out of place, like a slap.

  “You don’t have to answer,” he says, “but why did you decide to get it?”

  “You’re right. I don’t have to answer.”

  He gives a solemn nod, and doesn’t press on.

  “It’s for a poem,” I blurt. And immediately kick myself. What is this, weekly confession? Is he going to tell me to do twenty Hail Marys for my sins?

  “A poem?”

  “A Margaret Atwood poem. She wrote a poem called Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing. Ever read it?”

  He shakes his head no. “Helen of Troy was Leda’s daughter, though, right? By Zeus.”

  “It’s about a stripper.”

  That sobers him up. “Margaret Atwood wrote a poem about a stripper?”

  “Google it if you don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you.” His gaze meets mine, and suddenly I realize I never did put my shirt back on. Hastily, I pull it over my head.

  When I pull the shirt down and can see again, he’s shaking his head. “You seem different… what did you say your name was?”

  “Alicia.” I never did tell him my name.

  “You seem like a smart girl, Alicia.”

  “Please,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Don’t ask me what a smart girl like me is doing here.”

  “I wasn’t going to. We all have our reasons for doing what we do, and yours are none of my business.”

  I groan. “God, will you stop?”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop that. And act like a normal customer. Go on, ask me what my real name is, whether you can take me out to dinner. Ask me if my parents know what I do. Try to cop a feel when I’m sitting on your lap.”

  “I thought I said I wasn’t interested.”

  “Oh, please! You know how many guys say that? Until the curtain’s drawn, that is, and then they turn into an octopus.”

  He starts to laugh. It’s so clear and genuine that I find myself cracking up too. “And you’re funny. Damn, you’d be a real catch, if only—“

  He cuts himself off. The laughter dies in my throat.

  “If only what?” I find myself saying. My voice is hoarse.

  “Nothing. Sorry. How much time do we have left?” He’s avoiding my gaze. That feeble connection between us has snapped, blown away in the wind like a silvery thread of spiderweb.

  “We’re done,” I say. We still have about seven minutes left. But I mean it. We’re done.

  If only what? If only he met me somewhere else? I’ve heard that one before, and all it did was crack me up. Then why do I stand here feeling like he just stabbed me under the ribs?

  He practically leaps up from the armchair. “Thank you… Alicia. Thank you. It was lovely.”

  He gives me an awkward Quebecois air kiss on both sides, at a respectful foot of distance. And then he pushes aside the curtain and bolts from the booth without a backward glance, leaving me there in my tacky gold outfit, with a sucking black hole of confusion and emptiness slowly expanding in my chest.

  The next day, I drag myself out of bed forty-five minutes before the start of my first class of the semester. My head feels like it’s stuffed with pink fiberglass. And my hair looks about the same. The fifteen-minute scalding shower only makes me pruney. I don’t even have time to dry my hair or make myself a cup of crappy drip coffee. I grab a printout of my schedule, stuff my laptop into my tote bag, pull on jeans that look clean and an enormous sweatshirt with the Mackay logo on the front, and bolt.

  Here’s the thing about not looking like a stripper: it has its advantages. When I get on the metro or wait in line at Tim’s for my $1.30 large drip coffee or walk to class, I doubt I look any different from any other broke undergrad. Outside of the club, the Alicia persona disappears without a trace, wiped clean along with last night’s memories, with the clumps of makeup at the bottom of the sink, with the lingering smell of cheap body spray and hand sanitizer I thoroughly wash out in the 30-minute shower every night. I wear no makeup, I never wear heels even if it means I feel like a little girl wandering in a crowd of grown-ups. My wet hair is piled in a bun atop my head and I know that by mid-afternoon it’ll solidify into a weird, dry, dented work of modern art. I wear clothes that drown me, not just by choice but because I’ve lost even more weight in the recent months. I practically live in sweatpants, and I blend in with my university peers perfectly.

  Oh yeah, and I’m a raging misanthrope who glowers at people when they try to make eye contact. Sexy.

  My loft is on the outskirts of the Gay Village, too close to the gritty Ontario Street, and the commute is longer than it used to be when I lived in the dorm. But those extra fifteen minutes of sleep I lose are actually worth it. As you can imagine, I don’t have the easiest time sharing my space. Especially when the space is the size of my current bathroom.

  I get out of the metro and sprint to the towering main building of Mackay, throwing my Tim’s coffee cup in the trash on the way. Should have rolled up the rim. Could have won a car, heh heh. When my classmates see me throw away my Tim’s cups like that, their expressions are priceless.

  Inside the building, the AC cools off my overheated skin. I pull out the crumpled schedule printout and squint at the room numbers. My first class: Introduction to Artistic Photography. And it’s on the other end of the massive building, of course.

  I start running again. Half the escalators are perpetually out of order, and by the time I get to the eighth floor, I’m sweating. This is way more exercise than I like first thing in the morning. What even possessed me to take a class that starts before noon?

  When I finally find the classroom, a small, windowless corner studio, I’m huffing, and my mood is down the toilet. At least it looks like I’m not the only one who had trouble getting out of bed: the class is supposed to start in two minutes and we’re still only four people. The hipster quotient in the room is breaking records. The two girls wear ironic scrunchies in their ombré hair and the guys are the skinny types in glasses and knit vests too warm for the weather. Three out of four have cameras laid out proudly in front of them. Cameras that look like they might have been passed down from their dad. Or granddad. Except they were probably hunted down on Ebay for the cost of half my tuition.

  The moment someone takes out a typewriter instead of a laptop, I’m out of here.

  “Small class,” someone remarks.

  “There weren’t many people signing up. It almost got cancelled.”

  “Yeah, traditional photography, on a Monday morning. Shocker.”

  “Wait,” I blurt. Three pairs of eyes swivel to me like synchronized dolls. “Traditional?”

  “Yeah,” says one of the scrunchie girls, glaring at me above her glasses like I said something incredibly dumb. “Traditional. That means film.”

  Film. Of course. I slump in my seat. What the hell did I get myself into? I can barely manage to take a decent photo with my phone. I took the class because it fit my schedule, and because workshops, especially 101 level, are usually just an easy A. I can always drop it, but then I don’t meet the minimum number of credits—so I’ll have to settle for the classes that still have room, which means the worst of the worst.

  I drum my fingertips on the edge of the table.

  Two more people come in, two girls—both with their camera bags on display. Now all six of them bunch together at the other end of the table and launch into an extensive debate whose vintage film camera is better. I understand precisely zero beyond Kodak and Canon, and even then it’s a stretch. I wouldn’t know an EOS 1N from a Bronica SQ if the clunker hit me in the face—which
is just as well ‘cause I might not survive that.

  Bored, I check my phone. Teacher is four minutes late. At ten, we’re officially allowed to leave, as per school regulations. Nice start.

  Across the table, the traditional photography adepts are about to start a fight to the death over which camera is the best fit for true artists when behind me, the door opens. Not a moment too soon, because they all look up and forget they were about to start swinging 5-pound Minoltas and Nikons at each other’s heads. I sit up, bracing myself—just sit through this class, and then go to admissions and see about my other options.

  Steps walk around me, and the teacher plunks a heavy leather satchel on the desk at the front of the room. For some reason it still doesn’t register with me—guy, tall, black trousers and shirt, dark hair—and then he turns around.

  “Hi guys,” he says. His voice is deep and pleasant but it cuts me to the core, sinks metal spikes into my sides and along my spine. The shock travels through my vertebrae, exploding in my brain. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” He gives an embarrassed chuckle. “Anyone else have trouble finding the room?”

  He glances around the table, and then his gaze lands on mine just as mine—finally!—lands on his.

  And the room disappears. I already knew this—part of me knew even as I heard his steps behind my back. But in that moment it solidifies, becomes undeniable, reality soaked in harsh halogen lights of the classroom and not some fevered nightmare. His hair is different, combed neatly, and the shirt is buttoned to the collar and cuffs, hiding from view all tattoos—except of course the bluish smears of letters on his knuckles. But his eyes—there’s no mistake, it’s not someone else, someone who looks like him, not some kind of weird trick of my tired imagination. I was looking into those eyes less than twelve hours ago, in a very different place.

  His smile falters, but doesn’t quite vanish as he regains control of himself. He clears his throat, reaches into the satchel and takes out a clipboard.

  “So. I take it that’s all of us, maybe a couple of people will be joining within the next week or so… but I guess we should do our introductions anyway. Yeah?”