by Naomi West
I hold his gaze, trying to see a lie there. Part of me wants there to be a lie there. I want a fight, a fuck, something. And yet if I fucked one of these strippers, I’d feel empty. I’d look into her face and see Simone instead, and that isn’t fair. Even strippers and club girls and hookers deserve to have a man fuck them and not the woman in his head. Maybe that’s a fucked-up kind of morality, but it’s mine. Beast isn’t lying.
“All right.”
I return to the corner, sipping the whisky slowly.
Shotgun is on the other side of the room, getting a lap dance from two strippers, an anxious look on his face. Poker Face and Adams forced him to sit down and get the lap dance. I can see on his face that he’s thinking about Cecilia’s touching rule, his hands at his side as he winces every time the strippers gyrate.
I think about the way Simone would feel, her body pressed against mine, or the way her cheeks blushed, how nervous she got when she looked around the restaurant for a minute so she didn’t have to meet my eye. Maybe I’m crazy but I’m pretty damn sure she wanted me, even if she didn’t want to want me. I drain my whisky and make for the exit. Tonight’s not worth it. I’m getting nothing out of it, and worse than that, I’m sucking life out of the room. Nobody should hang around a party if they’re just going to make people ask them if something is wrong, or tiptoe around them.
I’m at the door when Jodi comes stumbling in, a drunken smile on her face, her makeup panda-like as usual. Jodi’s one of my ex-girlfriends, if you can call fucking a woman for a week and then never speaking to each other again ex-anything. She’s about to walk toward a group of strippers who’re pulling on their clothes to get involved in the actual partying—I guess the strippers were just club girls having fun—when she sees me and stops.
“Rocco?” she squeals over the pumping music.
“Jodi,” I mutter.
“Oh my god!” She stumbles forward, trying to hug me.
Any other night, I’d hug her. Maybe I’d even have some drinks with her, end up going home with her. Maybe I’d forget about Simone and her beautiful long blonde hair and her bright blue eyes. Looking at Jodi is like looking at a variant of a club girl, with her short, dyed red hair, her face covered in makeup, her skirt so short that if she bends over I bet I’ll see her panties. She looks at me sideways.
“What’s wrong? Are you leaving?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Why?”
I sigh. I’m not in the mood for this back and forth. I make for the door.
She runs in front of me, blocking it. “I asked you a question, Rocco. You don’t have to be such an asshole, you know. You can talk to me. And don’t worry, I have a boyfriend now. So if it’s about that then you don’t have to worry your big dumb head about it.”
“Okay, good for you,” I say.
She lurches forward, gripping my arm. I snatch it away and she follows me all the way to the wall, panting and looking up at me with wide eyes. She’s on something, I realize. “What’s up with you? Don’t you miss me? Do remember these? I bet you remember these.” She grabs her tits, winking at me.
“Listen to me,” I say. “I don’t want you. I’m sorry if I upset you. We had fun, all right? I don’t wanna hurt your feelings or anything like that. But please get out of my way.”
“What did I do wrong? Don’t say something silly about us not being together anymore, because we weren’t together at Shotgun’s thirty-eighth, either, but you were happy enough to fuck me then, weren’t you? Are you saying that was a mistake?”
“I’m not saying anything about the past. I’m asking you to get out of my way.”
“You’ve found somebody else. That’s the only reason you’d push me away. You’re a dog, Rocco. Everybody knows that.”
“Well, maybe sometimes a man gets tired of being a dog!” I snap, stepping around her and walking outside.
I lean against the wall and light a cigarette, blowing smoke rings into the air, or trying to anyway. I’ve never been much good at blowing smoke rings. I remember a kid back in one of the foster homes—they all sort of blur together—who could blow smoke rings like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies. That’s where he got the idea, when we were all sitting around watching a bootleg copy of it. He’d buy, beg, and steal tobacco and papers just so he could practice smoke rings. In the end he got so good I could put my finger through the ring before it disappeared. But that was before the big bastard with the mole on his chin found us and whipped the kid so bad he couldn’t sit down for a week.
I toss the cigarette to the curb. I’ll never be able to blow smoke rings like Timmy, no damn way.
I kick away from the wall, about to leave, when I see Cecilia emerge from a taxi, two club girls giggling beside her. I stop in my tracks and watch her, wonder if it’s actually her or if I’m seeing things. Even though I’ve been dreaming about Simone for two days, I don’t jump at the sight of her twin. As she gets closer, I realize it really is her.
“Cecilia!” I call, stepping out of the shadows.
The club girls at her side giggle again. I recognize them vaguely.
“Oh, it’s you.” She whispers something to one of her friends (I hear the word “calendar”) and then turns to me. “Why are you standing out here in the dark all alone? Are you waiting for sweet Mona?”
I swallow, and then choke out a laugh to try and play it off like she’s missed her mark, even if her mark is eerily dead-on. “Is she coming?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t know, to be honest. I saw her when we were all getting the taxis and I begged her to come. Like, really begged. It was pretty sad. I don’t think Shotgun would want to marry me if he saw how badly I embarrassed myself. I even told her she’d be ruining my wedding if she didn’t come. I even tried emotional blackmail.” She shrugs again. “Anyway, see you inside.”
She leaves, her friends following close behind her. Another taxi pulls up and girls climb out, but there’s no sight of Simone. I tell myself I’m being weird just standing here watching the taxis, I should just climb on my bike and go. Instead I light a cigarette and try and fail to blow Timmy-style smoke rings.
By the time I’ve finished the cigarette, three taxis have arrived, dropping off ten women, and none of them are Simone. I toss the butt to the curb and make for the parking lot, telling myself I’m an idiot for hanging around like this. I need to get back to my apartment, put on some shitty TV and get some sleep, maybe watch a movie. Something, anything to distract myself from Simone, who keeps whirring around my head like a tornado.
I climb onto my bike and start the engine, kicking it to life, and then another taxi pulls up outside the club. People in the smoking area step aside as the woman steps out, the sexiest, most beautiful woman most of them have ever seen. Tonight her hair is braided and overlapped so that it sits in an intricate bun, and she’s wearing a skirt which cuts just above her knee, with pale white tights which almost show her legs. She turns to the taxi and says something I can’t hear. Her friend emerges and the two of them go into the club.
It’s like seeing my dreams come to life. I’ve thought about this woman for two days and two nights, unable to get her out of my head. And now I’m just going to go home and put on some TV?
Fuck that. I kill the bike’s engine.
Chapter Eight
Simone
If tonight has taught me anything, it’s that being drunk moves in stages. Right now I’m in the early hangover stage, where I’m still drunk and yet my head is pounding as if I’ve woken up tomorrow morning. It’s too late for water now. It won’t do anything. It’s too late for coffee or any other sobering-up method. I’ll be drunk for the rest of the night and that’s that. Jess and I walk into the club—I can walk now, instead of stumble—and get a drink at the bar. The club is called Fusion, one of those pulsing, pumping places, and then I see a stage up front and I realize we’re in a strip joint, or a club that doubles as a strip joint.
“What do you want?” Jess calls
over the music.
“Vodka and coke,” I call back without thinking. I want to go home, to lie down, to close my eyes and wait for the headache to go away. But Cecilia’s words have gotten to me more than they should have. Maybe it’s the alcohol. “You’ll ruin my wedding, but if you really want to go . . .” Manipulative bitch.
I take the vodka and Coke and sip it slowly, making my way to a chair in the corner and sitting down. Maybe I can just sit here for the rest of the night and nobody will notice. Jess smiles at me, and then goes onto the dance floor with Cecilia and the rest of them, all of them screaming and giggling when the new Taylor Swift song comes on. Cecilia grabs a hairbrush out of someone’s bag and starts miming on the dance floor, the other women forming a circle around her and cheering as she drags Shotgun up with her. I smile as I watch. Then I think of how Mom and Dad would react if they could see her now and my smile dies.
“You look lonely there, little lady,” a man wearing a shirt three sizes too small says. He’s short, stocky, with a bulging belly and bulging arms. His hair looks wet from the hair product he’s put into it, and his face is covered in a fine gloss of sweat, his smile twisted. His eyes are light brown, the light hitting them in a way that makes me nervous. He looks too eager. “What’s wrong—you don’t like to speak?”
“I’m just having a drink,” I say, struggling to get each word out in its proper order. I almost say, “Drink having just.” I think about jumping over to the dance floor where I can lose myself in the protection of the crowd, but he’s blocking my path.
“My name is Jakub,” he says. “I am an enforcer for the Seven Sinners, and a groomsman . . . I think that is what I am called in the wedding, anyway. Ah, I see you smiling at my accent.” He’s lying. I wasn’t smiling at anything. “My parents were Polish. Women say it is a very seductive accent.” In fact, he doesn’t have much of an accent at all. He holds a bottle of vodka by the neck. I wonder how much is left but the light is too tricky to see. “A lady like you, sitting here all alone, surely you want some company, eh?”
“I . . . I’m just here for moral support.”
“Ah, you’re the sister.”
“I’m the sister,” I confirm.
“Don’t tell Shotgun, but I think you’re the more beautiful of the two. You look purer.”
The way he says purer makes me uncomfortable. It’s like he’s talking about the quality of a steak. “Uh, okay. Thanks.” I stand up, meaning to get past him. He doesn’t budge. “Excuse me.”
“Excuse you, excuse you what?” He laughs, and then takes a swig of vodka. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Or did you fart?” He laughs again.
“I want to get to the dance floor. Please.”
“But we’re talking—”
“Jakub.” Rocco steps from the darkness into the light which emanates from a red lamp on the table. His face looks like it’s painted with blood. “I want you to get away from her without making any excuses or saying anything at all.” His voice trembles. He’s the only one in here wearing his leather jacket. Jacket, jeans, boots. He looks rough and dangerous. It’s a look I welcome right now, if it gets this man away from me.
Jakub opens his mouth, but then closes it right away, remembering Rocco’s words. He nods shortly and leaves, making for the pack of girls watching Cecilia sing into her hairbrush.
Rocco is taller than Jakub by a head and a half, but Jakub doesn’t look like the sort of guy to meekly walk away like that. And Rocco doesn’t even act like it’s a big deal. He doesn’t look scared that he might have just gotten into a fight, or worried, or anything. He just steps forward casually, brushing the exchange off like it didn’t happen.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say, hoping my voice is steady, like I haven’t been thinking about this man for two straight days. “That was . . . you didn’t have to do that.”
Despite his roughness, he looks good. Really, really good. I can’t ignore that. His dark eyes watch me, his lips turned upward in a small smile, like he knows a secret and I’m the only person in the world he wants to share it with. “Maybe not,” he says, “but what was option two, let Jakub hit on you or the rest of the night? He’s a good man, sober. He isn’t sober tonight.”
Across the room, Jakub stumbles into the wall and everybody cheers as he flops to the ground. He tries to get back up but just falls on his face again.
“No,” I agree, “he isn’t.” I shoot my hand out. “I’m Simone, by the way, and your name is?”
I immediately regret it. I mean it as a joke, but he looks uncertain for a moment, the smile faltering. He looks closely at me. “How drunk are you?”
“I was joking,” I say. “I know you’re Rocco. It was . . . ha, ha?” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Can I get a small laugh, just to make me feel better?”
The smile returns. “Ha, ha, ha,” he says.
“But to answer your question, I’m quite drunk. I have to think carefully about every word I’m saying right now. It’s extremely tiring.”
“Even drunk you sound like a newscaster or a voice actor or something,” he says.
“I don’t know what you mean by that. Are you saying I sound posh?”
“Ish, posh-ish.”
“You shouldn’t call me posh. It makes me very self-conscious.”
“Then maybe you ought to stop being posh.”
“If it wasn’t for your devilish smile, I might take offense at that.”
He leans forward, bringing his face close to mine. My body is suddenly alive with possibilities. Drunk, in the dark, with a hulking man in a leather jacket, a dangerous man, a man I’ve already seen topless . . . anything could happen. “What happens if I offend you? Do you get angry?”
“Don’t look so cocky about it. You wouldn’t want to see me angry.”
“Don’t you want to dance?” He nods over at Cecilia and the club girls, headbanging to some old rock tune.
“No,” I say. “If I start headbanging I think this contraption would fall apart.” I turn so he can see my hair, braided and tied into a bun.
“It’s impressive,” Rocco says. He turns his head, showing his jet-black hair, which he hasn’t touched. It’s wild and unkempt. “What do you think about mine? This took four goddamn hours.”
I giggle. I can’t help but giggle. And with the alcohol in me, I don’t feel guilty about giggling. I think about the way Ms. Hennessy looked at Jess and decide I don’t want to be like that with Rocco, not tonight, not with vodka moving around my body, making everything fuzzy and warm. The headache seems less important, too, as I stand with Rocco. Everything seems less important, other than the two of us. I woke with my hand wedged between my thighs, I remember, my fingers toying with my clit.
“I have a crazy idea,” I say.
“I like crazy ideas.”
“What if we went into one of those booths and just did shots together and ignored the rest of the party?” I’m flustered, talking at lightspeed. I know if I slow down my sober mind will get involved, start nitpicking the plan, poking holes in it until I’m Ms. Hennessy, sneering at the whole party. “What do you think?”
“I think I have no clue why we’re still standing here.”
He takes my hand—his hand is big, warm, making me feel small and safe—and leads me to the nearest booth, which is as far away from the dance floor as it’s possible to get without leaving the club. The booth is a large VIP section, the walls reaching up to the ceiling, with a lockable door. I slide onto the leather seat, around the table, and wait as Rocco disappears to get some drinks. He returns with a silver tray of about ten shots, each pair a different color.
“Are you trying to kill me?”
He places the tray down. “Shall I lock the door?”
“What a gentleman.” I pick up a shot, studying it. It’s blood-red.
“Gentleman,” he repeats, shaking his head. “Never been called that before. I’m locking the door.”
“Lock the door!” I
exclaim, not sure why I’m shouting. The idea of being in a locked booth makes my pussy go tight for a moment, tight with all the dirty ideas filling my mind. My clit feels bigger, my panties scraping against it. Every sensation is heightened.
He sits down and picks up the blood-red shot’s twin.
“What is this?” I ask.
“I’d be lying if I said I had any damn clue,” he says.
“Maybe it really is blood.” The booth is lit by a yellow lamp attached to the ceiling. I turn the bloody liquid in the light.
“You look like a vampire right now, Simone. Like you’re inspecting some new blood or something. Just reckon you should know.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
I turn my face to him. He’s watching me, watching everything I do. I’ve never had a man stare at me like this, as if I’m the only woman in existence. After a lifetime of living in Cecilia’s shadow, of boys referring to me as the Boring Sister, of even Mom and Dad taking it as a given that I’ll do what I’m told and never kick up a fuss, having a man like Rocco look at me means something. Even if alcohol is contributing to it, it means something. I silently promise myself to remember this feeling when I’m sober.
