Divas

by Rebecca Chance

  Every shout from the audience, every cheer of applause as the girl wrapped herself around the pole and tossed her golden flag of hair, was like another knife in Lola’s stomach. She pushed back her chair and stood up. No one noticed, not even her friends.

  And then the girl flicked one silver shell off her breasts, throwing it towards the front row of tables. Men jumped up and scrambled for it excitedly. The girl toyed with the second shell, building up the excitement in the auditorium, making them wait for a long, breath-suspended moment, before she flicked that off, too. It spun in the air, a small flashing twist of silver, travelling further than the first shell, and there was a rush of movement towards the front of the stage as people vied to catch it, grown men jumping in the air like single women at a wedding desperate to catch the bride’s bouquet.

  Lola found herself caught up in the rush towards the stage, pushed forward by someone behind her. Set in motion. And once she was moving, she couldn’t stop.

  It was all a blur after that, as she ducked and dodged round the men and women grabbing for the shells, as she found the steps at the side of the stage, as she scrambled up them and launched herself at the girl on the pole, the girl who had been her father’s mistress, the girl who had dared to turn up at her father’s house and ask to see him, as if she had any rights at all . . . Lola had thought that the silver stuff on her body would make the girl slippery, like a fish, but of course it couldn’t, because she would have slid right off the pole if it were. So when she caught hold of the girl’s foot, and yanked it down, she had a good firm grip, and she jerked the girl half off the pole.

  The girl was strong, of course, though Lola hadn’t anticipated just how strong she was. She clung on tightly to the pole and tried to kick at Lola, to make her let go. But as she twisted round and aimed her other leg at Lola, she lost her grip and tumbled down, her hands slipping off the pole. Grabbing at Lola in an effort to break her fall, she caught Lola’s head with one flailing hand.

  Lola felt her wig slip, and frantically she tried to pull it back into place. But it was too late. She was tumbling, knocked off-balance by the girl’s body falling towards her, and she couldn’t get her hands up in time. The girl’s grip dragged Lola’s wig off – not just the wig, but the wig cap too.

  The audience, which was already screaming in shock and excitement at seeing Lola’s stage invasion, started yelling now. Through the kicks and struggle with the girl, Lola heard:

  ‘Oh my God! It’s a setup!’

  ‘Fuck, she’s part of the act!’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Yo! Catfight! Awesome!’

  As the wig cap came off, it dragged painfully down the back of Lola’s scalp, pulling at her hair, catching on the grips and pulling them out too. Her hair came loose, the wig falling away, to gasps from the audience.

  ‘It is a setup! Look, she’s wearing a wig!’

  ‘Get naked! Come on baby, tear her clothes off!’

  Despite it being strictly forbidden, hundreds of tiny flashes were going off in the audience as they held up their phones and frantically tried to snap or video the dramatic scene in front of them. Lola and the girl tumbled to the floor of the stage, the wind knocked out of them with the fall. Close up, the girl looked unreal, like a heightened version of herself, an illustration come to life, with her huge, heavily pencilled eyes, the inch-long lashes, the stage make-up, the thick silver and green glitter on her eyelids and the diamond shine of her pink glossed lips.

  And she was almost naked, wearing only a tiny G-string. Lola could smell the girl’s sweat, fresh, from the hard work of her act, and hear her panting for breath, and the thought that she was so close to a body that had been intimate with Lola’s own father made Lola suddenly so revolted that she pushed the girl away with a shove as violent as she could make it from her prone position.

  Catching her breath, the girl scrabbled away, getting up on her knees.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ she yelled at Lola. ‘Who the hell are you? Some fucking morality police?’

  ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ Lola yelled back, getting up on all fours, shouting right back in the girl’s face. ‘Can’t you see who I am?’

  The girl stared hard at Lola, and her eyes widened, huge and dark, the ridiculous stage eyelashes framing them, making them look so big they took over half of her face.

  ‘Oh my God, ’ she breathed. ‘You’re Benny’s—’

  ‘Don’t say his name!’ Lola yelled.

  She reached out to slap the girl, who caught her wrist. The girl’s grip was like iron. They wrestled awkwardly, twisting and turning on their knees. Lola managed to catch the girl with her other hand, but she wrested it away. The audience were whooping and screaming so loudly now they were drowning out the music: all Lola could hear was the constant cries of encouragement, feet stamping on the ground. It was like being in an arena, the spectators scenting blood, wanting someone to get hurt.

  ‘CatFIGHT! CatFIGHT!’ a group of men were shouting, stamping their feet on the ground, a throbbing, pounding rhythm that drummed around the walls of the small theatre as if amplified through speakers.

  The MC was running out onto the stage now, his top hat bouncing awkwardly on his head, calling in his high voice:

  ‘Break it up now, that’s enough fun! Break it up!’

  But nothing anyone said could stop Lola from going after the girl. All her anger, all her frustration at the terrible things that had happened to her in the past fortnight, was directed squarely at the little whore in front of her, the girl who had seduced Lola’s beloved father, who had done things with him that it made Lola sick to think about, this girl who looked almost exactly like his own daughter—

  Oof! Something hit Lola squarely in the face, knocking her sideways. For a split second, she had absolutely no idea what had happened to her. She was slipping, falling over – momentarily blinded, she blinked again and again, trying to open her eyes, realising that she had just taken a bucketful of water full in the face.

  Spluttering, spitting out water, she wiped her face with the wool of her sweater. The girl was drenched too, but the contortionist had come on stage now and was helping her get up. He pulled her to her feet, and someone else was grabbing Lola now, strong hands closing round her arms and clamping them to her sides.

  ‘Stay away from me!’ the girl screamed from the other side of the stage. The contortionist had hold of her shoulders and was holding her back. Hair damp, water streaming down the glitter on her face, the girl – Diamond – looked more naked than ever as the silver body paint dripped off her, baring the pale skin beneath.

  ‘Then you stay away from me, you slut!’ Lola screamed back. ‘You dirty little slut!’

  ‘You bitch!’ the girl yelled furiously.‘You killed your own father!’

  ‘I did not!’ Lola shrieked back. ‘I would never! It was that bitch he married!’

  Lola wouldn’t have thought it was possible for the audience, already stoked up to absolute hysteria by seeing both her and Diamond dripping wet, to reach any further heights of frenzy. But this revelation did it. They went wild. Literally.

  ‘Omigod! It’s her!’ screeched a woman at the top of her lungs. ‘It’s Lola Fitzgerald!’

  The screams of excitement were deafening. Two huge bouncers thudded past the group around Lola, their tread so heavy it shook the boards of the stage. One threw himself against the wave of people trying to get up the stairs, yelling at everyone to get back. The other lifted up a guy who was trying to climb onstage, dumping him back in the crowd. Phone cameras were everywhere now, people jostling and pushing against each other to get a good view. Someone screamed in pain as a scuffle broke out right at the front of the stage, glass breaking as a table went over.

  ‘Ooh! This is the best thing ever to happen to Maud’s! You can’t buy this kind of publicity!’ giggled the little MC gleefully relishing the mayhem. ‘And Diamond – your career is made now! We’re going to be packed every night from now to L
abour Day – fuck slow summers in New York!’ His top hat tilted crazily back as he craned to look up at Lola. ‘The only person who’s in trouble is this young lady right here. You gotta control your temper better, Miss Fitzgerald. Aren’t you out on bail?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m getting her out of here right now, ’ said the man holding Lola, in the grimmest of tones.

  Lola’s heart skipped a beat as she twisted around madly, suddenly frantic to get a look at his face, sure that she recognised the voice – but how was that possible, how could he be here, of all places—

  She should have recognised the feel of his hands on her, and the scent of his aftershave, dark and woody and musky, like apple brandy aged for years in oak barrels.

  It was Niels van der Veer, glaring down at her, dirty-blond hair falling forward, silver-grey eyes glinting so angrily she thought he might burn right through her.

  Chapter 22

  ‘Come on, ’ Niels snapped, picking up Lola, turning her round, and frog-marching her off the stage. ‘You’ve overstayed your welcome here, Princess.’

  Three performers, all dressed in skintight leopard-skin catsuits, their hair dyed scarlet, piercings gleaming in their eyebrows, turned to stare at Lola as if she, not they, were the curiosity.

  ‘What are you even doing here?’ she asked angrily over her shoulder. ‘This isn’t your kind of place!’

  ‘I’m an investor, ’ Niels said shortly. ‘Did you think it was funded by a bunch of hip bohemians, Princess?’

  ‘Stop calling me that!’ Lola twisted in an effort to get away from him. ‘You’re such a patronising bastard!’

  Holding her with one hand, Niels reached out with the other to the fire door in front of her, dragging it open.

  ‘Out, ’ he said succinctly, pushing her through onto a metal fire escape one floor off the ground.

  ‘How dare you push me around!’

  Lola finally twisted free. Hands on hips, she stood glaring at him, the smoggy New York night breeze chilly on her wet hair. Niels folded his arms over his broad chest and glared right back at her. She gulped when she met his eyes; seeing him again was so confusing, because he stirred up so many feelings in her that she was almost paralysed with conflict. Of course she was furious at him for picking her up and hauling her round; but to be honest, she was also grateful that he’d whisked her away from that scene onstage before it got any worse. And then, as soon as she’d realised it was Niels holding her like that, she couldn’t help but flash back all too vividly to that time last week where he’d put her down on the desk and dragged up the skirt of her nightdress and fucked her so thoroughly she’d seen stars.

  Thinking of it now, even for the brief second that was all she allowed herself, she felt her entire lower body churn and start to melt with heat, liquefying deliciously, her legs going weak. She reached out and grabbed the rail of the fire escape for support.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at!’ Niels barked at her. ‘Your father’s dead, you’ve been arrested for his murder, for God’s sake – you’re out on bail, and you can’t find anything better to do than come out with your society-trash friends, get drunk and attack some burlesque dancer? What the hell is wrong with you?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to come, ’ Lola said weakly. ‘They talked me into it – they said it would take my mind off things—’

  ‘Your mind?’ Niels yelled. ‘You haven’t got a mind! You’re just a collection of primitive impulses! If you ever stopped to think for more than a second, you’d realise that your entire life is just a pitiful, pathetic—’

  ‘I don’t have to listen to you insulting me!’ Lola shouted furiously. ‘I know I shouldn’t be out, OK? I get it! And believe me, I know how terrible this looks! I don’t need you to tell me how badly I fucked up!’ She let go of the fire escape, her anger giving her enough strength to stand on her own two feet.

  ‘I’m going back inside to find my friends, ’ she announced, trying to push past him. ‘And then I’m going back to the Plaza and never leaving the damn apartment again—’

  Niels caught her arm with one big hand.

  ‘Oh no you don’t, ’ he said, shaking his head. ‘If you go back inside, there really will be a riot. I’m taking you back to the Plaza right now. You can call them from there if you want.’

  ‘But I need to get my bag! And tell them I’m OK!’ she insisted, bringing up both hands to shove against his chest.

  She didn’t move him an inch, of course. But as she pushed at him, she felt it happen, that spark of electricity between them, just as it had happened before, in the sitting-room at the Plaza.

  And she realised that she had done it deliberately. She had pushed him, knowing that it would provoke him, hoping that he would grab her and kiss her just as he had kissed her before. For some inexplicable reason, as far as Niels van der Veer was concerned, Lola had no shame. He could have ripped off her clothes and shoved her up against the dirty, peeling wall of the building and had sex with her right here and all she would do would be cling to him and moan encouragement.

  He was the only man she had ever met who had this effect on her. And she had absolutely no idea why.

  His jaw tightened. He let go of her arm, and suddenly she was terrified, afraid that he would turn on his heel and go back inside, slamming the fire door behind him, and that would be the last she would ever see of him.

  The night breeze felt as cold as an Arctic wind. He despised her. He thought she was just a spoilt, hysterical drama addict who made scenes wherever she went. He thought she had murdered her father and come out on the town to celebrate. He was washing his hands of her completely . . .

  But then he stooped down, and the next thing Lola knew was his shoulder slamming into her stomach, his arms gripping her legs, and she was shooting up into the air, her upper body sliding down Niels’s back so that she squealed in fear until her hips caught over his shoulder. She realised that he had picked her up in a fireman’s lift and was striding down the stairs with her body inelegantly draped over him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she screamed, pounding at his back. ‘Put me down!’

  Relieved as she was that he hadn’t abandoned her, this was so humiliating that she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t help but be grateful that he was carrying her as easily as if she weighed nothing at all; but it was so dismissive that it made her writhe with fury. Carrying her in his arms would at least have given her some dignity, rather than have her head bouncing around at the level of his jacket hem, as if she were a sack of potatoes he were hauling to a truck.

  The next thing she knew, she heard a car door open and Niels was ducking down again. She was hauled around, swung through the air, and dumped onto a wide leather seat, which let out a soft whoosh of air as she landed on it. Niels dropped into the seat beside her and slammed the door.

  Lola scrabbled back, getting as far away from him as possible. It was a large limousine, but not vulgarly so: Niels’s taste was clearly for quality over showiness. The interior was gleaming, polished wood, and the facing seats were of a rich dark-grey leather, soft as butter. A smoked-glass panel separated them from the driver, and the windows were tinted too: it was as private in here as it was possible to be.

  She was sealed off in a small enclosed space with Niels van der Veer, so close that she could smell not only his aftershave but the scent of him, and his physical proximity was making her heart beat so fast that she was surprised he didn’t hear it and comment on it.

  ‘You can’t just drive off with me!’ she said furiously. ‘My friends are still in there!’

  Niels laughed dryly.

  ‘You mean those girls I saw you with at the hospital? I saw what state they’re in – the redhead nearly fell over my table tonight. Believe me, Princess, they’ll all be too drunk to even notice that you’re gone.’

  The limo was executing a tight three-point turn. Looking as best she could through the tinted windows, Lola saw that they were in a narrow alley at the back o
f the theatre. The limo crawled up it until she could see the main entrance and the queue of people lined up behind the velvet rope to get in. There were paparazzi outside, jostling each other as they shoved as close to the doors as they could get, clearly aware that a big drama was going on inside. The bouncers were yelling, trying to push them back, bright flashes from the cameras illuminating the scene in strobe vision.

  ‘They’ll be so worried!’ Lola said, still thinking of the girls. She knew Niels was right about Georgia: but what about the rest of them? They’d still be there, having seen her hauled off stage, not knowing where she’d disappeared to, and they certainly wouldn’t be allowed backstage to look for her. They’d be going out of their minds with worry.

  Impulsively, she tugged at the door handle as they passed the front of the theatre. The limo was still in the alley, still going so slowly that she was sure she could jump out safely. She’d wait outside for the girls, across the street, somewhere the paps wouldn’t spot her—

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

  Niels grabbed her by the waist and pulled her away from the door so roughly that Lola flew back and landed ungraciously almost on top of him. She screamed, and she screamed even louder when he flipped her over so that she was face down, and, unbelievably, his open hand came down hard on her upraised bottom.

  ‘Someone should have given you a damn good spanking when you were young enough for it to make a difference!’ he said furiously. ‘Are you mad? Trying to jump out of a moving car?’

  He spanked her again and again, his left hand pressing hard between her shoulderblades, holding her down, as his right hand descended remorselessly, relentlessly, on her raised buttocks. Lola squirmed frantically, trying to get away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of thinking that she was giving in to him; she managed to pull her hands out from where they had been trapped under her body, and flailed, trying to hit him. He caught them in his and clamped them together, forcing them down into the small of her back, making it much harder to resist him. And then he spanked her again, even harder, a stinging series of open-palmed slaps that, even through the fabric of her jeans, made her squeal with pain.