by Kellie Hart
“Well, it’s your brother’s fault I’m this way, so that makes it your fault retroactively! THIS IS YOUR SPAWN IN ME!”
“You don’t even know what retroactively means, Char!”
I stand, slack-jawed, watching my two best friends berate each other, and I refuse to do a goddamn thing because it’s so fucking hilarious. When I hear someone angry whisper “Carey!” I jump and turn to find Chad’s curly, blond head peeking around the corner of the kitchen door. To keep the current domestic terrorism level at DEFCON Pie, I scoot carefully to him.
“Hey, Chaddy Cakes. What’s up?
“Fox reminded me that the bundt cakes need to be served soon. The old folks are getting restless. He’s got them watching reruns of Wheel of Fortune on Char’s flatscreen, but I don’t know how long that’ll keep them sedate.”
“Obviously, the cakes are not ready.”
Chad smiles wide at the disaster over my shoulder, his chocolate eyes rippling pools of joy. “Those two really love each other, don’t they?”
“They do,” I agree as I look back to see his fiance raising a rolling pin into the air to bing his sister over the head.
“Can you guarantee my unborn daughter won’t be harmed during the making of this catastrophe?”
“It’s what I do.”
“Okay, Carey,” Chad laughs. “I’ll leave you to it, but what do I tell everyone about the cakes?”
“They’re being served with Char’s new Cajun, blackened crust. And a dash of…” How the hell do I explain the fire extinguisher dust? “...powdered sugar. Yeah, that’s it! Powdered sugar!”
“Well, that sounds…interesting.”
As Chad turns to go, I spin on my heel to find Char giving Jacque a titty twister. Jacque yowls as if Char’s ripped her nipple off. I laugh again at my girls, and without a second thought, I stoop and salvage as many bundts as I can from the floor. I plate them, adding Char’s signature pink fleur-de-lis flags to each, and I leave behind the battling duo of Charmadillo and Jacques Off During Church.
Twenty faces and Atticus’s glorious radiance greet me when my feet touch the bakery floor. Behind me, the soundtrack of Char’s cursing and Jacque’s solo squeal of, “Get back here, you fucker! I want my goddamn nipple back!” add a nice touch to the party atmosphere. After all, Genevieve’s Cupcakes and Shit prides itself on a quality product, excellent customer service, and a charming dining experience.
I plaster on my best smile, thrust my goodies forward, and make eye contact with Atticus.
“Would you care for a nibble?”
LATER THAT EVENING, I STRAIGHTEN my wig in the lighted mirror over my vanity at the Hot Rod club. A wayward blond curl lands on my nose, and I blow it away with a little puff of air. When the fucking stubborn strand attacks me again, I rip off the wig in retaliation and throw it at my reflection. It bounces from the glass into my bodypaint then falls to the floor in a wooly, yellow pile.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter as I sweep up the ball of frizzed hair and try my best to salvage the curls I spent an hour earlier this evening preparing for tonight’s show. It is not as if the wig meant to piss me off.
“I’m sorry, Sophia Pe-wig-lo,” I say as I stroke the mop of buttery strands. “You deserve better. I’m a terrible wig mommy. I know. I know.”
Avoiding the glares of Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and the Sophia, in my The Golden Girls fan portrait I was blessed to have signed at the New Orleans Old Coochie Con, I cuddle Sophia Pe-wig-lo close. I’m not mad at my wig. I am frustrated with myself. Believe me: I have had a fucking terrible evening.
After I gave out Char’s bundts and basically thrust my chest in Atticus’s face, he only offered me a frightened grin, as if my breasts threatened to steal his lunch money. Then, when I handed him a cake, I fucking dropped it on the floor. AGAIN. It was not as if he knew that, but as I strategically positioned my ass to the best possible angle for viewing, Atticus scooted away to hide behind a solid wall of Chad and Fox. Adding insult to injury, he stayed there, as if the boys had been elected his personal pussy police!
Char has to be entirely wrong about him—Atticus does not have a thing for me. If anything, I think he’s afraid of me. Perhaps, he has joined some silent anti-breast movement! Maybe he is gay...which I could totally live with. In fact, that could be fucking hot—Atticus hooking up with Chad or Fox...or Chad and Fox. I bite my bottom lip as the beauty of that image forms in my mind.
Who would be the top, you think?
Atticus. Definitely Atticus. He’s got that whole Clark Kent/Superman thing going on, and he could just fly in like a bird or a fucking plane—Heh, heh—a fucking plane!
I doubt he’d ever come like a speeding bullet.
A knock at the door interrupts my raunchy reverie, and I toss Sophia over my shoulder yet again. As I bend to stoop to collect her, the door swings open, and Char enters my dressing room. In all our years of friendship, she has never been in here before. With hazel eyes wide in curiosity, she takes in my little space, filled nearly to bursting with a collection of costumes, wigs, and makeup that has taken my entire career to hoard. At twenty-four, I’ve been stripping now at Hot Rod for what feels like forever, and this space represents another side of myself that exists outside the bakery—the one I created years ago in response to my shitty, day-to-day existence.
I suppose, at first, I pressed my bare body to the pole because I thought I wasn’t destined to do better things. You can only hear You’re a whore so many times from the one you love before you begin to believe it. Please, do not think I intend to slam the girls I strip with—the hard-working students and single mothers who show skin to make rent each month—but my job comes with a reputation. I thought I was fulfilling my destiny when I chose this path. Now, years later, I keep stripping because I don’t really know what I would do without the temporary high I get when I play the part of Lola Golden, my alter ego for the performance. Putting on the wig equals putting on a mask, and for the brief time my set allows, I am in a safe place, much like when I hide in the kitchen of the bakery. Though the world is studying me—all of me—when I am on Hot Rod’s stage, I don’t worry about its judgment because it’s not judging me. The world is watching Lola, and I can simply dance, like I always wanted to before… Well, before Mike.
Besides, Lola Golden is Hot Rod’s most successful entertainer.
Who would pay to see Carolina Grant dance anyway?
“Uhm, Carey,” Char coughs. “I’d throw ya a dollar if I had one because your titty is hanging out.”
I look down and find a chocolatey nipple winking at Char. I laugh a sad laugh and tuck her back in.
“Sorry,” I say with a shrug. “I guess she’s a little eager to get the show on the road.”
“The show’s what I came to talk to you about,” Char says, fingering my wig as I slip it back on. “Atticus is out there. We’ve got some bourbon in him, and he’s eager to watch you shake dat ass.”
“He said that?”
“Not in so many words,” Char explains, “but I figured him out. He’s got a tell, you know. When he’s horny, he swipes at his lower lip. Every time I’ve mentioned your name tonight, he’s done it.”
I roll my eyes, knowing her words are nothing more than the manifestation of wishful thinking. “Sure, Char. Sure. It’s that easy to read him, like he’s some goddamn open book.”
“Why the snark, Carey?” Char asks, genuinely offended. “I thought you were going to trust me.”
“I want to,” I admit, “but I’m not convinced you’re seeing what you claim to be. Atticus literally ran from me at the party.”
“When you bent over in front of him to pick up that bundt cake you dropped, did you or did you not fart?”
Stupid fucking Velveeta, that evil bitch.
“Yes, so maybe I let another little one out. No one else seemed to notice, so I thought…that, maybe, he didn’t catch a whiff of it.”
“The flowers on the counter died, Carey.”
&nbs
p; “They did not!”
“Okay. They didn’t, but from now on, farting is not considered an approved tool of seduction.”
“Agreed,” I say, “but do you really think he wants me?”
“I’d stake all three of your balls on it.”
“Aww, you’re finally acknowledging I’m more ballsy than you. Thank you,” I laugh.
“Anything for my Care Bear! Well, let me go, and for the record, your Golden Girls fan art is really freaking me the fuck out. It’s like their eyes follow me wherever I go. Crazy ass old bitches.”
Char turns to leave, but she stops, her eyes bouncing wearily between my four middle-aged confidantes and the door. Even though Char is pregnant, she is rarely still, and for some reason that thought makes me take a quick second to study her. She’s six feet of skin the color of baked bread, chestnut curls to her shoulders, and a full, round, beautiful baby belly. A little, terrified smile plays on her lips as stares back at my picture, and her eyes widen as she puts up the sign of the cross. Despite even this, my best friend is fucking radiant—so very blessed, filled with new life. Her future, one made complete by love, is clearly within her grasp, and it is so damn close I can almost touch it myself. Char has everything I do not trust anymore—and it’s everything I never stopped wanting.
“You okay, Carey?” Char asks.
I bite my bottom lip and blink back tears. Casting a glance at my own reflection, I take in the full curves of my body, covered in skin that is the caramel combination of my parents’ mixed ancestry. Under my wig lies a strawberry mop of kinky hair that marks me as an Irish Grant, but it’s woven back into a pompadour by the tight corn rows my Haitian grandmother braids with dark, quick fingers. I am what many have called beautiful, but I can’t fucking see it anymore.
Adding to this is the idea that my chosen professions ineffectively blur the line between who I could be and who I was forced to be, leaving me straddling a divide between two identities, neither of which truly is who I am today. They’re easy roles to assume when nothing else seems to fit, and I’m too goddamn terrified to try something else. Unlike Char, my fucking present and future are incomplete, and I have no idea how to find what I am missing. God, I’m a fucking disaster.
And I hate myself for it.
A hot tear breaks free of the pack and marches down my cheek. Though my heart craved something deeper after Mike, I learned quickly that finding love, let alone trusting in it again, is a fucking useless task when you can’t even trust yourself. Or accept yourself. Or let yourself believe you are good enough to have what you want or do what you want.
Who can love someone who can’t love herself?
“I’m fine,” I lie. I turn on the antics as I always do when I’m dying inside, and I shake my breasts at her. “You scoot now. I’ve got a man to seduce.”
“And you will, honey,” Char says before kissing me on the cheek. “I feel it in my boner.”
When the door closes behind her, I apologize to the golden gang for Char’s rude behavior and tell myself maybe I am over-thinking this. All I want with Atticus is sex after all. It’s not as if he’s going to fuck me, and I’ll immediately propose marriage. I want a torrid affair with no emotional commitments. I want to finally have what I want. Most of all, I need to feel full when I have been empty for so goddamn long.
You know you could just make yourself a sandwich.
Don’t give me any ideas. A Carey/Atticus sandwich sounds fucking divine.
If he does actually eat you out one day, what would you call that move? One-Stop-Slop or maybe a visit to the Coochie Buffet?
I hear the theme song now: Come on down to the Coochie Buffet, where we serve fresh cooch every day. White, black, round, flat—we don’t care! Bushes galore or baby ass bare, it’s endless cooch for $9.99! Get ready for a lip smackin’ good time!
Of course, tax would be extra.
Of course!
I roll my eyes at my inner insanity. Sometimes, I truly wonder if I am the only one who talks to myself in the manner I do.
Nope. Can’t be.
That’s just crazy to assume, right?
If anybody is a whackjob, it’s Char. I can only begin to imagine what’s going on in that head.
As I give my bra and thong a final inspection, the familiar music for my Saturday night set rolls into the dressing room. I straighten Sophia on my head and pin her in place for good measure; then, with a little saunter to the stage, I remind myself that I am on death’s fucking doorstep, and only one thing can bring me back to life—an emergency dickindamy served up by none other than Doctor Atticus himself.
***
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Nola’s own home-grown girl to the stage—Lola Golden!”
The crowd erupts into roaring applause as I waltz into the spotlight set center-stage and offer the audience Lola Golden’s signature booty waggle and hair toss. Slipping into character, I blow a kiss at one of my regulars in the front row, and he tosses a twenty onto the stage with an excited hoot and holler. A damp finger trailed over my breasts, down my stomach, and to the floor retrieves the bill before I slip it into my garter strap. I wink at him before I step to the pole and stroke it up and down. That’s my little cue to the guy in the sound box to turn up the music.
Lola is ready to go.
As the heavy saxophone of Bill Wither’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” gets to my head, my eyes sweep out across the audience. I locate my friends in the back corner of the club lounge, huddled around a standing bar table, their gazes intently trained on me. The urge to give them a wave almost overtakes me, but when I see Atticus staring back, my mouth goes dry. He looks dashing in a deep red, plaid button-down. His bright blue eyes stay on me like beacons in the dark. Almost absentmindedly, his left hand holds a glass of bourbon while the other rubs at his bottom lip, tugging the fullness forward. I lick my lips, imagining my tongue on his mouth, tickling his healthy five o’clock shadow, trailing his Adam’s apple as it rises slowly up and down his neck. I can almost guarantee that one taste of him would never be enough.
Once you lick an Atticus, you’ll always come back to us!
Shut up, and let me have this!
But you know I’m right! One Atticus pop, and that hoe can’t stop!
For the love of tiny baby Jesus, shut up!
A quick spin on my six-inch platforms tears me away from Atticus’s gaze because I need to look away if I want to strip at all tonight. God, I have to look away.
I close my eyes and let the saxophone’s gentle wail seep into my bones before I raise an arm above my head and fall against the pole. Inhaling, I slide my body down the cold bar and stop mere inches from the floor. Balanced on my heels in a squat-like position, I spread my knees wide and push my ass out. It’s a classic move I have named the Blanche Dever-whoah!, and it works every time, especially when I turn my bottom to the audience and curve a hand around my cheeks. I give my ass a little slap then stand to waltz around the pole. I take the cold steel into my hands and prepare to rise. Twisting and spinning, I lift myself from the stage, until I am six feet above the ground with my left leg locked around the bar to keep me in place. My right leg extends outward to the beat, and my arms fall gracefully away from the steel. With a sensuous grin on my face, I lean back toward the audience and run fingers through my yellow curls, My movements free my breasts of the sheer satin keeping them restrained. On cue, the crowd cheers as I reach around and unhook my bra. With a little toss, it disappears into the darkness beyond the stage. Individual voices rise from the crowd, asking for more, more, more, and I know how to bring it home.
Curls fall around my shoulders as I rise back up to grip the pole. With a quick reposition of hands and a shift of weight, I flip myself upside down, my bare breasts to the bar and my chin to the stage. I go spread eagle, my heels pointing east and west. The audience gasps as I glide down the cool metal, taking my time, using my hands to lower my body inch by sensuous inch to the steady pulse of the music. I slow my c
rawl inches from stage; then, with a little, graceful slip, I lower myself fully to the ground. Collecting bills in my teeth as I go, I crawl to the edge of the stage and rise to my feet before tucking the money away for later. Skimming hands over my hips, I hook my thumbs into either side of my thong, and it slips down my thighs, over my knee-high stockings and heels, until it’s caught on a single finger. Twirling it, taunting the audience, I smile wide as their satisfied whistles goad me on.
After dropping the thong to the floor, I spin on my heel and sashay away a few steps. I turn back to the crowd and throw my arms open wide, my full breasts swaying in time with the music. A few paces forward, I free the vintage fans I’ve stored in my garter and open them with a little flick. Though the audience has seen every last inch of me, I tease them again with only hints of what could be. Brandishing the fans, I offer a peep of nipple here, a flash of bare ass there. Far too soon, a saxophone moans the song’s finale, and I look out to make sure Atticus is still watching. Atticus is more than watching; he’s stalking me with his eyes, roaming my body with a hungry gaze I have never felt from anyone before.
