by Unknown
“What’s the time?” Marianne sat up, pulling the covers closer to her. This high, overlooking the tops of the inner city’s buildings, the traffic noise was a dull roar punctuated by the occasional blaring horn.
“Fuck knows,” Brett said. “Certainly not time to get up yet.”
She glanced about until she spied the alarm clock, its digital display telling her it was past ten. A small spike of wrongness made her worry she had overslept, but she wrote that off as being in an unfamiliar place. She was only meant to be at Imperial House at six in the evening, but she still had an apartment to sort out. Remembering the mess, she groaned.
* * * *
Brett stepped into her home, and Marianne wanted to writhe in embarrassment at having him see the place in such a state of disarray. He placed a foot carefully around a broken plate, looking about.
“Looks like the cleaning fairies didn’t wave their magic wands while you were out.”
He spoke with such sincerity Marianne couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ve a friend who’s a locksmith. I’ll give him a call,” Brett said. He flipped open his phone and strode toward the balcony door.
Where would she start? They’d bought black bags on their way, and, although she had not expected Brett to come up with her, she was grateful for his presence. It was best to start in the bedroom where it was at its worst, then work her way back.
Carl, and she was pretty sure it had been him, had not been thorough in the desecration of her belongings. The clothes that were affected the worst were her outfits she’d need for dancing, but she found an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt from her college days she could wear while the cleanup operations commenced.
Although her back was turned to the door, she knew Brett stood there. It was more a prickling on her nape and the peculiar sense of being watched. She turned, and he smiled, his height making him appear somehow misplaced in the room, dwarfing the door.
“You look cute in that.”
Marianne blushed.
* * * *
Although he didn’t need to, Brett waited until the locksmith arrived and remained while the workmen finished with the front door. Although she protested, he also insisted on paying the men.
“I want you to be safe,” he said, then placed a finger on her lip to still her.
“Why do you do this? We barely know each other.”
“You still don’t think you’re worthy, do you? That you don’t deserve some happiness?”
“I”
The rest of what she wanted to say died on her lips, her sight blurring. It still seemed unbelievable that this tall, somewhat imposing man would take such a fierce interest in her. Not once had she ever considered there may be someone in the world who could be so intense.
“You intrigue me, Marianne. You come into my club like a little mouse, all but invisible, but the minute the music plays, you come alive and you dance, as if a goddess resides in your soul. You are wasted in Imperial House.”
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything. Accept things as they are. Live in the moment.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow will take care of itself.” His eyes burned into hers, fixing her to the spot.
* * * *
They made love again after the locksmith left and the place was clean. It was a mad, drunken time for Marianne, and she felt as though she had taken some sort of narcotic, because she couldn’t get enough of this man who made her feel so desired. His lips and tongue sought her most secret place, tormenting her so she twisted upon the sheets, pushing her hips so his tongue explored her folds, teasing into her moist passage until she thought she would black out.
She would not be satisfied until he sank his fullness into her, and although there was some pain from the initial thrust, it quickly bled away to pleasure, and it was a disappointment to finish. The only consolation was that they could start again.
Brett’s smile was easy. She didn’t ask questions, he didn’t volunteer answers, and they lost themselves in a non-verbal dance.
At about four in the afternoon, after they had dozed for a long while, he drove her down to the Waterfront and made her shop for clothing for that night.
“You are dancing tonight,” he insisted. “Don’t think you can chicken out because of what happened.”
“But you’re spending thousands of”
Once again a finger was placed on her lips. “Hush, let me do this thing for you.”
She couldn’t help but examine how he differed from Carl, who could never be definite, who would make her pay for her half of a meal out at a restaurant even now, shell out her half of the rent, buy most of the groceries…To have a man who insisted on the old-fashioned form of chivalry made her uncomfortable, as if it shouldn’t really be happening.
The way everyone looked at the pair of them also made her wonder. Before, out with Carl, she’d felt anonymous, slipping between the people. Everyone noticed Brett, and more than one admiring glance was cast in her direction.
Brett grinned at her, squeezing her waist as if to say, Yes, we make a striking couple.
But he didn’t say anything about them. Instead he shared trivia about Cape Town’s waterfront culture, entertaining her with tales about the dockside clubs where the sugar girls hosted their sailors during the days when the big tankers and trawlers had frequented the Cape of Storms more regularly.
“My aunt was a sugar girl, I’ll have you know,” Brett said.
“It sounds like it was a hard life.”
“Ah, she had some good times, some bad times. She was a sensible one, didn’t lose her heart over some Japanese captain who promised to whisk her away to Tokyo, or some Norwegian who would return next year to bring her to his mother. Didn’t fall into all the usual pitfalls of drug or alcohol addiction. Nah, my aunt saved her pennies, went overseas for a bit and put me through varsity, then bought Imperial House.”
Marianne wanted to ask why a strip club, but shut her mouth. The way Brett was smiling, the last rays of sunlight setting off sparks in his eyes, made her think twice. He took obvious pride in his work, in a world she still knew very little about. Who was she to question his choice in lifestyle?
“What did you study?”
“Never really finished anything, but some literature, history…art.”
“Those paintings at your apartment?”
He flashed a smile. “You caught me out. I painted those.”
“Why don’t…”
“Katja needed me. Errol was slacking off. My first big exhibition had just fallen through. It seemed like a good idea at the time. More secure than trying to convince the art snobs of my talent. I’d certainly spent enough time at the club, knew the business inside out.”
“Oh.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, my aunt’s a bit of a mother hen. Takes in all the strays, if I’m not careful. Doesn’t have much of a taste for business.” He flashed her another smile.
Marianne punched him lightly. “So I’m a stray?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“But you’re implying it all the same.”
Brett made a mock-innocent face. “I’d never. That’s Katja’s business.”
Before she could protest, he kissed her, hard, in public, and she could only respond, forgetting her words. If people wanted to stare, let them. She couldn’t remember when last she’d wanted to melt into another’s grasp.
But is this love, or lust?
She silenced her inner critic by concentrating on the texture of Brett’s hair, like a heavy silk curtain falling to obscure part of her face.
Marianne broke the kiss to whisper in his ear. “If we carry on groping each other like this in public, people are going to tell us to get a room.”
He grinned. “Maybe we should.”
“It’s getting late.” Marianne glanced toward the west, where the sun had already slipped behind the buildings, no doubt sliding into
the sea. “We should go to Imperial House, shouldn’t we?”
“Always the responsible one, aren’t you?” Brett straightened, but he did not relinquish his hold on her waist, half guiding her as they returned to the parking lot beneath the Clock Tower. In the distance, in the harbour, a ship’s horn blared its mournful note, and Marianne shivered for the first time, noting how the shadows had grown long over the walkways and how the kelp gulls huddled.
Although the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront was popular with tourists, and its developers had obviously gone to great lengths to play on the Victorian dockside theme, the place was all but deserted now, and where the working parts of the harbour intruded into the retail sections, Marianne couldn’t help but notice the rust, and the fact that the olive green water lapping at the quays was filled with litterall things she hadn’t been aware of until they’d become conscious of the time.
They spoke little on the way back, which made Marianne wonder if she’d said anything wrong, but the way Brett pressed her against his side suggested he was not angry.
* * * *
It felt strange to be among the first to arrive at Imperial House. The front of the club was still dark, the security gates bolted so tight it appeared as though the place could withstand civil war.
Thulani was there, however, and let them in, his grin a flash of white against mahogany skin. He didn’t look askance of Brett for arriving with one of the dancers, which was another stabbing nag of worry to surface.
What would the others say?
The air inside the venue was chill, like any place sealed during the day, the stench of stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer prickling at the back of her throat.
Brett paused next to her, surveying the stage from the relative safety of the passage leading from the offices and the dressing room. “Kinda scary when there aren’t that many people around, isn’t it?”
“Is the place haunted? It feels as though someone’s watching us.”
“Errol and Katja reckon sometimes, when they’re closing and the last to leave, that the place feels…heavier, for lack of better description, that someone’s watching them though there isn’t anyone there. The building is well over a hundred years old. Used to be an old factory with offices.” He shrugged. “Who knows?”
Marianne shivered. “I hope I never have to close on my own.”
He laughed, putting an arm around her shoulder before placing a warm kiss on her forehead. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
A shuffle of sound startled both of them, and they spun around. Tonia stood framed in the doorway leading from the parking lot. Something about her expression chilled Marianne more than the temperature in the club.
Her icy eyes narrowed, her lip curling, Tonia gave a small smirk. “Well, well, well, Brett. It doesn’t take you long, does it?” With a soft snort, she ducked into the dressing room.
Marianne turned to Brett. “What was that all about?”
He straightened, pulling away from her. “Nothing. Really.” Brett looked at a point somewhere over her left shoulder.
Unease coiled in Marianne’s belly. She didn’t want to give voice to her doubt about “nothing” because this particular “nothing” alarmed her far more than mere suspicion.
At that point, his phone started ringing from his office, and Brett offered her an apologetic shrug, looking suddenly like a boy who’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Something was going on, of that Marianne had no doubt, and she felt ill for having allowed herself to get caught up in it. But it was far too late to do something about this now. Sighing to herself, she entered the dressing room and set up her make-up and things while trying to ignore the death stares Tonia aimed in her direction when the woman thought she didn’t notice.
It was almost a relief when Katja arrived, and she imagined the temperature in the room went up a few degrees in an almost literal sense.
“Good evening, Mari, Tonia.”
Tonia muttered something, fixed dangly gold earrings to her lobes, then stalked out, a vision in scarlet.
Katja gave a grim smile. “Something’s crawled over her liver again.” She tutted and placed a box on the counter.
“It’s me,” Marianne blurted.
“What could you possibly have done, my dear?”
Marianne felt her face warm as she looked at her feet. When she made eye contact with Katja again, the older woman had narrowed her eyes.
“Oh. He’s a rascal. I’ve seen the way he’s been mooning over you, which isn’t going to help the situation if you are indeed getting tangled in his life. Things are rarely uncomplicated when it comes to my nephew.”
“I didn’t mean”
“No one means to, but he can certainly be charming if he means to. Just tread carefully for a while around Tonia, however. You’ve just made yourself a mortal enemy.”
“How come?”
“They were dating for a few weeks when she first started. They broke up about a week before you showed up the first time. She may feel a bit hard done by.”
An icy fist clenched around Marianne’s heart.
* * * *
It proved impossible to keep a secret among the employees at Imperial House, Marianne soon discovered. News of her involvement with Brett had done the rounds before the early patrons sat and ordered their first drinks. Although Sherry gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up, Marianne sensed a gulf open between her and the other dancers, a distance she’d hoped to bridge so she would no longer walk about feeling so much like the new girl everyone loved to criticise if she made a misstep onstage.
This latest development with Brett didn’t help her with her hustle, either. How could she concentrate on flirting with her regulars if she sensed Brett watching in on her from time to time? And he did watch her. His gaze was a pressure, a heat at the back of her neck, and whenever she turned, he’d be lurking somewhere near the passage by the office doors, watching her.
It should have creeped her out, but it gave her a thrill to know she’d captured his attention. It became something of a game between the two of them, and she swore he got off on her being with her clients.
After closing, they’d return to his place, where they all but devoured each other. Marianne had to admit that she’d never felt this alive before. Each touch, each blistering kiss ignited her nerve endings. Afterward she’d lie next to him, simply breathing in his muskiness, sometimes tracing his profile with an idle figure. His eyelids would flutter, gloriously thick lashes pressed together. A slow, lazy smile would inform her he was very much aware. He’d allow her hands to explore so she could not resist sliding her palm down the smoothness of his chest, his flat belly, then eventually through the black tangle of his pubic hair until she encountered his thickening phallus, hot against her palm.
* * * *
She should have seen it coming. Tonia’s spite found its expression one night when Marianne wasn’t as alert as she should be. She’d just finished a lap dance with one of the customers she now considered a regularan older man who always tipped wellwhen Tonia waylaid her en route to the dressing room.
The Nordic beauty was lurking in the doorway leading to the ladies’ bathrooms, and Marianne saw her too late, unable to twist out of the way as the taller woman brushed past her. A foot tangled with hers, and she fell, hard. Hot pain sliced up from her ankle, and, for a few heartbeats, Marianne’s world contracted to the sensation, and she struggled to draw breath.
Stunned disbelief had her clutching at her injured limb, tears prickling in the corners of her eyes as she tried to rock away the agony. Tonia didn’t stay to gloat, however, leaving Marianne alone in the gloomy passage, the stench of disinfectant from the ladies’ room sharp in her nostrils.
When the ache became bearableonly justMarianne tried to stand. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see her sprawled on her arse. She tottered to her feet, clutching at the wall for what support it could offer. Placing her full weight on her feet, Marianne gasped at
the stab of pain lancing up her leg from her right ankle.
“Bitch!” she muttered under her breath before releasing a hiss as she took a step.
To add to the misery of her twisted ankle, it was still early, and there was absolutely no way she could dance in this condition.
Her first instinct was to find Brett. His office was only two doors away, but something made her hold back. It would be ridiculously easy for her to totter into his arms, to spill the entire story, but it would only make her appear a tattle-tale.
Besides, it would only make things difficult for her with the other girls if she were to blab about Tonia. Biting her lip, Marianne hobbled to the dressing room, where she sank gratefully onto one of the stools, massaging the afflicted joint.
What should she do? A number of muddled scenarios played out in her mind, and she fought against the tears. Her thoughts were interrupted with Katja’s sudden appearance in the dressing room doorway, the beaded fringe on her short flapper-style dress whispering.
She knew immediately something was wrong, no doubt taking in the way Marianne crouched over her ankle. The mascara she was sure was smudged probably gave her away as well.
Katja’s dark eyes flashed, and she pulled her mouth in a grimace. “What happened? The way Tonia’s looking pleased as punch back inside after moping for the past few weeks is far too suspicious for my liking. And now, you, sitting like a rag doll with its stuffing out.”
This was her opportunity to implicate Tonia, and she found she couldn’t do it. “I tripped and twisted my ankle.” That wasn’t a lie.
“And Tonia had nothing to do with it?”
Mute, Marianne shook her head, but looked away, unable to maintain eye contact. This was, as such, an admission of guilt on her part, but she couldn’t back up the lie with words.
“You can tell the truth, Marianne. Tonia’s getting too big for her boots, and I need something to bring her down a notch or two.”
