Tenderloin

by LD Marr

  “You’ve got a little muscle there, Myrna,” he said. “But you look like you need some more protein.”

  “Yeah, well. Protein is expensive,” I said.

  His hand was still on my arm, just resting there. The feel of it burned through the sleeve of my dress, and I felt disgusted somewhere deep inside. But the feeling was muffled, so that I could bear it.

  Claude leaned closer to me, and I could feel the heat of his breath and smell it as he spoke. That was even worse. But again, my revulsion was somehow dulled.

  “If you stick with me, I’ll feed you some protein,” he said. “You come home with me, and I’ll feed you the best meal of your life.”

  I smiled up at him with real satisfaction. I was sickened, but this was what I wanted him to do after all.

  My satisfied feeling was interrupted. In my odd new awareness that now included an awareness of Laz, I felt him close by. And moving closer. And I had a sudden realization that he was going to try to interfere with what I was trying to do.

  “Sure, I’ll go with you,” I answered Claude. “I’m starving, actually. Can we leave now?”

  He leaned back and laughed. A bit of a scornful laugh.

  “You’re in a hurry, aren’t you, Myrna? But I don’t like to be rushed. I haven’t finished my drink. And you haven’t finished yours,” he noticed. “Alcohol isn’t cheap either, you know.”

  I’m acting too desperate now. Laz is messing me up! I thought, just as I felt and saw Laz standing right in front of me and Claude.

  “Hey, Claude. How’s it going?” Laz shouted over the music.

  Lit by the club’s black lights, Laz’s lanky, thin attractiveness was a sharp contrast to the heathy bulk of the handsome man who sat next to me. I felt the contrast of my feelings for each of them even more.

  I care about Laz. More than just care! I realized.

  And I despised and feared Claude. I had to get Laz away from him. I looked up at Laz and scowled.

  “We’re kind of busy here,” I shouted at him.

  Claude laughed again. He pressed up against me and rested an arm behind me on the bar.

  “Pushy, aren’t you? A jealous type? Well don’t be. It’ll hurt your chances with me,” he spoke with a slight snarl, either drunken or natural.

  Then Claude pulled away from me and reached out to grab Laz’s arm.

  “Hey, Laz. I thought you weren’t interested. That’s what you told me last time,” Claude said.

  “I changed my mind,” said Laz. “I’m hungry, and I want that meal now.”

  “Cool. Very cool,” said Claude.

  He sat back again and looked at Laz with a wide smile that made me want to hurl.

  “Do you want a drink?” Claude asked Laz.

  No! Laz, No! I screamed at him inside my mind.

  But I stayed in a slouched-back relaxed position and leaned over to Claude.

  “What’s going on with this guy?” I asked Claude. “You just said you were going to take me for a meal. Is he coming along too? I’m not into threesomes.”

  Claude laughed at me again.

  “No. I can’t handle more than one at a time,” he said. “But I’ve been waiting for Laz to crack for a long time, so you’ll have to be next time.”

  Now Laz was standing close—too close. Claude turned away from me.

  “How about that drink?” he asked Laz.

  “No thanks. I gave up drinking,” Laz said. “But I’m hungry for some food. Can we go?”

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing?” I yelled at Laz over the music.

  He leaned toward me.

  “Whatever you think you’re doing, I can do it better,” he said.

  “No. You can’t. You have no idea what you’re doing!” I shouted back at him, even though he was standing close.

  “Maybe you don’t either,” said Laz.

  “Jealousy. I love it,” said Claude.

  He lifted his glass and tossed down the rest of his drink.

  “Time to get going, Laz,” he said.

  Claude dropped his empty glass behind him on the bar and stood up.

  “Man’s in a hurry,” Claude said to me. “I’ll catch you next time.”

  “What?” I shouted back at him. “You said you didn’t like to be rushed!”

  Claude reached out a beefy hand and chucked me hard under the chin.

  “Cute,” he said.

  Then Claude grabbed Laz’s arm and pulled him away. Laz looked back at me as he walked away with Claude. I stared back at him, trying to put a message in my gaze.

  Don’t go! I tried to tell him.

  That brief stare jolted me. It felt like one of those intense looks that I imagined people in love would share.

  Are we in love? I asked myself. No! That’s crazy, and Laz is acting crazy right now. I have to do something, but what?

  For a few minutes, I sat there frozen. I stared at the point in the moving crowd that Laz and Claude had just left through.

  Should I follow them? I asked myself. I won’t learn anything from that. I know where they’re going. And dressed how I am, they’d notice me. Then what would I do? Try to convince Claude to take me instead? He made it clear that he won’t tonight. In fact, he might wonder about me and then never take me. No. I’ll have to come back again tomorrow night, I decided.

  I turned around to face the bar and set my untasted drink on it. Then I leaned my elbows on the hard, sticky wood and dropped my face down into my hands. With that weird sense of knowing things that I still wasn’t convinced was real, I felt both Claude and Laz moving farther and farther away.

  Will I somehow sense if Laz is dead? I wondered. Will he be dead tonight?

  Why did you do this, Laz, you idiot? I asked him in my mind.

  But of course, he didn’t answer.

  I felt someone else standing in front of me. I looked up and saw the skin-head bartender standing in front of me. Scowling down at me. He reached out a thin arm, also covered in tattoos, and picked up my full drink. It sloshed on the bar, but he didn’t wipe it.

  “Bitch!” he said.

  He threw the full drink down into a tub of used glasses behind the bar. Over the club’s loud music, I heard the glass crash into other glasses. Then the bartender turned without speaking again and walked away.

  Chapter 20

  The next night, I spent hours getting ready to go out to the Tenderloin Club. All that day, I’d had a sense of Laz and of Claude too. I felt the awareness of Laz as something warm and joyful. Claude was something decayed and unclean, menacing.

  Both feelings were sparks in the far distance. And both feelings spurred me on. Through arguments with Frank. Through more arguments with Rita, who insisted I had to move out because I’d fallen off the path to recovery.

  I focused on painting my skin with black light gel while the two of them stood in my doorway yelling at each other. And at me.

  Maybe this situation won’t be a problem after tonight, I thought. Maybe I won’t need to live anywhere after tonight.

  But I didn’t say that out loud. I didn’t want Frank to try to physically restrain me from going.

  I went to the Tenderloin Club late.

  I need to make Claude wait for me, I’d decided.

  Tonight I stood out in the smoke-swirled crowd. The pink streak in my high-teased platinum hair glowed under the black lights. A hot-pink crop top over my blue needle-packed bra showed maximum skin. Matching low-cut stretch pants. Swirls of pink paint on my stomach and arms.

  The queasily dangerous sense of the man I stalked grew stronger when I walked into the Tenderloin Club. I knew he was at the bar. He was waiting for me, but there was uncertainty in his mind. I’d angered him or turned him off with my persistence. I knew I’d have to play this pickup carefully, but I didn’t have a clue how to do that.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to know. As I began dancing randomly among the crowd of other paired and solo dancers, the driving force in my mind pushed me back into tha
t fuzzy watching place and took over. I was there, but I was just going along for the ride.

  Other dancers tried to connect with me, but I moved closer and closer to the bar where the big man sat. Again, he faced away from the bar, toward the dance floor. This time, my former client Stella sat on the stool next to Claude. But most of her was leaning onto him.

  There’s no way she’s going to leave here with him tonight. I told myself. Even if have to inject her in this bar—or him.

  Claude sat accepting Stella’s attention but not returning it. He sipped his drink and stared with dark hooded eyes at the crowd. Watching for me, I knew. But not willing to show any sign of it.

  Farther down, Steve sat at the bar too. He faced the dancers but showed more interest. Smiling. One leg bent with the foot resting on a rung of the bar stool. The other straight out with the foot flat on the floor.

  I made my sinuous way over to Steve and got up close. I was careful not to look at Claude, but I sensed his attention turn like a spotlight in my direction.

  “Myrna!” said Steve. “You’re still around!”

  He threw his arms around me in a tight hug, and I hugged him back. Because he was sitting, and I was standing, it was an amorous kind of hug with his face pressed into my breasts.

  I felt the change in Claude’s energy from several seats away. Anger and desire mixed.

  It wasn’t normal physical desire, I realized. The feeling was predatory. Feral and hungry. As if I were prey to be devoured.

  I would have been terrified if the mental change in me wasn’t numbing me, calming me unnaturally as it took over my thoughts and actions.

  But I was still there. I pulled back from Steve and sat on the stool next to him without his invitation. Then I leaned over close and spoke into his ear.

  “Steve,” I said. “It’s great to see you. Can you buy me a drink, so I can pretend to drink it?”

  “Sure thing,” he said.

  We both turned around toward the bar, and Steve leaned forward and waved a hand at the bartender.

  The same skin-headed bartender who’d been there last night nodded at Steve. While he took his time getting over to us, we leaned close together and spoke into each other’s ears.

  “What’s going on?” Steve asked. “Have you found the guy yet?”

  “He’s here at the bar right now,” I told him. “The big guy about six stools down with the red-head clinging to him. She’s one of my clients. Was one, I mean.”

  Steve sat back a bit and looked at Claude. Then he leaned back close to me.

  “Whew! That guy looks like a major player!” he said.

  “Have you seen him here before?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve noticed him around here for a few weeks. He’s new. You think he’s the one who’s been taking kids from the club?” Steve asked. “But you said that’s been going on for a long time. How could it be him?”

  Steve was in his thirties, so I supposed that teenagers and even people in their early twenties were kids to him. People like me.

  “I think he was here before that, but he looked different,” I said. “I think he changed his look because of the videotape they’ve been showing on TV. You saw that video. Did you ever see a guy who looked like that here in the club? A big guy like this one but blonde?”

  Steve stared at me for a moment. His big eyes grew bigger.

  “Hey! I think that guy was in here! Before this guy started coming, there was another guy who was big too. A pale blonde. Really buff. But, you know, I don’t pay attention to the other patrons—I mean paying patrons. I mind my own business. It’s not like anyone in here is innocent. You know what I mean?” said Steve.

  I did know what he meant. There weren’t many people in this bar who weren’t doing something illegal, here or when they left. Underage teens who shouldn’t be here at all. Sex given in exchange for drugs and alcohol. Food and shelter being exchanged for sex with underage people.

  But I didn’t answer Steve. Instead I looked up. The bartender stood in front of us. Scowling. Tattooed arms crossed. Steve looked up too.

  “What do you want to drink, Myrna?” Steve asked me.

  “I’ll take a black Russian,” I said to the bartender.

  “Black Russian for the lady, Thor,” said Steve.

  Thor nodded but didn’t answer. He uncrossed his arms and wiped the bar in front of Steve but not me. Then he turned and walked away.

  In the bar’s brighter lighting, I noticed the tattoo of an ancient symbol on the back of Thor’s head. Lines arranged in a circle. I’d seen that design before in some history book at school, but I didn’t remember what it meant.

  “I don’t think Thor likes you,” said Steve.

  “Maybe he doesn’t,” I said. “He seemed mad at me last night. I was sitting with that guy—Claude is his name. He bought me a drink, and he was just about to take me home with him when Laz showed up. Laz told him, ‘I’ve changed my mind, and I’ll go with you now.’ And then Claude ditched me for Laz. He went in my place, Steve!”

  Steve stared at me again. He put an arm around my shoulders.

  “Wow, Myrna. I’m really sorry!” he said.

  I could hear the unsteadiness in his voice. My new sensitivity told me that Steve was upset.

  He actually cares about Laz, I realized.

  “I’m sorry I put Laz down, Myrna,” he said. “He’s really an OK guy. I just did that because I was jealous. Because you were kissing him. You know that, right?”

  Instead of answering Steve, I reached over and hugged him. Tight. I felt like crying, but I knew that would smear my makeup, and I wouldn’t be able to pick up Claude with a messed up face.

  “Don’t worry, Steve,” I said. “ Laz is still alive—I know it. I mean I feel like he is. I’ll find where Claude took Laz and the others, and I’ll get them away from there. The ones who are still alive.”

  I was promising a lot, but I believed I could do it. Part of me believed. Part of me didn’t believe but wasn’t scared thanks to the continued numbing of my normal way of thinking. Normally, I would have been scared out of my mind.

  Is that what’s happened to me? I wondered now.

  Now I looked at Steve eye to eye.

  He must think I’m crazy, I thought as he stared back at me.

  “You know what? I believe you. I believe in you, Myrna,” said Steve.

  Maybe Steve is crazy too, I thought.

  Thor showed up in front of us again. Still scowling, he plunked my drink down in front of me.

  Steve reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet, but Thor lifted a hand and made the stop gesture.

  “She don’t need your money, Steve,” he said. “That guy paid for her drink.”

  He pointed at Claude. Steve turned to look, and Claude gave him a languid wave. Steve waved back and smiled as if the transaction was between the two of them. Still in my character for the night, I gave Claude a cool smile.

  “That’s your cue to go over there,” Steve told me.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  I stood up close to Steve, between my barstool and his. Affection for him flooded me. Not the sexual kind but a real, pure affection. And worry. I leaned down to whisper in his ear.

  “Steve, you need to get out of here now. Claude is dangerous. Put your hat on, and don’t let him see your face again. Then go and don’t come back here for a while. For a long time,” I urged him.

  “No Myrna. I can’t leave yet,” he said. “I know this kind of guy. If he doesn’t think you have another option, he’ll be less interested. I’ll stay here till you leave first. But don’t worry. I’ll be OK. No one messes with Stevo. I got family. In Queens. Ya know?” he asked in an Italian gangster voice.

  “I know you’ve got family in Queens, but you’re not Italian,” I said.

  “I’m not Italian, but I can be tough too,” said Steve. “Just get over there. Don’t keep the man waiting too long.”

  I hugged him again. Then I wal
ked away toward Claude with a false drunken sway provided by whatever was now directing my actions.

  Claude looked at me and then pointedly ignored my approach by turning to lean down and speak in Stella’s ear. She smiled and giggled.

  As I stared at Claude, an unnatural redness blossomed in the air around him in my new mental sense. I didn’t stop to question whether it was real or imaginary. It spread out into the dancing crowd in the black-lit smoke and turned the space in between the dancers to grayish red. Then outlines of faces and bodies formed in the redness.

  I stopped in front of Claude and Stella.

  “Hey, Claude. Thanks for the drink,” I said casually.

  He looked up at me, and time slowed to a crawl.

  “Yooouurree....wweeelllllccoommmee,” he answered.

  But my eyes were focused on the dancing crowd. The red-traced forms became clearer—distinctly drawn young people. Hundreds of them. They packed the club and filled the empty spaces between the real dancers. Some even shared the same space with the real ones.

  The red-drawn images rubbed up against the solid dancers and each other suggestively. Others danced alone.

  While Claude’s words seemed to stretch out forever, I searched among the faces of the ghostly dancers. As if aware of my focus, they turned and stared back at me. Intense stares that burned with something that felt like despair. Stares that begged or even demanded something from me.

  I looked for Chloe, but I didn’t find her. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I tried to give an answer to their demand.

  I’ll try. I’ll do my best, I promised mentally, although I didn’t exactly what they were asking for.

  Claude grabbed my arm, and time sped up again. I felt the sense of his touch as something that pulsed sickeningly against my skin, but I didn’t flinch.

  “Hey, you look at me when I’m talking to you,” he said.

  I looked back at him and Stella sitting next to him. She slumped back against the bar, drink in hand, and glared at me.

  “Hey Stella,” I said before I turned to face Claude.

  “I like to watch the dancers, don’t you?” I asked him without apologizing.

  “Sure,” he said without letting go of my arm. “I like to whet my appetite. But when I buy you a drink, and when I’m talking to you, you look at me. Got it?”