Suzie and the Monsters (5 page)

I pause and frown. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere.’

He studies me closely for a few seconds before shaking his head. ‘I’d remember if we had.’

I shrug. ‘So, yes, I’m interested in naked —’ I stop, frowning again. ‘I’ve definitely seen you before.’ We stare at each other in silence for a minute. Just as he’s about to give in to impatience, I say, ‘Comatoes.’

He blinks nervously. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘No, it was. Just before Christmas. I was, er,’ I giggle a bit, ‘I was going to see if you’d like a drink with me, but your girlfriend was there.’

His expression changes abruptly from relaxed charm to a cold tension. He reaches suddenly for his phone, pretending to read something there. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Kew, but I urgently need to call someone. Perhaps we can do this another day?’

‘Oh,’ I say, projecting disappointment. ‘Okay.’ I get up to leave and reach over to shake his hand again. Beneath his cool, calm exterior, I sense a tremor of anger.

Equinox (Tuesday)

Cleo: ‘Can I see you again? Tonight?’

Yours truly: ‘What do you have in mind?’

Cleo: ‘Surprise me, bitch.’

Yours truly: ‘Jenny has some new DVDs if you want to stay over again. Ask your mum.’

Cleo: ‘She says fine.’

Yours truly: ‘Dave’s Place on the Waterfront. 11 p.m. latest. Your name will be on the guest list.’

*

The girl emerging through the curtain as Moby’s Extreme Ways thrills through the atmosphere of the strip club strides with an intense purpose, catching the pole as the beat kicks in and swinging up fluidly. She gains height effortlessly, coiling and contorting herself with elegant grace, the speed of her movements matching the rhythm and evolving mood of the music. She seems unaware of the audience, as if she is merely the medium through which the music and pole make love. Her speed and dexterity far surpass anything the audience has seen that night, perhaps ever. It’s fair to say that the dance is more artistic that erotic, and that the girl’s beauty is sensual rather than sexual, but for the four minutes the song plays every eye in the club watches the girl, trying to understand just how she can seem to defy the law of gravity, until at last she swings to the floor and fades with the dying movement.

Two piano chords ring out, high, low, and the dancer awakens, and suddenly piano music is rippling, cascading, around her, lifting her ever higher and spinning her, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu is introspective in contrast to the intensity of the opening number, and the new performance more balletic, more impressive in the obvious control and strength of the dancer, and in the calmer passages the dancer herself can be studied. Her bra and thong are matt black, natural rubber, dusted with tiny blue cubic zirconium crystals. Her long dark hair is braided into a pony tail and glitters along its length, pink crystals in a chord woven through the braid. Her feet are adorned with Pleaser sandals studded with rhinestones. For five minutes the classical music sustains the dance, and then both music and dancer return to Earth.

A few seconds of silence and then the silence is broken by the guitar introduction to Bree Sharp’s Cheap and Evil Girl. The dancer walks around the edge of the stage, almost daring the men crowding there to reach out and touch her. She removes her dark starry bra to reveal natural, firm breasts, and pirouetting with the chorus of the song she twirls the bra above her head and releases it to fly high over the reaching hands. With the next verse she dances and twirls, and for brief moments stretches her arms wide with one leg stretched backwards high above her head so that her naked breasts tease the outstretched hands. Suddenly, still keeping mood with the music, she is striding away back towards the curtain, leaving behind her an astonished crowd, stopping at the last moment and looking back darkly even as the song says ‘she can hypnotise, with her evil eyes’. Smiling cheekily, she returns to the stage, pulling at the side ties of her thong to release it, revealing her shaven glory for all to appreciate. Again throwing her thong high over the reaching hands, she dances with a new vigour around the edge of the stage, the sharp heels of her sandals moving with a dangerous speed as the song races to its conclusion.

She bows to the cheering audience, and then leaves the stage through the curtain at a cheerful half-run.

A few seconds later I re-emerge from a door at the side of the club and work my way over to Cleo, blowing kisses to my many fans and ignoring requests for private performances. Tonight I am Cleo’s, and reaching her table I bend down and kiss her Atomic lips hungrily before taking my crystalline rubber bra and thong from her hands and restoring them to their proper places. I wave at the barman, and he nods.

‘Surprised?’ I ask Cleo. She nods. ‘Having fun?’ She nods again, then grins widely. ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I’ve been practising that set all day. What time did you get here?’

‘Just after nine,’ she replies, and I burst into laughter. ‘I almost didn’t come in here when I saw it was a strip club.’

‘I’m very glad you came. And surprised.’

The barman brings over two glasses and the bottle of Graticciaia, and Dave, dressed tonight in a tailored white suit and a black shirt, comes over with my backpack, which I entrusted to him earlier. ‘Thanks Suzie honey,’ he says with a wink, handing me the bag. ‘Fantastic as always.’

I check my phone, ID, keys and cash are still in the pocket, along with make-up and condoms, then take from the bag a red velvet dress, which I wriggle into, and a parcel wrapped in white paper with silver ribbons. ‘Happy Birthday, Cleo!’

While Cleo unwraps her present with great care, I pour us both some wine. I’m so happy she’s here, was so excited that she would be. It makes me feel young and human to want someone for something other than blood or sex, although of course I want her for that as well. I shake my head to clear it, and breathe in the aroma of negroamara and black cherry. Cleo finally gets the box open to find a pair of the Louboutin Meteorita sandals that caught my eye in Cosmo yesterday. ‘Oh wow,’ she says. Cleo’s wearing a shirt with sailor stripes, her new Armani jeans, but not the Jimmy Choos. I guess it would look strange to dress up just to watch DVDs at a friend’s house. She takes off her pink Truffles, fastens her feet into the multicolour straps, and walks around for a minute in front of the table.

It’s suddenly clear to me how scared she is in here, that her outward calm is very fragile. Until I appeared on stage she was all alone in this terrifying masculine space for two hours. Women here fall into twisted categories of perfection, worshipped for their fulfilment of men’s dreams. How many men have stared at her with raw, sexual hunger? Have any asked her for a lap dance, or a quickie behind the club? Damn.

She sits down again, saying, ‘They’re great! Thanks!’ and sips the wine. ‘You were amazing on the pole. The other girls just treat it like a giant penis.’

‘There’s a few with decent talent, but they mostly take Tuesdays off. They don’t want to compete with me. Come back tomorrow if you’re really interested.’ She shakes her head. ‘Would you like to try?’ I ask, indicating the pole. She blushes, shaking her head again. I laugh. ‘I don’t mean now. We can come back during the afternoon one day, or there are plenty of fitness classes where people do pole dancing.’

‘Maybe,’ she mutters, and I don’t push it.

The distant chime of a bell warns me that there will be a new dancer on stage in a couple of minutes, so I shuffle round to sit side-by-side with Cleo. This gives me a good view of the stage, but that’s just an excuse to snuggle up close to Cleo. Ylang ylang infuses her long, dark hair, and I can’t resist kissing her neck. To my delight she doesn’t pull away immediately. ‘So, you’re a stripper,’ she says.

‘On Tuesdays. That’s how I can afford designer clothes.’

‘You do lap dances?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Do you...’ she can’t ask the question.

‘No,’ I reply firmly. ‘No one has ever paid me for sex.’

She thinks this over for a minute, then relaxes, leaning back into me, and together we drink wine while Tiffany strips and dances to Black Eyed Peas. An hour later, down to the dregs and both a little tipsy, we get up to go, Cleo walking with exaggerated care on her new heels, her wedges in my backpack. I wave goodbye to Dave as we make our way out.

‘What do you want to do next?’

‘Can we just go back to yours?’

I stop her and study her expression closely. ‘And make sweet love?’

She goes red. ‘I know I said I don’t want a girlfriend, but no one has ever made me feel the way you do. I need to be home by seven thirty tomorrow morning — er, this morning, I guess — but until then I’m all yours.’

I grin. ‘Come on then.’

*

Two o’clock in the morning, the bed sheets all messed up, my gorgeous naked Cleo drinking a tall glass of cool water while I unbraid my hair, both of us having enjoyed the past hour’s intimate exploration. ‘I’m starving,’ she says. ‘What have you got to eat?’

Just you, I’m thinking. Oh God. Humans are so complicated. I haven’t been able to face food shopping. I wander through to the front door and hunt through the new junk mail. ‘Do you want to order a pizza?’ I shout, and am relieved when she agrees. I take her the leaflet, and hunt for my phone and some cash.

‘I’ll have the four cheese,’ she says, and passes it back, leaving me to try and work out how to do the actual ordering, which I manage eventually. Cleo watches this with increasing amusement. ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen you get flustered.’

I’m embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I’ve been asking myself all night what a goddess like you could possibly see in me. It’s a relief to discover you’re not perfect.

‘I’m certainly not perfect. I’m messed up in ways you wouldn’t believe.’ I push her down onto the bed and we kiss until the door bell rings.

We take the pizza into the living room, and I slip Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl into the DVD player. It’s a wonderful film, full of brilliant colours, hilarious genre satire, and has my favourite film scene of all time. Yukie Kawamura dancing in a rain of blood to Man Hunt gets me so hot I’m all over poor, sleepy, bemused Cleo again, who doesn’t get more than two hours’ sleep before I’m driving her home to get ready for school.

Just Another Rainy Day (Wednesday)

There’s a sign on my door, positioned to cover the peep hole. It says: ‘I’m sorry, I’m not at home right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’ When the bell rings on Wednesday morning, I ignore it as usual. When it rings a second time, very long and determined, I put down my Sudoku and go to stand by the door, listening. There’s nothing to give away the identity of the person, or people, out there. After a minute, a note on headed paper is pushed through the letter box. I open the door without bothering to read the message; the heading on the paper is sufficient introduction.

‘Can I help you?’

The policeman is young, late twenties at a guess, and quite handsome in his uniform. There is irritation in his eyes that he has been forced to write a message to get my attention, and relief that his trip here and the climb up two flights of stairs was not in vain. I radiate polite friendliness and give an apologetic half-smile. I am dressed for comfort, bare feet, Armani jeans and an Iron Maiden T-shirt (‘From Fear To Eternity’). My hair is braided again into a pony-tail and tied off with a scarlet ribbon.

‘Is your mother home?’ he asks. ‘Or your father, maybe?’

‘I live here alone. This is my flat.’

‘Oh. Right. Are you Miss Suzie Kew?’

‘I am.’

‘Do you have some form of identification?’

‘Do you need my passport, or will a driver’s license do?’

‘Driver’s license will be fine.’

‘Hold on,’ I say, and close the door while I fetch my essentials. ‘Here’s my license, and this is my business card. You can keep that.’

He copies details of my license into his notebook, then returns it and studies my business card with interest. ‘You’re an investigator?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me where you were last Saturday night?’

‘Tomatoes.’

He starts to write this down, then stops. ‘You mean Comatoes?’

‘Sorry, yes.’

‘Between when and when?’

‘Approximately 9.30 and 11.45.’

‘And did you leave alone?’

‘I went home with Louise.’

‘Surname?’

‘You tell me.’ He blinks. ‘If you’re asking me about Saturday night you must know already that I left with Louise. There must have been fifty witnesses.’

‘Y-yes, okay. And, so you went back to her flat?’

‘Yes.’

‘And, ah, made love?’

‘We had sex.’

‘And then?’

‘I walked home.’

‘What time was that?’

‘One o’clock, give or take.’

He’s writing all this down as quickly as possible, but can’t work out how to ask the questions he really wants to ask. He stares at his notes, looking for an opening. I wait with infinite patience.

‘Why do the bouncers at Comatoes call you “the Countess”?’

‘I didn’t know they did.’

‘They do.’

‘I can live with that.’

He’s biting his lip now. ‘Are you a stripper?’ He blushes a little.

‘What kind of question is that? Do I look like a stripper?’

‘Please answer the question.’

‘I think I should call my lawyer.’

‘There’s no need for that. This is just a routine enquiry.’

‘Is is routine to ask a girl if she’s a stripper? You’ve been asking some very personal questions, and you still haven’t asked me a question you don’t already know the answer to.’

This makes him angry. ‘According to the bouncers at Comatoes, you are a stripper and your stage name is “the Countess”. Do you deny this?’

‘A girl’s got to make a living.’

‘I thought you were an investigator.’

‘I repeat: A girl’s got to make a living.’ His face flickers with annoyance as he bites down a smile. ‘But the only stripping I did on Saturday night was at Louise’s, and technically that was Sunday morning.’

‘Mrs Jones — Louise Jones, that is — claims that you bit her.’