“You’re not from here,” he remarked.
“No, I’m not.”
He sat himself down next to her; he wore a silk shirt with exotic rainbow patterns and baggy trousers cinched at the waist.
“Let me have a guess,” he smiled.
Katherine smiled back.
“I know, you’re Australian. I saw that movie, you know.”
She burst out laughing, her hand flying up, lost her page as the book fell into the sand and closed.
“You look like Nicole Kidman, the chick who married Tom Cruise.”
“So I’m told. It’s all the curls, you see. But no, I’m not from down under. I’m English, you see,” she explained.
“No kidding,” the man said. “I’d never have guessed. You look more Swedish, or Dutch, you know.”
“Actually Irish a generation or two back,” she said.
“Very beautiful,” he flashed ivory white teeth that must have cost a small fortune in dental care.
“Thank you.”
He took her hand in his, shook it and introduced himself:
“My name is Steve Gregory,” he revealed.
“That’s a very American name,” she pointed out.
“Well, not really, it’s Gregorio. Esteban Gregorio. But I changed it. Came over from Cuba. What about you?” he asked her.
“Eddie,” she said.
English Eddie was her stage name. Her damn mother had insisted on making her second name Edwina.
“That’s wonderful,” he exclaimed and offered her a cigarette.
A hundred meters away, the sea murmured and the waves of the Caribbean lapped the warm shore.
Katherine sighed.
Steve had brown eyes. Dangerous eyes. The sort she’d seen before, the type of eyes that could make her do things she shouldn’t. The top buttons of his shirt were open to reveal an abundant growth on his brown chest. She surprised herself by looking down at his trousers and the strong bulge there, and thinking what sort of shape his cock must be.
Later, he took her for a light but spicy salad lunch to this hut further down the beach. It was delicious but she drank too much wine. He seemed genuinely surprised when he found out where she worked, but he kept his hands to himself. He told her about Cuba, spoke of politics and food and, gazing at her, of things of beauty. And fast sports cars.
And was dumbfounded when he learned that she did not drive.
“You mean you haven’t got a car?” he asked her.
“No, I’ve never even taken driving lessons.”
“Amazing,” he said.
“Well, I’m just an old-fashioned girl, I suppose,” she answered.
When they parted in late afternoon, he had a business appointment he just couldn’t put off any longer, he gently kissed her on the cheek. Gallant to a tee. She had expected more. He promised to come and see her at the club very soon.
“You must be a fantastic dancer,” he said. “I can’t wait.” In fact, Katherine wasn’t very good at the dancing thing, really. The other girls working at the joint were all so much better, they had more natural rhythm, the blacks and the Latinas. So, to capture the attention of the men in the audience, she knows she has to offer something different. Not just her amazon build and fair skin and heavy hips. She has shaved her sex, banned the dark curls from between her strong thighs and only kept a thin line of pubic thatch rising straight above the gash, like a small arrow pointing toward her navel. Maria, who helped her do it one evening, had suggested she trim it in the shape of a heart, but Katherine felt that would be quite vulgar and inappropriate. Before every shift, she carefully places a cube of ice over her nipples to render them erect, hard, more prominent, then dries the aroused tips and rouges them with shocking red lipstick. Then, she dips the stick toward her outer labia and colours them beautiful, a fine line on either side delineating the lips, gently separating the geometric poles of her nether opening. She has to remember during her act not to smudge the war paint too much. The other dancers don’t like her too much. They think she’s a snob, can’t really gossip or indulge in silly small talk like they do between sets. She’s the first stripper they’ve come across who spends her time in the dressing room when not on duty actually reading books. By people they’ve never even heard of. Not your usual Stephen Kings or John Grishams. Thinks she’s clever and better than us, does English Eddie, they grumble between themselves.
It’s the little extras, Katherine knows, that keep the tips coming. She pouts like other dancers, smiles hypocritically as she sheds the thin items of exotic clothing, sticks out her tongue in pre-orgasmic languor, licks her fingers as she would a penis, bumps and grinds like the best of all sluts, teases the invisible males out there carelessly, quickly opening her thighs wide and obscuring the forbidden vista with the palm of her hand, bends over unchastely to reveal the darker band of skin dividing her arse, dances the night and day away, while her mind remains on cruise control, empty of thoughts. She senses the clients in the outlying audience, the smell of man, a quick thrust of her lower stomach forward and there must be one there, no, there, who’s j erking off to the sight of her, his hand buried deep inside the trouser pocket, holding his cock in a tight noose as he moves the envelope of his palm and fingers up and down the trunk and comes all over his underwear. She rubs her damp crotch against the small Afghan carpet she now dances on, to avoid splinters in her feet, grinds her lower stomach against the hard floor and a few artificial moans escape as the music quietens momentarily, and somewhere in the back row must be a guy with his dick actually out, rubbing away furiously under a newspaper or a magazine while he drinks in the sheer erotic vision of her and imagines her spread-eagled on some filthy bed while he fucks her like there was no tomorrow. Likely story. Yes, they masturbate, they dream, they drool, and this way, she rationalizes, she has power over them.
Control.
Of men.
Like the two left far behind.
The house lights come on, the stage lights dim and the dancers stream out and tour the front rows. They are fully nude. Some of the guys in the audience leave then, while others hurriedly move to the edge of the stage if there is still free space. With their back to the men, the women move from seat to seat, up to a couple of minutes next to each respective guy, words are exchanged, greenbacks change hand and the transaction completed, the stripper either sits on the guy’s lap while he paws her breasts until his time is up or alternately stands in close proximity to the punter and allows his hands to wander all over her body. The first two customers say nothing and Katherine moves on to the next seat. The man remains silent, but nods positively. He slips her a couple of crumpled notes. He’s old. He rises, he’s short, but then most men are compared to her. She moves closer to him, her bust rising gently. He peers at her eyes. His own are watery and vacant. He lowers his hand to her cunt, and swiftly inserts a finger inside her, stretching her dryness.
“Hey!” she exclaims. “Off limits.”
But the elderly customer fails to respond. They can mangle the dancers’ breasts, guessing which are real or silicone-assisted, they can slime over their skin to their heart’s content, they can touch, caress, tiptoe like piano-players over the soft bodies, but not down there. His finger moves deeper and Katherine is obliged to open her thighs more to facilitate his intrusion. His nails are scratching her insides. His breath stinks to high heaven. She’s about to seize his errant hand to pull it away when the next dancer in line jostles up to her for her turn and the man withdraws and sits down again. Katherine moves on down the flesh parade. It only took a minute or so, or was it more? None of the other men want her, they’ve had their fill of skin elsewhere already.
It itches like hell inside. She just hopes it’s not bleeding from his nails, that he has not infected her. She’s an illegal alien, enjoys no medical protection.