Back in the communal dressing room, she grabs a small pocket mirror from her bag and rushes to the toilets. Spreads her thighs open and examines the inside of her vagina. Yes, there’s a bad scratch there, but it’s not bleeding. She forces herself to pee, to evacuate any foreign elements. She washes herself out thoroughly. When she returns to the backstage area, all the women from her shift have already gone. A couple of dancers from the six p.m. batch have arrived and are already undressing. Katherine sits herself by one of the make-up mirrors and cleans the lipstick away from her body and slips on a cotton shirt and a pair of loose, baggy shorts. She replaces the mirror in her bag and pulls out her purse to safely put away the meagre notes from the parade. Jesus. Her heart misses a beat. There’s no money at all in there. She swears mightily under her breath. A Latina dancer she’s never seen here before gives her a strange look. One of the girls must have taken it. Could have been any of the women. None of them really liked her. Shit. She had all her cash in there. She can’t open a bank account because of her status. Nearly two hundred and twenty dollars, she remembers. How the fuck is she going to settle her bill at the inn tomorrow? Buy groceries. She’d never raise that much in tips in such a short time. Even if she were sheer sex on a stick. Complaining to the elusive club gaffer would be quite useless, she knows.
At the stage door stands Steve. He’s now wearing a sharp pale grey suit and she’s never seen shoes so shiny. The Miami dusk feels sultry. He smiles at her as she walks out of the joint.
“Hey, you were incredible, Eddie. Are all English girls like you, tell me?”
She answers with a feeble smile and explains what happened.
“Ah, pretty woman, don’t worry, it’s only money,” he says.
He leads her to his car, parked just outside, a big convertible with shiny metal hubs and metallic green paintwork. He opens a door for her, and she gets in.
“Yeah, but I needed that money, you just don’t understand.”
As he settles into the black leather driver’s seat and switches on the ignition and the air conditioning starts up with a vengeance, Steve says:
“I know how you can earn a lot of money.”
“When?” Katherine asks.
“Right now, if you wish,” he answers and picks up a cellular phone. The car glides away from the kerb as he begins a long conversation in Spanish. She can’t understand a word of course. She’d taken French as her foreign language at the Epsom grammar school. Wasn’t even very good at it.
A mile or two down the road, he completes his transaction on the phone.
“All set, honey. For a girl like you, no problem. You see, you’re exotic. Good money. Indeed,” he flashes her a broad grin, slips a cassette into the car’s system and a raucous beat fills the car, drums and all sorts of wondrous percussion punctuating a joyful Latin tune.
She says nothing but looks at him enquiringly.
“Relax, Eddie, relax, it’ll be good. Really good,” he says.
She doesn’t like the “honey”, the “exotic” or the “relax”. But what are the choices?
A penthouse suite at the Fontainebleau Hotel. A valet has taken the car to be parked. Katherine feels out of place in her shabby casual wear, but Steve reassures her. “It’s not important, Eddie, don’t worry.” The lift alone, shiny mirrors and gold-plated knobs everywhere must have cost a million. A long corridor with expensive prints all the way down the walls like a museum or an art gallery. They reach the door. Steve knocks three times. They open.
“This is Eddie,” he introduces her.
There are half a dozen dusky middle-aged businessmen in expensive silk suits that put Steve’s garb to shame. This is real money, she recognizes. Further back, there is another man, sipping a glass at the huge bar overlooking the balcony. He’s black, a giant, must be all of seven feet.
“Meet Orlando. You’re from England, aren’t you? You won’t know him, of course, he’s with the ‘Gators. One of our local heroes.”
The black guy mumbles something as he weakly shakes her hand.
“A drink, Eddie?” one of the businessmen offers unctuously. “Absolutely anything you want. A bit of food, we can call room service, if you feel like a snack.” All the guys are watching her attentively. Katherine feels uncomfortable. Never liked hotel rooms since that first time, that Tuesday at the Heathrow hotel when she had for the first time gone over the edge and jettisoned part of her life.
She declines the offer of food, has an ice-cold beer. Dos Equis.
The black guy still stands silently at the bar, looking her over. Most of the businessmen have settled onto chairs and a couple of massive couches. Waiting.
Steve sets his own glass down and comes over to her.
“See, it’s like this, Eddie. One thousand dollars. Yes, a whole thousand bucks. My commission is twenty per cent. Fair? No?”
She feels her stomach sinking. What’s worth all that cash?
“What do I have to do?” she asks.
“A live show. These gentlemen are important business contacts of mine, all the way from South America and down there, they don’t have the entertainment we have here in America, so they want to enjoy a real special show.”
A private show. Katherine breathes a sigh of relief. It could have been worse, much worse, she supposes.
“But I left my stage gear at the club,” she points out. “You should have told me; it’s not really sexy with these things I’m wearing now.”
A frown crosses Steve’s face.
“Oh, come on, don’t be coy, we’re not paying this sort of money for just a strip turn. A live show. Sex. Real sex. Fucking. Here on the bloody carpet, girl, where they can all see it all up close.”
“What…?” she protests.
“With Orlando here,” Steve adds, pointing at the towering sportsman. Absurdly, in her utter confusion, she vainly tries to guess which sport: basket ball, football, baseball? He continues: “Orlando is a legend. They call him the black stud and my friends wish to see him in action, with a blonde, with very white skin. You. Comprende?”
She looks at the black athlete. He is impassive.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, bitch, and you will. You’re not going to disappoint my friends, are you? Or you’ll damn well feel my mighty wrath, woman. Don’t disappoint me,” he threatens her. She swallows hard, gulps down the end of her beer. Steve takes her right arm and leads her to the geographical centre of the room, all the businessmen sitting in a circle of sorts around the spot, none of them more than ten or at most twelve feet away. Yes, they would have a good view. Full cinerama widescreen gynaecology in close-up. Better than IMAX.
“Okay, come on, now,” Steve says brusqely.
She keeps on standing there, hesitant.
He is becoming increasingly irritated.
“Eddie, I’m losing patience.”
He suddenly takes hold of her shirt and pulls it open. Reluctantly, she takes it off.
The men all smile.
“Orlando, she’s all yours. Let’s see that famous big black dick at work,” Steve says excitedly. “Ride the white bitch. Ride her.”
She unbuttons the shorts and slides them down her hips and legs. Her black knickers haven’t been washed for a few days. There’s a small hole on one side. She blushes, bends and with her back to the ring of businessmen, takes them off. She looks up. Orlando is already down to his underpants. His chest is quite hairless, the colour of ebony. He wets his lips as his gaze explores her exposed body. The bulge in his crotch rises slightly as he catches sight of her shaven sex. She places her hands needlessly in front.
He extricates his cock from the pants.
It dangles out against his taut thigh.
“Jesus Christ,” she says.
His penis, still soft and unaroused, is enormous. Like a donkey, she thinks. I can never take that inside. It’ll rip me apart. He faces her, a few inches away from her. She shivers. His thing down there is like a stick of wood, heavily veined, delicately textured. She smells the man, his odour is strong, fierce. She accumulates saliva at the back of her mouth and swallows it down.