Kira danced like Death himself was watching, waiting for her to slip down off the stage and wrap her legs around him, whirring round and round under the flashing lights. She danced only to darkness; hard, heavy throbs of songs made by angry men with angry fingers. Hungry faces lined the stage; waiting their turn to offer up bills for her touch, not much for a dollar, but most men only need a little.

I watched from twenty paces, across a table, but still found her to be above and beyond the usual blonde contraband. Kira didn’t shake her ass, didn’t jiggle or bounce; she didn’t run her finger obscenely between her lycra lips. No, she made love, hard and angry, to the air and the pole and the denim between them and her.  She caught me watching and smiled, shook her head at me through the din; the girls always know I’m here for something else, somehow. After the DJ called out her name and the applause ran thin, she stooped, scooped, and wandered through a set of double doors, flashing me a wink. I didn’t look up from my little black notebook when I heard heels crossing the tiles in front of me; I had known she would be along, eventually.

“You come here a lot?” she asked, sitting down across from me.

“Not enough to know better. Enough to know you’re the best.”

“Hmm. Nice try,” she said, sipping a water. “The pretty, easy ones are the best. The ones that look like your girlfriend or your wife or your secretary.”

“Easier to convert.”

“Right. I’m more of an acquired taste, I like to think.”

“Don’t we all.”

“But I digress.”

“By all means, get to the point, then.” An anorexic angel appropriately named Angel walked by and waved, lingering a little until she saw Kira’s face. Angel had a baby somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas, with a mom named Tammy Grigriosa. Angel had her baby before she became an angel, back when she was Terri Johnson. I waved back.

“That, is my point. All the girls know about you,” she said, lifting one finger up off the table. “But no one will talk. The mysterious notebook guy. The guy that pays his cover, drinks his drinks, but never, never gets a dance. The guy that smiles too much, and makes little notes in his little notebook with his little pen. The guy that some girls sit and talk to, for some reason. They never say why when we ask them, but we all have our guesses.” She glanced at the point in table where my crotch would’ve been, had the table been transparent. When I didn’t react, she took another sip and stared at me, smoky eyes trying to see something. “Hmm. Well, notebook guy, here I am. What’s your game?” Kira clicked her nails when she talked, punctuating her sentences with acrylic ticks.

“Is there a concern among the girls?”

Kira narrowed her eyes. “No, not really. We’re just wondering why the girls that sit here for more than five minutes won’t talk to us about you. Should we be concerned?”

“Not at all,” I snapped my notebook shut.

Kira raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’re a rapist.”

“Maybe I’m lonely.”

She considered this, staring again. Finally, she pursed her lips. “Let me see your hands then,” she said, putting hers on the table, palms up. I thought for a moment, and then set mine on hers, palms up. She looked at them, and running her thumbs across my palms, up my fingers and then back down to my wrists.

“Hmm. Alright. I’ll bite.”  

Two clicks, and those magenta lips were sucking live smoke through the stale as Kira told me about her mother. Tattooed down the ribs under her left breast were dates; the first, the day Mom was diagnosed, the second, the day Mom went into remission, the last, the day it died within and Mom was free. “She was, for a while, anyways. Cancer’s a bitch like that.”

I nodded, not hiding my smile at her cigarette.

“Breast cancer, smart ass,” she said, sharply. I shrugged unapologetically, and she stared at me, a little unsure. Kira was used to people being afraid of her, that’s why she made so much, up on the slick stage. Men love controlling what frightens them, and women are no exception.

“I’m not afraid of you, if that’s what’s got you looking like that,” I said, sipping my drink. She grinned, a feint. “You should be. If you come up while my song is on, I’m going to bite you now.”

“What if that’s what I’m looking for?” I said, slipping a smoke in between my lips.

“You’re looking for something?” she said, crushing hers out.

“Aren’t we all?”

“I suppose so.”

Kira’s real name is Catherine, and her Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. Six months ago she was declared cancer free. Unfortunately for Mom, the medical community is so un-phased by cancer these days that they missed the fact that it had spread to her underarm lymph nodes.

“Do not pass go, do not see your grand kids, go directly to the worms,” Kira said, lighting another cigarette. Her eyes were hard, but the unmistakable gleam was rising.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes darted up, but I hadn’t moved a muscle. I had this idea that despite her profession, Kira didn’t like being touched by strangers. Period.

“Sure ya are. Everyone is. Have you ever known someone going through chemo?” I shook my head. “Well it’s like…it’s like what I imagine being around the living dead would be. They have nothing but life, the least little shred of it, most days. Those days are bad, but the good days are worse, really. She’d feel better one morning, and so to celebrate, we’d start something. If she was hungry, a meal, a favorite dish. Take advantage of her once a month appetite with…baklava…Chicken Almandine… maybe, Crepe Suzette.” The first smile veritas of the night appeared. “If she wasn’t hungry, the worn gloves would come out of the dusty drawer on the back porch, and little silver tools would soon be folding the earth.” I watched it come and go, rising and falling with her. She had forgotten her cigarette, but suddenly found it again as the light bled out of her.

“But it never lasted. We’d get just past the phyllo dough or the crepe batter and her hands would start swelling. We’d prune one sad row of fucking azelias. I’d have almost forgotten, almost tricked myself…and then I’d look up and see shame in her eyes, the wordless ‘fuck’ that she never quite uttered when she realized she was fading. Her eyes
-the blue ones I’d always envied- they’d go from bright to dull, from Mom to…something else. Something too proud to be so weak.”

The silence set in, and lasted. And lasted.

The song died down and clapping rose, like the splatter of rain. She came out of it spitting. “Does this get you off? Is this what you come here for, to find out the sad stories behind why we do what we do?”

I set my jaw. “You strip because your Mom has cancer?” It was a gamble, a calculated risk. But I’ve been told that sometimes…sometimes looking an angry dog in the eye is the only way to keep it off your leg.

“You understand that the large black guys watching the door love me like a sister, correct?” She smiled as she said it, threatening me in the most polite way.

“I have noticed their attention shifting this way since you sat down, yes.” I waved at a waitress and ordered another drink. “And a shot of Jack,” Kira said before the waitress could flee. I narrowed my eyes. “You can’t drink on the clock.”

“I’m not. You’re drinking it for me.” Kira smiled with her teeth, mostly, little white tips below red red lips. “Do you know music?” She asked, finishing her water.

“I think so.”

She sneered. “You either do or you don’t, and people know which they are. If they don’t, they know not to speak up when someone discusses the ethical implications of liking the Beatles and Qasis.”