Fidelity

Santana was desultorily singing about black magic women in the background as she danced around the little stage that was surrounded on three sides by a bar…and patrons. Like a double-wide shuffleboard table, her stage was long, narrow, jutted out into the room, and was surfaced with good wood flooring. Ironically, she kept a can of shuffleboard wax at the entrance to the stage to keep the floor smooth and slick so she could do her trademark slides…a high kick that ended in a rapid hell-slide into the splits. Every guy in the place watched that kick, eager to see if there was any chance that her jewelled g-string might reveal just a little bit more than was intended.

Wednesday was usually her day off, but the bar was short a girl tonight…that insipid Janine, all boobs and no brains at all had called in saying she had locked her keys in her car…or maybe she had lost them…and she didn’t know when she would be able to get her brainless platinum bubblehead to work. So, the manager had called her to see if she wanted the hours, knowing she could always use the extra money, what with the private detective’s fees and all. Besides, Animal’s bike had crapped out on the run and he was stuck a day’s ride out of town, trying to get it fixed. Kraut, Animal’s cousin, came by two days ago to tell her about the breakdown and borrow some money for the parts Animal needed to get the bike back up. She was expecting him back sometime tomorrow afternoon…so she might as well put in an extra night’s work…nothing else to do with her time except brood.

Wednesdays were rather quiet nights and, at nine o’clock, it was fairly early yet…later, as the soldiers began straggling back to the base, they would be stopping off at the Body Shop, right outside the main gate, for a last beer and a hopeful view of some hopelessly unavailable pulchritude. It was not a night for the gowns and boas and gloves…it was a night for bikinis and G-strings and as little effort as possible…she saved the fancy duds for the weekend crowd and private parties, where the money really was. Moving her hips in time with the pulsing Latin beat, she sidled up to one of the customers and gave him a slow, sexy smile, one hand toying suggestively with the bra clasp between her breasts. Leaning forward, her hands covering the jewel-encrusted blue crepe cups, she quickly flashed the customer, winking slyly at his neighbour. When the man reached out to try to touch her, she shook a finger at him, smiling as she backed away, hips never losing their suggestive pumping in time with the music. Tease, tease, tease…she thought as she moved out of arm’s reach…that’s what the whole thing was about. So why did so many of the guys actually think the dancers were available?

She danced to the centre of the stage, out of reach of grasping hands, and played a slow game of peek-a-boo with her bra, the patrons’ eyes glued to her as she pressed her ample breasts together, bra clasp undone, only her hands holding the cups in place. She danced tantalizingly close to one man, then back to the centre where she came to a complete halt. Slowly, acting as if the very act of removing her bra in front of fifty strange men was the most erotic event of her life, she slipped one hand beneath a blue cup and, covering her breast with her hand, let the cup spring free on its elastic straps. She repeated the motion with her other hand, the bra falling to the stage floor where she kicked it out of reach of the souvenir-seekers in the crowd…damned things took forever to make and cost a fucking fortune! Arms crossed over her breasts now, playing more peek-a-boo games with the salivating crowd, she looked up as the door from the parking lot opened and a blast of chill evening air blew into the room.

She stopped moving as she watched the couple enter the bar, neither of them looking up at the stage. A thin woman under a fluffy bubble of bleached platinum hair was being helped out of her coat by a slender young man wearing a distinctive fringed leather jacket. The music continued pumping in the background as the blonde reached up to cup the cheek of the man helping her and his head lowered to kiss her. He raised his head suddenly at an unexpected sound.

“You bitch!” she screamed, leaping up onto the nearest bar barefoot, her spike heels standing eerily alone in the middle of the stage.

“You fucking, cheating, lying, low-life, scum-sucking, man-stealing bitch!” she screamed again, jumping down from the bar and covering the distance between them in two rapid strides. “You back-stabbing, two-faced, mattress-backed whore!” she shrieked, hitting the blonde girl in the chest with both hands, knocking the girl backwards and out of Animal’s protective reach.

“I gave you a place to live when you didn’t have any!” She grabbed the girl by the front of her tee shirt with her left hand and planted a strong fist in the girl’s face.

“I fed you when you were hungry!” She dragged the girl outside the doors, knowing that a fight inside the bar could get her fired and she needed this job. She dragged her out to the front of the building, spun her around, and laid a heavy, hard right to the girl’s mouth.

“You fucking whore, I loaned you my costumes! Helped you get a job!” The girl was trying to pull free so she released her shirt with a shove up against the building, then dropped down and laid a right cross to the side of the blonde's jaw. The girl tried to shield her face with her hands, but received a haymaker of a gut punch for her troubles and started crying.

“I helped you when you were down and out, you fucking slut, you two-bit whore, you slimy piece of shit…and look how you repay me!” The girl had slid down the rough wood siding, curled in a protective ball, her hands covering her face.

“Get up, you sorry sack of shit!” she screamed, scuffing gravel from the parking lot at her. “You sneaked off with him for two days…fuck! I even covered your shift for you today so you could hang around fucking my man…you lie and cheat and connive…but you aren’t woman enough to stand up and fight for him?”

Huddled against the building, her arms wrapped protectively around her head and face, the girl simply shook her head.

She kicked the girl in her exposed butt. “Get the fuck out of here, you cowardly piece of shit. Get out and don’t come back. If I see you again, I won’t stop until you can’t answer me.” The girl struggled to her feet and turned her battered, tear-and-mascara stained face to the crowd appealingly, but no one moved to offer her any kind of help. Slowly she walked…limped…away, her pale hair standing out from her head like dandelion fluff.

Fists still clenched, she stood trembling, more with rage than cold, although it was pretty chilly outside and she was nearly naked. She felt a shirt being thrown over her shoulders, twitched into place to cover her bare breasts, and one of the waitresses from inside pressed her shoes and her bejewelled bra into her hands. The comments and congratulations from the crowd behind her were just so much buzz in her adrenalin fuelled mind...she stepped back into the club. “Hey, beautiful,” Animal beamed from the bar, raising his glass and holding out a drink for her. “Looks like you won me, fair and square.”

She drained the drink, a double Canadian whiskey and water. “Fuck you, Animal!” she snapped. “Give me my house keys.”

He looked bewildered, then condescending and then placating. “But baby, it’s over now…I’m all yours…you won the…”

She grabbed the front of his shirt, tight, up near the collar. “Give me my fucking keys!” she snarled at him, “And give them to me now!”

“OK, OK,” his tone was conciliatory as he tugged away from her choking grip, “But I got a lotta my stuff there. How about we talk this over in the morning when I can get a short to carry…”

“Now, asshole. Give me the fucking keys now or I will take them off you and you won’t walk for a week.” Her voice was alarmingly calm and low.

He paled, looking down to see her knee…and that strong, muscular dancer’s leg…positioned precisely between his thighs. “OK,” he barely squeaked out, reaching into the pocket of his cutaway and coming out with a small ring of keys. She snatched them away from him and released his collar with a shove to the Adam’s apple that sent him into a paroxysm of coughing.

“Noon tomorrow,” she said softly. “Your crap will be on the front stoop. Take it and do not ever let me see you again.”

“Or what?” he sneered, stepping back out of range. “Just what do you think you can do, huh? I’m not like Janine, you know, I fight back. And I’m bigger than you are…I can stop any move you can make!”

She had already turned away, promising the customers that as soon as she cleaned up, she would be back to finish her set on the stage. She turned back, hands on hips, bare breasts gleaming sweat in the spill over from the stage lights.

She looked him slowly, sneeringly, up and down. “Or what?” she echoed. “Or what? Well, I’ll tell you what, motorcycle boy…if I see your sorry ass again anywhere in this town, I’ll shoot it…and you...dead, on the spot.” Slowly she turned away and, hips twitching suggestively, sauntered back to the dressing rooms.