The Book

Evening woke her up with a kiss, the sounds of a Friday night beginning to gear up drifting in the 3^rd floor window from the street below.

Eila lay still for a long moment, absorbing the cooking smells from the Mexican family across the hall, the cranked up rap from the kids down on the sidewalk, the smudgey blue-gray light filtering in through her dirty white curtains. The Chicago night was coming on.

She hauled herself off the bed with a groan, and sat down at her vanity table, the one she'd begged from as a kid, then hauled with her all the way from Iowa when she'd moved out. The little lightbulbs framing the mirror made her face look pale and haggared. The light was mercelous, deepening the purple circles under her eyes, and making the zit on her chin lurid. She reached for her red lipstick and sighed.

                                 ***

The new bouncer, Jimmy, waved at her as she came in the door of the club.

"You're...Eila, right?" He asked, his smile disarmingly sincere. He could have been an insurance salesman, constantly beaming and disturbingly friendly.

"Yep." Eila said, not returning the smile. She pushed open the black door to the right of the low stage area, feeling his eyes on the back of her neck like searchlights.

Dina was already in the dressing room in costume, smoking and reading a trashy romance novel.

Eila bent and peered at the cover of the book, called "Passion at Broken Arrow Pass."

"Why do you read that crap Dina?" Eila asked, shaking her head.

Dina let out a long puff of smoke, but didn't look up.

                               ***

Within half an hour, all the other women who were working that night had arrived. The dressing room was hot and noisy, toxically sweet with the smell of hairpray and ciggarettes.

Eila sat in her costume, white tonight, flowing chiffon skirt and filmy shawl concealing the white g-string and nipple cups beneath. She turned a page in her book, a volume of Sylvia Plath's poetry. The words were rich and dark and honest, laying bare the bones of the world. Despite the heat of the room, a slight shiver tingled in the base of her spine.

                               ***

11:00pm. Showtime. The club was noisy and dark, smoke hovering above the sea of little tables like fog.

Eila ran her fingers along the edge of the black curtain, waiting for her cue, the cheap immatation velvet feeling sticky under her touch. The low wail of a saxophone split the air of the club, rising rich and plaintive before softly dying away. The club stilled to a murmur, the expectant faces in the darkness like moons, all eyes on the stage. Eila slipped from the curtains, the chiffon rippling against her bare skin, the lights were on her, blue and ghostly, and she struck her first pose. The music began.

                               ***

The first time she'd stripped it had been for her first boyfriend, when she was 16. She hadn't wanted to, but he'd pleaded, cajoled, using that inflection of excitement and guilt that countless teenage boys have mastered to get what they want from their girlfriends. They were at his house, up in his bedroom full of hockey posters and dirty laundry. His parents were gone.

"C'mon, all the other girls will do it for their boyfriends. What's wrong with you?" He'd been sprawled on his bed, half-grinning to moderate the sting of his words.

Eila had looked down at her knees, hidden safe under jeans. No one had seen her naked since she'd been a little kid. When she took a shower, she tried not to look in the mirror. When she did, she always felt a combination of fascination and disgust. Her legs were too thick, and no matter how often she shaved, there always seemed to be a fine prickling of hair. Her stomach was small, but stuck out roundly, her breasts hung large and ponderous as beached whales, not shapely and pert like the breasts in her brother's porn magazines, but oblong and tired looking. Her pubic hair was a dark island floating disgracefully between her legs. There were zits on her shouldars.

The thought of baring her body to him made her feel sick.

"Eila, you're gorgeous, c'mon." Then he said softly "Hey, I love you. Please. For me?"

Eila shivered, staring at the poster of Wayne Gretzski oer his bed. Then she stood up slowly, and took off her shirt, then her pants, and finally her bra, her exposed flesh so normal and pitiful it made her want to cry. Then she pulled off her underwear with the little teddybears on it, and didn't meet his eyes.

                                  ***

The lights were no longer mysterious blue, they flashed white hot and voluptuous pink, and the music was reaching crescendo as Eila threw the filmy white shawl into the audience, to mild applause. Her skin gleamed white as she shook her almost naked breasts, and swiveled and gyrated around the stage.

In this setting, her body was no longer intimate, no longer personal, no longer something to shame her. She'd learned to divorce her self-image from her work. With the lights blinding her, isolating her in a little island of the stage and the music and her body, it was almost as if she were alone. When she stripped, it wasn't self-concious anymore, her very soul being layed bare, it was just a job, just a dance, just more skin. The patrons didn't give a shit who she was. They didn't really give a shit about her body either, as long as she was nearly naked, and appearing to have a good time. It was just a job. Easy, good money, and in her opinion, less demeaning than waiting tables. When she'd tried waitressing, the sexual innudendo had been thick enough to cut with a knife, yet always held edgily just below the surface. It was common knowledge that most of the employees slept with the manager, or various customers. And yet you still had to be friendly to all assholes, still greet them with a smile and say "How many I help you?" Strained Barbie falsetto, acting as though they weren't staring at your ass. This was up front, saying "Yeah, this is me naked, stare at my tits, see if I care. At least we both agree on what exactly I'm being payed for." This at least, was honest.

The music ended, and there was applause, crackling around Eila in the middle of the white light island, panting slightly from the dance, sweat beading her back and forhead. The lights were cut, and she disappeared into the cheap black folds of the curtains.

Back in the dressing room, she took off the sweaty costume and pulled on her own clothes, so comforting in their bulky cotton normalness.

Dina was sitting exactly where Eila had left her, still reading, still smoking. Eila stared at her for a long moment, then grabbed the romance novel from her hands, and gave her the Sylvia Plath book instead.

Dina looked up, her eyes tired and mad. Eila nodded at her, and smiled slowly.

"Sylvia Plath" she said. "I think you'll identify better with her than the heroine of your romance novel."

Then Eila was out of the door, out of the room that smelled like sweat and makeup and unglittered reality. She threw open the back door of the club, and drew in a deep breath of the steamy, rich, polluted Chicago night. Then she ran square into Jimmy.

"Hey" he said awkwardly, silhouetted against the streetlight, hands in his pockets. "You were really good tonight."

Eila stepped back, every muscle tensed. "Thanks" she said tihgtly, "I've gotta run." He didn't move out of her path, so she brushed by him roughly. But as she did so, he caught her wrist in a grip like iron.

"Back off!" She yelled, and his grip loosened slightly, but she couldn't break it. She kicked, aiming for his groin, but he was faster than her, dodging the blow, and at the same time, bringing her arm sharply behind her back, making her inhale with pain.

She screamed. He was trying to drag her into the alley, farther away from earshot of the club, out of the light. She struggled, but he was a bouncer, and she wasn't, and he had her in a grip she couldn't break, and a hand over her mouth. Her arm screamed in pain. Panic froze her mind like ice. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening to her. No.

Then from out of nowhere, a figure hurtled against both of them, breaking Jimmy's grip. Eila stumbled, her arm throbbing, then watched amazed, as the figure kicked Jimmy expertly, bringing him to his knees with a cry. The figure kicked again, and Jimmy slumped against the alley wall, moaning.

Eila knew she should run, but something held her to the spot, transfixed.

The figure backed away from Jimmy and turned towards her. Eila caught her breath.

"C'mon, let's get out of here." Dina said bruskly. She grabbed Eila's wrist, adn ran down the alley, back onto the street.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

Eila nodded, rubbing her arm. "Good God Dina, how did you...?" Eila stared at her, shaking her head.

For the first time since Eila had known her, Dina actually smiled. "I grew up in the slums." She said shortly, and turned to go, but then paused. "You take care of yourself now, you hear? Enroll in a self-defense class or something."

Eila took a deep breath, still reeling from the events of the last five minutes. "I will." she said, still rubbing her arm.

"Oh yeah," Dina added, the streetlight illuminating her odd half-grin, "thanks for the book."