The Dance of Chloe-Patra

 

Hillary Lyon

 

 

      “I’m tellin’ ya, man, we gotta go check this out.” Kurt scraped a match on a small decorative rock on the bar and lit his cigarette.

      “I got no interest in seein’ that kinda thing.” His friend Tiny grabbed his beer bottle by the neck and took a long pull.

      “Listen,” Kurt insisted, “there’s this one that’s all wrapped in bandages like a mummy, and if you can grab a loose end, you can unroll her. Right there on stage.” He took a deep drag off his cigarette. “She’ll spin like a top.” He laughed, and the laugh crumbled into a phlegmy cough.

      “I dunno.” Tiny signaled to the bartender for another beer. “What if one gets loose? I don’t wanna end up shredded and eaten.” The bartender took away his empty bottle. “Or worse, like one of them.”

      “I’m tellin’ ya, it’s safe. They’d be outta business if it wasn’t.” Kurt tossed his cigarette into the ice in the bottom of his glass. It hissed and the bartender scowled. “That joint has a license and security and everything.” He got off his bar stool and slapped Tiny on the back. “My treat. It’ll be fun—a real night to remember.”

      * * *

      The passenger side door creaked open as Tiny got out of Kurt’s rust-mottled 1980 Ford pickup truck. He scanned the dirt parking lot; theirs was the only vehicle parked there tonight. The club itself looked closed, save for the blinking red neon sign shouting Club Kuru was OPEN.

      “I don’t know, man,” Tiny began, “this place looks—”

      “Like it’s deserted, right?”

      More like a prison, Tiny wanted to say. Those iron bars on the windows and that single blueish light over the door don’t exactly scream party time! Instead he muttered, “Well…”

      “Well, it’s not!” Kurt snorted. “It’s just the middle of the week, and it’s still early. Besides, this way we get good seats. Right next to the landing strip.” ‘Landing strip’ was what Kurt called the strippers’ stage. Kurt turned and walked toward the entrance, kicking up small clouds of dust as he did. Tiny dutifully followed.

      The bouncer posted at the door was about 6’6”, Tiny guessed, and built like a pro-football linebacker. Which the guy was, as Tiny recognized him from stories in the local sports news. Marvin something or other. Cut from the region’s team for…? Tiny couldn’t remember if it was for drugs or sexual assault or bar fights, but he did remember the distinctive voodoo-sign tattoo on the left side of the guy’s face. The sigil of the god Papa Legba, or so one news story had reported.

      Marvin didn’t say a word when the two approached.

      “Hey, ah, how much to get in?” Kurt asked.

      Looking over their heads so he could survey the parking lot, Marvin answered in a monotone. “Pay at the ticket booth in the lobby.” He opened the door behind himself to allow them passage.

      “Thanks,” Tiny said as he passed under Marvin’s arm. Kurt didn’t say a word.

      The lobby was small and dingy, with walls lined with old posters advertising burlesque acts (“Watch Miss Lolli Pop Her Bubbles!”) and famous though now forgotten strippers. A newer poster held a place of honor on a brass easel by the ticket booth. “One Month Only! See the Shocking Sexy Dance of Chloe-Patra! Plus 2 More Seductresses.” The words crossed diagonally over a heavily-filtered image of a shapely female mummy.

      “Chloe-Patra?” Tiny laughed as he read the sign.

      “Couldn’t call her Cleopatra. Trademark issues, or something. Some act in Vegas already claimed that stage name.” Kurt said as he approached the ticket booth.

      Behind the bars of the booth, a gaunt bored blonde smoked while smacking her gum, completely engrossed with the images playing on the screen of her phone. Kurt read the price list posted behind her and cleared his throat.

      “Yeah...how can I help you,” the woman said, finally looking up.

      “Two VIP seats,” he said pulling out his wallet. The woman stared at Kurt for a moment, moving her gum from one side of her mouth to the other. “That’s $200,” she finally said.

      Kurt balked. Sweat gleamed on his bald head; it always did when he got flustered. “Price list behind you says $100.”

      The woman shrugged and returned her attention to her phone. “Inflation, sir.” She ground out her cigarette in the already full ash-tray on the counter next to her. “You don’t like it, take it up with the President.” She lit another.

      Kurt scowled and slapped the cash on the counter. The woman took the money and in exchange pushed two sheets of densely printed paper toward him.“You need to sign one, and your friend here, the other.” Before Kurt could question or protest, the woman continued. “Legalese. Just a formality. Ya can’t go in unless you do.”

      Without bothering to read it, Kurt impatiently scratched his name at the bottom the sheet, then passed the pen to Tiny. Tiny attempted to read the fine print—it was all fine print—but couldn’t make out details in the dim light of the lobby. He signed anyway, in two places; once in the middle of the sheet, once at the bottom. He pushed the papers back under the ticket window’s grill.

      The blonde pulled out her ink pad and stamp. Kurt slid his left hand under the grill, and she stamped his wrist in red ink with the letters CK in a ragged circle. Tiny did the same.

      “Enjoy the show,” she said dully as they walked away.

      As they neared the doors to the inner sanctum, they could hear the muffled, driving thumps of dance music. Arms crossed, a second bouncer stood before the doors. Kurt grinned and flashed his wrist at the burly man. Unsmiling, the bouncer nodded once and opened the door for them. They went inside.

      * * *

      Kurt made a bee-line for a small table at the edge of the runway. Before Tiny could sit down, Kurt signaled the waitress. A skinny, weary young woman in a too-short mini-skirt appeared at their table not too long after.

      “I’ll have a Jägerbomb and my friend here will have…” Kurt raised an eyebrow as he looked at Tiny.

      The waitress cut him off. “We got beer, wine, and whiskey.”

      Kurt shrugged. “Two over-priced whiskeys, then.”

      As the server walked away, the DJ’s baritone voice interrupted the mindless dance music. “Hey, hey, hey! There’s been a change in tonight’s line-up. One of our opening acts—Teresa the Teutonic Temptress—will not be appearing tonight, as she is...indisposed. But we still have Naughty Natasha and, of course, Chloe-Patra for your viewing pleasure.” Finished with his announcement, the DJ raised the music level to the point that Kurt had to shout for Tiny to hear.

      “We didn’t come here for those other dancers, anyway.”

      Tiny nodded in reply. He came here because Kurt wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He picked up his watered-down whiskey and took a sip. Kurt slammed his back and waved to the waitress that he wanted two more. By the time Naughty Natasha took the stage,             Kurt had downed three whiskeys. Tiny was still nursing his first.

       An abrupt change in the music signaled the show was about to begin. “And now,” the DJ crooned, “Please give a warm Club Kuru welcome to Naughty Natasha!”

      The club lights dimmed and the music switched over to the old Tom Petty song from the early 1980’s, “Don’t Do Me Like That.”          On stage, a tall muscle-bound man dressed as cop led out a disheveled woman in a dirty bikini. Disheveled is hardly the right word, Tiny thought. More like...deteriorating.

      The pretend-cop led the handcuffed dancer by a chain which was attached to a collar around her neck. Above the collar, the woman wore a clear plastic cone much like what a veterinarian puts around the neck of an injured animal. The cone of shame, Tiny thought.            He didn’t like where this routine was going. Before leaving the stage, the cop clipped the chain to a small loop welded to the stripper pole.

      Natasha didn’t dance so much as flail and growl. She tore off her filthy bikini top, revealing rotting, discolored breasts. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. Chomping. Tiny realized the cone she wore was not to prevent her from hurting herself, but from biting a member of the audience. Namely, those audience members stupid enough to be seated right next to the stage. He was relieved when Officer Friendly returned at the end of the song to retrieve his prisoner.

      The cop applied his stun-gun the small of her back, rendering Natasha momentarily dazed and docile. He unclipped her chain from the pole and led her off stage.

      Kurt nudged Tiny and grinned. “What do ya think?”

      I think it’s a monstrous exploitation of plague victims, Tiny wanted to answer. Instead he said, “That was something, alright.”

      Kurt again waved to the waitress for two more whiskeys. Tiny still had not finished his first; he didn’t want to drink any more, he wanted to get out of the Club Kuru.

      Before the server returned with Kurt’s order, the DJ’s voice boomed over the PA system. “Now the act you’ve all been waiting for:        The Devilish Dancer of the Desert! The Sexy Saharan Seductress Who’ll Steal Your Soul! Let’s hear it for the one, the only Chloe-Patra!”

      An exotic blend of Middle-Eastern melodies and techno-pop blared over the sound system. Tiny grimaced as another muscle-bound handler entered the stage. This man pushed a dolly, and on the dolly rested a woman wrapped in linen strips. He stopped and nodded to the DJ.

      A series of six foot high plexiglass panels rose from the edge of the stage, until the entire area was encased. The man unbuckled the straps holding the woman to the dolly. He then unceremoniously tilted the dolly forward, dumping her onto the stage floor. As she scrambled to get on her feet, the man quickly exited the stage. The last plexiglass screen rose behind him.

      Unbound, Chloe-Patra paced the perimeter of the stage. She spotted Kurt’s table, threw her head back and howled. Kurt clapped; he loved the attention. He was also happy to see Chloe-Patra had a linen streamer dangling from her hip, like a flag waving just for Kurt.

      During this dance, the server returned with Kurt’s drink order. He grabbed her wrist before she could leave, and pulled her in close to him. He said something to her that Tiny couldn’t hear. The waitress shook her head ‘no.’ Kurt pulled out his wallet and fanned a wad of bills in her face.

      Kurt watched as she took the cash and walked to the DJ’s booth.

      The DJ gave Kurt a thumbs up.

      With the next song—one not very different from the previous—the plexiglass screen in from of Kurt and Tiny’s table slowly slid down. Like a predatory feline alert for prey, Chloe-Patra saw this and right away stalked toward the opening. Instinctively, Tiny stood up and backed away from their table. Kurt stood up, too, but only so that he could get closer to the object of his infatuation.

      Chloe-Patra teetered on the edge of the stage before Kurt, swaying to the music like a cobra hypnotized by a snake-charmer; but she was not the one who was hypnotized. Eyes wide and mouth agape, Kurt reached up and grabbed the loose linen streamer at her hip. He roughly pulled the bandage.

      Chloe-Patra did not twirl like a ballerina, she did not spin like a top. She tumbled off the stage and fell directly on top of Kurt, forcing him to the floor. With her bony fingers, she frantically tore the linen wrappings from her face. Now unencumbered, she opened wide her mouth and shredded the soft flesh of Kurt’s face and throat. His arterial blood spurted like a mythical fountain in a far off oasis; it soaked her linen wrappings a deep ruby red.

      Knowing he could not help his friend, Tiny sprinted to the exit. The bouncer opened the door for him, and gave a low, guttural laugh as he sped by. As he tore through the lobby, Tiny was vaguely aware that the ticket booth was deserted; he was totally focused reaching the front doors—on escaping the horror of Club Kuru.

      He burst through the doors and stumbled out into the dusty parking lot, falling to his knees to catch his breath and vomit. Marvin still stood guard at the doors.

      “S’okay, my man,” Marvin said when Tiny stood up. From his jacket pocket, Marvin pulled out a small remote control and pressed a button. Security shutters groaned and clunked down into place, covering the windows and doors. “She ain't getting’ out.” He laughed. “We see to that.”

      Marvin pulled out his cell phone, tapped the screen, and spoke softy. Tiny looked toward Kurt’s beat up pickup truck. His shoulders sagged; he didn’t have the keys. How would he get home? This club was near the county line. The middle of nowhere.

      “Since you’re a paid VIP,” Marvin said, walking over to Tiny, “and you signed our NDA, we’ll give you a ride, make sure you get home.”

      “What about Kurt—my friend in there…”

      “Yeah,” Marvin said watching headlights approaching. “He was in too much of a hurry to see the dancing girls.” The car pulled up next to them. Marvin opened the door for Tiny. “He didn’t sign both blank lines in the NDA, like you did.” Marvin handed Tiny a folded piece of yellow paper. “Here’s a copy of yours. Read it again when you get home.”

Tiny got in the sedan and Marvin shut the door. “Come back real soon, okay?” He laughed loudly as the car drove away.

​

Hillary Lyon founded and for 20 years acted as senior editor for the independent poetry publisher, Subsynchronous Press. Her horror, speculative fiction, and crime short stories, drabbles, and poems have appeared in more than 150 publications. She's an SFPA Rhysling Award nominated poet. Hillary is also the art director for Black Petals.