My Dearest Jonah (12 page)

“Thanks for having me,” I tried.

“Sure did make an impression on the missus. Seems to think you’re some kind of gentleman. Caleb’s go okay?”

“Excuse me?” I racked my brain. “Oh, yes sir, giving it a trial run.”

Harlow moved closer to me. “You okay boy? Haven’t seemed yourself all day.”

“I’m just tired.”

“You sure that’s all?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well so long as you’re sure. You ever need to talk, you know where I am.”

“Thanks.”

Harlow nodded and began walking away.

“Say, Harlow... ” he turned to face me. “Thanks for having me at the weekend. I haven’t enjoyed anything that much in as long as I can remember.”

“Any time kiddo, any time.”

Howdy Pal,

Great to see you so well. As discussed Wednesday would suit us best, if it’s all the same with you. Let’s say eight thirty at the old Tavern on Main Street. We
look forward to your company!

Regards,

Michael

I folded the letter and went out to buy enough bourbon to stun the entire state football team.

Why did you write to me, Verity? What positive were you hoping to draw from a lifelong exchange with a convicted criminal? I often meant to ask you this, but suppose the time was never quite
right. Initially I was wowed by the luxury of a personalised message from a sweet stranger; more so that it lacked the frenzied urgency that the spider scrawls of death row fetishists mostly
suggested. And then before long it seemed too rude a point to raise, having become established in one another’s lives so quickly. You lifted me in ways I never thought I could have been
whilst I was inside. You gave me an audience, something to love and guide where once I felt so bleak. Yet still I am at a loss as to what exactly I was to you, initially, before we had even the
vaguest idea of one another.

Sorry if this appears rude. It is not intended to be as much. Nor, I hasten to add, is this in any way a preamble to the severance of our relationship. I need you now more than I ever have
before. I’m just curious, that’s all, as to the nature of our ever-shifting roles. Am I your creation or are you mine? In truth I daresay it no longer matters, it is what is and that is
that. Like I said, I’m just curious and wallowing once more in self-pity.

With love,

Jonah (Your Eternally Grateful Stranger!)

Dear Jonah,

Eve came rushing into the trailer in floods of tears and locked herself in the bathroom. I had been sitting on the floor, smoothing the corners of some of your oldest letters,
readying myself to pen yet another note. The bolt of the door locked, a tap was turned on, and then one long, animalistic wail sounded out, followed by two solid hours of sobbing.

I let her be for a while until the reality of two girls and one bathroom became an issue I could no longer ignore. I considered the practicalities of a wide-necked bottle. I even gave thought to
the flexibility and aim required to hit the sink. But vanity prevailed and so I was left with no option but to intervene. Keeping my legs pressed as tightly together as I could I walked over to the
door almost doubled over in agony. I knocked. No answer. I tried again.

“You need in?” she said eventually, her voice cracked and distorted through swallowed tears.

“Eve, what’s the problem, sweetheart? You can tell me. I could help.”

There was a brief pause, then a reluctant sliding of the bolt, before the door opened with a creak. Eve stood, half naked and red faced, her eyes still streaming. “Oh Verity, I’d do
anything for love... but I won’t do THAT,” she said, taking herself to the bedroom and wallowing deep within the covers where she remained, lachrymose, for the remainder of the day.

And with that Dylan was relegated to one more notch on Eve’s increasingly whittled bedpost.

She had been gone since leaving for The Iguana Den the night before. The agreement I had made drunkenly seemed to still stand, and so after a brief phone conversation we found
ourselves traipsing back across the sand flats in the lunchtime burn. Inside there were sounds of real life as opposed to the hushed tones of night owls and alley cats that I had grown accustomed
to. Minus the benefit of mood lighting it seemed exposed, as though its clean white towel had been whipped away and all that was left was a less than perfect body.

Behind closed doors sounds rang out. I heard two girls shriek and then laugh. In the distance a dog barked twice then settled. A hairdryer blew suddenly and then snapped as though choked. A
sixties pop record played through tinny speakers. In the main room of the bar, in front of the stage, Kingpin played poker with three men. They turned their heads instinctively at our intrusion
though in no way attempted to acknowledge us. No sooner did they recognise Eve’s face than they returned to the game at hand. Eve took my arm and led me behind the stage to where, she told
me, the real magic happened.

Miss Jemima sat in front of the largest of the mirrors, carefully painting on two lips with a brush and red oil.

“My dears, what a surprise. And just in time. I don’t like to be disturbed until my face is in place.”

“Miss Jemima,” Eve walked over and kissed her on the cheek. “You remember Verity.”

“How could I forget?” She moved towards me and kissed my hand. “Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance once more, and what fun we’re going to have. Follow me,
dear,” she said, leading us out through a side door. “Verity... that’s an unusual name. You don’t find too many Verities round these parts.”

“No ma’am,” I said.

It’s true. My name is a cruel hangover from parents whose income was one generation removed from the very bluest of collars yet whose tastes, sadly, were not. I am all too aware that were
I born into a dynasty of some sort - of old money charm and faded grandeur - it could conceivably bear some watermarks of hereditary celebration or even ironic humour. As is, it speaks only of the
misguided notion that obscure and polysyllabic will somehow equate to success or, at very least, aspiration later in life. In such circumstances the opposite is almost always true.

“Come girls,” she said. “We’re working to a deadline.”

Eve followed first, I trailed behind. As I stroked a hair from my cheek I felt something stick to my fingers. Looking down, the tips were coated in red blotches of her make-up, as though
I’d been bitten by a viper.

We spent the next half hour rifling through costume drawers, deciding on colour, fabric and style. Eve tossed a threadbare feather boa at me and howled with laughter. I begin
to enjoy myself despite any initial misgivings.

“I take it you’re housed?” asks Miss Jemima, once my finery has been decided.

“I have my own place.”

“It’s real nice,” says Eve, flicking a thong from the largest of the carved chests across the room at me. Two sequins had somehow stuck themselves to her neck making light
bounce sharply into the eye of anyone who stared too long. “She’s even letting me stay, we’re our very own odd couple.”

“I can’t say I’m not relieved. We accommodate the fallen women where possible of course, though in my experience they’re often fallen for a reason.”

“I’m pleased to be standing on my own two feet, for now at least.”

“And long may it continue. Come now, change into those there clothes and let’s see what you’re made of.”

Back on stage the lights have been dimmed. The bar is cooled by its artificial darkness and the poker game carries on as normal. Next to the men, Prudence is stood, silent and
solemn, barely an inch from Kingpin’s side. Miss Jemima walks to the table and whispers something in his ear. He looks towards us and holds my gaze. I feel myself chill. His eyes seem to
deconstruct on the spot, what exactly he is looking for I am not sure, but he seems to find it and with a nod to his guests they stand and leave the room followed by Prudence and we are alone once
more.

From nowhere a slow beat begins to sound. Eve walks to the centre of the stage and begins a simplified version of the dance she performed the first night I saw her, every so often glancing in my
direction. Miss Jemima walks behind me until I feel her skirts brushing against the bare skin of my leg.

“Eve can be... how shall we put this? Excitable to say the least,” she whispered as Eve swung her hair around until her face was hidden. “I wouldn’t want to feel like
you’d been coerced. You think you’re up to it, darling? Say now or forever hold your peace.”

“I think I could be.”

“Alright. Well now imagine a room full of people. Men. Braying, salivating, wild horses that you alone have to tease and tame all at once,” she leans even closer, scanning for a
reaction. “Still game?”

I pause for a moment as Eve winds to a halt at the base of the pole and spreads across the floorboards with the grace of an ice cube melting in the sun. “Absolutely.”

She tells us that we’re artists, mastering our craft. That the pace and rhythm must remain measured; each layer unfolding to the right beat, the pleasure of our audience
maintained at all times before the final reveal. There are, of course, prerequisites of the vocation. The reveal itself must be of a certain standard. We must be toned and tight enough as to appear
desirable, yet retain a certain fallibility which suggests that one could, if only in their wildest dreams, be in some way attainable. Yet despite this the insistence is that the prelude itself is
half - if not three quarters - of the battle. It retains its own significance. Too fast and they’ve shot their load before they’re so salacious they’d hand over the deeds to their
homes just for one more inch. Too slow and they become bored, the bottom of the bottle holding more appeal than the folds of fabric and flesh shifting before them. You have to spin your web with
care, she says, and select the perfect moment to catch even the most reluctant of prey. The spider dance is a ritual as old as time, the trick is patience, time, and knowing when best to strike. It
is a skill only few acquire wholly, but those that do can live a long and fruitful life from skills of the flesh.

It comes to my turn and I feel my stomach churn. I walk to the stage. Eve has now taken to the front row of seats. She wolf-whistles but I do not turn around. Miss Jemima
stands at the furthest edge of the stage, her corpulence nothing but a convex extension of the shadows in which she bathes. The music changes track seamlessly and I find my shoulders begin to shake
slightly. I breathe deeply and force myself to relax into the repetition of the beat. A light catches my eye and for a second I am dazed, uncertain of both self and surroundings. I hold out my
hands and grip firmly onto the greased pole.

I can’t say exactly how long I was up there. I disappeared from my own head, I allowed my body and limbs to steer their own course. I felt the dip of my legs, the brush of metal on skin. A
sharp scraping as my knees dragged across the floor. The only consciousness was a slight effort to synchronise any movements I made to the tune of the song. I twirled and twisted to the empty room.
I thawed beneath those lights and, Jonah, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I began to enjoy it. The sounds stopped, my scant audience disappeared and it was just me and my body, moving as I
pleased.

Then the sound really did stop. Silence crept over me and suddenly I became aware, mortified even. No reaction from my crowd of two. I wanted to die. I wanted to run and scream and cry. Then a
pat, then another, and another. Eve began hammering applause from the front row and whooping with delight. The sounds buffered the shame I felt though still did not appease me as I had hoped it
might.

She rose from the shadows, her features finding themselves in the glare of the stage lights. Miss Jemima walked towards where I stood, now shivering, sweating, beside the pole. She stopped in
front of me and looked me up and down. “My dear, what exactly was that?”

I looked to the floor. Eve fell silent. I opened my mouth but could not bring myself to respond. Her hand stretched beneath my chin and lifted my face up, up towards the lights, towards her
smile.

“That was magic, my dear,” she said with a nod. Then, turning to Eve, “Darling, we’ve dug us a diamond!”

After that it was easy. Being watched alters you for the better, in this instance at least. If anything the glinting eyes act as guidance, the sounds direct you into places you
didn’t think you could go. I move to their noises like a lover and I like it Jonah, I like it a lot. If anything I resent the choreography, the allocated timeslot. My saddest moments become
those when the track dips and my time is over and I am left to glide my way to the back of the stage, oiled dollars slipping between garter and thigh as the hollers mount and die behind me.

Miss Jemima spends most of the evening backstage preparing us girls and offering her own applause as we finish our sets. “Perfect, darling, just perfect,” she
swoons, kissing us again as glittered girls brush past to meet their hungry audience. “You’re a master already, must be in your blood.”

“That and bourbon, Jemima darling” I say, stepping out of my stilettos and wrapping a gown around my frame.

She laughs and goes to check on the development of Chastity, whose bruise requires a more elaborate blusher than Miss Jemima would usually allow.

The rumour mill, which seemed to propel The Iguana Den, must have caught Prudence in its mechanisms, as on my seventh day of employment she disappeared and was never seen
again. My initial inquiries as to her whereabouts were met first with shifty indifference, though before long were stopped short with an urgency which I grew to realise stemmed from fear. I managed
to console myself with the fact that her departure must have been the result of the same dirt road which led such a sweet girl into a life of glitter and oils for the paying pleasure of those who
truly know better. Such roads rarely alter their course, I was told. And with that the discussion ended.