The Exchange (14 page)

‘It felt wonderful,’ she said. ‘I felt like I was on fire.’

‘You were. It was awesome. Well done.’

A hand clasped her shoulder and we both looked up. Konrad was standing there, smiling at both of us. My stomach flipped over. I hadn’t seen him since his little game with me, and I didn’t want him to see that I was into him in a big way. It was humiliating, to fancy someone so far above oneself. I wouldn’t stand a chance with a catwalk model so I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself.

The music had struck up as another act began, and I couldn’t hear what Konrad was saying. But from his movements I understood that he was inviting us over to his table. I glanced in the direction he was pointing and saw a few familiar faces from the Hôtel Amour. Some of them turned and waved, gesturing us over to them.

I was actually a little disappointed. I had hoped to have Lisette to myself for a while. I wanted to talk to her a bit more about how it actually felt, to be up there, taking your clothes off in front of lots of eyes, most of them strangers’. I wanted to ask her what was in it for her and how she felt when she was centre-stage, the centre of attention.

Reluctantly I followed her across the room towards Konrad’s crowd. They were sitting around a large circular table, a tasselled low-lit lamp in the middle of it, surrounded by bottles of champagne. They had clearly been here a while and were in high spirits.

I sat down in an empty seat only to see Konrad sit down next to me. He leaned his arm on the back of my chair, and I was glad of the red table lights to hide my furious blushes. My heart was thudding, and I was also grateful for the glass of champagne that someone held out to me. I drank it in one as Konrad leaned into me. It was like a welcome blast of fresh air, making me feel more sober, although I was aware that that was an illusion.

‘So,’ drawled Konrad, and I avoided his probing green gaze. ‘What did you think of our friend’s new show?’

For a moment I didn’t know what to say. I had loved it, and I thought Lisette very talented. But suddenly it seemed odd to be saying that, to a guy that I fancied. Would he think that I had a thing about girls, if I told him how sexy I thought Lisette had been?

‘I think she has real talent,’ I said, cautiously. ‘And it’s a great routine.’

‘She’s amazing, isn’t she?’ he said, smiling over towards Lisette. Engrossed in conversation with one of the other male models, she didn’t notice him. I looked at his proud, admiring face, and I wondered if he and Lisette had ever had a thing, before he got together with Rochelle. Not that it mattered, of course. But for a few seconds I’d have sold my soul to be the object of admiration of someone like Konrad.

‘We’re getting out of here in a minute,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Want to come?’

I avoided his eyes. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

I didn’t want to come across as aloof, but nor did I want to be over-keen. I felt like an idiot schoolgirl in the presence of someone completely unattainable. In accepting the invitation I hoped fervently that he would once more dance for me – flirt with me – and at the same time I fervently hoped that he wouldn’t.

Konrad nodded and, as if brainwashed by some cult leader, the group around the table rose as one and headed for the door, swaying with drink, chattering so loudly that they could be heard above the music. I followed them but glanced over my shoulder; it seemed an incredibly rude thing to do when someone was giving it their all on stage.

But then this girl wasn’t giving it her all. She may well have been doing so at the beginning – I’d been too wrapped up in Konrad to pay her any attention. But by now she was fading fast, her mask slipping. The writhing of her slim hips was mechanical, and her eyes were glassy with fatigue or indifference, or perhaps a mixture of both. I don’t know where she was, but she wasn’t there any more. Not like Lisette had been, fully in the moment and the role. Bringing my camera to my face, I quickly snapped a few images of the girl then turned and hurried after Konrad and his crowd.

Where last time we had gone to a hip hotel with pretensions to sleaziness, this time we went to a properly seedy bar, in the heart of Pigalle, one with a tiny stage where the dancers truly did get naked, not a teasing approximation of nudity. Nobody really watched, though, and whenever someone in our crowd did glance at the stage it was normally to make some derogatory comment. I found that harsh – no one had forced us to come to this bar, after all. To come and to insult the girls was base.

Though Konrad didn’t admonish his friends, he didn’t join in either. Disappointingly, he was propped up by the bar deep in conversation with one of the guys behind it for much of the night, leaving me and Lisette to chat at last.

‘It was noticeable,’ I told her, ‘that some of the girls weren’t enjoying themselves. But you seem to love it.’

She smiled, and I was taken aback by her fresh, natural prettiness. Gone was the pancake – creamed off backstage – and in its place she wore only mascara and a lick of lip gloss. Her cheeks glowed dusky against her terracotta skin, and her eyes shone. She looked healthy and wholesome. Properly fuckable, I thought, if one was into girls.

I looked again at Konrad’s back at the bar. Lisa must have followed my gaze, for after a slight pause she said:

‘Gorgeous, isn’t he?’

I nodded. ‘I’m sure everyone thinks the same.’

‘Well, it’s irrefutable,’ she said. ‘But he’s not my type.’

‘What is your type?”

She looked at me mock-coyly from beneath her thick lashes. ‘That would be telling,’ she said.

‘You rotten tease,’ I said, knowing she would open up to me.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But it’s all hush-hush.’ She jerked her head towards the others. ‘None of this crowd knows about him.’

Now I was intrigued. ‘Tell me more,’ I said, leaning into her. She smelt divine – jasmine and sandalwood, I thought. Or patchouli, perhaps.

‘I can’t say too much for now,’ said Lisette, ‘but he’s Russian, much older than me …’

‘Married?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He’s not been here long, so it’s possible he has a secret wife hidden away back in Russia.’ She shrugged. ‘But to be honest, I’m not that bothered. It’s not … well, let’s just say it’s not a marriage thing.’

‘What is it then?’ I looked at her. She may be a burlesque dancer, but off stage she seemed wholesome and almost childlike. I imagined her marrying a waiter from her parents’ restaurant – someone who’d had a soft spot for her for ages. I imagined her getting fat, having a brood of kids. She’d be one hell of a sexy mother.

She smiled and this time there was a wickedness in her eyes that took me aback. ‘It’s a fucking thing,’ she said, and I was shocked by the violence in her voice. ‘It’s a pure fucking thing. And a looking thing.’

I felt a surge of excitement in my pussy as she spoke. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but the words and her tone of voice excited me.

‘You mean … you watch, or people watch you? I don’t under–’

She brought her fingers to my lips. ‘Both,’ she said, and then she looked up. Konrad had appeared by our table. He was holding one hand out to us both.

‘C’mon, ladies, let’s dance,’ he said.

I half-heartedly remonstrated. I wasn’t a natural dancer at the best of times, and with what I’d had to drink and my self-consciousness in front of Konrad, I really wasn’t game. On the other hand, and in spite of what Lisette had just divulged, I didn’t fancy being left at the table like a gooseberry while she and Konrad got down together. I’d seen them both dance and knew that together they could ignite the room.

The strippers had wound up for the night, but some of them were out in the room now, working the crowd. As I followed Konrad and Lisette across the room, my fingers itched to shoot off some images of the girls in their post-performance guise, masks now partly slipped. Unlike Lisette, they hadn’t scrubbed off their heavy stage make-up, but now it was beginning to make them look older and tired, settling into the lines around their eyes and mouths and across their brows. They all, I noticed, had indentations where they frowned too much. I wondered if these girls took any satisfaction in their work, or if this was purely a job, without any connotations of art or artistry.

We took to the dance floor. It was very old-school and very eclectic: Primal Scream followed by classic disco followed by some speed garage. I tried to settle into a rhythm and make vaguely the same moves as Lisette and Konrad but they were immediately in their own world, hands raised above their heads, eyes half-closed, allowing the music to take their bodies. It all looked so natural and unforced, as if the music was inside of them, part of their blood and bones, as if they were an emanation of it. Their naturalness only served to make me feel more awkward. I cursed myself for not being able to let go as they lost themselves.

After a few mortifying minutes, I fell back against the wall, wiping the sweat from my brow. I watched Konrad and Lisette, their limbs glowing as if oiled. There was some kind of symbiosis going on in the way that they danced. It was something, I thought sadly, that I would never experience with another human being.

The crowd had caught onto them too, and soon a space cleared around them as other dancers – still moving – stood back to watch. Some of them aped their movements – unconsciously, I assumed. What was clear was that everybody was getting off on the way Lisette and Konrad moved together. Sensing this, the pair ramped it up, playing up both to each other and to the onlookers. Cheeks flushed and eyes bright, pupils huge, Lisette looked much like she had when she was on stage at Club GaGa. Being watched, I thought, transformed her into a goddess. And Konrad into a god.

When finally they stopped, all laughs, and left the dance floor to head for the bar, arms entwined, I realised they had forgotten me. I was pretty certain that they weren’t going to get off together, that the dance had been everything for them – their own form of sex with each other, perhaps. But I felt pathetic and jealous nonetheless. I wanted to be worthy of someone like Konrad.

I left without saying goodbye to either of them. I felt bad, but I planned to text both the next day, saying I’d felt sick and had to leave in a hurry.

Entering Rochelle’s flat, I turned on the lights and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t know what I was worried about. I wasn’t a beauty queen, but with my long chocolate-brown hair and slightly slanted brown eyes – my mother had been half-Japanese – and with my effortlessly lean figure, I was certainly attractive.

I blinked. I was sobering up and thinking rationally, and I knew without question that were I to get on a stage and perform the Dance of the Seven Veils as Lisette had, I wouldn’t be laughed off.

It was all, I thought, about confidence, and I had none of that. So how could I go about getting some?

Still standing in front of the mirror, I stripped and looked at myself, felt myself – my breasts, my pussy.
You’re beautiful
, I breathed at my reflection.
You’re so
fucking
beautiful
.
Everyone wants to fuck you. Konrad wants to fuck
.
You are so fucking hot
.

On a whim I went into the bathroom and, sorting out my Gillette, carefully gave myself a Brazilian. Then I came back out to admire my handiwork, standing up to begin with and then sitting down on the floor in front of the mirror, legs spread. In the low light my pussy gleamed, a portal of desire. I remained sitting up, fingering my clit as I pushed three fingers inside myself.

‘Konrad,’ I breathed as I gulped in air, intensifying the pressure both on my clit and inside me. ‘Konrad … Konrad.’

I wanted to throw my head back and wail as I came, but I resisted, forcing myself to keep looking into the mirror – first at my freshly shaven pussy and then into my own eyes. As I shuddered my way through my orgasm, I looked into my very soul.

When I was recovered, I stood and began to rustle through Rochelle’s drawers and wardrobes. I quickly found what I needed – black stockings and suspenders, a black bowler hat, a basque. As I pulled them on, I giggled. They were
so
not me. Then I stopped laughing as I realised that that was precisely the point. I was sick of being me.

Kitted out, I flipped through Rochelle’s collection of vinyl, considering a few discs but then changing my mind and flipping through some more. Finally I found something perfect – Grace Jones, “I’ve Seen That Face Before”. I pulled it out and slipped it onto the turntable.

I started to dance, imagining myself as Emmanuelle Seigner dancing with a bewildered, even terrified, Harrison Ford in Roman Polanski’s
Frantic
. I had always loved that scene, but only now did it occur to me that it was because I empathised to a great degree with Ford’s character, all stilted and self-conscious while the
femme fatale
performs her beguiling routine, eyes fixed on him.

Now I forced myself into her role, eyes closed, imagining myself wearing her body-conscious blazing red mini-dress. Like her, I undulated my body vertically, from chest to hips, in a snake-like movement, and I held my hands up in front of me as if I, like she, were gripping Ford’s hands.

The song ended, and as the next one began, I opened my eyes. I wasn’t Emmanuelle Seigner in a red dress, but by god I was hot. I moved to the rhythm, working to unfocus myself and relax so that the music could dictate my movements. It wasn’t easy, but with no one watching, no one there who might laugh or make fun of me, I knew it was possible. I tried to clear my mind of all thoughts, let myself be borne along on a wave of pure sound.

And then suddenly, finally, it was happening. The girl in the mirror, moving fluidly, slinking like a cat, was me. It was sexy and liberating. I wished Konrad was there. I wished Lisette was there. I wished the whole crowd was there, watching and admiring this beautiful, sexy creature that was me.

I was so happy, I flung myself back onto the bed laughing. And to the strains of ‘Slave to the Rhythm’, I wanked myself into a frenzy, Konrad’s face blazing behind my eyelids squeezed tight.