Chapter 1
From such a great distance, the young woman’s body looked tiny. It had fallen in such an odd and mangled manner as to lend the mind an image of a mad woman, head thrown back in a full howl amidst an erotic dance.
Dampened by ocean spray, she may have meant for an easy death, in the cold ocean embrace, but landed hard on the sharp rugged rocks at the bottom of the cliff instead.
King Aslo looked away, unable to bear witness to his young wife’s grotesque fate.
“She was with child, mother had always said that this was when women were most keen on survival,” said a child-like voice from the chamber’s doorway. “It would appear to not always be so.”
Aslo looked upon Beth, his young sister, as she glided lightly towards him, hands out in a plaintive show of pity, even as her words cut him deeply. Wearing the ceremonial robes of court, his face covered by a weeping mask, he stood straight even as his voice crumbled. “I loved her.” She waved his words away like he was nothing more than a child crying over a broken toy.
“She loved me.”
“Obviously not,” She quipped sharply in reply. Aslo turned to the scene outside the window. Below them, the queen’s guards were climbing the cliffs, that fell at a steep angle beneath the wide-open window, in a vain effort to rescue the queen’s corpse. They had been working on it for hours, any other woman would have been abandoned to the elements, but the queen’s body was not to be so easily forsaken.
Beth, gently and completely without sound, sat beside him, and laid her head against his shoulder. “It is our good fortune that she chose to kill herself and not run down the streets screaming that she had married a monster,” this cruel statement came out a soft whisper, he pushed her away, but he could not deny her reasoning. She continued, undeterred, “The next Queen may not be so generous. Of course, any more dead Queens, and the people may revolt without encouragement.”
He looked at his sister, her voice carried her emotions, her face showed nothing. It was this unnatural mannerism most that made both the courtiers and servant feel uneasy.
She attempted a pitiful pat on his shoulder, it felt more condescending then sympathetic.
“Am I fated to die alone,” he whimpered, she shrugged, “If it’s good enough for me.” He again turned to the window, and the dead woman that carried his heir, “And who shall rule in my passing? You?” She grabbed his head to face her, “Forbid such words.” She then stood dramatically, “Worry not brother, I shall find a solution to our little problem.” He shook his head in denial, he knew what she meant, and he had long forbidden such action. But he was lost to any other path. She knew he had no fight left in him and waited for his consent. His consent did not come, “I will die alone.”
“I have no desire to rule,” she returned, without emotion, he nodded to this, “Then I shall choose my successor.”
“Then what shall become of me?”
“Perhaps you shall make a better bride then I a groom,” He answered, and watched her face darken to match his mood.
She turned away and asked almost sweetly, “Isn’t that the same mask you wore with your first bride’s suicide?”
Like all his masks, he wore a thick black cowl, faced with a silver mask. The face adorning it was a somber and regal face of mourning, with a tiny sapphire tear along the right cheek. He didn’t answer her question directly, only stating, “It is the last I wear it, no more brides will die to my deformity.”
“It wasn’t my favorite anyway,” she chirped, her mind was made up. Her brother was king, but she didn’t suffer the same laws as others, and considered his permission only a polite gesture. He understood this as well and reaffirmed, “I will have no other.” She didn’t bother to look to him or reply, she left the seat beside him and looked out the window again at the corpse, “Do you plan to hide in here all day?”
“I will keep vigil until my bride’s body is recovered,”
“Very well,” she murmured pleasantly. Then with a merry hop in her walk, she left his chamber.
With an expert twist, Sugar attached a tassel to each nipple, then tested them with a flex of her shoulders, forcing her breast up in the unnatural mannerism allowed only by artificial enhancements.
House music blared into her room from the main stage, she was three dances from her spot. The left tassel dropped and fell neatly into her lap, with a half-hearted sigh, Sugar added an extra dollop of glue to each. She again flexed to test their security. Releasing another sigh, she looked gravely at her reflection, she was one of those rare natural beauties, even before the breast enhancement and body sculpting, didn’t that mean life was supposed to be easy for her.
Sugar Kane, and yes, it was her real damn name. Thanks to her mother, a crack-head stripper, who had the terrible stage-name of Kandy. With a name like hers, she was ultimately bound for one place, and one place only.
Las Vegas was good to Sugar, but that didn’t stop her from hating it. A soft noise stole her attention, she looked back at the man dazed on the shabby loveseat. A cigarette threatened to burn him, as it hung loosely from his thin manicured fingers. He smiled up at her through drug-hazed eyes, “Hey baby, any chance of giving me a private show?” Her eyes glanced to the clock and rolled with disgust. Like Vegas, he was good to her and she hated him, but she wouldn’t have this job without him and show girl was still a hell of a lot better than stripping in some low-rent man’s club.
She stood up slowly, seductively. Smiling with a slightly opened mouth, it was her most sexy look. She slowly rotated her hips so the rhinestones on her skirt clinked together with a thousand tinks. She gave a sloppy belly-dance as he slipped from consciousness. She made sure he was completely out by nudging him with the ball of her foot, then returned to her vanity and thickened the layer of glittery pink paste that kissed her cheekbones and lined her throat on either side, to meet down her cleavage in a small heart-shape.
The last song ended, she checked the clock, she had two minutes. She leaped out of her chair, hopped over Roscoe’s body, which was currently, slowly sliding onto the floor, and ran out the door without bothering to shut it, sprinting to her place behind the stage curtain.
It didn’t matter who she was sleeping with, if she missed her number, she was not talented enough to be irreplaceable. Years in stilettos gave her an advantage as she slid into place among the girls in the chorus line.
The girl beside her, Tina, an insecure but far more talented dancer, gently reached up and straightened the fin tiara on Sugar’s head. They were all dressed as mermaids, or as the show-director preferred to call them, daughters of Neptune.
Sugar gave her a small smile in gratitude and a complimentary nod, it was customary for the girls to check each other for flaws while still behind the curtain. Tina was the closest thing she had to a friend, a younger girl who loved this profession, hell she even claimed to have felt empowered by it.
Sugar never felt empowered by the attention, she in fact felt nothing, even back when she was underage and stripping with a fake ID. To her it was movements, a routine nothing more, and as for the feelings she arose in the men, well she never considered them as worth the consideration.
Perhaps she would have felt differently, been different, if this hadn’t always been her life. Perhaps, Sugar conceded, that this was why Tina was her friend, because she made Tina feel better for her own life, in comparison.
The music started, it was oriental in style and the better dancers were counting with the beat. Sugar didn’t bother, her job was to shimmy and shuffle, glittery background to the other’s choregraphed dance. Vents opened in the floor, blasting air up small green socks, meant to look like seaweed. The seaweed moved in a similar manner as Sugar, she moved away from it for spite alone. Tina took her place a step ahead of Sugar, she glanced back with a queasy smile, and Sugar made a silly face with her fingers and tongue, she was immediately rewarded with a giggle.
The curtains shot up with a dangerous speed, and they were greeted by the familiar faces of a forgettable audience. They shimmied forward as one, the hot lights blaring down on them.
She spotted him more by accident, as she avoided intentionally to look at anyone in particular in the crowd, but he was hard to avoid. He was standing among full-seated tables, over six-foot-tall, one head, two arms, and two legs, that was his most defining characteristics, otherwise he wasn’t there. It would be clearer to describe him as a shadow figure, but this was also not exactly true. For he was more accurately the figure of a man cut out from the very curtain of existence, revealing the bleak emptiness beyond.
“Sugar”, a harsh whisper reached her ears, she looked at the other girls, they seemed oblivious to the walking horror among the crowd. She shimmied quickly to her place, moving with the seaweed, all while scanning the audience, he was gone.
Calmed somewhat, she waved her arms as she rotated her hips, holding a witless smile: and then she spotted him again, he was watching them. She steeled herself from reacting, after all she was just a lousy back-up dancer, whatever it was, it didn’t want someone like her.
Even as she thought this, it turned toward her, staring at her from its emptiness as she stared back, until all she saw was the bleak abyss. Then there was nothing to see, but the warm comforting black as she lost consciousness.
Sugar woke up to find Tina standing over her in tears, she slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position. Slowly she realized that she was on the resting couch, backstage. She looked questioningly at Tina, who managed among sobs to squeak, “You passed out”. Sugar shook her head for good measure, and muttered, “You won’t believe it, I think I saw…” then stopped, she reached into her memories and came up empty, “I. I can’t remember.”
“Have you eaten today? I bet you haven’t eaten. Stupid girls always trying to starve yourselves,” the stage-director stormed about her, not really allowing her to answer. He actually was the one to encourage them to skip meals, only now he needed a reason to not call a doctor.
“That must have been it,” agreed the confused Sugar, even though she was one to never skip a meal, especially when they can eat for free at the buffet.
She lifted herself from the couch, muttering about getting ready for the next number. The director grabbed her arm, “Oh no you don’t. Take the rest of the night off and remember to eat tomorrow”.
At least this means I still have a job, she thought to herself as she made her way to her dressing room. In her room, she found Roscoe still passed out and now completely on the floor, snoring loudly. She gingerly stepped over him and thanked God silently that she wouldn’t have to sleep with him tonight. She felt vomit threaten to come up as she remembered the last time, she had to entertain him: his slimy hands playing with her body while she made sounds like she enjoyed it. She was well versed at pleasing men, it was for her a survival skill, her only skill, and she resented men all the more for it.
It was regulation for the girls to leave their costumes in the dressing rooms at the end of their shift, but Sugar had no desire in staying another second and risk waking Roscoe, instead she removed the stupid plastic crown and grabbed her purse and long coat, stumbled over his body, and left. Shutting the door gently, she quickly walked down to the exit downstairs. A dark man ran past her, forcing her to take a second glance at him.
Immediately images flashed of the shadow man in the audience, she felt a scream threaten release as she tumbled down. He looked down at her, and she calmed at the sight of his warm brown eyes. She smiled back, feeling silly at her reaction. With two big hands, he stood her straight and she took the opportunity to better inspect him. Though he and the figure were roughly the same size, this man was very human, he seemed almost the gentle giant, she decided she liked him immediately. “Sorry, I’ve been a bit dizzy today,” she admitted shyly. He patted her head, “No problem, be careful out there.” He sounded fatherly, she nodded and took the rest of the stairs, but stopped at the foot to look back at him again. He was now backstage, entering her dressing room. As odd as that was, it was hardly the oddest thing to happen today, she thought to herself as she turned and left.
