She turns her back to me.
“Christ,” I say, “I was just being friendly.”
“No such thing in here.” Ella snorts.
“So where is he, this Navid?” I ask, already averse.
Ella shrugs, looks about the room, which is slowly filling with small groups of men in expensive suits smoking fat cigars. City-boy clichés.
“Not sure,” she says. “I guess we should just wait here.”
Perching on the oyster barstools I count the liquor bottles lined up to ease my anxiety—eleven, twelve, thirteen—then turn to watch another hostess with a fake chest, also Asian, delivering a bottle of champagne with a tacky sparkler emitting colored flames. The group of men cheer. She laughs, opening the heavy bottle with a flirtatious pop, then throws back her head, revealing perfect white teeth, and allows one of the men to pat her ass. She gives him a wiggle, a silk bow on her short black skirt bouncing up and down.
After pouring she stands the bottle in an ice bucket and takes a credit card. The men relax. One puffs on a cigar, making a fat smoke ring. With his palm, he drums the leather seat beside him, an invitation to join their little party. But the hostess simply smiles, points at the bar. The man feigns disappointment, his face dropping like the painted mouth of a clown, belly straining against his white nylon shirt. He slips a folded banknote in the top of the girl’s stocking.
Asshole, Runner curses in my head.
She’s right, I think. He is an asshole. In his mind the Electra Girls have made a choice. Empowered their bodies to do what they want with whom they want. But we all know this is bullshit. That it simply makes these cheating bastards feel better about themselves. The ones who get off on the Electra’s young, prostituted bodies, telling their wives they’ll be home late—that work’s a bitch—and not to wait up. What do they care that each of these girls is someone’s daughter? No one here needs to know that. It’s distasteful. Vulgar. Spoils the fantasy. In the Electra you can leave the outside—outside. The reality makes me feel angry. Then immediately a little sad. Were I something to taste, this club would surely spit me out.
Ella suddenly jumps up.
“Hey!” She cheers, waving at two girls, both in skintight jeans and throwing around their flesh—tanned as a coconut—like they’re auditioning for a pop video. Scanning the girls, I immediately rank myself fourth in our soon-to-be-formed girl band, falling short in the breast department—as usual. I reach around the back of my bra and yank down on the clasp, then quickly pull up the straps, hoping the hoist will make my breasts more pert.
“They work at Jean&Co,” Ella whispers, the girls fast approaching.
“Hey, Ella,” the prettiest girl says, kissing Ella’s cheek, “what are you doing here?” The other turns to me, kisses my cheek too, even though we’ve never met.
“Meeting the owner.”
“Navid?”
“You know him?”
“Yeah, we know him,” they say in sync, pushing their chests out like bloated frigates, imagining, I suspect, that the act might conjure Navid himself. “We started work here last week. No more jeans. Thank God.”
The girls laugh.
“Cool,” Ella says.
“Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” I interrupt.
“Over there.” The prettier girl points. “Through the double doors.”
I peel myself away from Ella’s side. Every intention of stuffing my tiny bra with tissues.
When I return, the two girls have left, replaced now by a man, tall and athletic, and an older woman, short and severe.
I reclaim my spot beside Ella.
“I’m Cassie,” the woman says, shaking my hand.
In a place where men think it’s acceptable to buy sex, the surest way to spot the madam is to look for the businesswoman north of fifty in a sharp suit and a cruel smile. She hands me a drink, bending the pink straw at its ridge. Her eyes squint tight like razor clams, working over me.
“Thanks,” I say, noting the tension in Ella’s awkward lean. Her smile held and fake, arms crossed against chest.
The man finally turns to me. A toothpick loosely hanging from his lip.
“I’m Navid.” He smiles.
My first reaction is panic, his hand resting on the back of Ella’s barstool, wet animal eyes scanning me up and down. A Tod’s loafer raised to position himself closer. Too close, I think. Dressed in a navy cashmere sweater and a blaring white shirt, he stares, working the toothpick between his lips. The two girls from before slink past us, catching his eye. He tries his best to stay focused, buckles, then turns back to face Ella.
“I’m so pleased you’re thinking of joining us,” he says, his voice slow and soft. The depths of his eyes like pits of rich fountain ink. “You’ll fit in nicely. Won’t she, Cassie?”
Cassie nods.
Urgh, say the Flock.
Ella aims her body at him, dropping her hands between her thighs, energized, it seems, by his attention. Growing fat with his praise. For a moment I picture the girls I knew living on the west block of my neighborhood. A flicker of hope that one of the older boys—or their fathers—might notice them. Someone to set them free from a life of never feeling good enough. Rarely touched or held.
Cassie looks at Ella like a prize cow. A sly diamond winking on her right hand as she reaches for a handful of nuts in a bowl on the bar. She throws the nuts at the back of her throat, then leans in, her jade bangle clacking against the bar’s polished chrome. Arm flab swinging like the underbelly of a spayed cat.
“We pay two-fifty a night,” Cassie says, “then there’s tips.”
“How much?” Ella asks.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“How much they like you,” Navid offers. “How much you smile.”
Ella smiles. “Great!” She shines, and all three of them laugh.
An outsider, I catch Shaun from the corner of my eye, now standing behind the bar.
“Back in a minute,” I say.
“Sure,” Navid says, “no rush.”
Of course there’s no rush, I say in my head. It’s not me you’re interested in.
Shaun spots me draw nearer.
“Hey,” he says, winking.
“Hey.” I smile back.
His arms bulge at the hem of his white short-sleeved shirt, and I note the creep of several tattoos. On his right arm: the tail of a mermaid; on the left: the heel of a monster. Monsters and mermaids.
I wonder which he prefers, Oneiroi says. Mermaids: no fear of depth, yet a fear of shallow living? Or monsters: not under your bed but inside your head?
Shh, I say.
I watch him shake a cocktail, arms flexing. The mermaid’s tail stretching while he adds a tiny violet hibiscus to the salted rim of a glass. He slides the peach-colored cocktail over to a girl with a stink face who breaks out in a smile, revealing crooked teeth before lowering pretty eyes.
He leans over the bar and kisses me on the mouth.
Stink Face takes her drink and hurries along.
“Still on for tonight?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, thumbing Ella’s meet-and-greet situation with Navid and Cassie behind me, “I’m just—”
“It’s fine, go. Find me out back in half an hour.”