“I know you didn’t. Just fooling. But really, we all decided it would be best to go out on a high note. And tonight’s also in celebration of one of our past girls who’s no longer with us.”
“I’m very sorry. That’ll be her picture that’s all around then? She looked lovely.”
I pulled myself closer to him. “So how long are you in Berlin for?”
“How long’s a bit of rope? I come and go as I please. I sold the shop back in Tokyo, made enough to retire for a few years. Currently roaming the world as a kind of half-assed, dicking-around playboy, until I run out of funds, or ideas.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then, I go back to drawing skulls and wolves and dragons on bikers and hip kids. There’s an old Chinese proverb: ‘He who can hold a pen, need never beg’. I say, there’s also a good Japanese proverb: ‘He who can hold a tattoo gun, can always afford a Subaru’.”
“Johnny, you crack me up,” I laughed from behind my hands. “What are you doing tonight?”
“I was hoping you might tell me. I’m open to suggestion.”
I leant closer and twirled a stray strand of hair between my fingers. “Well, this is actually my home – until the sad day comes soon when I have to sell up and go. I’ve lived in the rooms above us for nearly fifteen years. You can see why I’m kind of emotional about it all.”
“Yes, of course. Maybe we should move on somewhere else a little quieter for the rest of the evening?”
“I’ll leave the destination to you. Let me run around and do the farewell tour first – I’ll even introduce you to my
yummy mommy
friends.”
“Good, yes. Gives me a chance to relieve myself.”
As he headed off to the door marked
Gentlemen
I stood up and moved towards the stage. I hadn’t gone two paces when I walked slap-bang into an unyielding body, as though it had deliberately planted itself there just to get in my way.
I held back on mouthing off any unkind objections in recognition of the occasion. But even if I’d started, I would have been very quickly invited to shut up.
It was BCKIG, and he was looking right up at me, his meaning and expression hidden under the shadow of his cap and glasses. I hadn’t noticed him around the venue for some time, and had indeed almost completely forgotten his existence.
“Hi,” I said, “great to see you again. Glad you could make it.”
He bowed curtly at me, but the urgency in his manner suggested that small-talk was not what he had in mind.
“Why you leaving?” he demanded. “This is great place. Great business. You all wonderful, sexy women. You should be staying open, not be going.”
“You’re right, I’d rather be coming,” I smiled, but he didn’t smile back. He either didn’t get the joke or resented not being taken seriously. Well, he had supported us faithfully all this time, paying our bar prices and admission fees for more years than I cared to remember, so I figured now at least – having spoken to him for what would be the first, and last time – I could at least be straight with the little guy.
I squatted down before him and looked him in the eye. “We’re getting out because the future lies elsewhere, sir – and not with us, I’m sorry to say. The adult entertainment world is changing, and so are we.”
“Changing? Maybe, but for better. I would take all of you home and pay you for private.”
“All of us, eh,” I said, looking around. If he was planning to get pushy with me, then I had already made up my mind to squash any such intentions. “Well, we don’t come cheap, you know. I’m not sure you could afford us all for one night.”
“Afford?” he sniggered, as though highly amused at some devilish private joke. “You not know who I am, then.”
“Uh...no,” I conceded, feeling suddenly rather stupid, if not completely condescending. Not to mention just a tiny bit scared.
“I am Gin Lao. Vice-chairman of German branch of Asian electronics super-giant, XE-Comms. We make computers for your luxury German cars. Millions of them.”
I froze. If that was supposed to be funny, then I wasn’t laughing. But neither was he. If anything was funny, it was now me, and my ridiculous assumptions.
“You do?” I gasped. I pointed to his hat. “But I thought you—”
“This? Ha ha.” He whipped the hat off and jammed it backwards onto my head. “I wear overalls and clothes of factory workforce. To show I am like them, even if my bank balance is not. It is standard corporate practice. And in here, I like to blend in. Nobody asks, nobody bothers me. I can enjoy sexy shows in peace.”
He pulled a brown leather wallet out of his jacket and flipped it open. I caught a flash of half-a-dozen platinum credit cards inside as he slid out a business card and passed it to me. It was printed in gold on black, and confirmed everything he claimed he was. I stared at the flashy gold leaf lettering, the embossed Chinese characters and the multiple contact details: telephone, cell phone, FAX number, pager number, and
e-mail
, whatever the hell that was.
“Uh,” was about as much as I was able to say at that moment.
He took my wrist and brought me back up to my feet. “Who is owner, currently?”
“Uh...of this club?” I stammered, breaking out in a sweat. A million possibilities and future paths lay before me. I wiped the moisture from my chin and tried to keep my composure as I measured exactly what he was driving at. “Technically, uh...me, and Melissa, over there. Why?”
“I buy club. I keep beautiful old German furnishings. I make club best nightspot in town. And hot, sexy women dancers, of course. If you like, I keep you on. So?”
I tried to swallow but my throat just wouldn’t allow it. I needed water, I needed fresh air. My head was mush. He couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Can I get my friend to talk to you about this, sir? She knows a lot more than I do. I just kind of help out when I can.”
“Please.”
He bowed curtly, suggesting that I be quick about it. I already had the distinct feeling that when Mr. Lao made an offer, he did not take rejection lightly.
I arrived, breathless, at Mel’s side while she was hob-knobbing with a couple of older male admirers in tuxedos.
“Mel?” I hissed at her, and grabbed her elbow to steer her aside. “A word.
Now
, honey. This is major.”
Mel wobbled and swerved away from her startled companions. She shot me daggers as she clung to her wine glass in an effort to prevent its contents going all over her dress.
“‘Scuse me just a moment, gentlemen.”
She swept along after me into the corner at the back of the club. “Phoenyx, I’m about half an hour’s worth of sweet-talk, and maybe a BJ in the loo, away from a fucking two-year recording contract here. This had better be pretty damn important.”
Mel’s eyes were doing cartwheels and I could see she was serious. But so was I. I nodded towards Mr. Lao. She peered at him with me, squinting, trying to see something else which lay beyond the little man in the blue denim. “What, old BCKIG gave you his hat?” She whipped the denim thing off my head and pushed it under my arm. “
And
?”
“Mel...don’t get ratty with me, babe. We’ve had this guy totally wrong. He’s not blue collar. And he isn’t Korean.”
“What is he then, a Siamese lady boy? Spill it, Phoenyx. These guys aren’t staying around unless I can sign tonight.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders. “He wants to buy this place.”
“
Buy
?” she repeated, and nearly dropped her hock glass on the floor.
I showed her the business card I had taken from him. She swung a longer, more lingering look back at him, and this time he bowed in reply. She stared at me furiously, as if I was making it up.
“
Buy
?” she squawked again, her face twisting into a comic-book version of her real self.
“Purchase. Exchange for money.
Do trade with
. Don’t take my word for it. Go speak to him yourself and tell me if he’s on the level. And if you need my say-so to do anything legal, then my answer is ‘yes’.”
She sucked her lower lip as though trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of it. “Fuck,” she squeaked, “Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck
.” She thrust her glass into my hand and splashed a wave of white wine into my cleavage. “Okay, I’ll talk to him. You keep those bozos there amused for me, will you?” She slapped a hasty kiss on my mouth and hurried over to pow-wow with White Collar Chinese Vice-Chairman Guy.
I straightened my shoulders, took a deep breath, and strutted up to Mel’s grey-haired recording contract gents, wondering how the hell I was supposed to entertain them
and
keep my clothes on at the same time. On my knees, perhaps?
Two hours of kisses and hugs and tear-stained, emotional farewells later, and I finally dragged Johnny out of the Klub, because I simply had to breathe some fresh air again and find a little space. Mel had finished off by holding court behind the bar with WCCV-CG and her recording contract bozos. “I’ll call you,” she yelled at me in parting as Johnny and I stepped outside. But as I waved back at her, the future of the Klub was the last thing on my mind, as was the question of how many cocks Mel would have likely sucked dry before the night was over.
Mr. Iko had seen to it that I had other things to think about.
Out on Freudlose Gasse, the night sky held a faint pink tinge, as though the sun had decided it wasn’t going to go all the way down that evening, but stay around to join in the celebration.
“Wonderful architecture,” Johnny commented as we walked around to the back of the building. “Good to see it survived the bombings during the war.”
“I guess they missed this spot,” I sighed, trying hard not to think about any of that. “Funny how fate works out sometimes, isn’t it?”
“Well, I told you I used magical ink. You probably didn’t believe me. But yes, it is the substance which has bound both of us together through space and time, whether you believe in destiny, or not.”
There was a small group of people skulking in the shadows, looking furtive at the edge of the car-park lights. I peered closer and then I understood why. There was a woman with her tits hanging out of a leopard print coat, her miniskirt wrapped around her waist, sucking a man’s cock while another rammed her brutally from behind. She happened to glance up as we passed by, and I almost didn’t recognize her at first behind the dark make-up, although the fussy braids in her hair were very familiar, even if the harsh platinum highlights weren’t. Then she slid her mouth off the cock and looked right at me with a broad glistening grin. She pressed hard against the man behind her and wiggled her ass as he slipped out of it and rammed back inside.
The man enjoying the oral pleasure slapped her in the face with his cock. “Swallow me, slut. I’m paying for this!”
I just stared as the ex-Mrs. Groenenberg obediently got back to gulping down the big dripping member in front of her, but her eyes lingered on me in a sly sideways look. And then she winked at me, and I smiled back in reply. Tonight, it seemed that the fates were converging to finish writing the chapters in my erotic life story. Perhaps now I would be ready to accept commitment from the right person. Which made me think, again, of the one I had allowed to fly away years before; the one I still wore that dirty, maggot-ridden hair shirt for.
“Have you heard from Honey?” I asked as we headed across the car-park.
“Why? Haven’t you?”
I shook my head, saddened at how quickly, and how totally she had taken herself out of the picture. “She left Berlin right after our trip to Tokyo.” I didn’t want to say anything that would sound out of place. Honey had been wonderful to me, and I knew she and Johnny had shared something very special too, once. “I guess she had things to do. She floats like a butterfly, going wherever she likes. God knows where she ended up. I hope it was somewhere wonderful.” I wiped my eye, daring to believe that she was now very happy and in a lovely place. She deserved it, and I couldn’t bear the thought of another Petra although, knowing her temperament and
live fast/die young
philosophy taken to its logical conclusion, I would have been far from surprised to learn that she was no longer with us.
Johnny just continued to wear that same inscrutable smile on his face as we reached his car – a rather nice Audi – and we slid inside. I’d no sooner settled myself into the passenger seat, than a voice behind me said, “Hey, you big beautiful bitch. Long time no suck.”
I stared into the rear-view mirror, barely willing to believe it. I saw it, but still had to turn around to convince myself, to see the proof in the flesh.
Honey was sitting back, shades on, hair dyed a startling platinum and tumbling over one eye just like Veronica Lake. She slipped a cigarette into the side of her mouth with a black-gloved hand, and lit it up in perfect
femme fatale
style.
“Oh my actual freakin’ God,” I groaned, still disbelieving my own eyes. “No – my
Goddess
. Honey darling? Baby. How are you?”
“About eight inches longer now that I’ve seen you again, hot ass.”
She pulled her shades down and leant forward between the seats, catching my lips with hers in a cherry menthol-flavored tobacco cloud.
Johnny banged his door shut and belted himself in.
“I’ve heard from Honey,” he finally said, with a cheeky grin. “Rather a lot, in fact. Mostly concerning you and your divine ass. She wouldn’t stop going on about it. Oh, as well as other bits of you as well.” He smiled at her in the mirror. “And she wouldn’t have missed the chance of meeting you again even if I’d chained her to the bed.”
“Where were you?” I gasped, “I didn’t see you in the Klub.”
“Sorry, still a bit jet-lagged. Needed to catch up on ‘Z’s, badly. Looks like I woke up for the best bit though.”
“I still don’t believe it,” I sighed, overcome with the emotion. “I thought I’d lost you, all those years ago.”
“Nah, you don’t lose me that easy. These damn hormones might push me to the edge now and again, but I always manage to crawl back somehow. Although at the risk of giving this motherfucker here a bigger head than he already has – I wouldn’t still be here without him.”
Johnny nodded, cancelling the smile which had been growing across his lips. Some serious history had occurred between those two then.