Jambalaya

Alastor

Neon lights flicker on, encasing my body and burning against exposed flesh as a hush falls over the crowded area. Peeking through the gossamer curtains, I confirm what I already know. There isn't a single empty seat. Perfect. Whenever I'm due to perform, the club is always full.

As it should be.

Exhilaration causes my heart to thunder in my ears, and a shiver of excitement races through me. Goosebumps pebble pale skin - courtesy of the disguise I managed to wrangle up from a special Grimoire. Sure, I've never been noticed before, and this makes week three since I've started doing this bone deep passion. A chilling secret I shall take to my grave should I ever die again. Yet, I'm still nervous before each performance. It's highly unlikely I'll ever be caught. I've perfected this disguise right down to the removal of my hideous blemishes, and hue of my skin. Regardless, pesky agitation seems to wriggle up from the darkest recesses of my mind.

With every movement of my limbs, glitter shimmers like a thousand tiny diamonds. Usual sharp smile, is replaced with a close lipped smirk that will taunt the crowd of a possible secret I know, that I shan't ever reveal.

Little do these degenerates of perversion know, I am the person that they'd never expect in a place of debauchery like this. The head honcho of the hunt. The Master of Radio.

The Radio Demon.

"Who is ready for the sinful buck you all want to fuck? Welcome to the stage, Jambalaya!" A sudden voice booms throughout the room and my ears twitch at the harsh grating noise as the DJ is met with hollers and whistles. long blue hair sifts as I take a deep breath in.

Show time!

Soothing Jazz notes begin, relaxing my stiff body ever so slightly as the comforting music does its job. Other than the music, it was deafeningly silent. Silent as a freshly dug grave in a cemetery, waiting for a body to inhabit it. To enter an eternal slumber of which to never wake.

Click!

Click!

Click!

Six inch heels echo on a polished stage so shiny, one could eat off it. As I draw closer to the edge of said stage, I slowly trail my hands up from where they rest comfortably upon my hips, brushing feather light over exposed, pale, flawless skin, to gently touch my lips. Gaze burning with the intent to mesmerize. To stun. To paralyze. To pleasure the senses.

No, I didn't plan to fully strip. I never do. I perform the simple art of dance. Teasing every degenerate with a feast of the eyes, in which their imagination's run wild, and it shows in every pair of crazed eyes my predatory gaze slides over.

🎼  I wish I had someone to love me,
Someone to call me their own.
I wish I had someone to live with,
Because I'm tired of living alone 🎼

Leg gracefully extending, I twirl and dip, limbs weaving to the intricate slow notes of a song Mother used to sing whenever she tended to her rose garden.

Ah, Mother. How she would've loved this.

Not the baring of flesh, of course. But the simple and delicate art of dance. Mother loved to dance. Many a night, she and I would dance. Perfectly in sync with each other as we twirled about the foyer. Even in death, I miss her so. When she ascended into Heaven, part of me withered like a rose left carelessly out in the sunlight for too long. The petals furling and void of color as it struggles. Grasping at the life that trickles away, just out of reach.

🎼  Please meet me tonight in the moonlight,
Please meet me tonight alone.
For I have the best stories to tell you,
It's a story that's never been told 🎼

Blue eyes flutter shut as my hips rotate and I fall to my knees with a effortless spin, hair billowing around me, the strands falling across my face as I dance with ease. It helped to imagine that I was dancing not for a crowd of disgusting wretches, but for Mother. For every dip and spin, was mirroring patterns of a dance once shared in New Orleans. When my hair was but the color of the mud that frequented the Bayou we lived in, and eyes a swampy green.

🎼  Now if I had wings like an angel,
Over these prison walls I would fly.
And I'd fly to the arms of my poor Darling,
And there I'd be well until dark 🎼

As the song comes to a close, I dance around the pole, never really touching it but giving the illusion I'd touch it but for a moment. Yet my fingers never brush the smooth, cold, metal. I've learned from Angeldust that to tease and bait, is far better than to outright give in. To which, he is right. Observing the pornstar closely one day as he practiced in his room - under the privacy of my shadow hidden within the dark confides of the room - I learned quite a bit. Some of which, I have implemented into my own performance.

Bait and tease.

Gaining access to do this was easy enough. A disguise here. An unfiltered voice and bribery there. It was ridiculously simple to start dancing at this den of debauchery.
I must admit, this wasn't something I ever thought I'd do. Not in a million afterlife's. But some soul collecting business had brought me into the unsavory part of town. Into the very place where Angeldust liked to inhabit. Where he danced frequently to get away from it all. To become himself. I know this, because when the spotlight bathed his form, there wasn't a fake smile upon those stunning features, but a genuine one.

That much can't be said of myself...

For a plastered smile of hidden pain, constantly forced my lips upward. Even now, it's a struggle to keep the soft smile from transforming into one of gleeful malice. A dangerous sharp grin that I am known for. To allow its appearance, is to give myself away.

Still, I understood - in some way - why he was able to be himself. He danced to feel...free.

And freedom, wasn't something one felt much of down here. My lip curls in disdain as I turn my face away from the crowd, thankfully going unnoticed. Fingers go up to brush against my throat. Invisible though as they may be, they still remain. The wretched chains that bind me to them. To her. Tethering me to a fate I cannot escape. So I do what Angel does to feel any morsel of freedom.

Dance.

Granted, dancing here and in this way, isn't ideal and very unlike me. But the adoration from these sinners - as disagreeable as it may be - feed the side of me that craves entertainment. Yearning scandalous situations and even the tiniest bit of freedom.

For on this stage, freedom is mine.

Here, I am in charge of my own fate.

Thundering applause and crude hollers has my ears flattening as I maintain my façade, pressing a finger to my lips in a secretive way over my shoulder before stalking off the stage.