Elysian Fields (A Kyman Fanfiction)

Chapter 5: Challengers

Saturday night throbs with the freedom to make stupid decisions, because the next day, God will forgive you. However when you work Saturday nights, it's just another work day, full of tedium and people you'd rather not deal with. I finish my set and walk off the stage, my legs feeling too heavy for my body. No customers tonight. Porsche had a theory that the shittier weather scared off potential clients.

The day had been eventful and I was feeling the trailing false confidence of the moonshine, daring to spin more and climb higher. Grace be damned, I could at least do tricks. The girls would tip me, because of stripper etiquette. I'd learned slowly that whatever I tipped would come back to me threefold, kindness to my coworkers and all. It always worked out. But nights like this, we all equally felt the cold reality of empty purses.

The club stank of spilled beer and cheap perfume. Glitter dusted my bare chest as I redid the buttons on my purple top. Fishnet undershirt, slutty shorts, and combat boots, I have become the very picture of desperate faggot. No wonder Cartman ragged on me constantly.

I watched Acura with mild amusement as she crawled on the stage floor, her ivory skin glistening with beads of sweat, and small manicured hands pulling a particularly lucky customer (the only one in the room) by his tie. Her tits do nothing for me, it's just a body. We're all just stupid mewling animals attempting to make our life worth the effort, man or woman, or in between. I could never feel comfortable touching a customer like that, but another man... Who knows.

I'd kissed girls before, a few times before puberty and a few because of it. Porsche made me grab her tits last week to reassure her they were lovely, and that was sadly the most I'd felt of another human, but they might as well have been potatoes for the obsession was lost on me. Maybe I really feel nothing anymore, or maybe seeing the uncomfortable faces of the dancers as the customers desperately tugged at them turned me off both sexes forever.

"Fancy seeing you here," I say. I caught Cartman in the corner of my eye attempting to sit next to me at the bar. I use the straw to twirl the ice cubes in my vodka cranberry, and take another sip. "Thought you'd have enough of me today."

He sits on the stool and ignores my comment, instead nodding at my drink. "Still at it? You're less of a pussy than I thought," he remarks.

I remain silent and finish my long sip because it's something to do with my mouth other than talking. I don't know what to say, and he's staring at me again.

"What?" I ask sharply. I know I look ridiculous, I don't need him staring at me constantly as a reminder. "I'm surprised you even made it here with you puking your guts out."

"Not all of us quit when the going gets tough. That's what a pussy is," he replies matter-of-factly, not questioning when I saw him. Shortly after watching him, I crept back inside and out on my shoes, darting out before he found some reason to blame me for his circumstance.

He removes his brown jacket and sticks it on a hook under the bar, the clean smell of peppermint wafting toward me from under his black shirt. In the blue light, I can see a five o'clock shadow growing along the edge of his strong jaw. He reached for his back pocket with a large hand.

"Did you leave them all at your house?" I ask. "Won't your mom be back or something?"

Cartman opens his black wallet and replies without looking at me. "No, she won't be back."

His brunette choppy hair stuck to his forehead with sweat while his eyes shifted into a distant gaze. His tone tells me what I already suspected: she's gone. Not for a night, not for a week. I regret bringing it up, but I can at least feign ignorance. He doesn't seem to know I was snooping around his house yet.