Three Rings

A Story by Fra/c/ture

RPG (Random Plot Generator): A manic-depressive stripper meets a fate worse than death at an exclusive country club.

Slow nights were afternoons like this.

A half-dozen dozing degenerates scattered among the back tables, not wanting the attention generated by sitting near the stage.

The synthetic music blaring from hanging speakers ricocheting crazily off walls, tables and chairs.

Slow nights were afternoons like this when the bartenders were skimpy on drinks for the dancers and the bouncers didn't want to turn any customers out; some slept fitfully or read magazines at their tables.

Candy sat in the area called the dressing room; it was also called the storage closet and the kitchen, depending on who you asked. The line cook lounged in a rolling office chair smoking cigarettes and listening to sports radio. Because the dressing room was also the receiving dock, a dented overhead garage door filled one wall and there were several busted-up wooden pallets leaning against it. A stiff breeze whistled right through the bottom of the door and light filtered through from the parking lot outside.

Slow nights were afternoons like this, starting at three and going til half past tomorrow.

Candy pulled her dressing gown tighter around her body and recrossed her legs, arranging the robe's folds to cover as much skin as she could.

Someone, the bouncer or maybe the bartender, yelled into the back.

"Hey girls, shift change in fifteen."

Girls, with an s. There was only one girl on the three-to-six shift and it was Candy, and Candy has alot of slow nights. Anyone coming into the club in the mid-afternoon probably didn't have a job and she could tell how well they would tip just by checking out their shoes from stage. As the afternoon wore on, some work-types would roll in but none of the ones with good paying jobs; the four-to-five crowd was made up of the people who started early and got off early--garbagemen, contractors, janitors.

Just as the crowds started to pick up about five-thirty or six, Candy would be off-shift and the evening girls would come in. They already had their makeup on and most of them just shucked off their coats and changed from sneakers to heels. Then they were stage-ready, and in an hour's time they made as much money as she made all afternoon.

But Candy was no kid at thirty-four, and at thirty-four all the years showed in the places they tend to--the lines around the eyes, the loose skin of the upper arms, the dimpled thighs. She had already been two kids deep in a marriage before her husband had commented to her one morning that she sure didn't have the body of a dancer no more. Then he had laughed once and slapped her affectionately on the thigh like you would a trusty mare. The crack of the slap filled the quiet bedroom and Candy had felt the ripples reverberate up through her butt. The next sound was the creak of bedsprings as he got up for work.

At the door, with nothing but dingy once-white briefs on, he had turned to her, "Don't worry though, darling, you're a keeper for me."

Candy knew he was already screwing another girl from the club, Glenda. Glenda was nineteen, all b***s and butt, a platinum blonde, and perfectly brain dead. Feminine perfection.

That was all years ago, though, and Candy still wore her engagement ring even though she was divorced. The wedding band she flushed down the toilet. It hadn't been worth much--her husband had bought it knowing she'd already said yes, so he didn't have to impress her anymore. But the first ring--the engagement ring--she didn't know why she still wore it. It was just comfortable she guessed, and it reminded her of best intentions and how easily they can go astray. It reminded her specifically of her ex-husband, but not the cheating drunk he had become--the guy who had wanted her to stop dancing, the guy who put the engagement ring on layaway for six months until he had it paid off.

She spun it lazily around her finger.

It was loose from the weight she'd lost, from the frantic life she'd lived since the divorce. And like everything else left to her in the divorce it was always on the verge of being lost, of slipping silently away. It still caught the light just right though and she polished it herself every few months. Candy still cherished the ring because that's what she thought real love meant--taking care of something no matter what comes down the pike.

She found a piece of tape and wound it around the band to tighten it. Then after picking at the edges of the diamond setting with her fingernail she took a minute to look at her reflection in the mirror and note what good qualities she still had, or maybe even find some that had gotten better with age.

She started with her hair but that was no good because when she pulled it to the side she could see the roots coming in and some were noticeably gray. For the most part her hair had a deep auburn tinge, but that was so obviously a dye-job that she wasn't really trying to fool anyone about it. She replaced the hair and smoothed it back into place.

She moved on to her face, tugging gently at the sunken-in skin of her cheeks. This made her eyes droop and she saw how they were rimmed with red at the edges. Too much smoke and not enough sleep her mother would say. After a long sigh, she checked her teeth and was happy there. They were fairly straight and white from years of bleaching treatments and the plaque only showed in spots below the gumline.

Her lips were another story though--thin, expressionless lips. They weren't full or pouty like the younger girls'. They had no luster. They weren't like tiny pink pillows and they weren't blow-me lips as she'd heard customers call Glenda's or Cindy's.

And then everything south of the face was troubling for her, everything from her arms that were gradually losing their tone to her stomach muscles that had never really recovered from her second baby. Her a*s was beginning to spread some, and though alot of the guys seemed to like that, it was her legs that wobbled when she didn't walk carefully that made her cringe. She flexed her butt and saw the tiny pocks indenting the backs of her thighs

There was an invisible clock directly over her head counting down the years, or maybe only months, she could keep dancing. She knew the stage lights and make-up only hid so much and she was already the earliest shift on, so there was nowhere else to hide.

With two slender hands she cupped some oil and greased her legs, arms, and torso. She juggled her breasts in the mirror for a moment and put oil on them, too. They didn't look so bad with the oil, she decided. A quick slash of lipstick and a reapplication of eyeliner and she crammed her sore toes into some tiny white stilettoes. They were actually Glenda's stilettoes, but Glenda was a late-girl and wouldn't be in until eight or nine, so she'd never know.

The dressing gown, really more of a shabby bathrobe that tied at the waist, was the last thing that came off before a girl hit the stage. Candy hung hers on a metal hook just offstage behind a filthy curtain missing half its sequins. She worked out the little bit of nerves that always came to her right before going onstage. That exact sensation was part of why she had never been able to quit stripping. Like the older girls had told her when she started: if you don't get out in the first three months, you never will.

And now it was six, seven years later, and those older girls were gone, gone to wherever washed-up dancers go, and Candy was soon to follow them. But the nervousness, the nervousness was made her still feel so young, like every time she came through those curtains it was the first time. There were people--men--there for the specific reason that they wanted to see her and how she moved. They wanted to be turned on by her and they paid attention for the entire time she was out. It was hard to guarantee that sort of thing in any other station in life, and there were bonuses too, like some afternoons when she'd come out to a half-full house. Maybe a holiday or just a real nice afternoon when businessmen take off after lunch to golf, go to ball games, or go to the club. And she never knew when one of those afternoons would happen--she might not get one for six months but then she might get three good days in a week.

That was the excitement--the never knowing, the attention, and the wondering who might be out there just beyond the glare of lights watching her. On days when she was really low she would convince herself she saw the flash of an expensive watch or a pale stripe of silk tie, and she would dance for that, for the maybe and for the possibility.

Today though she didn't need to invent much. It was a Friday so there would be a few more heads than usual and she had Saturdays off so she'd be able to get some sleep over the weekend and spend some time with her kids. All in all, things weren't that bad really.

There was no DJ or announcer, at least not on her shift, so once her first song kicked in she strutted out past the edge of the curtain and met the blinding glare of stagelighting. She knew the tricks though, the ones that the young girls took so long with, like how to keep your eyes open without squinting and how to focus on a patch of blackness away from any bright spots. She felt a little foolish though as she ran her tongue around the outside of her mouth and then popped a finger inside like some schoolgirl, but these little extras were the things that got tips out of guys who normally wouldn't. The extras--the facial expressions, the bending further and further, the stroking of her own body--these were the things that paid the bills.

The time onstage went by in a flash. It was a fifteen minute routine during which Candy was outside of her own body. She seemed to see herself from above like a floating camera, doing all the twirls and coyly shedding accessory after accessory until there was nothing left to lose but the vinyl push-up bra. And even then, there were the various ways to cup the breasts and hide them. She watched herself work onstage and when the routine was finished something vacuumed her back home as she stalked offstage to a few scattered claps and some weak catcalls.

Her cover-up was streaked from the sweat and she immediately toweled off before putting her robe back on. Then she stretched her legs and back which had tightened up during the routine. She plopped back down on her stool and drank from a nearly empty bottle of water with old lipstick marks around its rim. She had a five minute break coming during which she was supposed to towel off, reapply make-up, and get ready to work the crowd serving drinks.

She waved three wide streaks of hairspray across her head, fixed her lipstick and headed out front. There were a dozen or so customers so she went to the bar, got a drink tray and tablet and started moving table to table. The owner, Eddie, always told the girls to take drink orders ONLY. Then he'd laugh and raise his eyebrows a few times. Whatever keeps 'em coming back, he'd add, and then he'd call one of the girls sugar or darling or the worst--toots. Eddie wanted whatever was best for business, and satisfied customers were always best for business.

A few unemployed-looking guys ordered the cheapest domestic drafts, and one old man a gin and tonic, no ice but nobody ordered any "extras"--there were no nervous questions about a separate menu or what else was available. She returned the tray and orders to the bar and waited for them to be filled while she drank a diet soda the bartender charged her for.

Leaning heavily on a tarnished brass rail beside the bar, Candy zoned out. It was hot out front and the ceiling fans didn't move much air. The central a/c had broken last summer and Eddie had always talked about the parts being on order, but before long it had been winter and people stopped asking. She could feel the sticky overspray on her temples and forehead beginning to dry.

There was a light touch at her arm and she came out of her daze to see a guy in a nice suit standing there, just smiling. She quickly smoothed herself out and grabbed the notepad again to take his drink order.

"Oh, I'm not really interested in a drink just yet."

Candy's eyes lit up because he looked like he had money, was actually clean, and might want something extra. The triple threat, it didn't happen often. She tried her best to be casual and not over-aggressive; in a low voice she asked him what he'd like.

"Well, I'd like to know if you want to get out of here and make some more serious money this afternoon."

His smile turned very serious and both hands were in his pants pockets. Candy kept her cool.

"Well, that depends on how I'm making the serious money."

He scowled darkly for a moment but soon his face lightened and resumed its former calm.

"I expected you'd say that. Here's the deal, I'm an exec for Miramax Films and we're shooting over at Pinehurst Country Club and need an extra. We need someone just to fill in as a waitress. No lines or anything, and of course the best part..."

He paused here and brought his hands from his pockets. They were large and tanned with long manicured fingers. He wore a wedding band and a large college ring. Both of them were a deep soft gold and glowed warmly in the dim light. She had always believed there was something different, something more trustworthy, about a man who wore rings, especially gold. This man's hands measured up perfectly and there was a feeling of security exuded from the heavy brushed gold.

He caught her stare on his hands and brough them up to eye-level, his broad smile coming back, showing he had nothing to hide from her. He finished his offer with a flourish of wide arms.

"...you don't even have to DO anything."

Candy watched those beautiful hands like they were two gracefully trained doves, each fingernail with its own perfect half-moon of white cuticle. The best part of her job was the sleazeball detector that was honed to scary accuracy. She had an almost uncanny sense of men's intentions now, and this guy didn't give her the skeevies; he didn't give off the "customer" vibe. The gleaming garnet in his college ring winked at her as he laced his fingers together.

"Well, I'm not off shift yet, so I can't really leave...I'd like to though...leave."

"Well, here."

This time when his hand reappeared from the pocket it grasped a silver-plated money clip stuffed with bills. He tapped it once on the bar then slid it down to her.

"Will this make it easier to ditch work?"

Candy looked around nervously for the bartender but he was still filling drink orders. She knew that if he overheard anything or saw her take the money clip he'd rat her out to Eddie. The girls were supposed to turn over half of any extras they made, and when they didn't Eddie got real unpleasant.

She quickly palmed the clip, brought it down into the darkness under the bar, and fanned out the bills in the clip. She didn't have time to count, but there were twenties. Lots.

"Okay, mister...?"

"Lewis. But call me Derrick."

"Okay, Derrick, I'm in but if we're leaving it's got to be quick."

He was already on his way towards the door. Candy remembered her purse and keys in the back and hesitated for a moment, but then Eddie appeared from the kitchen and began surveying the crowd. Before he saw her she ducked out the door with Derrick Lewis from Miramax Films and a silver-plated money clip full of twenties.

His car wasn't exactly what she'd expected. She thought with that suit and those rings and the money clip that he'd have a Jag or a BMW but he led her around the side of the building to an SUV. It was nice but not brand new and not really much of a luxury ride. The windows were tinted out and it had a lift kit on it and on the way across the street Derrick guided Candy with a gentle arm and clicked his auto-start.

Pinehurst was your average yuppy country club--long winding drive through manicured pines, landscaped ponds and fountains, and a low rambling clubhouse. There weren't many cars outside, just a few conversion vans and some SUVs like Derrick's. It seemed pretty quiet and there wasn't a cart to be seen traversing the rolling greens of the course.

Derrick slowed down almost to a stop as he approached the clubhouse but then he swung around behind the building and parked next to another smaller building half-hidden by overgrown evergreens. There was a sleek looking Lincoln Towncar parked there and another SUV, but no one seemed to be around. Nevertheless, Derrick parked and hopped out motioning for Candy to follow him inside. He looked both ways, toward the parking lot and the clubhouse, before opening the door and ushering Candy in. Immediately there was an earthy smell like old lawn clippings and a season's past mulch and Candy stepped into the square of darkness with great apprehension.

She relaxed when she saw why it was so dark, a black curtain had been hung just beyond the doorway and Derrick pushed this aside and held it open for Candy. Beyond the curtain there were lights, bright lights on stands angled in all directions. There were cables everywhere with different colored strips of tape on them and another area at the back of the room was cordoned off with more black curtain. The smell of mulch and grass was less present here and was replaced by a familiar smell, but one that she could not place. When she inhaled, it made her stomach clench and unclench itself and a peculiar rush of anxiety and excitement course through her. She didn't have time to try and place that smell and that feeling because Derrick escorted her by the elbow towards a couple of guys standing together.

"Grady, I got our extra."

Derrick's fingers were firm on Candy's elbow but not painful; they were just solidly there. The man Derrick had addressed as Grady turned and displayed a tanned, lined face like that of a prototypical California beach bum past his prime.

"Alright, D. We were all wondering if we were going to shoot today or not, and now it looks good. Let's knock a few scenes out and see how well she takes direction."

From the way Grady talked about her, it was like she wasn't even there. Not once did he address her or make eye contact. Even so, she tried to smile and wave a little but it fell flat and she crossed her arms nervously across her chest. He talked only to Derrick, and ignored her in a very purposeful and demeaning way.

"So let's get her in the back, changed around, and on set in ten. Dane's been ready to go for the last hour so we need to get a move on. I don't know how much longer he can be up."

She thought it strange that nobody even introduced her or told her what sort of character she was playing. All she knew was waitress, and that wasn't much to go on. She didn't see any set or props to speak of and there was no catered table of water and sandwiches like she had imagined. Once again it was Derrick who escorted her through a swath of black curtain. There was a small vanity set up with a light and mirror mounted over it. A rolling rack of clothing was positioned next to the table and an outfit was already laid out on the chair for her. It was a waitress's one piece skirt-suit with an apron sewn onto it and a pair of high-heeled black pumps. It looked pretty normal at first until she felt the fabric and her fingers naturally recoiled at the touch.

The fabric matched the smell on-set and the familiar feeling in her gut came back. She took a deep breath and concentrated on the anxious feeling and the sweat beginning to seep into her armpits. She touched the outfit again. It was vinyl, all of it, the kind of vinyl she knew too well, the kind of vinyl only worn in two lines of work...and her day job was the other one.

She got a sick turning feeling inside. Derrick had said it was totally clean, that she didn't even have to do anything. She peeked through the curtain and saw him talking to Grady and considered backing out, but she knew that wouldn't go well. At the least, she wouldn't have a ride back to work, and she figured she had made a subconscious decision when she left work to come back with the money Derrick had given her. If she backed out now it would all be over.

She took the money clip out and tucked it into a shiny vinyl bodysuit hanging on the rack. Then she got into her waitress's outfit even though her skin crawled with the sticky almost-wet feeling of the vinyl clinging to her. The outfit was made to be too small in the chest and too short on the thighs and no matter how she pulled at it there was no way to make it more than it was.

Suddenly the curtain was yanked aside and Grady stepped into the little dressing area with her. He yanked the curtain back closed behind himself and approached her. She hated the orange tinge of his skin and the cheap dye-job frosting his hair. He ran a stubby finger up and down her forearm.

"Sweetheart, you're gonna be just fine. I know you're probably nervous but it's virtually impossible to screw up. You don't even have any lines. You're just going to stand off-camera on the side, and when I motion to you then you walk in with a tray and slap your order pad down on the table we got set up there. Then just put your hands on your hips and kind of c**k your body, like defiant but sexy, too. And from there everything will just kind of happen around you.

Candy looked down at the short fat fingers rubbing her arm. They were bare live overbrowned sausages, plumped and greasy, and she couldn't imagine a ring of any sort squeezing onto one of them. She tried not to show her physical aversion to him.

"What do you mean? How long is the scene and how am I supposed to know when it's over?"

"Well, see, it's like this. This is how we shoot movies, baby: we shoot a scene and it'll be real long but then later we edit it down and splice together all the good parts. So our scene might be an hour on film but after we edit it out it might be only twenty minutes. Maybe less."

The way Grady talked he sounded just like Eddie at the club, always talking in bending statements that said one thing but meant something different, usually something crude and filthy. Candy didn't feel good about the scene, but she realized that now, in this strange building with all these strange people and no way to leave, she didn't really have a choice but to follow through.

When she came through the curtain she was directed to stand next off to the side and walk over to the beat-up table when she was cued. All the lights were turned to the table and two cameras on boom stands swung into position. From the other side of the room a guy walked on to the set. He had a cowboy shirt and hat on and cowboy boots to match. He clip-clopped over to the table, took his hat off and sat down. His hair was thinning and greased back, spiked on the top and hanging down the back of his neck. A heavy gold chain swung from his neck and in his left ear was a tiny gold cross earring.

This was no cowboy.

Candy got her cue and approached him, keeping her eyes glued straight ahead. When she got to the table she leaned over in front of him so that he could see down her vinyl top. She bit the tip of her pencil coyly and thought about saying, "So what'll you have, cowboy?" She didn't though, she just leaned there and smiled and waited like she'd been told to do.

The cowboy stood up, towering over her, and hitched his thumbs in his pockets. He thrust his hips out suggestively towards her.

"Well sweetie, you ready to take my order?"

One firm hand rested on Candy's shoulder and coaxed her to her knees and his other began to loosen his belt, but suddenly just when Candy was about to freak out and run off set Grady yelled CUT! Candy breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she hadn't been lied to after all, that this was only going to allude to some off-screen sex scene.

The cowboy refastened his belt and sauntered off toward his dressing area and Grady approached Candy with a smile.

"Okay, that wasn't so bad, right? You did a nice job. The lean-over was classic, baby!"

Candy blushed but she figured Derrick had already told Grady she was a stripper, so it wasn't so big a deal if he found out she had "prior experience". She started for her own dressing area to change into her streetclothes, but Grady stopped her, and like Derrick had guided her across the street it was with a solid hand around the elbow that he maneuvered her to the side.

"Whoa sugar, we're not quite done yet. We have to film the rest of the scene, the part after the cutaway. It'll be over there..." He pointed past the cowboy's dressing curtains to another partitioned off area. When Candy meekly poked her head around the corner what she saw almost made her run. The cowboy was there but standing with him were a dozen other guys dressed in the same gear. They were all shirtless and a few of them had riding chaps on but nothing else. One guy even had shiny spinning spurs attached to his boots. More than a few were vigorously touching themselves, getting ready for Candy from the looks of it.

Grady's hand was insistent on her arm and he brought his other over her shoulder and steered her toward the men. Behind Candy the boom-cameras were rapidly being rolled into place as well. The lights were already being set up in the new location. When the cowboys saw Candy being escorted onto the set, each turned towards her, totally unashamed of their nudity and each wanting to display himself for her.

In Candy's head she just thought if she could get through this as quickly as possible it would be best, but she realized that meant she'd have to be "good" at her job. She would have to put on a nice face and act the part--there was no other way out. Standing there and taking it all in, the part of her that cared about her kids and worried about her body and tried to eat healthy quietly burrowed itself down inside her stomach, curled into a tight ball. She swallowed hard and forced everything she wanted to save deep down inside herself and closed off that solid aching space behind her ribs.

The lights were already starting to make her itch and sweat under the vinyl dress and the cowboys formed into a ring of pulsing heat with her at the center. The ends joined and they swung around her, panting together like a single animal, and moving her with them toward a plastic-covered sofa chair. She smiled big and wet but it was more hunted rabbit than cunning fox. The difference was in the eyes, hers were dull and listless and empty.

Candy was not there anymore.

The girl's forearms shook violently as she eased herself onto the chair. It was the anxiety and the girl's nerves on edge that made the tendons and veins in her hands stand out. She exhaled one long breath, clutching tightly to the wide arm rests.

And then the ring closed on her.