Night Angels Ch. 1

The first time I saw her she was naked, her pale, lithe body floating above the stage in an upmarket gentleman's club downtown. She seemed to me to be a creature in a vision: a dream of innocence and desire. She was one of those women whose bodies are so beautiful that they seem unreal - slender, graceful and voluptuous, with long dark hair like a black waterfall down her back, a round, firm arse, long legs and full white breasts with pink nipples - absolutely pure and totally sinful at the same time. I gazed at her across the room as she floated out over the dark stage and felt my mouth go dry with desire. She danced with awkward grace, stepping over the drinks tumblers arranged on the edge of the stage with downcast eyes, shy and bold at the same time.

Even as she moved off the stage and gyrated among the tables, brushing up against customers, letting a lingering hand slide across a man's shoulders, she danced dreamily, with an inward expression, as if she was lost in secret thoughts, or as if she was alone in this smoke-hazed room. Then our eyes met, and it was like the bite of whiskey in my mouth, cool and fiery, sweet and dangerous. She saw my desire, and met it with that small, secret smile, holding my gaze for a second, two seconds, three. She paused for a moment in front of me, her delectable bottom perched on the edge of my table, her long legs crossed at the ankle, and pretended she was going to remove my glasses. Then at the last moment, instead, her hand went to my drink, and I saw her dip one slender finger in the glass. Leaning back in front of me with an impish grin, she touched her breasts with a wet finger, and threw her shoulder back, as if inviting me to lick the sweet, biting liquid off her nipples. Then she was gone, flirting and teasing the next table.

I bought her a drink afterwards, and she had stood next to me, cool and reserved, a sweet girl, not that good at making conversation. I considered asking her for a date, but decided against it - it was against club rules anyway, and I knew she would refuse. She said I should call her Claudia. She had a boyfriend, she told me, who did not know that she was dancing, who would "have kittens" if he found out. She had a part time job as a secretary, which paid far too little. Her dad had died when she was a little girl. She liked reading and cycling and dancing. She'd dreamed of being a ballet dancer when she was young; she adored Isadora Duncan and had danced for a while with a contemporary dance troupe in town. But she did not have the discipline to have a career in dance. She danced again, later that evening. I looked longingly at her soft, slender body and her young, firm breasts and envied her boyfriend.

I decided that becoming obsessed with an twenty-two year old girl would do me no good (my god! I was twice her age!) and decided to avoid going to the club for a while. But she came to populate my dreams and fantasies, and late at night, as I lay in my lonely bed, I would summon up her vision and imagine her lying beneath me, her strong legs locked around me. And that's where I thought it would end.

Then I saw her the second time. In her clothes. In my office. Waiting for a job interview.

I saw her first. She was sitting in the waiting room and I was on the other side of the receptionist's glazed window. And there she was, nervously fingering her briefcase, dressed in a neat black pants suit, still unearthly beautiful. Her hair was different - it was cropped short, and she was wearing small wire-rimmed specs - she looked quite the secretary - but it was undeniably her. My heart thumped in my chest. I heard it. GaTHUMP. I felt my knees go liquid.

And then time started again. No-one here knew I knew that girl. No-one knew that she danced naked in gentlemen's clubs (or that I sometimes visited them). Thank God I had seen her in time, and no-one had witnessed my gawping double-take. And, I realised, I could backtrack & return to my office until she had gone for her interview - for who knows, perhaps she would be unnerved as well and that could spoil her chances.

Her interview! These applicants were queueing up to be interviewed for the position of Charles Gaunt's personal assistant. Charles was my enemy in the office, and my enemy's PA is my enemy. Or so it has seemed to me in my limited experience of in-office infighting... Charles was the head of the legal department in our company, and an overbearing and tyrannical man. He fancied himself as a learned man, an august and educated legal theorist. I thought he was a bombastic fool. For that reason, he hated me. OK, he might also have seen me looking hungrily at his long-boned teenage daughter. But even she hated him. I would not wish Charles on this sweet young girl, but then, neither could I warn her away. She should take her chances with the rest.

But at least I was forewarned when the next day there was a knock. Steve our office administrator entered with the beautiful Claudia in tow. Except that it seemed that she was not called Claudia at all.

"John, this is our new colleague Lucy Temple" Steve said. "Lucy, John Gray. He's an old hand here. Knows all about the company. You'll enjoy working with him."

Lucy smiled at me as blandly and shook my hand briskly as would do any PA proud. She'd obviously seen my face in one of the office photographs in the staff room and had time, like me, to put on a show of indifference. Her long slender hand felt cold in mine, and I wished her welcome in our organisations with as bland a smile as I could muster. She was flustered, she was flustered - she hid it well, but for an instant our eyes locked and I saw her discomfort. I pretended not to notice, and talked reassuringly about the friendly atmosphere in our little corner of the capitalist world. As if! I wondered how it would play. "Lucy" plainly did not want her other career to be known in these corridors. Neither did I want my pastimes known. Knowledge was dangerous in these parts. If she knew how the wind blew, and how earnestly Charles wanted my departure, would she be willing to risk her reputation in order to ruin mine? Things had suddenly become more complicated. Steve started telling me that "Lucy" (I still thought of her as Claudia - I should watch that) had been working for Maya Technologies, our competitor. I interrupted him, saying that as far as I was concerned a colleague was a colleague, that I would not hold anyone's previous employment against them or use that knowledge to my advantage. Steve seemed a little non-plussed, but a wordless glanced passed between the new girl and me. Our secrets were safe with each other. And without knowing it, I had started down the road that would change my life utterly - that would lead me to the doors of the Republic of Desire and beyond. But that was much later

* * *

For the first few months Lucy and I worked as if we were nothing but colleagues and professionals. She would pass through my office and drop off a file or a memo calmly and efficiently, and I would take it from her hand as if had never happened that our eyes had locked in a dim and smoky room, my heart pounding with desire; as if she had never perched on a table in front of me, without a stitch of clothing on her body, and ran her hands over her flat tummy, inches from my face. No-one really got to know the new girl - she was good at keeping in the background - but she was well liked, and had that easy brisk collegiality and lack of malice which is the bedrock of a calm office. There were rumours that she was gay, and indeed there was a picture of a sloe-eyed Asian girl on her desk, a young woman dressed in a figure-hugging halter-top, her head thrown backward, laughing elatedly, a picture of joy. One winter morning, later than usual for work, I had seen her being dropped off by that girl, and it was true, they had parted with a brief, affectionate kiss. The other men at the office found this hard to believe, since she did not conform to their stereotype of aggressive, boot-wearing dykehood. I did not know what to think. Lucy dressed plainly enough, and only if you really looked at her and considered her (which I did, I have to admit), did you realise that she had a beautiful young body. For a while it was a sweet torment for me to be around her, and I guessed it was uncomfortable for her as well. But I stuck to my promise and never allowed myself to let our previous encounter affect the way I acted towards her. I treated her like a team player, same as I did all the other younger people in our company - even that pompous asshole Charles Gaunt. And after three or four months, I had to struggle really to believe that that other vision - Lucy as Claudia - had really happened.

Then two things happened. The first was that Lucy and I were, for the first time, alone together, in the enforced proximity of the office elevator. Soft Information Co is a “today” company, but our building is an old one, and the elevator, I always used to say, is even older - a small, stuffy, creaking little chamber that takes ages to move between floors. I was coming up from Archives with an armful of files, and suddenly, as the door closed on us, I realised that we were alone in there together. We stood opposite each other in the cramped dimly lit little space, each of us suddenly uncomfortable and acutely self-conscious. For a while we studiously kept our eyes on the little creeping dial. Then I could bear it no longer - you know how those things go - and surreptitiously looked over at her, just at the moment that she did the same. For a moment our eyes met across our respective armfuls of files. She dropped her glance again. I suddenly realised that this was ridiculous. I cleared my throat.

"Lucy," I said. She met my eyes again. "I just want to say..." ( well what did I want to say?) "... that - it's a pleasure having you in the office. I found it strange to be around you at first, but you... you're a fantastic worker. We're lucky to have you. And that I hope you're settling in. Are you alright, with... Charles?" The fact that Charles was an awful boss to work for was an open secret in our organization - the man went through PA's like they were Kleenex, and three months was about par for the course.

She did not drop her eyes this time, and simply smiled. "I can manage him."

That was all we said, and the rest of the elevator ride continued in silence. But the awkwardness between us had been dispelled. Both of us knew that in the office we had a secret, but we did not have to pretend to each other that we had not shared an intense sexual charge. And what was wrong with that? As we left the elevator she paused. "Thanks John," she said. "You're a nice man..."

The second was a conversation in the tearoom. A brothel downtown had been bust again, and Charles Gaunt had been pontificating about morals and the fabric of society. An argument developed between him and Sarah Watson in sales - one of those dreadful debates that kill conversation and that have no meaningful resolution. Charles was arguing that these "immoral women" knew what they were doing and deserved to be punished, and Sarah held that they were exploited sex-objects, victims of a patriarchal society.

"What if both of you are wrong?" I asked, more out of desperation and boredom than anything else.

"What do you mean?" asked Charles.

"I don't think they are either wicked women or hapless victims." I suddenly became conscious that I now had everyone's attention, including that of Lucy's, who was sitting with her back to me, pretending to be lost in a newspaper, but actually, I realised, suddenly intensely listening. "I think the problem lies with your moralising position."

"What on earth do you mean," Charles exploded with his best court-room debating style.

"Simple, your honour", I answered, unable to resist the dig, "I am saying that the problem lies with our culture's inability to deal with sexuality except by denaturing and taming it, or by regarding it with shame. In other cultures women like these were temple prostitutes, priestesses of desire and sex. They were respected for what they were - representatives of an elemental force."

"So what about you, John? Are you telling me you go off to the, the 'Temple' of a Friday evening, to worship the priestesses of the night?" This was Charles's style, to turn every argument into ad hominem innuendo. I suddenly realised how much I disliked him.

"Why of course, old chap. Aren't you coming with me?" I countered and the conversation dissolved into laughter. Lucy still crouched rapt over her newspaper, not looking at me.

That Friday late afternoon, there was a note pasted on an interoffice envelope in my pigeonhole. "HJ's. 22h00. Claudia".

I stood in the reception area with my briefcase in one hand and felt the room spin around me. Evelyn, one of the older receptionists, asked me whether I was alright, and I hastily excused myself. Back in my office I looked at the note again, but I had not been dreaming HJ's was Happy Joe's, a strip club and bar not far from the place where I had first encountered this angelic woman. It was slightly more hardcore; some of the girls there were hookers, and the no-dating and no-touching rules were not strictly enforced at all. And it seemed that she was inviting me there...

It was strange being back there, strange and disorienting. I sat at a small table near the wall, altogether distracted. Some of the women dancing were very pretty indeed, and they liked to come on strong, settling themselves in men' laps gyrating their bodies, teasing and tantalising - hoping to get them to part with a wad of money and take them upstairs. But I could not surrender myself to the sensations and visions. I looked around distractedly. Had she not come?

Then I saw her, in a low-cut, blue sequinned dress, sitting by the bar, laughing and giggling with one of the girls. I felt that familiar thumping in my chest again. She looked stunning. I had forgotten how beautiful she was, how her height worked for her, how beautiful the lines of her shoulders and neck... then she saw me. She excused herself and glided over, attracting some stares as she went, smiling that inward, secret smile...

"Hi there, sir, buying me a drink?" She eased herself into the chair next to mine and met my eyes with a cool, liquid, languorous stare.

"Sure thing," I said. "Call me Charles. What would you like?"

"A whisky sour. Call me Claudia. Pleased to meet you... Charles! " she laughed out loud at that. I ordered the drink and it arrived, quickly for once. We touched glasses and she said thanks.

"My pleasure. Have we met somewhere before?"

This got a dark, appraising glance. "The only other Charles I know", she said, " is the one I work for, and he's a fatuous dickhead." What pleasure it gave me to hear this. "I am sure you're a much nicer guy..."

"I am sure we met," I insisted. "It must be some months ago. I saw you dancing?"

"You remember that, do you?"

"How could I forget? You were the most beautiful woman in the place! Come to think of it, you are the most beautiful woman here, too..."

"You're such a sweetie." she said, leaned over and pecked me on my forehead. "I am sure you say that to everyone..."

"Well..." I answered, momentarily discombobulated by the experience of her cleavage, inches from my eyes, "I mean it."

She smiled at me again, that impish, complicit smile. "Charles, is it" she said archly. "Will you enjoy seeing me dance again?"

"Yes, I would," I said fervently.

She paused for a moment, sipping her whisky sour. Suddenly she looked serious. "Just remember that I am a shy girl."

"I know. And..."

She looked at me enquiringly.

"... well, nothing, " I said uncomfortably. "I'm a shy guy." That got me another sweet smile, and another kiss. And then she had to go.

What can I say about her dancing? If she captivated me before, she totally entranced me this time. She appeared on stage in a long black evening gown that hugged her hips and accentuated her full breasts; clothed, she was already infinitely more seductive than half of the completely naked women in that club. She drew out her number - she had a taste for those long-drawn out, torch-carrying ballads - and dallied long among the tables. It was hard for me to watch her sit down in the lap of some crude, fat, cigar-smoking middle-aged management type (I am middle-aged and a manager but I keep trim - and crude I am not), clad in slinky black panties and brassiere while he grabbed clumsily at her breasts. She suffered the pawing patiently, almost compassionately, and then drifted off to the next table.

I watched in an agony of fascination. By the time she appeared close to me both the bra and the panties had been left behind. She floated dreamily by, with hardly a glance in my direction, as if I was just another customer in the club, one man among many. I remember the music, it was Sade, "No ordinary love", and she seemed again to be off in another world, hearing only the contained, aching guitar and the dreamy, hot-cool voice. She raked a slender hand through the hair of the man at the table beside me and then suddenly, gracefully, carefully, sat down on my lap. I was deliciously aware of the warmth and firmness of her bottom, and acutely conscious of the fact that she must be able to feel my erection. I wanted to grab and hold her, like many of the other men had done, but I kept my hands at my sides, determined to live up to my role as gentleman... but she reached down and took my hands, inviting me to touch and stroke her. I was intensely aroused and suddenly determined to tease her just as she was teasing me. I let my fingers caress her spine, her back and her ribs, touch her little tummy, and travel back to her shoulders. She arched her body like a cat being stroked. I could tell she was enjoying it, and I kept on, at last letting my fingers lightly skim her breasts. She sighed and leaned all the way into me, throwing her head back. I felt the softness of her neck and throat against my ear. I could smell a whiff of her fresh sweat and the shampoo she used. For a moment I let my hands linger against her breasts - I was sure I could feel her arousal - and then, mischievously, let my hands travel downwards... As my fingers grazed the top of her pubic tuft she gave a kind of groan and extracted herself from my embrace. She tousled my hair and smiled at me - no longer quite so self-possessed, I thought, and was off, on her way back to the stage, picking up her scattered clothing to the sounds of applause.

Later she appeared again, calm and collected, again wearing her inward smile and her detached grace. I bought her a second whiskey sour and she sat with me a while while she sipped at it, and we indulged again in our strange and playful small talk. I asked her about the place where she worked, and she responded with some wicked remarks about the moron she had to PA for. No mention of the kind, fatherly John. She told me she had ditched the boyfriend and was not interested in any man for now. Then, with an eye on my ring, she asked me, "what about you, Charles? You married? Your wife know you're here?"

"No. I'm not married anymore, I mean."

"A divorced man with a wedding ring?"

"No... it's complicated. She - she passed away. I never remarried. And I - well, I've never felt the urge to take the ring off." There was an uncomfortable silence, a for a while, and I stared into the middle distance, seeing but not taking in the sight of Star, a dusky beauty with frizzy hair, easing herself out of her bra to raucous encouragement from a group of men in company-logo'd shirts. For the first time in many months, I experienced again the feeling of desolation and loneliness I thought I had left behind. That feeling had become my companion in the long years of months of dealing with Ruth's descent into schizophrenia and her eventual death - accidental or suicidal was never officially established - by drowning. Somewhere in that long journey some part of me had given up on female love and relationship, and only a small part of it lived on in my quiet habit of appreciating late night dancing girls. Now that desolation flooded back into me, cold and sour like dead wet ashes. I became aware that Lucy/Claudia was looking at me appraisingly, even (I realised with pain) sympathetically. Was this what I had become, and aging man, lost in his whiskey, living out dreams in the back of a club? Suddenly the need for physical company, for sweet bodily connection, flooded over me.