The Knight at the Lockdown

Her hands are like vice grips—if only for a moment—and she pins my hands back down to the chair while she's dancing on me. Whatever perfume she's wearing, it's sweet, but there's something wrong—something beneath it... something coppery; metallic to my nostrils.

I can barely smell it... I can barely — before I know it, she's already slid off of me. She kisses me on the cheek with icy lips, as she arches her back. It lingers, and I feel my skin burn throughout my entire body, my flesh betraying my mind; I'm terrified, but even so, it's not showing.

She calls me lover, or love, or something like that, and before I can even react she's dressed and slinking back into her cell.

I hear the soft woman's voice again.

Crimson was her name. Crimson. Red. Her lips like dark red, crimson, blood. She's back in her cell, but the metallic coppery scent is still haunting me.

I stand up for a moment.

My mouth is dry. There's a server already there. I order anything carbonated and clear. She's gone only a few minutes and returns with soda water.

Funny.

Real funny.

No tip for you.

I don't even have my pocketbook, but if I did, you wouldn't.

I sit back down.

Crimson's still in my head, taunting me somehow with her dance, but she's gone, and no — no.

She's not who I am here for.

I shake my head a few more times.

The next girl out on stage for review, it seems, is a taller girl. I don't recognize her, but she goes by the simple name of "Lust".

She's tall, darker skin—definitely Hispanic. She's beautiful but in a different way. She is neither small nor large breasted, she is nothing spectacular. I'd go as far to say she's common stock among the trade of beautiful women, but there's something different about her.

She is common enough; her movements hold relative grace—but why then am I so enticed. As each of these girls dance, I feel as though I am one step closer to a dancing cobra, and with each dance, I fear it is about to strike.

But I am not afraid of her. Lust as though she may incite, her perfume is like candy, or cookies, or sugar—it's sweet, but I can't place it. She looks me directly in the eyes while she dances. I can feel her hands on me, her kiss fresh on my lips, her body pressed against me - and she's feet away from me.

Her dance appears so amateur and it makes me wonder why I want to sign my entire fortune over to her. She's nothing special at all, but she keeps my interest. There's some song in the background, but each of her movements seems to make its own music.

She doesn't go entirely nude — but I don't really think she needs to. I find myself on the end of my chair, smelling the air, my eyes shut. Her dance ends without me knowing how long it was, or much of what she looked like nude.

Her clothes are back on, and she's already off the stage.

I feel like an ass.

I feel like a real ass, sitting there with my nose out like a dog begging for a treat.

If I felt fear at all, with anything... it was wiped clean now. This last one, blatantly a daughter of Persia; a Middle Eastern looking girl.

She is tall, slender, and incredibly unrealistic to the last detail - or lack there of.

Her figure is impossible, yet, there she is, and she stands, silently. Motionless. She is staring at me, wide eyed.

Her face is otherwise a blank edifice.

She cautiously begins forward, walking with elegance and grace — that very elegance and grace that I missed, when I watched the dancer — Chance — when I first came in.

This one — Ammielle — she moves with the sophistication and class not becoming of a stripper, but then she wasn't your common stripper.

She wasn't your common woman.

She wasn't your common anything. The longer I looked at her, the more I noticed strange nuances. No lines in her face, or on her body that showed any age - youth or otherwise.

Her skin is neither loose nor tight. She has the complexion of a mannequin. Her hands are smooth; the knuckles and joints on her body are smooth.

She has no naval.

I am here for this one.

She looks at me as she removes her clothes, dropping them softly; seductively to her ankles. Her body makes me promises without her ever saying a word. I see the past, the present, and the future in her; I see a world where I am king.

Where I am God.

She lies to me without even a gesture, or a breath, or the hint of a breath. Now I know this is my mark.

She's moving with a darkness that seems to grant her a sinister grace. Her fluidity is inhuman, more like watching a lava lamp; her sinuous flow of liquid sophistication keeps me halfexpecting at any moment, for gigantic feathered wings to unfold from behind her.

Maybe not feathered wings, but wings.

She's mysterious, but in a manner that leaves my guts feeling warped, the terrible reality of her beauty is perverse. It leaves me feeling sick—renewing that feeling each passing second—and yet I am still enchanted by the inhuman nature of this woman-creature.

There is no mistaking it. This is my mark.

She smiles at me, as if she just read my last thought. As if she's been reading my thoughts. She smiles at me, and just as if she's read my last thought, she gives me this sense that those thoughts may be the last ones I ever have.

Like the gypsy, her hips sway, and the universe sways with them. Reality sways with them. The world, and all of mankind sways with them. They gyrate, but they don't grind; she could be dancing the hula, I think..., or she could be a belly dancer.

Yet she is a common stripper.

Well.

Not so common.

I'm still waiting for her to unfold those wings that will never unfold. Her smile is beautiful, as sardonic as it may be.

I want to run. For my life.

But I want to stay here.

The walls of the lockdown are no longer even here for me. The cells; the music, everything. It is an echo now, something that was, but is gone. There is Ammielle, and the stars and the galaxy behind her. No—there is Ammielle—she is the stars and the galaxy.

She stares into me.

This wasn't even my gig. This was Clay Walker's gig. I heard he fell in a gory battle.

Some serial killer got a hold of him, and when they were done... man. It was doomsday. They had to clean up his remains with a HAZMAT vacuum.

Poor luck, Clay. I wish I could have known you.

Clay Walker.

Exceptional hunter I hear. Lost a son to a hunt once. That's a raw deal, but at least he has one left.

Keep the bloodline going.

The boy would be here in my stead if he was old enough, but he's barely fourteen years old. It'll be another two years before David Walker goes to Salem for his training.

My body's stiff—all of it—not just the parts that generally stiffen when a girl-thing like Ammielle's dancing.

There is violence in this.

Sure, it isn't blood and war, but this is an attack all the same. She's digging into me without even getting near me. My soul burns, my stomach is turning.

She moves closer to me, dancing the entire way there.

Step. Step, step. Step. Step, step. Step. The rhythm of her movements are snakelike.

She's the cobra, and I'm no snake charmer. There is tension in the air. I know I can't take her — but I don't have to. I can't take all these guards at once. They're all ex military, and police. Now, I'm good. I'm damned good... but even I can't take down a task force.

She's on my lap, and immediately my erection recedes completely, limp and dead as a fresh corpse.

Her skin is warm... and yet cold to the touch. When she breathes on me, it's like she's breathing a storm, and her eyes are empty of any kindness.

She brushes her lips against my cheek. It's like fire. She whispers into my ear, and her voice carries the tortured souls of the damned. She says, "Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem."

I don't speak a word of Latin. "God damn you."

"Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione."

I have no idea what she's saying, but I don't think it's friendly.

She says it in a friendly way — a sweet way — the way a lover speaks in secret whispers. Her voice isn't cold. Just hell ridden, and filled with pain and anguish. She arches her back, pushing perfect, taught, and impossibly wonderful breasts forcefully forward. I arch my neck back away from them, craning it so that her flesh doesn't touch me.

She continues to arch until her palms are on the cold cement floor.

Flexible girl.

She pulls her legs off of me, over her torso and back onto the floor. She pulls her torso up, eyes at slits; that smile still on her pretty face. She must know why I am here. I force myself to break eye contact.

I'm dizzy, but the dizziness is fading now. I see the guards again, the world is no longer stars and space.

The guards are uneasy looking, tense. The world is taught. I nod my head — just slightly — a subtle gesture.

I'm not sure if she picked up on it or not.

I stand up, and she looks almost insulted. There are footsteps behind me and I feel a graceful sweep as the gypsy brushes past me, her purse full of money. There are no ones and fives in her purse; nothing under fifty dollar bills.

I doubt she even removed her shirt.

God she takes me back. Makes me think of a time, a long time ago. I nod that subtle nod one more time... and I head down the spiral staircase.

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