Under the Tiger's Paw

"If the doctor hadn't heard that little flutter, I'd be dead by now."

She looked at me. "This runs all the way down to my bellybutton." She drew a line with her fingers from the top of her chest down to her belly, outlining the length of the scar. She watched my eyes as I imagined the description she was giving me. "It gets bigger further down, too. At the bottom are three little other scars where tubes came out. I called it my smiley face when I was young. It looks like a kid's drawing."

I half-smiled, thinking what it must have been like as a child to be faced with that. She went on, "Normally scars from those operations aren't so bad, but they didn't have the right sutures to sew me up. It was all so fast." She studied me for a reading. "See why I didn't take off my top now? I know you were wondering." She laughed. "You don't know how hard it was to find something I could wear. Normally, I would have made an outfit myself, but I had to drive all the way to Gillette."

"Yes," I said. "I can imagine."

That would have been the moment. That would have been the time to drop the bomb. You're just what we're looking for. But you have this scar, you see? People don't want to see a scar, especially between those beautiful breasts and on such a beautiful girl. It disturbs them, you see. It's like seeing a wedding ring at a whorehouse - just when you're cheating on your wife. It just sort of kills the whole mood.

Instead, I said, "Can I drive you home? I don't think you should be on the road."

She shook her head no. "I'll be fine in a while, besides I live fifty-miles away. I sober up quick. And anyway, I want to see the boss. They guy who runs this place. I want him to know about my smiley face, and the rest of it. It just seems like the right thing to do."

I nearly guffawed at the idea of the right thing. I pointed her towards his door. And that was when she stood up and left my side. I saw the brighter light of his office cast into the darkness of the room. I saw her silhouette in the doorway. I turned my back to them and got on with my own drink. I went home immediately after, feeling sick to my stomach. I didn't even watch her walk those few steps into his office before I was gathering my coat and heading out the front.

*********

When I came in the following morning, the conversation with my boss was inevitable. "Hey, Nick." He motioned me over to his table. "Remember that red head last night? The curvy one?"

I acted as if I was searching my mind for her when she had never left my thoughts. She and I had sat not far from where were now. "Yup, sure do," I said with feigned indifference. He re-adjusted in his seat, thinking his words needed even more impact than he usually gave them. "You know, Nick, you really should have warned me about that scar. It about gave me a heart attack."

He leaned towards me, as if confiding a secret. "She's a Philly, that one. I tell you, she's definitely got it. Got it in spades." He was contemplating some great thing; I could see the change in his face. "There's just that damn scar," he said philosophically. "You know it runs all the way down to her belly? It's like she was gored by a wild animal."

I bristled with the image, "Sometimes doctors call them zipper jobs."

He regarded this and shook his head in amazement. "It's a hell of a thing on a girl like her."

By way of nothing, I offered, "It's a hell of a thing on anyone."

He shrugged that off, and yet I prodded him. "So, what's your take? You gonna have her come back, be a regular?" He hadn't decided yet. Even now he pondered the question.

"I suppose if she just makes sure to keep that thing hidden away. Maybe." Maybe, meant yes. It also meant he was still trying to decide if he would make pains to try and bed her, if he hadn't already last night. I made a little prayer that wished her away from him; I simply hoped that her long tear down the middle was hideous to him.

My boss was no Howard Hughes, but I saw in him a similar answer to the female question. Hughes made entire movies just so he could lay his mustached charm on some ingénue. My boss, on the other hand, merely opened the calendar he kept in his jacket pocket and re-schedule a few girls. This he did with a certain flair, like a car salesman calculating his commission on some posh options.

"Sheryl moves to next week and we bump that Tracey-what's-her-name to a slow night. When does Monday football end? And oh, Trixie. You know her name really is Trixie? Can you beat that? "

And so it went. He handed me the calendar. "Make the calls, let's get – what's her name? Sage? Let's get her in here tomorrow, day shift."

"Lisa," I said. "Her name is Lisa."

But still he wasn't satisfied, like me, he needed more. "So what's her story?" He asked, actually wanting my opinion. What could I say? "I don't know," I murmured.

He persisted: "Come on... Hell. You talked with her half the night."

I looked towards his office door before I answered: "She's a nobody. At best, a could-have-been." Words, I realized, that might equally have applied to me.

*********

The next day she came in. The entrance opened, the light of the outside shown in and I recognized that silhouette in an instant.

The place was nearly deserted. "Don't worry. It'll pick up later," I promised as she winked at me and showed herself backstage. At the bar, she hit a few drinks, and I tried not to stare. I kept as far away as I could urge myself. Again, she had a corset-like top on which hid both her breasts - and between those succulent peaks, her little secret. Her legs were covered in thigh-high stockings and finished with a pair of slipperish high heels that looked perfect, if you were a Palm Springs Sex Kitten circa 1955. Her whole look mocked the ridiculous hair band playing on the sound system.

I stayed away knowing that I would succumb. From the side, I could see a hint of the red of her pubic hair. I wanted her to face me, stare at me full on. I imagined she would see my eyes and know everything there was to know about me. Last night she crumbled my defenses. She made me look at her awkward version of a dance, and her pale sun-starved skin seemed thin and delicate while all the rest of us were tough and thick.

The DJ called out for Starr, and I helplessly watched again as my renamed dancer climbed the few steps to the stage. With less of an audience – just a handful of men – I could see she treated it as a dare. She took it half-seriously, half as practice, and wandered around the stage. She wanted to keep a beat to the music, cover up, and simultaneously disappear. She brushed the hair from her forehead repeatedly in a self-conscious gesture. My mind locked onto that absurdly lusty red triangle framed by those full hips and sheer stockings. My gut twisted with the sight of a woman I instantly desired without reservation or hesitation – until I wondered over that long and jagged zipper of a scar.

I wanted that thing to kill whatever filled the fifty-odd feet that separated us. To my left I felt the presence of the boss-man. He had put aside his papers and I watched as he stared at her with an equal measure of curiosity and desire. Her breasts were out now; it was a show after all, and they swayed heavily - and due to help from the supporting corset – with an artificial perkiness. God, she was sexy, and we all knew it. I wanted to lock my lips onto her nipples, I wanted to taste her mouth and nuzzle my face into that sexy red-starlet hair. I turned my back to her and waited for the distance to assert itself.

And then there she was, right under my nose, sitting on that same barstool, covered up as best she could. There was nothing I could say in my obsessed mind, and so I just managed a weak smile. In distraction - in a knee-jerk reflex - I peeked at that protuberance on her chest. It made its self apparent beneath layers of makeup before retreating under the fabric, and was like a magnet for my imagination. She caught my eyes and read my mind just as I knew she would; although how much she divined I was not sure.

"You want to see it, don't you?" She said this like it had been said a thousand times before and I felt that whatever specialness I had in her estimation was suddenly gone. In an instant I had wrecked something I would never get back. She recognized the animal in me that only wanted to drag her back to my lair and expose all of her secrets.

"Only if you want to show me," I answered, knowing how pathetic it was to cover my morbid curiosity in a lie she could see straight through. She thought for awhile and pondered her words.

"No," she finally said. "Actually, I don't want to show it to you."

I sat there stunned. My first thought was 'the boss-man got to see it, why not me?' It was if I was a spoiled child that was spurned from having the ice cream that everyone else got for desert. And then I understood that I was merely a friend – maybe an acquaintance in training – I was the hired help, just like her. Up close the darkness didn't matter and I saw the small wrinkles making their way alongside her eyes, and the barest hint of blue veins that traveled beneath that fair skin, as if an accidental cut at just the right location would end her life.

"Maybe we could try dinner at a decent restaurant instead?" I studied her face for the reaction I was sure would say more than any words. She brushed the hair from her forehead. I received an "Okay" that meant the world to me.

*********

I drove the fifty miles to her place, trying to limit the speedometer to an imprudent ten-over, scanning the road in the blackness of night for the telltale signs of a state patrol car on the side. And with every mile I noted my lapse of control. The accelerator seemed to push further down of its own accord, I imagined the feeling of her hair running between my fingers which sent a fizz down my spine, and I tried to dismiss the implications of a work related romance under the gargoyle gaze of the boss-man. She had It, he said, and I knew he wanted her even if he couldn't get his mind around that lapse of beauty and the sight of that scar - something gone horribly wrong on such a lovely girl.

As soon as I knocked on her door she was there, throwing it open with an uncaring abandon so that it thudded against the side of the house. I laughed at the incongruity of her brute force and utterly feminine appearance; even with the temperature flirting with below freezing and her body bundled against the cold she looked lovely. Her coat was cinched tight around her waist and I was already telling myself not to ogle at the obviousness of her breasts pushing against the fabric, which gave her a shape that went straight to my gut. I vowed to be a gentleman – pretend if I must - no matter my barely contained lust.

It only took a moment to realize my attempt at a 'decent restaurant' was an impossible goal. She listed our choices and we laughed as the list went from bad to worse, and from there we had a good chortle at my obliviousness for even thinking such a thing was possible. "It's Wyoming, for God's sake!," she cried. In the end we made the short order scene at the Waffle House, and as I opened the door with exaggerated faux gentility, she hit me in the arm and held my hand for a brief moment as we found a table.

She filled in the blanks where she felt she could, and ran down the high and low points of her life as was prudent. For years she worked as a costume designer and fabricator for hire, often working with TV shows, until most of the 'make it' jobs were sent overseas. Now she did whatever she could with the help of ebay: alterations, special jobs, but mostly wedding dresses that needed to fit girls who hadn't quite slimed down to the anticipated size. "I'm really not very delicate or dexterous with a needle sometimes," she smiled and showed me her fingers that had tiny little pin marks that had not quite healed up on her skin. All of that was why she was here: Fedex worked wonders, it was cheap to live, and 'just a place' that worked for now. She laughed: these days it was just her, and her cat, Pickles, against the world.

The god-awful yellow plastic seats of the restaurant told us it was time to go, and so we hopped back in the car without a course to follow until we spotted a hybrid used bookstore / coffee place and settled in for a couple of hours. We flopped into the old couch which seemed to swallow us up and listened politely for several minutes to the blonde, blue-eyed woman who told us she was a Native American - and then proceeded to serenade us with allegedly authentic Ute Indian flute music. During a lull Lisa confided to me her real name was actually Sarah – she was just never sure when to drop the stage name act. I said that Sarah sure fit her much better than Starr, or Sage...

I held her hand at times and she didn't withdraw it. We sat close on the failing couch, pushed together partly by the springs sagging in the middle, and our legs brushed against each other. She stood to remove her coat now that she was finally warm, and I averted my eyes to avoid the view that was always playing in the back of my head. I had seen this woman on stage. I knew how her bare hips looked as they walked the floor. I had committed to memory the way her breasts moved as she turned side-side. I had seen nearly all of her, and still the view that provoked was the inch of scar that protruded above her corset as she moved across the stage.

At night's end I stood with her on her stoop, holding her tight and then kissing her with a gentle tenderness that could not hide the beast in my closet. I thought of the boss-man's description: 'It's like she was gored by a wild animal.' I adored this woman, and yet I wanted to burst through her door, throw her down on her bed, rip her clothes off, and simply steal all of her secrets for myself.

*********

And so it went - my chaste romance. She paraded around the club per orders with the entirety of the naughty bits of her lusty body on display - and I hovered around the fringes, loving her from my distance. She watched sometimes as I bought a girl a drink and then laid out the spiel and primed some innocent for the boss-man. It was an odd equilibrium we had. I'm sure she saw the fallen faces, the sudden 'but' - and then the color drain from their expressions. I'm sure she also saw the way they walked to the boss-man's office thereafter, and the way I watched the progression with a studied detachment.

And I watched her as well: the private dances in the corner of the room, and sometimes the way she disappeared in the boss-man's office for longer than I wanted to admit.

When our schedules allowed, I made the drive to her house, and sometimes she came to mine. We sat on the couch, we kissed like we were in high school, her cat sat on my long legs and purred with a deep rumble while we scratched under its chin and watched the latest dumb superhero movie on TV. She always did herself up, like we were actually going to find that decent restaurant someday, and I shaved and used all of the charm I could muster. There was an invisible line that neither of us would broach. We said our goodbye's before it got too late; I kept my hands on her back and on her shoulders and gently on her face as we necked and breathed in each other's air. She needed to be adored without compromise. And yet I burned with an intensity that probably frightened her when the music died down.

And then one night we were saying goodbye among yawns and sleepy eyes and the snowflakes started falling. It was nearly an hour's drive for me back home and the wind was blowing with that horrible sound. "You know," she said, "Wyoming's got – I think – the highest suicide rate in the U.S. I've always thought it was because of that wind. It'll drive you crazy if you let it."

And then she said it: "If you'd like, you could always stay over with the weather getting bad and all..."

My newly formed restraint didn't take long to re-invent itself in a different mold. "I'd really like that," I said. "If you're sure it's okay and everything." She nodded and we shut the door behind us. I followed her to her bedroom – I had yet to even see it – and the moment we were in its confines she turned out the light. I heard her remove her belt and the jingle as it hit the floor. I heard her unzip her pants and fiddle with the buttons on her blouse. I said nothing as I stepped from my clothes in an instant, and only then in the pitch blackness of the room did I wonder what she expected of me. I pulled my boxer shorts back on, as if saying I expected nothing from her but a bed to sleep in.

I crawled under the blankets and sheets, feeling my way along the length of her bed and laying out as straight and oblivious to sex as I could pretend to be. I heard a drawer open and I gathered that she was putting on a nightie, but when she lay down next to me, with her back pressed right against my flank, all I felt was the fabric of her panties. "Wrap your arms around me, will you?" Her voice had a softness that I had never heard before. Outside, the wind gusted and rattled the windows; it made me hold on to her with all I had.

And that was how she fell asleep. My arms locking her in a sideways embrace, her forearms crossed in front of her breasts - and pushing against her backside was – I'm sure – the largest most insane erection of my life. I didn't try to hide it, I didn't try to force it on her; it was just there.

I listened to her breathing slow down and felt her body make the smallest twitches and tremors as she fell into a deep sleep. I tried to follow her, but my mind raced. I imagined her breasts just there right next to me and felt her hourglass curves rise and fall under my arms. I smelled her hair and buried my face in its curls and strands. An improper movement would have hand my hands cupping her tits and tracing my fingers along that scar, and probably ruining everything for all time.

*********

Sometime in the dead of the night there was a crash of pots and pans in the kitchen. We both staggered towards the noise in the dark. I convinced myself in dream logic that the wind had lifted the house and shook open the cupboards. When she turned on the light we saw lids, pots and dishes spilling out across the linoleum floor. And then on second glance, we saw her cat. He was on the floor standing, looking down, and beneath his paw there was a little grey mouse. There were panicked, scratching feet in the search for safety; but the mouse's tail was pinned beneath the cat's paw, as if in a cartoon.

I caught an odd, blistered view of the scar between two pendulous swaying, breasts. She rushed to pick up her cat with a scolding, shocked, "Pickles!" - as if the animal should have known better – and suddenly free, the mouse went running into the shadows. She laughed at herself then, suddenly aware of the absurdity.

"Those mice come inside when the weather gets cold... I know, I'm a softy." She looked up at me while she cradled Pickles in her arms, "You don't have to tell me - I should be more hard-hearted and let the cat do its thing." I looked at her in return. "No, I understand. I probably would do the same."

She set the cat down on the floor and he ran towards the corner, instantly in search of the mouse. I shut the light off. I took her hand and led her back to the bedroom in the darkness, and thus avoided looking at It – her signature mark.

We were back in the bedroom. I stumbled around and found the switch to a small nightstand lamp away from the bed and clicked it on. The lamp threw a delicate hazy light across the room. She sat on the bed and looked at me. I saw IT for the first time without disguise. She let me look and I walked to just in front of her, my cock suddenly pushing against my boxer shorts and somehow demonstrating everything I wanted her to know about how I felt. She rose silently, almost ignoring me, and went to a drawer and with her back to me pulled out a wispy little blue top that she slipped over her shoulders, hiding from me again.