See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

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CONTENT WARNING:  This gets a little sexual assault -esque?  Depending on how broadly you draw that?  Best avoided if you’re at all sensitive to that.  Also may remind one of being physically bullied or sexually shamed by a girl?  I can’t really do full CWs and write this fast at the same time.  Watch yourself, buddies.

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Josefina held arms across her chest, holding down her long hair, for whatever warmth it could provide.  At least she still had her pants.  Why was there a walk-in freezer in the sub-sub-basement of Razzmatazz?  She could no longer ask herself because she couldn’t remember anything in the world except for the ecstasy – which reminded her of itself with every stray sensation, and her friends – Peace for being the object of her hunt, and Noise for being the nuisance along the way.

The freezer was very simple in design – almost more like another length of hallway, lined shelves holding frozen appetizers destined for a deep fryer.  There was a door at the hobo end, and a door up ahead.  She recognized the way they work, from her own menial jobs.  Outside the door would have a flexible latch, inside it used a push knob, like something stolen from a foosball table.  She punched the knob and walked through, Noise chattering away behind her.

The next room was barely less cold than the freezer.  What kind of room was it?  There was one door, locked from the other side, and what looked like a short runway of grooved stainless steel, like the kind they use on escalators.  It was surrounded on all sides by plexiglass walls that sloped out – one could lean on them, from this side.  There were metal roll-down curtains on the other side of the glass.  in all, there were two windows on the left, three on the right, and one at the end of the little hall.

Noise said, “Seems like a dead end.  Let’s go–  Huh.”

Josefina turned around.  The freezer door did not, in fact, have a handle on this side.

Music began to play.  Some extra bassy trap remix of Pony by Ginuwine.  A voice came on the speakers, tinny.

“Gentlemen of the club, behold.  Who just fell to Earth tonight?  Some heavenly bodies indeed.  What are your names, little girls?”

The roll-down curtains began to open, but the lights over the walkway turned them into mirrors, where all the women could see was themselves.

“Ah shit,” Noise said.  “Wrong kind of club, haha!”  She spoke up, for the audience.  “I’m Noise, and this is Josie!  We’re hot to trot!  Woo!”  She did not look hot, cold sweat shining on her nose, ringing the cheeks under her tiny eyes.  Her t-shirt was clinging to her chubby body.  Her grease-stained khakis were in extra dumpy mode, her slip-proof black sneakers encrusted with bits of fast food detritus.  Normally, Noise was pretty shy about dancing, but she must have felt obligated.  You step onto the strip, you entertain the paying customers, right?

Josie felt no such obligation.  She went to the window at the end of the hall, presuming it was the VIP booth.  “Hey!  Hey!”  She beat on the window, unfortunately aware from the reflections of how that made her little titties bounce.  “This ain’t the champagne room!  Let us out!”

There was a little sliding tray at the base of the window, she hadn’t noticed until it was pushed in from the other side.  Other trays began to open, all containing crumpled bills and other unsavory things.  Josefina spat on the glass and shoved the tray back through the wall.  “I don’t want your money!  I’m not stripping, culo!”

“Hey, nice!,” Noise said.  “They don’t even let us get tips at work.  Yes, and thank you, sir.  What should I take off?”

“Nosy and Josie, two smokin’ chiquitas, ready to mount up!  That pony, girls!  Ride it!  You’re horny!”

Josie wheeled to look at Noise.  “What the fuck is this?  What do we do?”

Noise had stopped dancing, seemingly more disturbed by this turn of events than she had let on.  “I mean, I guess we could take it all off.  Not like we hafta get AIDS off any of these jokers.  I could use a couple bucks, ya know?”  The cigarette bounced, slowly filling the narrow hall like a smoke machine.

The DJ kept trying to prod them.  “Go cowgirls!  It’s your birthday!”

Noise noticed something behind Josefina, Josefina noticed her noticing, and she spun around.  The man inside the box was turning the light on and off, revealing and concealing himself, until he knew he had Josefina’s attention.  He was holding a hand-written sign over his face.

TAKE IT OFF
JOSEFINA

She shook her head and kicked the fake glass, which barely rattled in its frame.  The man turned the light off, then turned it back on, holding a different sign over his face.

I CAN GIVE YOU
WHAT YOU WANT

“Bullshit!”

The light went off and stayed off.  The DJ said, “Anytime now.  Gonna get.  Spicy?”  The track segued into a trap remix of Nelly’s Hot in Herre.  The DJ said, “With a little bit of hot-uh-hot!”

The tray was pushed out again, with a rumpled picture.  It looked like a cheap color printer reproduction of a cheap digital photograph, of Peace!  He was in a plain concrete room, looking disturbed, with red eyeshine.  The flash was directly in front of him, his head haloed by his own stark shadow.

Somehow, boos and complaints reached them through the glass.  Not completely soundproof.  Mostly, the men expressed a predictable desire to see tits and ass.

Noise asked Josefina, “What is it?  What did you get?”

She banged on the darkened window again.  “Where is he?  How did you get this?”

The light came back on, with a new handwritten sign over the man’s face.

TITS AND
ASS NOW

It went out and stayed out.  Nelly rhymed “seasons” with “heathens.”

So that’s the deal.  Strip to find out where Peace is.

The DJ said, “Is this it?  Is it going to happen?  It is pretty hot in here.  Humid, even.  Nudity: The remedy.”

Josefina slumped so hard that Noise was able to reach her face over her shoulder, pushing the cigarette through her hair.  A whiff of burning hair joined the stifling stench of the cigarette.  Noise said, “Cheer up, girl.  Let’s dance for these dudes.”

It was true.  She had come to dance.  Josefina pulled herself up to her full height, jerking with the rhythm.  The muffled voices became so many dogs and apes.

“Yeah!,” said Noise.

“Yeah!,” said the DJ.

Josefina did a dance.  She wasn’t an amazing dancer, but that was hardly necessary.  Pulse your body on the beats, one way or another.  Slide your body between the pulses in alluring ways.  A little hand jive to make them think of medieval enchantresses.

Noise always loved to see it.  Why?  Because she couldn’t get the same attention if she did it, and something in Josie’s quiet demeanor made a non-entity of her, a body that easily facilitated a vicarious thrill?  She was at it again, no mind to the circumstances.

It was offensive.  Josefina hated it.  Noise did her usual lazy move, resting a hand on her hips or ass, waving the other hand in the air as if she was riding a pony – but without any of the other motions that sell the routine.  Then she thought of something.

“He just said tits and ass now, not whose tits and ass they had to be.”

“Huh?  Can’t hear you, girl!”

Josefina hadn’t taken her pants off yet, hadn’t stripped anything for these dogs.  But she started to strip Noise, pulling her nasty T-shirt up at the waist.

“What the fuck?”  Noise stopped moving, more still even than during her lazy dance.

“What’s this?,” the DJ asked, “A little girl-on-girl?  Hey-Ohh!”

“Time for you to dance, Noise!”  She heard it that time.  Josefina didn’t quite get the shirt off, but it was going to happen.  She grabbed and pushed at Noise, rocking her this way and that.  “To the rhythm!  Come on!”

The cigarette dropped from her lips and rolled into one of the grooves on the floor.  She had a strange expression, like a lost little girl – completely uncharacteristic.  But the crass blonde let herself be coaxed into dancing.  “Is this what you want?  Want us to be even?”

She took off her shirt, with a perfunctory effort at strip-tease style, and flicked it away with a snap.  It landed on one of the windows and slid down.  The unseen weirdo caught it in his tray and pulled it back into his booth.

Now both women were in pants, but with a revealing scrap of a garment on top.  Josie kept Noise dancing.  She leaned in close and whispered to Noise, “That’s not the deal.”  She spun them together, and left Noise twirling in front of the VIP booth.  She kept Noise’s body rocking side-to side, while reaching around to unbuckle her belt.

“Oh my God, Josie!  You’re so fucking crazy!  Hah!”

“Josie loves Nosy,” said the DJ, “Just look at her go!”

Josefina pulled Noise’s pants down in one dramatic motion, making the blonde stumble awkwardly out of her shoes.  She’d barely managed to keep her underwear on, and fell forward, palms catching herself on the VIP window.

The Latina straddled Noise’s back and pulled her bra up by the straps, freeing her breasts in front of the VIP.  She pointed at the dark mirror with a long finger.  “Just for you, pendejo!”

Noise pulled her bra back down and stood up angrily.  “Josie!”

Josefina looked genuinely sad, but also resigned.  “He said ass, too.”  She tugged down Noise’s panties and pushed her back onto the plexiglass.

Suddenly the lights went out, the speakers died, and a soft click sounded from behind them in the little hall.  Noise was initially too shocked to react, but started squalling and cursing like Lucy van Pelt.

“Hush hush hush,” Josefina said, trailing off and drifting away.  She lit the way with her cellphone and tried the side door.  It was unlocked.

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