Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire (31 page)

I didn’t waste breath or energy replying. I just lay there, trying to gather my strength, focus my anger, and remember that there was a whistling and clamoring crowd out there waiting to see something astounding. She bent over me and bit me on the nipple. Her teeth were like serrated razors. I actually squealed with the pain, and threw my upper body forward as far as it would go. I aimed my forehead and in a lucky, impeccable bit of timing, cracked her full on the nose as she brought her head up, probably to have a go at my other tit.

The crop tumbled from her hand. She blinked and stared, blinked again, her eyes crossing in the middle as though trying to focus on a bee sitting on the end of her nose. In that moment of unbelieving confusion, I rammed her in the shoulders with both knees and scrambled out from underneath her. She clutched her nose, snorting and snuffling, and wiped away a thin streak of red from her lip.

I was sure I saw her grey eyes shift to crimson for just a moment as the tigress began to break out of her body.

“Now, I’m going to fucking kill you,” she hissed at me. She peeled off her leather gloves to much boisterous encouragement, tied them end to end in a big knot, and yanked the whole thing tight as if testing its suitability to strangle me. We faced off, dodging and maneuvering for an opening, until I spotted the abandoned crop and grabbed it up. She flicked the leather gloves at me, I ducked, and replied with a hard switch on the back of her hand, forcing her to drop the gloves in pain.

She came at me in another low-flying dive, aiming at my midriff. I slid backwards, using Gloria’s top to skid away across the boards and straddled her as she shot past me, sitting down hard on her spine and wedging my knees in tight under her armpits. While she struggled and bucked to throw me off, I ripped apart the studs at the back of her leather bustier, wrestled it up from beneath her and yanked her head back by the halter neck collar. She gurgled and gasped, pigtails thrashing wildly as she tried to free herself from the pinioning leather. She slapped at me, aiming wild swipes behind herself, but I either dodged them or soaked them.

I had her, and the crowd loved it. I turned to them and gestured upwards with my palm. The noise got louder.

Hand to my ear –
I can’t hear you
.

Even more noise and encouragement.

I twisted the bustier around, twice, forming a loose garrote and drew back. I flung her, kicking and growling, onto her back and wrapped the rest of the garment tight around my fist. She poked at me, jabbed at me, spat, hissed, and cursed in Russian but I used her own leather to deflect most of the blows and every time she started to get up, I threw her back down again by her own collar.

I pressed all my weight into her stomach, squeezing my thighs in against her ribcage. I could see the blood clot forming up her nose as she lay under me, bathed in white and blue light, the significance of which I had just begun to realize. I waited, looking up hopefully, and then it happened – the red light swam into the mix, signifying the final triumph of the West. Or at least, my own personal victory.

“If this wasn’t a public place, I’d piss all over you now,” I told her behind the leather. “So think yourself lucky, girlie.”

I sat up, twitching the bustier while she grappled with it, infuriated, but powerless to remove it. I didn’t care that I was creating thick red welts in the skin of her neck – she had started it, and I had already vowed to finish it.

Finally, I stood up. Svetlana untangled herself from her last remaining garment and flung it aside, then flipped over onto her hands and knees. She was just getting ready to push herself up when I planted the toe of my boot in her ass, squeezing it in as far as it would go. She looked up at me, wounded and humiliated, cheeks burning and eyes goggling – and her beloved beret still very much in place. I reached down, plucked it from her head and skimmed it away behind me into the audience. She dragged herself to her knees and left the stage in a stumbling hurry, almost knocking Melissa flat on her back as the MC came out to join me amid the thunder of applause.

“Well,” Melissa panted into the mike as the noise had begun to subside slightly, “I don’t know about you, but I think what you just saw was the female version of the Rumble in the Jungle.” She grabbed my hand and lifted it high. “Tonight’s winner – Miss Phoenyx, by two falls, a submission, and a stiletto boot up the crack.”

I bowed, flushed and breathless, aching and exhausted.

Out in the bar, they were chanting my name, and I could just make out the sight of someone twirling Svetlana’s beret high in the air.

Now, it was time to face the backstage reality of my biggest, and now fully-humiliated, rival.

I edged my way tentatively into the dressing room to find Svetlana bent over the dressing table, lower lip squeezed tight between her teeth. Her eyes stared through her reflection so hard, it looked as though she was trying to shatter the mirror by very force of will alone. Behind her, Bruno, Petra and Gloria gathered as the sound of sleazy jazz-rock trumpeted in from the direction of the stage.

“Wow,” Bruno said, “and I’m so impressed, I’ll say it again:
wow
.” He leant over Svetlana’s shoulder. “That was fantastic. I love it. It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

Svetlana said nothing. She just continued to stare into the mirror, eyebrows pointing down, forehead furrowed.

I pulled myself up and sat on the near edge of the dressing table. “Yes, it was,” I said carefully. “She had this great idea about a comedy wrestling match, and I just went along with it. We couldn’t say anything to you that might spoil it.”

Bruno stepped back and spread his arms.

“Well, ladies – I’m almost speechless. I think our regulars are, too. I mean, what guy wouldn’t pay to see two gorgeous buxom honeys slapping and whipping seven bells out of each other, and getting naked in the process? Genius, Svetlana. Absolute genius. You might be a bit quiet, but I bet that’s because you think about this stuff a lot. Right?”

Finally, she sat back in her seat, arms folded across her colossal chest, but still refused to speak.

“You’re definitely up for this week’s Bruno Bonus,” the man went on, still waxing lyrical. “And Phoenyx, for being such a damn fine sport, some champagne for you, I think.”

“She should get it,” I replied. “Like I said: I just went along with it. Did my best to make it look good. Know what I mean?”

“Well, you two can sort out who gets what. I’m not going to interfere after what I’ve just seen. Svetlana, would you be up for doing this as a regular thing? We’re onto a winner here, I know it.”

She looked up at him, and gradually I saw the wounded expression drain from her features. She nodded her head slowly.

“Yeah. I could do this as a regular thing, sure. After all, we’ll need a re-match. Won’t we?” She turned and shot me a frosty scowl that would have looked at home in a Siberian winter.

“Brilliant idea,” Bruno sang. “Eureka after eureka. Svetlana, you’re on fire tonight, babe. Run the details past me during the week, ‘cos I’m getting some ideas of my own now.” He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up as he hurried off past me. “Oh, this is gonna be good. You ladies have given this place a new lease of life. Yes indeed...”

The dressing room descended into an awkward, silent stand-off as he left. I pulled out a stool and sat down next to Svetlana. Peeling off my false eyelashes, I said; “You had me going out there for a minute, you know. I really thought you’d lost the plot.”

Svetlana still refused to reply. Her profile was still doing a damn fine impersonation of a granite cliff.

Bruno re-appeared with a tray and two bottles of champagne, crystal flutes, and the now-traditional bowl of chocolates. He set the tray down in front of us. It had been worth the pain and discomfort to see Bruno so excited and energized about the Klub again.

“Tuck in, ladies. You’ve earned it. The bonus will be waiting for you tonight, Svetlana.”

He vanished again and we all poured ourselves our own helpings of Möet.

“Here’s to Svetlana,” Petra laughed. “For the best idea anyone’s had in ages.”

Svetlana swirled her drink around, still refusing to look at any of us, her sneer fixed to the mirror. Finally she stood up.

“Here’s to the rematch,” she said, downed her drink in one gulp, and strode out towards the toilets, where I got the feeling she was preparing to kick the cubicle doors off their hinges.

Bruno was totally taken with the evening’s Cold War theme and decided that Svetlana and I would be a double act in future, renaming us the Merciless Sisters – some kind of loose joke on the Sisters of Mercy, I guess.

And then he came out with the most outlandish concept I’d ever seen at the Kitty Klub since the afternoon he offered a contract to an exhibitionist hermaphrodite pervert...and expected her to behave.

“
Mud wrestling
!” he cried, his big hands spread wide as we all sat backstage the following weekend. “Wrestling is the new big thing from the US. It’s all over the TV these days. But who wants to see a couple of steroid monsters slap each other when we can offer gorgeous women – in
mud
, yet? It’s just perfect. Isn’t it?”

“Perfect?” Svetlana repeated, rolling her tongue around the word as though it were a hard-boiled sweet. I could see she was just as skeptical as me, but ritualized violence seemed to have its place in modern society. Especially with a little sexiness thrown in. And if nothing else, it helped those of us who didn’t get along so well to resolve our issues safely, in public,
and
get paid for it.

“How messy do you want this to get?” I asked.

Bruno sniggered. “As messy as you possibly can. The flyers that I’ve printed are warning to ‘bring a change of clothes’.”

His bright idea for our next outing arranged for a paddling pool – filled with real mud from the gardens at the back of the venue – to be manhandled onto the stage for us to splash around in.

“I suppose, at least it’s not a pool of cow shit,” Svetlana sighed. “Had that done to me when I was growing up on my uncle’s farm. My brothers thought it was funny. Then they threw me in the river to clean me off. Now you know why I devoted my life to getting tough.”

“Another farm girl?” I asked, surprised. And then I realized that this was the first detail she had ever dropped about her personal past. Could the Cold Warrior-maiden finally be thawing out at last?

“Hm,” Bruno pondered. “Can we make this a theme? With appropriate national dress, perhaps. Phoenyx the Bavarian barmaid versus the Russian peasant.”

I was mildly surprised that Svetlana took no offence at being cast as a peasant, until I realized that the term probably carried more pride and honor in the East than it did elsewhere.

“Why not,” Svetlana said. “Perhaps we can add beer to the mix as well.”

“This’ll put the cleaning bill through the roof,” Bruno said, “but I think the takings will more than make up for it all.”

I looked at Svetlana, and she looked at me.

“Well, here’s to the rematch,” I smiled. She grinned back, and for the first time in her company I felt truly at ease. It’s amazing what a public kick in the ass can achieve sometimes, I mused.Chapter Ten

Cold Wargasm

I woke up the next morning with a strange, distant sound in the background of my perception. At first it sounded like a war was going on somewhere, then possibly a football match, but no big games were ever played at that time of day. Confused and just a little afraid as I struggled to awaken, I went to the window and looked out. As far as I could see were crowds of people pouring through the street, and my eyes stared with panic.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked myself, and then as if to answer me, there was a ruffle of knocks at the door.

I rushed to open it, fearing the worst: a war, a revolution, some impending disaster forcing us all to flee at a moment’s notice. The Soviets on the march again – Gorbachev deposed, and Svetlana, the KGB’s sleeper agent, now leading a revolution from the heart of the West to bring back the old hard-line empire. I wrenched the door almost off its hinges with a terrible croak of tortured wood, and found Bruno and Gloria there, eyes wide and bright (far too bright for that time of day, I decided), and grinning madly at me.

“What the hell?” was as far as I got before Gloria shoved a morning newspaper in my face. I didn’t quite get the connection at first.

“The wall’s coming down,” Bruno said, and then the realization began to sink in. I looked again at the front page, and dashed back to the window. The crowds had come closer, and I could see that they were celebrating; not fleeing, fighting or rebelling.

“The wall,” I repeated, and my first thoughts were of my father, who left us all those years ago to be with his family over in the East. The newspaper crashed to the floor at my feet and I just stood there, not quite knowing how I should feel.

“It’s over,” Bruno went on. “They opened the gates at midnight last night. It’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” I repeated, and felt my eyes begin to fill up. I suppose it was, in a way, but it was a beauty the city could have done without – the cruelty which led to it should never have occurred in the first place.

I followed them down to the bar to find a couple of the cleaning staff crowded around the television which was showing live news coverage of the exodus. I looked at all the scenes of people coming together again, hugging and kissing and dancing, and I felt a wrench inside me, as if something had been torn away – a wound that had healed but was now open and bleeding again.

I tried to tell myself that I shouldn’t care. I’d never known him, and he never knew me. If he was even still alive, I’d never recognize him, and probably my mother wouldn’t, either. I didn’t even know if she had a photograph of him. If there was even a wedding photo, I’d never seen it. It was one of those things that had just never been discussed.

“This is history, happening right in front of us,” Gloria said. “We should go out there and join in, be a part of it.”

“Give it time,” Bruno said. “Let it sink in first – ‘cos I’ve got an idea. A great idea, in fact. A special Klub Night to celebrate.”