Part 2 - Goldie: She can’t be all bad. No one is. Well, she comes the closest.

Granny warned me about men, especially rich ones, but she never mentioned bears or what one could do to you, how he could maul you from the inside out without a drop of blood, without the first scratch. I never knew what could happen when you handed over your heart because I’d never tried it. But after my time with the three bears, cornered beyond their snarling pleas and clutching love, I decided I never would open myself for another to see, to smell, to taste. Not a man, anyway.

I also never thought I’d end up here, slinging drinks and selling cigs to the absolute lowest lives of this half-town: I was going to be a star. My name is Goldi, after all. Oh, I know — you’ve heard the story, everyone has. But let me tell you something right now: life ain’t no fairy tale.

Ours is a slice of the Big Apple that most people never see: a half-life spilling, bursting with legendary crossbreeds of fantasy and reality. We flicker in the dark places, our lives blending with your “normal” people on the street. But I was going to get out, get gone, land on a beach in California, lace myself up in a bikini and slap on the oil — be discovered and become a star.

Instead I became the saddest of clichés; string of bad men, a lot of booze and bad drugs, and suddenly I’m wearing shorter skirts and higher heels. My own mama wouldn’t speak to me after I moved into a flophouse with a girl called Red who swirls on poles and blows trolls in the alley.

And now she’s dead, and I have to figure out what to do.

It started out as a normal night, if you can call any night in La La Land normal. Wolfie (or Wolfe, as he’s traditionally known, or “Big Bad” if you can get away with that) was camped out at the bar, waiting on Red as usual — that poor old washed-up mutt doesn’t know when to quit, never has. I slid onto the barstool next to him, ruffled his dirty shock of graying black hair. I felt him growl and grumble before his eyes focused on my reflection in the mirrored barback.

“Goldi.” Wolfe turned a shot glass brimming with something thick and red between his fingers, his nails rimmed in black. “How’s life at Smiley’s?” His breath reeked of whiskey.

I lifted my chin at Peter, who slunk over with a shot of sparkling gold. His nose twitched as he sat it down in front of me; the moody little Albino doesn’t approve of me drinking on the job, but I can’t do the job without drinking. “You know,” I tapped my shot glass against Wolfe’s, and we drank, “they call it a cabaret, but I just call it stripping.”

Wolfe laughed, a barking cough, and lit a cigarette. “You call it as you see it; you always have.” He squinted at me through a lazy line of smoke. “One day that’s going to get you in trouble, little girl.”

I waved a hand. “Did you hear about Bluebeard?”

“Damn shame,” Wolfe answered. He opened his mouth (what big teeth he has!) but suddenly snapped it shut when a familiar, serpentine song started at the stage behind us. We both turned on our stools just in time to catch Red’s impossibly long leg slip through a slit in the red curtains, Jessica Rabbit style. Red’s signature opening.

I patted Wolfe on the head; he hates that. “That’s my cue,” I whispered, and took my leave.

The last time I saw him inside the bar that night, he was wiping at his mouth.

Red was a favorite at Smiley’s Cabaret; she’d actually studied with the famous drag queen Jessica Rabbit, who’d recently retired from the biz after two jealous (and unwitting) lovers tore half the place apart and caused all of us to rethink Smiley’s nickname. Before she hung up her pasties though, Jessica taught Red her best tricks and turns, and from what I’ve heard there were some hard feelings among the other dancers on account of that.

Red was beloved by most, but she really held the hearts of the trolls (what I call our regular customers) and forest folk in her soft palms; they knew her haunted history, her dirty deeds before she got caught between Wolfe’s shiny teeth.

“Why do you call them forest folk?” Red had asked me just after I moved into her place.

“Cause they’re nefarious, dark-hearted, bold,” I answered, holding up the tattered remains of a babydoll dress for inspection. Forest folk loved Red in this one: the fairytale classic turned dark and dirty on stage, her plump, shapely thighs twirling beneath the tattered hem of the dress. She was wearing that dress the first time Wolfe saw her, and what big eyes he had!

Red had nodded, eyeing the dress. “Wolfe loves that one.”

“Yeah, I know.” I shook my head and hung the costume on her side of the closet.

Now the forest folk moved to the stage edges as Red slithered through the curtain, and I made my way to the wings to grab my cigarette tray. Smiley was in love with early 20th century American culture, and he liked old-fashioned gals with long gams, fishnets and properly placed tassels. Cabaret, he called it. He’s one sick cat.

Distracted by Red, I tripped and a few packs of Lucky Strikes toppled out of my tray. I was leaning over to pick them up when my pushed-up tits knocked over a carton of Marlboros. I cussed and knelt to gather up the spilled boxes, Red’s legs kicking her nylons off one foot on stage to my left. I glanced over my shoulder. “Your seam’s crooked,” I muttered.

Climbing back to my feet, I saw a shadow flicker at the back of the stage, just on the other side of the curtain, in the opposite wing. I dropped the re-stocked tray of smokes on a small, round table and moved past the red curtain into the dim depth of backstage.

Nothing.

But I smelled something dark and spicy and familiar, I just couldn’t quite place it. My fingers traced the long scar on the inside of my left forearm: my first run-in with an unhappy customer. Of course he’d been a bear. With me, they’re all bears, in the end.

I looked up, scanning the catwalk above the stage where Red was really getting the forest folk worked up. Nothing to see but that smell was stronger, deeper. I backed up into the wings of the stage, my heart quickening and pounding so hard I thought my tight T-shirt would tremble.

“Goldi.”

I jumped. It was Smiley, lurking behind me at the bottom of the steps leading to his office. He moved slowly, lazily, like hair drifting in a midday current. His grin, as always, was wide and forced. His furry fingers ticked up and down the pearl buttons of his wispy white poet’s blouse: a nervous habit.

“Smiley, Jesus, you scared me.” I bared my teeth at him. “Just getting my shit together.”

He nodded at my T-shirt, one eyebrow rising curiously. “What’s with the getup? Why aren’t you in costume?”

“Just got here, babe. Changing now.”

“You’re late. Red’s almost done with her first show.”

I glanced out at my friend, her ass in the air, tits shoved in some lucky troll’s face. “Yeah. Gonna be a long night.”

“Get dressed. And don’t be late again, or you’ll spend a night in my office.”

“Yes sir.”

“Under my desk.”

I sighed. “Yes sir.”

Smiley padded back up the stairs to his office, almost shutting his long shirttail in the door.

On stage, Red was wrapping up, dropping her boa around her neck and blowing kisses. The stage-side crowd dispersed, and she joined me in the darkened wings of the stage. “You’re late,” she breathed, pushing past me.

“Yeah yeah, I know. I already heard it from Smiley.”

Red’s eyes flicked up to his office, where the frosted window of his door glowed a deep purple. “What kind of mood is he in?”

“He’s a fucking artiste, how’m I supposed to know.” I shrugged. “All this time and I still can’t get a read on that cat.”

Red plucked a cigarette from my tray. “I’m gonna go grab a shot before my next show.”

We both leaned back to look past the curtains, where Snow White was picking her pitiful way toward the pole at center stage. Red sighed. “God, she’s awful. She takes that innocent act too far.”

“Fucking prude,” I agreed.

Red looked past poor Snow, beyond the stage lights toward the main bar. “Wolfe out there?”

“For god’s sake, Red, what do you think?”

Red sighed, exhaled a strong streak of white smoke. “I think I’m gonna end it with him tonight.”

I felt my stomach curl up, my nipples harden. “Jesus.”

“After my last show.” Red tapped at her teeth with one perfectly polished fingernail, the wholesome red of a fresh apple. “I need a change.”

“Good luck with that,” I said to her back as she started up the steps to Smiley’s office. “I don’t envy you tonight,” I called up.

Red turned, looking down at me with the most thoughtful, soft look on her face. She smiled, blew me a kiss. “You should never envy me, dollface. Lemme talk to Smiley here, and you and I’ll have a little chat later. There’s some things I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

I watched her ass twitching behind the fluttering pink feathers of her boa, the dark shadow between her legs a fairy tale of its own. She’s legendary, I thought. And she’s all mine.

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed into Red’s perfectly pink ear.

She gasped, her own breath hot and quick on my neck, and a thick gurgle rose from deep inside her. I felt blood on my shoulder.

“The thing is, Dollface, I can’t let this happen. Not again.”

I shoved the knife deeper into her gut, twisted it.

“I’ve been left so many times, and I just can’t take it again.” I jerked up on the knife, and Red coughed. More blood splashed into my wig, so much blood. “I won’t allow you to leave me. My father, see, he left me. He left me with her, alone. Then the bears — well, the bears nearly killed me, didn’t they?”

Red collapsed against me. I held her soft weight, ran my hands over the dip and curve of her hip, slipped my fingers beneath her skirt and felt the damp place there, warm and scented like powdered sugar. I pressed my lips into her hair as I eased her to the ground and pulled her away from the delivery door to Smiley’s further into the alley.

Staring down at her, Red’s words still stung my ears.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” she’d said evenly, slowly, and I imagined her calm face rehearsing this speech to her mirror in the dressing room, elbow to elbow with the other strippers. I could see their dark eyes darting at her, instinctively cringing, remembering when they’d had to say the same thing to someone they had once loved. Had once fucked. Had once held, cried on, made love to, slept with, watched sleep.

I’d been able to feel my own lips spread then, felt them stretch across my teeth: my natural reaction to pain and disbelief is to smile. It’s a practiced grace.

“What,” I shook my head and reached to touch her face. My heart flared when she pulled away. “What do you mean? We… we won’t see each other, Red. We live together. We’re a couple.”

Red bit that luscious lower lip of hers and looked away. “But Wolfe — ”

“There is no Wolfe,” I hissed. “He doesn’t matter. And you said you were ending it with him anyway, right? Red?” I reached out then and grabbed her chin, a little too forcefully perhaps, but desperate times. “Red,” I insisted, “we’re in love.”

She raised her eyes to mine, and I saw it. Or rather, I saw nothing.

“Who is it?” I whispered.

She shook her head, jerking her chin from my hand.

“Who is it,” I said.

“It isn’t anyone,” Red said, turned and slammed out of the kitchen and outside through the delivery door.

I stood, hands on my hips, glaring after her. That bitch. She couldn’t leave me. No one leaves me, not anymore.

I turned in a small, tight, unhappy circle in the empty kitchen. The cooks were done for the night, probably bellied up to the bar for another night of wasting their wages and lining Smiley’s pocket. I clenched and unclenched my hands, trying to think of how to stop her.

My eyes landed on a butcher knife, forgotten and gleaming in the silent kitchen, the tip of its blade jutting just off the counter’s edge.

If I can’t have her….

Slowly, one hand behind my back, I opened the delivery door. Red stood in a pool of lamplight, the ends of her hair trembling against her arms.

“I just need some time on my own — I told Wolfe the same thing earlier. We had this huge screaming fight, and… well, I just need to be on my own.” She glanced over at me, her face drawn and sad. “You’re going to have to find someplace else to stay.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to stay, Red. The Bears… I can’t go back to them.”

I tried to make my voice stop shaking by breathing deeply, like Baby Bear taught me. “You just take a deep breath, and then another, and close your eyes, and eventually the pain goes away. And then, later, you take care of yourself.”

Red bit her fingernail, wouldn’t look at me. She lifted one shoulder as an answer.

“You take care of yourself,” I thought.

I curled the neck of her T-shirt in the fist of my other hand, quick as a stolen kiss, and pulled her to me.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

I backed up to leave her there, in the alley. To abandon her on the cold, wet street smelling of rotting meat and something cloyingly sweet. She sprawled in the yellow glow of the alley lamp, a stiletto hooked on the big toe of her left foot. I was about to nudge her body into the shadows when I saw Wolfe stumble through the delivery door. I backed up until I was against the shadowed wall of the alley, several feet away but not far enough.

Wolfe held the door open for a second, swung his head back and forth. I wouldn’t bet a bowl of porridge on how wasted he was, and I certainly couldn’t stick around to find out.

“Go back inside,” I whispered. “Turn around and go back inside.”

Wolfe’s head tilted to one side, and he studied the body.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “No.”

“Red?” He called out. He raised his chin as if sniffing the air.

God no. No, please no. Not this.

I turned and ran.