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I had only worked at the club for a few weeks and already had a group of regulars. My newest regular’s move was to show up right before closing, ask how much I had made that night, and then offer to match my earnings. He came on Wednesdays. Showed up gelled, and belted. Licked his fingers to grip just the right amount of paper. He only spent fifteen minutes actually inside. Never sat down.
When they asked me questions, I charged them $50 for my answers. I gave them my name; they offered someone’s back in return. Mr. Smith, Jameson, Anton, Marley, Jordan. Real or not, those were the people they kept buried below all their bones. The actual people, the ones who stayed inside the tangy room for hours, dripped from it all. Exhumed. It started with streaming noses, allergic itchy sweat, and if I was lucky, a tear. I told them they liked that feeling. Then I walked out at the end of my shift, dabbed clean and money rolled tight. Night air uncompromised.
At the end of the summer, I spent my earnings on rich-colored cookware and off-campus housing for the fall semester. I commissioned a painting of the girls with the last of it. Handed the young artist our printed group photos: flashes of faces and dazzling skin against black corners. When I received the painting, it had been thickly preserved in a glossy finish, and the girls had been painted to be worshiped. Each of them divinely afloat in a celestial scene. Draped and jeweled.
On Friday, before opening, I put the painting in the dressing room next to the vanity mirror. Tied my crumpled tan tights into a bow and laid it on top. One by one, the girls filed semicircle around the chestnut frame. The painted girls looked at us, and we looked back. Heavenly bodies alive in a starry-lit space.
About Haley Sharp
Haley Sharp was born and raised on the island of Kaua’i, Hawai’i. She received her BA in English Lit from Whitman College in 2023. Currently, she is about to begin her MFA in Creative Writing at NYU. She is in constant search of stories that unsettle and beguile her. Find her on Instagram @hhaleysharp.
