Helluva Luxe

  Natalie Essary

Published by SpiderLily Publishing

Copyright © 2014 Natalie Essary

All rights reserved
. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

isbn 10
: 0692271554

isbn
-13: 978-0692271551

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Interior design: Alex Jeffers.

First Edition published in 2012 by Lethe Press, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Natalie Essary

For Bear

I met her when I was waiting in line. By “her” I mean the bar, Helluva Luxe. It was the first time I saw the DJ, too, through the open doorway. She was suspended high above the dance floor, riding a monolithic booth carved from faux bone and crumbled castles. Smoke snaked around her as she sampled a song, head bent to her hand, messy black hair in her eyes. She wore a cherry bomb in each ear and a cigarette on her sharp lips. It was impossible to focus on her face as a whole, only flashes of features through the throbbing red light, but I could tell she was hot. Not pretty. Not the kind of girl you take home to meet mama. The other kind. The kind that will most definitely burn you. She was a treacherous beauty.

She took the cigarette from her mouth, and I thought I saw her lips move, but there was nobody else up there. As she flicked some ashes on the floor and turned her back to me, the massive doorman grunted. He shifted his leather-clad weight for emphasis, nodding once in the direction where wallets are generally kept. He hated me already. He could’ve throttled me with his tatted meat hooks, but he looked too bored to bother. Clearly this wasn’t the first time he had to wait for someone to stop ogling the DJ.

I jumped, said something predictable like, “Oh right, sorry,” and shuffled through my pockets. Travelling debris fluttered to the wet ground. Greyhound ticket, a receipt from Denny’s… I fingered my ID and handed it over. He examined it, tilting it this way and that under the streetlight. Then he gave me the obligatory onceover, chewed the corner of his mouth, and locked my gaze long enough to imply he could remember my face if he had to. One of his eyes was brown and one of them was blue. He reminded me of wolves I’d met before. He handed back my license and turned his mighty doorman gaze to the night traffic. Then he ran his painted thumbnail under his broad nose and crossed his arms.

This song and dance meant I could go in.

The entranceway was a jigsaw puzzle of antique mirrors. Some were cracked, many were tarnished, and they all, no doubt, housed judgmental witches. I inhaled deeply and realized how much I’d missed the smell of amber and pretension.

The blowfish riding the register from a lopsided barstool had her bony arms crossed under an open copy of
Neverwhere
. She finished her paragraph, smiled up at me like she could see through my skull, and made my money disappear with a resounding ring. Then she looked back down at her book and continued to suck wine from a skeleton tumbler through a glow-in-the-dark straw. I dropped a fin in her tip coffin, decided she might be cute if she didn’t have crazy eyes, and wandered into the cavernous bar.

The walls were draped in dark tapestries and velvet window treatments. The toggles had fangs. There were no visible windows, only candle nooks dripping wax cobwebs set into the stone. Fallen columns, wound with ivy, were scattered among oversized black patterned ottomans and tall crimson tables.

I saw a flash of white and looked up. White is a no-no in a Goth bar. I’d be more shocked to find someone wearing white than I would be to find somebody hanging out in the rafters. But it wasn’t a pale human crouched over my head. It was a fairy. A marble one. She was creepy, in a drop-dead kind of way. She had jagged wings, a shredded dress and faintly purple lips. Something behind her blank eyes beat in time to the music, angry and flashing. The DJ was spinning “Something I Can Never Have,” rocking slowly back and forth in time with the dancers writhing along the floor. She studied her clipboard, crossed something out, and bit the tip of her pen. Then she set it all down, picked up her cigarette and looked dead at me.

My body caught fire.

I turned away abruptly and careened into a waif in a tutu. She had forest-colored hair. In one hand she held a drink, and in the other, some serious attitude. She snarled at me with her perfect bow of a mouth and examined her cleavage to see if I defiled her emerald corset. Then she glared at me again, thrust her tiny nose, ring and all, into the air and clomped off in her
Rocky Horror
boots. I heard laughter. It fluttered like wings. Then the DJ kicked on “Lucretia, My Reflection,” and the dance floor crowd combusted. I was smitten. Maybe a bit intimidated. But mostly just thirsty.

Like all decent Goth bars, this bar had more than one bar in it. Three, actually—Front, Side and Back. Each designed and strategically positioned to attract a different flavor of clientele.

The front bar, the closest one to the door, was packed, as it should be. A veritable sea of the freshest fish available, all laughing too loudly and slithering by one another, hoping to hook this or that. The front bar is where you hang out if you’re looking to score sex or drugs. Doom Cookies, Weekenders and Babybats frequent front bars.

Doom Cookies, self-explanatory. Those are the drama queens. They’re often bar regulars, meaning they’ve been going to the same place every night the doors are open for years, and therefore, they know everyone. They’re usually chicks with daddy issues, or effeminate men. And they park by the entrance, because they can’t afford to miss anything. Good gossip is what keeps them afloat.

Weekenders, I have no respect for. Those are the people who only go Goth on Friday and Saturday. They start out as average college students who think they’re living on the edge by going to the freak bar once a week, wearing the only black outfit they have with a little eyeliner and some fake plugs. Then they graduate from Whatever U and go on to practice Abercrombie and/or Fitch Monday through Friday, while holding down a day job in some fluorescent-lit call center cubicle. And they still go to the freak bar every weekend, because it keeps them from feeling thirty-one. Or thirty-two. Or thirty-three. But inside they’re miserable, because leading two lives is just too much damn work.

Babybats are the new Goths, fresh from the coffin, lunchbox in tow, trying so hard to be individuals that they all look exactly the same. They’re complete snobs about fashion and music, but they can afford to be. They usually have huge disposable incomes, because they still live with their folks, while clocking forty a week at the local Hot Topic. They tend to be relatively harmless. Like any child, they just want to be played with.

As a general rule, I bypass front bars.

The side bar was deserted, darkened and unmanned. Little red candles in little red votives filled the spaces people did not. The blood-veined marble top was littered with beer coasters and three-by-five flyers for local bands. Obviously the side bar was reserved for live music nights, when tasty treats tricked through town to slither all over the stage, break all the broken hearts and then disappear again, leaving a trail of sexually suggestive stickers and babydoll tees. Show-goers hang out at side bars, and usually only long enough to order a drink.

Again I moved on.

The back bar was tucked behind a wide flight of stairs, a sharp corner and a short wall. It was almost impossible to spot without using the various mirrors. Traditionally, back bars are reserved for regulars and the friends and “family” of regulars. Period. There is never an exception to this rule.

Well, almost never.

All the fucking rules go screaming out the window if the dread-locked bartender running the back bar catches your eye and pushes a drink on a napkin toward the only empty seat in the house.

The set of her mouth suggested she’d seen enough of my shenanigans and was mildly sympathetic. She was shaking her head. I wanted to sit down and tell her I used to be a real badass, but instead I just sat down.

“Not you,” she said, drying her hands on a bar rag. She tilted her head toward the person I’d most recently pissed off. “The drink is for her.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” I said. “If I go back over there she’ll eat my face.”

“I rarely kid about booze. Especially when you spill it on a regular.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t march your sweet ass over there and apologize proper, you’ll be her next chew toy. Trust me. She needs material.” The bartender poured two shots of tequila in one smooth motion and lined them up. “A lot of people are willing to sit and listen to those tits.” She threw one of the shots back and winked at me. “That other one’s yours if you make it back with your face intact.”

She turned away to talk to someone else. I fingered the peace offering, studying her for a minute. She weighed about a buck fifteen, equal amounts muscle and curve, give or take for the boots. And she was several inches shorter than me at five-eleven. She was dressed in black leather pants and a wife-beater over full sleeves. All tigers and fish and beautiful women slinking up and down her arms. Her dreadlocks were twisted into a sexy mess on the top of her head, held in place by a fork and a steak knife. I was fairly confident she could pound my ass. And she had amber-colored eyes. I’m man enough to admit I wanted her as much as I wanted to be her.

I left behind a ten on the napkin because I intended to come back, and I knew better than to take a lottery seat at the family bar without paying my respects.

My viridian nemesis was perched on a corner of the stage, sipping from crystal and swinging her stilettos. She had a dozen followers, a mixed flock of farcified suitors and wannabes who’d probably all been naked together and high on something at least once. A week. The minions closest to her waited on guard like wasps, while others lounged across the stage or danced alone in the shadows. Empty bird cages hung from the ceiling, woven with ribbons and dead flowers. There was hardly any light, other than the intermittent flashes of color from the dance floor. I imagined they could get away with just about anything back there. I also imagined that if she stood up, an imprint of her tiny ass would be revealed in the wood. In other words, I was clearly in her domain.

Her nightmare crew of party kids rolled their eyes and snickered as I walked up, each displaying a different subtlety of disapproval. I prayed my fly was up and stepped before the twisted queen, ready to have my east coast entrails ripped out by her loyal court. And the worst bit of all, she was smiling. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” rumbled over the dance floor like witch fog as she watched me through her glitter-tipped lashes. I tried to imagine her naked, but I could tell by the look in her eye she was more than one step ahead of me. Fingers of ice crept up my arm, pretty little claws painted Poison Apple. It took all my resolve not to flinch. Once upon a time, I used to be damn good at her game. Hell, once upon a time, I might’ve even wanted a peek under that tutu. But now…

“Just an apology,” I said darkly, holding the glass a safe distance from her chest. I didn’t smile, tried to seem bored and dangerous, the whole dog and pony show this kind of bitch dies for. And she totally bought it. I think.

She looked over my shoulder at the back bartender, who must have nodded solemnly or waved her rag in a truce, because my nemesis accepted my meager libation. She set it on the stage next to her pretty fishnet thigh and took a long draw from her goblet, feeling me up with her stare. Her eyes were the same color as her pointed nails and heavily hooded, deeply dilated. She could’ve been wearing contacts, or she could’ve taken a chunk out of my neck. It’s a tossup.

A leggy Amazon firebomb in a red catsuit, with aviator goggles holding back her mane of flame-white extensions, slid an arm around the green girl’s waist, indicating I should take no thought further.

“What’s your name?” my nemesis asked.

“Nick,” I said.

She nodded slowly as if she were contemplating my answer and turned to whisper in the firebomb’s ear, never taking her eyes from mine. Bauhaus gnawed at my marrow. I wanted to walk away, but something told me the price for my discretion might be steeper than I could afford.

The firebomb kept shooting glances toward the empty DJ booth. Something was definitely going down. Or not going down. I couldn’t tell.

“Why don’t you sit with us for a while, Nick.” It wasn’t a question. “Unless, you have someone else to do.” The green girl cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head.

She was tempting.

In fact, every movement she made was executed with such precision that the rest of the room started to fall away, bite by bite.

“Here,” she offered. “Try some of this.”

Her goblet purred between us.

“It’s the type they keep behind the bar just for me.”

Her court snickered and shifted. I couldn’t help myself. I reached a hand out to sample her wares, and I was a beat away from sitting down next to her. Then a hand slid up my back. Nails dug into my shoulder. I checked the nearest mirror and turned my head with a slow smile. The got-your-back bartender was standing behind me, brandishing a cordless phone at her side.

“You have a call,” she said in my ear. She was eyeing the goblet. “My office. Now.”

I swear I heard someone hiss. And it only took a beat for me to realize I was supposed to play along. I turned back to the green girl and said politely, “Maybe some other time.” Then I winked just to fuck with her. I knew damn well I was barely escaping with my jewels intact.

“Certainly,” she said. “Nice meeting you. Nick.”

I heard deliberate throaty laughter as I walked away.

Once the bartender and I were back downstairs, I decided, “There’s no phone call. Is there?”

“Nope. Just a wakeup call,” she said and lifted the starting gate.

I ducked under her arm and tried not to stare as she leaned over the bar and summoned one of her many tatted-down friends to babysit the booze. Then she turned to me, asked if I was ready, and swung open a heavy black door.

The sticker on the door had been creatively rearranged to read:
No Trespassing! Beware of Gods.

Her regulars watched over the tops of their drinks, leering at me with fuzzy-eyed resignation. They’d never seen me before, and they were undoubtedly curious as to why I was being granted such a rare privilege. Admittedly, I had no idea where the bartender was taking me, but they could glare until their eyes shriveled out. I’d already decided I would follow this woman straight to hell, if that’s where she was headed.

So the door slammed ominously behind us.

On the other side was a suspiciously cold and narrow hallway. We rounded several corners that looked exactly the same, my boots echoing on the skeleton tile. The walls were scattered with thick black drapes over bone print paper. Again, there were no windows, only candle nooks and doorways.

After several minutes I decided we were walking in circles. I considered the possibility she might have rescued me so she could eat me herself. I opened my mouth to say just as much when she suddenly stopped like Wonka in front of a black door with gold skull and crossbones across it. There was an old brass hotel plaque that read “Thirteen” in feathery letters, a goat’s head doorknocker, and a room service tag depicting scantily-clad flesh-eating zombies.

I was impressed, and we weren’t even in the room yet.

The bartender plucked a long, thin key from the ring on the chain at her waist and unlocked the door. Again she pushed it open for me.

“Your office?”

She nodded.

Her “office” looked more like an apartment. A stylish one. She had a kitchenette, a sunken living area, and two slim accordion-style doors that were closed. Her butter walls were trimmed in black. Everything in the room, in fact, was trimmed in black.

There’s a steadfast rule in the Goth community, and it encompasses whatever you’ve got from personal affects to decor: Any shade is acceptable when paired with enough darkness. That’s right, ladies. You can be as girly as you wanna be if you’ve got plenty of accoutrements brandishing spikes or the word “Bitch.” Preferably in cursive. It’s important to be an individual, certainly, but it’s more important to maintain your edge. So go on and paint those Jan Brady walls, but only if you scatter them with, oh say, sexy pulp fiction pop art in chunky black frames.

“These paintings are incredible,” I said.

And clearly originals. I could see texture and movement in the brushstrokes. There were eight in all, each depicting a strong, voluptuous woman beside a strong, voluptuous tag line. Embers crackled from their slim cigarettes, and their legs were as lean as their smiles. I wondered how the bartender slept at night with all that come hither in the room.

“Yours?” I asked.

“Ash painted them for me.”

She creaked open a cabinet in the kitchenette and took down two mugs. Then she started digging around in the fridge and came up with a stained glass decanter. She popped the crystal plug and started to pour, grinning to herself.

“Ash painted the ladies hiding in here, too, if you want to come check them out.”

I walked into the kitchenette and took a closer look at the cabinet doors. Sure enough. They were crawling with women.

The bartender went on.

“She also did the ones sprawled across the ceiling over the dance floor. Not many people know about those because it’s so damn high up there. She’s a modern-day Michelangelo. You should see what she did to the bathroom. Not an easy place to drop your pants, that’s for sure.” She gestured toward one of the black accordion doors. “Ash says she doesn’t decide where to paint her women. They’re already there, waiting to be seen.”

“Ash?” I finally asked.

She set the bottle down and looked at me, puzzled. “The DJ,” she said, as if I should know. “And the owner. Her name is Ash.”

My stomach quivered, then got hot. The bartender handed me a glass and nodded toward a fat red leather chair, lined with black cushions shaped like lips. I sat down and slid back. Every muscle in my body relaxed but one.

“Thanks,” I said. “For your help and for the drink.”

She fell into the futon across from me without spilling a drop and kicked her boots up.

“Not a problem,” she said. “You kinda remind me of my brother.” The words materialized between us, hovered for a moment and dissipated.

“Why would you say that?” I asked. Not something a guy wants to hear. Especially a guy with designs.

“I don’t know,” she decided, boldly examining my face for clues. “Maybe it’s the shirt.”

She winked at me then and downed half her drink.

“I never make excuses for my wrestling shirts. Even to girls with knives in their hair.”

She refilled both glasses and settled back again, completely comfortable with silence. Evidently, she had no trouble watching me, either. Her eyes were heating the room.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Rorke.”

“In the last life or in this one?”

She raised her glass to me.

Another moment passed.

“Where are you from, Nick?”

“That depends,” I said.

“Where were you last?”

“Salem.”

“Witch Capital of the World?”

“The very one.” I nodded.

“Why’d you leave?”

“What makes you think I left?”

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

We locked eyes for a beat.

“Do you always drink this much?” I said.

“Only on days that end in why.”

As she reached to take my glass, I realized it was empty. I didn’t say anything, just watched her get up and walk over to the sink. She ran the water and dried the dishes with a lace tea towel that said “I Like it Wet” in red cursive. I tried not to smile.

“I’d stay away from Naenia’s bunch, if I were you,” she advised, palming something from one of the drawers and tucking it into her boot. “You gotta start with nutso and work your way up to criminally insane.”

I assumed Naenia was the green queen on the back stage, so I nodded. But I’m no fool. The girl I needed to watch out for was the one right in front of me.

“Thanks for the tip,” I said.

“Pleasure’s mine.”

“Can I use your bathroom?” I hoped she hadn’t noticed I was covered in Greyhound.

“Of course,” she said. “You can use the staff showers.”

I hadn’t meant a shower, but it sounded like a damn good idea. “Thanks, Rorke.”

I got up and followed her to the door, stood quietly aside while she locked up number thirteen. I tried to seem as unobtrusive as possible, but something inside me was slowly thawing, and I wasn’t sure I was okay with it.

“Bathroom’s down the hall and to the left,” she said. “There’s a sign on the door. Take your time.”