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I slip out into the hall in a break between songs as the club bustles with noise, leaving Ernst to attend my drink and Sally to flutter off to another table. Half of the lightbulbs don't work and I have to feel my way around the hallway looking for the bathroom. God, it's disgusting back here. The walls are caked in grime and smoke and it smells like vomit.
I think I'm on the right one (Sally told me it was the fourth door on the right, or maybe the fifth), and I try the doorknob, turning on my heel to go back when I get rudely interrupted by the door slamming into me.
I gasp as I land on the floor, and I hear somebody let out a bark of a laugh, and I see a grin like a cheshire cat and at once I know it is the Master of Ceremonies. He offers me a hand slick with sweat and I take it, my feet slipping slightly as he pulls me up.
"You must be Sally's American," he says, letting go of my hand and brushing his off on his shorts with a flourish. "Clifford, ja? It is a pleasure to meet you, mein libeling. Apologies for the rude introduction."
"And you?" I ask, suddenly conscious of the very cramped hallway.
"Haven't you learned from Sally not to ask us such questions? If I must be anything, I am the Emcee, and if I must be the Emcee then I have a show to return to." There was a sharpness to his voice, and at once I knew I should not be talking to him and yet-
"Could we not... extend this meeting?" I ask, tentatively, and then my cheeks flush at my boldness (Dear God, how could I be so stupid!) and I am very very glad the lights are broken and I am terrified that he might hit me.
His grin persists.
"How forward. If you insist. I'll be on stage, after the shows over." And then he does a mocking little bow and disappears into a door that must lead into the wings and I go back to the audience, my original mission forgotten.
In a break between sets I tell Sally about the Emcee's invitation (or rather, my invitation to the Emcee), and she laughs with excitement and kicks her feet like a schoolgirl and buys me a drink in celebration. "Oh, Cliff! Em never accepts anything like that! He must really quite fancy you! (Especially on a night like this! He's really in quite the mood, you know.)"
I am now even drunker than I already was and very much regret it because I would rather not throw up on my date's feet. I really should not be thinking of him as my date, but I have already been hit on by about four different boys and Bobby is very insistent that his boyfriend wouldn't mind if we slept together so I doubt it matters, and he is rather attractive.
Sally offers me more gin and I try and decline but she is awfully insistent, and so I end up feeling rather sick by the time she goes back to the stage. Ernst is at another table, now, flirting with some cabaret girl, and as the house lights dim and the Emcee comes out on stage my stomach flips not only with nausea but with worry.
I try and lose myself in the show but it takes far longer than usual, so I pull out my cigarette case instead and I smoke and eventually I lose myself well enough in that.
I'm still nervous, though. I doubt that's going away anything soon. It would be so much easier if I only liked girls.
The show is over far too quickly. I assure Ernst I'll make it home safely and Sally wishes me good luck and blows me a kiss good night (I'm assuming she's off to find another man to sleep with, knowing her), and I watch the orchestra pack up as the lights go back on and the girls find men to go home with.
I lean against a table and attempt to put on a veneer of coolness that I know does not suit me. Viktor watches from the wings, as Bobby walks forward.
"Waiting on anyone?" He asks, reaching a hand out to play with my tie. I do not resist.
"The Emcee, actually." I feel no need to lie. His hand drops to his side like I've slapped it and his eyebrows raise.
"Damn! Some other night, I suppose?" I nod. Viktor comes to collect him. My thoughts are elsewhere, clearly, and I feel a little bad- but then I remember he does have a boyfriend and can do very well without me.
That sounds quite callous. I apologize. I shouldn't be this drunk.
I say that as if it isn't my fault I am this drunk.
I wait and I wait, until no more people leave the club and several have tried to proposition me. When at last I am completely sure that he has left me here as some sort of cruel joke, he saunters out onto the stage as if no time has passed, makeup freshly done and hair gelled into place, a crisp suit jacket thrown over his harness.
"You kept me waiting. It's been half an hour," I say, indignantly.
"Oh?" he replies, offering a hand to help me up to the stage. I take it and he does not let go as he leads me to the hallway. I am acutely aware of how much I sweat.
"You're not supposed to keep people waiting on dates."
"So this is a date?" he asks, innocent as a saint.
"No- I didn't mean-" My face flushes bright red, and he grins, and at once I know he has won and I am very embarrassed indeed.
"Relax, Cliff. I am joking. You Americans have no sense of humor." He opens the now-familiar door. "My dressing room."
"Sally told me this was the bathroom," I admit. He sighs.
"Of course she did. At one time she did not like a vase I had so she convinced multiple very drunk people to piss in it. It's a shame. I rather enjoyed the vase."
"I'm not nearly drunk enough to try that!" I protest.
"You could be," he says, maneuvering over to the vanity and opening a drawer. "Gin?"
"No thanks. I've drunk enough tonight."
"A rare refusal. Cigarette?" I nod, and he lights it for me, before downing a rather concerning amount of alcohol and returning the bottle and glass, taking care to ensure they remained in their proper place. I position myself on the loveseat, and he had sat down on the chair at the vanity.
"Sally was quite surprised you accepted my offer," I say, fiddling with the cuff of my shirt.
"I accept whatever offers suit me. You intrigued me, Clifford. Sally is fascinated by you- in some ways, so am I. In all respects you are very ordinary, and yet you spend every night in a club which no one who has sanity left frequents. You look as though you were dressed by your mother, and yet Bobby says he met you in London, at the Nightingale Bar. It is the nature of people such as myself to be drawn to the absurd and the contradictory, and you are a paragon of both."
"You overestimate me," I say, with a nervous grimace.
"I thought you authors enjoyed to be cross-examined. You certainly do it enough to other people," he says, fixing me with a cold stare and suddenly I am the audience and he is the performer, and he has enraptured me just as he does on stage and I am falling, falling, falling-
He sits down on the opposite end of the loveseat and stretches out languidly, his limbs spilling off the edges, and I am very aware of just how little distance is between us and I am trying very hard not to look at him.
And then suddenly he pulls me toward him and my mouth is pressed against his, hot and greasy with lipstick, and it is all very fast- his hand is on the small of my back and mine search for a place to rest and do not find it before he pulls away from me and I nearly gasp.
I am practically in his lap and I shiver despite the heat of the club. His other hand is on my jaw and it tilts my head up to meet his eyes and just as I think he's about to say something he kisses me again, soft and far gentler than I thought he was capable of and I am finally able to kiss him back.
My heart pounds in my chest as he pulls away.
Dear God, what have I gotten myself into?
As we disentangle ourselves from each other he stretches, suit jacket falling off of his shoulders. He is lithe and muscular, a true dancer- a bit shorter than I am but far taller in presence, and incredibly beautiful.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the vanity mirror. My hair is tousled and my face is smeared with lipstick and foundation. I look more like a worker at the club than a patron. My hands are practically shaking as I take my cigarette from the ashtray and light it.
"Do you still find me absurd and contradictory?" I ask.
"Do you still find me mysterious and fascinating?" he replies, and I know I will very rarely get a straight answer out of him.
"Isn't that what Sally says?"
"Who's to say I'm not who said it first?" He gets up from the loveseat in a maneuver that almost felt dance-like, and helps me to my feet for the third time that night. "Come. The city is empty."
"You have no troubles here."