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Chapter 24
As I entered the bar, suddenly the applause was deafening. Gerda had arrived and it was obvious that she was a hit.
The audience were wolf whistling and laughing. Amazingly and, in no time at all, Gerda had got the audience on her side. Moments ago she had been quivering wreck, desperate not to do the show. Yet now she had their souls in her hand and was squeezing and teasing them and raising the roof.
Smokey's was packed. There were regulars, not so regulars and people I'd never seen before.
Getting near the dance floor was now impossible so I took advantage of my staff status and went behind the bar to get a beer barrel to stand on.
When I saw what Gerda was wearing, I nearly fell off again.
Perhaps it had been Ron's skinflint idea to avoid paying for a costume. Maybe it was simply Gerda's stroke of genius derived from psychoanalyzing her audience and divining their secret fantasies. Wherever it came from, it was pure genius.
She started backwards and forwards like any other stripper with the bar stereo belting out a classic stripping tune. She teased with fluttering eyelashes, picking out first one customer then another to besiege with her charms in the time honored way. But her greatest art was in her attire. It was a stroke of genius.
Wrapped around her head was some used computer paper. Wrapped around her body was more computer paper and she had fashioned some computer paper into leggings that almost reached to her knees.
In her hand she carried a small pair of scissors; the sort a child would use for cutting paper. She was currently offering the scissors to Lopey Lopez who selected a point near her midriff to make his cut. Other parts of the computer paper were already looking decidedly ragged from other customer's salacious snips.
A legging suddenly gave up clinging to her gyrating body and slipped away revealing a pink thigh that was much more shapely than I remembered.
The audience roared its approval.
The other legging disappeared suddenly as an overexcited youth I'd never seen before grabbed a handful of paper and pulled it away.
Another roar.
It was clear that the scissors were now redundant and Gerda adopted a new plan. She handed one of the gamblers the corner of the paper sheeting around her mid-riff and danced slowly away from him letting it unwind like a sari.
As she slowly revolved, it unwound showing more and more of what the audience wanted to see. And then suddenly she was no longer a mummified computer goddess but was down to a simple loincloth listing financial data with two flaps of computer paper detailing Profit and Loss and attached by some miracle to her breasts.
The pace of her dancing was furious now and the audience was clapping and howling in time to the music. Somehow it was a full five minutes before these scraps of paper disappeared.
I spotted Ron who was standing on a chair near to the entrance looking worried. Perhaps he thought that after they had finished ripping Gerda to pieces, they might start on his bar.
With a determined look on her face and in a single-handed flourish, Gerda ripped the final shreds of paper from her body, bowed low, which brought frenzied applause from those standing behind her and then, throwing her head back in a proud stare, disappeared through the crowds to safety.
There were yells for 'More, More' and 'Encore, Encore' but they at last gave up when she didn't reappear.
I found her staring out of her window down at the street below. She seemed calm and untroubled.
My congratulations were genuine.
"That was totally awesome!"
She turned and smiled. There was a strong sweet smell in the air that wasn't scent.
"Dutch courage," she said, seeing my snout sniffing and offered me the end of a stubby joint.
"No thanks. I've a mountain of work to do on the new website this afternoon and I need a clear head."
"You've fallen on your feet there by the looks of it. I'm glad."
Gerda was talking to me but not looking at me. I had the feeling that she'd yet to come down from the sanctuary she'd found. Her dressing gown was open at the front and she made no attempt to close it. It was the same as the one she'd worn when we danced together in front of the drunks late the other night.
Then she was in my arms crying with the sobs wracking her tiny body as if she was in agony.
I waited for long minutes and then waited for some more that were even longer but the sobs would not subside.
"I'll talk to Ron," I said, desperately searching for a solution. "Perhaps we can come to an arrangement so you don't have to do it again."
"But I owe him a lot of money. How will I pay?"
"We'll think of a way," I said, more confidently than I felt.
She seemed cheered by that and gave me a quick sisterly kiss - unfortunately more on my lips than on my cheek and that was when Gavin minced in.
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