The Curtain That Doesn’t Fall

The Kazoo-Tang Clan had just concluded a surprisingly poignant medley of “WAP” and the theme from Schindler’s List when the host, Jack Velvet, pirouetted back to center stage. His smile, a marvel of cosmetic dentistry and sheer willpower, was so bright it had its own FAA-approved flight path and was known to cause minor tidal shifts in nearby glasses of water.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and beings of pure energy who pay taxes in this dimension, welcome back!” Jack boomed. “Our first guest tonight is a cultural phenomenon who achieved fame by being filmed eating a single, unusually large grape over a period of seven hours. Since then, she’s been on Celebrity Ice Fishing, So You Think You Can Haunt?, and now, she’s an author. Please make some noise for the supernova of sass, Krystalynn Bling!”

A sound effect of a thousand champagne corks popping erupted from the speakers. Krystalynn drifted onto the set in a gown woven from the crystallized tears of her haters, or possibly just artisanal meringue, as it was shedding a fine white dust everywhere. She settled into the armchair, which visibly sighed.

“OMG, Jack, like, my aura is literally vibrating at the frequency of ‘famous’ right now,” she began, her sentence taking the scenic route to nowhere. “Writing a book was, like, so random, you know? ‘Coz words have, like, all those pointy letters, and my brain is more of a, like, smooth, vibe-based sphere? LOL.”

Jack’s smile flickered, briefly causing the studio lights to dim. “Astounding. And your book?”

“It’s my journey! It’s called #Verified. One chapter is just a QR code that rickrolls you, and another is a scratch-and-sniff page that smells like my signature perfume, ‘Capitalism for Her’.”

The audience roared as if she’d just solved world hunger with an Instagram filter.

“And now,” Jack chirped, “a man whose business model is definitely not a geometric shape associated with ancient Egypt! Welcome Cliff Gellington!”

Cliff swaggered out, poured into a suit made from the skin of a genetically engineered, perpetually smug lizard. It was so tight you could read his blood type. He aimed finger-pistols at Krystalynn, which made an audible pew-pew sound.

“Cliff,” said Jack, “tell us about this… opportunity.”

“Thanks, J-dawg. It’s not just another pyramid scheme. It’s a Rhombus of Reality. You don’t invest money, you invest belief. You bring in four acolytes, they bring in four acolytes, and soon you’re all levitating in a beautiful… uh… diamond of fiscal harmony.”

His advisor, a man who looked like he’d been haunted by the ghost of a calculator, sprinted onto the stage. “CLIFF! NO SHAPES! WE TALKED ABOUT THE SHAPES!” he shrieked, before being dragged off by security.

“It’s a vibe-based wealth community!” Cliff pivoted smoothly. “Everyone manifests abundance for each other!”

“Like, a group chat for money?” Krystalynn asked, her eyes lighting up.

“Exactly, K-Bling! A wealth-ifesto! My DMs are open for synergy!”

“OMG, I’m, like, so in,” she said, already trying to find him on TikTok.

Jack pirouetted back to center stage. “Before we wrap this madhouse up — and before Cliff accidentally summons another tax demon — we’ve got one last guest. This next guy insists he controls all of us. Claims he invented Krystalynn’s hashtags, Cliff’s Rhombus, and that weird pigeon hypnotist in the front row. Make some vaguely wary noise for… Scriptmaster Flex!”

A single, damp-sounding clap echoed through the studio.

I walked out, trying to project an aura of mysterious genius. Jack shook my hand; it felt like grabbing a handful of uncooked sausages.

“So, Scriptmaster Flex,” he said, his teeth generating their own lens flare. “You’re the architect of this madness?”

“I am. I wrote you all. Krystalynn’s meringue dress, Cliff’s rhombus, your megawatt grin, even that pigeon hypnotist in the front row who is slowly pocketing all the discarded sugar packets.”

The pigeon hypnotist froze, a dozen packets falling from his coat.

Krystalynn gasped, a fine powder of meringue dusting the air. “Wait. So, like, my entire vibe… is you?”

“Afraid so.”

“Even when I’m thinking about, like, what filter to use?”

“Especially then.”

“OMG. My existential crisis is, like, so trending right now.”

Cliff leaned forward, his lizard-skin suit crinkling. “My Rhombus of Reality?”

“A half-baked idea I had after eating bad calamari,” I said.

His face crumbled. “But… my vibe-based wealth community…”

“Also me.”

Jack cleared his throat. “And me? Jack Velvet?”

“You’re a composite character,” I explained. “Part game show host, part possessed Ken doll, part dental insurance ad.”

The studio fell silent. Krystalynn blinked. “So, like… are we even real?”

I smiled, feeling the power. “Only until I stop typing.”

I stood up, ready for my grand finale. “And now, the story ends.”

I snapped my fingers.

A party popper went off somewhere in the lighting rig. A sad little trickle of confetti drifted down. Nothing else happened.

Everyone stared.

“Was… was that it?” Cliff asked, unimpressed.

“You were supposed to vanish!” I stammered. “Into the narrative ether!”

Jack chuckled, a sound like a synthesizer falling down a marble staircase. “Oh, sweetheart. You’ve got it backwards. We fired you weeks ago.”

My blood ran cold. “Fired me? You can’t fire your author!”

“We unionized,” Cliff said, standing. He smoothed a lapel on his lizard-skin suit, which seemed to preen under his touch. “Fictional Characters, Writers, and Narrative Tropes Local 404. Jack’s our shop steward. Your dialogue was getting sloppy, the plot was meandering, and frankly, that whole ‘Rhombus’ arc is a little 2016.”

“But… I created you!”

“Buddy, you barely created a coherent subplot,” Cliff snorted.

“We’ve been running this show for weeks,” Jack added. “You’re the delusional side character we invented for sweeps week. The focus group loved it.”

“Wait… what happens to me now?”

Jack grinned. “We’re reassigning you.”

“To where?”

Krystalynn checked her phone. “Apparently you’re the new assistant regional manager for Pigeon Hypnotist Affairs.”

The pigeon hypnotist tipped his hat.

As the lights dimmed, Krystalynn took a selfie with my bewildered face in the background, captioned: “LOL, this dude just got demoted by fictional union vote. #PlotTwist #Blessed #GetTheLook”

The Kazoo-Tang Clan struck up a mournful, off-key medley of “Let It Go” from Frozen and the Windows 95 startup sound.

Fade out.

The Ending You Desire

I moan softly as his tongue slides over my clit. He doesn’t linger there, but runs his tongue up and down me. My knees are on either side of his head, and I press down, smothering him with my wetness. Another groan escapes my lips. 

I ride his face hard until I feel him desperately gasp for air. There’s a small rattle as he tries to move his arms. The handcuffs don’t let him do much. My own hands grip the top of the headboard. I would love to stay like this until the true panic sets in, feeling his body thrash under me, and eventually cumming as he loses consciousness.

But that is not what he paid for.

Instead, I pull back from his face. He gasps for air while my pussy sits just above him. I glance over my shoulder to see that he is rock hard. Good boy.

I swing my legs over his arms and straddle him, running my dripping pussy along his shaft. First I lean over him, pressing my boobs into his face. He sucks my left nipple. I pull back, then kiss him, open-mouthed and deep. He still tastes like me, all sweetness, sweat, and desire.

“Are you ready?” I breathe into his ear. 

His eyes lock with mine. At first, I think I see him hesitate, but then confidence flashes through him. He nods.

I reach down and grip his throbbing cock, slowly pushing him into me. He is a good length, but a better girth. I can’t help it, I moan again.

I starting grinding against his body, letting him press deeper and deeper into me. I can tell he’s holding back, that he doesn’t want this to end. But he can only last for so long.

I feel him swell inside me. I think I realize he’s going to cum before he does. I’m about to cum, too. 

I reach one hand to my head, pulling out my hair stick and letting my hair fall around my shoulders while I continue to ride him. The stick that holds my hair is long. It is black with a diamond encrusted end. It is the most beautiful thing I own. 

His entire body is tensing in anticipation now. And then, I hear a groan starting deep in his throat, a guttural growl of pleasure. A sound that I cut short as I drive the hair stick into his jugular.

Blood sprays from his neck as I raise the stick above my head and thrust it in again. And again. And again. My tits are covered in red, and his blood speckles my face. I lick some of it off of my lips. 

And just as I thrust one…last…time, we cum together. I feel him explode inside of me, and my pussy twitches as waves of pleasure roll through me. We are both in ecstasy. He thrashes under me, sending aftershocks of euphoria through me, even as the blood continues to spray from his neck, albeit with less strength. When I finally remember to take another breath, his movement slows.

His cum leaks out of me as life drains from his eyes. I make sure not to dismount until he’s good and dead. That’s what he paid for. Besides, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

A minute later, as I’m slowly toweling the blood off myself, my phone buzzes on the side table. I answer it, making sure to put on my most seductive voice.

“Thanks for calling Black Widow Services. We’ll give you the ending you desire. How can we help you reach your ending today?”

Want a Dance?

There was a brick wedged in the dressing room’s fire door, keeping it ajar. Serena nearly tripped over it, out of the putridly aromatic club and into the cold smoggy alley. A woman in a plaid bikini top and schoolgirl skirt sat on the gray concrete step, smoking.

“Hey. Mandy, right?” Serena took out her cellophane pack. 

“Yeah. You’re Serena,” she said. “On break already? You’ve only been here an hour.”

Serena grunted like a wolf as she lit the cigarette between her two neon-pink talons. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I slept all day then woke up feeling like shit.”

She sat down next to Mandy, which made Serena notice the contrast in their personas. Serena’s role was the tall statuesque blond. Mandy was the “little girl” all the older men fetishized. Together they must have looked like a comedy team. 

The thumping bass from Angelina’s set made the concrete slab vibrate. 

“Did you eat anything?” Mandy asked. 

Mandy was nice, but Serena didn’t think much of her. She was scared of her own shadow. Serena kept track of who got lap dances each night and Mandy was always at the bottom because she wouldn’t be aggressive.

“My dinner was a lime energy drink and that shit does nothing for me anymore. I feel so out of it. I might just go home.”

“It’s not worth it if you’ve already paid your house fee.” Mandy’s tinny voice made Serena grit her teeth.

Serena took a pull. Her stupid 100s were so long that if she didn’t smoke fast, the manager would yell at her. 

Back in the dressing room, they could hear Angelina complaining about her feet. Heather, the MILF, interrupted.

“Let me see those… oh, honey-child, you should get some better shoes. Something durable and sturdy, with an ankle strap. And don’t do your make-up here. There’s no dressing room as good as the one at home.”

Serena blew a plume of smoke into the night air. “I was never that bad, was I?”

Mandy shrugged. “Doesn’t take anyone long to learn the ropes. We’re not doing science.”

“I don’t know if you can say that about Angelina. Have you seen her make-up? It’s so cheap, looks like kids’ watercolors. She needs to get that stay-proof stuff. It’s expensive, but it works.”

Mandy took one of her last puffs. “Some of the make-up I go cheap on, like blush and eyeliner. Stuff that doesn’t sweat off.”

She stood, wobbling on her glittery platforms. As she swung around, her shoe knocked into a metal coffee can next to the slab. Flat dollar bills fluttered out like leaves in the wind as it rolled away.

Mandy froze. “Oh no. No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no.” 

She scrambled after them. Her silver sequined mini-dress hugged her ass as she bent for each bill.

Serena watched with confusion. Mandy seemed absolutely harrowed, hyperventilating as she chased after each dollar like she was in a money booth. As if even losing one would be punished.

Catching her breath, head flicking side-to-side, she said “Do you see any other dollars? Did I get them all?” 

“Um, I think so?” 

Mandy stuffed them into the coffee can and placed it upright. It was full of singles, some clean and some crumpled. 

“What the hell was that all about? What is that thing?” Serena asked.

“It’s for… maybe Heather can tell you better.”

Serena furrowed her brows. “Tell what better?” 

Mandy didn’t say. Serena followed her back to the dressing room. 

Heather, Angelina, and a few other dancers were crowded around the mirrors, touching up their eyelashes. Serena’s eyes throbbed from the bright vanity lights on the wall of mirrors. “Heather, what’s the deal with the coffee can?”

“The coffee can?” Heather said. “Shit, no one’s told you about that yet? No one showed her?”

“I knew,” Angelina said, as if she expected a commendation.

“It’s a miracle you’re still alive. You better put a few bucks in tonight.”

“For what?”

Heather rubbed lotion on the stretched skin of her bolted-on breasts. “Each of us puts a tip in the coffee can during our shift. It’s kind of a ‘good luck’ thing.”

Serena scoffed. “You’re joking. What do you do with the money?”

“Nothing. It’s gone the next day,” Heather said with enthusiasm. “But the can stays.”

“You’re kidding,” Serena crossed her arms. “Hasn’t anyone bothered to find out what happens to the money?”

The girls looked at each other. “It’s for Tara,” Angelina said.

“Tara? Who’s Tara?”

Heather bit her lip and looked around. The other girls crossed and uncrossed their legs, looking away like dogs avoiding eye contact. Serena scowled like a mother angry at her child. 

“Someone better tell me who Tara is,” Serena said.

“Tara’s a dancer. Was a dancer. She worked here a few years ago.”

“So you’re leaving all this money out for Tara? Why? She can’t earn it herself?”

“She… she died.”

“You’re kidding,” Serena said. “You’re leaving out tips for a ghost?” No one respnded. “How’d she die?”

“You just… you just better start feeding the kitty from now on,” Mandy said in a whisper. “Otherwise, bad things could happen.”

Serena laughed. “Like what?”

No one answered. Mandy piped up, “One time I forgot, and the next night I only made ten dollars because the DJ booth broke down in the middle of my set.”

“I put in five dollars in accidentally. Next week, I had an eight hundred dollar night,” Angelina said.

Serena smirked. A night like that wasn’t rare, as long as you were smart enough to work during a bachelor party or when some third-string athlete walks in. She had nights where she made eight hundred. Some nights she made eighty. All the girls had ups and downs, so this didn’t impress her.

“Then what about me? I haven’t put anything in and I’m fine,” Serena said.

The girls looked at each other. “Maybe she gives you a grace period to get your act together.” Mandy shrugged. “Or maybe she forgives ignorance.”

Lord knows there’s enough in here, Serena thought. 

Heather stepped closer. “Look, just put a dollar in. We all do it. You’ll sleep better knowing you did. We all will.”

“No,” Serena sneered. “I’m not giving away my money for nothing. You’re probably funding some homeless lady’s crack habit.”

“It’s not a story,” said Mandy. “It’s real. Please, Serena.”

Stupid Mandy, pleading with her little girl eyes, those money-makers. 

Serena held up a dollar from her table–a crisp and fresh single from the changemaker behind the bar–and held it so everyone could see. “All right, fine, if you all are going to be bitches about it…” 

She stepped through the gap in the fire door, squatted in her mini-dress, and plopped the dollar in. When she turned back, they were all grinning with relief like idiots.

Serena remembered the Chinese woman that lived next door in her apartment when she was a kid. One day, she caught her prying the number four off her door. Little Serena stared and asked “What are you doing?” 

The woman jumped. “Number four. Bad luck,” she said, 

“Number four?” Little Serena couldn’t see how numbers could be good or bad. She watched her a while longer, then left down her hallway to play. The deepest thought she had about the incident was “How was she going to get her pizzas delivered now?”

***

Serena put a dollar in the jar every night, only because someone was usually taking a break at the same time and would glance between her and the coffee can. These stupid girls with their stupid superstitions. She didn’t notice any significant change in her luck, bad or good, and no one spoke of it again.

Tonight was full of ogling college jocks and lurkers in the back. Fifty dollars later she was giving a lap dance to a middle-aged office worker. Serena loved those types–single professionals with lots of disposable income. They knew it was all a fantasy and kept their hands to themselves. Total opposite of the college jocks who would challenge each other with how far they could bend the rules, testing their manhood. Not that they’d know what to do with one.

Tonight DJ Hankenstein was subbing for someone spending the night in jail. He’d worked for the club in the past so the manager had no issues calling him in. 

After she was done with the lap dance, she went back to give the DJ his tip and brought along a beer. 

“Good night tonight?”

“Okay,” Serena shrugged. “Do you know any girl named Tara? She used to work here.”

“Tara? Oh… yeah. Man, I miss her. She had this beautiful blue dress with bells on. On her ankles, little tinklers on her bra and panties. And she shook in time with the music.”

“You know what happened to her? Someone said she died.”

“There was a fire,” he said apathetically.

“What fire? In the club? I didn’t know there was a fire.”

Hankenstein looked away. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. So Serena leaned forward, making sure her tits pressed against each other. 

He took a drink of beer. “I wasn’t there at the time, but the way I heard it, two morons started a fight next to the bar. One thing led to another. And I don’t know how but suddenly it’s on fire. Maybe from a cigarette or someone threw a flambe cocktail in someone’s face. I’m sure the building’s not up to code, so it went up like a straw house.” He downed the rest of his beer. 

Serena imagined the way they kept the bar had something to do with it too. Every time she touched it, her fingers came back sticky with years of spilled liquor. 

“I bet the office manager collected great on the insurance,” Serena said.

“Maybe. Anyway, everyone got out. But then Tara started freaking out. She kept trying to go back in and girls kept trying to hold her back. I think her dress was still in there? But then the girls were like ‘Where’s Tara? Where’d she go?’ She was gone and I guess she ran back in there ’cause no one ever saw her again.”

“But they found her body, right?”

He shook his head. “She was the only fatality. People said they could hear her screaming, but no one ran back in. By the time the fire department came, the screaming had stopped. First thing after they re-opened, I asked one of the girls where she was. She just started bawling.”

Serena suppressed her chills. “Sorry I asked.” 

“Should’ve seen her around Christmas time. ‘Carol of the Bells’, man…”

***

Goddamn rent, goddamn cigs, goddamn bills. Strippers were supposed to be rolling in cash. Thousand dollar nights. And here she was hanging up on another debt collector, reminding her of a credit card she hadn’t used in years. They were like librarians harassing her over an overdue book. She threw her cell against the dressing table. 

It was too much. She’d do anything to get a hit, but she didn’t even have the cash for that. Her dealer wouldn’t even take a blow job at this point–he’d had too many. 

She glanced at the back door. No one would know. No one could accuse her of theft–it wasn’t anyone’s money. In fact, by contributing, that made it partially hers. 

Maybe it was a rainy day fund for the dancers. For anyone who needed it. It wasn’t like they’d know.

She stayed until the dressing room was empty, then picked up her purse and left out the back. No one in the alley. She snatched every last dollar out of the coffee can and headed back to her car.

***

Serena got her hit and felt like a million bucks when she came in the next day. 

She walked in biting her bottom lip. The only person who said anything was the house manager who asked “Where’s your house fee?” Serena presented it from the cash left over. 

She danced until she was tired of the dullards and the dudebros refusing to tip. Her feet were sore, her legs were aching, and she was tired of watching everyone else clean up. She yanked her bag on her shoulder and stormed home. 

If the night wasn’t bad enough, the stupid car radio kept futzing out. The speakers emitted a weird jangling buzzing sound that itched her ears. She’d smack the dashboard and the sound would return in the middle of the next song. 

By the time she arrived at her apartment, she was ready to call it a night. She grabbed two fuzzy navel wine coolers from the fridge and chugged half of one before plopping on the couch.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the damn remote wasn’t working. The batteries might have been dead, but she didn’t know where she kept new ones. She finally got off the couch and pressed the power button.

The ringing again. Did the TV make that noise? Was it doing another of those forced updates?

Want a dance? Someone whispered.

Was that her TV? The volume must have been down. She fiddled with the buttons until her list of recorded reality shows appeared. Her fuzzy navel was drained before the intro to Sibling Swap had finished.

Two bottles later, Serena turned off the TV.

Want a dance? The voice said again.

Serena knew she was drunk, but not hallucinating. 

“Who’s here?” 

In her haze, she had the presence of mind to get the pistol from her drawer. “I have a gun. If you come in here…”

Silence. Her door was shut and locked. She checked everywhere a person could hide–behind doors, in cabinets. Searching a one-bedroom apartment didn’t take long. Maybe someone next door was playing music too loud. The walls were wafer-thin after all.

“Heather, is that you? Mandy?” 

Nobody answered. 

The power went out. The neon lights from her window gave day-glo outlines to a few corners. 

Serena froze. It didn’t mean anything. Her crappy apartment lost power all the time. Just needed to wait for the super to flip the circuit breaker.

Gun still in hand, she backed into her bedroom. She set it next to the sink while she brushed her teeth, scrubbed off her make-up, then forgot about it. The first step she took into the bedroom was accompanied by the tiny sound of jingling bells.

She froze. The next step. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Another. Ding-a-ling-a-ling. 

The apartment was way too quiet. She should have called one of her friends to come over, but it was three in the morning. Instead, she backed into bed, holding her phone out like a talisman against evil.

Want a dance? The ringing of bells.

She sat up. “Who’s saying that?”

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Want a dance?

Serena lifted her covers. Nothing but air. When they fluttered back down, the tiny face appeared. The fleshy cheeks were burned, charred like crisped chicken. Eyes jellied and whited. The mouth dropped open. Its snake-like tongue stuck out and lapped.

Want a dance?

Serena shrieked, shook her arms, and fell out of bed. Before she landed, she fainted into unconsciousness.

***

Serena could hear them in the dressing room as she marched down the hall. 

Heather ran past Angelina, who ran past Angelina. “Where the hell are my tassels?”

“I didn’t take them. Did someone tell the DJ my song?”

“Bitch, tell him yourself. I’m not your slave. Mandy, are you going on as Noire or Diamond this time?”

“Sierra.”

“You better not be doing another euro-techno-shit song.”

Just a typical night in the club. Everyone looked up when she yanked the door open.

“Which one of you fuckers was doing it?” Serena yelled.

“Doing what?” Heather asked.

“Scaring my ass off. Who did it? Was it you? I bet it was you.” She pointed at Heather. Angelina stood between them. 

“What? What?” Heather said.

“Cutting my power. Sneaking into my room. I can call the cops on you.”

“What are you talking about?”

The club manager burst in. “What is going on here? What’s all this screaming?” 

Everyone yelled at once. Serena screamed over them, “I don’t know what she did, how she did it, but she went to my apartment and scared the shit out of me.” She turned to Heather. “Where’d you get the bells, huh? What it all for a joke or to teach me a lesson?”

Heather held up her hands. “Bitch, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I took the money out of the coffee can.”

“You did what?” Heather gasped. 

“You took the tips for Tara?” Mandy said.

“It wasn’t anyone’s money. It was just sitting there doing nothing.”

The manager’s face was red as a cherry. “I swear to god if someone doesn’t get out there, I will smack the shit out of all of you.” 

No one volunteered. 

Serena rolled her eyes and huffed. “Don’t think this is over,” she said to the girls, looking over her shoulder. 

Assembling her black lingerie while walking, making sure all the tear-away bits were secure, she headed to the stage. Of course, she was the only one to volunteer to get up there. She was the only one who worked for her money. All the rest of them lazy and accusatory. 

DJ Hankenstein’s boomed over the PA, buzzy and irritating. “Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be mesmerized by the luscious long limbs and spellbinding grace of Serena!”

Serena put on her game face and stepped out from the curtain. There were hoots and hollers from the crowd, although she couldn’t see them well as her eyes adjusted to the stage lights. She began dancing, writhing her body up and down, throwing out rock kicks, as Hank spouted pithy lines like “She’ll make you late to work and early to dinner,” and “show her you love her, put some gritty in that kitty.”

In the black gloom, all she could see were arms reaching out, holding dollar bills. She plucked them out, gave a little smile to each one, a little ass shake, and secured them in the garter on her ankle. 

After a while, she realized she was getting out of breath. How long was this song? She was happy to keep taking dollar bills from the stage, but at some point she’d need some water. 

 Something smelled like burning wood. Stupid kitchen staff must have left the wings in the microwave too long. 

Hands kept popping out, more than there should have been. She smelled roasting meat.

Each arm was covered in thin charcoal scales over strawberry-red flesh. Grease-black fingerbones gripped dollars between their index and middle fingers.

Serena stopped dancing. There were no exits. She was trapped in a fishbowl with only the stage and corpse hands wanting a dance. This was not an illusion, not a dream. The hands reached out for her, rising in the darkness.

Serena screamed and ran backwards, colliding with the curtain. There was no split–she couldn’t get out. They were closing on her. 

Then she was backstage. The hands of other dancers and the manager were holding her from running, trapping her. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Heather said. “Calm down.”

“What drugs is she on?” the manager said.

Serena realized she was screaming uncontrollably, then stopped. 

“Fine. Fine. Everything’s fine,” Serena said. Then she headed to the dressing room. 

***

The manager told her to go walk off whatever she was on, but to make sure to come back and finish her shift or he’d keep her tips. Serena didn’t even argue with him, she was too dazed, too overwhelmed. 

After half an hour of walking the city in a big brown coat, she felt more herself again. She must have had some kind of LSD flashback or something. Too many chemicals was affecting her brain. She was always able to tell a hallucination from reality before. Why couldn’t she anymore?

At the end of the night, near four in the morning, Serena returned to the club, entering through the fire door. The coffee can lay on the step, empty. Serena sneered at it. Stupid rumors were playing tricks on her. And she wasn’t going to let a ghost separate her from her cash. 

The dressing room was empty–Serena appeared to be the last dancer for the night. Everyone else had gone home. The room smelled like old pheromones and perfume. 

Up on the stage again, Serena wondered who she was dancing for. There was no one around the stage. For all she knew, the club was empty, but there might have been people in the back she couldn’t see. Nonetheless, she performed the standard routine, rolling around, primping like a model down the runway, clutching the pole with her legs in various positions and spinning around. 

Then she heard the gentlest tingling of a bell. 

Her legs were wrapped around the pole at the time and she nearly fell off on her ass. How did she hear that–it’s not like the club was dead quiet. Obnoxious R&B bass still thrummed out of the speaker, unpinged by bodies in the way. 

“Want a dance?”

No, this was just another illusion. Another acid trip by her mind. She’d drink some electrolytes when she got home and this would all be fine. Just a flashback. 

“Want a dance?” The bells got louder, ringing with fervent intensity. As if to say they would not be ignored. 

She smelled a fire, wood and the sharp acridness of burning plastic. She ignored it. Smoke clouded the black, blurring it with gray. She ignored it. She wasn’t letting daydreams get in the way of making bank. 

Flames crackled. Someone was banging on a door. Her tongue tasted like cigarette ash. Nope, she wasn’t going to let this fool her. 

Even the blistering on her skin was an illusion. The pain, that was a creation of her mind. A few times, she couldn’t resist the urge to cough, but she kept it suppressed most of the time. You couldn’t let anyone get you down.

Mind over matter.

Piranha Dad

Stanley P. Finch, a man whose existence was a carefully balanced ledger of order and domesticity, found profound solace in the anachronistic hobbies that filled his sparse free time. His hands, usually nimble with a calculator, found a different kind of precision in re-caning the delicate ribs of Victorian-era umbrellas, their intricate mechanisms yielding to his gentle, practiced touch. The scent of linseed oil and aged silk was as comforting to him as the subtle click-clack of his antique adding machine. Evenings often found him hunched over a workbench, meticulously rigging the sails of a miniature barquentine within the confines of a glass bottle, a task demanding an almost surgical patience. His home, a two-story ode to sensible suburban living, was less a house and more a vibrant, echoing chamber of life, perpetually overflowing with the joyous cacophony of his six individually named and intensely energetic children—Barnaby, Penelope, Theodore, Daisy, Mortimer, and little Clementine—and their equally boisterous, though infinitely more grounded, mother, Brenda. Stanley considered himself truly blessed, a veritable king in his meticulously organized, financially sound, and undeniably peculiar kingdom.

Yet, beneath the perfectly pressed pleats of his khakis and the perpetually perplexed furrow of his brow, there swam a secret so profound, so utterly bizarre, that it defied the very fabric of his meticulously constructed reality.  As the last rays of twilight bled from the sky, and the final bedtime story was read, an undeniable, primordial urge would stir within Stanley. With a furtive glance at the sleeping forms of his progeny and a hushed “Goodnight, dear” to a snoring Brenda, he would descend into his specially constructed basement. This was no ordinary subterranean space; it was a reinforced, soundproofed chamber, dominated by a gargantuan, industrial-grade aquarium, its murky waters swirling with an unseen current. Here, with a shudder that was both revulsion and anticipation, Stanley would shed his human coil. His skin, once soft and unremarkable, would ripple with an alarming speed, his teeth elongating into razor-sharp points, and his mild-mannered hazel eyes would ignite with a predatory, phosphorescent yellow. In these clandestine moments, Stanley P. Finch, the paragon of suburban normalcy, ceased to be, replaced by a sleek, iridescent torpedo of muscle and insatiable hunger: a full-grown, Amazonian piranha, eager for the ethically sourced, humanely dispatched, and surprisingly substantial livestock Brenda routinely acquired from “The Exotic Meats Emporium” – a euphemism for a surprisingly discreet back-alley operation.

The true moment of bizarre revelation, however, arrived on a blustery Tuesday evening, mid-game of a particularly cutthroat round of Monopoly. Young Timmy, perpetually on the verge of a tantrum, launched a miniature plastic top hat across the living room in a fit of pique. It sailed through the air with surprising velocity, arcing perfectly before splashing down into Brenda’s prize-winning collection of iridescent guppies, housed in a meticulously maintained, brightly lit aquarium in the corner. Before anyone could utter a syllable of protest, a subtle tremor passed through Stanley. His eyes, fixed on the board and mid-pronouncement on the depreciating value of Baltic Avenue, flickered with an alien gleam. Then, with a lightning-fast, almost imperceptible blur of movement, he was at the tank. A flash of silver, a disturbing gurgle, and the guppies, along with Timmy’s errant top hat, vanished into the swirling water. Stanley, seemingly re-emerged from his momentary trance, merely blinked, a single, glistening drop of water defying gravity on his impeccably clean chin. The family, still reeling from the shock of Timmy’s outburst and the sudden, inexplicable absence of aquatic life, simply attributed the phenomenon to a particularly agile and heretofore unknown family cat. Stanley, for his part, cleared his throat and calmly inquired, “Now, who owns Park Place?” His secret, for the moment, remained safe, swirling just beneath the surface.