Isabella's Escapades - NC-17
Feb. 18th, 2008 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
littlejazzbaby posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thedirtyverseMost likely spring-ish 1928. When Isabella was at the Pearl Theater in Chicago.
It was late, too late. The final show of the evening was long over and the joint had turned into its usual late-night speakeasy, turning the clientele from a mixture of young men and pretty women in their Sunday best, to older men in expensive suits with guns under their jackets and false respect that threatened to crack.
The band was no longer playing. The band was no longer here—or maybe they were downstairs with a few stragglers. The lights were even more dim and the smell of smoke had lifted. The heavy, velvet curtains shielded the stage from the rest of the hall, and on the beaten, wood floor sat three female dancers with clips in their hair, the only sign that this place ever saw the likes of vaudeville and that the massive French Baroque theatre itself wasn’t a façade.
All three ladies were playing poker with a deck of worn-out playing cards. They were using bobby pins and cigarettes as chips and one girl was smoking a freshly-rolled cigarette that wouldn’t be seeing the pot. That they were sitting in their underwear was also worth noting, but their silk chemises still managed to cover more than some of their costumes did. They were used to this life and this life was used to them.
There was only one gas lamp lit backstage and it cast their muted shadows along the brick back wall. They weren’t the only performers left, but most were in their dressing rooms or getting their fill of liquor with the patrons at the bar. These three were the youngest dancers, and though they were billed as legal and everything that was going on now was very much illegal, the owner at least had the propriety to keep the girls out of harm’s way when the lights were out.
“Two pair,” said the girl with the cigarette. She held it between her fingers as she turned her hand to the other two girls, displaying the mark her red-stained lips had left on the paper and the vague pair of queens and pair of twos.
“Aw, hell,” sighed a second girl. She gently touched the long, silver clips designed to keep their waves at the ready. “I’m out.”
“You ain’t!” protested the smoking girl.
“It’s not like we’re winning nothin’, anyway. Those’re all my cigs and Iz don’t even smoke. Besides, I want to hear what’s going on at the bar. You want to go, Iz?”
“What?” Isabella asked, looking up from her hand.
“You want to go to the bar?” the second girl asked again, pointing at the curtain, which was at Isabella’s back. They were patient enough with the blonde Irish girl. Her English was spotty but she was everyone’s favorite just because she was Irish. And her hair was blonder than peroxide.
“Why? What’s at the bar?”
“Loads of bootleggers, that’s what,” said the girl. Her name was Darlene but everybody called her Darla. She, like Isabella, had come from circuses and carnivals and did most of the gymnastic stunts. Both girls were slight and easy to toss around. The only difference between them was that Darla’s parents were also in the show, and both were former circus performers, too. They liked Isabella just fine. Darla’s mother, Hattie, had made Isabella a set of flash cards, complete with pictures, so that she would know the most essential English words. The picture of the tommy gun was a bit scratchy because no one could remember how they looked, but they hunted through the papers until they found an article on Bugs Moran and taped it over the drawing.
“She don’t wanna go to the bar! Stay here, Iz. What’s your hand—” The girl’s cigarette was now forgotten, and it dangled helplessly between her fingers, smoking out. Her name was Lillian, but everyone called her Lil (or Lick ‘Em Lil, as she had a faux-boxing routine that was always a hit).
“How many bootleggers?” Isabella asked. Darla grinned and hopped to her feet. She slid her bare toes into a pair of silver, strappy pumps, a part of her chorus line costume, and went to the curtains.
“I can’t see nothin’ from here. Come on!”
Isabella put her hand down and pulled on her shoes. She struggled to get them buckled, then rolled her black stockings back up to her thighs and clipped them into the garter belt. “Wait!” Dara was already marching down the steps at the left wing, past the curtain.
“Don’t bother with the bootleggers,” implored Lil. “They’re the same ones as always and after the flower shop incident—”
“Yeah, but I like ‘em,” said Isabella, scrambling after Darla. Her heels clicked on the wood but were unable to mask the frustrated sigh of Lil as she put away the cards.
“Fine, I’ll come!” she called. She, unlike the other two, hadn’t taken off her shoes, so she was quick to her feet and quicker past the curtain. But she was older than the other two by six months and was harder around the edges. She also had a steady boyfriend.
Darla was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Isabella and Lil reached her at the same moment and she held a finger to her lips. “They’re arguin’ somethin’ bad,” she murmured.
Somethin’ bad might have been the polite way to describe it. The main auditorium, where the girls and the stage were located, was empty. The piano was covered, the rest of the instruments stored, and the dozens of circular tables had been shoved aside, replaced with velvet seats that were often used for matinees. There was one balcony and two fancy boxes on either side of the wings. The Pearl was built ten years earlier and was as opulent as any theatre of this size came, but what went on in her now was vastly inappropriate for its ornate interior and classic exterior. It was vastly inappropriate for most places, but Chicago wasn’t like most places. Their mayor got on just fine with the whole affair.
Hell, he’d been in past midnight a few times.
A mural-covered hall at the far end of the room just beyond the entrance led down to the tiny lounge and bar. It had been a working bar until 1919, just like every bar had been a working bar until 1919. Now it was still a working bar, but a bar working under the noses of hyperactive cops. Though none of the girls could see down the hall, they could hear the sound of a fight. Shouting, breaking glass, and furniture scraping.
“This ain’t good,” murmured Lil. She took an anxious drag from her cigarette.
“No shit!” hissed Darla. “I bet the cops got someone. Bet you anything we’ll all be shut down by tomorrow!”
“Shut up!” snapped Lil. “The cops love this place plenty. We ain’t done nothin’ wrong. The theatre ain’t the bar. We’re two different things. Nothing’s gonna happen. ‘sides, they won’t get their liquor if they shut us down. They’ll have to go to one of them brothels and those places don’t got our class.”
Isabella stole the cigarette for a quick drag, then handed it back. “Yeah. They like our show.”
“Come on! They won’t fight around us,” Darla said, taking Isabella’s wrist. Lil raised one heavily-penciled eyebrow but made no other protest and simply followed them up the aisle and into the dimly-lit hall. Down to the left was the doorway and down to the left, the noise exploded. Most people would turn back, but the girls locked arms, straightened their backs, and boldly strutted into the room.
The noise stopped almost at once. Someone whistled, one glass crashed, but the barman, Kenny, just laughed—though he looked a little frazzled. Jo, one of the largest dancers in the group, and a mother to them all, had a man by the collar. Apparently, the scuffle might have been a bit different than they thought.
“You girls still here?”
“Obviously,” said Lil, jabbing her cigarette into a nearby ashtray—one sitting on the table occupied by two burly men with red, sweaty faces.
“Oh, ain’t you the sassy one. You know you can’t stay in here, girls.”
“They certainly can’t,” agreed Jo. She dropped the man and he scrambled way from her and attempted to look as tough as ever, even while twitching in fear.
“Aw, let ‘em stay,” said a man at the bar. He took off his hat and nodded at the ladies, but even this attempt at manners was challenged by the unwholesome look on his face. It was Isabella’s favorite look. She let go of the girls.
“No, they can’t! They’re too young and good for the whole lot of you! You three, get home!”
“Why, if it ain’t Miss Isabella,” interrupted a far smoother-talking man with hair as dark and shiny as a brand new boot and probably shined with the same sort of polish. He had a pencil-thin mustache and dark eyes and when Isabella glanced at him from beneath her long lashes, he gave her a wink and puffed thoughtfully on his cigar.
“Come here, Miss Isabella,” he said, patting his knee. The other two girls made their way in separate directions as Isabella went to the bar and leaned against it. One of the other men catcalled again and the one next to her made a swift grab-slap on her ass.
“You should be in bed, princess,” he said.
“Don’t wanna,” she cooed, stealing his cigar. She batted her eyelashes and grinned as the smoke curled from her bare lips.
“I saw your show this evenin’.”
Jo was between them in a second. She pulled the cigar from Isabella’s lips and jammed it into the glass of gin.
“Hey—Christ, woman, you know how much—”
Jo grabbed Isabella’s arm. “You know how much trouble you’ll be in if you touch her? She ain’t old enough.” She gave Isabella a tug and left her no choice but to follow, however grudgingly, out of the room. “Sometimes, girl, I swear—you need a proper mother and a father to teach you what’s what. It’s like you ain’t got sense of self-preservation. Mixing with them—you’ll get yourself killed or worse!”
“They like me fine!” Isabella protested, struggling to keep up with Jo, who was at least four times her size. And five times angrier.
Jo stopped at the entrance to the theatre and pulled Isabella close. “They got wives and children and illegal jobs. Still interested?”
Isabella paused for only a moment. “Yes.”
“Oh, Lord. This child.” Jo crossed herself and looked skyward. Isabella tried to pull her arm away but Jo, mother of eight, wouldn’t let go.
Five minutes later, having been deposited in her dressing room, Isabella sat grumpily at her vanity and poked at her make up. Jo was overprotective and silly. No one ever hurt her; no one ever had. Yeah, some men had been a bit rough but she knew how to get them to back away. She wasn’t as helpless as everyone thought—just ‘cause she was blonde and freckled and petite.
She wrinkled her nose at her reflection, then stuck out her tongue.
A knock on the door. She nearly bit her tongue in surprise but quickly turned away from the mirror. “Come in!”
“Hey, Iz,” murmured Darla. “Sorry—you ain’t in trouble, are you?”
Isabella shook her head. “Good. Lil and I overheard.” Darla glanced behind her and there was a chorus of whispering that indicated Lil was still there. A second later, she entered behind Darla and shut the door.
“Jo sure is mad. But you think she might be right? I know them bootlegger’s is real dangerous and all, but they never shoot people round here for anything.”
“Oh, yeah? What about that guy Stan Woods who got shot up outside the café across the street ‘cause he tried to walk away without paying?”
“Well, he deserved it for stealing money! I just mean maybe Jo knows something about them.”
“Oh, she don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’,” Isabella chirped. “She just don’t like us bein’ young.”
“Hey, it’s not like we’re all innocent or nothin’. And we ain’t even her kids. Darla’s mom’s downstairs and everything and mine’re just two stops on the train!”
“Mine wouldn’t care,” Isabella said smartly. “I take care of myself and I always have.”
“And your manager, too.”
“Yeah.”
“And he don’t care who you sleep with.”
“I don’t sleep with them. We don’t even have sex—”
“That’s the same thing, sugar,” said Lil.
“But—”
“It’s slang. And I thought you do?”
“Do what?”
“Sleep with them.”
“I said—”
Lil sighed and shook her match after lighting a cigarette. “Have sex with them.”
“Oh! No. They don’t do that. Not most of ‘em, anyways.”
Darla giggled. “Not most of them.”
“Shit!” Lil interrupted, startling the other two (Isabella was glaring at Darla).
“What?!” they asked in unison.
“We forgot our pins and your cigarettes.”
“And that was worth getting’ all riled up about?” Darla asked, eyebrows raised.
“No, but we’ll get in trouble again if we leave all our shit out there, anyways. Come on!”
The girls, now in robes over their underwear, walked in a tight pack through the hall and up a set of steps to the back of the stage. It was darker now than before, as someone had extinguished the lamp, so they held each other’s arms and shoulders and moved as one through the pitch.
“I think I see your cigs!” said Lil. Isabella squinted into the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and noticed some white objects on the ground. They could only be Darla’s cigarettes. Or someone else’s.
“Yeah—right there!” Darla let go and hurried to the pile, which was undisturbed. “How many pins did we put in?”
“All of ‘em—oh, don’t count ‘em, you ninny!” Lil slapped Darla’s hand, making her drop the pins. “Just bring ‘em back to Iz’s room—”
“Ladies, what are you doing?” said a deep voice from the shadows. Darla squeaked and Lil tripped, dropping her cigarette into the floor.
“Eddie!” squealed Isabella, tripping over Lil’s leg as she skipped across the stage to crash against the man who was visible only by the glint in his eyes and the white shirt on his back. “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!”
Eddie was laughing. “Hey, little Miss Mary Sunshine.” He scooped her up with ease, supporting her by her ass, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and gave him a kiss full on the mouth. They kissed until the girls behind them were groaning. Eddie pulled away.
“What’re you three doing, getting into trouble so early in the day?”
“It ain’t early!” said Darla.
“Damn right, it’s early! It’s goin’ on four. Why don’t you three go to bed, eh?”
“With youuu?” Isabella teased.
“You with me,” Eddie said, giving her bum a squeeze. She tightened her locked ankles at his back.
“We’re just collecting our stuff,” said Darla. “Iz, yours is here, too!”
Eddie let Isabella slip from his grasp, but she didn’t get far. He kept an arm low on her waist, his fingers bunched in her robe.
“What ones?” Isabella asked.
“I dunno. How many’d you bring?”
“Um.” She squinted one eye and tried to remember. “Thirty, maybe.”
“Okay. Here’s a handful. Want a cig?”
“Nah.” Isabella closed her hand around the pins.
“She only smokes when she’s flirtin’,” said Lil.
“Nothin’ wrong with that,” said Isabella as Eddie picked her back up. She grinned and rubbed his bald head. “Too bad you ain’t got hair or I’d put the pins in there so I don’t drop ‘em or nothin’.”
“Give ‘em here,” said Eddie. He shifted her body easily and held out his hand. Isabella put the bobby pins on his palm and he slid them into his pocket.
“Goodnight, ladies. Don’t give Jo any more trouble,” he said, bowing out. Isabella grinned.
“I didn’t give her no trouble. She don’t know no better.”
“I think it’s you who don’t know any better,” said Eddie, “but you’ve got time to figure it out.”
“I like trouble.”
“You make trouble.”
“Are you trouble?” Isabella asked, poking Eddie square in the chest.
“More than you know, babe.”
He set her down and smacked her ass as she pushed open her changing room door and let Eddie kick it shut again. Someone would be up here to tell her off for the noise, but it wouldn’t be the only noise soon enough.
Off came her robe. It fluttered to the ground and she stepped on it as she moved against Eddie again. He picked her up by the thighs and set her down on her vanity, pushing the chair just to make room. They were kissing again with no intention of stopping and enough privacy to make it hard and sloppy. He pulled off her chemise and she pushed down his suspenders and he deftly unbuttoned his shirt so that she could push up his undershirt and make contact with his skin. They weren’t naked in these situations, really. Half the time her dress was hiked up and his trousers were unbuttoned and that was the extent of it.
Tonight, she was nude save for a garter belt and stockings and he would go so far as to let his trousers slip a little farther down his thighs, the fabric stretching under the strain of his muscle. He kissed her flushed chest and pulled her forward so he could rock down and up and slide inside her without much difficulty. They had this down. They’d done this a hundred times—and it never got old. It never stopped turning her gears, as people said.
And why should it, anyway? She liked hands on her thighs and she liked to wiggle her hips and she liked it when men moaned near her ears so that she could feel their breath on her skin. She liked this whole thing.
Her vanity was rocked hard against the wall. Necklaces, gloves, pictures and slips all fell from the mirror and onto the floor as her shoulders met the cold glass. Eddie leaned forward and over her, resting one knee on the desk and pushing her knees back until she was all but contorted—so he could go deep, as they liked. Isabella never did anything that wasn’t all the way. Isabella never did anything as half as good as it could go. She was a curious girl and always had been, and half the girls here questioned her morals, but she questioned their morals just as well. What was the issue? He was fucking her—so what? They weren’t having any babies and it wasn’t like he had diseases.
Her hands came over her head, smacking the mirror. Eddie’s hands were flat on her back, holding her so that she was arched up, fit perfectly in the curve of his body. They were trying to be quiet, but every now and then Isabella would gasp and encourage him and he would groan to hear it again.
When the situation became a bit too precarious (a perfume bottle nearly slipped), Eddie pulled out and Isabella hopped down and placed her hands on the front of her wardrobe. Just as Eddie thrust in again, someone banged on the door.
“Isabella—that’s enough noise!”
Eddie and Isabella froze. Eddie, now inside her and leaning against her back, had his face pressed into her neck and was laughing silently. Isabella had to cover her mouth.
“I ain’t makin’ noise!” she said, keeping her voice steady. “You’re just—you heard wrong!”
“Bullshit! Now keep it down!”
“Yeah, yeah!”
Eddie thrust once, shallowly.
“I mean it, Isabella! Some of us have to be awake in an hour!”
Eddie thrust twice, cutting Isabella’s reply in half and bridging it with a gasp. “I—know!” His hands cupped her breasts. “I will!” She rocked back hard, seeking revenge and deeper penetration. Eddie, caught off-guard, barely managed to stop a moan.
“Night, Isabella!” called the fleeting and still angry voice.
“Goodnight!’ she called.
Eddie burst out laughing and continued to shallowly thrust until he could concentrate again. “You’ve got nerve, Iz.”
“So? It ain’t nothin’ no one’s seen before, anyways. Now fuck me!”
Eddie did as he was told until it was the wardrobe hitting the wall and Isabella’s gasps were no longer quiet and sporadic, but loud and intentional and cushioning silky smooth words that had no place in the mouth of a girl her age. She never had a problem sharing how she felt, and when she liked something, and how much she liked it. That was half of why Eddie always came back—that high, girly voice wrapped around the dirtiest phrases anyone could utter. He loved breaking through. He loved fucking her.
She came once but once was never all she ever came. He lowered her to the ground and laid back, letting her climb over him so she could kiss and ride. And ride she did. Slow and purposeful, then faster, with the sharp smack of skin. She held his thighs behind her, leaning back when she wanted a different angle. Then she turned so that she wasn’t facing him at all and ground until she came twice more—quite in a row. Just past the third was when Eddie followed her, holding her hips squarely down as he came deep and she tensed around his cock with every load.
When she slid off, he grabbed her hips and licked her clean and smacked her bum again as she hopped to her feet. Then, taking his time, he fixed up his trousers and pulled on his shirt. There were always two more kisses. One for lust and one for goodnight.
“You staying here tonight?”
Isabella nodded. “I can’t walk back.”
Eddie nodded. “Don’t make so much noise, baby girl!” he called as he left the room.
The back of the theatre was quiet. The last of the patrons had gone home. Isabella was only one of them on a occasion. They made exceptions for her because she didn’t live in a good building and was their star attraction. That she was an orphan was half of her attraction. An orphan with legs for days and the biggest, bluest eyes this side of the Mississippi—and probably the other side, too.
Most people turned a blind eye to Miss Iz and her escapades, but most people wanted to be the next one.
It was late, too late. The final show of the evening was long over and the joint had turned into its usual late-night speakeasy, turning the clientele from a mixture of young men and pretty women in their Sunday best, to older men in expensive suits with guns under their jackets and false respect that threatened to crack.
The band was no longer playing. The band was no longer here—or maybe they were downstairs with a few stragglers. The lights were even more dim and the smell of smoke had lifted. The heavy, velvet curtains shielded the stage from the rest of the hall, and on the beaten, wood floor sat three female dancers with clips in their hair, the only sign that this place ever saw the likes of vaudeville and that the massive French Baroque theatre itself wasn’t a façade.
All three ladies were playing poker with a deck of worn-out playing cards. They were using bobby pins and cigarettes as chips and one girl was smoking a freshly-rolled cigarette that wouldn’t be seeing the pot. That they were sitting in their underwear was also worth noting, but their silk chemises still managed to cover more than some of their costumes did. They were used to this life and this life was used to them.
There was only one gas lamp lit backstage and it cast their muted shadows along the brick back wall. They weren’t the only performers left, but most were in their dressing rooms or getting their fill of liquor with the patrons at the bar. These three were the youngest dancers, and though they were billed as legal and everything that was going on now was very much illegal, the owner at least had the propriety to keep the girls out of harm’s way when the lights were out.
“Two pair,” said the girl with the cigarette. She held it between her fingers as she turned her hand to the other two girls, displaying the mark her red-stained lips had left on the paper and the vague pair of queens and pair of twos.
“Aw, hell,” sighed a second girl. She gently touched the long, silver clips designed to keep their waves at the ready. “I’m out.”
“You ain’t!” protested the smoking girl.
“It’s not like we’re winning nothin’, anyway. Those’re all my cigs and Iz don’t even smoke. Besides, I want to hear what’s going on at the bar. You want to go, Iz?”
“What?” Isabella asked, looking up from her hand.
“You want to go to the bar?” the second girl asked again, pointing at the curtain, which was at Isabella’s back. They were patient enough with the blonde Irish girl. Her English was spotty but she was everyone’s favorite just because she was Irish. And her hair was blonder than peroxide.
“Why? What’s at the bar?”
“Loads of bootleggers, that’s what,” said the girl. Her name was Darlene but everybody called her Darla. She, like Isabella, had come from circuses and carnivals and did most of the gymnastic stunts. Both girls were slight and easy to toss around. The only difference between them was that Darla’s parents were also in the show, and both were former circus performers, too. They liked Isabella just fine. Darla’s mother, Hattie, had made Isabella a set of flash cards, complete with pictures, so that she would know the most essential English words. The picture of the tommy gun was a bit scratchy because no one could remember how they looked, but they hunted through the papers until they found an article on Bugs Moran and taped it over the drawing.
“She don’t wanna go to the bar! Stay here, Iz. What’s your hand—” The girl’s cigarette was now forgotten, and it dangled helplessly between her fingers, smoking out. Her name was Lillian, but everyone called her Lil (or Lick ‘Em Lil, as she had a faux-boxing routine that was always a hit).
“How many bootleggers?” Isabella asked. Darla grinned and hopped to her feet. She slid her bare toes into a pair of silver, strappy pumps, a part of her chorus line costume, and went to the curtains.
“I can’t see nothin’ from here. Come on!”
Isabella put her hand down and pulled on her shoes. She struggled to get them buckled, then rolled her black stockings back up to her thighs and clipped them into the garter belt. “Wait!” Dara was already marching down the steps at the left wing, past the curtain.
“Don’t bother with the bootleggers,” implored Lil. “They’re the same ones as always and after the flower shop incident—”
“Yeah, but I like ‘em,” said Isabella, scrambling after Darla. Her heels clicked on the wood but were unable to mask the frustrated sigh of Lil as she put away the cards.
“Fine, I’ll come!” she called. She, unlike the other two, hadn’t taken off her shoes, so she was quick to her feet and quicker past the curtain. But she was older than the other two by six months and was harder around the edges. She also had a steady boyfriend.
Darla was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Isabella and Lil reached her at the same moment and she held a finger to her lips. “They’re arguin’ somethin’ bad,” she murmured.
Somethin’ bad might have been the polite way to describe it. The main auditorium, where the girls and the stage were located, was empty. The piano was covered, the rest of the instruments stored, and the dozens of circular tables had been shoved aside, replaced with velvet seats that were often used for matinees. There was one balcony and two fancy boxes on either side of the wings. The Pearl was built ten years earlier and was as opulent as any theatre of this size came, but what went on in her now was vastly inappropriate for its ornate interior and classic exterior. It was vastly inappropriate for most places, but Chicago wasn’t like most places. Their mayor got on just fine with the whole affair.
Hell, he’d been in past midnight a few times.
A mural-covered hall at the far end of the room just beyond the entrance led down to the tiny lounge and bar. It had been a working bar until 1919, just like every bar had been a working bar until 1919. Now it was still a working bar, but a bar working under the noses of hyperactive cops. Though none of the girls could see down the hall, they could hear the sound of a fight. Shouting, breaking glass, and furniture scraping.
“This ain’t good,” murmured Lil. She took an anxious drag from her cigarette.
“No shit!” hissed Darla. “I bet the cops got someone. Bet you anything we’ll all be shut down by tomorrow!”
“Shut up!” snapped Lil. “The cops love this place plenty. We ain’t done nothin’ wrong. The theatre ain’t the bar. We’re two different things. Nothing’s gonna happen. ‘sides, they won’t get their liquor if they shut us down. They’ll have to go to one of them brothels and those places don’t got our class.”
Isabella stole the cigarette for a quick drag, then handed it back. “Yeah. They like our show.”
“Come on! They won’t fight around us,” Darla said, taking Isabella’s wrist. Lil raised one heavily-penciled eyebrow but made no other protest and simply followed them up the aisle and into the dimly-lit hall. Down to the left was the doorway and down to the left, the noise exploded. Most people would turn back, but the girls locked arms, straightened their backs, and boldly strutted into the room.
The noise stopped almost at once. Someone whistled, one glass crashed, but the barman, Kenny, just laughed—though he looked a little frazzled. Jo, one of the largest dancers in the group, and a mother to them all, had a man by the collar. Apparently, the scuffle might have been a bit different than they thought.
“You girls still here?”
“Obviously,” said Lil, jabbing her cigarette into a nearby ashtray—one sitting on the table occupied by two burly men with red, sweaty faces.
“Oh, ain’t you the sassy one. You know you can’t stay in here, girls.”
“They certainly can’t,” agreed Jo. She dropped the man and he scrambled way from her and attempted to look as tough as ever, even while twitching in fear.
“Aw, let ‘em stay,” said a man at the bar. He took off his hat and nodded at the ladies, but even this attempt at manners was challenged by the unwholesome look on his face. It was Isabella’s favorite look. She let go of the girls.
“No, they can’t! They’re too young and good for the whole lot of you! You three, get home!”
“Why, if it ain’t Miss Isabella,” interrupted a far smoother-talking man with hair as dark and shiny as a brand new boot and probably shined with the same sort of polish. He had a pencil-thin mustache and dark eyes and when Isabella glanced at him from beneath her long lashes, he gave her a wink and puffed thoughtfully on his cigar.
“Come here, Miss Isabella,” he said, patting his knee. The other two girls made their way in separate directions as Isabella went to the bar and leaned against it. One of the other men catcalled again and the one next to her made a swift grab-slap on her ass.
“You should be in bed, princess,” he said.
“Don’t wanna,” she cooed, stealing his cigar. She batted her eyelashes and grinned as the smoke curled from her bare lips.
“I saw your show this evenin’.”
Jo was between them in a second. She pulled the cigar from Isabella’s lips and jammed it into the glass of gin.
“Hey—Christ, woman, you know how much—”
Jo grabbed Isabella’s arm. “You know how much trouble you’ll be in if you touch her? She ain’t old enough.” She gave Isabella a tug and left her no choice but to follow, however grudgingly, out of the room. “Sometimes, girl, I swear—you need a proper mother and a father to teach you what’s what. It’s like you ain’t got sense of self-preservation. Mixing with them—you’ll get yourself killed or worse!”
“They like me fine!” Isabella protested, struggling to keep up with Jo, who was at least four times her size. And five times angrier.
Jo stopped at the entrance to the theatre and pulled Isabella close. “They got wives and children and illegal jobs. Still interested?”
Isabella paused for only a moment. “Yes.”
“Oh, Lord. This child.” Jo crossed herself and looked skyward. Isabella tried to pull her arm away but Jo, mother of eight, wouldn’t let go.
Five minutes later, having been deposited in her dressing room, Isabella sat grumpily at her vanity and poked at her make up. Jo was overprotective and silly. No one ever hurt her; no one ever had. Yeah, some men had been a bit rough but she knew how to get them to back away. She wasn’t as helpless as everyone thought—just ‘cause she was blonde and freckled and petite.
She wrinkled her nose at her reflection, then stuck out her tongue.
A knock on the door. She nearly bit her tongue in surprise but quickly turned away from the mirror. “Come in!”
“Hey, Iz,” murmured Darla. “Sorry—you ain’t in trouble, are you?”
Isabella shook her head. “Good. Lil and I overheard.” Darla glanced behind her and there was a chorus of whispering that indicated Lil was still there. A second later, she entered behind Darla and shut the door.
“Jo sure is mad. But you think she might be right? I know them bootlegger’s is real dangerous and all, but they never shoot people round here for anything.”
“Oh, yeah? What about that guy Stan Woods who got shot up outside the café across the street ‘cause he tried to walk away without paying?”
“Well, he deserved it for stealing money! I just mean maybe Jo knows something about them.”
“Oh, she don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’,” Isabella chirped. “She just don’t like us bein’ young.”
“Hey, it’s not like we’re all innocent or nothin’. And we ain’t even her kids. Darla’s mom’s downstairs and everything and mine’re just two stops on the train!”
“Mine wouldn’t care,” Isabella said smartly. “I take care of myself and I always have.”
“And your manager, too.”
“Yeah.”
“And he don’t care who you sleep with.”
“I don’t sleep with them. We don’t even have sex—”
“That’s the same thing, sugar,” said Lil.
“But—”
“It’s slang. And I thought you do?”
“Do what?”
“Sleep with them.”
“I said—”
Lil sighed and shook her match after lighting a cigarette. “Have sex with them.”
“Oh! No. They don’t do that. Not most of ‘em, anyways.”
Darla giggled. “Not most of them.”
“Shit!” Lil interrupted, startling the other two (Isabella was glaring at Darla).
“What?!” they asked in unison.
“We forgot our pins and your cigarettes.”
“And that was worth getting’ all riled up about?” Darla asked, eyebrows raised.
“No, but we’ll get in trouble again if we leave all our shit out there, anyways. Come on!”
The girls, now in robes over their underwear, walked in a tight pack through the hall and up a set of steps to the back of the stage. It was darker now than before, as someone had extinguished the lamp, so they held each other’s arms and shoulders and moved as one through the pitch.
“I think I see your cigs!” said Lil. Isabella squinted into the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and noticed some white objects on the ground. They could only be Darla’s cigarettes. Or someone else’s.
“Yeah—right there!” Darla let go and hurried to the pile, which was undisturbed. “How many pins did we put in?”
“All of ‘em—oh, don’t count ‘em, you ninny!” Lil slapped Darla’s hand, making her drop the pins. “Just bring ‘em back to Iz’s room—”
“Ladies, what are you doing?” said a deep voice from the shadows. Darla squeaked and Lil tripped, dropping her cigarette into the floor.
“Eddie!” squealed Isabella, tripping over Lil’s leg as she skipped across the stage to crash against the man who was visible only by the glint in his eyes and the white shirt on his back. “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!”
Eddie was laughing. “Hey, little Miss Mary Sunshine.” He scooped her up with ease, supporting her by her ass, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and gave him a kiss full on the mouth. They kissed until the girls behind them were groaning. Eddie pulled away.
“What’re you three doing, getting into trouble so early in the day?”
“It ain’t early!” said Darla.
“Damn right, it’s early! It’s goin’ on four. Why don’t you three go to bed, eh?”
“With youuu?” Isabella teased.
“You with me,” Eddie said, giving her bum a squeeze. She tightened her locked ankles at his back.
“We’re just collecting our stuff,” said Darla. “Iz, yours is here, too!”
Eddie let Isabella slip from his grasp, but she didn’t get far. He kept an arm low on her waist, his fingers bunched in her robe.
“What ones?” Isabella asked.
“I dunno. How many’d you bring?”
“Um.” She squinted one eye and tried to remember. “Thirty, maybe.”
“Okay. Here’s a handful. Want a cig?”
“Nah.” Isabella closed her hand around the pins.
“She only smokes when she’s flirtin’,” said Lil.
“Nothin’ wrong with that,” said Isabella as Eddie picked her back up. She grinned and rubbed his bald head. “Too bad you ain’t got hair or I’d put the pins in there so I don’t drop ‘em or nothin’.”
“Give ‘em here,” said Eddie. He shifted her body easily and held out his hand. Isabella put the bobby pins on his palm and he slid them into his pocket.
“Goodnight, ladies. Don’t give Jo any more trouble,” he said, bowing out. Isabella grinned.
“I didn’t give her no trouble. She don’t know no better.”
“I think it’s you who don’t know any better,” said Eddie, “but you’ve got time to figure it out.”
“I like trouble.”
“You make trouble.”
“Are you trouble?” Isabella asked, poking Eddie square in the chest.
“More than you know, babe.”
He set her down and smacked her ass as she pushed open her changing room door and let Eddie kick it shut again. Someone would be up here to tell her off for the noise, but it wouldn’t be the only noise soon enough.
Off came her robe. It fluttered to the ground and she stepped on it as she moved against Eddie again. He picked her up by the thighs and set her down on her vanity, pushing the chair just to make room. They were kissing again with no intention of stopping and enough privacy to make it hard and sloppy. He pulled off her chemise and she pushed down his suspenders and he deftly unbuttoned his shirt so that she could push up his undershirt and make contact with his skin. They weren’t naked in these situations, really. Half the time her dress was hiked up and his trousers were unbuttoned and that was the extent of it.
Tonight, she was nude save for a garter belt and stockings and he would go so far as to let his trousers slip a little farther down his thighs, the fabric stretching under the strain of his muscle. He kissed her flushed chest and pulled her forward so he could rock down and up and slide inside her without much difficulty. They had this down. They’d done this a hundred times—and it never got old. It never stopped turning her gears, as people said.
And why should it, anyway? She liked hands on her thighs and she liked to wiggle her hips and she liked it when men moaned near her ears so that she could feel their breath on her skin. She liked this whole thing.
Her vanity was rocked hard against the wall. Necklaces, gloves, pictures and slips all fell from the mirror and onto the floor as her shoulders met the cold glass. Eddie leaned forward and over her, resting one knee on the desk and pushing her knees back until she was all but contorted—so he could go deep, as they liked. Isabella never did anything that wasn’t all the way. Isabella never did anything as half as good as it could go. She was a curious girl and always had been, and half the girls here questioned her morals, but she questioned their morals just as well. What was the issue? He was fucking her—so what? They weren’t having any babies and it wasn’t like he had diseases.
Her hands came over her head, smacking the mirror. Eddie’s hands were flat on her back, holding her so that she was arched up, fit perfectly in the curve of his body. They were trying to be quiet, but every now and then Isabella would gasp and encourage him and he would groan to hear it again.
When the situation became a bit too precarious (a perfume bottle nearly slipped), Eddie pulled out and Isabella hopped down and placed her hands on the front of her wardrobe. Just as Eddie thrust in again, someone banged on the door.
“Isabella—that’s enough noise!”
Eddie and Isabella froze. Eddie, now inside her and leaning against her back, had his face pressed into her neck and was laughing silently. Isabella had to cover her mouth.
“I ain’t makin’ noise!” she said, keeping her voice steady. “You’re just—you heard wrong!”
“Bullshit! Now keep it down!”
“Yeah, yeah!”
Eddie thrust once, shallowly.
“I mean it, Isabella! Some of us have to be awake in an hour!”
Eddie thrust twice, cutting Isabella’s reply in half and bridging it with a gasp. “I—know!” His hands cupped her breasts. “I will!” She rocked back hard, seeking revenge and deeper penetration. Eddie, caught off-guard, barely managed to stop a moan.
“Night, Isabella!” called the fleeting and still angry voice.
“Goodnight!’ she called.
Eddie burst out laughing and continued to shallowly thrust until he could concentrate again. “You’ve got nerve, Iz.”
“So? It ain’t nothin’ no one’s seen before, anyways. Now fuck me!”
Eddie did as he was told until it was the wardrobe hitting the wall and Isabella’s gasps were no longer quiet and sporadic, but loud and intentional and cushioning silky smooth words that had no place in the mouth of a girl her age. She never had a problem sharing how she felt, and when she liked something, and how much she liked it. That was half of why Eddie always came back—that high, girly voice wrapped around the dirtiest phrases anyone could utter. He loved breaking through. He loved fucking her.
She came once but once was never all she ever came. He lowered her to the ground and laid back, letting her climb over him so she could kiss and ride. And ride she did. Slow and purposeful, then faster, with the sharp smack of skin. She held his thighs behind her, leaning back when she wanted a different angle. Then she turned so that she wasn’t facing him at all and ground until she came twice more—quite in a row. Just past the third was when Eddie followed her, holding her hips squarely down as he came deep and she tensed around his cock with every load.
When she slid off, he grabbed her hips and licked her clean and smacked her bum again as she hopped to her feet. Then, taking his time, he fixed up his trousers and pulled on his shirt. There were always two more kisses. One for lust and one for goodnight.
“You staying here tonight?”
Isabella nodded. “I can’t walk back.”
Eddie nodded. “Don’t make so much noise, baby girl!” he called as he left the room.
The back of the theatre was quiet. The last of the patrons had gone home. Isabella was only one of them on a occasion. They made exceptions for her because she didn’t live in a good building and was their star attraction. That she was an orphan was half of her attraction. An orphan with legs for days and the biggest, bluest eyes this side of the Mississippi—and probably the other side, too.
Most people turned a blind eye to Miss Iz and her escapades, but most people wanted to be the next one.
