Free Short Story
Melinda Goodman checked her disguise. Was she recognisable? Maybe she was, if someone who knew her well was really looking. And who knew her better than Caroline? But at least she wouldn’t be expecting her mother, and so wouldn’t be looking that hard. If indeed it had been Caroline on that website.
It was hard to believe it was. Or was that just her hopes that were talking?
It was her last hope. That the girl in that picture wasn’t her daughter. Surely she had made a better job of bringing her up; surely she can’t need the money; surely, surely, surely she had more…decency than that.
She had checked the club out a couple of nights ago. A sleazy hovel with sticky carpets, peeling wallpaper, and seats with the stuffing poking out of them. But it did have pockets of shadow enough to hide in.
Melinda got herself a drink, fizzy water with melting ice. Seven pounds, fifty pence. She was served by a woman at the wrong end of her thirties plastered with make-uu, and a body which might have looked good ten-years ago. The woman wore only a thong and boots. In her nipples she had large rings which were linked by a gold silver train. The sight of her unnerved Melinda. She seemed like a walking corpse. She hadn’t even spoken apart to mention the price, and had never made eye contact.
As Melinda found a seat to one side where she might be less visible to the stage, she looked around at the clientele. It was predominantly male; a few groups of four and five and a scattering of desperate looking older men sitting alone at scattered tables. The sight made her stomach lurch.
There were two other women. One was a girl of maybe 20 with a man clearly old enough to be her father and then some. The other was middle-aged with a man who could easily have been her husband. In both cases, the men had proprietary hands on their woman’s knee/leg.
This was the kind of place it was. The thought chilled Melinda. Surely not Caroline.
Suddenly the stage lit up. On a raised platform at the back was a drum kit all set up and looking sparkly under the brilliant lights.
At the front there were three guitars and, to the right, a keyboard. A man in an all-black tracksuit went from instrument to instrument, checking, adjusting, making sure everything was in place for the show.
It couldn’t be long now. She felt her face flushing. Perhaps she should go. Just stand up and put one for in front of the other until she was outside. And then go home.
She knew that as long as she was not in the club when the band came on she could preserve her view of Caroline as the daughter she had always thought her to be. To stay, put that in danger. But then again if she didn’t know, really know, then in her heart her daughter would always be tainted by the possibility that…the possibility that she couldn’t quite bring herself to think of. The taint that she may just be undeserving of.
It was a dilemma. She had to know. Had to. But the consequences were unthinkable. It would not only effect the future, but also cast a light on the past, show her, in fact, that her life had not been all she thought it was.
She had to leave, had to.
But her body remained fixed. Her legs would not move.
Then the stage lights died. It was like looking into darkest night.
The hum of conversation among the audience died.
The she heard the voice, a deep smooth sound saying words which, at first, she didn’t understand…
But she heard the end. ‘Once again its Friday night, and Friday night means the fucking sensational, the fucking sexy, the dirtiest bitches in the music business. It’s Ten Tits For Sale.’
There was a smattering of applause and the the stage lighting came on. Not the full bright lighting of before, but spotlights which showed up five figures in silhouette. She because aware that she was not breathing that she was only moments away from a change of her entire life.
‘Anyone sitting here, love?’ She glances to the side as a large man eases himself into the seat opposite her, and then shifts the chair to face the stage.
She can hardly say no, but someone else at her table was hardly the plan. What she wanted was anonymity, not to be noticed. But what could she do? She smiled a thin smile and turned her attention to the stage.
‘Have you seen these before?’
It is a moment before she realises he has spoken. He repeats himself. ‘Have you seen this lot before?’
She forced a thin smile. ‘No.’
He picks up what looks like a large scotch and ice, ‘You’re in for a treat then.’
Anything else he might have wanted to say is drowned out by familiar sounding music. She recognises it immediately. It is the opening bars to ‘All You Needs is Love’, by The Beatles. Never one of her favourites, but in this place anything she knows is a bonus. Soon she knows, she will hear the band coming in ‘Love, Love, Love…’
That’s when they will light up, she thinks. Her heart is pummelling her rib age like a little alien trying to break free.
Then it starts, But is is not the words of The Beatles classic ok that that she hears…
‘Cock…cock…cock
Cock…cock…cock
Cock…cock…cock…
There’s no-one you want to fuck who can’t be fucked…’
And that is when it happened. The lights came on in all their garish glory, leaving not a detail up on the stage in doubt.
Five blonds. One at the drums, two on the guitars, and one on the keyboards, and a singer with a tambourine. All of them with long straight hair, all of them slim, all of them attractive, all perhaps early twenties.
All of them naked apart from boots and thongs.
And yes, for Melinda the earth had stopped spinning.
There she was on the left, singing into her microphone. Her youngest daughter, Caroline.
Caroline. Her daughter. All-but-naked in front of an audience of desperate perverts.
Singing…singing….trash.
She wanted to run, to hide. Part of her wanted to run up on stage and somehow drag her daughter down, and make her come home.
But then she saw something that froze her blood in her veins. The girl on the guitar was not Caroline.
It was Erina. Caroline’s sister.
Caroline was on the keyboard.
Both her twins up there.
Melinda suddenly wanted to die. For all this to be over.
For everything to be over.
But it wasn’t over and didn’t end for another hour or more. She sat through perversions of rock classics. After All you Need is Cock, came Whole Lotta Cock, Can’t Buy me Cock, and the final song, Endless Cock.
The girls of stage bumped and grinding, jiggling and shaking through each number. Melinda felt like she wanted to die
.
I’m just a woman with an exceptionally ‘grimy’ mind, who loves turning my Immoral thoughts, lewd fantasies and deeply-felt desires into words and stories. Life is just too short to keep them all to myself.
Born and live in Oxford. Divorced. Hobby…..exercising my luring imagination! 🙂