323: Death of a Showgirl

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Dear Patrons,

After a break from storytelling, I’ve finally found my voice to bust out another story vignette. I really need some time of solid immersion (with a playlist of classical music) to write this one! Tied to the story of missing celebrities and conspiracies of cloned stars, I hope this is one that’s much appreciated. Instead of the homeless man underneath the overpass in LA, this time, we hear from a different kind of voice, albeit from a source that’s more unconventional.

Bon Appétit by fellow diners and guests of the bizarre bazaar!

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. 

I. DEATH OF A SHOWGIRL

— Recording from a Regression Session — 

My essence reeks of pleasure and enjoyment. I love my job. The thrill of domination. My hands… they run along the length of the carcass’ open spine. It looks like any other butchered meat, a pig but slimmer and more slender. Maybe venison. Dark… pink but the fat. Yellow.

Image 1: (1 complete colored artwork)

I squeeze, it is freshly butchered therefore, still soft and pliable. The flesh moves to my touch… I perform soft slaps, and the meat jiggles especially at the fleshiest parts, and I pinch and feel up these places I’m not supposed to touch. The carcass has a breast. This feels wrong. No halved carcass should have a breast with pendulous bulge and nipple, can it? The edges of the carcass, at the ends of each limb, a hand, feminine, manicured… and the foot with painted toes still wearing a golden shoe, a woman’s shoe, heels. So… so wrong. I… he…

I feel your discomfort. But please go on. This would help us so much to know so much more. As long as you are holding my hand tight, you will be safe. You can always let go, any time, to leave this man’s eyes.

Yes… okay.

Image 2: (1 complete colored artwork)

I am back… back to his eyes. His hands, my hands, his thoughts, my thoughts… What a wonderful profession I find myself in. S-sometimes I like to play with them. Put shoes on them as I dissect them. Their hair would remain neat, and the face still adorned with makeup, blush and lipstick. I possess all the pertinent skills for this task. A mortician, a beautician, a pharmacist, an anatomist, and… a chef. It is as if all my life had led me to this. They allow my whimsies so long as I provide them with the best dishes. Only the best meat, for the best people. I think I remind them of how it had been for them, their first time… how it used to be before it became their life and habit. I have that quality to treat every unfortunate soul who pass through my doors, as if she was my first and one and only love.

This sacrifice is one of my finest rewards for over a decade of impeccable employ. The head of the sacrifice is on the table, like a temporary relic at a shrine. I recognize her. This face. Even without makeup, bloodless, pale and lifeless. Before I made her up to what she used to look like. Famed. Celebrated. A talisman for the young, the kind of woman who would usually pass through my doors. We have defeated the enemy queen in the battle of the sexes. He… I… I enjoy the thrill of her fame. It makes me swell hard. I stood there victorious, thinking… many would be like me right now, in a position of ultimate privacy and privilege to do whatever I want with this famous enemy. I know of things almost nobody else knows. For as long as her flesh remain unblemished and delicious to the taste once cooked. The indignity of it all, to be treated and dined on like a creature of lowly stature. Like veal. Like venison.

Image 3: (1 varation of the previous complete colored artwork) 

I release myself many times in the abattoir before her show and made sure not to taint the flesh, lest I find myself spending more time washing the meat. And that in itself is also not unpleasant. To find more reasons to touch the meat, slick clean and wet.

I decorate her before the show. Once vibrant, defiant. Now… she is wrapped in ceremony and… stillness.

In life, she was once paraded out to an audience, carried by the strong hands of dancers, adorned like a showgirl in Rio Carnival, or a feathered dancer on the stage, wrapped in the ribs of a bejeweled serpent. Now, she is walked out, in portions, like pieces of princesses on a palanquin… past the thick red curtains into the darkness of the great unknown. I stay back for am not supposed to follow… my work is done for now.

Please follow the procession through the curtains… if you can find another way… through another’s eyes.

I am beyond the curtain… seeking another. The audience for her final show is much smaller than usual… this is an intimate crowd… divided between the crowd of those who know and those who don’t, and those who would partake. She is paraded out but this time… neat… in pieces… one by one… too the ooh and aahs of those who know … and the restrained gasps those who don’t. I am floating away… upwards, into the ceiling above, into the darkness…

You are safe. Hold my hand. I will anchor you down.

Yes… I have found a home. But I cannot choose.

What is this? Where am I? A horror show? Or is it an art exhibit in a museum of the macabre? There is a sexual quality to this presentation. I have heard of this show through whispers. Only 21 and over allowed they said, but it feels like 30 or higher, and no women allowed unless one makes a personal request… This is not a show for the young for it is meant to tickle that part of your brain that awakens a darkness that can never be reined in once released. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. That is part of the charm and draw of this very expensive experience. Like a virus awakening a certain unspeakable hunger. 

“You’ve got to be there!”

“It is a once in a lifetime experience!”

“Was it real?”

“It can’t be, can it?”

“Too outrageous!”

“That was amazing!”

Pay for a ticket to enter a show, they said. They mock, that the price is my soul. Or thirty large per admission excluding VAT. I could have invited my plus one and submitted my personal request for her attendance, but this is even too pricy for a man of my newly acquired wealth, not unless we were ready to commit, for which two weeks was a little too soon to tell if she would be the one. Maybe next time, babe.

The advertising is effective. Surreal is the theme of the event. It began as a dream, soporific. We walked through living dioramas… ancient decor, magnificent relics and imageries of sensual, naked women, treated almost like… meat. Are they too truly sculptures? They look too real. It had an air of a gentleman’s club, one from the turn of the century and one could see why. This place had a sexual quality… and objectifying one at that especially towards the female form. I smell it. The essence of long dead civilizations lingers strong in the air mixed with that of the more recent past, decades gone by… like deli storefronts, a turn of the century carnival, a bizarre bazaar of sorts. The tables and trays lay empty bathed in the yellow light, adorned with rustic red, white and peeling paint of rust-colored pastel, and there it lay… meat… neatly processed, like beautiful statuesque broken dolls… are they real? They look too real. But in the blood orange light, it is hard to tell. I think I am dreaming.

There was much for my senses to take in. There is a pernicious scent of copper and death… how do I know what death smells like? Death in a butcher’s deli? How did they recreate the smells if these broken dolls were merely that? Wax recreations? It must be an amazing attention to detail!

Yes, a part of my brain was indeed tickled. No words exchanged from the hosts, the custodians, nor the other guests. We were told not to. Whatever our experience would be, it is all left unsaid, for what was shown to me so far, I hear these words spoken in my head… “step right up, step right up… into this museum of carnival reverie. Immerse yourselves into a different world, leave your phones and any recording devices behind, leave all manner of identity behind you, put on another face for it protects you from of all the magical sins you are about to witness.”

Under incandescent string lights, hung upon the rafters like the undulating waves of a forgotten sea… bathing the world below in its ghostly glow, I heard a dainty bell rung further down the stretch of displays… that’s where the guests are beginning to congregate. Something is happening. A procession? The guests are moving there down the thoroughfare… this feels like the main event.

And there I stood, I managed myself two rows back among the costumed throng… our beautiful showgirl is present to perform her final song and dance. But no. She is still. Like a broken doll who ceases to function. It is a horror. Grotesquerie. In pieces. It is not the way one should be presented. Is there a deeper meaning to this surrealist madness?

Ah… but of course, this is but a show. When the clock strikes midnight on Halloween and the ghosts come out to play. I know I should avert my eyes, but I am drawn to the spectacle asking questions. Is this real? It can’t be, can it? Was this the show, an experience of an experiment of the mind, where one asks the audience to question their reality?

Then most of us were ushered out into a different area… wondering what a strange spectacle that had been. How did she approve of her likeness being used in such a disgraceful way?

There were only a handful who were allowed to remain in that room. I would have liked to stay but I did not have the right colored pin… 

Are you able to find another pair of eyes… try… to remain in that room.

I’m trying, but… but the stench of meat is a barrier. And I… I don’t think I want to.

It’s okay. I’ll hold your hand.

Please no… I’m… I’m slipping… they’re pushing me out. No… I want to leave… I think they… see me… please… no!

Okay. You have done well. So so well… Hold my hand tight… I will take you away from here. From the count of five, you will come return… Five…. 

— the end? —

II. DEATH OF A SHOWGIRL – Bonus Works in Progress

The following are some works in progress accompanying the previous story vignette.

Image 4-5: (2 works in progress of previous artworks)

While this is a new scene from the same story being sketched out.

Image 6-7: (2 sketch variations of a similar scene)

II. HALL OF FAME

Following the theme of the rich and famous, here’s development of a previous sketch of another celebrity as a trophy, and limb on the menu.

Image 8-9: (2 works in progress of a similar scene)

III. DOOMED RAIDER

The following are three more scenes in development for the DOOMED RAIDER project.

Image 10-12: (1 black & white sketch + 2 colored/shaded work in progress)

IV. SKETCHES

To round it all off, here are a hodgepodge of sketches from varying stories going on right now.

The first, being a scene from PAINTED BIRD IN LOST CARCOSA.

And one for MISSING IN MANHATTAN 1919, THE DAKOTA BUILDING.

Here’s a new celebrity project involving a particularly buxom one.

And a pair from the story XANADU.

A MIDICUT from a currently unattached project.

And a quick piece for the story series FRUIT BASKET KILLER.

Image 13-19: (7 black & white sketches)