Being a lapdancer was easy. Leila just walked in, paid Tina, the manager, the thirty quid house fee and gyrated round a pole. She was half drunk but that didn't seem to matter, men still paid her to dance on their laps.
The first time she did it she couldn't believe it was turning anyone on, she threw an amused look to the stag party. Afterwards, Tina pulled her aside to say her expression was unconvincing but she'd do.
“You're nimble enough, you'll learn some tricks.”
Leila agreed to try more classic poses like the pout, the lip and teeth lick and the vulnerable wide eyed look. She perfected the filthy glare.
When she'd got enough to pay her rent she left, but she soon went back. Wiping arses for minimum wage just wasn't the same afterwards and the only thing her art degree was any use for was teaching. Teaching was what both Leila's parents did. Teaching equalled abandoned dreams.
So Leila carried on with her art, knowing she wasn't quite good enough but without any other ideas.
When she practised her routine at home she did it with her tongue locked firmly behind her bottom lip. She belmed away, grinding her hips to songs by Girls Aloud, refusing to take her life seriously.
Her boyfriend, Danny, laughed and danced along with her, he was an art graduate too, he wished he could make sixty quid an hour.
They went out for dinner for the first time in months and over wine and moules mariniere they talked about the importance of staying free, of keeping out of the system, of doing jobs that didn't make demands on their brains.
They decided to turn their spare room into a studio.
“And then I do this, and then I do this, and then I do this,” she told him when they got home, flicking her hair and sitting astride him.
“You'd better not do that,” he said afterwards, collecting his pants from under her pillow.
Leila did portraits of the other girls at Glamour first, sketched them in biro in the changing room and took photo's of them while they worked. Tina got pissed off in the end and told her to get on with her job.
“Who d'you think you are? Toulouse-Lautrec?”
Some of the girls had laughed.
Leila hadn't done much drawing since then. She put the pictures of the girls in drawers in her studio.
Leila quickly learned that it was much easier to dance drunk in the no-sex sex industry. She broke the night up with beers at the bar with Kat, no men allowed, Kat's rule.
“Makes us more desirable to them that's forgotten they're paying for our attention. Plus it gives us a fucking break.”
Kat looked at least ten years older than the other girls and had a way about her that let people know she'd earned those years.
The two of them started going into town after work, dancing sarcastically for old men in old men pubs, making fools out of them, and their women, if they had them. On these nights Leila ignored Danny's calls.
One night, after dancing in town, they ended up on Kat's kitchen floor, drinking vodka, Kat hating.
“I fucking hate it when token girls come in, thinking they're one of the lads.”
Leila closed one eye to look at her.
“I bet when they get home they jiggle their tits around, all inspired, like that's the way they like it...”
“Maybe that is the way they like it.”
“...bet they act it out for him then go frig themselves in the bathroom. Go to any club in the country and it's the same – London, Bradford, Cornwall – it doesn't matter, you twirl yourself around their crotch, jiggle your tits and narrow your eyes. Where did it all come from, Lei?”
“You taught me how to poledance.”
“It's a fucking conspiracy, that's what it is. And I'm in on it.”
Kat laughed, finally, and Leila joined in, relieved, bending her knees to make the foetal position.
*
The sun's hot on Leila's face when she wakes up. Four o'clock. Work in two hours. She strokes the smooth skin of her stomach and closes her eyes. Tonight Danny will see her at work. It's not his thing but his friend's getting married and this is what stags do.
And hens, sometimes. Leila organised a stripper for her sister last year thinking it would be funny. The girls all cheered and laughed but looking back Leila wonders if they were just getting their own backs.
After a long talk, Leila promises not to dance for Danny's group.
“I'm not ashamed of you! I just don't want to see you dancing for other men, you're my private dancer,” he lowers his voice to a whisper and Leila gives in.
“I dance for you for free,” she says, falling into the easy comfort of an in-joke.
*
Scarface is in and Kat is sitting beside him, laughing. Whatever Kat said, she always seemed to be having a good time. Loads of men wouldn't have anyone else. Leila finishes her three minutes on the stage and goes to sit with them. Scarface pours her a glass of champagne.
“We celebrating?” she says and Scarface just smiles, his patchwork cheek crumpling further. Kat tweaks his chin and goes up to the pole to do her showcase, directing all her filthy glares straight at him.
At twelve o'clock the stag party come in, noisily. Tina takes them straight to the stag booth rather than a private booth so they can be seen from the bar. “Stags attract stags,” she says, “free advertising.”
Danny's face is red with alcohol. A few of the girls go over and sit with the group straight away, pound signs beneath their mascara. Kat takes a drink order and comes back with a pitcher of something blue. Danny looks around and Leila moves behind a pillar.
Kara, a new girl, just graduated, sits astride Danny, and Kat starts writhing in front of Coll, the stag. Danny and Coll look at each other and laugh in the way Leila has seen a thousand other men laugh, more like a sneer really, then Danny stops laughing to concentrate on what Kara's doing, his face serious suddenly, looking up at her like this really means something. He puts his hands on her waist and she pulls them off lightly the way all the girls are trained to. Without offence. Kat lifts her leg onto Coll's shoulder.
Leila puts her head against the pillar, feeling sick, telling herself she's drank too much and that's why. She stays where she is for a few songs then starts wondering what she's doing, this is her territory. She walks out from behind the pillar, telling herself there's nothing to be ashamed of, he's here too. Kylie starts up singing I just can't get you out of my head and Leila thinks of her silver hot pants, thinks, for the thousandth time what's the fucking difference? She strides over to the stage.
The spotlight blinds as Leila spins round, arms stretched like she's reaching out for something, she clasps the pole with her thighs, slipping down, burning her skin till she can feel the squeak of bad friction. She's thinking of Salma Hayek in Dusk Till Dawn, that girl in Showgirls, Madonna, picturing herself as one more in a long line of female beauty.
She spins again, exhausting the few moves she has, gyrating round the pole repeatedly, wishing there was something more original she could do. The song finishes and she flicks her hair, imagining Danny's expression, his standing ovation, but when she jumps down only Scarface claps. Kat woops from the bar, waving a twenty, sarcastic.
“Nice moves but I think your boyfriend just left. Has he got blonde hair?”
“No, he didn't have a dance.”
Kat raises her eyebrows and orders them two vodkas. Leila knocks hers back and orders two more.
*
When Leila gets in she sits down at her desk for the first time in months. She thinks of all her work, slowly rotting away in drawers and lies down on the floor. All these years working and studying and she's closer to nothing. She read something once, about people with over average intelligence having the worst time of it, too clever for menial work, not quite clever enough to carve out something else. Who wrote that? Was it Dostoevsky? Enid Blyton? Giggling sadly, Leila falls to sleep.
*
Danny wakes her up in the morning.
“Tea?”
Leila shakes her head.
“Why d'you sleep there?”
Leila groans and Danny goes downstairs. Kat looks out from an easel in the corner and Leila stands up, turns her to face the wall thinking she'd like never to see that face again.
Danny puts Leila's tea down on her desk.
“I made you one anyway.”
She keeps her eyes on the computer screen.
“Have fun last night?”
“Don't remember,” he laughs.
Leila blows on her tea.
“Did you see me?” she says and he shakes his head, smiles at her.
“No, but we agreed, didn't we. Why, did you see me?” he raises his eyebrows, hopeful almost.
“No. I mean, I saw a stag party come in, but you weren't with them. There was someone a bit like you but he was all red faced, groping one of the girls and sweating...”
Danny frowns and Leila puts her tea down, goes into the bathroom. She turns the shower on and gets in, unsure what she's so angry about. Danny bangs on the door.
Leila picks the razor up to shave her legs out of habit then drops it and stamps down hard, screaming through her teeth. The sharpness of a neat cut shoots through her and she stares at the water turning red. Blood soaks into the towel as she dries herself.
“I was pissed, Lei. What does it matter?”
She walks past him.
“Why is this a problem suddenly?” He notices the blood trailing behind her and tuts. “Why are you being so melodramatic?”
Leila sits on the bed, lifting her foot up to examine the cut. Danny comes back with a plaster and tries to put it on for her. She yanks it off him.
“You're a fucking hypocrite,” he says quietly and a few minutes later she hears the door slam.
Leila lies back on the bed, trying to follow her thoughts. She heads into the studio and takes sketches and paintings out of drawers, placing them around the house: Kat and Kara face each other on the bed, Tina gyrates above the microwave. Leila lines the settee with rough sketches of girls that left quickly, the ones that didn't give reasons, she puts MTV on to girls dancing in bikinis, Jay-Z shouts he's got ninety nine problems but a bitch ain't one and Leila is laughing, pulling on one of her work costumes, a sparkly gold figure skating dress. She gathers up her best underwear and walks from room to room draping knickers where they can be draped, red and white polka dots hanging on the toilet flush, pink frilly bra sliding down the banister. She takes stilletos from her cupboard and places them in the shower, turns it on, thinking Ghost Whore Washing Herself. She puts a little black dress in the microwave and watches it go round.
The flat buzzes with noise. Girls and their trinkets hang everywhere and Leila walks between rooms in her gold tasselled dress taking polaroids, her own installation.
*
When Daniel comes back she is sitting in the living room, overly made up, smoking.
“I made art,” she tells him, gesturing to include the whole flat.
“Fucking hell, Lei.”
She laughs and he joins in, walking round slowly, quiet, like it's a gallery. Leila walks just behind him, checking his body language for response. He laughs at the shoes in the shower, steps respectfully over a pile of tampons in the middle of the hall.
“It's your best work yet.”
“I know.”
Leila puts her arms around him, feeling sad suddenly. She holds his hand and sits on the bed while he kisses her neck, then her mouth, becoming more insistent.
“Do the routine for me,” he whispers, rubbing himself against her thigh. “I want to fuck you while you lapdance.”
“No let's just do it this way...”
“I want you to shake your tits for me while I fuck you from behind, hard...”
Danny groans, coming onto Leila's thigh. He leans his weight against her and she lies still, his last words still sounding round the room.
“I'm sorry,” he whispers, looking up at her, embarrassed, “I don't know why I...” Leila makes herself smile and strokes his head.
*
“I've applied to be a teacher,” he says later, holding her close from behind. “You can quit whenever you want.”
She smiles, nestling into him like that makes her happy, but she's thinking, this is the moment I stop investing in my relationship.
“You could do it too,” he says, kissing the back of her head, “we could be teachers together,” and for a second, while he's warm behind her, his lips against her hair, she thinks maybe she could. Maybe they could settle down and teach in the day, make art in the evenings but Danny keeps talking and the tone of his voice starts to put Leila off, he reasons too much, until she has to stop listening because she knows what he is giving up.
*
“I thought we'd seen the last of you,” Kat says when Leila turns up for work the next weekend.
“What? Leave all this?”
“Don't see why not. It's not like you need to be here is it? You could be anything, artist, teacher...”
They both laugh as she runs out of ideas.
“You're young though, you've got a degree.”
Leila changes the subject.
*
Leila and Daniel don't have sex for a long time after Leila's installation and when they do it's clear that their thing, whatever it was, is over. They stay together for another six months, building separate lives for the future they know is coming. When their lease on the flat runs out, so do they. It's an easy, amicable break up that disappoints them both.
*
One Thursday, Kat comes into work to say goodbye. She tells Leila she's been offered a job as a hotel manager. Something to do with Scarface.
“His real name's William and he's absolutely loaded!”
Leila smiles too much, nervous Kat will see she thinks she let him fuck her for it.
At Kat's leaving do, Leila gives her a portrait. Kat says she loves it, but Leila can see she's already part of Kat's past. She pretends to be convinced by Kat's promises to keep in touch and escapes early. Everything feels the wrong way round.
Leila quits at Glamour and starts applying for admin and gallery jobs, artist residencies and exhibitions, she gets a trial shift in a solicitors but leaves halfway through, ends up dancing back at Glamour that night.
“We can't get rid of you,” Tina jokes when she sees her, and Leila thinks casually about killing herself as she smiles back and hands over twenty pounds.
Every now and then Leila thinks she sees Daniel in one of the booths. She obsesses over him the way people do when their lovers are no longer theirs and she begins to wonder if he's got someone new. She starts having one night stands with customers.
On her 28th birthday Leila is the longest standing member of staff at Glamour.
Danny comes in to see her the next day. His hair is short and he looks like an art teacher. Leila can see he thinks she looks like a lapdancer.
“You look well,” he lies and she lies straight back.
Leila thinks how nice it would be to wrap herself around him like she used to, to tell him things again, but instead she says just what's polite. She laughs about the last time they were both in here like it wasn't painful at all and when he leaves he kisses her on the cheek, hands her a birthday card from Hallmark.
“I don't have time to make them myself anymore,” he apologises.
When she gets home, Leila looks for teaching posts on the Internet. An art teacher in this city starts on ￡22,000 a year. She works out that if she did 37 and a half hours a week at Glamour she'd be on￡120,000 a year.
On her way back from the club one night, Leila passes Kat in the street. She's dressed in a pencil skirt and heels, her hair a more expensive red. She walks fast like she has a purpose. Leila stops to look at a bus timetable as she passes, not wanting to answer any questions, her reflection in the perspex is warped and she grimaces at herself. She wants to shout after Kat, to ask her if they had any good times, if she can give her a job, if she has any ideas at all, but she stays silent.
The night bus pulls up, going to the wrong district and Leila steps on, pays for a ticket, wanting anywhere but here.
