Author's Note: This is a "background chapter", chapter 3 will lead more into the actual plot. I'd like a review, please...
May reviewed the papers in front of her and she did not like what she saw. Erik had given her more than enough money to create an upscale facility, but his generosity however, was a loan that he expected to be repaid, with interest.
It had been shortly after she'd contacted him that they had begun to collaborate on ideas that would draw customers. Erik was no fool, he knew the drawing power of a pretty face, but it had been May who'd ranted and demanded that he loosen up and allow her to open Dancing Dolls as a strip club.
Erik had had a vision of a true New York gentlemen's club. Blackjack tables, cards, cognac, cigars, live music, the whole nine. May had dismissed his ideas as antiquated and ditched the drawings he'd sketched of a men's lounge and replaced them with neon lights and vinyl booth tables. Erik's dream had died with the flip of a coin, but he couldn't argue with the profits that the club pulled in on a nightly basis.
Profits that Maywas obligated to share with him- he had funded the entire operation, after all, so what choice did she have?
Well, the club was pulling in record numbers, and every employee was paid very handsomely- the dancers remarkably so. There were always at least fifteen girls asking after her for a job, but the schedule was full, and they weren't hiring. Erik's pockets were getting fuller while she was still paying off the damages that hurricane Katrina had inflicted on her life back when she'd lived in New Orleans, in addition to her monthly payment to Erik.
May glanced down into the club from her office window and sneered as that girl- Christine- strode in through the front entrance, fifteen minutes before her shift was to start. Ironic that she wore so many layers to protect against the cold outside and the first thing she was meant to do upon arrival to work was to take them all off.
May rolled her eyes. How could Erik of all people, so sophisticated and elegant, even spare a little hussy like her a second look?
Diamond, she calls herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid, but I suppose that name is no worse than the others. Summer, Cinnamon, Candi, Heaven…stupid girls and their goddamn stage names!
May wondered what it was about Diamond that Erik found so intriguing. It couldn't just be her body. Sure, the girl met with the club's standards for height, weight and measurements- she was miles ahead of your average girl on the street, but what could a dumb stripper offer a man like Erik? He was a walking encyclopedia while she could barely spell her own name!
He must have some designs on that girl- maybe I've excited some ideas into him with that joke about slave and master bedroom games. Erik has been good to me, better than any other man; I can't stand seeing him like this, all tied up in knots over a tramp who doesn't even know he's alive. Strippers are only in this for the money; they don't see men, all they see are dollar signs.
Still, if Erik wanted something, shouldn't she do everything in her power to help him attain it? May reasoned to herself that if Erik wanted this gem, then Diamond should give herself to him immediately. May smiled. If Erik were to be preoccupied with Diamond, then she would be free to go about her own endeavors.
She eyed the tiny bag of cocaine resting on the corner of her desk.
The sex industry had a notoriously high turnover rate, she reasoned to herself. No one would question the loss of one nondescript girl. Outside of May, Erik and perhaps a handful of the other dancers, no one even knew Diamond's real name.
May was the only one who had possession of the girl's home address, supposing that she hadn't invited anyone over from the club- whether it was a propositioning customer or someone that she worked with; a bartender maybe, or even one of the other girls, if that's where her true interests lie.
She thought of what she knew about Erik- his fascination with the arts, his loneliness, and the simple fact that underneath it all, he was still a predictable man all pointed her to a simple scenario that would present Diamond to Erik on a silver platter.
If it was what he wanted, she aimed to give it to him. She wondered if, in exchange for the girl, he would drop what she owed him off the books.
Erik by nature was a reclusive character. His excuse for a face had prevented him of any desire to see and be seen like his elite colleagues. Occasionally he could be found in a corner table at a high-class wine bar, sipping merlot; or he might attend a charity fund dinner sponsored by one of his companies. He often visited New York's museums and art centers. Usually, though, he stayed in surrounded by his books, playing his piano or violin. Sometimes he liked to paint or just watch television.
Other times, he would go down to watch Christine at the club. He was perfectly aware how his fascination with her appeared to May, but he wasn't at all concerned. He didn't care if she thought he was just another horny guy obsessed with a sexy pole dancer. He knew himself better than that. May seemed to have it into her head that something was off with him being so interested in one dancer when the club boasted 20 nubile young ladies. Maybe she was right. There was just something about Christine that had snared his interest, but he was damned if he could explain why.
Erik remembered the first time he'd seen her.
It had been only one month before, right when the weather had begun to blow cold through the streets. From what he understood after asking May, it had been the girl's first day. Erik had walked in through the front public entrance and had glanced up at the stage- it had only been since seeing her that he'd opted to use the employee exit- he felt ashamed of himself, and he didn't want her to think he was like the other men who ogled her. He would watch her, and despite her nudity and the atmosphere, he rarely felt any lust for her.
Erik didn't know why he'd looked- for months he had walked in and out of the club without sparing the girls a glance. He had no interest in things so gratuitously displayed. But nonetheless, that day, he had just happened to look up and he'd seen her standing beside the stage.
The girl had been wearing a silver sequined bikini. The top was too small for her, and he remembered thinking that her thong must have been uncomfortable. Her face was lovely, as he'd seen it, but now that face was just a dim memory. Since that day, she had adopted the club standard and obscured the color of her eyes with the darkest shades of black, violet and blue eyeshadow she could find. Her lashes were always caked with mascara, those full lips obscenely slick with gloss.
They had locked eyes from across the room; her expression had been curious and assessing. There had been no judgment there, no mocking smile. She had simply looked into his eyes and let the corners of her lips curl into the smallest of smile of greeting. Erik had looked back at her and was ready to smile back when one of the other girls had called away her attention.
He'd continued on his way up to May's office and had then asked questions about their newest employee. He'd reviewed all the vital stats of the girl. Her name was Christine Daae, newly twenty-one. Her next birthday wouldn't be until the end of next October, she was born on Halloween.
May had a preference of hiring Scorpios; she believed that those born under the sign possessed more sensual spirits and thus had the makings of a higher quality entertainer.
Erik didn't like that way of thinking. He'd reviewed the newspaper horoscope on his own- Scorpios were subtle, not flashy. They were sensual water signs, not flamboyant exhibitionists. Erik had never spoken to Christine, but from the day he'd seen her, he had been interested. She was different from the rest of them. He wanted to see how she lived outside of the club, but he wasn't so obsessed that he would dream to follow her home. He was curious, not psychotic.
Perhaps it had just been too long since he'd had a woman. It was nearly six months since Adelle had left him, not that he had blamed her. Why would such a fantastic woman have wanted to be treated as a convenient bedmate and nothing more? Erik shrugged to himself. He had never allowed her to stay the night in his apartment, and he had never stayed with her through the night in her own home. She deserved better than to be treated as his physical convenience, she deserved true happiness. They had parted amicably, he'd wished her well, and she'd wished him some warmth to enter into his cold world.
Erik looked into his living room and imagined Christine with him there as he'd first seen her, with a bare face or, if she would insist on cosmetics, the least possible amount. In his mind, he replaced the silver thong bikini with an elegant, subtle dress. Or even better, a sweater and a pair of jeans. He would speak to her as a friend, not offer her propositions. He wanted to learn about her, just the simple things. What made her smile, what movies she preferred, if she had any pets.
Most people daydreamed of things altogether fantastic, and here he was dreaming of having mundane small talk with a girl who danced at his club!
Erik looked at the new schedule and saw that Christine was marked for Monday through Friday, leaving her to her own devices on the weekends. Did she enjoy sports or was she more of a reader like him? Perhaps she had mixed interests…
What did it matter?! He could not approach her, for reasons other than what lay behind the mask. For all he knew, May could be right. Christine, Diamond, could be just like all the others: a money-hungry little sneak. Erik admitted the possibility, but he felt no intuition that pointed to such a truth.
He didn't want Christine to see him as one of the other men- interested in her for nothing more than sex. If sex were all he craved, he was secure enough in himself that he could find pleasure when he felt the need. He wanted something...more from Christine, but he drew a blank as to why.
What he saw in her on that first day he could still see in her now; she was a girl forced to debase herself nightly because somewhere along the line, something in her life had gone terribly wrong. Erik aimed to find out what had happened to her, and to then save her. Foolish, he knew, but it was a strictly male urge to feel needed by a woman. He'd told May of his hopeful intentions for Christine two nights ago.
How was he to know that she would use his protective urge to her advantage?