"It (Still) Feels Good" by Howard Black & Onyx

My hands ached, and my whole body felt ragged, but it was an honest living for the night. Spent the evening working the door over at some joint in North Vegas – a run down little pool hall who’s quality of clientele hasn’t exactly gotten worse since the Directive. The pay wasn’t great, but the beer was free so long as I stayed upright. Truth be told? There’s something to that old Tom Waits song:


And when you’re 5’8” with a southern twang, everyone wants to fuck with ya. But I don’t mind putting a few dumb drunks down. It’s all practice – a little bit for the ring, a little bit for any guy trying to get me on the walk home. And this walk home was happening at 4:30 am and with a hundred and fifty bucks more to my name.

Before I left, I traded back $25 they’d handed me for a fifth of White Label and a pack of Camels. And then it was off Waltzing Matilda to the Roadway Inn. Hand and hand with good ol’ Evan. Desert air was hot that night, and even this deep in the night the alleyways were restless. It’s a weird city, Las Vegas: on the Strip, nobody knows who cares about your face – up here, it seems like everyone’s watching. Felt like I’d been watched all night. I wonder if they could see the weight.

There was a red-headed gal at the bar. She’d been giving me smokey eyes behind a pint of beer all night, and it took more than a little professionalism to not have taken her right there. I wondered what her story was – what’s a dame like that doing at the ugliest little pool hall in Vegas, staring at the shrimpy drunk manning the door? Did I have something in my teeth? Maybe she liked my eyes? Or maybe she also saw the weight. I never had a chance to go over and get a good look at her, let alone talk to her.

Then again, what would I say?

“Who taught you to throw liquor back like that?”

“What the hell are you doing here? Are you lost, girl?”

“You wanna go to the bathroom? I don’t got any drugs, but we both gotta pretty desperate to wind up here.”

“Why do you look so familiar?”

“Ever been to a fight show? I’m in that one at the Luxor this week. You can watch me kill or be killed by a crazy bitch in face paint that carries around a machete.”

“I got a bottle back at the Roadway Inn if you’ve always wondered what it’s like to stay at one. They let you smoke indoors.”

Ain’t I a charmer?

The police had been all but stretched thin up here in North Vegas, since that one chief pig of theirs had watched his dreams dashed away under the heel of that crazy bitch. I watched it on the bar TV – lotta guys got real wound up after that one. Took me back to a lonely Devil’s Night in Detroit after I’d hitched a way there a few years ago. It’s a night the whole city goes wild and burns itself down – a cleansing fire removing the sins of the streets in an orgy of cathartic violence. I wonder if this is the reckoning Vegas has deserved, and when I looked through the names, faces, and backgrounds of everyone who’d signed their souls away to Dukes, it felt poetic. Maybe Trump was onto something.

Dangle a lure with a million bucks on it – sweeten the deal with uninhibited violence – let them all kill each other – the Lord will sort them out.

Those eyes were still on me when I reached the Roadway Inn. It was up a flight of stairs and down the open-air hall to my room on the second floor, looking out at the parking lot. I swiped the key card, lit a cigarette, and went inside. There was still a little bit of ice in the freezer, so I didn’t need to make a trip to the machine. It was around the time that I finished pouring the whiskey that the door closed behind me.

That’s when I turned to see her standing there, staring at me with those big, beautiful hazel eyes. It’s easy to get a good look at someone when they’re standing there, staring like a deer in the headlights – or someone who just flagrantly trespassed on an occupied room – and that’s when it really clicked just who she was. Even without the make-up.

So I decided to be the amicable host. I poured a second drink, offered it to her and dropped my best last words.

---

“If you’re here to take me out early, would the lady have a drink with me first?”

I stared at the drink he’d made for me, the wind howling behind me overshadowing the quiet confidence in his voice. I don’t think he’d recognized me; not yet. How could he? If he had followed the tournament at all he would’ve known I painted my face white as a ghost, and here I was in his doorway, looking and feeling like myself. No one had seen me this revealed until now.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Howard. I’ve hurt too many people already.”

“That didn’t answer the question about the drink.”

I let myself in, hearing him shut the door behind me. I winced, as it reminded me of hearing the steel bars slammed closed just a week ago. Or the locks turning as the doctor turned the key in my padded isolation room. I felt like the walls were closing in on me again - for a moment, until I turned to Howard and he presented a different outcome altogether. It was one he didn’t even realize existed.

“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. Do you liquor up every person you share a ring with beforehand, or just the ones you think have been eyeing you up all night?”

“I dunno – do you stalk every person you share a ring with back to their place, or am I just special?”

“You got me there. Maybe you are - or maybe there’s just something that draws me to you. Who knows? It’s a weird place. A weird time.”

I watched for the realization to dawn in his eyes. It hadn’t. To him, I was still a lonely whore who followed him from the bar to his raggedy, roach-infested motel room. He mumbled under his breath - ‘you can say that again’ - before raising his glass to his lips. He takes a seat at the end of his bed, staring at me still standing in the doorway.

“So – Onyx, right? If you’re not here to kill me or have a drink, why are you here?”

I noticed the lust in his eyes, so I decided to play along. I walked towards him, crossing my legs over his body to sit near him on the bed. I had neglected the drink he had poured for me - instead, I grabbed the glass from his fingers, feeling the tingle in our brief touch, before raising the glass towards my mouth.

“What are you having, anyway?”

“Only the finest for our lady of the evening.”

He grabbed the fresh glass and raised in the air, encouraging me to toast with the one in my own.

“A toast to our health?”

“Nobody makes it out of the Luxor with their health. That’s something you’ll soon find out.”

“That was the joke.”

“I’m not a clown; I don’t do ‘jokes’. How about we toast to… us? And why we’re here.”

Again, the encouragement in his blood-red, tired eyes. There was still a hint of a sparkle in them, though. I finally obliged, clanking his glass against my own.

“And what are we here to do, Miss Onyx?”

“Please… call me Elisabeth.”

I took a longer sip this time, the liquor burning my lips as it washed in my throat.

“Howard, I need your help.”

Howard scoffed at my plea, unable to comprehend the sincerity in my appeal. I didn’t blame him, really. He didn’t know a goddamn thing about me. But I knew everything about him.

“C’mon. Let’s enjoy the personal before we rush to the professional.”

“You don’t really strike me like the type who wants to get to know your ‘ladies’. Do I have you all wrong?”

I leaned forward, seductively teasing my mouth along his neck. He could feel my breath on his skin, and I reluctantly placed a hand on his thigh, running upwards before looking deep into the ocean of his eyes. Immediately, my own began to water.

“Is this how it needs to be for you... to hear me?”

Howard was apprehensive as his eyes darted into my own. I felt his hand reach down towards mine, his fingers rough and calloused. He moves mine away from his leg.

“You’ve got me all wrong, Lissie.”

Hearing him say the name ‘Lissie’ staggered me. I grabbed my glass once again and downed what remained, feeling my brain spin out of control as it coursed through my throat.

“Nobody calls me that anymore.”

“Apologies if I’ve touched a nerve.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s nothing you did, and nothing you could’ve known you shouldn’t do. I’ve had a hard time here in Vegas... surely you know a little about that, right?”

“I know you beat that pig last week and we dance this week.”

“That ‘pig’ is the reason I’m not in jail right now”

I reflect back on the last few months since I arrived in BPW. Victimizing those two men for my own gain, my own pleasure. I almost don't recognize who I became. I don't know what possessed me to do it to begin with.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. I’m not a good person anymore.”

“Is there such thing?”

“There used to be... before all ‘this’. I’d like to think there could still be some hope for us. Do you disagree?”

Howard reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of smokes. He places one in his lips and offers the pack to me, but I reject it with a slight shake of my head. His eyes seem to blank, and something seems to be on his mind.

“Didn’t expect to hear that coming from a dame in face-paint who carries a hunting knife.”

“I’m just trying to survive.”

“That makes one of us.”

I smirked, wondering how this man could possibly feel as broken and forgotten as I do. As I once did. I reached over towards the bottle and refilled the glass.

“I wear the paint so no one can see me cry. What mask are you wearing?”

“I don’t wear a mask...”

He trails off, not really making eye contact.

“Just a weight.”

“You’re carrying so much…”

I tell him, feigning confidence, as I flip a leg around his back. I’m now seated behind him, gently placing my hands on his broad shoulders, sliding my fingers under the collar of his shirt. I feel his skin, and his head contorts, moving with the movement of my fingers. My skirt runs as I readjust, and sheathed blade harnessed under my stocking is emerges from under the leather. I think he notices it’s caught my eye.

Of course he does.

His eyes close. His lips draw towards a smile.

“Can you feel my pulse there?”

My mind wanders, as a flood of memories come rushing back over the shore.




I remember hearing the door break open.

The footsteps drawing closer.

I remember the mixture of spit and tears and sweat and vomit as I’m rolled over to my side.

I remember their hands squeezing my wrists.

Pushing against the arteries in my throat.

I feel my ribs crushing under the compressions.

I remember their panicked voices.



My hand trembles, closing towards the blade.

“Promise me you’ll make it hurt.”

I move my hands to his face and turn it towards me. Taking a grip of his hair, I jerk suddenly, bending his neck backwards. I can still feel the cold steel of the blade in my hand as I watch him bite his lip.

This is what he wants.

This isn’t what I want.

I pulled him towards my face and plant my lips on his, feeling our mouths contort and move in-sync. He twists towards me, collapsing forward onto my body, wrapping my legs around his sternum. We flip, and now I’m above… and when we release, he allows my head to fall into his shoulder. He can’t see my eyes anymore, and I almost don’t want him to.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

His breathing is ragged as he pushes himself up to finally make eye contact with me.

“Every day.”

“We don’t have to do this, Howard…”

I think I confused him for a moment. I return to my seated position and scoot nearer, feeling his warmth.

“This match. Luxor. BPW. All of this.”

“No, we don’t.”

“What’s the alternative? Is there even one?”

“Of course there is…”

He sighs and his eyes draw towards me, almost pleading. It’s as if it’s something he never knew he could admit out loud.

“Just not one for me.”

After a quiet moment of silence that seemed to last an eternity, I pull myself off the bed and walks towards the door, my feet feeling like anchors in quicksand.

“I’m sorry Howard. I’ve gotta go.”

Before I make it to the door, I reach under my skirt and pull the blade out of the sheath. I run my finger along the steel and place it on the table.

“Maybe you need this more than I do.”

With tears flooding down, our eyes meet again. I know I have to walk away. I don’t want to.

“Will you come with me?”

“We only met twenty minutes ago, darling.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I feel like I’ve known you my entire life.”

“Then stay.”





“Howard…”

I trailed off, reaching down to squeeze his hand. I looked into his eyes and gently kissed his cheek, before whispering into his ear.

“I have to go home.”