Chapter 1
Uri managed to quell the rising nausea threatening to overwhelm him, as his eyes roved the club searching out his target. The nearly naked women pranced around, hips swaying to the pulsating beat of the extraordinarily loud music, while the lights flashed. These women, with their exposed flesh, were taking advantage of man's innate weakness for it, and it sickened him a little to see the callous satisfaction in their faces. He averted his eyes when one woman approached him.
“Showtime?” She stood next to him, her leg rubbing his, as her hand reached out to stroke his arm.
“No thanks.” He replied, unwilling to look at the woman’s breasts or the only article of clothing she wore, a red g-string. It wasn't that Uri was uncomfortable with nudity, he wasn't. He was uncomfortable with the fleshpot he was in and the business itself, which catered to humanity's weakness for flesh.
“Okay.” She smiled at him but he didn’t notice, as he was busy peeling off the label of the water bottle sitting on the table in front of him.
When she had gone, his eyes roamed the room once more, trying to find his target so he could get out of this place. Every woman was naked, save for a tiny scrap of cloth over her pubic region, leaving nothing to imagination. It was desensitizing. He wasn't sure he even wanted to work with a target that came to a place like this. What could he possibly have to offer The Boss, other than a distorted view of love and women? That's what these kinds of places propagated, that's why fornication is a sin. It objectified the act, taking the emotion out of making love, one of humanity's most treasured behaviors.
Apparently during this part of the evening, known as Showtime, the dancers all came out to give brief dances to individual patrons for tips. Each time he raised his eyes, a woman would come over and offer to dance for him. He declined each one.
When the DJ came over the loudspeaker announcing that Showtime was over, Uri breathed a sigh of relief and began searching for his target once more.
His hyper-alert senses were on overload. The music was too loud, the lights were flashing too brightly, and the oil that these women used on their bodies had a cloying smell. He couldn’t seem to shake the sense of unease that continued to plague him.
He wondered what it was about this assignment that bothered him so much. Was it the fact that he was going to find the target here, in this cesspool of lust? He wasn't exactly naïve. He understood that humans were weak, and they tended to give in to their weaknesses more often than not. He just didn't enjoy picking up his targets in places like this. Why couldn't he pick them up at work or something?
This assignment was different. The Boss hadn’t told him exactly what he was supposed to do. He usually knew not only the target but their purpose as well. This time, Uri only knew where to find him. That was all.
The club, appropriately named Bottom’s Up Cabaret, was filled with inebriated patrons. The dancers didn’t appear to be intoxicated, but a lot of them had the familiar hazy look of some sort of drug in their eyes. Uri couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be doing here. He felt like he was flying blind.
The DJ came back over the speaker system to announce the next act, a dancer named Heaven.
As she came onstage, Uri was a little shocked to feel the familiar burning in his gut, which signified he had spotted his objective. Surprised to realize that he wasn't here for a patron, he leaned back, letting the white-hot burning fill him, and watched the dancer to determine why the Boss had sent him.
She wore more clothes than most of the other dancers, although Uri held no illusions about them actually staying on. Sure enough, she slowly removed her spandex dress before grabbing a towel from the side of the stage. He watched as she stalked out with the towel and seductively wiped the pole with it. As she rubbed it up and down the pole she looked out at the audience, giving the helpless men a sultry pout. Tossing the towel to the side of the stage, she launched herself on the top of the pole and began spinning around it, her body writhing to the music.
In spite of his feelings about the establishment, Uri found himself captivated by the dancer's movements on the pole. Other dancers used the pole in their routines, but this one seemed to have a certain skill that the others lacked. He studied her, as she effortlessly suspended herself with her legs, spinning around, while touching herself in various places. She hadn't removed her bra yet, so she was still wearing more clothing than most of the others.
Her twisting frame cast a spell over Uri, mesmerizing him, and he found he was unable to look away. The familiar white-hot burning in his gut was joined by a foreign feeling, a tingling that started at the base of his groin, and worked its way up through his stomach. He shifted in his chair, suddenly uncomfortable with the sensations coursing through his body as he watched the dancer.
She was tall and curvy, with black hair that fell past her shoulders. Even from across the club, with lights bouncing around the room, he could tell that her eyes shone an impossible shade of green, as if they were jewels. Uri could see that her body was a temple, she wasn’t drunk or stoned, and he felt a little better about his assignment. He hated having to sober people up.
Although, as he watched her remove her bra and toss it backstage, he knew he would have to get her dressed.
He watched with fascination as his target lithely extricated herself from the pole, and stalked over to the edge of the stage where a man was waiting with a fistful of dollar bills. His large body swayed to the music, and alcohol flushed his face. Uri watched as she gyrated for the man on the stage, while he tossed dollar bills onto her body. The woman stood, letting the bills fall to the floor. She then danced around the stage, enticing more men to come up and slip bills into the string that held the impossibly small triangle of cloth over her pubic area.
Uri thought about the tight feeling in his chest. He hadn't noticed it before she'd pranced over to the man on the side of the stage. As the strange man fed her money, Uri's heart sank deeper in his chest, causing his blood to rush around his body. It suggested something personal about this target, but that was ridiculous. Uri didn't get personal. He wasn't capable of it.
Examining her audience, Heaven’s eyes flickered around the room, before landing on Uri. He could see her reaction, although subtle. Her abs tensed, and her mouth opened slightly, before her eyes moved on. Uri wondered about that. Usually the targets didn’t pick up on him that soon. He noticed her eyes continued to flicker back to the other corner of the club, but he couldn’t see who she was looking at and could only assume it was a boyfriend or a regular patron. The sinking feeling in his chest intensified, and the blood pounded in his ears, causing the loud club noises to diminish somewhat.
Uri continued to survey her, as the song ended and she bent to pick up the money off the stage tossed there by men eager to show her favor. Carefully tucking it into the waist-string of her panties, she went off stage, making room for the next dancer as she went to “mingle" with the crowd.
Uri watched her smile and laugh with the patrons as she artfully worked her way through the packed club. She never stayed at one table long before moving on, usually with more money stuffed in her underwear. It appeared that she carefully avoided looking in his direction, and Uri wondered if it was intentional. He also noticed that she didn’t approach the corner where her eyes had been tracking during her dance. He questioned that, too.
Above all else, he was curious about the sensations in his body. He knew the Boss had a reason for everything, and the tingling in his gut, as well as the sinking feeling in his chest had to mean something.
Uri stayed until the club closed, watching Heaven as she continued to work the crowd and dance. Occasionally, she would go into a back room with a customer, and Uri speculated about what exactly she did back there. The men would always emerge flushed with obvious arousal, and a wistful smile on their face.
Determined to gather more clues as to his purpose, Uri cloaked himself in the shadows outside the club and waited for her to leave. The bouncers had been very careful to make sure that everyone was gone, but they were unable to see Uri.
He watched as Heaven exited the club, kissed an enormous black bouncer on the cheek, and started walking down the street.
Slightly alarmed that she was walking home from a strip club in the early hours of the morning, Uri kept himself invisible as he followed her.
She walked fast, keeping her head down. When she passed a homeless man, sleeping next to a boarded up building, he saw her slip a handful of one-dollar bills into his coat pocket and murmur something to him.
Normally, he should have been able to hear what she said, but his senses must have been frayed from being over-stimulated at the club because what he heard sounded like, “Good luck at the races, Sam.”
Soon she turned a corner, and they were in a nice residential area, where Uri followed Heaven a couple of blocks until she went behind a large house to let herself in over the garage.
Having seen her safely home, Uri stayed and watched the building she had entered. It was separated from the main house by a small yard, but obviously belonged to the large, stately home. They were both built from rust-colored stones with wrought-iron accents. This was a nice area of town, and Uri was a bit surprised to find that she lived in a place like this, even if it was over a garage.
Before he had a chance to leave, she re-emerged from the apartment to let out a miniature dog, who waddled out into the yard to do its business. While she was watching the dog, a police car slowly drove by, and she waved to the driver, who smiled back at her as if they were friends. When the dog was finished, they returned inside.
As the door shut gently behind her, he felt the white-hot heat subside, while the tingly feeling remained, as Uri pictured her face. Heather. The name came to him, as her green eyes and long brown hair resonated in his brain. Still not having an inkling of what his purpose with this target was, Uri felt confident that his work for the evening was finished. Tomorrow he would try talking to her.