You may be pleased, appalled or give a tut of ‘well, durrhh’ to learn that the protagonist in my potential fluffy little thriller is a visually impaired pole dancer. Of course being MY creation she is actually doing an MA in dance practice and desperately behind on her thesis on masked dance in the Sub Saharan region (that’s for you Tam and Miranda! I have a funny feeling she might even bump into you a little down the line..) She dances because she needs the money and also enjoys it but being VI can’t get too close to the audience without falling off the stage (hence saving her a tiny smidgen of dignity)

She is smart, tall and has no trouble with her ‘social’ life shall we say for my more delicate readers (so obviously not based on her creator) and things are hotting up for her at the moment as the club’s owner just got murdered and all the addresses for the dancers have been stolen. There is the added problem of a mother whom she presumed dead suddenly popping up again and of course the lean jawed FBI agent…(well its hard not to get clichéd at this daily output…forgive me)

I give you my opening salvo: if you want more or need me to please stop then comment my dears. comment!

The Dying Light

The lights go down and the men hush. She steps forward, left, right and puts her hand out, grasping the pole in resin coated fingers. She waits a beat and then the music hits and the floor lights slash up between her legs, elongating her outline, sparking up the mica dust on her skin and the glitter in her hair. The crowd roar into life; the music thumps and kicks her hips forward. She steps and swings and her legs fly out behind her with her five inch spike heels slicing through the air. In the wings there is a small gasp from a technician called Barry as a man’s toupee is dislodged by the jet stream.

Four minutes later and the last screeching guitar chords crash. The men are on their feet hollering and waving money but the woman disdainfully uncurls herself from the top of the pole, swirls around and down and without even a backward glance stalks off the small overheated stage. It is Barry, resembling a benign Grizzly, who catches her shoulder before she smashes into the loudspeakers.

‘Left a bit’ he hisses handing the woman a long white cane and a torch.

‘Cheers Bazzer’, she says sweat dripping from her hairline and catching the light like jewellery. ‘Good crowd tonight!’

‘It’s the way you do your do my dear Remember the ..

‘Ouch! F**k!’

‘Overhead spot….’

Casilda taps her way out of the throbbing darkness behind the stage and makes her way into the cold, concrete floored corridor and across into the bright mania of the dressing room. Eight other women compete for three large mirrors and pancake makeup, talcum powder and false eyelashes are everywhere. Casilda has glitter in a place no glitter should be and needs to shower so squeezes between the rails of show clothes to the locker room beyond.