Page 20 of Fallen Angel

“Tell me about yourself. What do you do?”

“I’m a burlesque dancer.” It’s taken Mallory a while to be able to say that. In the beginning she felt like a poser, and after three years of law school and half a year working at a Park Avenue law firm, saying she was an aspiring lawyer was almost as deeply ingrained as saying her own name.

“I love burlesque,” Jocelyn said. “Where do you perform?”

“The Blue Angel,” Mallory says with a touch of pride.

Mallory thinks of Penelope and the Slit and her invitation to perform there. For some reason, she has a creeping sense of doom. Of a looming threat.

“I have to check it out sometime,” Jocelyn says.

“The Blue Angel is one of a kind.”

“My favorite things always are,” says Jocelyn. “So: Here’s an idea for your tattoo. How about a blue angel? Or is that too literal?”

Mallory considers it and decides it’s too personal. The party feels like an escape, a fantasy she doesn’t want to pierce with any reality.

Seeing her hesitation, Jocelyn sits back down near her paint and starts sketching something on paper. “How about an angel burlesque dancer or … a sexy Varga girl pinup?”

Mallory is familiar with the Varga style: beautiful, curvy women in vibrant color—retro and ultramodern at the same time. Jocelyn takes a minute with her pencil and paper, then shows both option to Mallory. “What do you think?”

The woman in the sketch is posed like she’s just stepped off a 1940s Broadway stage. A tiny top hat, tipped rakishly to one side, has a feather plume reminiscent of the Ziegfeld Follies. Her hair is a cascade of vintage waves, and she perches on the Empire State Building as though it were her chaise lounge. A feather boa is draped in one hand; in the other she dangles a martini glass.

“The palette will be ruby reds, midnight blacks, and champagne golds, with accents of neon pink,” Jocelyn says.

Before she can respond, someone behind her says: “Make it sexier.”

Mallory turns around to see Violet walking in and closing the door behind her. She thinks about how she touched her earlier at the theater and wishes she hadn’t liked it so much.

“Excuse the interruption,” Violet says. “As you can see I don’t need any help in the tattoo department.”

“Well, please join us. Maybe you’ll get inspired and change your mind.”

Violet takes a seat on an Edwardian couch while Jocelyn turns her attention back to Mallory. “Did you decide on a direction? Good girl or bad girl?”

“Bad girl,” Violet repeats. Jocelyn turns to Mallory for confirmation, and she nods. Sure—why not? Wasn’t that what attracted her to burlesque in the first place—the chance to express the parts of herself that had been tempered, suppressed, discouraged, and restrained her entire life? After all, what is it that makes a bad girl bad? Not shrinking herself to make the rest of the world comfortable. Truly, the greatest sin of all.

“Great. So we’ll do a fallen-angel Varga girl,” Jocelyn says, squeezing tubes of paint to fill her palette—half a dozen shades of blue, black, white, and purple.

For placement, they agree on her bicep. Mallory can’t help but smile when Jocelyn takes the fine-tipped brush to her arm. The paint is cool for the first second it touches her skin, and then she doesn’t feel anything at all.

Violet moves closer, ostensibly to watch Jocelyn’s work. But Mallory feels her eyes scanning her body, from her legs, to her breasts, and back down again. The intensity of the two women’s attention is overwhelming: Jocelyn using skin as a canvas, and Violet viewing her like an object. And she has a strange flash fantasy: Violet walks over to her and slips her hand under her dress, her fingers moving under the elastic of her underwear and brushing over her clit before dipping inside her. She shudders.

“This is interesting,” Violet says. “Can I try?”

“Painting?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure. But not on this design—you’ll wreck it,” Jocelyn says with a wink and a smile.

“Let me do something on the other arm. Or your leg,” Violet said.

“On me?” says Mallory.

“You’re the one in the chair,” says Violet.

She shakes her head, unnerved by her deeply unwelcome erotic thoughts. She doesn’t want Violet to touch her. “I’ve had enough artwork for one night.”