Drip… drip… drip…

Gina Melborn’s mind slowly surfaced from the dark, cold depths of sub-consciousness, drawn by the steady rhythm of an unknown dripping sound that penetrated the murky void. She had the odd sensation of floating and feeling disconnected from her own body as she opened the heavy shutters over her eyes, adjusting to lamp light from somewhere nearby. Her vision was blurred and it took some effort to focus.

Drip… drip… drip…

Gina’s eyes began to clear. She started to register the cream-colored, plush carpet that filled her vision at an odd angle—the mouth of a glass protruding from it. A red colored liquid continued to drip into it, gently rippling the surface of the once clear beverage within.

Is that… blood? It hurt her head to think, to move.

Her senses slowly returned, betraying her numb and disoriented state.

She could smell vodka coming from the glass and the putrid odor of vomit, dried sweat and sex…

My God! Fragmented memories shot to the surface; flashes of dark and disturbing images she was not yet willing to associate as her own.

Gina tried to move her head as a sharp pain ripped through her neck and down her spine from lying over the edge of the bed on her stomach for an eternity.

Drip… drip…

Her lower lip stung as she stopped the flow of the warm, salty fluid, tracing the cut with her tongue around the swelling that began to throb.

Something awful had happened. There had been drugs and alcohol. But there had been much more. She tried to assemble the pieces of memory but the picture was still too fuzzy.

Blackout?

She felt more pain as she tried to move. An intense invisible dagger struck between her legs, making recovering her memory both absolutely necessary and equally terrifying. Her vagina was on fire.

She tried to move her arms but felt no sensation in them. She continued the attempt as pins and needles revealed their location behind her back. Circulation started to return. Gina wiggled her fingers, somewhere around her lower back.

What the fuck?

Her legs were dead weight. As sensation returned, they felt like the battlefield of a thousand charley-horses, indicative of some sort of bruising, if not worse.

What did they do to me last night?

And there it was: They.

She could hear the sound of water breaking on a shore nearby. A breeze blew in through an open window, causing goose bumps all along her back side.

I’m naked!

Gina’s anger made her react. She jerked her arms painfully to no avail.

What the hell?

Her wrists began to burn as she met cold resistance.

Gina turned her head to discover her sideways position on a bed not her own. The panic started to revive her lethargic limbs as she foolishly tried to move too fast; her sore muscles screamed as they tensed up. The pain in her loins burned intensely as she felt the trickle of something wet and warm flowing down her upper thigh.

I’m bleeding!

With nothing but the obvious, but no memory of it, Gina began to understand:

I’ve been drugged… no… it’s worse than that.

For a moment, she simply collapsed under the weight of the unspoken implication, feeling defeated mentally, physically, spiritually. Gina tried to recover but the tears fell like a breach in a levee as she desperately tried to free her hands from behind her back and heard the chain of the cuffs. Her frustration overwhelmed her as she started to sob, finally allowing the thought to finish:

I was… raped.

She turned her head away from the bed, keeping her eyes tightly closed while trying to regain some control of herself. Understanding she was bound made her heart race. She struggled to breathe. Gina thought about calling out for help but was torn between being discovered in such a humiliating position and not knowing if ‘They’ were still here… wherever ‘here’ was.

I’m at the beach house.

It was coming back.

There was a party, a private party.

She was approached last night at the club.

That man… Marvin… no, Malcolm… he offered me a lot of money to dance at his…

Her eyes went wide as she recalled it all. The night had been strange to say the least. But there was more. There was so much more.

There was… violence.

For the first time, Gina noticed the blood splattered on the walls.

There was a lot of blood.

~~~

Howard Bledsoe, owner of Herbie’s House of Ladies located in Geneva, Ohio, was considered by some to be a visionary. After winning the Mega Millions jackpot in the Ohio State Lottery ten years ago, Howard “Herbie” Bledsoe gave up an unsuccessful playwriting career and ventured out into the realm of erotica, using his knowledge of the stage to create sensual wonderlands of sight, sound, and skin. Howard took pride in selecting only the finest performers for his weekend shows, often turning down the more ‘well-endowed’ who could not perform up to his high standards.

Howard enjoyed working with his girls to create over-the-top shows, sparing no expense, and producing elaborate sets and using costly special effects to enhance his dancers’ performances. He provided his higher class patrons (those who could afford his ridiculously high weekend cover charges) the ultimate fantasy experience.

Gina owned the coveted feature spot on Friday nights. That was where the real money was. In three short months, she had soared easily through the ranks of veteran dancers, becoming an overnight goddess in the eyes of the patrons who frequented Herbies.

At twenty-four years of age, Gina was in her physical prime; perky C-cup naturals, well housed within a petite frame to rival any D-cup; slender legs that could coil around a pole like a python with a well-rounded ass which defied the effects of gravity. Of course, her greatest assets were her long, fiery hair, intense green eyes, and luscious lips—all accentuated by her ghost-white complexion. But it was her ability to perform that won Howard Bledsoe over. He often said that Gina was by far one of the most gifted dancers he’d ever interviewed.

Each Friday evening, when Herbies (Herpes, as the locals called it, to the extreme displeasure of the owner) was at maximum capacity, Gina was announced over the roar of an intoxicated crowd of lawyers, college students from rich families, politicians in disguise, stockbrokers—the rich, the famous, and the infamous. Her shows always sold out.

Gina’s stage name was unusual. Coinciding with the unique nature of her performances, she had given herself the double stage names, Fire and Ice. Her erotic routine involved switching from one persona to another.

Earlier that evening, from her small, private dressing room, Gina had prepared for her latest performance. She sat before a well-lit vanity mirror, placing the finishing touches of black body paint on her bare breasts. A temporary tattooed dragon spanned the length of her body, appearing to materialize from its lair around her well-shaved lower region, ravishing the lands of flesh in between until the dragon’s monstrous head came to rest beneath her breasts with its claws reaching out to grab hold of each one.

The artwork was impressive; the attention to detail, however wasted on such a perverse crowd, gave Gina extreme satisfaction.

“I’d tap that,” she kidded with her reflection.

The artistic effort was a reminder of why she was stripping in the first place, why she put up with being reduced to an attractively dressed-up piece of meat every Friday night, and why she was bearing all to strangers.

“Gina Melborn, you are going be your own self-made woman someday,” she told her dubious reflection. Behind those green eyes, buried in dark eyeliner, was an optimistic young woman with a creative knack for pretending her way in and out of any situation. She had created the personas of ‘Fire and Ice’, two sirens that preyed upon the souls of men through seduction. That’s who Gina was when she was on the stage.

When the shows were over, Gina was just an ambitious and hope-filled girl, equally terrified and excited about an uncertain future that kept her up at night wondering where her life was headed. She had no living relatives left who wanted anything to do with her, no friends—just acquaintances. She owned nothing of any tangible value, just the untapped gold mine of her creativity pushing her to become somebody—somebody who could lie down at the end of the day, close her eyes, and feed off big dreams.

The small nest egg that she was building through her stripping gig was her ticket out, and a way to afford all the things she would need to make the life she wanted, recreating Gina Melborn from the mold of those persistent dreams.

Gina was brought back to reality by the sound of the crowd becoming impatient. They wanted their star performer and were growing restless, suffering the two-legged scraps of ‘had been’ leftovers that were only suitable when the prime rib was unavailable.

“Fucking dogs, every last one of you.” She rolled her eyes.

She could hear them chanting, “Fire and Ice! Fire and Ice!”

Gina caught the mischievous grin in her reflection and looked away shamefully.

Yeah, Fire and Ice. Time for those bitches again. Someday I’ll walk out of this shit-hole and never look back.

Although unwilling to admit it, Gina enjoyed the power she commanded over men when she performed. She wasn’t a prostitute like so many of her co-workers who moonlighted for the extra money. Fire and Ice was simply a temporary creation, a mask with a flesh-colored dragon costume while the real monsters sat in the smoke-filled shadows every Friday night like permanent fixtures.

“Not me,” she told the phony looking back at her. “I’ll never let you define who I am… never.”

There was a knock on her door. That would be Tony, the bouncer. Perhaps the only guy that wouldn’t be eye-fucking her tonight.

“Come in.” Gina wrapped herself in a towel.

All six feet of Tony Marcuchi filled the doorway; his muscular upper body stretching his black t-shirt. He greeted Gina with an honest smile, his dark brown eyes always careful to find hers, and nothing else. “Hey, gorgeous,” he greeted in his deep voice, “you’re up in twenty. Want me to stall them for you? I’ll tell the night manager you haven’t started painting yet. That will rouse some feathers in a hurry.”

Tony was the closest thing she had to a friend. In her recreated universe-of-self, Tony was much more than a friend.

Gina responded playfully, “Well… maybe I should give it an hour to let the paint dry.”

Tony laughed. “Forget it. I tell the boss that… then it’s my ass. Next thing you know, I’m up on stage dancing!” He began to get animated, waving his arms for emphasis. “Then, folks start running out crying, ‘We wanted Fire and Ice, not Abs and Guns’!” Tony laughed, flexing his massive biceps to illustrate the joke.

Gina smiled. “I’d pay to see that.”

There, I said it. Can’t take it back.

This made Tony blush. He quickly changed directions. “What did you paint this time?”

Gina sighed, feeling foolish and frustrated.

God, I hate it when he dismisses me like that! The only man I want is the only man who won’t want me tonight. Life is cruel.

“If you watch the show tonight, you’ll see,” she said teasingly. Tony never watched the girls perform. When they were dancing, he watched the crowd like a hawk. He often referred to the girls as ‘little sisters’.

Tony shifted uncomfortably. “Sold out crowd… again. No surprise there.”

What the fuck does that mean? Did he just reject and insult me at the same time?

Tony felt those fierce eyes strike him. That was his cue to go. “Alright then,” he said, backing out the door. “Good luck tonight.”

No you don’t! Not again. Do something, girl. Don’t let him just walk away.

Tony turned to leave.

“Hey!” Gina stood up and knocked various jars of ointment, make-up and body paint off the counter.

Tony turned back, surprised by the outburst. “What the hell was that?”

She let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s a fucking dragon.”

Tony looked confused. “And…?”

Gina was getting upset. “Took me an hour, Tony… not that you give a shit! Least you could do is look at it!” She dropped the towel and spread her arms wide, bearing all to him.

Tony’s eyes went wide as he recoiled, acting as though the dragon had flown right off of her chest. He lowered his eyes, using his hand as a visor. “Whoa… little sis! Save it for the show.” Tony quickly exited.

‘Save it for the show’? Are you fucking kidding me? Is he that oblivious?

Irrationally, she shouted after him, “Don’t call me that again, Tony! I’m not your fucking little sister!”

Feeling foolish as the tattoo dragon’s hands bounced with her anger, Gina turned away with a frustrated sigh. She hurried up and got dressed.

She looked down at her bare breasts and scolded, “So much for Fire and fucking Ice when I need you!” She then began to brush her hair while mumbling, “He better be fucking gay.”

~~~

An enormous, round stage dominated the center of the club. A catwalk ran from the rear of the stage to a flashing neon-green framed doorway where the girls entered. Directly above the stage was an elaborate housing system for lighting and special effects that rivaled any concert hall. This was used exclusively for the featured performers. At the center of the stage, a single, crystal pole sparkled beneath a solitary green spotlight, creating the illusion of a pole made of solid ice. The rest of the stage was hidden in shadow as two prop masters hurried to finish Gina’s set. She would be performing three shows starting at ten o’clock, each a half an hour apart. Most would stay to watch all three shows.

All along the stage and catwalk, every chair at every table was occupied. The buzz of intoxicated chatter and excitement filled the smoky room, drowning out a New Age instrumental lingering in the background. Bartenders were busy refilling glasses of imported beer and being swamped by orders for top-shelf spirits. Topless waitresses visited tables and flirted with the guests. Private and not-so-private lap dances were purchased and performed. Under-the-table propositions were made for dates after the show.

And from the private shadows, at the outer edges of erotic play where ‘touched’ and ‘teased’ became synonymous, lurked the eyes which fed upon flesh alone; faces hidden, intentions dark and elusive, fantasies unspoken or forbidden—all replayed again and again within depraved minds desiring a fresh source of stimulation.

They have all come to be with her and fantasize on the false promises her dance will sell. For she is Fire, she is Ice.

All for me, Gina thought from backstage, moments before her entrance.

“Ladies and gentleman,” a pre-recorded voice boomed, bringing all to attention. “Herbie’s House of Ladies is proud to present the insatiable, intoxicatingly beautiful… Fire… and… Ice!”

The crowd erupted as neon green emblems of miniature dancing women flashed across the walls in sync with a steroid-injected techno dance beat. All along the catwalk, small green lights raced up and down the runway as a fiery woman dressed in dragon-scaled lingerie, stormed out on to the catwalk. Three rotating green spotlights lit up the room around her as she headed for the stage.

The crowd was on their feet.

Gina could feel their adoration, and she loved it.

They’re all fucking mine!

She reached the center of the stage and swung herself around the ice pole, stopping to caress it with her breasts. She pretended to lick the pole seductively and winked toward the crowd.

On cue, the music stopped and the spotlight went out.

The crowd went crazy with applause.

I am a fucking goddess!

A blue spotlight lit up the stage revealing two large glass sculptures of men, their naked features exaggerated, chests pushed out, penis’s standing up like flagpoles. They were standing with their muscular arms on their hips, their faces proudly staring out toward the crowd. In the pulsating blue light, they resembled ice sculptures. Glitter snowflakes fell from above to complete the image of ice crystals, snow, and cold.

The crowd was awed into silence.

The one known as, Ice, crouched between the two figures with her back against the pole, legs spread wide. She looked from one to the other, placing her hands over her mouth to appear overwhelmed by the large crystal erections pointed toward her. She touched the warm place between her legs, stretched the dragon top down, exposing one magnificent breast, tracing the hard nipple with one long nail.

The pulsating light and sound quickened like an excited heartbeat.

Caught up in the moment, the exchange of energy between crowd and performer like a metaphoric exchanging of bodily fluids, Gina let go of her inhibitions, spreading wide the legs of erotic possibility, receiving the crowd like a primal thrust, resulting in a visual orgasm let loose upon the stage.

She got on her knees between the figures and reached out with both hands, grabbing each crystal cock, her now completely bare chest heaving forward as Ice began to breathe harder and harder, stroking the glass poles, nipples reaching out and begging to be kissed. The blue light flashed rapidly.

When it looked as if neither she nor the crowed could stand it any longer, the lights went out again.

The crowd roared in approval, chanting, “More… more… more!”

A volcanic eruption exploded through the sound system. A bright red light hit the stage as the one known as, Fire, stood up, raced back to the stripper pole and spun wildly around it several times, her long red hair soaring fiercely. The crazed techno beat resumed as her erotic dance ignited all across the stage. Flames shot out of the stage in front of the ice statues, making them appear as if they exploded while both statues were hidden in shadows. Fire then returned to center stage and ripped the remains of the dragon lingerie from her body, revealing all, the tattooed dragon running down her pale flesh as she completed her insane dance. At the finale, two flames shot down from the ceiling as smoke rose from beneath the stage, completely concealing Fire as she quickly departed down the catwalk.

The crowd went wild, shouting for an encore.

After a few moments, Fire and Ice returned to the stage for one last dance around the pole. She then faced the crowd and bowed (something Herbie insisted that they do at the end of their performances).

When she got up, Gina fed upon the crowd, losing herself in the wave of lustful adoration.

Damn, I’m good!

She spotted Tony at the back of the lounge, feeling truly naked for the first time.

He watched me this time. Tony never does that.

She smiled at him, and then stopped short, noticing the look of disgust upon his face.

When he noticed her eyes on him, Tony quickly turned away.

Tony, no, it’s not what you think! Don’t look at me like that.

The crowd continued to cheer obnoxiously.

This isn’t me, Tony. It’s just a fucking act!

She lost Tony in the crowd.

The shame-filled look he’d shot her, struck her like a backhand to the face. She became conscious of her nakedness, of her lewdness, making her feel cheap.

Gina felt wetness below, beneath the layer of sweat that beaded off of her body.

My God, I actually… what the hell’s wrong with me?

Gina was reduced from goddess to pathetic whore-clown in seconds.

She desperately needed a shower.

~~~