Cameras weren't allowed in the Not Quite Whores Gentlemen's Club, but Picture Man was an exception. The Polaroid on the strap around his neck was as much a part of him as the silicone was part of the strippers. A late addition, certainly, but an indispensable identifying factor. The camera flashed and whirred and ejected little squares of plastic.

He snapped a picture of Candy as she slid down the brass pole rising out of the center of the stage. Kerb and Blue huddled around him as it developed (he never shook them), fading from cloudy nothingness into a picture of an older Candy (her real name long forgot) dead on the floor of a greasy motel next to a shattered mirror caked with white powder. Blood dried in a drip below her nose, in a streak across her puffy lips, smirking, at last realizing the big goddamn joke was on her, glad the last thing she saw was the pretty shining patterns on the top of her eye sockets, where her eyes had rolled back into her head in perpetuum.

Next, the camera flashed at Sloan as she thrust her crotch at the eager, lonely eyes of an average 30-something, receding hairline, pooch-bellied man. He needed a shave. So did she.

The picture showed Sloan (real name Susan) middle-aged, fit and well-kempt with a healthy family enjoying a hearty dinner. Her husband smiled at her with genuine affection. The kids ate their peas. A dog lay quietly in the corner.

Kerb looked back and forth between the photo and the stage, where Sloan slid along the floor with an air altogether different from the other girls. In control.

“Whoa,” he said, “looks like she really is paying her way through college.”

Blue thumbed through a stack Picture Man's Polaroids and frowned.

“You got any of these where they're…you know…naked?” she asked.

“That's not really how the camera works.”

She smiled and bobbed up and down in giddy little bounces. “Take my picture!”

“Why?” asked Picture Man.

“Because there's a good chance I'll get naked later, and then you'll have at least one decent shot.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't take your picture.”

Blue grabbed Zag by the arm and pulled him up from a couch of questionable sanitation where he'd been watching the oft-ignored TV above the bar. Smoky and the Bandit flashed in subtitled silence. She instigated a crude embrace.

“How about a picture of the handsome couple?”

Jerking away, Zag slid to back to the wall. Blue scowled, grabbed a passing topless cocktail waitress, kissed her full on the lips, and went to sulk in the colored, agitated light of the main stage.

The cocktail waitress touched her lips gently – reverently, and said to Zag, “You really don't know what you just passed up.”

“You're a bit of a jackass, son,” said Picture Man.

Kerb patted Zag on the shoulder.

“She'll get over it,” he said.

“She already has,” said Zag, pointing as Blue slid a needle into her arm and injected a syringe-full of blue liquid. She shuddered once, and slouched halfway onto the stage. Zag looked away.

On the floor in the corner, Canary tried to remain as inconspicuous as a girl in a strip club could, reading Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (including footnotes), pulling her knees in close, letting her long hair fall like curtains on either side of her down-turned head, spilling across the pages to spite the foul memory of Hitler with its brownness.

But like an Easter egg in an empty room, she was noticed. That guy over there decided to put her in his basket.

He walked over and leered from two dark, self-important eyes, holding up a dollar at chest level like it possessed some power beyond capitalistic value enough to buy a pack of gum. Like it was status. Implying others were beneath him. Four quarters. Ten dimes. A short pedestal, but tall enough for a guy with nothing else.

Still he stared, expectantly. Canary didn't look up. He cleared his throat. Kerb looked over, began to move to her rescue.

A streak across the room. Nobody saw exactly what happened. That guy was suddenly pinned on the ground, Zag kneeling on his chest, teeth bared, tight fists ferociously beating the self-important look off his face. The guy cried out, dropped his dollar. His arms stopped trying to push Zag away, fell limp at his sides. Everyone looked away from the stage to the scene. Zag kept swinging. The only noise was techno.

Kerb pulled Zag away by the shoulders, and later a bouncer dragged the unconscious, broken guy outside to the street, streaking blood across a floor more familiar with other fluids. Eyes returned to tits.

Her book open, pages down beside her, Canary looked at Zag with eyes wide. For the first time, Zag looked back.

I'm not so innocent.

But unaffected.

Jaded.

Genuine.

Picture Man handed Zag a cocktail napkin to wipe the blood off his knuckles.

“Here's a picture I took of that guy earlier tonight,” he said, holding up a snapshot of a bloodied face. “There're too few decent people in the world. You're not one of them, kid, but maybe you're the guy that lets the good ones stay that way.”

The techno stopped. Stage lights dimmed, and gave way to the unnatural glow of house fluorescents. Strippers quickly gathered discarded undergarments and fallen dollars in one big wad of thongs and cash. They filed off the stage to dressing rooms plainer and much less exciting than the patrons would later imagine.

Defomo strode down the runway, hips swaying like a sickly fashion model, casting depressed, disinterested glances at imaginary photographers.

“Mmmmmm,” he said, “everybody who doesn't work for me get out.”

Murmurs about cover charges and horniness rippled through the frustrated crowd, but nobody left.

From the front of his pants Defomo produced a small silver revolver with a mother of pearl grip and intricate etch-work down the barrel. His head lolled around like the oscillating motion of a spinning top just before it falls over. From the back, a heavyset man in a cheap suit looking like he was ready to save you 10% on your car insurance said something about getting his money back. The little revolver kicked, and blood dripped from where his right earlobe had been.

The murmurs stopped. In such an orderly fashion to make a fire marshal proud all the lonely men went out the door carrying their regrets with them. The bouncer gave the heavyset man a Band-Aid. Put some peroxide on that. See you tomorrow.

Zag, Blue, Kerb and Canary took a seat at Defomo's feet without respect. His feet meant as much as his face. Picture Man stood a few paces back, observing.

“Mmmmmm,” said Defomo, “I didn't ask you to stay, Mr. Pictures.”

“You going to make me leave?”

Defomo swept his hand in a dismissive arc.

“Stay if you like. Your home is mine. Mine is yours. The strawberries in the fridge are ripe.”

Blue cuddled up close to Zag, her world spinning in blue-tinted euphoria. Zag, feeling bad for earlier, let her stay close, though his every muscle clenched with unease.

Defomo said, “We have a buyer. You will meet with them.”

“Where?” asked Kerb.

“I can't remember.”

“What's their name?”

“Mmmmmm….”

“Shit,” said Kerb. “We better get going.”

As Zag tried to get Blue to her feet, she leaned close and licked his neck. He barely cringed. Canary cautiously watched them pass, and Kerb carried her book as they followed to the door.

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NEXT: **COMING SOON**