Fiction: Once Upon a Times Square

Read More: A brief Q&A with Mona Leigh Rose

Back in the mid-90’s, I worked the projector at a strip club called Dirty Bambi’s on 42^nd Street in Times Square. I sat on a stool outside the club’s front door between reels and shoved flyers into the hands of men with coat collars turned up around their ears in the sticky August heat. One night, a guy with a clean shave and starched white shirt wandered down the sidewalk. I figured he was a tourist who made a wrong turn on his way to someplace better. No point wasting my time; I looked past him for my next mark. But he stopped short, frowned at “Cinderella” stitched in loopy letters across the breast of my bikini.

The club owner, Leo, made us girls use fairytale stage names; it was anonymous in a weird kind of way. Sure, we would hitch and spin around poles so close our bodies shone with each other’s sweat, but we never used our real names. That felt too personal. We only knew about each other what was etched on our skin: Tattoos. Hand-shaped bruises. The silky rope of a scar. Skin doesn’t lie. But we girls did.

This starched shirt guy ran a hand over his creased brow, let out a pained sigh, as if my stage name was some kind of personal insult. “Really?” he said.

I wasn’t having it. “You got a problem with Cinderella?”

“No, no, I’m a big fan. It’s just, I can’t picture her . . . you know.” He tipped his head at the neon sign flashing NUDES on the brick wall behind me. “I don’t think Prince Charming would even look for her here.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Cinderella’s no priss who needs saving. She’s a downtown girl.”

“Sorry? What’s a downtown girl?”

I tucked a flyer into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, clocked the fabric as silk. “You know. A girl who gets shit done. Who doesn’t need anyone to do for her except on her own terms.”

He rocked back on his heels like he was actually thinking about what I said. I took a good look at him. No wedding ring, not that that meant anything. About fortyish, a yarmulke clipped to his curly hair, hair you might call dirty blond except I’d bet money nothing about him was dirty.

“Interesting,” he said. “No wishing upon a star?”

“Nope.”

“No bibbity bobbity boo?”

This guy knew his stuff. Maybe it was the humidity or a momentary slip in the cosmos. Whatever the reason, I did the unthinkable: I told him the truth. “That whole helpless princess thing is a con. We downtown girls earn our glass slippers.”

He smiled. Not a wet-lipped leer, but a real smile. “Nice to meet you, Cinderella. I’m Nathan.” He shook my hand like I was his bank manager or something. Looked me in the eye and everything. This guy really was lost. I liked him right off. […]

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