Maxim Jakubowski - Paris Noir

Despite its upmarket reputation, Les Chandelles was much as she expected. Tasteful in a vulgar but chic way; too many muted lights, drapes and parquet flooring, dark corners or coins calins as they were coyly described on the club’s website, semi-opulent staircases leading to private rooms and a strange overall smell of sex, cheap perfume and a touch of discreet disinfectant not unlike those American sex-shop cabins or the tawdry rooms set aside for private lap dances in some of the joints she had once navigated through.

She spent some time at the bar with her escort and enjoyed further champagne, and allowed him to show her some of the nooks and crannies of the swing club, which he appeared to be a regular at. Now she knew the lie of the land. She offered to dance with him.

‘Not my scene,’ he churlishly protested.

‘It warms me up,’ she pointed out. He nodded in appreciation.

‘Just go ahead,’ he said. ‘Maybe we can meet up later, if you want?’

‘Yes,’ Cornelia said.

From the dance floor, she would have a perfect vantage point to observe new arrivals as they passed on their way to more intimate areas of the club. She moved languorously to a Leonard Cohen tune and marked her area between a few embracing couples. She’d always enjoyed dancing, it had made the stripping bearable. Cornelia closed her eyes, carried along by the soft music. Occasionally, a hand would gently tap her on the shoulder, an invitation to join a man, a woman or more often a couple in a more private location, but each time she turned the offer down with an amiable smile. No one insisted, obeying the club’s basic protocols.

Amongst the French songs she had not previously known, Cornelia had already delicately shimmied to recognisable tunes by Luna, Strays Don’t Sleep and Nick Cave when she noticed the new couple settling down at the bar.

The girl couldn’t have been older than twenty-five with a jungle of thick dark curls falling to her shoulders and a gawky, slightly unfeminine walk. Her back was bare, pale skin on full display emerging from a thin knitted top, and she wore a white skirt that fell all the way to her ankles, through which one could spy her long legs and a round arse just that little bit bigger than she would no doubt have wished to have, an imperfection that actually made her quite stunning. With deep brown eyes and a gypsy-like, wild demeanour, she reminded Cornelia of a child still to fully mature. She wore dark black shoes with heels, which she visibly didn’t need, as she was almost as tall as Cornelia. A sad sensuality poured out from every inch of her as she followed her companion’s instructions and settled on a high stool at the bar. The man ordered without asking the young girl what she wanted. Her eyes darted across the room, looking at the other patrons of the club, Judging them, weighing them. It was evidently her first time here.

Cornelia adjusted her gaze,

The man squiring the exotic young woman was him, her target. The bad man. Her information had proved correct. As she watched the couple, Cornelia blanked out the music.

Less than an hour later, she had made acquaintance with them and suggested to her new friends they could move on to a more private space. Throughout their conversation, the Italian girl had been mostly silent, leaving her older companion to ask all the questions and flirt quite openly and suggestively with the splendid American blonde seemingly in search of local thrills. At first, the man appeared hesitant, as if the visit to Les Chandelles had been planned differently.

‘I’ve never been with a woman before,’ the Italian girl complained to the man.

‘Would you rather I looked for a negro to fuck you here and now with an audience watching?’ he said to her.

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘So, we all agree,’ he concluded, getting up and gallantly taking Cornelia’s hand. ‘Anyway, you can do most of the watching as I intend to enjoy the company of our new American friend to its fullest extent. You can watch and learn; I do find you somewhat passive and unimaginative, my dear young Italian gypsy. See how a real woman fucks.’

Giuly lowered her eyes and stood up to follow them.

Once they had located an empty room on the next floor, Cornelia briefly excused herself and insisted she had to walk back to the cloakroom to get something from the handbag she had left there as well as picking up some clean towels, which their forthcoming activities would no doubt require.

‘Ah, Americans, always keen on hygiene,’ the bad man said and broadly smiled. ‘We’ll be waiting for you,’ he added, indicating to his young companion to start undressing.

‘I’ll leave my clothes too,’ Cornelia said, turning round. ‘Don’t want to get them crumpled, do we?’

‘Perfect,’ the man said, turning his attention to Giuly’s slight, pale, uncovered breasts and sharply twisting her nipples while she was still in the process of slipping out of her long white skirt. There were red marks on her butt cheeks.

When Cornelia returned a few minutes later, the bad man was stripped from the waist down and the Italian girl was sucking him off while his fingers held her hair tight and her head forcibly and pressed against his groin, even though his thrusts were making her choke. He turned his own head towards Cornelia, a blonde apparition, now naked and holding a bunch of towels under her left arm.

’Beautiful,’ he said, and released his pressure on Giuly’s head. ‘Truly regal,’ he observed, his eyes running up and down Cornelia’s body. ‘I like very much,’ he added. His attention now centred on her groin. ‘A tattoo? There? Pretty! What is it?’ the Cornelia approached the couple. The man withdrew his cock from the Italian girl’s mouth, allowing her to breathe better, and put a proprietary hand on Cornelia’s left breast and then squinted, taking a closer look at her depilated pubic area and the small tattoo she sported there.

‘A gun? Interesting,’ he said.

’Sig Sauer,’ Cornelia said.

There was a brief look of concern on his face, but then he relaxed briefly and nodded towards the American woman, indicating she should replace Giuly and service his still jutting cock. Cornelia quietly asked Giuly to move away from the man so that she might take over her position. The Italian girl stumbled backwards to the bed. Cornelia kneeled. As her mouth approached his groin, she pulled out the gun she had kept hidden under the white towels, placed it upwards against his chin and pressed the trigger.

The silencer muffled most of the sound and Giuly’s cry of surprise proved louder than the actual shot which blew the lid of his head off, moving through his mouth and through to his brain in a portion of a second. He fell to the ground, Cornelia cushioning his collapse with her outstretched arm.

‘Jesus,’ Giuly said.

And looked questioningly at Cornelia who now stood with her legs firmly apart, the weapon still in her hand, a naked angel of death.

‘He was a bad man.’ Cornelia said.

‘I know,’ the Italian girl said. ‘But…’

‘It was just a job, nothing personal,’ Cornelia said.

‘So…’

‘Shhhh…’ said Cornelia. ‘Get your clothes.’

The young Italian girl stood there, as if nailed to the floor, every inch of her body revealed. Cornelia couldn’t avoid examining her.

‘You’re very pretty,’ she said.

‘You too,’ the other replied, red-faced.

Cornelia folded the gun back inside the towels. ‘Normally, I would have killed you too,’ she said. ‘As a rule, I must leave no witnesses. But I’m not big on killing women. Just dress, go and forget him. I don’t know how well you knew him – I suspect it wasn’t long. Find a younger man. Live. Be happy. And…’