The green room

First set was clean. I drank the tea, fixed the gold on my mouth, and stood in the dressing room under the warm round bulbs in the closed emerald dress, long sleeves, twists pulled half up with the silver in them showing. Deep brown skin, hoops small tonight, the room smelling like powder. Paolo was not in the band. He was forty-four and he had been at a front table, and he had asked after the set, plain, if I ever wanted company that was not a musician. I said between sets, if he could take direction, and if he understood the door would not be fully shut because I like the risk of the hall. He said yes. The band was in the alley smoking. I do not fuck them. I checked the hall, let Paolo in, and left the door ajar on purpose.

I told him the counter, not the chair. I told him my face, not inside me. He repeated it. I turned, braced my hands, and let him lift the emerald. No slip under it, just me, and his groan was gratifying. His cock pushed into my cunt and I told him to fuck me properly, we had twelve minutes, not a ballad. He fucked me over the counter, hard enough to nudge the bulbs' table, his hands on my hips. The door stayed ajar. A glass clinked somewhere down the hall and nobody came in, and the almost of it made my cunt clench. I reached under and rubbed my clit. I came with my forehead near the mirror, quiet in the throat, filthy everywhere else, his cock driving through it.

Then I turned around and pointed at my mouth. Face, I said. On my tongue. He stroked his cock, eyes on mine, and I opened my mouth and held still. He came on my tongue and across my lower lip, hot, a stripe I had asked for. I let him see it. I swallowed some and wiped the rest with a tissue from the makeup tray, gold lipstick a ruin I could fix in a minute. He looked wrecked and grateful. I told him he had been good and that he should go back to his table and not tell the band anything, because there was nothing to tell them. He went. I shut the door, reapplied the mouth, smoothed the dress, and checked that my cunt was not going to leave a mark on the emerald. It was not.

Second set I sang the ballad cleaner than the first. The tea was cold. My mouth knew exactly what it had just done, and the room did not. Paolo watched from the front table like a man keeping a secret he had been given. I did not look at him longer than the song required. After the last number I went home alone to the apartment that smells like makeup and tea, and I slept on my back, pleased, voice already resting for the next night.