Maria Sanchez watched the new customer walk into the club. He paid the cashier at the entrance and then held up his invitation to the bouncer. The muscular bouncer who was guarding the door nodded and stepped aside allowing the man to walk past him into the dimly-lit club.
Normally, the new man’s strange garb would have made him look very out of place, but this was Halloween and everyone in the club was in strange garb. He was dressed like a soldier of some sort, but there was something slightly different about his uniform. It fit rather loosely and looked almost more like a set of coveralls than an actual uniform.
He sat down at one of Maria’s assigned tables and turned his chair so he could stare at the stage. In a few moments, most of the customers would be staring at the stage watching the strippers, but it was ten o’clock and all the performers were “on break.” At least that is what Hector, the owner of the club, liked to call it. In reality the girls– and guys– were in downstairs rooms entertaining special guests who had the money and influence to do more than just get all worked up by the sexy stripper routines.
“At least I haven’t fallen that far… yet,” she thought to herself as she walked forward to greet her new customer. Maria wasn’t a stripper… and she wasn’t a hooker… she wasn’t even a waitress… she was just a single mom with no marketable skills who, in order to feed her family, was reduced to working as what used to be called a “B-girl.”
Behind her back, Hector would say that the B-girls were “too clumsy to dance and too ugly to fuck.” A B-girl’s purpose was to sit with a customer and keep them happy… so they would keep buying drinks… so they would buy her drinks… so they would slowly spend all of their cash at The Cantina.
In return for that, he paid her minimum wage and let her keep any extra “tips” the men might give her. Of course each time he paid her, he would hint that she could make much better tips downstairs. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could tell him no. With the base now all but closed, jobs were almost non-existent in the area and her daughter was getting to that age where she was starting to notice that the other girls at school didn’t have to wear clothing given them by the local churches and missions.
“Hi soldier,” she said with a forced smile as she reached his table. “Mind if I sit down?”
“It’s airman,” he answered, “but you’re welcome to join me.”
“So,” she began, “are you here to have a Hell of a time?”
The large poster outside the club’s entrance proclaimed, “Have a Hell of a Time at The Cantina’s Hell of a Halloween Party. She Devils – Free Admission. No angels allowed. – Invitation Only – Halloween Night ’til 2:00 am.” It then went on to explain that you could get an invitation to the party by calling or talking with Hector DeSalvo, the owner and manager of The Cantina.
“Not exactly,” he replied. He sounded very sad as he spoke, and when he looked at her it was as if he was looking through her to something in the distance far behind her.
She had seen that look many times before back when the local base was still active. It was the thousand-yard stare that you would sometimes see in combat veterans. Now, that look was rare in town, but you still saw it once in a while.
Maria knew that when such a broken man came into the club, there was nothing she could do. They didn’t want company. They didn’t even really want to watch the shows. They just sat staring at the stage– like they stared at life– and slowly drank themselves into oblivion. It was the only way they could stop seeing whatever it was that was always a thousand yards in the distance.
Maria started to get up, but he put his hand on her arm and said quietly, “No, please stay.”
She settled back into her chair. “What am I supposed to buy you?” he asked.
“A highball,” she answered unsteadily. “Or a glass of champagne, if you are in a party mood,” she added trying to sound a little more cheerful.
“How much time does that buy me?” he asked flatly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered.
“What’s your quota?” he asked firmly. “How many bottles of champagne would I have to buy for you to stay here at the table with me until after midnight?”
Maria tried to give her standard answer of “For however long you want to talk.”
“The truth,” he replied. His voice had a bit more of an edge to it.
She tried three more times before finally giving up and saying, “A drink is supposed to last no more than ten minutes. A bottle, no more than a half-hour. Any more than that, and they dock my pay.”
“So five bottles would guarantee that you are still sitting here with me at midnight,” he said.
“Or until closing, if you want,” she started to reply. But he was no longer facing her. He had turned so that he could catch the attention of one of the waitresses. He seemed to be looking for a particular server. Finally he found her and raised his arm to signal her to come across the room to their table.
Normally waitresses were also assigned tables, but as Hector always said, “Remember, the customer always comes first.” He would always laugh almost maniacally whenever he said that.
The waitress walked up to the table carrying her tray, as always. It was Deanna, the only other woman at the club who refused to go downstairs. She, like Maria, was here out of desperation because she had no place else to go.
When she arrived, the airman pulled a billfold out of one of the pockets on the front of his uniform and started peeling hundreds onto the table.
“This is for five bottles of your supposed champagne,” he said as he set one stack on the waitresses tray. “Tell the bartender to keep them on ice, but keep them behind the bar for now.”
He then put two more hundreds on the tray. “And this is for a couple of pre-flight specials.”
When she looked confused, he laughed slightly and said, “Tell the bartender it’s called a pre-flight special because it is three to one 7up and Coca Cola. It looks like a mixed drink, but you are still clear to fly.”
He then took another hundred and folded it lengthwise. This one he put in the cleavage of Deanna’s almost skin-tight uniform. “This is your tip for making sure that our pre-flights are kept full until midnight.”
He added a second bill and said, “This is to insure that there is nothing in those pre-flights but 7up and Coca Cola.”
A third bill followed the second. His voice became very serious as he added, “And this is incentive for you to take a cigarette break at exactly midnight.” He sounded like an officer speaking to a soldier as he added, “Nothing you ever do in your life will be more important than making sure that as midnight strikes, you are out behind the small wall that supports the sign where you normally go to smoke.”
The waitress looked back at him like he was insane, but muttered, “OK. Sure.”
A lot of weirdos came and went at The Cantina. But most of them didn’t put $300 down between her tits. Deanna knew that things would probably be really wild at midnight. She also knew she wouldn’t be missed if she slipped outside through the back door for a few minutes. Not that she believed this nut, but maybe he would fold some more Benjamins if he saw she did what he told her to do.
A few minutes later she returned with the drinks. Maria tasted hers. “This tastes a lot better than soda water and instant tea,” she said quietly.
“And you don’t have to tin roof the chaser,” the airman responded just as quietly.
Tin roofing was a trick that the B-girls used when they had no choice but to actually drink a shot of hard liquor. You downed the shot as if you were throwing it down your throat, but in actuality, you were holding it in your tongue pressed up against the roof of your mouth. Then you took a sip of your fake drink and backwashed the alcohol back into the glass. Sometimes it became necessary to spill your fake drink to get rid of it, but you could always blame that shot going straight to your head for your clumsiness.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly.
“Talk about what?” he answered.
“Whatever it is that you see when you stare,” Maria replied.
“I see a burning building with dozens of school children running into the night,” he answered flatly. “Half of them are on fire. Most of them are dying. All of them are screaming.”
Maria gasped.
“You asked,” he said with a shrug. Then he continued in his flat, expressionless voice. “It was Halloween in ’71. It was supposed to be a routine mission. We were carrying extremely accurate bombs that could be guided in by wire with absolute precision even at night. That’s why we flew the mission in spite of the fact that we knew the school was close by.”
At first Maria thought that she had heard the date wrong. She was about to ask him to repeat it but the airman looked at her… no he looked beyond her– a thousand yards beyond her– as he continued, “but they had shoulder-fired missiles.”
He took a sip of the pre-flight special before continuing, “We took a near miss hit right as we launched the bombs. It was far enough away not to disintegrate us, but close enough to take off most of the left wing and all of my second-seater’s head.
“I punched out before it started its flat spin into the ground. What was left of my ordinance man went in with the plane. I hung there under my parachute and watched both bombs go off course and slam into the school.”
He exhaled deeply as if he had been smoking a cigarette. His eyes remained focused a thousand yards behind her. “Luckily, with all of the chaos,” he continued, “I was able to get to an extraction point and get picked up by an evac team.”
He took a sip of his drink. “The other two planes in our group had already guided in their bombs before they were hit.” He stared again at whatever it was that only he could see. “But that meant they were climbing away when the missiles were fired. They were too low and slow to evade, so they each took one up the tailpipe.”
He looked over at Maria. “No survivors,” he said with almost a smile… or was it a grimace. Then he tipped his drink at her and added, “… except me.”
The waitress arrived with two more of the pre-flight specials. The airman carefully sniffed each of them and took a small taste before sliding one of them over to Maria. “It’s been my mission, ever since then,” he said slowly, “to do my damnedest to prevent collateral damage.”
“Is that why you are here?” Maria asked.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you any of that,” he replied. This time it was a real smile on his face.
He started to say something else, but break was evidently over because Hector, who was acting as emcee for the evening, was screaming out, “And now, for your pleasure on this Hell of a Night, The Cantina Club proudly presents Dolores, Sandy, Juney, Vicki, Chloe, and Candi.
Six young women bounced out onto the stage more or less in time with the music. Maria looked at the stage in surprise. None of these women were regular dancers from the club. In fact, she had never seen any of them before.
The six women stayed back from the front edge of the stage and shuffled around in what was supposed to be an erotic dance. As they moved in time to the music, they positioned themselves in front of six large, wooden chairs which had been set up at the back of the stage, facing the crowd. The music ended and they all dropped into their chair.
After all six were seated, Hector yelled out,”We are going to have a little contest this evening that everyone will enjoy.”
He laughed and added with a shrug, “Well, maybe not everyone. The five losers are probably not going to enjoy this at all.” Then going back to his over-emphasized emcee yell, he shouted out, “But all of YOU are going to enjoy it, and that is what is important.”
Music began playing in the background as he said, “Our first round is a dance contest. And, of course, for any contest we have to have judges.”
Six black-robed figures wearing black hoods and glowing skull masks which obscured their faces walked out and took seats at a series of small, round tables which had been set up in front of the stage. A box about six inches on each side was sitting in the middle of each table. The box lit up with a blue glow as each judge sat down. A few moments later, a white skull glowed a brighter blue on the front of each box. On the top of the box was a large red button which was also illuminated in some fashion. A separate, flat box that looked somewhat like a small keyboard sat alongside each of the glowing boxes.
After all of the robed figures were seated, Hector yelled out, “Aren’t those the scariest judges you have ever seen?” The crowd murmured and laughed in response.
He waited for the noise to fade and then gave a short laugh before saying, “Their faces are hidden like executioners because these judges aren’t choosing a winner…” His laugh was long, loud, and evil-sounding before he added, “They are choosing the losers.”
He returned to his normal announcer exuberance as the music began to get rhythmic. “Give a big hand,” he shouted, “for our first dancer… Dolores!”
Dolores, despite her name was a very pale-skinned blond. She was dressed in several layers of very diaphanous pink material which she began taking off in time to the music. Her movements had a soft grace that hinted of a classical– perhaps ballet– training. She also repeatedly spun rapidly while keeping her head facing the audience with only a very fast snap as she twisted her head around to keep ahead of her spin.
As she shed each item of clothing, she would throw the piece outward toward the audience. The silk was so light, however, that none of them went out past the lip of the stage. Dolores would wait for each item to float slowly to the ground before she began to peel the next item from her body. Finally, she was dancing in just a small thong and an extremely tiny bra.
She began to twist. This time she didn’t do the head snap to keep her head facing the stage, but instead twirled for several seconds like a skater on ice. When she came out of the spin, she was facing the crowd, and her tits were bare. There was a ripple of sound as various tables discussed where the bra might have gone.
Dolores then began to bounce in time to the music as she moved to stage left. She started moving back across the stage in a step that flipped back and forth from facing backstage to facing the crowd. As she moved, it was obvious that she was untying the strings for the bottoms. Somehow the tiny pieces remained in place even though the strings were now totally loose. Then, just as she made her last flip and faced the audience, the cloth was gone and she was standing, arms raised, facing the crowd.
Dolores bowed deeply as the crowd clapped, screamed, and whistled. She then walked back to her chair and threw a kiss to the crowd before sitting down.
“I don’t think Dolores is going to lose… this round,” Hector said as he came back on stage. As the music came up once again he said, “Let’s see how Sandy can do.”
Sandy was heavily freckled with very pale reddish brown hair. Her breasts were very prominent, especially in comparison to the thinness of the rest of her body. She shed her blouse shortly after coming onto the stage, revealing long tassels hanging from glittery silver pasties.
She was nowhere near as graceful as Dolores had been, but the crowd seemed not to notice as she repeatedly set her tassels whirling between short breaks to remove other items of clothing.
She was down to nothing but the tassels with almost a minute left in the music and spent the remaining time standing near the front of the stage with her breasts bouncing wildly and the tassels spinning in opposite directions. Just as the music ended, she grabbed the spinning threads with both hands and pulled the pasties clear of her body. Evidently the rules of the contest required her to be naked when the music ended.
Hector strode across the stage as the crowd broke out with polite applause. “I can assure you,” he said solemnly, “that every inch of Sandy is totally natural. There is no silicone in those jugs. That is all her.” The applause increased slightly as Sandy held up her breasts and turned sideways to let the crowd see that they were, in fact, natural.
As she sat down, Hector was telling the crowd, “I know that you will like Juney. Please welcome her to our stage.”
There were a few shouts and catcalls as the young, darkly-skinned, Indian girl slithered to the front of the stage. There is no other way to describe her movements. She was very thin and moved as if her bones themselves were flexible.
Once the music had reached full volume, Juney began writhing in place raising and lowering her hands. She was dressed in one of the traditional costumes of India with many jewels and pieces of metal worked into the fabric. Somehow as she drew her arms back down, she was able to slip out of the bloused sleeves of her top. On the third movement upwards with her hands, she carried her blouse up over her head revealing a wrap-around style cloth brassier.
She faced the front of the stage, bent over backwards and continued bending until her face came up between her legs. She then reached up with her hands from below and grabbed the waistband of her pantaloons. Lowering herself down onto her stomach and rolling backwards, she pulled her legs upward out of the long garment and continued rolling until she had come back to a standing position with her back still bent all the way to the floor.
She then moved in her undulating fashion across the front of the stage, slowly unwinding the many layers of cloth which bound her breasts. Once they were revealed, they were rather small and conical, but the areola were very dark and the nipples themselves were at least three-quarters of an inch long.
She stood and swayed to the music for a few moments while she massaged her breasts. Amazingly, the nipples grew as they hardened under her touch until they were now well over an inch long.