Snake-Skin Lady (Crazy Crazy Love)

Dancing wasn't her thing, really, she told the whiskey-breathed man leaning on the bar beside her. Just people watching. She recognized the slant of his head and the gleam and direction of his eyes downward, and gave him a little smirk, turning her body so he could see everything and nothing at the same time. She was nothing, just the bitch in the stiletto heels, slinky headband tied about brassy locks.

The cigarette in her hand, held cocked just so, like a gun.

No, she wasn't really here on any sort of business. Waiting for someone? Maybe. The disco drifted across her eardrums like thick oil over a sunset sea. Boats bobbing in the harbor. Whiskey-breath finally gave up, stumbling in the direction of the little boy's room, and she relaxed her hand a bit. Whose eyes were those now on her? She was a lioness on the prowl, age-old instincts awake and moving.

She felt the subtle change in his sense from passive bystander to awakened hunter as she shifted her stance. Her hip, like this. Her leg, like that. The cigarette, her fingers, the tip of her tongue flicking out, testing the air. Making sure he was watching, then with a quick flick, spinning the slim, brittle roll once and letting it fall in a shower of sparking ash.

And then before he had lifted one hand, even thought about putting one foot in front of the next, she was gone, blended into the crowd like smooth malt scotch, like Jamaican drums in the steamy dark, like techno mixed with wine or breakbeats lapping against the curves of a lady. She was the mysterious seductress in the corner, the siren of men's swan songs, there and gone like a changeling.

Narrowed eyes watching under made-up lids, she slid across the alcohol-smooth floor, invisible against the strobe lighted hypnotic sway, mascara-black and cold-blood blue slipping through the back door, a smoky sigh. There was only a soft scraping, the clink of a bottle cap against the asphalt. Hey honey, he said. But she was quicker, and as he fell with the single shot in his forehead, he could, for all she knew, be reflecting on how he'd seen her hold that cigarette, how he should have realized.

It's not enough just to know how to hold it, she told the body on the sidewalk, giving it hardly a glance as she tucked the pistol back into her sleeve. It's a crazy world out there for a lady. Sometimes you've gotta use it. Metal burning cold against her heat, the moon hanging in the sky from a rhinestone thread. She felt the world slipping away like a holster. She was just the naked truth tonight. She was silky smooth skin under the rough dress, cool and supple, a rustle of silk, the last strain of a requiem. She was the gun.