Diamonds and Girls

She'd hidden strawberries under her tongue.

I drew back in horror, but it was too late. My lips were puffing, my neck was on fire, my throat was closing. The last thing I remember before my eyes swelled shut and I stopped breathing was Noa's panicked hollering.

"Help!" she shrieked. "Fiona's dying!"

I spent the rest of my birthday in the hospital. I might actually have died, but it turned out that our hero counselors had good sense in addition to soccer skills and sex appeal. Connor knew exactly where to find my EpiPen, and how to use it. I had stabilized by the time I reached the emergency room, though I wasn't allowed to leave until the next morning.

By then, the entire camp no longer thought of me as the birthday girl, but as the pockmarked kid so stupid and greedy that she ate cake she knew she was allergic to. I told no-one about Noa's trick. I would rather have died than admit I kissed her.

The next night, though, I snuck to her bed while she slept and cut off all her beautiful hair. I recall staring down at her peaceful loveliness and considering putting the scissors through her throat, instead. In the end, I decided removing her hair would hurt more.

Noa didn't make it to the warm-up run that morning. I placed myself carefully between Alistair and Connor as they led us in stretching, nervous thrills coursing through my veins.

She appeared midway through the routine and marched straight through the gathered kids, ignoring the shocked gasps with her own brand of majestically indifferent pride. I thought her disappointingly pretty with her hacked off curls. But her eyes were black with rage, and that was rewarding beyond words.

She stopped directly before me, and, without a second glance at Alistair or Connor, slugged me in the jaw.

I was already so high on adrenaline that I felt more shock than pain. With a maniacal laugh, I launched myself at her, kicking and punching and clawing. We rolled around on the grass while the campers yelled encouragements and the counselors just yelled. By the time they dragged us apart, I'd broken her nose, and she'd broken my arm.

We were both kicked out of camp. She's been baiting me with the promise of a second kiss ever since.

*

"Hey, sprite."

"What are you, fucking stalking me?"

She gives my ass a playful slap. "This is the only Starbucks in our building," she points out reasonably. She jostles her iced latte at me, proof that she had been there first.

I glare at her suspiciously. I'm here every morning at the same time, and have never seen her. She blinks and smiles, loitering as I wait for my drink.

"I got your list."

"Excellent. Was there something else, or can you please fuck off?" Iciness is a tone you master quickly in the adult dancing business.

Apparently ignoring bad manners is something mastered quickly in the corporate management business. Noa doesn't blink, just tuts in amusement. "That's some mouth you've got on you, pixie."

I ignore that. She's not my fucking mother. (That's just an expression; my Irish mom is actually where I get my mouth.)

"It was pretty long, your list," Noa goes on.

I scowl sideways. "Surprised I have friends?"

"Pleasantly," she says pleasantly. "How many have you slept with?"

Most of them. "None of your God damn business." So I like to fuck my friends. Sue me. If I were any good at baking, I'd make them cookies instead. Where is my coffee?

Noa snorts. "You are unbelievable, pixie. I hope your party doesn't conflict with any orgies you had scheduled."

"It does, actually. But I just added the whole group to the list." I give her a mild look. "What sort of place did you say the M was?"

Her lips twitch in appreciation. They are berry colored, today, a few shades lighter than the shadow smudged into the corners of her lids. Her body is draped in a lavender silk dress that would have read 'business casual' on anyone else but screamed 'fuck me' on her. Or rather, 'fantasize about fucking me, because I was not made for touching by the likes of mortals'.

She's rambling on about this M place. Hotel lounge, apparently quite classy. I study her hips, her flat pelvis, trying to find a panty line. I can't.

My coffee finally appears on the counter. I grab it and chug, heading for the door. I drop the cup into the garbage on the way out, drained except for the ice cubes, which barely had the chance to begin to melt.

"My goodness, Fiona. Thirsty?" Noa can keep up with me in her heels because she is taller.

"Biking to work," I explain briefly. "Need my hands." Reaching the rack, I bend over to unlock the chain.

"You bike every day? All the way to the zoo?"

I give her an irritated look. "It's only a mile and a half. Not all of us can afford A5's."

"Let me drive you."

It's about 100 degrees in the shade. I'm beyond tempted. Unfortunately, my kneejerk instinct when it comes to Noa and temptation is too deeply ingrained. "It'll take me longer with traffic. I'm fine." I free my bike and swing one leg over. The sun blares in my eyes and I already regret my refusal.

Noa shrugs, slipping on a pair of thick rimmed shades. "Suit yourself. I'll send out the invites tonight."

"No dumb themes, okay?"

"Relax. I'm good at this."

"Yeah, your record at planning my birthdays is really spotless." I'm shocked at how bitter I sound.

"Lighten up, sprite." She takes a step back. "Go have fun with your bugs."

"Reptiles."

"Snakes, bugs, whatever. Have fun."

"I don't need your fucking condescension." I'm Assistant Curator at the zoo's Reptile Discovery Center. It might pay shit, but that's because our economic system is fucked up, not because any moron can do it.

Her smile is sweet and bored. "Then why haven't you left yet?"

There's no good answer to that. I give her a look of pure venom and kick off from the curb, pedaling furiously down the street. I'm mad because she always wins our verbal battles, and because I'm sweating when I could be in an air-conditioned luxury car, and because when I risk a glance back over my shoulder, she's already gone.

*

New Year's Eve, 2012. The last time I saw Noa, until she shoved her way onto that Metro.

It was after midnight. I was halfway through my third set, second floor center pole, already down to my waist chain, garter, and heels. Seven inch heels, with hollow plastic platforms filled with 2012 confetti. Asgard wasn't exactly the classiest establishment to begin with, but New Year's brought out entirely new levels of tacky.

The mood overall was a lot more camp than the club's usual pretentious vibe. The customers were rowdy, the bouncers were busy, and the DJ was showing off. I was feeling the champagne. Even though I'd been mixing it with grapefruit juice, I must've downed about three quarters of a bottle by then.

The beat dropped and I twirled, grabbing the pole with both hands and bending forward to display my ass. Then I descended, jerking my hips in time with the bass pounding through my arteries, relishing the slight strain in my thighs. I rose with slow, exaggerated gyrations, swung around the pole, and there was Noa.

She was with a good sized group just being seated. She looked completely at ease, laughing and joking with a pair of young men, both very good looking in a hip hop preppy way, not at all her type.

The shock of recognition pulsed through me, and I had a weird out-of-body moment in which I waited to see how I would react. As the seconds stretched and I continued to sway with the music, I concluded that I was evidently going to be professional about it. Good.

An older man waved a bill at me and I strode over to his edge of the stage. I crouched and thrust my chest in the general direction of his face, my eyes glued to Noa. She was clanking shot glasses with her friends. She threw the drink down her throat with practiced ease and looked up to catch me staring.

Our eyes locked. Confusion flickered briefly on her face, then her lips rounded in a small O.

That was all the reaction I got. In the next instant, one of the preps nudged her shoulder to hand her another shooter, and she broke our gaze to take it.

I felt strangely cheated. I should feel mortified. Perfect Noa with her perfect job now realized the lengths I had to go to to pay rent. This was a major point for her. I wasn't ashamed of stripping, not exactly, but I didn't want my parents to know, and she was sure to tell them.

But instead of humiliated or frightened, I was indignant. I suppose it was the champagne. If my life was going to fall to shambles, couldn't she at least make a scene?

I ground my teeth and put on one of the most provocative shows of my career. Noa might own the rest of the entire fucking world, but I fucking owned my fucking stage. I couldn't even tell you exactly what I did differently, but I was staring straight at Noa the entire time, and by the end, the old man had stuffed more than a few twenties into my garter, so it must have been hot.

I gave him my standard you're-amazing-and-I'm-friendly-but-working smile and danced a few more times around the pole before Katie came on stage to relieve me.

"You okay, hun?" Katie asked as I slipped back on my glittering tear drop g-string.

I nodded shortly. "Fine." The damn bikini top was all gauze and rhinestones, mostly rhinestones. I fumbled with the clasp, then quickly hooked on the matching skirt, which was all rhinestones, just long strings of sparkling crystals hanging from a belt of more faux diamonds. The ridiculous thing looked like it might have actually been designed as a necklace.

"Need a break?"

I glared at her. "No. Why?"

Katie shrugged uncomfortably. "You look flushed. Lay off the champagne, okay?"

I shrugged back at her. "Fine."

The DJ's voice cut into the music. "And thank you, Noa, for outdoing yourself once again. Let's all welcome to the center pole, Dicey!"

My eyes found Noa's again, and I watched the realization sink in that my stripper name was Noa. This time, her look of shock was slightly more gratifying. I left Katie on stage and, instead of sauntering through the crowd to collect more tips, made a beeline for Noa's table. Fuck professional.

"Fiona."

Her soft voice surprised me. First, she hardly ever calls me Fiona. Second, I wasn't sure she wouldn't pretend not to know me.

Her friends looked from Noa to me in puzzlement, but she ignored them. Hot, dark, and unreadable, her eyes lingered on me. On my face, on my outfit, and, I was suddenly quite certain, on my stomach and legs and breasts. Noa Silber was checking me out.

A crazy confidence overcame me, then, replacing the defensive vulnerability that generally defined my personality. I knew I was a decent dancer. I could sell sex. I was also easy; I had a lot of sex, and I was good at it, good at giving others exactly what they wanted inside the bedroom, overcompensating, maybe, for how wary—okay, bitchy—I was outside of it. But sex as a weapon? That was Noa's game, not mine. I didn't know I was capable of it until that moment.

"Want a lap dance?" I purred.

"Oh, hell yeah, Noa!" That was one of the preps.

The only other girl in their party, a plump blonde with a sunburn she probably thought was a tan, made the connection. "Didn't they just say her name is Noa, too? Do you know her?"

I could see Noa asking herself the same thing. I've never known her to back away from a challenge, though, ever. She licked her lips. "How much?"

I bent forward until our noses were level and almost touching, and brushed her long bangs from her eyes. She'd straightened her hair tonight, and the dark strands were smooth and soft to the touch. I tucked what I could behind her ear, but a few sleek locks fell back against her nose. "I'll leave it up to you," I breathed. "You seem like an...accurate tipper."

"She does know you!"

I rose and spun around to conceal my smile. Spreading my heels, I twisted to cock a brow over my shoulder at the blonde. "She still need a slide rule to calculate tips?"

The girl snickered. "She's got your number, Noa." Of course Noa didn't need the slide rule; she just liked showing off her accuracy fetish, and that she was faster on the damn thing than everyone else with their phone calculators.

"Damn, Noa." Prep Two was overwhelmed by an attack of hilarity. "You got told by a stripper."

"Shut up, Julian." Noa's voice was harsh. She never took her eyes from me. Her next words were for me, and they were no less rough. "Okay, Noa," she emphasized the name, "show me why these are illegal."

Lap dances are, in fact, illegal in the District. The rules get bent every once in a while, though, and it helps when the recipient is a woman. It helps extra when that woman looks young, harmless, and rich, and also happens to be the most beautiful person security has ever seen. I definitely had a few minutes before someone 'noticed'.

I didn't waste it. Catching the beat, I shimmied backwards around Noa's primly closed legs and sat on her lap. Her skirt was cool and satiny beneath my butt cheeks as I began to hump her thighs. I spread my legs as far apart as they went, leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, and rolled my hips in time with the rhythm of the rap song blaring through the house. Wild cheers from the peanut gallery.

The beat quickened and I started to bounce. Straightening, I flipped back my ponytail, arched my spine, and thrust my ass into Noa's groin and lower stomach, in a series of short jiggles. She might have been a chair beneath me, she was so tense and tight.

I didn't know I was going to turn around until I did. The dangling rhinestones of my not-skirt caught on Noa's dress, pulling threads. Noa didn't seem to notice. She sat stiffly, hands gripping her seat, breathing shallow, eyes on me. I lifted one platform heel to prop onto her table, still straddling her with my other leg. A few strands of crystals and a gauzy tear drop thong did very little to conceal the goods as I undulated slowly. The preps were swearing loud enough to be heard over the blasting music and thumping one another on the back. The rest of their friends watched in shocked silence.

"I didn't know you had a tattoo."

I stared at Noa. Here I was waving my shaven pussy in her face for tips, and all she could say is that she didn't know about my tattoo?

Not that you could miss it. A trio of cavorting foxes dominated my right side. They tumbled down the length of my right back in unostentatious shades of burnt umber, black and white, in the style of an art nouveau water color. One thickly plumed tail curled up towards my ear; another fell down around my right hip.

I fingered that lower swirl of tail, suddenly unsure. Had I imagined her looks before? Noa appeared as controlled as ever, now. In her smoky stare I saw anticipation and amusement, but no lust. Could she have faked desire so that I'd make a fool of myself? That sounded like a familiar refrain.

To hide my bubbling insecurity, I plastered impassivity onto my face and began to move more quickly, picking back up the beat. I swung my leg up off the table and danced around Noa's chair, swaying, crouching, spinning, skimming my hands all over my body.

It was going all wrong.

I was supposed to be teasing her. But the more anxious I became, the more relaxed Noa grew. She was so damn sure of herself. She preened and smiled with coy embarrassment at her friends, happily the center of attention. And there I was, performing for her like a tame monkey. Seemed she did own my stage, after all.

"Sit down, Fiona."

I faltered. "What?"

Noa kicked out an empty chair from their table. "Come on," she urged, "take a break."

Excuse me! No-one interrupted my personal performances! I held audiences captive!

"Okay." I sat.

She slid me a shot, but I shook my head. "Have any water?" I was surprised when she handed me her own glass, and surprised again when it turned out to really be water. I ignored the straw and gulped greedily.

Prep One seemed to understand the protocol for addressing strippers a little better. "Fuck, that was hot." I batted my eyelashes at him, hating my self esteem for subsisting on the cocky praise of drunken ex-frat boys.

"So," another guy asked, "how do you two know each other?" He was slim and looked South Asian, though his pronounced accent was British.

"Our moms are friends," I told him.

"Fiona's been in love with me since we were kids," said Noa.

I spit out an ice cube, spluttering. What the fuck? I raised my shocked gaze to Noa's and found her eyeing me with that speculative gleam again. I was frozen, trapped. I knew it wasn't true. I didn't love her. I hated her. But I couldn't make my mouth form the words.

"Everyone's in love with you," the Brit muttered. He sounded more hopeless than resentful, so I figured he had a thing for Noa.

I found my tongue. "Well, I'm not!" I exclaimed shrilly. I heard how childish I sounded and regretted the champagne.

"Well, good," Noa snapped back. "'Cause I'd hate to think I was encouraging you." She flicked a bill out of her wrist clutch and folded it one handed as she leaned in. I shrank back—the world's worst stripper—but she stopped at my garter and snapped it under with a quick flip of her long, dexterous fingers. I couldn't see the denomination, but dear God, it was humiliating.

If we'd still been kids, I would have punched her. Unfortunately, my job was not a place I could afford to get kicked out of. Instead, I slid stiffly to my feet, no longer bothering to keep the anger from my face.

Noa rose, too. I was bizarrely taller than her in my plastic confetti platforms. "Your chair's wet," she noted icily. She sounded mad, and a little disgusted, with no trace of her usual smugness.

My face burned, and I didn't bother looking down to see the truth of her words. I could feel the evidence soaking my thong in moist, slippery warmth. "Get out."

We faced each other, toe to toe, and for a moment, I thought Noa might hit me. There was no mistaking our threatening stances, and security started angling in. Noa turned and jerked her head at her friends. "Let's go," she said shortly. "It reeks of estrus in here."

Her entourage filed out after her, most of them handing me bills while shamefacedly averting their gazes. I took the offered money silently, feeling clammy and close to tears.

Prep Two—Julian—stayed behind to take care of the bill. He handed me a twenty with a sympathetic look. Sympathy looked out of place on his Armani ad face. "That was cold," he said. "But you started it."

I gaped at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish's, and then at his retreating back when he realized I wasn't going to say anything. He strode out through the gaudy 2012 decorations.

I decided to take the shot, after all. And to never see Noa Silber again.

*

I get an anxious call from Hadrian Monday night.

"What's this about a birthday party?" he demands as soon as I answer.

I sigh and mute the television. The mother of all thunderstorms is raging outside. "Guess the invitations went out."

"Just got it. What the hell, Fiona? Noa Silber? I thought you weren't talking to her anymore. Besides, Jared and I wanted to invite you over to dinner for your birthday. Why didn't you tell me about this? I'm your best friend! Why—"

"Untie your panties, Hay," I break in. "We can still do dinner, before the party. It wasn't my idea, okay?"

I kick myself for not anticipating this. Hadrian's been my best friend since we were freshmen. I met him at the zoo. He was snapping the big cats with a fancy wide angle lens, oblivious to the stares he was drawing in his tiny cut off chinos and oversized sun hat. We hit it off right away; we both love animals and dancing, and have no problem getting naked, although I didn't know to charge for it yet. Hay was already stripping back then, to subsidize his photography.