Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) by Kyell Gold Page A

swayed his hips, he cupped the air in front of my face with his paws, he bent his muzzle to come closer to mine. His tail swung around to brush my knees from one side, then the other, a darting, quicksilver serpent that had a life of its own. When he had finished, I fumbled for my purse and found it gone, along with the twenty-franc note that I had intended to spend on a new suit for the soirée at the Justines.
    I seized another of Thierry’s notes and moved my fingers beneath Niki’s skirt. I found the garter and traced it around to the inside of his thigh, and I left the note there, a blue and gold flag planted on that snowy field my eyes had already claimed and my heart longed to hold.
    Again, he showed no reaction to my daring. He held my eyes a moment longer and then looked up at Thierry.
    “You may go,” Thierry said.
    Niki bowed. “Thank you, messieurs . I hope my performance has been agreeable.”
    “Very much so. Eh, Jean?”
    I could not disengage my tongue from my mouth to answer. A nod was not sufficient to convey the depth of my longing, but it was all I could coax from my enamored body.
    And then Niki did a rare and wonderful thing. He smiled, and he reached out to brush my muzzle with a paw. “You are adorable,” he said.
    He swept past us, his skirts brushing the chairs. Thierry shoved my shoulder as the door closed behind him. “He touched you, little one. Not all boys who wear dresses like other boys, and not all dancers like their patrons, but Niki likes you.”
    “I want him,” I told Thierry, once my tongue was again working. “I must have him. What can I do?”
    “Come,” he said, and nodded at our companions in the box. The ermine was sitting in the lap of the foremost jackal, swaying her hips. “I believe our friends would appreciate some privacy.”
    And so it was that Thierry introduced me to M. Oller, and I had my first conversation with the weasel who is the master of the Moulin Rouge. He is a sharp one, with beady, shifty eyes, and he knows the value of the wares he displays. Before we began negotiating for Niki’s favors, he made certain that I knew for what I bargained. He did not want any incidents, he said; he was happy to cater to those who wanted their courtesans to be weapons rather than flowers, but he had no desire to surprise anyone. I appreciated this courtesy, and assured him that I valued Niki’s concealed treasures. Though I desired them quite strongly, I feared I could not afford the price they would command, both in silver and in the shame that would ensue were I found out. Besides which, as I told you earlier, I had lost my purse in the crowd.
    M. Oller, the polecat, quite cannily proposed a solution: he offered me Niki’s services free of charge for one night, with the understanding that future nights would be paid at the full rate. I agreed, thinking myself clever because I held back my true intentions, but of course you already know about them, and I suspect M. Oller did too. I regret the fight we had about it, father, the more so because those were the last words that passed between us. I hope you may understand, the more I write, why I came to you with the request I did, and of course why I had no recourse but to take the actions I did thereafter.

Chapter 7
     
    He sits by himself in the changing room while the other dancers shed the uniforms of the cabaret. They talk easily of their night while he prepares his change of clothes.
    “A good night, good crowd, n’est-ce pas ?”
    “How much did you get?”
    “Fourteen.”
    “Not bad, sister! I have twelve.”
    “Any night we do better than ten is a good night. Marianne, what did you make?”
    “She always makes at least twenty.”
    “Tonight she should have twenty-five!”
    “Twenty-four.” The graceful hare says it shyly. She is new, but there is no jealousy toward her. When a girl comes to the club who can dance the way Marianne can, she never stays for long, and the other girls cherish this proof