Free The Untold by Courtney Collins Page A

his jaw, moving the brush in small circles into his beard, and then she began to shave him, flat blade from the neck. She scraped the blade up and over his chin, his cheeks and the dent between his nose and his lips.
    And then she did it all again.
    His skin felt like it was finally breathing air, not dust.
    She patted him with a warm, soft towel and then she whispered into his ear:
Jack Brown, time for show. Will you watch me?
    Jack Brown had not planned it; beyond cleaning himself up, his single purpose for the day was to visit the police sergeant. But now he was in no mood to ride off suddenly.
    Let me make your mind up for you
, said Lay Ping.
You will stay.
    Whatever you think is best, Lay Ping
, said Jack Brown.
    Lay Ping led him out of the wet room and through the entrance hall and down a corridor to a single door.
    Go through
, she said.
Maybe I see you later.
    He opened the door. It was a side entrance to a large hall. Within the hall were the owners of the horses, twenty men or more, and Jack Brown could smell them better than he could see them. The lights were dimmed right down and as he walked along an aisle to find a seat he could smell the stench rising from their torpid bodies. He wondered if, below the neck, he smelt the same. No man acknowledged him. Their eyes were fixed ahead on thered curtains, which rippled with the promise of women behind them.
    Jack Brown sat down in a seat three from the front and cast his eyes along the row of men. He thought it was curious how none of them were speaking to one another, how they were all looking ahead, only the jangling sounds of a piano saving them from their own silence.
    When the lights went down and the curtains drew back, the men shifted upright and to the edge of their seats. Jack Brown felt the row tip forward with the weight of them. The men broke from their silence, clapping their hands and stamping their feet on the boards. One by one, women appeared onstage dressed in silver smocks that showed off their legs and shoulders. The pianist played a more melodious tune and the women danced, arms linked, around the stage. Each woman took the hem of another woman’s smock and drew it up more and danced in circles, six women in each, revealing the tops of their thighs as they turned. There were three circles and they merged like petals forming a flower. Then the curtains were drawn again and the men stamped their feet and yelled for more, more, more.
    When the curtains reopened, the stage was filled with something like smoke, although it did not smell of burning, and the women pitter-pattered out and formed circles again and merged into a flower. Then they slowly sank down as a woman in a feathered mask rose from among them and stretched out two silk wings. The only thing covering her breasts was a sash. A half slip draped from her hips.
    It was Lay Ping.
    The men drew breath as the women rose again, concealing her.The women made a line at the front of the stage, their shoulders touching, and then they split to each side as Lay Ping danced, her sash edging slowly from her breasts and slipping down her waist until it was caught by her hips. Her wings were outstretched.
    Lay Ping fluttered her wings and danced until the women returned bearing pitchers. Then they stood in two lines either side of Lay Ping and each woman took a turn at pouring water on her shoulders. The water trickled from her breasts in curving streams and a man in the audience yelled out,
I’m thirsty
, and then all the men laughed as one.
    But they fell silent again as the water soaked into Lay Ping’s slip and revealed the darkness between her legs. She brought up her wings and twisted her shoulders until the wings fell to the ground. Then she turned her body slowly until she had her back to them.
    Jack Brown had never seen Lay Ping’s bare back. But here it was, a perfect back covered in tattoos. From a distance, it looked to him like the window of colored lights with its sign that