***
Smoke drifted in a shifting cloud through the hot beam of the single spotlight. On the stage, a woman stood, a woman with soft fur and pierced cat's ears. She had lovely lush waves of red hair, but that wasn't the real story.
A single, iridescent horn, like a unicorn's, caught the light and dazzled anyone who looked at it too long. First-timers were bound to gaze at it, rapt, but the regular crowd knew the action was happening just under it. She wore a red dress, strapless, that parted effortlessly over her sleek-furred leg. It was strapless, and the neckline came nowhere near her neck.
She filled her lungs with smoky air, tasting the beer on it, and the cologne. The eager chemistry of her audience flooded her nose, and the sweet strains of guitar and harp caressed her from the darkness around the spotlight. A hush, the quiet tension of dozens waiting for her to sing.
She sang.
The tune was a simple one, not showy, but it displayed her tender, husky voice to perfection, and it spoke to her soul. She sang it from there, the place that longed for home, the place that longed for love. She shaped the words with her mouth, and her lungs carried them out over the silent audience, but her soul gave them weight. The pressure of emotion brought her lids down to cover her eyes; it was too intimate to share, too intimate to do anything but show.
"I'm not alone," she sang, "in the night..." She stroked listening ears with, "When I can have all the love that you write," and she saw a tear from a hard-faced man in the front row, a single tear sliding down his weathered cheek, sparkling at the edge of the spotlight's blaze.
She made each one of them alone in the night, alone with her. As she crooned to them she brought them close to her and cradled each one in song. Through her voice, she made them feel the softness of her, the curves, the fur, and caressed their ears with the pads of her hands.
Across the lounge, far to the back, was the hot red cherry of a cigarette. There were plenty of other smokers here tonight, but she didn't care about them, not as much as she cared about the owner of that particular cherry. Her eyes met his, and a thrill passed up through her shoulders. She couldn't see his silly coat from here, from the island of light in the dark, but she could picture it, and it made her smile secretly like a woman opening a love letter.
The song was new to her audience, but not to her. She knew every note like it was her own flesh, and she sang it like she owned every line, and when it was over, when the last whispering, pleading harpstring fell silent, there was a moment's spell of calm over the whole place. A kind of sigh followed it, nostalgia and longing. She let it hang, until at last she took a breath to fire something witty at the crowd--she barely knew what.
Instead they broke into a rippling wave of applause, and she didn't bother to hide her pleasure. She beamed, and bowed low, because they wanted it, her hair falling in front of her breasts. She raised her palms to them, glowing from within, and when it was quiet again, relatively, she started the next number. Joy filled her chest, and her heart bounded with delight.
Her name was Penelope, and she loved to sing.
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