In the Red by Elena Mauli Shapiro

shown in magazines and at the movies. Elena had seen women in the flesh, many of them. In unflattering light. Unretouched. Not posed to sell something. Irina wanted to ask if they were very ugly, if they were scary to look at. If looking into her own young body’s unsightly future made her shudder. But no. Maybe, Irina thought as she opened her eyes to look up at the cloudless blue sky, maybe there was a strange kind of comfort in it.

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    N ot too far from the big casinos, there was a bar owned by a man Andrei did business with on his many trips to the desert city. In the bar’s basement were three rooms: a small one with a table and chairs, for meetings; a larger one with shelves, for storage; a larger one still with a stage and seating, for a show. The show that was put on there was not advertised anywhere. Still, on performance nights it drew a decent-size audience composed of men who bought tickets with their drinks at the bar. When Irina and Elena arrived at eleven thirty, it was still early enough for downstairs to be empty. They could sit on any of the plush red velvet seats with cup holders that the bar’s owner had purchased for a steal from a shut-down movie theater.
    â€œGet all the drinks you want,” the owner said to the two girls.
    â€œHow long will you be?” Irina asked Andrei.
    â€œUntil Vasilii comes back,” he called as he disappeared into the back with Dragos.
    â€œThe show starts at midnight,” the owner said as he closed the door behind the three of them. “Enjoy, girls.”
    The inflection in his voice made Irina order a plain cola from the bar. She wanted to stay lucid for whatever was coming in case she had to think quickly. Elena had a fruity mixed drink, an icy alcoholic slurry layered in shades of pink and red with both a cherry and a little paper umbrella on top. The stage was shielded by a curtain that matched the velvet on the seats. The room was bathed in quiet music and dim, aquarium lighting.
    â€œWhat kind of show?” Elena asked Irina.
    â€œDancing girls, I’m guessing.”
    â€œWell, I know that much, but what kind of dancing girls?”
    At a quarter to midnight, the two television screens bracketing the stage flickered to life and started playing a cartoon. The cartoon looked old. Snow White was wearing a dress with a yellow skirt reminiscent of the one worn by her Disney self, but this was clearly a different version. In this version, she lay on her back on a table with her skirt hiked up while the seven dwarves, being dispensed to her on a conveyor belt, mounted her for a few hasty thrusts and then rolled off. There was something ancient and primitive about the whole repeated display, like a relief of a fertility rite chiseled onto a tomb wall. Snow White’s wicked stepmother watched the whole scene in her magic mirror while pleasuring herself with a lit candle. Whenever her body engulfed the tiny flame, she breathed fire out of her gaping mouth.
    â€œWell, this is weird,” Irina whispered into Elena’s ear.
    â€œProbably German,” Elena said with a smirk.
    By the time the cartoon was over, a couple of lone men had come in and sat behind the two girls. When Elena went to get more drinks, Irina could feel the men’s eyes on the back of her neck. She made the mistake of turning around. One of them raised his wineglass to her and smiled. It seemed a long time before Elena returned with another sweet boozy confection for herself and a plain glass of seltzer for Irina.
    At midnight, the light grew dimmer, the music grew louder, and the curtain parted. A woman in a sparkly Arabian Nights getup shimmied onto the stage. In slow, smooth movements, she divested herself of her entire outfit, even her bejeweled thong. Though the woman was naked save for the gold lamé stilettos that made the muscles on her calves stand out like tense ropes, Irina felt a vague sense of relief wash over her. This wasn’t so bad. It