queeniegalore

The stairs are haunted, all the girls say it, and the few security guards who are welcomed warmly into the inner sanctum of the dressing room - but not the floor manager, because she doesn’t want to scare new dancers away, or because she doesn’t believe in nonsense, who can tell. The stairs are haunted, but no one can really say by what, or who, or why, or how. They just are. No one leaves by back way, they stuff their heels and spangles into their carry on bags and go out the front instead, where the customers are still pouring in, or out. It’s against the rules technically but everyone knows the stairs are haunted, so no one stops them.

The most beautiful woman in the world is teasing a sheepishly grinning security guard who doesn’t look old enough to be working in a place like this, and you sit slowly buckling on your stilettos and watching, smiling like you’re part of the fun. The door to the stairs is across the room, tucked between a dressing table and a pilled, overstuffed couch. It’s never locked, or blocked, but somehow the eye slides over it, like it’s not really there, or shouldn’t be, or maybe isn’t even tangible. Like a standing stone or a fairy ring, a portal to another world that shifts in and out of reality.

One of the dancers makes the DJ play Purple Rain three times a night. You will never be able to hear that song again without seeing the door, and feeling the urge to walk across the dressing room, through the detritus of sequins and feathers and discarded lace, and place your fingers on the cold handle.

The stairs are haunted, everyone knows it, the most beautiful woman in the world and the blushing security guard and the stern floor manager and even the sad, besuited regulars, who ask the girls their real names and splash too much cash around the main stage.

The stairs are haunted and it’s too cliché to say the haunting is a metaphor. You push through the door and hope for a monster instead.