A/N: This story would have never been written without the inspiration of the picture 'One Tough Night at the Cabaret' by kmye-chan (kmye-chan dot deviantart dot com). Full credit to her for the title and the wonderful image. I had a lot of fun writing this. :)

I didn’t know it when I walked in the door that evening, but it was going to be one tough night at the Cabaret.

My stage name is Tiger. My real name has become inconsequential.

A light rain had begun to drizzle as I left my apartment, running late, and hurried the few streets down to the Cabaret. My costume for the night was flung over one arm, dancing shoes dangling from their straps in the other hand, case slung over my shoulder. As I arrived I could see the first few of the early-bird guests lining up in the dirty pool of light spilling from the open doors of the front entrance. I ducked around to the side alley and entered through the tiny stage door, set back into the gloom of the damp brick wall.

I walked through a short, dim corridor, around a sharp corner, and immediately embraced the familiar feeling of coming home.

The sound and the scent and the flurries of movement in the dressing-room assaulted me and I breathed it in like a drug, my own personal opium. The air was thick with hairspray, and glitter flew about like frantic snowflakes.

“You’re late, Tiger!” shouted Miss Alice, her beady eyes flashing at me from across the room.

“I know,” I replied, flapping a hand at her and moving towards my corner of the dressing-room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her glare and tug again at Candy’s flyaway curls, pulling them back in a tight pony-tail and making the girl wince. Hairspray hissed like a live thing.

I manoeuvred around two girls in the middle of the room practicing last-minute steps, and reached the hook on the wall with my name written above it. Janice was crying heartily on the bench next to it, black makeup streaming from her eyes. Carissa had an arm around her comfortingly.

“What happened?” I asked with only mild interest, hanging my belongings up in their place, and kicking off my day-shoes.

“Bastard boyfriend. She saw him out with another girl,” Carissa murmured over Janice’s bowed head.

“Men,” I commented, and left it at that.

“Twenty-five minutes, girls!” Miss Alice trilled with her rough sand-paper voice.

Damn. Later than I’d thought. I stripped down to my underwear and then began to get costumed. Fish-net stockings, layer after layer of ruffled petticoats that itched my legs, the red and black corset pulled on over the top. I looked up to search for someone who wasn’t crying, dancing, in a hysterical giggling fit or otherwise engaged.

“Tanya,” I yelled over the babble, “lace me?” The sharp black bob of her hair fought its way towards me through the crowd.

“Turn round,” she said, and I obeyed. She jerked the strings of my corset tight and began to lace it up my back. I took a few moments to observe the chaos around us – delicious, organised chaos. I sunk into it like a warm bath and felt it begin to buzz through my veins.

Miss Alice was yelling at the dancing girls to practice in the corridor, for godssakes, you’re stepping on peoples’ toes, half a dozen girls were crowded around the mirror, Lizzy was squealing because Roxy had accidentally poked her in the eye with a hair pin, Miss Alice was hugging Janice while scolding her for crying, a few voices somewhere were singing an enthusiastic chorus in harmony, Missy was whining about her hair, Miss Alice was yelling at a stage manager, (Miss Alice was everywhere), and then Tanya finished lacing my corset and disappeared back into the crowd.

Costume donned, I turned to my shoes. My beautiful, beautiful dancing shoes. They were old and scuffed and a bit too small for my toes and gave me the occasional blister. I slipped them on one after the other and sat on the bench to do up the buckles.

“Fifteen minutes to first call!” came Miss Alice’s voice. “Fifteen minutes!”

Next step was the mirror; make-up case in hand, I wormed my way through the clump of bodies and found a face-sized area of mirror available. I was a chorus girl just like them, but the girls knew I’d been around for a while, done my time, knew the ropes. The unspoken hierarchy of the stage. I wearied of it sometimes, but it certainly had its uses.

Face powder, ruby lips, rouged cheeks, eyes outlined in stark black upswept at the corners, lashes curled and darkened; a painted face, almost frightening within a few inches of the mirror, but dazzling from the distance of an audience. As my fingers carried out the familiar movements my mind was free to join the chatter, as far as my usual aloof manner would allow.

“I’m worried about the last dance,” from Vanessa, through applications of lipstick. “I keep going left instead of right, in the bridge section, you know.”

“I keep forgetting the words at the end, too…”

“And Carissa keeps hitting the most painful wrong note, I don’t think she realises…”

“We nailed that one in rehearsals today,” I pointed out. “We’ll be fine.”

“Six minutes!” Miss Alice’s head popped around the doorframe, then disappeared again.

Just enough time to throw on a few pinches of glitter and pull my hair back out of my face. A few bangles with tiny bells on them went on my wrist, and jingled gently with every movement. I spun around once, for good luck, skirts flaring around me.

“Ready girls?”

We were a shaken bottle of champagne, waiting to be uncorked.

The new girl (was it Michelle?) peeked in timidly from the wings. “Miss Alice says everyone backstage for warm-up, now.” Her voice was barely heard above the noise, but Sugar caught on, and her tiny frame roared, “HEY, everyone backstage, NOW!” And off we went.

The darkness of the wings smelled, as always, of dust and old curtains. Our warm-up consisted of a few scales sung sotto voce, trying not to attract the attention of the boisterous crowd now gathered in the dingy auditorium outside the curtains. We stretched our bodies as we sang, leaning on each others’ shoulders for support.

“Alright,” said Miss Alice, “curtain in two minutes!” And she waves us out onto the dark stage to take up our opening positions.

The next two minutes were always my favourite moments of the day.

I have lost count of the hours I have spent on this stage. I know every scratch in every floorboard of its surface, I know every moth-eaten hole in the curtains. I know them by touch and by smell. Waiting there in the darkness as the band began the overture, I knelt there for a moment on the wooden floor and touched it with something like reverence. I felt its solidity beneath me, holding me up, its unchanging permanence. This stage was the only thing in my life that had always been there.

I stood up again, feeling the other girls breathing in the dimness around me. Family, I reminded myself, and, home.

The band crescendoed to the climax of the overture, the curtains opened, and the stage lights dazzled my eyes as we launched into the first act.

And we danced, and we sang.

I was glad for the half-blinding effect of the spotlights; it made it harder for me to see the crowd. But no matter how loudly I sang, I could still hear them, wolf-whistling, bawdy yells, half-heard comments. And even if I couldn’t make out their faces, I could feel their eyes burning into my exposed skin.

Their eyes were always hungry.

And I danced, moving perfectly in time with the girls in my line, trying to lose myself in the tensing and flowing of my muscles and the snap of my shoes on the stage. Skirts ruffled around me and the music continued as we lined up and filed towards the front of the stage to ‘introduce’ ourselves to our raucous admirers.

“Cameron!”

“Adrianna!”

“Selina!”

“Janice!”

“Tanya!”

“Missy!”

And so one with our fake smiles and assumed names. Soon it was my turn.

“Tiger,” I growled in my throatiest alto voice, striking my signature pose, ‘claws’ extended. And they lapped it up like starving puppies, like they always did. Almost pathetic, really.

We’re nearing the end of the song now and I watch closely as the new girl steps forward, to see how she measures up. “Michelle!” She manages to project her voice slightly over the crowd, but a slight wobble in it gave her away, and they pounced.

“Come on girlie! Show us some flesh! What’s under those pretty skirts, eh?” The drunken shout was clearly audible over the music, and the crowd roared appreciatively.

I saw one of our bouncers shoot a warning glare in the direction of a red-faced, bearded man sitting in the front row to stage left. He was taking no notice, his drink in one hand, unabashedly eyeing the girl on stage as she flushed and averted her eyes.

Soon the moment was lost as the music wound up to the finale of the opening act and we danced together as a chorus. Once more the rhythm and the elation of the stage, the beat of the drums and the blaring of the brass let me forget about the audience out there watching.

But they were certainly a rowdy crowd that night, and I wouldn’t be able to ignore them for long. The spotlights brightened and dimmed like suns as the evening’s performance wore on, one song after another. We were sultry and smouldering, bold and brash, teasing and seductive and alluring and untouchable. Or so we thought.

It was the final act and we had really got the audience going. Technically it was our job, of course, what they paid us for: we fired them up with our tempting costumes and our provocative dance steps, and from there it’s only a few steps down the street for them to visit the nearest brothel.

I dream of real dancing, of art. But this is the reality of the job that I hate, lascivious men staring at our bodies on display… it keeps me off the streets, at least, and (in all likelihood) out of the brothel myself. Of course, I know that when some of the other girls have been desperate for cash they’ve offered other ‘services’ to our audience. There are a few rooms for hire upstairs, officially as ‘hotel rooms’ of sorts for weary gentlemen. I’ve stayed out of them. I could dance or I could sell myself, but it would break my heart to do both. I have to keep them firmly separated in my mind in order to keep my sanity, which is why nights like this one proved so hard for me.

The final number was one we were famous for. Our voices soared, our bodies whirled, adrenaline pumped. I was beginning to think that maybe the night wouldn’t turn out so badly after all. Then I heard something shouted from the front row; the words were so slurred, I couldn’t even make out what they were, but there was no mistaking their tone or their intent. It was the same man who had hassled the new girl before and his eyes were fixed on me. I stared through him and kept dancing – ‘the show must go on’ was not just a saying, but a law.

I didn’t see exactly what happened. There was sudden movement at the front of the stage, the big bouncer in the black shirt lunged but missed, and then the red-faced man had jumped up and was right there on the stage in front of me, breathing alcohol and cigar smoke in my face, grabbing at me with his hands. His eyes didn’t even glance at my face. I shoved him away from me as hard as I could, but he’d caught me by surprise, and he only staggered back a short distance before righting himself and approaching me again. Before he could go any further a couple of bouncers caught up with him and dragged him bodily from the stage, in that no-nonsense way that all bouncers have.

I was vaguely aware of the movements of the dance continuing around me, but I was dazed, and had no idea what sequence we were up to. Then I heard the familiar notes as we moved into the final chorus. I took a deep breath, then stepped back into the act, requisite smile once more plastered across my face.

Grand finale. Harsh spotlights. Sickening applause. I held my final pose and the last thing I saw as the curtains closed was the face of the conductor as he held the band on the final note; grim concentration and a certain satisfaction, and then the curtains came together and everything went blessedly dark.

We never performed an encore; we had already fulfilled our purpose and had just as quickly been forgotten.

The dressing-rooms afterwards were somewhat subdued, but still noisy. I wandered through a carnival scene of costumes in various states of undress and faces with only half their makeup remaining, and made my way out to the corridor to get away from it all. Suddenly struck by weariness, I leaned both hands against the rough wall and let my head hang down. My feet ached and my ruffled skirts itched. I didn’t feel like a dancer at that moment. I hardly felt like a person.

And there was Miss Alice, as always. “Me an’ some of the girls are going out for drinks – you want to come?”

I didn’t move from my position. “No thanks.”

“Thought you’d say that,” she noted gruffly, but not without some sympathy. “Well, it’s getting cold out. Wear a jacket. Can’t have you getting sick and losing your voice.” And she disappeared back into the dressing-room.

I stood there for a few more minutes, then followed. It was quieter now – most of the girls had already left. I changed out of my costume, scrubbed off my applied face, and dutifully put on my coat.

The side alley wasn’t the best place to be at this time of night, so I left through the front foyer where a few lights were still on. As I was walking towards the doors, I saw Roxie leading the red-faced man by the hand towards the rickety staircase that led up to the hire rooms. She shot an apologetic grimace over her shoulder at me as they disappeared into the dimness. The man didn’t notice.

“Is it like this every night?” The small voice came from the equally small figure sitting on one of the chairs lining the walls. It was New Girl, whose name I’d already forgotten again. Her costume and belongings were piled up around her forlornly. I groaned inwardly, feeling like I didn’t have the strength for this tonight.

“What’s your name?”

“Michelle,” she replied with downcast eyes.

I blinked. “No, what’s your stage name?” She looked at me mutely, completely out of her depth. I let out a sigh of exasperation and eyed her critically. “Right. Forget the name Michelle. I’m Tiger. You can be ‘Kitten’.” Christ, someone needed to take her under their wing, just like Miss Alice had done for me. She wouldn’t last two days otherwise.

“Alright,” she said uncertainly. “So, is it really always like this, or did I just pick a bad night to start?”

“What you have to remember,” I said slowly, “is that you’re not dancing for them. Not really. You’re just dancing for yourself.”

Her eyes finally met mine and something crystallised in her voice. “Are you just saying that for my sake, or do you really believe it?”

I looked at her in some surprise. Kitten looked steadily back. One corner of my mouth tugged upwards. “You might last longer than I thought.”

I nodded to her and headed towards the doors, wrapping my coat more tightly around me. I couldn’t afford to catch a cold – after all, I had to perform again tomorrow night. The show must go on. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets to keep them warm, and walked out the door of the cabaret and into the dark night.