Wonder Stripper (Patreon)

Diana felt Artemis nudging her softly, kissing her cheek lovingly. Her voice was tender, in contrast to her usually sharp words. “Wake up, princess. You can’t sleep all day. We have to find Zatanna before your dumb friend gets herself even more lost.”

Diana rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She had slept soundly in Artemis’s arms, dreaming beautiful dreams about her lover. So beautiful that she had forgotten what they’d come here to do, to track down Zatanna Zatara.

But they still needed sleep, and Diana didn’t think it was possible to sleep in the same bed as Artemis without making love to her. But that had been part of their resting. Now it was time to labor once more. “Have you showered already?”

“Yes,” Artemis answered. “Should I be flattered or insulted that you can’t tell?”

“I’ll take mine then.”

“Good of me to take mine before I woke you,” Artemis needled wickedly. “So we don’t get sidetracked.”

“Let’s just run down this lead,” Diana said. “Then we can be as sidetracked as we wish. And make me some breakfast. I’d hate for you to be tempted to help me wash.”

“Orders, orders, orders,” Artemis moaned wryly as she went to the apartment’s kitchen unit. “That’s what I get for dating a princess…”

***

It had been three weeks since Zatanna had gone missing, adding to the Justice League’s many important duties: finding her. In fact, just about every hero Diana could name was at least keeping their ear to the ground for her whereabouts, but Diana considered this her personal responsibility. Batman was a better detective and Superman was more powerful, but she had grown up with the magic that defined Zatanna’s world, a world of gods and monsters, and since that was the world that had most likely taken Zatanna, Diana thought of herself as the one who would have to get her back.

She had consulted with every oracle and seer she had ever encountered and finally, one of them had received an answer: Paris. Justice League Europe had already thoroughly checked out the City of Lights, so Diana began searching the many cities named Paris not in France. There were dozens, but she was tireless. And since Artemis was concerned that whatever had overcome Zatanna might be able to pose a threat to Diana as well, she had come along, lending her own skills to the search.

“On the way here,” Artemis said, for they had traveled incognito, by bus, at least after taking Zeta-Beam transportation to the neighboring city, “I heard that this Paris’s salient feature was a—gentleman’s club. It was said that the women were most lovely. Far beyond what one would expect to find in an out of the way place such as this.”

Diana nodded, speaking as her mind raced. “It’s worth a shot. At the very least, if this place is such an oasis, we may find the region’s power players there. One of them might know something.”

It was a long bus ride to downtown. Then several blocks’ walk. The neighborhoods were… to put it charitably… ungentrified. Nearly every door stoop sported a man sipping from something hidden inside a paperbag. Finally, they were at their destination.

It was called the Second Circle—the name all in neon above the door, with a deliberately cracked halo around the two words. The stonework of the old brownstone featured flames carved into the façade of the building. Surrounding the modern, reinforced metal door, the frame was marble with pitchforks and spade-tipped tails carved into the jambs and lintel.

“Heh,” Artemis snorted a laugh. “Prosaic.”

Diana recalled Artemis had spent some time in Hell, after her death. It hadn’t provoked much reflection about her lifestyle. Then again, if anyone could escape from Hell twice, it’d be Artemis.

“There’s an alley behind the building,” Diana suggested. “Let’s see if there’s a fire escape.

They cut through the parking lot. The long trenchcoats and hats that they wore over their costumes dulled their looks too much to arouse any interest from the bored doorman, a fat biker-type who still looked like it would take a hunting party to bring him down.

Using the parked cars to mostly conceal their movement, they slipped into the dead-end alley alongside the Second Circle. The cracked pavement was littered with broken bottles and sodden scraps of paper. There were steel doors with no handles and a lattice of iron growing on the brick wall like ivy. A ladder hung from the bottom, but it was out of reach, even to women of Diana and Artemis’s statuesque height.

“And people wonder why my boots have high heels,” Diana commented, before leaping up with a minimum of flight to catch the railing and swing herself onto the lowest level of the fire escape.

Artemis did the same, though she had to run up the wall a ways before she managed to gain the railing.

Once there, it was a simple matter to make their way up to the roof. Once they crested the parapet, they heard loud music geysering up through the skylights. The glass ran in two rows down the length of the flat roof.

Diana and Artemis traded a look. The music did not make up for its simplistic chords with its volume; it hardly seemed worth the climb. But they crouched down and approached the first skylight.

It looked down into a restroom. A man stood at the long row of urinals. Artemis shuddered and looked away.

“You take me to the nicest places,” she told Diana.

They snuck to the next skylight. The room below was lined with small tables, each bearing a round mirror. Small bottles and jars covered the table and there were racks of colorful clothing sprouting up like flowers.

A figure strolled into view. It was a woman, naked. From overhead, the Amazons saw her full breasts leading the way in front of her. She threw a few lacy nothings over the back of a chair, then sat at it. When she did, they could see into her lap and the thatch of finely maintained pubic hair that almost, but not quite, hid her womanhood from view.

“Then again, it’s not all bad,” Artemis said.

“We’re here to work,” Diana told her. But neither of them looked away from the naked woman.

She lit a cigarette, puffing on it while she wiped the make-up from her face. Diana and Artemis observed until she pulled on jeans and a jersey.

“Let’s keep going,” Artemis whispered.

They moved down the roof. The next skylight overlooked a barroom. It struck Diana as unusual that the men weren’t facing the bar, but turned away from it. They must be looking at something.

Another skylight showed them tables, sparsely occupied. The men in those were looking to the north. The ones at the bar had been looking to the west. There was something to the northwest drawing everyone’s attention.

Finally, Artemis and Diana looked through the skylight at the end of the row. There was a stage. A woman danced, naked except for pink gauze over her breasts and around her hips. It was see-through, but from their vantage point, the Amazons couldn’t make out much. They still felt a charge of excitement—both watching the show and having it be a secret what they got to see.

The stripper laid down on the stage and opened her legs. Then she thrust her hips, pumping her sex out at the audience like they were all her lover. Diana couldn’t help but look at the men in the front row. They seemed awestruck, leaning forward, their faces only a few feet from that woman’s cunt.

Before she knew it, the act was over. The woman headed off in the direction of the dressing room.

“Let’s follow her,” Diana said.

Artemis gave her a look. “We could just pay for a lapdance.”

“There’s something off about her, this place… I have to get a better look.”

Artemis barked out a laugh, but she followed Diana to the skylight over the dressing room. The stripper washed her face off, just like the first woman had.

As she got dressed, another woman arrived, this one fully dressed. She was still as beautiful and exotic as the other woman, as all the women that Diana had seen inside the building. There were none that were simply pretty or even sexy—they were all stunning.

The dressed woman took off her clothes, replacing her shorts with a tiny veil that covered her pubis, held in place by strings that went around her waist and tied behind her back. Over that she put on a silken gown. It lay over her chest such that it hid her breasts, but only barely. Without tying it, the lapels were in constant motion, sometimes covering her nipples, sometimes not.

As the woman in the gown applied her make-up, a man came up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders, leaned in, and kissed the back of her neck.