“The devil made me do that,” said Kathryn with a mock contrite look on her face.
“Hope she doesn’t fall on her head,” said Lizabeth, she leaned into the mirror to touch up her eye makeup, “but that girl thinks she’s better than us.”
“Maybe she is better than us. She has a profession that’s not dependent on a pole, and a husband,” said Zarley.
“Yeah well, if that’s what success looks like, call me patient zero of the zombie apocalypse,” said Lizabeth.
Zarley looked at her own reflection. There was a chance this dress wouldn’t stay in place and she’d flash her tits. She still had time for a very quick change. “You don’t mean that.”
“Tonight I do.” Lizabeth gave a wolf call. “Tonight we ride so fuckheads in alleys don’t get to win.”
“Clown,” Kathryn snorted.
Lizabeth howled again. Melinda’s song started up. Zarley adjusted the dress one more time. She could secure it with magic tape or take the risk. Leaving work at night shouldn’t have to be a risk. Kathryn was trying to out-howl Lizabeth. Lou would send someone in any minute to see if they were killing each other.
Fuck the risk. If she flashed her tits there wasn’t a soul here other than Lou who’d think that was a bad thing. And Lou only cared because he didn’t want the extra hassle that running a topless bar brought.
On her way to the stage, she passed Melinda with a smile she hoped made the unpleasantness in the dressing room feel less like terminal dislike and more like ordinary sisterhood. There was a red wash over the stage tonight. It suited her mood. She stepped into the light and heard the whoops that went up from those closest to the stage. She was unaccountably nervous. They never whooped for her. They never saw so much skin either.
Tonight Jessie, Ariana and Nicki were her sisters too. She used the introduction to “Bang” to bend over and pretend to fiddle with the buckle on her sky-high heels, but it wasn’t about the buckle, it was about legs and ass. This was a move Cinnamon and Lavinia, and Jasmina before them, had perfected. It was a direct provocation, simple and devastating. She’d never done this on stage. She’d always been about the strength and grace. Never gone out to sell sex. Never made eye contact and she’d certainly never looked in Reid’s direction. But tonight he had a name and tonight she was looking.
She straightened, flicking hair her over her shoulder and arching her back, sending her ass out and her chest high as she stalked around the pole, long loose strides and rolling hips. Reid was in his regular booth and he was alone. She blew a kiss in his direction and leaned her back against the pole, hands gripping overhead.
Watch me be unsafe, asshole.
She lifted her legs, opening them wide and rolling her back on the pole until she was inverted. It was a shoulder V-mount variation all her own. It was a quick glimpse of a heavenly destination no loser who’d accost a woman in alley would ever get close to. And then she stopped thinking and let herself dance, at one point looking down to see money littering the stage.
Why had she bothered to try to be different? To pretend this was another way to be a gymnast and get paid for it. She was such a fool, the music, the red light washes, the beery smell and the masculine grunts were so far from the sprung floor stadiums and the respectful silences, skills grading and moderate applause she was used to. And if a little more skin and hair tossing, a little more provocation captured more tips then what was the point in holding back?
Artistry made no difference to the meathead in the alley, she might as well take all their car payments and grocery money and get out debt free sooner rather than later.
She finished her first number of the set and went straight into her second, INXS’ “Need You Tonight” with its glorious plunking guitar riff. An old song for a new mood. She’d popped her sex act cherry tonight in a way that starting here two years ago hadn’t done. Tonight she accepted that this was about the skin and not the skill, knowing she could use that till she had what she needed, and like Jasmina, move on to better times.
She got more tips that night than the four nights before it combined. That sucked in a good way.
She was last to leave the dressing room again because she stopped to rearrange her costumes, taking stock of the sexier ones, the ones more like fetish wear than fun and games, and packing what needed washing to take home.
Lou had agreed to letting the staff leave Lucky’s through the front door. She had a feeling that rule wouldn’t stick, but it meant she didn’t spare a thought for meeting trouble and she was mentally running a bath and adding the bubbles when she saw him.
Reid. Sitting on the pavement with his long legs out in front, head slumped forward, his back against the window of the Liquor Barn next door.
Not her problem. Not. She had sleep on her agenda, not drunk men.
He looked utterly useless. So don’t look. Watch for a cab instead. There was usually a good steady flow of them. She looked back, he’d lifted his head, but his eyes were closed. He was pale and sweating. His shirt was wet and so was the front of his jeans. Was he so drunk he’d pissed himself?
She took half a dozen quick strides across the pavement and kicked the sole of his boot. He grunted but didn’t stir. He smelled bad, but not of urine or spirits.
“Get up, Reid. You can’t stay here.” He mumbled something she didn’t care to interpret. The palm of one of his hands was torn and bleeding. He’d had a fall. She looked at the sky. He wasn’t her problem, then she kicked him again. “Get up.”
His eyes opened but he had trouble fixing on her. “Not drunk.”
“That’s what all the good drunks say. You need to get home.”
He approximated a nod and she looked at him more carefully. He was sweating profusely and it wasn’t a warm night.
“Dizzy.”
She snorted. “You mean legless.”