Richard

Maybe if I made enough money, I could get a new outfit. Something skanky. Something with higher heels. And then maybe Ginger could go jump off a fucking bridge.

I was halfway to the champagne room when Chelsea spotted me. She was on some drunk guy’s lap, which was pretty much where you could usually find her, if she wasn’t at home. Even when we went out to the clubs—the ones without naked chicks all over—Chel was a bloodhound for the guys with one too many drinks in ‘em and more money than they could spend. Sometimes I wished I had her nose for it. Maybe then I could get the fuck out of Gunner’s place, this club, and this whole damn city.

“Hey, look who’s here!” Chelsea said, giggling as she bent backward. With her tits straight up in the air she looked at me, batting her baby blues. “How’s the hand, sweets?”

“Shitty for dancing,” I told her, smiling as she straightened back up. She undulated like a snake, her flesh always moving. Her customer seemed pleased. “I got someone in the champagne room, though.”

Chelsea spun around, kicking her legs off the man’s lap to grind her ass into him. “Ooh, maybe you’ll get another regular? I’m tellin’ you, sweets, a steady stream of loyal customers is the only way to go.”

“You want loyal customers?” one of the fat, greasy men next to her sneered over the rim of his Jack and Coke. “Shut the fuck up while you’re on the job.”

The man under Chelsea winced. “Jeez, Dad. Leave her alone.”

I stood there for a moment, taking in the scene. Chelsea was ignoring the men pretty successfully, but I couldn’t. I just didn’t have her resolve.

It fuckin’ killed me to see the generational misogyny evolving right before my eyes. Maybe the kid wasn’t so bad, but he was still here, wasn’t he—taking advantage of women with no viable alternative for survival? Renting our bodies like we were any other whore on the street? He might not have been a blatant dick like his dad, but what would happen if Chel saw him in a Starbucks someday, and he thought he could get her into his car and back to his house because, hey, he’d bought and paid for her, right?

When she said no, what was the first thing he’d say back to her? No? You’re a fucking stripper. Who the fuck are you to tell me no? Fucking bitch. You’re nothing but a whore.

I’d seen it happen. I’d been on the receiving end of that shit way too many times. Thank God I’d always been able to walk away. I knew a lot of girls who never had that choice and came to work the next day with scrapes and bruises as a result.

And here that vicious cycle was, perpetuating right in front of me. Men’s ownership of women, of our bodies. It made me think of what Gunner would say if he could see me here, shaking my tits up on stage.

That was why I had to get out of his house. He was just another Jim waiting to happen. I was sure of it.

Hell, they all were.

I left Chelsea to it after mouthing “we’ll talk later” and seeing her wink in reply. No way she was gonna give up a sweet tip just ‘cause of the guy’s fuck-face father. I understood it. Didn’t like it, especially since she was my friend, but money makes the world go ‘round.

I knew that all too well.

As soon as I neared the back door, the smell hit me: sweat, sex, and somebody’s shattered dignity. It hung stale in the air. I wrinkled my nose. It had smelled exactly like this the last time I was in here with a man—the one who’d turned me off to the idea of private dances for a long, long time.

Usually, all a stripper had to worry about was some guy who didn’t know when enough was enough. Some asshole who’d get too handsy, or who wouldn’t listen when a girl said “no.” Then we’d just call one of the bouncers and hope they got to us before the guy had a chance to clock us, or worse, get their bodily fluids in our hair.

But this guy_._._._I’d known from the moment I shut the door that something about him was off. Maybe it was the mask he wore over his face. Like Comedy and Tragedy, only this guy had forgot the Comedy part.

I could see his eyes glinting through the dark socket holes, and I think that’s when I knew for sure shit would go wrong. There was nothing there. No hope, no desire, not even a drunken spark. His eyes were flat and dead. Like a shark’s.

He didn’t want me to dance, either. He wanted me to take my top off. He wanted me to stand in the middle of the room and he circled around me, looking me up and down, judging me, scrutinizing me. He’d made me feel like a slab of meat.

Then he’d bent me over the stage, spread my legs, and began grinding between my ass cheeks. I could feel him filling up, getting harder. When I tried to speak, he put his hand on the back of my neck and squeezed. And then he’d started talking.

He used a voice scrambler—holy fuck, was that horrifying. He’d told me all about his mother, how she used to be a stripper just like me. How she’d been a whore, too, though he thought I might be above that. He said there was something pure about me, something perfect. I reminded him of what his mother could’ve been. I’d probably make a great mom, myself.

And then he told me how she died. How one night, she’d fallen asleep after some rum and Vicodin. He told me about how some nights when she was passed out, he’d sniff her panties. But how on this night, he’d stuffed them down her throat.

“The way she choked is a sound that will never leave me. How does it sound when you choke, Tanya?” Too fast for me to stop him, he’d wrapped his arm around my throat. “I’ll bet it sounds the same.”

That’s when I screamed. It took everything I had, but I shrieked and bucked and bellowed Nick’s name until he’d come crashing in, murder on his face. But by the time he had the psycho was gone. My backside was moist—he’d gotten off on the sound of my screaming.

I wobbled near the doors and put my good hand on the wall to steady myself. My pulse pounded in my ears so loud I couldn’t hear the bassline anymore. My throat was dry and my stomach was turning, threatening to spill my guts right there on the floor. I took a deep breath through my nose and shut my eyes, telling myself the same thing I had every time I had to come to the champagne room.

It’s not him. He hasn’t been here in weeks.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump.

“I got you, Tanya,” Daryl said. He was our other bouncer—he and Nick worked opposite shifts unless there was a big crowd, and then they worked together. “If it’s that dickhead again, you scream first thing and I’ll come get you.”

“I know,” I said, putting my hand on his. “Thanks, Daryl.”

Daryl squeezed. “No problem, baby girl.” Then he turned back to the club and I straightened up.

Okay. You got this. Showtime.

I opened up the door and put on my best smile, stepping through. But that smile faded dead away the second I saw who was sitting there.

“Hello, Tanya,” he said.

I opened my mouth to scream.

Chapter 7

Gunner

“Don’t,” I began, holding up my hands as I rose from the crappy, faux-leather couch against the wall. The “champagne room,” they’d called it. All I could smell was jizz and regret, and champagne was the last thing I’d have thought of drinking in this shit hole.

Thankfully, my sister had decided not to scream, at least not just yet. I was a pretty tough guy, but the bouncer I’d seen by the door could probably have broken me in two and I didn’t need that kind of trouble—not tonight.

“What’re you doing here, Gunner?!” Tanya hissed, glancing over her shoulder before shutting the door after herself. She looked livid, but I couldn’t begin to keep my eyes on her expression, not with the way she looked in that thong and bra.

“You need to come home,” I said, setting my jaw as I forced my eyes back up to meet her own. “And when we get there, I’m going to find you a real job—not working in some fucking strip joint. I mean, Jesus, what would Mom—”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” Tanya snapped, stepping forward without warning and pushing me square in my chest with her good hand. ?

??I’m not going anywhere. And if you’re not going to pay for your goddamn lap dance, then I’ve got plenty of other men who’d gladly be where you are right now.”

“Tanya,” I began, but as she turned I sighed and dug my wallet out of my pocket. “Here.”

I pulled out a crisp twenty and tossed it at her, sitting myself back down on the couch, much to the complaint of the artificial leather.