Roughing

Guess I missed the memo.

Bruno will kill me if I go onstage in the same costume as another dancer.

I glance in the mirror, checking my makeup one more time, and run a glossy shimmer along my bottom lip before smacking them together. “Whatever Bruno wants.” I stand with my hand held out, motioning toward my chair. “Go ahead. You should finish up here. I’ll get changed, and then I’ll see you in the VIP room.”

“Perfect.” She plops down on the leather chair. “I’m right behind you. Break a leg.”

After I change, I walk down the creepy back hallway. In the dimly lit space, the lumpy red wallpaper reminds me of coagulated blood. The lack of ventilation along with the mold and whatever is festering inside the walls and drop ceiling make it hard to breathe.

At the end of the hall, opposite our dressing room, I open the door to the VIP room and suck in a deep breath, taking in the dense air and the stench of sweaty bodies. Purple lights illuminate the mirrored walls and ceiling, casting shadows of the men who are sitting on couches scattered throughout the large, open room and standing around the bar that runs along the right side.

Two girls are dancing, each wrapping her body around a pole at the center of the room. While we’re not strippers, we have to do some pole work on occasion, especially for the high-end clients who book private rooms. Bouncers guard us, as if we were their property. In some ways though, we do belong to Bruno and his club.

Donna files in behind me and playfully smacks me on the ass, pushing me closer to the stage. Even after three months of working at the club, I still get stage fright for the first few minutes until I get into my groove. But, after I’m on the stage, bar, or whatever spot Bruno has chosen for me that night, I try not to think about the people in the crowd, and I concentrate on the real reason I am stuck working here.

Donna takes her place on the stage. I follow her lead. Bruno even had the circular platform mirrored, allowing anyone who is standing close enough to see right up our skirts. I purposely wear booty-hugging black shorts instead of the standard thong and fishnets most of the girls wear.

Moving my hips back and forth to the music, I keep my eyes on the crowd forming in front of me, careful not to focus on anyone in particular. I made that mistake when I first started dancing. A man thought I was making eye contact to signal that I wanted him when all I was trying to do was calm my nerves and pick someone to zone in on. I had done the same thing when I was in law school, and my trick had worked every time. But the freak followed me home for a week after our strange encounter, which resulted in me having to stop by the courthouse to get a restraining order.

Fun times.

I’ve heard stories from the girls, some who used to strip, about men who became obsessed with them and thought they were dating just because they’d paid them for a lap dance and tipped well. Unfortunately, the same thing happens in this line of work.

I look at the men surrounding us, standing a few feet back from the stag

e, thanks to our bouncers.

“Make eye contact,” Bruno always says to us.

So, I do, my eyes traveling around the room, never stopping on anyone in particular.

With this job, at least I don’t have to wear a G-string, take off my clothes, or have sweaty, horny men touching me. They only stare at me with their mouths open wide, whistling and screaming, as I throw my leg around the pole. After I twirl a few times, dancing nonstop, my body and the pole are now slick with sweat. Under the heat from the lights and the steady pace we have to maintain, I practically melt into a puddle on the floor.

I tighten my grip on the pole and hop off before I fall and embarrass myself, like when I first started out. Counting down the minutes in my head until the end of this shift, I keep going and force my body to move, already feeling my leg cramping up. I hate when that happens because it makes standing in these heels ten times harder.

When the song changes to a more techno beat, I inch forward, in sync with the other girls, and we gyrate to the beat of the music. I took ballet, tap, and jazz lessons when I was younger. But I never thought I was any good.

One of the girls I met while working as a lawyer at the public defender’s office told me about a club that paid well for dancing without taking off your clothes, and I was banging on Bruno’s door the next day, begging him for a job because I was so desperate for cash. The life of a public servant has zero rewards. On my measly public defender salary, I barely made enough money to pay a few bills and treat myself to a manicure once a month.

Once our set ends, I stop for a second, sweat dripping into my eyes and down my face. With the makeup and lights blinding me, I can hardly see the faces in front of me. Blinking a few times as I step down from the platform, I grab ahold of a bouncer’s arm, and he escorts me out of the room. I’m thrilled that I have thirty minutes before I have to go back on again.

I need the money. But I hate this job.

Our next shift moves to the main room of the club where girls are dancing inside cages suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Bruno used to switch me with the girls who normally worked above the dance floor, but one night, I got so sick from the height that he hasn’t forced me to go up there since. Now, he wants the girls to dance on top of a long mahogany bar at the center of the club where everyone can perfectly see us as we step onto the stools and climb up onto the bar.

I almost lose my balance when my shoe collides with something wet, causing me to glide toward one of the six poles bolted into the ceiling and fixed to the wood. On my first night as a dancer, I didn’t adjust to the black lights, and I walked into the bottom of the stage, falling onto the platform with my arms sprawled out and my legs sticking up in the air. It was beyond humiliating. I thought about quitting after that night, but Donna convinced me to stick with it, said things would get better as time went by. She was right. But that does not change how I feel about this job.

I could have worked a different job, apart from the public defender’s office, but I wanted to make some fast cash to pay off my debts. According to my projections, it will be at least one year, if not more, before I am debt-free. My pride has to take a backseat to the mountain of bills and collection agencies hounding me on a daily basis. I am flat broke and drowning in school loans.

“No touching!” the bouncer yells at a guy who has grabbed my leg, his sleazy hand running up the length of my calf. “I said, no touching.”

I try to shake him off, holding on to the pole and hopping around, as the bouncer peels the guy’s fingers from my skin and grips him by his shirt.

When the bouncer turns to manhandle him, my hand slides down the metal of the sweat-coated pole. With the slickness from spilled drinks on the bar, I fall forward after the guy releases my leg, having nothing left to keep me from tumbling to the ground. Except my body never hits the floor because strong arms have wrapped around me. The scent of musk and laundry detergent fill my nostrils as my nose crashes against the neck of the man who caught me.

“I got you, beautiful,” he whispers into my ear, his voice deep and sensual.

He sets me on the floor his striking green eyes luring me in. The dark tats on his muscular arms cause my heart to flutter a bit. Damn if he’s not one of the sexiest men I have laid eyes on in a long time. I was already curious about the man who saved me, but now…