He stepped back with a grim laugh on his face, pocketing the twenty-dollar bill just as I knew he would. I walked into the club and instantly stopped the first waitress that I saw.
“Excuse me.”
“Yeah?” She threw her braids over her shoulder with an attitude.
“Can you show me where the restrooms are?”
She rolled her eyes and then pointed to the corner behind us before she took walked away. I went into the restroom, turning up my nose from the stench that hit me at the door.
“Ryan, are you in here?”
I opened every restroom stall before I finally realized that she wasn’t. I walked back out of the restroom and stopped the same waitress who had pointed me in the direction of the restroom in the first place.
“Excuse me!”
“What girl? I am busy!”
“I understand that, and I apologize for bothering you, but have you seen my sister. Her name is Ryan?”
“Who?”
“Ryan.”
She snickered and rolled her eyes.
“Sis, we don’t go by real names around here. Do you have a picture of her?”
My phone was still in my hand, so I pulled up Ryan’s Instagram profile as quickly as I could.
“Oh, you are talking about Racks skinny ass. She got called into the back for a private dance like fifteen minutes ago. I told that nigga her lip was bleeding, but he was persistent on getting a dance from her.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Can you go get her, please?”
“No, we are not allowed to break up private dances. You need to just wait until she comes out.”
She walked away from me and back over to the bar.
When I finally spotted a dark hallway to my left, I caught sight of a stripper in a glittered-blue bodysuit disappearing down the hallway with a heavy-set white guy whose hands were glued to her hips. I followed a few steps behind them into the hallway, which had no guards giving me free access to roam. This had to be the area where they gave away private dances.
As I walked further down the hall, I saw small velvet curtains draped over doorways lining the narrow hallway, and I quickly started to pull back curtain after curtain, revealing some shit I wish I'd never seen. I could smell the cheap cologne floating through these back hallways, which fully explained whatkind of men were back here. The most desperate and freaked out ones who probably got no play in real life.
I was mentally preparing myself for what I might see when I found Ryan. But still, every curtain I pulled back showed me a view of everything but Ryan.
I eventually snatched the curtain back on the second-to-last booth, and what I saw legit stopped me in my tracks. The first thing I spotted was a woman spread wide open getting her vagina licked by another woman. That wasn’t even the sight that had me caught up the most. It was the fully erected dick standing up from the man’s lap who was blessed as hell and there was no denying that. He was fine as hell and nothing like the stereotype I had attached to the men who I felt came back here to get sexual favors from desperate women. After catching eyes with him, the realization flooded my brain as I stood in the doorway, looking at him. I know exactly who this man is. One of Hov’s closest allies. Crew Banks.
A few months ago, when I was building a character profile on Hov and combing through his Facebook, I saw the same man who stood out next to Hov in a photo from last Christmas. But none of Crew’s photos compared to how he looks in person. In those photos, he was undeniably attractive, but sitting here before me, he looked like a basketball player or a big-time rapper or some shit.
After about five seconds of us making eye contact, he shook his head and looked back at the girls going at it, who also hadn’t stopped.
“Unless you want to join them, can you please get the fuck out? We busy.”
He spat while motioning his hands up and down his dick.
I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to escape, but my heels felt like they were glued to the floor for what felt like an eternity.
“I, I, I’m sorry.” I finally rushed out of the room, having to take a break in the hallway to catch my breath.
“Okay, where the fuck is my sister? I have to get the fuck out of here. This place is insane.”
