“Housekeeping,” she announces.
Shit, I’m late. I pull up my wrist and check my watch again – it’s almost six thirty. Apologizing to the poor woman for getting in the way of her just trying to do her job, I grab my bags and head down the hall toward the lobby, trying to shove down the bitter taste of disappointment filling my mouth.
FIVE
Sophia
one week later
“Coming through! We’ve got a birthday boy over here!” I cheer from my perch atop a security guard’s shoulders, waving a brightly-lit sign over my head that reads ‘happy birthday, Dan!’
The two girls on either side of me each carry massive bottles of champagne, the birthday boy’s drink of choice to reach the table minimum.
I plaster on a big, blinding smile as we approach the table before hopping down to wish Dan a happy birthday and help the girls dish out the liquor to him and his friends.
One of Dan’s friends, I’ll call him ‘Spike,’ because he has a horrible triangular goatee under his lip that looks straight out of the early two thousands, reaches for my hip, tracing his thumb over the lines of the cowboy hat poking out of my emerald green high-cut bodysuit. I bite back the urge to deck him across the face, choosing instead to take a step away.
“That because you like to ride? I can give you something to ride,” he says, looking down at his crotch.
I throw him a pity laugh because my boss would kill me otherwise, and I slap his bicep playfully, a little harder than could be considered flirting, then walk away with the other girls to load up a serving tray. My eyes drift down to my hipand I let out a breath, fondly remembering my whirlwind vacation romance with Eric.
Wasit a romance? It sure felt like one; magical and immediate and something out of the movies that every girl dreams about finding. Maybe it was just a blur of days filled with great fucking and weird drugs that I’d never done before.
I don’t know why I wasn’t honest with him. I mean, I didn’t flat outlieabout who I am, but I wasn’t completely real with him, either. And I would have gone with him, really. I went to his hotel and stood outside for more than an hour, suitcase in hand, before I chickened out and left, because that’s what I do; I leave before I’m left behind, or I push them away.
Though I guess, in this situation, I’m not sure if I was the one leaving or if I forced him to leave me behind.
“Sophia!”
Turning around, I see my manager waving at me, trying to flag me down. I plaster on that big bright smile again and say, “Hey, I was just about to grab some more glasses for the birthday table.”
“No need, someone else will do it,” he says. “I need you up in VIP right now, high roller just came in and Nash wants you on it ASAP.”
I fucking hate working VIP. Since the first night I was bumped upstairs, I’ve hated it. The tips were worth it on some nights, but ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the time, it just makes me feel like shit at the end of the day.
I hurry to the back room to powder my face, touch up my lipstick and change my outfit before making my way up the VIP section.
It’s almost always older guys – or younger guys with their daddy’s money – who get tables up here, at least at my club, and they’re almost always a little too handsy for my liking because they know how this place runs. They know the rules that we’re expected to follow; what we’re expected to do.
Even if they don’t order off of the secret menu, they feel entitled to every piece of us.
Some of the other girls don’t mind it; they thrive here. But for a lot of us, it’s like building up to a slow death.
Regardless, I throw an extra ounce of sway into my hips and straighten my back so that the corset top of my bodysuit shoves uncomfortably against my tits, making them push up to an unnatural degree.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see black hair – a lot shorter than Eric’s was, but he could have cut it - a suit that a rich investor kind of guy might wear when he’s not on vacation, and a fancy watch on one of the men seated on the couch. It couldn’t be him, could it?
I mean, I guess I never asked where he lived. For all I know, he lives two blocks away from here. My palms start to go clammy and the back of my neck chills as I step closer, but when I see a side profile with a long beard and not a dusting of stubble, I breathe a sigh of relief.
It’s not Eric.
I could swear that, even in my relief, there’s almost a prickle of disappointment that it isn’t him.
I stuff down my feelings and brighten my smile, going through the motions of putting on elaborate displays for them, letting them touch my visible skin, pouring drinks directly into their mouths. They stay for three hours, and I am not allowed to leave their table outside of getting them more alcohol and a few trays of nachos.
It’s not a bad night. Between the two tables and one secret menu order, I walk away with a grand in cash after Nash takes his much larger cut. I stuff my earnings into my little leather bag covered in rainbow flowers before changing my clothes and head back out to the bar. I take a seat at the corner, where I’m least likely to be bothered, and wave over my friend working the bar.
“What’ll it be tonight, Soph?”
