It was a simple story, really.
Boy meets girl, boy likes girl. They fall in love and live happily ever after.
Except we didn’t live happily ever after, maybe we just weren’t meant to. I hadn’t known our ending, but a wise woman once told me ‘if you wanna know the ending, look at the beginning’. That had been a quote I’d lived by my whole life and it hadn’t yet been proven wrong.
That night, for the first time ever, I had even gone so far as to pray that that wasn’t the case.
Just this once, not this time.
I’d first met Callum Wright on the subway. I was on my way to a job that I really didn’t want to go to. He was on his way home from the airport. I tripped in my stilettos jumping onto the train. I stuck the landing but hadn’t been ready for the speed at which the train shot away from the platform.
I fell, bumped my head, and crash landed onto the seat next to Callum. I spilt my iced latte all over my coat and immediately began sobbing.
You know those moments where it feels like the ground has fallen beneath your feet, but somehow the clouds are still raining down on you. It feels like you couldn’t get any lower and then you drop even further. Well… Callum had been there to witness maybe the most embarrassing and definitely the lowest moment in my life to date.
Luckily the train had been quiet, only a few other stragglers hovered around.
Callum hadn’t said a word, just lowered his newspaper and handed me his pocket square. He’d taken pity on me.
That only made my crying worse, but I eventually managed to pull myself together and find a seat. The one directly opposite him. That was when I got my first good look at him.
He was gorgeous. Like a model, or the modern reincarnation of a Greek god. I spent the whole train ride with my eyes locked on this heaven sent stranger.
When he looked up, I looked away. He smiled, I bit my lip to keep from laughing and then we struck up a conversation. I could’ve talked to him for hours, but unfortunately his stop came first. We exchanged numbers and began texting later that night.
I’d never fallen in love so quickly, but it was a different kind of relationship than I’d ever been in before. I was consumed by him. He was my every thought, I felt him in every move I made.
I knew we were doomed from the start, but I didn’t know if that was more terrifying or exhilarating.
It was definitely a thrill. He treated me like a princess, when in actuality I was the maid’s daughter.
And the sex. My god, the sex.
He had made me feel things that I hadn’t known were possible. He took it from ordinary to extraordinary. I knew as soon as it all crashed and burned that I wouldn’t ever feel that level of all-consuming, body-on-fire lust with anybody else, ever again in my life. He was a unicorn, and while I could call him mine, I rode him every chance I could get.
Returning to the present moment in time, my eyes accidentally flickered down to his crotch. While it may have been covered by his jeans and hidden by the angle of the street lights, I knew the ungodly love stick that hid there. It wasn’t the right time to be thinking about his penis, not at all, but I couldn’t not.
“I just don’t get it, Mel. Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked up to meet his eyes. It was a difficult task because of the darkness but also because I stood before him wearing nothing but a silver thong and matching pasties which had only been covered by my coat.
As I had rushed from the club, pushing him outside, I’d made sure to grab it from Flank at the door before entering the cold night air. Besides the cold, the coat also blocked out what I didn’t want him to see.
“I…” I didn’t know how to answer that. I loved dancing, I was proud of the way my body moved. The stripping? Not so much, but it brought in the money while allowing me to do what I wanted. How many other people could’ve said the same thing about their job? Not many.
So. I was a stripper. By choice.
It had always been this big obstacle when it came to my love life, though. There were two types of guys from my experience. Guys that loved it, or guys that hated it. If they loved it, they were creeps. If they hated it, it wasn’t long until they began to look at me exactly like Callum was right then.
A mixture of disgust and embarrassment.
I had valid reasons for not telling him. I usually waited a couple weeks to tell guys that I was an ‘exotic dancer’. But with Callum, I’d let it run on longer than normal. I was clinging to the idea that maybe he’d never find out. It was silly, but I had liked the fantasy too much.
I had rationalized that he didn’t need to know.
I was wrong. On some level, I must have known that all along.
But really, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered because despite everything, now he knew. And then either way, that would be the end of that.
Callum’s eyes stayed locked on mine but I was struggling to reciprocate his level of eye contact. I couldn’t stand the look on his face. It was a striking mixture of hurt, confusion, disgust, and embarrassment. So completely different to the loving tenderness that was there only this morning.
