“Honey, are you thinking of getting them to model?” Aspen asked.
“You’re damned skippy.”
“Oh, my goddess, I cannot wait to sort through those images for social media,” Aspen said, fanning himself again. “Those two would steam the sheen off the pages.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied. “I just hope they call.”
“You and me both, honey, you and me both,” he replied. “You know I’ll be popping upstairs to check out that shoot live if you can make it happen.”
“If it happens, I’ll owe it all to you.”
“And don’t you forget it either, baby,” he replied. “I’ll be expecting front-row seats and opera glasses so I can keep a real close eye on things.”
“And I suppose you’ll want gourmet popcorn too and a pitcher of sangria waiting.”
“You know me too well, darling.”
Chuckling, I slouched in my seat, knowing I’d provide all of that and then some if the night led to a shoot with that pair strutting and preening around the loft in my gear.
And out of them, my traitorous brain supplied, ‘cause damn, just damn, their dances had left little to the imagination, even a vivid one like mine. As I settled in to enjoy the rest of Aspen’s birthday celebration, thoughts of them were always at the forefront of my mind, along with a running mantra.
Please call, please call, please, for the love of all things bright and glorious in this universe, please, please, please let the pair call me.
2
RALEIGH
Stripping at a birthday party, even one held at the Lactin Brotherhood’s prestigious kink club, has a way different vibe than stripping at Hot n’ Bothered, the full-on strip club I’d been working at since I was eighteen. Couldn’t legally have a beer, but I could dance for horny, drunk customers who catcalled some of the lewdest things I’d ever heard in my life, and I grew up in foster care.
Tonight, I was poised on a table with a pole sticking out of the center, decked out head to toe in leather, performing for the men currently ogling me from their seats. Of course there were mugs on the table along with a couple bottles I kept having to avoid as I gripped the pole, flipped over, and slid upside down on it to smile at them.
Someone stuffed a bill in my mouth, which was utterly disgusting, but it was a twenty, so I wasn’t about to spit it out and act all offended by it. As soon as I got to the back I was gargling, though, because holy shit, ick, ick, ick. It wasn’t the first time someone had done that either, rather than allowing me to pluck it from between their fingers with my teeth. To mostof them, guys like me were just pretty pieces of eye candy they could treat with as much indifference as their blow-up dolls.
I caught a glimpse of Murry’s glittering pink and silver platform boots running up his legs to end at mid-thigh, a swatch of skin dusted with sparkles, offering a peek-a-boo effect between the boots and his boy shorts.
His tank top clung to his toned upper body as he worked the pole. After seven years in the business, there weren’t many tricks we couldn’t pull off on one. I moved on at the end of the song, with a few more bills tucked in my clothes, along with the soggy one I’d shoved down the front of my G-string the moment I’d had the opportunity. I’ve made a big show of it too, rubbing it down the front of my body, collecting sweat and glitter on its path south. Oh well, in less than thirty minutes I could shower off completely, as well as brush my teeth, and besides, no one at the bank ever seemed to care that the money I deposited had a bit of a shimmer to it as long as the bills passed their counterfeit tests.
As I danced my way up the aisle between tables, people were supposed to keep their hands to themselves; that was one of the rules. Most nights they followed them, but every now and again some fucker decided to smack my ass, pinch it, or attempt a grope.
Why, I didn’t know, but it always startled the hell out of me when it happened, and of course, it happened tonight.
Yelping, I whirled around, glaring at the offender, but before I could even flip the fucker off, Phoenix, one of several badass bouncers paid to keep that shit from taking place, had yanked the guy up out of his seat and was growling some ratherthreatening things at him as he turned him around and started frog-marching him towards the door.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. I hoped the door cracked him on the ass on his way out, though knowing Phoenix, he might just launch the guy and be done with it. He hated when people put their hands on one of us.
A short time later, I stalked into the backstage dressing room and straight to my locker, where there was always a bottle of Scope on the top shelf beside my toothbrush. With bills sticking out of my G-string in every which direction, I bent over the sink and brushed my teeth until even the thought of that bill in my mouth began to fade.
“Oh my goddess, I am so ready for two nights off,” Murry groaned when he joined me a short time later.
By then, I’d stuffed the bills in my bag and was digging out clothes, eager to grab a shower while there was still plenty of hot water, since we’d been assigned the early shift tonight. By early, it meant we were getting out at midnight instead of two in the morning when the club actually closed, and yeah, the place was popular enough that it stayed pretty damned crowded until then, which was nice when we were on late, which was rare these days, thank the goddess.
The newer dancers were typically the ones who covered those last two hours, giving them an opportunity to hone their craft when the place wasn’t packed damn near to capacity. The club was poppin’, thank goodness, because that meant Murry and I never had a hard time paying the bills on our apartment or fueling the few guilty pleasures we had. Extravagance wasn’t in our vocabulary, but we were both seafood lovers and candle fiends. Between the two and a variety of streaming services weused to indulge in the movies we loved, we lived what, for us, was a life of luxury.
“Saw you make a beeline off the floor the moment James tapped you on the shoulder.” Murry said as he straddled the bench and stared across our bags at me.
“Because some fucker decided it would be cute to stuff a twenty in my mouth,” I grumbled, grimacing as the memory of that nasty-ass taste came back full force.
He grimaced too and reached out to brush a lock of hair back from my face. “I’m sorry; some people are just dicks.”
