Once upon a time, I would have been horrified in the face of death and convinced that I couldn’t take another life no matter how blackened their soul was. Now, however, I wondered if that was a lie. Because staring at that piece of shit with his mouth still wide open in a silent scream, I felt nothing. Maybe I never had a soul.
Who needs a soul when you’re already dead inside?
Blue and red neons reflected rays of purple into the atmosphere of Luscious, mixing with the putrid stench of cigars and body odor. Sweat coated my palms as the smell hit my nostrils, and I had to fight the urge to freeze. Echoes of the past whispered in my ears. Drunken laughter. The ghost of fingers tracing down my arms, and the burn of alcohol as they forced it down my throat.
“Stop it,” I hissed. “Not now. Not ever again. You are a strong bitch, and you stomp on men like bubble wrap.”
“Come ‘ere sweetheart,” a man slurred from a distance.
I whipped my head around, ready to tell him to fuck off in every color of the rainbow, but snapped my mouth shut when I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
“Keep your paws off,” teased my coworker, Caramel. The soft, sticky squares of sugar she kept in heavy supply on her vanity determined her stage name before she ever got to pick her own. What endeared me to her from the start was why she kept them: concern for our blood sugar when we came off stage. Caramel was southern sweet down to her core.
“Don’t be that way,” another man laughed and smacked her ass from behind. The sound reverberated against the stage music and bounced around my head, each ping making my eye twitch.
Body glitter glinted off of Caramel’s cleavage. It didn’t shine nearly as bright as the budding spark of discomfort in her amber eyes.
Then men closed in, their touches more persistent, and I’d seen enough.
An audible growl accompanied my sneer as I stomped toward them.
“Last I recall sweetheart, it was you taking my money, and you’ll do as I say while I’m paying you,” said Dickhead Number One.
He was the first I shoved.
“Do we have a problem over here, asshole?” I squared my shoulders and stood toe-to-toe with him. I didn’t care that I was two heads shorter; by the time I was finished, he’d be feeling like the small sack of shit he was.
“The problem,” he said as he squared up, “is that I’m not getting what I‘m paying for.”
His easy smile and looming stature told me just how much he underestimated my abilities.
Good.
“You’re in a classy joint,” I gestured around the sub-par strip club. “If you wanna get handsy you’ll have to find a pay by the hour down the street. Be careful which corner you stand on, though. Some of those pimps make you audition.” I winked, he sneered, and Caramel’s giggle was the cherry on top.
The other girls were closing in on us, watching, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Raven crossed her arms, wearing a scowl as intense as the aroma of the hairspray cloud that followed her everywhere. Trinity and Lola, newbies who were twins, stopped dancing on stage and walked to the edge.
“Maybe you’ll just have to take her place, toots.” The smell of stale beer and periodontal disease warmed my neck when Dickhead Number Two finally found the courage to approach me.
Nova silently rounded the bar, her silence more scary than any shouted word. Cherry stood up from her private lap dance to walk closer, the sweetness of her cherry flavored body butter teasing my tongue.
“You wouldn’t have the balls.” I didn’t deign to face Dickhead Number Two because I refused to lose the stare-off I was having with Dickhead Number One.
“Thanks, Ivy,” Caramel mouthed as she slipped away. I gave a short nod, but kept my focus grounded on the asshole sandwich I was a part of.
Sapphire approached them from behind. I knew this because the sheer size of her Jessica Rabbit style tits were hard to miss. They all had my back. Not that I needed it, but it bolstered my confidence.
I was going to make an example of these two assholes so that the remainderof the night was smooth sailing for the rest of them.
The air shifted as the men tightened the cage with their bodies. It was a threat. One that lit the first small flame of bloodlust in my belly. I wouldn’t kill them.
I’ll just have a little fun.
My smirk was the only warning they got before I sent my hands flying and fisted both of their pathetic, shriveled balls in an iron grip.
“Your mothers would be so disappointed,” I yelled above the music, dragging both of them screaming behind me toward the alleyway exit.
Disrespectful children got pulled by the ear.
