With Rihanna chanting how good it feels to be bad, I drop down into a squat. The pole slides against my butt crack as I descend. I press my chest out, keep one hand overhead gripping the pole, and lazily trail my index finger between my breasts to the waist of my panties.
Next to me, Yolga is already out of her top. Her nipples are the perfect shade of pink and pebbled into miniature saucers. She skims her palms down her sides and fake gasps, her mouth drawing into a circular shape before she brings her finger up and sucks it.
There’s whistling. Cat-calling. The stage vibrates below me from people drumming their hands along the sides of it. For a second, I think Yolga really might be a pro with the way she twirls and displays her perfect round boobs to the crowd.
And then it’s my turn to discard my top. My boobs are pretty nice, I must admit, but they’re nowhere near Yolga nice. They’re a decent handful, not the size of volleyballs. A queasiness sets in the longer I compare myself to the woman next to me.Sheis everything these men—and women—want. And I am everything they don’t want. It’s very clear who’s going to be the one walking off the stage with bragging rights.
The countless eyes on me are nothing against the fire burning below the surface. My body temperature skyrockets as Yolga walks across the stage to join me on my side. The alcohol, the rows of filled tables and booths, it’s all too much. I’m a deer in headlights as my near-naked body sobers.
There’s…so many people.
Toomany people.
And I’m…standing on a fucking stage next to a stripper’s pole with my body showing and Olive peering up at me with her eyes half shielded as she claps. Bret looks like he’s going to devourme the second I hop down andwhywhywhydoes that make me want to throw up until daylight savings?
I need to get down.
I need to get out of here.
I need fresh air and familiarity.
I need so much that isn’t easily accessible that I settle on twisting my body to the side so I can shield myself in a way that doesn’t show just how much I’m freaking out.
Yolga is exuberant as hell next to me, her arms moving languidly in all different directions. At one point, I think she pushes her tits together and bends at her waist like she’s waiting for some guy to paint them with somethingveryspecific. I catch an array of dollar bills on the stage that I must’ve missed while I was too in my head.
I grimace at the thought of them being tucked in the band of my panties and try to move away from Yolga because she’s right next to me. And if eyes are on her, that means they’re also on me. But then her elbow comes into my vision. It rears back so fast—but, like, also in slow motion—that there’s no way for me to move in time with the alcohol in my system. She drives it into the side of my head while her back is turned to me, completely oblivious to what’s happening.
I wobble back a step—these heels were not made for me—and get the sense I’m falling back. I can’t be sure. It’s like my brain isn’t moving with my body. It’s some weird out-of-body experience that I have zero time to figure out because everything goes black.
FORTY
VIOLET
The room spiralslike a spinning bottle in a game of truth or dare. A gnawing ache cascades down into my temples, my cheeks almost feeling bruised. It doesn’t help that my throat is dry as dust. That the thought of water causes my throat to spasm with the threat of a constricting heave.
I groan and roll over to my back, the bed creaking from the movement.
Wait a second…
The springs in my mattress are quiet as a mouse. They don’t croak as if a frog lives in them. And now that I think about it, my mattress isn’t as stabby as this one, either.
My eyes fly open, and I press my hands against the soft material around me just to be met with unfamiliarity. The walls are paneled and black, the ceiling that same color.
I take note of the window across from me, my stomach sinking because I’ve never seen it a day in my life. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to recall what happened last night. I remember the blinking sign outside of the strip club and the first shot Olive shoved in my dir?—
Olive.
Oh, no.
If I’m in…here alone, then where the hell is my sister?
I must’ve blacked out.
I must’ve,fuck, I don’t know.
My stomach drops about ten flights.
WhereamI, and why was I so reckless?
