“Not exactly.” Andi looked back at her best friend.
“We work in the entertainment industry,” Peyton added. “And if you’re looking for work, and are open minded, I think you’d be perfect for what I have in mind.”
Entertainment industry? I knew they had to be models! But what gave them the idea I was even close to being able to do the same thing?
“I can be open minded…” I answered, the words slipping out of my mouth in discomfort because there was no way that whatever they did in the entertainment industry would be remotely interested in taking me on. They were so put together, where I… wasn’t.
“Great! Because I have a connection with a guy at work who is looking to add another girl to his escorting service.”
My heart sped up in my chest, and suddenly, the two drinks I consumed felt like four. I was way off in my assumptions, because … did she just sayescort?
I angled my glass back, only to come up short, remembering I had no liquid left in my drink, and my throat was drier than a fucking camel on a Tuesday.
“Jesus, Peyton. Way to go. You just about scared the girl off,” Andi said through gritted teeth, elbowing Peyton in the ribs.
“Sor—”
Peyton started to speak before I cut her off.
“What exactly do you two do for work?” I asked, only slightly on edge.
“Colton! Bring us all another round!” Andi hollered across the bar before getting down to business.
“Well, I’m a cam girl. It pays really fucking good and I get to make my own hours. I work from home most of the time,sometimes at the studio,” Peyton answered, only confirming that she wasn’t the type of model that I thought she was.
“And I’m a dancer.” Andi smirked.
“Dancer?”
“Well, stripper, if you want me to be honest. But I take pride in my work. I work at the best strip club in town. The kind only the richest men walk into. Where even on the slowest night, I’m raking in the kind of cash people could only dream they’d win at the blackjack tables.”
Colton stopped by with three fresh drinks, one of which I immediately took a drink of.
I don’t know what it was about this information that shocked me. It could be because I wasn’t used to being so immersed in the life of Las Vegas yet, or because I was genuinely curious to learn everything I could in one night over a few cocktails.
The offer was tempting. It felt like I’d been slapped across the face with a sign—an opportunity that I couldn’t say no to.
After a beat of silence and a couple more sips of liquid courage, my walls came crashing down.
Even shocking myself, I responded, “Tell me everything.”
My two new friends smiled at each other, then back at me.
“Cheers! To friendships, cheap drinks, and the city meant for sinning!” Andi stood up with her martini in the air for one last cheers.
With nerves rushing through me the size of a tsunami, I lifted my glass to join theirs.
“To making a fuck ton of money.” I smiled behind my glass, thanking my lucky stars that this was the bar I walked into tonight.
When I stumbled into this bar a couple hours ago, I never would have guessed that I’d leave with the phone numbers of a couple of girls that would become my lifeline, and a bartender that made this place feel a little bit more like home.
After graduating college, my eyes were big with excitement. Moving out of state to a new city with my boyfriend of eight years was the future I had always dreamed of. My feelings for him ran deep. So deep that I envisioned the white picket fence, a nine to five job, and the whole world ahead of us. Everything my childhood dreams were made of. He only allowed us a few joyful months here, living in paradise, before that one dreadful day where I realized he wasn’t who I always knew him to be, and my whole world flipped upside down because of it.
I walked out on him as a lone ranger, forced to figure out what to do next all by myself.
Needless to say, single, sex work, and living in my van wasn’t the direction I imagined my life going.
To most, Las Vegas was known for its city lights, gambling, parties, and nightlife. But to me, the glamorous life of Las Vegas turned into a dark web of blackmail, heartbreak, and moments where I truly feared for my life.
