Most of the men would come down here to watch her dance. She was a beast on the pole, she knew how to shake her ass, and her body was stacked. She had a face that was out of this world too. I was cool with Lovely. When I applied for the bottle girl position, I remember her pulling me to the side, telling me that I should look into dancing because I would make double the money that I would as a bottle girl. Nothing against strippers because when it came to that, I was no better than a man, andI loved to watch them go up, and down on that pole, but I just couldn’t do it. I had a son out here, and I worried about the backlash that he would face one day, having his friends tease him because his mama was stripping.
It took damn near four of the girls to pull me off Jazelle. She lay down on the floor with her wig not too far away from her. A couple of her braids from the braid down were ripped out of her scalp, so you could see the bald spots that she had, and blood was oozing from her mouth, and nose. I was angry that I let a bitch get me out of character like this. I was maturing, with a whole child out here, so I never wanted to be the kind of woman that was out here fighting, but at times, I fell short and would allow bitches to get the best of me.
“What the fuck ya’ll got going on in here?” Mark, the club owner barged into the room and asked.
Mark was cool for the most part. This man has been crushing on me since the day that I came in for my interview. Because of his attraction towards me, he would often allow me to get away with a lot of shit at the club. If I was any other woman that had been in the locker room fighting, I know for a fact that he would have suspended me for at least a week. He didn’t play that shit when it came to us fighting.
Nobody answered Mark because nobody wanted to snitch. He looked around, seeing Jazelle on the floor, and then his eyes danced over to me, seeing that the girls were still holding me.
“Come out here with me Ari. Let me talk to you for a second,” he ordered, stepping out of the room right after he said it.
The girls let me go, asked me if I was okay, and after assuring them that I was, I walked out of the locker room. Mark was standing out in the hallway, but once I made it out here, he led the way, taking the steps down, where his office was. The door was already opened to his office, so the two of us were able to just walk right in. I stepped in first, and then he closed the doorbehind him. He came over, standing on the side of me, and I could feel his eyes on me.
Mark was an okay-looking dude. Like, he wasn’t ugly, but I wouldn’t look at him and think that he was the sexiest man ever. He was tall. The kind of tall where he could have been in the NBA if he wasn’t owning this club. He had brown skin that I could tell he took good care of. His teeth were a little crooked, which I was surprised he hadn’t gone to get it fixed because he made so much money owning this club.
When Mark opened this club over ten years ago, he went into the business with his brother, but according to some of the rumors that went around the club, him and his brother were at odds on some of the things that were taking place at the club, so Mark ended up letting him go, and now he was the only one running it.
“What you got going on tonight? Why you fighting with Jazelle?” he eventually asked me.
“I’m not the only bitch here that’s been having issues with her. I’ve just done a damn good job at ignoring her because she’s never personally said anything crazy to me in the past. She talks to the bartenders, the security, the strippers, and the bottle girls crazy. She kept trying me tonight, so I had to put my hands on her. You going to have to pull that bitch to the side and tell her not to say shit else to me because I’m liable to really hurt her. Don’t have her working the same sections as me. Anywhere you put me, just make sure that her ass is on the opposite side of me,” I said, and as I was saying these things, he was nodding his head, listening to what I was saying.
“I got you. What? Ya’ll having nigga problems or something? Half of the fights that take place at this club, always have something to do with a nigga. Ya’ll fuckin the same nigga?” he asked me.
“I’m not fuckin the nigga. My cousin is, so she came at me about it,” I shared, and he nodded again.
“Dolo? That’s who she fuckin with right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” was all that I said to him.
Mark made it clear to me that he was going to have a talk with Jazelle, and that he wasn’t going to put us in the same sections going forward.
“You’ll pass my section over to one of the other girls for the night? That fight just blew me. I’m in a fucked up mood, and I don’t want my customers to feel that energy. They used to seeing the fun Ari, and I don’t want to go back out there with bad vibes. I want to go home for the rest of the night,” I let him know.
“Yeah. I was going to suggest that anyways. Go ahead. Jazelle going to always talk shit. That’s just what she does. You can’t let her shit talking ass knock you off your square like that. You too fuckin pretty for that. Way too pretty to be fighting like that,” he reminded me, and then he stuck his hand out, putting it up under my chin.
I quickly moved his hand out of the way, but I didn’t do it in a way to be mean. I hated when Mark would subtly cross the line with me like that. No matter how many times I’ve reminded him that I didn’t see him in that manner, and that it was just a business relationship that I wanted with him, I didn’t think he always felt me when I would say that to him.
He did that embarrassing laugh that niggas do whenever a girl turned them down. After that, I walked out of his office, took the stairs back up to the locker room, and it felt like it was a full house in here. I scanned the room, looking around for Jazelle, and I found her sitting at her station, with a couple of the girls standing around her, and they were assisting her with nursing her wounds. She wasn’t the first bitch to get her ass whopped in this locker room, and I’m sure that she wouldn’t be the last.
We weren’t supposed to fight, but fights happened all the time, that’s why no one was standing around looking surprised. Most of the girls did walk over to me, wanting to know if I was okay, and again, I assured them that I was fine, letting them know that I was going to go home for the night.
I made a bunch of money already tonight, but if I stayed, I could have doubled or tripled what I’d already made. My vibe was completely thrown off, so I couldn’t stay. I packed my duffle bag up, which was filled with a bunch of cash, grabbed my purse, and I walked out of the locker.
I went out the back door, so that I wouldn’t have to cut through the club. The back door had me exit out of the back of the club, where I had to walk to get to the front, and I was eventually making my way over to the parking lot. There was still a long line of people that were waiting to get in the club, even though it was well after midnight now.
As I was making my way through the parking lot, I could see Mook, and he was locking his car doors, using his key, and headed to come inside the club. MBM loved coming down here, but it was rare that you would see one of them alone. They usually came in packs. If the whole MBM didn’t come, then it was always at least five of them minimum. Seeing him alone and knowing that there weren’t any other members of MBM inside, it made me question why he was coming by himself.
“Ari, what’s good? You leaving already?” Mook asked me, reaching his arm out, so that he could give me a quick one-armed hug.
He had a glossy look to his eyes, like this nigga was high. Nothing shocking though because I was used to being around the MBM boys, and most of them would be high.
“Yeah. I’m not feeling it tonight. What’s up with you? You’re not tired from Mexico?” I asked him, not understanding how hecould be at the club, after they all just got in from Mexico not that long ago.
Riot came home, showered, and I texted her a couple of times while I was working, just to see what her and Amir were doing, but she never responded, so I knew that they were both sleeping. I had her watch Amir for me tonight while I worked. Riot didn’t mind watching my son for me because she loved him just as much as I did, and she cherished those moments that she would spend with him.
“I ain’t go to Mexico,” he told me, and that raised an eyebrow from me because I was under the impression that most of the team from MBM went. Well, at least the big dawgs went. That’s what Riot told me.
“Really? I thought everybody went?” I questioned.
