“Who? Renata?” My eyes land on an office on the upper floor framed in opaque glass. I don’t know what she looks like, but Benny told me to watch out for the owner.
A man in a black suit walks up the staircase to the office. I can’t make out his face, but metal rings dance over his knuckles in the light.
Who is that?
A throat clears behind me that sounds like hooves.
“Go to your station, Rosalie,” the woman snaps in Italian, her tone dipped in venom. “I need to talk to this one.”
Rosalie squeezes my hand before grabbing a tray with wine and tending to customers in a booth above amethyst LED lights.
The woman scowls at my bodysuit, which I never asked to wear. “You’re the first woman he’s sent here.”
Every workplace has at least one mean girl. Looks like this one comes with jealousy too.
“And you are?” A bitch is obvious, but knowing her name would be nice.
Shadows sweep her porcelain cheekbones and lips in need of a reality show surgeon. “Vittoria. Mr. Bennici is my client outside the club when he sends for me. He has an appetite that only a few can satisfy. In here, I’m only available to him.”
I did not cross international waters to play “The Boy Is Mine.” Not for any man, and definitely not at this big age. I don’t want to think about whether Benny washed his sheets before I came in the reflection of his ceiling mirror. Men can be trash.
Back up a second.
“Is this a sex club?”
Vittoria grins. “Eden is a lifestyle destination. The disco club is our primary space. In private quarters, any consensual activities are acceptable. No one pays for sex, and no one here receives payment for sex.”
What kind of freak-off did I let this man get me into?
“The house collects thirty percent of your earnings.” The flotation devices she calls her lips coil. “You’re free to dance or enter any available rooms. Stick to serving, it’s safer.”
She tried it.
Vittoria struts away. Her attempt to switch her bony hips in a metallic dress looks like two twigs rubbing together to start a fire. She flips her brown hair over her shoulder with a final glance before disappearing behind a curtain.
“Pay no attention to her,” Rosalie says in my ear over the upbeat tempo of a song in what I assume is Sicilian. “Vittoria is mean to everyone when she’s in charge.”
“Well, that won’t work for me.” HR department or not, she’ll learn a few things about herself if she keeps it up. “Is Renata here?”
Rosalie shakes her head. “Hasn’t been in for a week.”
The familiar anthem for peace and theAhunches my back. My knees activate, sending a signal for my cheeks to clap to the synth melody of Usher’s “Yeah!”
“This is always the one! Let’s dance, Rosie!”
Benny may have kidnapped me, but he and the women laying claim to his dick won’t stress me on my first night out in Sicily. Tonight, I’m making things shake, starting with this ass.
Nobody can tell me I wasn’t a performer in a past life. My ass bounces from a deep squat, hands on the very knees that now predict the rain and crack from years of cutting up. I pop my coochie in the spirit of Ronnie fromThe Players Club.
There’s no reason to be up on this platform, but I am for the simple fact that it’s fun.
I’m having fun at a job I didn’t expect to work. Who says I can’t make the most of a situation no one would believe happened in the first place? I might as well let loose, because who knows what tomorrow will bring?
A knife fight.
A shoot-out.
It took a bodysuit and some freaky-ass club to remind me that life is too short. Stripper heels and a pole likely won’t be in my future, but there will be joy in everything I do. And a lawsuit.
