My painted lips lift in a grin and she snaps at me, “NO! No smiling! You keep a hard, intense look at all times. You want to burn them with your fire as you dance. The smile comes at the end and it better not be a grin. Make it a smirk that shows you know you got the job and show some confidence. Now, what are you dancing to?”
I chew on my bottom lip. “Uh, I was going to do a Taylor Swift song?”
She tosses her hair back with another laugh. “Yeah, no. The ballerina who came in here might have been a Swifty but this…” She waves me up and down. “This right here is something else. Do you know River by Briggs? Here, give me your phone. You’ll want the King Kavalier mix for this.”
I hand my phone over with the music app open and she taps away and then hands it back.
“Okay, there’s three more girls left to audition so listen to that a few times and go last. You want to think power as you dance. Your power. You want what you want and you will take it. Lots of slamming around and humps to the beat. This is the dance where you take it all, give it all, and leave nothing back. It’s just you and the music, got it?”
I swallow down the rest of my nerves and break character to smile at her.
“Thank you! I-I wouldn’t have…just, thank you.”
She tosses her make up back into her bag with a wink.
“You got this, you just need to get out of your own head.” She stops and turns back to me and grabs my arms with a serious look. “Can I give you one more piece of advice? This one is for on the dance floor and for every day after.” I nod slowly and she straightens her shoulders.
“That mean, vicious little voice in your head that screams at you, tells you you’re not good enough, not strong enough, that you can’t do something? Every time you hear that voice echoing in your head, you scream back…WATCH ME and then do it because, sweetie, that voice is a fucking liar!”
I can’t even stop myself from throwing my arms around this beautiful, amazing woman in a hug of pure gratitude. I really, really needed to hear that. She pulls back, bops my nose, and jerks her head at the door.
“Go…go and make them watch you.”
And now, two years later, they all watch me as I kick my leg up over my head, brace against the bars, and do a controlled drop. Safe behind my mask, I can smolder, I can sin and I can sell a fantasy. It doesn’t matter that outside this club I’m a nobody. It doesn’t matter what Hunter took and laughed like it was nothing. It doesn’t matter that Tate didn’t even remember my fucking name after two years because here, here they know who I am. Here, I’m the fucking Butterfly and they all WATCH ME!
ASHER
Iclimb the stairs to the second floor of the club, ready to let this day slide off of me. I brush off the girls trying to catch my attention and make my way to my regular table. A dark look has the two guys occupying it moving quickly out of the way. Everyone who comes here knows this is our table. I toss a finger up at a nearby waitress and get the nod so I shrug my leather jacket off and toss it on one of the empty chairs before sliding into my seat. It has the perfect, perfect fucking view. My lips twitch when I see she’s got the hot pink wig on tonight. It’s my second favorite of the colors she wears.
Muscle by muscle, the tension drains away as I watch her move, my dream girl, my Butterfly. It’s been two years now that I’ve been watching her and I still can’t get enough. I’ve tried speaking to her twice in that time, asking for more, asking for her number, her name. Both times she hit me with those fucking eyes of hers that I can never quite read and with a flick of her hair, turned her back on me to keep on dancing.
Maybe that’s why she does it for me so much. The mystery of who she is. There’s no drama with her, no games. I don’t have to be anything with her but what I am. She dances and I watch. Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’m just another man with lecherous eyes on her body like all the others but I believe that there’s a connection there between us, even if I’ve never heard her voice or seen her face behind the mask she wears.
All I really know is that I would give her everything for one night in my arms. I tip my head back and watch her sweet peach ass sway in her tight little skirt and imagine those thick thighs squeezing my head as I feast on the little pussy wrapped in pink satin that peaks out at me when she bends. The best way to describe my butterfly is…luscious. She’s got curves that make a man want to dig in and squeeze, bite. Her tits should grace the bow of a ship and her tapered waist has my fingers itching to grasp and lift. I could fucking watch her every night of my life and never get enough and if I got to taste her, touch her, one night would never be enough.
The waitress drops off my drink and I sink deeper into the chair, spreading my legs apart to try and ease the ache of my jeans pressing against my hard cock. The whiskey burns deliciously as I sip and watch. She’s on her swing moving those curves when Dirty Thoughts comes through the speakers. It’s that TikTok version and I swear to God my butterfly turns and looks straight at me. She dances for me and me alone as she moves on the swing to the song, her hands running up her sweet curves. When it hits the guy’s part, she moves faster on the swing. Her hips snap up to meet an imaginary lover doing all the things he sings about and then she flips down off the swing and crashes to the bars in front of me just as that hot fucking line hits – you’ve been a good fucking girl. Her eyes, those blue orbs of heaven spear right through me, straight to my dick with a challenging look. It takes everything I have not to lunge for the bars to meet that challenge as my cock pulses with need and then with a swish of her hair, a flutter of wings, she’s gone.
Some guy at the next table leans over and calls out, “Hey, is that your girl, man?”
All I can do is jerk my head in a nod. Yeah, that’s my fucking Butterfly.
Jude and Beck roll in and throw themselves down around the table. It hardly takes a minute for their preferred drinks to be set in front of them. Butterfly’s cage is still empty so I turn away from it and look them over. These guys are two of my three best friends and I’m not sure if they’re in search of trouble or ass, or maybe both, as they scan the pickings in the club.
“Where’s T?”
Jude rolls his eyes with a smirk - his messy, white-blond hair flopping over one eyebrow to hide the silver ring in it.
“Drowning in ink and parchment, man. Coach threatened to bench him if he doesn’t get his marks up.”
Beck scoffs. “Thank fuck I don’t have to worry about that shit anymore.”
His words are glib but I don’t miss the bitter look in his eyes. His football career ended with a bad hit that fucked his ACL at the end of last season. The guy spent most of summer in the bottom of a bottle. It took all three of us to get him dried out and back to school for the new year. He’s been hitting the gym hard in hopes of a comeback but it’s doubtful.
Beck downs what’s left in his glass and then spins in his chair and calls out to the waitress to bring another bottle and then smolders at a group of girls not far away.
“Where’s the Butterfly?” Jude asks me.
I give a half-hearted shrug. “Gone on break, I guess.”
