Damaged Goods

by Nicole Williams

  Then his phone rang a second time. Instead of ignoring it and getting back to what we’d been doing, he sighed and his movements slowed until they’d made a painful stop. My mask was still askew—the rest of me felt the same—and even though his hands had left me, along with his mouth, my heart didn’t slow. My breathing didn’t either. Nor did any of the other parts of me pulsing with want. When he shifted beneath me, I knew it was the kind of motion that meant separation, not joining.

  “I’ve got to go.” His voice was so low and heavy from his breathlessness that it vibrated my chest still pinned to his.

  Of course he did. The relentless caller was probably his girlfriend, wondering where he was. Or his wife.

  Shit. Talk about one serious slap of reality. Now that the first one had been issued, they kept coming, slap after shaking-some-sense-back-into-me slap. When I felt the proverbial signs of whiplash coming on, I managed to crawl off of his lap and put physical and, more importantly, emotional space between us.

  I’d assumed that removing myself from his body would correspondingly remove myself from everything else I’d felt for him. I was wrong. I still felt that attraction to him that defined all-consuming and bordered on unhealthy. Hell, it pretty much defined unhealthy too, because how could being attracted to my first customer in the V.I.P. room of a strip club constitute as healthy on any level? Exactly. It couldn’t. Nothing about what had been or what could be shared between us could ever be defined as healthy or, thanks to my total lack of professionalism, an amiable working relationship. I’d pretty much bulldozed through that possibility when I let what I was feeling on the outside penetrate my feelings on the inside.

  I took a few more steps back until I felt the icy chill of the pole against my legs. I heard his chair groan as he stood, and I realized I was finally in a position to adjust the damn poor positioning of my mask. But did I want to? After the confounding encounter we’d just shared, did I really want to know what the guy looked like? Did I really want to be able to recognize him if we passed each other on the sidewalk one day? Did I really want to be able to put a face to this equally wonderful and cringe-worthy experience? Did I really want to know the face of the man who could upend my world with the lightest touch?

  My answer to those questions was just as confused and at odds as everything had been since I’d stepped foot in the V.I.P. room.

  “Thank you. That was . . .” His voice was clearing some, but not much. “That was . . .” He seemed to be as at a loss as I was, which likely meant this had been as alien an encounter for him as it had for me.

  That assumption helped solidify my answer to my questions.

  Winding one hand around the pole to steady myself, I played with my mask until it was back into position. Even in its proper position, it was still difficult to see through, but at least I could make out the stranger as he headed for the door. He was on the tallish side and moved with the ease and confidence of a younger man. Other than the dark clothes and light hair, those were the only characteristics I could see in the dark. Fantastic. Now, from that moment forward, every light-haired young man I came in contact with I’d secretly wonder if he was the one who’d been responsible for ruining me one careless night.

  His hand had just lowered to the doorknob when he paused. His head turned a bit, but not enough to make out any more than an appealing profile and strong jaw line.

  “Jake said I could use the room all night, so there’s no need for you to rush out of here just because I have to.” The breathless and gravelly tenor to his voice was almost completely gone.

  The voice I heard now, combined with that ghost of a smile coming from just over his shoulder, had me bracing my other hand against the pole for support. I knew that voice. I knew that smile. I knew that profile and jaw line and face. And now, I knew that body.

  My knees wobbled as the breath rushed from my lungs.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t. Besides, I would have rather spent the rest of the night here with you than where I need to go spend it now.” His smile tipped a notch higher before he opened the door and slipped out of it.

  Before the door closed behind him, my knees had given out. As I slid to the carpet, I smelled the familiar scent, recognized that feeling I felt whenever I was around him. It was an odd sense of calm and chaos combined. How had I missed it? How had I just spent as much time as I had, doing as many things as I had, with a man who wasn’t a stranger at all?

  More importantly, after I’d let him past every single one of my walls, how could I push Will Goods out of them?

  I COULDN’T ACCOUNT for how many or how few minutes I’d spent in that room with Will, but I could account for every one that passed after he left. I could because each one felt like a lifetime, each second a year. My heart slowed until the room shrank around me. My breathing slowed until the small room started to spin. I went from feeling like the room was so vast it didn’t have walls to feeling like it was so small there wasn’t enough room to hold the oxygen I needed with each labored breath.

  Everything about this night had been surreal—parts of it the good kind, but now it was nothing but the worst kind. How had I just made out with a guy I knew without realizing it? How had I been ready to go all the way with my neighbor—a local boy—Will Goods?

  God, that was a question that made everything inside me squirm in discomfort. Yes, I’d felt a deep-seated attraction for him before, but that was an attraction I’d been feverishly trying to kill. Yes, as far as guys went, a girl could do much worse than Will in the looks department and the overall-decent-guy department. Yes, the kissing and touching and whatever else we’d done had been the kind of thing a person would never forgot.

  Those acknowledgements weren’t the issue. The issue was who they were about. Will Goods was about as healthy for me as a brain tumor. Labeling him based strictly on his zip code was unfair, but life was a steady stream of unfair. Will wasn’t exempt to that fact of life.

  The longer I sat propped on my knees, leaning against the pole, the more questions that cropped up. What was Will Goods doing in a strip club? As guys went, he’d be on the bottom of the list of ones I’d expect to hang out in a place like this. How did he and Jake, or he and Jake’s family, know each other so well? What was the connection?

  And most importantly, why hadn’t Will said anything? Why hadn’t he acknowledged me when he saw who Jake’s “new girl” was? Why hadn’t he at least made some sort of comment to let me know he knew who I was before he’d slipped away like he had? I wasn’t sure what would have been more awkward: me realizing who he was before straddling him and all that came dot, dot, dot, after, or finding out who he was afterward. I wasn’t sure which would have been more awkward, but I was certain which option I would have preferred. He should have said something to acknowledge that the stripper scheduled to entertain him in the V.I.P. room for as long as he liked was the same girl whose front door he’d showed up at with a casserole plate in hand.

  I tried to guess why Will hadn’t said anything. Maybe he hadn’t realized I could see jack squat thanks to my misplaced mask, and as I hadn’t said anything to acknowledge him, he went with the tone I set and kept our relationship outside the club separate from the one we created inside it. Or maybe he just didn’t care who I was or what kind of relationship we’d built—all he wanted was to be sold the illusion and live the fantasy. Even though I didn’t know Will that well, I doubted that was the most likely answer.

  So why? Because even though I was decked out in a whole hell of a very little and I had donned a feathery mask and I had on more makeup and hairspray than usual, there was no possible way he wouldn’t have recognized me. It wasn’t because I was a girl guys took one look at and never forgot, but I was a bit . . . different looking. I was tall and thin, but I’d been given more than an ample share of curves, which was probably what made Jake offer me a job without going through the interview process. I was dark-haired, but my eyes were a light, glacial blue. On the outside, everythin
g contrasted. I now knew what that felt like on the inside.

  Will had to have known I was Liv Bennett, girl-next-door, older sister struggling to take care of two younger sisters. He’d known but said nothing. Why?

  When I’d pondered that long enough to induce a headache verging on splitting, I forced myself to silence all of those questions and make use of my private time in the V.I.P. room. Like Will’d said, Jake wouldn’t know if he was still in there, and if he wasn’t telling, neither was I. There was a free pole, no one around to watch-slash-laugh at me, and I still had bills to pay.

  Just like Blake’s little “indiscretion” weeks ago, I wouldn’t let the enigma that was Will Goods ruin my life. I wouldn’t even let him be a stumbling block.

  I UNDERSTOOD WHAT the vitamins were for. After spending the last few hours figuring out my way around and up a pole, I could feel bruises ready to blotch their way to the surface. I’d started out as an awkward mess on the pole, but a few hours later, I’d graduated from awkward mess to just competent enough to be dangerous.

  Dangerous because when I’d whipped my leg around in a somewhat graceful spin, my six-inch stilt—which doubled as a weapon—flew off my foot and sailed across the room. Had anything been in its path, like the head of a customer, he’d have been leaving The Body Shop on a stretcher. Not good.

  I’d worked up a serious sweat, uttered as many curses as I had breaths, and managed to keep most thoughts of Will Goods to a minimum. A soft knock sounded at the door. I didn’t have time to disentangle myself from the pole before the door opened and in slipped Jake.

  “Closing time, you two. But there’s always next Friday if you’re not finished with each other.” His back was to me, probably to give the “family friend” and me some privacy.

  “It’s just me, Jake.” I lowered myself from the pole and drained my bottle of water. Thankfully, the bar had been stocked with non-alcoholic beverages as well.

  Jake spun around. “Where’s your client? I thought he was still in here with you.”

  I finished drinking before replying—in an effort to stall while I searched for the right answer. “He had to leave. I’ve been practicing for a while so I don’t make a fool of myself out there tomorrow night.”

  “How long ‘a while’ have you been in here by yourself?” Jake made his way over to the bar and grabbed his own bottle of water.

  “A while?” was my brilliant response.

  Jake shot me a disparaging look.

  “Look, I don’t know how long I’ve been in here alone. Since it’s practically pitch black in here, there are no clocks, and time doesn’t seem to exist in this place, I could have been in here by myself for the past decade just as easily as I could have been alone for ten seconds.”

  “I see you’re still a pain in my ass. Lucky me.” Jake unscrewed his water and took a long swig. “So . . .?” he said after finishing his drink, his eyebrows lifting in anticipation. “What did he think? Did he enjoy himself? Do you think he’ll come back?”

  Before Jake could fire off any more questions, I said, “The answers to all of those questions is the same.” I glanced at the empty chair in the center of the room. I’d managed to avoid it while I’d been practicing, but now that I’d looked, the memories and questions and emotions I’d been boxing up came bursting out. I closed my eyes and tried to put Will and all thoughts of him back in that box and slam the lid closed. It didn’t work. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what? Besides how to be a courteous and respectful employee?”

  My eyes opened to find that infuriating smirk of Jake’s covering his face. That small flash of anger was just enough to dim the flood of emotions reminding me of Will Goods. “I don’t know what he thought. I don’t know if he enjoyed himself.” My eyes automatically drifted to the empty seat again. I had to grab the pole for support when a rush of dizziness hit me. My body had betrayed me earlier with him, and it was betraying me again from the mere thought of him. “And I don’t know if he’ll come back.”

  My immediate follow-up thought to that was that I hoped he never would, instantly followed by hoping he would. My mind had joined in the battle of betrayal against Liv Bennett.

  “Really? All you’ve got is a blanket ‘I don’t know’?” Jake sat in the same chair I couldn’t stop staring at.

  With him in the chair, it was easier to not visualize Will in it. With me on his lap. Kissing him. Touching him . . .

  I backed up until my legs bumped into one of the wingback chairs, and I took a seat. After dizzy spell number two, I guessed sitting was safer than standing. “You told me not to talk. I believe asking him what he thought, if he enjoyed himself, or if he’d be back all fall under that talking umbrella.”

  “Was that you admitting you actually took a piece of advice from me?” Jake loosened his tie and unbuttoned his suit jacket.

  “That was me admitting I took it under consideration.”

  “Of course,” he muttered.

  “But if he’s such a wonderful family friend of yours, why don’t you ask him?”

  Jake lifted his shoulders. “Since I’m getting a whole lot of nothing from you, I guess I’ll have to. Although he doesn’t really seem like the kind of guy who’d kiss and tell, so he’ll probably be as forthcoming as you.”

  My eyes widened. Since I’d thrown that cursed mask into the corner before I hit the pole, there was nothing disguising my eyes going saucer wide.

  “Figuratively speaking,” Jake said with an eye roll. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d ‘kiss and tell’ or spend a wild night in a V.I.P. room with a smokin’ hot woman and tell. There, is that better?” Another eye roll. “Because I don’t care if he tweaks your nipples or you give him a junior high hand-job through his pants, but I do mind . . . a lot . . . if you actually kiss him. Kissing’s a no-no in here—everyone knows that. As big, if not bigger, of a no-no than choking his chicken with your cooch.”

  From the looks of his loosened tie and frazzled expression, it looked like Jake had had the same kind of night as me. “Rough night?” I guessed as I slouched back in my chair.

  “I wish.” Jake huffed humorlessly. “The kind of night I had makes ‘rough’ seem like an all-expense-paid vacation.”

  So much for the girls promising to keep the drama to a minimum. “You want to talk about it?”

  “No, I don’t want to talk about it. I want to forget about it.”

  I sighed with relief. The only reason I’d asked Jake if he wanted to talk about it was because it was the only thing I could think of to say. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk about what one dancer had done to another. From the little I’d heard and gathered on my own, I could fill in the blanks.

  “So . . . no kissing the clients. That’s a rule I haven’t had thumped into me.” I couldn’t look Jake in the eyes because I knew he’d be able to see right through me. “What’s the reason for the no-kissing policy?” In terms of the things we could do with our bodies, kissing seemed like the kiddie pool. Not that I wanted to lock lips with every customer I came in contact with, but it didn’t strike me as a no-fly zone.

  “What’s the reason for the no-kissing policy?” Jake muttered, copying my words and making a face. Finishing his water, Jake twisted in the chair until he was angled my way. His face had that serious tenor again. “You don’t kiss a customer, because it’s too damn personal. Kissing is for first dates, stolen moments, and in driveways when your high school sweetheart’s dropping you off after a movie. It’s too damn personal, and if you haven’t figured it out already, here’s your next lesson. Take notes.” Jake waited until I made eye contact with him again, then he said, “Keep your personal life separate from your professional life, and keep your professional life separate from your personal life. Don’t kiss the clients, and don’t let them kiss you. Don’t fuck the clients, and don’t let them fuck you. That’s the golden rule in The Body Shop, and it’s the only one I won’t give you a second chance for if you break it.
Any questions?”

  Despite the hell of a night he’d had, and the same kind I’d had, neither one of us could keep from smiling when he capped his lecture with his standard follow-up question. Of course, checking his watch came a moment later.

  “No kissing. No fucking. No personal.” I considered it then shook my head. Excluding tonight and whatever the hell I’d been thinking—oh yeah, that’s right. I hadn’t been thinking. That was what got me into trouble in the first place—those would be easy golden rules to follow. It didn’t matter if Will walked through that door again. I wouldn’t let whatever spell or magnetism or witchcraft his presence did to me affect me like it had tonight. Will had been the first guy with whom I’d allowed my heart to lead my head, and he would be the last.

  “Smart girl.” Jake stood, redid his jacket button, adjusted his tie, and cracked his neck. “Keep your lips to yourself here. Both sets.” Flashing me a wink and a devilish smile, he headed for the door. I was in the middle of a grossed-out wince when he turned around. “Oh, and Cherry’s waiting for you in the training room.”

  My wince went up a few notches. I’d forgotten that after my shift was done, I was expected to train with Cherry for a few more hours. I was spent, my body ached, my head was pounding, and the only thing I could think about was a soft pillow. The last thing I wanted to think about was another cold, hard pole. But rainbows and yellow brick roads were for the Dorothys of the world, not the Liv Bennetts.

  Rising from the chair, I followed Jake toward the door.

  “Yeah, turn that frown upside down. Cherry’s got to be out of here by seven to get her kids ready for school and off to catch the bus, so you’ll only have to suffer through a couple hours of training on Mr. Playman.”

  I wasn’t sure what was worth cringing over first—that Cherry had to go from teaching the new girl how to work a pole to getting her kiddos’ teeth brushed or that Jake had just referred to the training room pole as Mr. Playman.