One More Year: The Romantic Path of Ana Lee (The Path Less Taken Series Book 1)

by SJ Cavaletti

  “Amazingly rich,” Angelica said.

  Jamie was more sympathetic, “Well, he seemed nice the other night. I mean, he gave YOU a hundred bucks for nothing, Angelica. He’s at least generous.”

  Jamie always came to my defence. Although Jamie and Angelica were friends, Jamie found Angelica self-centered and didn’t really trust her when it came to cash. Angelica was inclusive, fun and generous but did have a greedy streak. I had always forgiven this. She was from a pretty poor family and grew up seeing her Mom struggle to make ends meet. Greed was probably an unkind interpretation; she was driven to not to live on rice and beans.

  “Guys, this isn’t about money. I wanted to hang out with him. We had had a really nice time in the Champagne Room; I got to know him and I found him really intriguing,” I said.

  “Did you fuck him?” Angelica asked.

  “No, I didn’t. Gosh, if it was any other guy you wouldn’t have asked that,” I said, a bit oversensitive.

  “Yes I would have,” she cackled.

  Jamie nodded in agreement on this one.

  She was right. Sex and money were almost always on Angelica’s mind. I suddenly realized it was my own insecurity that was causing my interpretation of Angelica’s questions.

  “Seems to me you’re being a bit sensitive,” she said, microseconds after my own discovery.

  “Yeah, I know I am… I just… I actually like him and want to do him justice. He’s not just another write off from a night out. He’s cool, you know?”

  Jamie and Angelica eyed me. I couldn’t read their expressions. Damn it. Pride and ego are filters that turn life opaque.

  Jamie took off my dark specs, “Honey, you’re no idiot. I’m sure any guy you spend time with when your clothes are on isn’t a dweeb.”

  Just then, Angel appeared behind us as if rising up through a trap door from hell. She was just there, materializing out of vapor. We all couldn’t help but flinch at her sudden appearance. I could never quite tell if she was a total asshole or if her face was just a permanent crooked, sinful smile and it wasn’t her fault she looked like a bitch. Either way, I saw Angelica’s posture change and she pursed her lips.

  Angel was a total sex bomb.. She had bleach blonde hair with thick extensions and that against her tanned skin and brown eyes was sexy like Shakira. I had only ever heard her speak once but she had a thick accent. It was not quite Spanish, so I guessed she was Brazilian and she had the booty to back this up. She wore very little makeup apart from false lashes, her bronzed skin and naturally luscious lips did the work themselves. She did not have the best body in the club, no fake breasts and quite short legs but I suppose that was me being jealous and picky.

  The thing is, no matter how much any of us dancers despised her prostitution, we never said anything to her about it. Angel was confronted but once by a dancer while I was at Brick Road. I saw the whole thing. Angel was tough as nails. The dancer, whose name was Aliana, had a customer book an hour in the Champagne Room and he headed out after 10 minutes to use the restroom while Aliana waited inside. When he came back a few minutes later, he said he was going to forfeit the rest of his time with her. She was shocked, as this guy not only booked an hour rather than 30 minutes (he had obviously liked her) but she had also sniffed out his potential to spend the night there. Us dancers were adept at turning 30 minutes into a whole evening’s experience. She was confused to say the least. But, she tried to focus on the positive, that she gained an hour’s income for almost nothing.

  He gave no real explanation and, flabbergasted, Aliana picked up her things and left. Strangely, the customer did not follow her. As the door closed behind her she noticed it being grabbed by Angel who probably gave Aliana a look with her permanent shit-eating grin.

  Interestingly, in this case, one would think that Aliana wouldn’t have said anything to Angel. She had still gotten paid for her hour, even if Angel did get 2 more after her. Aliana hadn’t been robbed blind as Angelica had been. But Aliana was a proud woman and in addition, a bit rough around the edges.

  At the end of that evening, we had all been standing in a line to check out and pay our fees. Angel somehow was always at the front, we all knew she had to race to her next trick or to meet the last customer she had made a promise to. Aliana was a few girls behind Angel in the line. As usual, we watched Angel grab her huge wad of cash and pay the fees, then she walked over to Ed to give him what we presumed to be a few hundred. Aliana blew her stack..

  She went right out of the line and over to Angel and Ed.

  “So Ed, is that how we all roll now? Highest tipper and biggest whore wins,” she said this very loudly. The DJ had gone home and the now quiet floor full of staff and dancers turned their heads.

  “Aliana,” Ed said, “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  “Fuck you, Ed,” she said, “but fuck you harder you cunt piece of shit,” she said to Angel.

  She looked at Angel with venomous eyes. Aliana was about a foot taller than Angel. She was long, wiry girl and her long limbs waved about, menacing Angel.

  Angel’s face did not change. It was frozen in the usual cocked, icy smile.

  “What,” Aliana continued, “You have nothing to say? Mouth full of cum? You and your pussy have been stealing money from everybody for long enough. Why don’t you just go work on the corner where you belong?”

  Again, Angel said nothing. She stood there, statuesque.

  This pissed Aliana off to no end and she started shouting expletives that I couldn’t even find in the urban dictionary. Spit was flying off of Aliana’s tongue and all the while, Angel remained unmoved.

  Just as our manager Patrick approached, after presumably being called up from his office in the basement, Aliana’s patience wore thin. She shoved Angel so hard she went flying. And I mean flying. She didn’t just fall to the ground, she got air before doing so.

  We were all shocked; even though girls did get catty, things never ended in physical violence. None of us wanted to have to redo our extensions or deal with broken acrylic after all. And a black eye is lost wages. Our mouths gaped as we watched Angel get up, as if in slow motion, like a creature in a scary movie that should have died after being hit with a grenade but didn’t. She rose inside her exoskeleton and smoothed her hair back. She looked at Patrick, raised her eyebrows (or so we all agreed upon as having happened) and she just left. Not a single word.

  Aliana got fired on the spot. In front of everyone. They made her sit in a corner and called her a cab. It’s hard not to question whether or not she was fired for physical violence or for attacking one of the club’s best performing products. Either way, as I sat there with Angelica and Angel many nights after the Aliana incident, practically having a western dual, I knew neither would draw their pistol.

  It was so easy to project on Angel. She had the perfect, beautiful but evil face, like Catwoman. She looked at the three of us, grabbed some napkins and walked off. This may have been the only time I had ever been grateful to be interrupted by Angel. Angelica went into a diatribe that could compete with Lincoln. After a few minutes, we heard the DJ say, “And coming on stage is the sexy Zara…Up next, Ana.”

  Saved by the bell.

  Wobbly Stilettos

  I wasn’t a fan of being on stage. I estimate that I have danced at least a thousand songs on stage, most likely lots more, and still every time (that is unless I was high on whiffy) I got a little bit nervous. But tonight I would have stayed there all night just to not have to talk to any of the customers. I was completely zoned out thinking about Carlos. It was like floating on the moon.

  That night felt a bit like my virgin night as a dancer. I remembered that everywhere I had looked there were men that I hadn’t felt I could approach because I had had a secret: I didn’t belong there. ‘Surely everyone could see I’m not one of them,’ I had thought to myself all night. When I had begun dancing it had felt as though all eyes that landed upon me had known I was a preppy school girl; that I had come from mone
y; that I wasn’t like the other girls. I have come to discover that the only person who had thought that way was my very own conscience. For everyone else that had met me, they saw it like this: if it walks like a stripper and it talks like a stripper… it must be a stripper.

  All these years later I have come to embrace that labels aren’t too bad as long as they are meant to be there as adjectives and not as definitions.

  On this night, after so many years of dancing, as much as I didn’t love admitting it, I “belonged.” But the feeling of being an outsider was still present because tonight it felt as though everyone was having fun but me. I just didn’t want to be there. I didn’t care if I got any dances or not. I didn’t really want to ask him his name. But I got on with it all the same. Rent had to be paid and love doesn’t pay it. Or so the saying goes.

  I decided to just work on doing twenties that night so that I didn’t have to engage with anyone on any deeper level. I just went around asking and taking and moving on through the turnstile of men. But after a while I got one that was happy to be on the floor and just keep going. Dance after dance. It wasn’t extremely common that men on the floor would buy more than a few dances. Three dances was a pretty typical stop point on the floor. After that, men usually advanced to a more private area in the Club or they just would stop because they were with buddies… perhaps would run out of cash. But I got one that night: an Energizer Bunny.

  Energizer Bunnies were guys that just kept going and going. Like the battery commercial. Or a horny humping hare. One more dance, one more dance, one more dance… they were often fueled by their buddies, either because it was a birthday or bachelor party.

  I was on my seventh dance for my Bunny and I tried to keep up my interest in him and in dancing for him. Guys could sometimes sense if you were bored so it was important to ‘enjoy’ it. Fortunately, a great song came on and I focused on the lyrics, trying to ride off on the rollercoaster melody. My mind wandered away on holiday and I turned my back to him and went to touch my toes for the “ass in face pose”. That’s when the already handsy Bunny gently slipped his paws over my ass.

  Touching actually happened about 20% of the time I danced on the floor. When it happened, more often than not a floor host would come over, as if from out of nowhere, and tell the guy “no hands.” The dancer would act oblivious, never breaking from her sexy demeanor and everything would just carry on. But with 1 in 5 guys not understanding that it was ‘look and don’t touch,’ us girls also all had our own way to discipline when a floor host wasn’t around.

  As soon as I felt his hands I grabbed them, shoved them on his lap and turned around quickly, trying not to make a big deal of it. This was my usual firm but fair approach but I was surprised to feel a bit hot headed over his advance. I didn’t like being touched by customers but it hadn’t usually upset me in the past. Not now, after so many years. But tonight so many things were different and I felt a temperature rising inside of me.

  I danced face to face with the Bunny, which was a much more controlled position and I gyrated to the music a bit more. He apparently wanted to enter into a game of cat and mouse. Hands again. This time on my stomach. Still no floor host in sight. I took the customer’s hands, this time squeezing them a bit more tightly and shook my head “no,” still smiling as every good dancer should.

  The Bunny smiled. He was a cheeky rascal and although I could see he was just some dumb, drunk dude that meant no harm, my heart was racing with annoyance. Why was I getting so pissed off? I needed to cool down so I made up my mind that when this song was over I would just call it quits because making money as a stripper requires tolerance. Sadly for him he was not a mind-reader and he wrapped his arms around my thighs to grab my ass and pull me closer to him. He smiled and laughed. I snatched his hands aggressively and threw them against the arms of the chair. Then I applied downward pressure on top of his forearms, hard enough that it surprised us both. His eyes shot up from my tits to my eyes and his eyebrows cocked as if to ask whether this was for business or pleasure.

  I said, “Since I need to translate my body language: no means no, honey. If you want to touch someone, you’ll have to pay extra and I’m afraid the girl won’t be me.”

  Inside, my aggression for this fiddly dweeb was boiling to a whistle. Thankfully, he and his friends were so drunk they didn’t notice. One of them chimed in to lighten my mood. “Oooooh,” said the punter, “maybe he just needs to be taught a lesson? You’re just the girl, I think. Feisty.”

  That particular guy pulled me on to his lap unexpectedly and I pretty much fell on his chinos. God I hated this type of macho, peer pressured group. If I hadn’t been trying to just get on with things anonymously that night I wouldn’t have ended up with those amateurs.

  I knew better than to make any further scene. Management didn’t like tattletales and relied on us to have egos of steel. Sensitive spirits never made the pros and were eaten alive because Gentlemen’s clubs weren’t always filled with gentlemen.

  In a sudden moment of clarity I could see that my feelings for Carlos had started to reduce my mettle to melting point. Oh no… was I falling in love? I managed to compose myself and whispered in the customer’s ear, “Baby… you hit the nail on the head. I’m very feisty and I’m pretty sure that a little boy like you can’t handle me.”

  Then I tugged a tuft of his hair at the nape of his neck, playfully, but hard, and got up from his lap. I gave a deliberate cat-like smile and put my hand out like a pure dominatrix. “Do as you’re told and pay up,” it beckoned.

  This type of dramatic display took up a lot of energy. It was so not me and I felt uneasy as I did it.

  After I collected my money from his friends, I went downstairs to the dressing room. I needed to get my head in the game. I could have handled that guy in a way that got his hands off and me another $100 in my purse but instead I imploded.

  What the fuck?

  Limerence. That’s what was happening. I had heard this term used during my interlude at Merrill Lynch. There was this fabulous tiny gal with long mermaid-like locks and giant glasses that hardly fit her elfish face. Stephanie was her name, and she was always talking about love related matters: her love, your love, the history of love, cupid, Aphrodite, Eros, Kama, or any other love or lust deity for that matter… and Limerence.

  At the time, I thought she had made the word up. She was the type to have done such a thing because her brain was made up of whimsy and fairy dust. But one night, not that long ago, I couldn’t fall asleep after work and I dug out an old journal of mine where on the last page I kept a long list of words for which I planned to look up the meaning. I passed the wee hours doing so.

  Limerence is a real term. It was invented by a researcher in the 1960s to define the excitement and infatuation one feels upon falling in love. I like Urban Dictionary the best: “A floaty, manic, excited, feeling that often arises after meeting or spending time with someone who you are recently attracted to. Also, a fluttering heart, or butterflies in the stomach are symptoms of the feeling. It is similar to infatuation except that it lingers, is usually less lusty and does not have the same negative connotation. Also is usually a temporary state, unlike love.”

  It’s exactly what was keeping me from concentrating, from wanting to be distracted by any other man and from making a living that night. I should have fought the sensation so I could make some money. Mind over matter. But instead I made the fatal error of picking up my cell phone.

  Of course I had several texts from Carlos who had wifi and anything else he wanted wherever he went. A few of many:

  “35000 feet and I’m still climbing. All because of you.”

  “I was thinking that if you were an animal you’d definitely be a lioness. Am I wrong? Maybe next date is safari!”

  And simply:

  “I miss you. Xoxo”

  As I was looking down at my phone, a sudden pair of feet appeared. Someone said, “There you are!”

  I was so engrossed in th
e messages that I shot up as if an ice cube had been placed on my spine. It was Jamie. I looked at her like a deer in headlights.

  She narrowed her eyes and said in a sing song, “What are you dooooooing?”

  “Just checking messages,” I said through a Cheshire grin.

  “Sure you are. Well, if you can part with your tall, dark and handsome cell phone, I have a group upstairs and we need an extra. I already told one of the guys about you and he’s waiting. Back to reality, chica.”

  She was right. Back to reality.

  Sweep Me off My Seven Inchers

  I hardly slept that night. My phone bleeped all night with messages from Carlos and I couldn’t bear to turn it off. Buzz, buzz, buzz.

  CARLOS: “Getting to know you- diamonds or pearls?”

  ME: “Neither- memories over matter. I’d save my $ for skydiving. Now go to sleep my captain of industry!”

  Phone shoved under the pillow. Smile on face. Eyes closed.

  BUZZ.

  CARLOS: “Clever girl I like your style. Memories yes! Let’s make lots of those. Can we?”

  ME: “It would be my pleasure. No doubt our two heads could come up with some seriously good plans. Need time together to execute.”

  Bigger smile on face. Heart gushing. Phone under pillow with hand still attached.

  BUZZ.

  CARLOS: “I’ll be back ASAP. Probably 3 days time. Can you take some time off? Maybe a week?”

  Head spinning…3 days until he returns?! I’m going to wilt. One week off work when I haven’t saved up for it? I’m going to be evicted. But instead:

  ME: I can’t wait.

  We finally did call it quits on the phone. Carlos landed and got swooped off to meetings. My head was spinning wondering where we would go for a week. This soon in our relationship? How would I make it work financially? I kept a savings of about $200 per week. But I always blew it when the pot hit about two and a half grand. So about four times a year, I’d go on vacation somewhere, usually Europe or Hawaii. I needed at least a couple thousand for a week off as not only did the vacation itself cost money but there was also lost income due to my booty being on an airplane.