by Claire Adams
“Boss, here’s the girl. There’s a kid in the audience who wants you to buy her. I heard she came over from Russia and the kid says she’s too much work for him.”
Victor must have actually talked to the doorman guy and not actually to Stephano when he set up the appointment for us to come to the club. It was clear that Stephano didn’t know a thing about us showing up, but he didn’t seem to care much.
“She looks like shit, did the kid not feed her? What’s her name? She doesn’t look like she speaks English, at all. Does she?”
“No, boss. Her name is Ilsa.”
“Roxy!” Stephano screamed.
My blood went cold as I stared at the screen. It couldn’t be my Roxanne. He couldn’t be screaming for her. I couldn’t blink as I looked at the monitor and waited to see who came into focus. What the hell was going on? Why would Roxanne be there with Stephano? My blood pressure increased as I became more and more enraged when I saw that it was, in fact, my Roxanne who Stephano had called.
“Roxy, clean this damn girl up and get her a sandwich; she looks like she hasn’t eaten in a week. Make her look good for the camera and tell her what to do on stage. Her name is Ilsa.”
“Yes, I’ll make her look beautiful,” Roxanne said as she looked at PJ.
I felt like Roxanne was looking right into my eyes as I stared at her. My mind raced to try and figure out why she was there. I could see she had a busted up lip, but she didn’t seem to be there against her will. My stomach churned with the thought that she had willingly gone there to help Stephano. I had to hold out hope that she was only there because she wanted to help get Ana out.
PJ grunted like she was in pain and then looked down at her arm, where I saw Roxanne holding onto her tightly and pulling her into the other room. When they got to the room, there were two men standing by the exit door and at least a dozen girls getting dressed in the room.
The women were in various stages of undress as they did their hair and makeup and put on sexy outfits that they were going to dance in. As PJ looked around the room, I found Ana in the corner as she got ready. She actually looked much better than I had expected. But that could have been because she had her hair and makeup done.
It was distracting to watch the monitor and see random women walking around without their clothes on. I had to say my job was probably much more fun than Nate and Chase’s jobs were. While they sat in the lobby of the dance club, I got to watch all the naked girls get ready to dance.
“Ana, this is Ilsa. I need this table so I can get her ready,” Roxanne said.
It felt like it was on purpose. Like Roxanne was making sure that PJ knew who Ana was. I didn’t think that Roxanne knew we had monitoring there with PJ, but I didn’t know for sure. PJ could have told her when the girls were all together. But no matter what, I felt like Roxanne wasn’t trying to trick us. In that moment, my blood pressure started to return to normal, and I believed that she had just gone to Stephano so she could help with Ana.
“Why are you here?” PJ asked as Roxanne started to clean off her face roughly.
“Don’t talk. You’re supposed to not speak English. They will notice if you talk to me. Just get on the stage and dance and look pretty.”
PJ did stop talking, but I wish she hadn’t. I also wanted to know why Roxanne was there and what exactly she thought she could do from inside that PJ wasn’t going to be able to. But my answer came very quickly when one of the men handed Roxanne a bottle of pills.
“They all need to take at least one. The older girls can have more than one if they want,” the man said to Roxanne.
“Stay here and get ready. Don’t swallow this,” Roxanne whispered to PJ as she handed her a pill and a cup of water.
It was at that moment that I knew for sure that Roxanne was there to try and help. I hated that I had questioned her reason for being there at first. But at that moment, I knew she was trying to prove that she was useful and could help. It was a good thing she was there, too. Having someone who was helping Stephano was the best we could have hoped for. Instead of one of the men handling the girls, it was Roxanne.
PJ watched as Roxanne went around and handed pills to all of the girls, but she skipped Ana. It was the saddest thing ever when Ana then came up to Roxanne and asked for her pill. I wasn’t sure what exactly the pills were, but they were obviously addictive if the girls were asking for them when they didn’t get one. I suspected that was why the other girls had said Ana looked drugged up when they had seen her before.
Mentally, I made a note that Ana might have to deal with some pretty bad withdrawals once we got her out of there. I didn’t know exactly what she was taking, but anything that she took on a regular basis was going to require withdrawing from. Drugs that zoned the women out would make them easier for Stephano to handle. The girls probably just did what he asked and didn’t ask any questions.
The girls who spoke English would be too drugged up to talk. Stephano had set up the perfect situation for him. The girls were going to be high all the time and that made them much less work for him and much easier to handle.
“Let’s go, girls. You need to be ready in five minutes,” Roxanne said as she held out her hands to show all five fingers. “You need to go on stage and dance,” Roxanne said to PJ as she moved seductively to show her what she needed to do.
“Why is Ana dancing? I thought she had a buyer?” PJ asked.
“Shut up!” Roxanne said as she slapped PJ across the face.
Chapter Twenty
ROXANNE
I hated that I had to slap PJ, but I saw Stephano coming out of the corner of my eyes and I knew he had seen her talking to me. There was no time to think of anything else and I couldn’t risk that he thought I was working with PJ. If PJ got caught, I wasn’t going down with her. I was going to figure out a way to get Ana out of the situation.
“So, she speaks English?” Stephano said as he joined PJ and I.
“No, she was babbling some crazy shit and smarting off to me. I don’t know for sure what she said, but it looked like she was calling me names and she spit on me.”
PJ looked pissed that I had thrown her out like that. But there wouldn’t be a reason for Nate to be selling the girl if she was nice. He would have kept her. I really didn’t have a reason to slap PJ except to make it look real to Stephano. I had to hope that PJ would understand the situation and just go with it.
I noticed that PJ had glasses on and she had not been wearing them before. I wondered if they were some sort of video device so Jackson could see what was going on. It was a good idea, but I didn’t see any device for her to talk to him or for him to listen to what was going on.
The problem I had was that I didn’t know their whole plan. I had left the hotel after talking briefly with PJ. It was a mistake of me to just come and meet up with Stephano without at least talking with Jackson. I should have stood up for myself and insisted that I stayed involved.
Now, it was too late, I was involved and PJ had shown up as well. Now we were both in the mix with Ana. It was going to be up to the two of us to make sure that everything went off without a hitch. Getting Ana out of the club was going to be near impossible, so I really hoped they had not expected to break her out right away. My best bet was that we were all going to make it back to Stephano’s house and then try and plan an escape from there.
“I guess that’s why the kid is trying to sell her off. It’s all right, we can break her later. Did she take a pill?”
“Yes, I gave her one.”
“Here, take another,” he said as he shoved a methadone pill into PJ’s mouth and then poured water in there.
My stomach clenched as I held myself back from intervening. PJ looked up at me with fear in her eyes, and I couldn’t say or do anything at all. I had to pretend to be there to help Stephano, I couldn’t act out. If I had tried to stop Stephano, he would have made me take a pill and I couldn’t take something like methadone. My body reacted poorly to pain medication and I cou
ld stop breathing if I took one of them. Or at the very least, I wouldn’t be able to function, and I couldn’t have that happening.
Stephano held her nose and mouth shut until she swallowed the pill and then he let her go. PJ looked at me with a look that could have killed me. I knew she was pissed, but at that point, I didn’t really care. She wanted to be the girl who was sold to Stephano and that was how he treated girls like her. I couldn’t exactly step in and try and say anything or he would know something was up.
“You better get her to dance, I don’t want to keep her for long. I need a buyer to see her today,” Stephano said as he left us and walked around to look at all of the girls.
He admired Ana for an extra long time, and I saw that he forced another pill on her, too. She had already taken one from me and I knew she had taken one earlier in the day. I worried that she was very addicted to the methadone and it was going to be hard for her to get away from it once we got her out of his care.
“You can be mad at me if you want. But I’m going to help get Ana out. You need to go on stage and dance. Leave your glasses on the stage so Jackson can see the audience.”
I wasn’t sure her glasses were a camera, but PJ’s reply made me positive of what I had thought was going on.
“I know what the fuck I’m doing, I’ll leave the glasses wherever I want to,” PJ said as she stood up and followed the other girls out to the backstage area.
It sucked that she was so mad at me, but I couldn’t risk Stephano thinking I was on anyone’s side but his. I had to be a bitch so I could get everything done that needed to get done while we were at the club.
If Stephano trusted me, it would be possible he would leave the girls in my hands when we got back to his house. Instead of trying to find me a match, he might decide to keep me to help with the girls. Having me there to work with the girls could be exactly what we needed to get them to safety. I didn’t know what the security situation was like at his house at night, but with all the drugs these girls were taking, I didn’t think he would need that much security at all. Most of them would probably be passed out by the time it was dark outside.
But for the time being, I needed to dance first so that the rest of the girls saw what had to happen when they had their turn. I could still remember when Ana had come to the club and one of the other girls did the first dance to show Ana what to do. It seemed like a million years ago, but it had only been a few weeks.
So much had happened in the last few weeks. So much more than I could have imagined. Meeting Jackson and Chase that night in the club had changed the entire trajectory of my life.
“Okay, ladies, I’m going to do a dance, then it’s your turn,” I said to the girls as I made my way onto the stage.
I knew that Nate and Chase were going to be out there, but I couldn’t think about them. I had to concentrate on the job I was sent to do and that meant that I had to give a kick ass show for Stephano. He wanted me to show the girls that effort was important in their dance, not because the girls had to dance well, but the buyers wanted sexy women, and a woman who was willing to show off her stuff on the dance floor would be more willing to make her man happy when she got home with him.
I stood at the edge of the stage and waited for my music to start. I took a couple deep breaths as I walked out on stage and started to peal my clothing off in time with the music. I made sure to give Stephano my undivided attention, mostly because I didn’t want to look at Nate or Chase. I knew they were going to be surprised to see me up there and I also knew that if I looked at them, I was likely to break the character I was pretending to be.
Every time I danced, I pretended to be someone else. It was the only way I got through my shows. I would pretend to be a naughty school teacher or a hot businesswoman, and I would become the character on the stage. My fans loved that about me and that was why they continued to come back and see me over and over again.
My hips moved from side to side as I held onto the pole in the middle of the stage. I saw that one of the guards had brought the girls to the edge of the stage so they could all watch my dance. As I turned around, I caught a glimpse of Nate and Chase as they watched the stage, they were only a few seats away from Stephano, but I tried my best not to look at them again. Nate looked like he was about to jump out of his seat and join me, while Chase was half covering his eyes.
The first night when Chase and Jackson had come to the club to watch me dance, I remembered seeing them. The two of them were wide eyed and fascinated by me. They didn’t look away at all during my whole dance.
Having a handsome guy like Jackson ask for one on one time with me was something I liked. As a dancer, it made me feel special and like what I was doing was actually good. I didn’t even mind that he just had questions about Ana that night, I was happy to answer them as long as he paid for his private dance.
Now, only a few days away from that night, there I was dancing for Chase and Nate. It seemed like déjà vu because Nate reminded me so much of Jackson. But this time, I knew so much more about the world and about those two men. I knew I had to do a job and I couldn’t be embarrassed or Stephano would know that something was strange.
The longer I danced, the more I got into the character and soon I had stripped off my bra and threw it right at Nate. He grabbed it like a pro and held onto it while I finished my dance. It was only about two minutes on the stage, which was short for me, but it was going to seem like forever to the girls who had never been on the stage.
Stephano clapped when I was done dancing and that made the rest of the men in the lobby clap. I looked over at Nate and Chase as they smiled and clapped. Then I looked toward the back of the club and saw the same goon who had strangled me the other evening and he was clapping, as well.
That whole situation still bothered me. Why would one of his goons take it upon themselves to do that to me? My gut thought that Stephano probably told him to make me understand that I needed to listen to him or something like that and the goon just took things way too far.
As the music ended and the lights died down, I walked off the stage. I was proud of my dance and felt like I did a good job. It would hopefully be the last time I ever danced on a stage. At least, if I had any say in it. So, the dance was like a going away gift to myself – the last time I would be seducing a man from the brightly lit stage.
I hoped that in the future I would only be doing a dance for my man in the privacy of my own home. Someday, that would be the future I would have. Maybe it would be with Jackson, or maybe it would be with someone else entirely. All I knew was that I didn’t intend to ever go back to the life I used to have. There was so much more in my future, and I was going to go after it with everything I had. I wasn’t going to settle for a life I hated anymore.
Life was too short to live without following your dreams and I knew that. When this job was done, I was going after what I wanted in life.
I saw Ana first in line and gave her a hug. She certainly didn’t look like she was ready to take on the stage. But at least she had done it before and knew what to expect.
“Good luck,” I said.
“Thanks,” she slurred as she walked very unsteadily out to the stage.
It was clear she had taken way too many drugs and I was afraid what her dance was going to look like to Stephano. I just hoped that she could hold herself together.
I stayed close to the stage to watch as she did her dance for Stephano. He seemed particularly fond of her and his eyes intently latched onto her every move. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that Stephano really did want to keep Ana for himself.
Chapter Twenty-One
JACKSON
Watching Roxanne slap PJ was an eye opener for me. I saw that Stephano was coming and that PJ had been talking like she wasn’t supposed to have been doing. It was a good thing that Roxanne had slapped her. I had to wonder what PJ would have been doing if Roxanne wasn’t there. She probably would have been talking to the girls and given herself a
way, but I hoped she wouldn’t have. I also hoped she would be able to keep herself together to finish out the rest of the job. She had to play her part or nothing was going to work out the way we needed it to.
As Roxanne danced on stage, I could see bits and pieces of it through PJ’s camera. It made me feel dirty to watch Roxanne up on that stage, but I also wanted her more than I had the last time I saw her dance. She was such a beautiful woman, inside and out, and I couldn’t wait to make up with her when this was all over.
This time, as she danced, all I could think about was how that was going to be the last time she ever had to dance for men. I would make sure that she wouldn’t have to dance for anyone else ever again. Unless she wanted to dance for me in private, of course.
I wanted her off the stage and it killed me that Chase and Nate got to see her. They were probably loving that they got to see every inch of her, especially Nate. It killed me to think of all the things I knew he was imaging doing with Roxanne.
When Roxanne left the stage, Ana went up. I still didn’t really know why Ana had to dance again, but I could only imagine that maybe her buyer wanted additional footage before he flew over from overseas. Or perhaps the original buyer had backed out and they were trying to sell her to someone else? What I did know was that she was snowed with drugs and could hardly walk.
PJ made sure to look right at Ana during her whole dance and I got to watch much more of it than I had seen of Roxanne. PJ looked into the audience and I noticed both Chase and Nate looked really concerned as they watched. If it had been up to them, I know they would have run up to the stage and rescued her right then and there.
Ana held herself together fairly well as she danced to the music, but she didn’t take any of her clothing off. Perhaps that was what her buyer wanted? I wasn’t sure, but when she finished her dance and walked back past PJ, I saw that her eyes were barely open and she looked like she was going to fall over.
