by Ray, Lexie
“That one, over there,” Sally said, jerking her head in Ron’s direction. “He doesn’t give a flying crap about the rest of us up there on that stage. He only pays attention to you. See? Look. He’s not even watching.”
She was right. He was studying the contents of his drink, swirling the ice cubes around in his cocktail, toying with the mixing straw, alternately mixing the concoction and placing the straw on the napkin. He was fidgeting, of all things. It was something I’d never noticed him doing. He always gave me his unwavering, undivided attention, but I was apparently the only dancer whom he cared enough about to watch.
“There’s a money-making opportunity there,” Sally continued, unprompted. “He looks like he has money to him. His pants are pressed; his fingernails aren’t dirty; and it seems he knows how to take care of himself. He’s obviously into you. You should see how far you can ride that money train.”
I studied the man who interested me, who showed so much interest in me. Was that a money train waiting to happen? For some reason, I didn’t think so. For some reason, he felt different to me. Under the expert tutelage of Sally, Mary, and Babs, I was becoming adept at picking out the men who would give me the most money after I was done advertising my goods up on the stage. Unlike my mentors, however, I would never approach them to try to coerce them into purchasing very expensive private dances from me. It was a puzzling business practice for my coworkers to observe—me squandering perfectly good opportunities to market my services. They would wheedle and flirt until they finally hooked a customer, tugging on the man’s hand as they led him back into the private area of the club. There, I knew just how quickly a private dance could escalate into a much more lucrative service, but I wasn’t at all interested in that, no matter how much money I was capable of making. There was something about the sex portion of the job that many of the dancers engaged in that turned my stomach. Maybe it was simple nostalgia. Even if I was in my late twenties already, I still hadn’t had sex with anyone but Marcus.
It just seemed like something that had been so special and so right—at the time, of course, before our parents had ripped us apart because of it, rendering my life to shreds—shouldn’t be centered on money. I wasn’t really saving myself for Marcus anymore, not like I had been when we were younger. Those days were over. I’d effectively ended the romance to that bourgeoning relationship. However, it just didn’t seem right to me that the most intimate parts of my body should take center stage in a business transaction.
That wasn’t to say that I didn’t forgo private dances. Private dances were where I earned the real money. I just wasn’t keen on begging for customers. I waited until they begged me for the privilege of my full attention beyond the prying eyes of jealous customers.
“Parker, everyone, we have Parker coming on stage right now, the dangerous Parker!” The DJ’s announcement jolted me forward, propelling me quickly past Sally until I remembered my modus operandi and slowed down, stalking toward the stairs to the stage, taking my own sweet time and refusing to be rushed by the DJ’s always-frantic pace of speaking. I operated on my own terms, in my own time.
By the time I mounted the stairs and made it up into the spotlight, the song had already started, but I didn’t care. I was the star of this particular show, not the music. People were here to see me, not listen to a tune.
I breezed down the stage, my eyes flicking from one customer’s face to the next, never lingering too long in one place until I locked eyes with Ron. His gaze smoldered and made me shudder so violently I had to work it into a dance move. Those eyes shimmered with desire, making me flush and grateful for the spotlight that bathed me in a red filter. I’d never seen someone so unabashedly lustful. This was different from the way Marcus had looked at me growing up, even from how he’d ravished me at my mom’s house. There had been something different in Marcus’ eyes in those days, something deeper.
The thing that poured from Ron’s eyes was sexual fire, and it stirred me in a way I hadn’t felt toward anyone for a very long time.
I reached the end of the routine, the music clashing to its steamy finale, and locked eyes once more with Ron, who hadn’t looked away since I’d started dancing. He was smiling lightly—more of a smirk, really—and he jerked his chin toward me. The gesture was a greeting, an acknowledgement that we were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Sure, I’d noticed him before this moment, but this was him saying that he knew I saw him watching me. It was as much an admission as it was an invitation to pursue something more—maybe that private dance that Sally had mentioned.
I toweled myself off in the dressing room and reapplied my makeup—a common practice among dancers after performing on the stage—and studied my appearance in the mirror. How was I going to approach him? Would he even still be out there? Should I try to soften my look to welcome him in? Should I maintain my hardness? Was that the thing about me he was interested in?
“Go knock them dead, kiddo,” Sally said, surprising me with a smack on my rear. “You look great. Time is money.”
She was right. I was only stalling because I was nervous about what it meant to be so nervous about a customer. I dealt with them all the time, doling out private dances and table dances alike. This wasn’t anything new…except that it was. All those other dances I’d learned to give were professional, almost clinical with how I didn’t feel anything toward the customers. Now, though, there was clearly something between me and the man with the startlingly blue eyes. He’d been coming for days, just to see me, and now I was going to go show him that I saw him, too.
He was still there, sitting at that same old table. Hadn’t the view bored him yet? He was tapping his fingers against the table and fiddling with his drink—quirks I’d noticed before in my own observations. To see him unguarded and unaware of me, gave me the power I needed to draw up my mantle of Parker and approach him.
With my regular persona, the act I put on to earn money here at the club, I’d usually walk right past tables of customers I knew for a fact would throw any amount of cash at me just to get me to pay attention to them for a little while. They’d be the ones begging and pleading, hands reaching out but stopping just short of making contact with me because of the burly, scowling bouncer approaching to tell them off for touching me.
But here, standing now in front of Ron’s table, I stilled, stopped, and waited to see what he would do, letting his actions determine my own. It was a vast departure from my Parker persona, one she would never put up with, but I found it was the only way I wanted to interact with this man. I was curious about him. Why had he been studying me so closely all these days in a row? What had he seen that kept him coming back? And just what was he interested in doing?
“The beautiful Parker,” he said, grinning at me so vibrantly that I thought for a silly moment that his teeth glowed in the dark. His smile was wide and inviting, an achievement that was either hereditary or won through years of pain and thousands of dollars. It was magnetic, and it drew me in instantly.
“I haven’t been able to help noticing your patronage,” I said, happy for an invitation to keep things formal, to use the persona to maintain space between us.
“You finally noticed me today,” he said, raising a thick, shapely eyebrow. “I’ve been coming here for quite a while.”
“I’ve noticed you before,” I corrected him. “I’m acknowledging you today. There’s a difference.”
He chuckled. “That’s some sass you have,” he said. “I do like my women feisty.”
I could’ve kept up with the witty repartee, dancing around the real issues of us being here together, but I wasn’t willing to waste the time on it. There was something here, and I was going to figure out what it was—now.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. “What do you want?”
It gave me strength to lean on my persona’s no-frills approach to the world. I could ask whatever I wanted, no matter how forward, and expect an answer.
What I d
idn’t expect, however, was Ron’s answer.
“I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind,” he said simply, turning his palms upward on the table in a pose of supplication. “Not since the first time I happened to go to this club and saw you dance, saw the way you moved, the way you looked at men as you stalked by them.”
I gaped at him, my persona having fled, not knowing what to do with this naked truth. He oozed honesty in a way I couldn’t quite explain. It was all at once attractive and disconcerting.
“I saw you in my sleep,” he continued, “and you haunted my every hour—both waking and dreaming. I had to know more about you, and every time I came to the club, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, I realized I knew less and less. This is your act…I’m starting to realize that now. But what makes you put on this mask? You’re so beautiful. Why do you feel you have to be so aloof?”
No customer had ever bothered with these questions. The only thing most men here ever asked me was if I wanted a drink, to sit on their lap, or to give them a piece of myself in private. None of them had ever bothered to ask why I acted the way that I did. They were only interested in my face value, in what was on the surface. They probably all assumed I was into BDSM and was some kind of dominatrix acting out her fantasies here in the club, and I let them. They could picture whatever fantasy they wished, as long as I got a paycheck at the end of the night.
However, none of them had ever called me on it or told me that they knew there was something more, something else going on inside. Not even my coworkers or boss had expressed interest in knowing what was below the persona.
“Here, let’s go,” he said, standing suddenly and taking my hand. I was so shocked I didn’t draw away from him for breaking the rules of the club, for touching me. Our fingers interlocked immediately, and there was almost a static buzz that I couldn’t help comparing with the buzz I felt the first time I met Marcus.
“Where are we going?” I asked, finding my voice again and shaking my head swiftly at an approaching bouncer, eager to yank this man away from me.
“To the private dance room,” he said. “I’ll make it worth your while. I promise.”
“You want a private dance?” I asked, dubious. After all of those words he’d let leave his mouth? I thought this was something more than a simple, sexual attraction. Had he really waited a solid two weeks before requesting a stupid lap dance from me? It was a waste of an investment. I’d have gotten him taken care of the very first night if he’d indicated he was interested in such a thing.
“I want to know more about you, Parker,” he said, leading me through the tables, to the dark corner of the club. “I understand that you can’t take the mask off out here, not with all these eyes on you. I know you have a character to maintain. However, I’m hoping that, away from prying eyes, you’ll be able to be honest with me.”
Through a set of swinging doors and beyond a curtain of beads was the private dance area, with couches and chairs partitioned off like little love cubicles, many of them occupied. Ron led us to a couch and sat down before pulling me earnestly down beside him. I felt strange, awkward, and exposed. Sure, I was wearing a latex jumpsuit that hugged every peak, curve, nook, and cranny, and there weren’t many things about my body right now that remained mysterious, but this was a different kind of exposure. This man had seen behind the mask, and now he wanted a full gander at what was hidden beneath.
“What’s your name?” I asked, peering at him. Those blue eyes hadn’t lost an ounce of their glimmer, their intensity, even in this intimate setting.
“It’s Ron,” he said, giving me that gorgeous grin again. “Sorry. Probably should’ve introduced myself right off.”
“That’s all right,” I said, followed by, needlessly, “I’m Parker.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, patiently patting my hand. I was so embarrassed that I withdrew my hand from his, clasping my own hands together in my lap that was, again, such an un-Parker thing to do. There were plenty of times in my job here that I felt uncomfortable, but I never let any customer see me sweat. What was Ron doing to me to make me lose my composure so thoroughly?
“Are you sure you don’t just want a dance?” I asked, eyeing him. “I’m a good dancer, as you know since you’ve been watching me. I don’t want to waste your time any more than you say you don’t want to waste mine.”
“I want to get to know you,” he insisted again. “You intrigue me, Parker, in ways no one ever has before, and if money is going to be the key to unlocking you, then I’m willing to give you twenty bucks for every question you answer.”
My mouth dropped open yet again. “Don’t you at least want to see my boobs?” I asked. Why would someone here want to spend money on something as intangible as words? Didn’t he at least want a sexual payout, a little bang for his buck? All around us, men were getting more than satisfied. I could hear grunts and coos over the music, which seemed very far away now.
Ron took out his wallet, and its thickness made my eyes bulge. Then, he slipped out a twenty dollar bill.
“I want to know why you dance here?” he said, holding the cash out to me.
Hesitant, I took it. It was crisp, and as far as I could tell, not counterfeit. “I dance here for the money,” I said, lifting the bill up to show him. That was God’s honest truth.
He peeled another bill from his wallet and held it out to me. “But why here instead of somewhere else?” he pressed.
I took the bill. “I tried the ‘somewhere else,’ everywhere else,” I said, rubbing the two bills together. I liked the sound they made. Somehow, even though I knew it was all just paper, it sounded more substantial than the sprinklings of ones I usually earned up on the main stage. “I was simply getting by…barely getting by…until I started working here. This is the first time that I can pay all of my bills on time and still have money left over.”
Ron took yet another bill out and held it between his fingers. “Why the dominatrix act?”
Forty dollars became sixty dollars. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was frightened and shy and desperate when I tried out. It was easier to put on this mask than it was to be who I really was…a scared girl who didn’t know how much longer she could keep herself in an apartment. It isn’t fun to live in the shelters here, and I don’t like charity. I like to earn money, and I decided I had to play this part in order to get as much of it as I can.”
Another bill. “If you could do something else, would you?”
Eighty dollars. “I don’t know.” I really liked the weight of four twenties, all in my grasp, all earned within the span of just a couple of minutes. “I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life back in…back before this. This seems like a good as gig as any, and it’s better than anything else I’ve ever done. If something better came along, and I knew it was going to be better than this, I’d think about it.”
A fifth bill. “Do you have a significant other?”
A hundred dollars. A hundred whole dollars, just from answering this guy’s questions. “No.”
Ron took out yet another bill, and I squawked in protest. “This isn’t fair to you! You don’t have to waste any more of your money. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know—for free.”
“A deal’s a deal,” he said, slipping the bill into my ever-growing stack. “Twenty bucks per question. You’re a quality woman, Parker, and I know quality women don’t come cheap. You should never sell yourself short.”
“Okay,” I said, uncertain. “What’s your question, then?”
“Are you on the market?” Ron asked, his eyes twinkling. “That is to say, would you consider dating someone like me?” He winced and slapped his forehead before going to his wallet again. “That was two questions.”
I gaped at the insane sum of money I was holding in my hands. This was on track to being one of the most lucrative nights I’d ever had at the club.
“I think it’s obvious you’re interested in me,” I said, blinking quickly from my set of
bills to his still-open wallet, wondering faintly how many more bills would go into this transaction. “And I also think it’s obvious that I have something…that there is some kind of chemistry there.”
He made me twenty dollars richer. “And is the chemistry strong enough for you to take a chance on me?”
I paused for a long time, mulling his question seriously. A handsome man was sitting beside me on a couch in the private dance room, interested in knowing about me as a person, showering me in money without requesting sexual favors in return.
“I think I’d be stupid for not taking a chance on you,” I said, my grin matching Ron’s. “I’d love to go out on a date with you.”
“Just one date?” he asked, slipping me another twenty.
“Maybe more than one,” I allowed, trying not to freak out at all the money I was holding. If this kept up much longer, I’d have my rent money all at one go.
Another twenty made it an even two hundred bucks. “Would you like to know more about me, if it would help cement your decision?” he asked.
“I would love to know more about you, Ron,” I said.
He had inherited his money, he said, and was sort of lost over what to do with it. Not having to work for a living made living boring, he explained, and he was always looking for a new adventure. It didn’t hurt my feelings one bit to be his new adventure—at least for tonight. He’d made it more than worth my while.
“So I travel a lot,” he said.
“Really!” I exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to travel.” My thoughts turned helplessly back to Marcus, about the promise he’d made to me to travel the world before settling down at a beach somewhere. That seemed like a whole lifetime ago, and it was easier to ignore than ever before.
“Traveling teaches so much,” Ron said. “I recommend it for everyone. Now…”—he handed me another twenty, bringing my total to two hundred twenty dollars—“… where can I take you after your shift ends tonight?”
“I…maybe somewhere to eat?” I asked. “There won’t be much open, but there’s a diner I know.”
