by Vivian Ward
What was I supposed to do, though? She made it clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me.
“Hey big guy, it’s been a while,” said a throaty voice standing behind me.
I turned slowly on my barstool to see who in the hell was talking to me. It was the girl that I’d hooked up with the last time I was in there.
I didn’t invite her to join me, but she took a seat next to me anyway. She flashed a smile at me while casually grazing my arm with her fingers as she sat.
“Can I get another drink?” I yelled at the bartender.
“I think you’ve had enough. I’m cutting you off,” he replied smugly.
I must have been slurring my words pretty badly at that point because, most of the time, people can’t tell when I’m drunk.
I wanted to argue with him and tell him that I was fine but decided against it. Technically, I wasn’t even supposed to be drinking and I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be in a strip club.
Both would have violated my parole and could have sent my ass back to prison. Instead, I pulled out my wallet and paid for my drinks.
“You leaving already?” the girl asked as I started making my way towards the door. “I was hoping you’d stick around a little longer. Maybe we could have a repeat of last time.”
She stood up next to me, leaning into me with her hands slowly moving up my chest. The bartender looked over and rolled his eyes. When I looked down at her, all I could see was Shay.
“We could have a little fun,” I mumbled. “Why don’t we go somewhere we can have a little privacy.”
“Sure thing, sweetheart. You remember where the rooms are, right?”
“Yeah, I know where they are, but that’s not where I want to go. I don’t want to be here at all,” I told her, walking out the door. She followed behind, stopping as soon as she got outside.
“I can’t leave. I’ve gotta work tonight,” she said.
“Look, honey, if it’s money you want, I’ve got it,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my back pocket and holding it up in front of her. “You should probably take me up on my offer.”
The stripper stood in the parking lot, trying to figure out what she should do.
“Okay. Can you hang out for twenty minutes? I’ll meet you back out here then.”
“Fine but try to hurry.”
I waited in my truck before she finally showed up carrying her things. I grabbed her hand while she was getting in, helping her in.
“So where are we headed?”
I didn’t answer her. I just put my truck in gear and drove back to my place. I hated my apartment but this girl was nothing more than a typical stripper. I wasn’t trying to impress her.
I walked into the apartment, with her right behind me, her high heels clacking loudly with each step she took.
Inside my apartment, I went into my bedroom and opened the closet door. There were some things I wanted to grab before things went any further. I gathered what I needed and arranged them out onto the bed.
“So now that I’m here with you, how much are we talking?” the stripper asked.
“I’m paying you $300 and for that, you’ll do what I ask.”
“Three-hundred bucks? What do I have to do to earn that kind of money.”
“You can start but shutting the fuck up and putting this stuff on,” I told her, pointing to the bed.
She looked confused when she took a closer look. On the bed, I had sat out a red sweater and a bottle of perfume.
“So you’re going to pay me $300 to wear some clothes and perfume? What’s the catch man?” she asked as she pulled the sweater over the dress she was wearing, followed by a couple of squirts of the perfume.
“The catch is that you have to do things exactly as I tell you to. You got it?”
My voice was hard and cold as I was telling her what she had to do and I didn’t even care. She looked at me like I was some sort of creep and, at the time, maybe that’s what I was being. It didn’t matter, though. This wasn’t about her. It was all about me.
“So who do you want me to be tonight?” she asked as I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Your name is Shay, just like last time,” I responded.
“Alright, sweetheart. If that’s what you want, that’s what you’re going to get.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart. She isn’t into shit like that. You have to talk like her. She only calls me Nick. None of that sweetheart or honey bullshit. Nick and nothing else.”
“Fine Nick, that’s what I’ll call you.”
“Your voice is too deep. She doesn’t have all that bass in her voice. Her voice is higher and more feminine. Just make your voice higher and get over here.”
I spent the next hour going over the rules and telling her all the things she needed to say and do. She protested a bit, telling me that she wasn’t going to remember everything I was telling her to do.
If she wanted my money, she was going to do everything exactly as I told her.
“You know, this isn’t going to be a one-time thing, right?” I asked, drawing a look of concern from her. “I want you to come over to my apartment every single night this week. As soon as you get off work, I want you over here. I want you here wearing this exact outfit and wearing this exact perfume. I want you to act the way she acted. I want you to talk the way she talked. I want you to be here.”
“Don’t you think this is a little weird, Nick?”
“No Shay, I don’t,” I replied, oblivious to the fact that I was losing my mind. “You don’t even have to knock when you get here. Just walk in and ask me about my day and tell me about yours. I don’t want to hear about any of that stripper shit. I want to know how your day working at the gas station was. If you do these things, you’ll get paid every time.”
She nodded her head in agreement.
“Good. Now turn around,” I said once I was done telling her everything she needed to know.
She did exactly as I asked without hesitation. She faced the wall while I stood up and turned off the lights, leaving nothing but the faint moonlight coming through the windows.
The lights being off allowed me to forget who I was actually in the room with, giving me a more authentic experience.
I crept up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. She didn’t have the curvy same shape that Shay had, but it would have to do. I rested my head on her shoulder, breathing in the smell of the perfume from her neck.
“Thank you, Shay. Thank you so much for giving me one more chance.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” she said as she made her voice higher as I had requested. “I’m yours, Nick. I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”
“I love you too, Shay. I love you so much.”
I pushed her hair to the side and began kissing her neck. It must have tickled because she laughed and tried pulling away from me. I wasn’t going to let her go, though. Not this time. I held her right where I wanted her.
Before she could say another word, I reached up under her dress, grabbed her panties and pulled them down before plunging my fingers into her pussy. There was just one problem. She wasn’t the slightest bit wet.
This wasn’t right.
Shay was always wet anytime I touched her. It seemed that just being in my presence was enough to have her ready to go. This bitch was bone dry.
She was ruining everything!
That was the moment I snapped out of it. What the hell was I thinking? There was nobody who was going to be able to take Shay’s place, especially not some second-rate stripper.
“You need to get out,” I yelled, catching her by surprise.
“What? Get out? What do you mean get out?”
“I mean get out of my apartment. This was a mistake.”
“How in the fuck am I supposed to get home?”
“Take the money. I don’t want it. Just leave!”
I hurried her to the door, locking it behind her before I jumped into the shower. I felt like I
had to cleanse myself of what I’d just done. It was stupid of me to think that my loneliness could be cured by creating some kind of clone of Shay.
She was irreplaceable.
I needed the real thing. I needed my Shay back. I needed to show her that I loved her and let her know that, no matter what, I was going to fight for her because she was worth it.
Chapter 11
Shay
The summer was extremely long. I was going to be advancing to store manager by the end of the year so I had a lot of things to keep me busy at work but the evenings weren’t very much fun.
I wasn’t hanging out with Kim and Curtis all that much anymore. It was weird to be over there and not say anything to Kim about Nick. She’d ask all the time, but I never wanted to talk about it. Eventually, I found it best to keep my distance.
Once the summer was coming to an end and my work schedule was beginning to get back to normal, Nick started to pop up again. Nearly every afternoon when I returned home from work, Nick would be sitting on a bench between my apartment and the apartment next door.
There was no way to miss him.
I walked by him as I made my way to the door.
At first, his mere presence scared the shit out of me. I had no idea what he was truly capable of.
I didn’t think he wanted to hurt me. He’d had plenty of chances to do that if that’s what he wanted to do. Still, I watched plenty of crime shows on television and that alone was enough to make me wonder whether or not I was safe.
For the first couple of weeks, I told him to leave me alone and to just go home. He would get up and leave, only to be sitting in the same place the next day. I threatened to call the cops and have a restraining order placed against him if he came back.
Even that didn’t stop him.
Of course, I never called the police or applied for a restraining order. As upset as he had made me, I didn’t want him to have any trouble with the law, especially considering the fact that he was out on parole. I didn’t want to be the reason he ended up back in prison.
Being too nice to people has always been one of my biggest problems, and there I was, being a lot nicer to Nick than I probably should have been. I couldn’t help it, though. That’s just the kind of person I am. It was true that when Nick lied to me, he’d hurt me badly.
There was a time when I never wanted to see him again. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Over time, however, I started to rethink things. I started to evaluate what my feelings were.
The thoughts that Nick had only gotten with me so he could use me and manipulate me were beginning to slowly fade away. I began coming to the realization that his feelings for me were real, even though he went about everything in the worst possible way. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was what those true feelings were exactly.
Did he love me or was he obsessed with me?
I had no clue. The only thing I knew was that he told me he wasn’t going to let me go without a fight, and he was proving that to me.
Nick told me every day that he loved me and begged for me to sit down and talk to him. He told me that all he wanted was to have me back in his life. I wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet anyway.
Instead, I ignored him, walking inside my apartment without even looking in his direction. I hoped that if I ignored him, it might make it easier for him to let me go.
Maybe he would realize that I’d meant what I said, and he’d be able to move on with his life. I didn’t want him to spend every day outside of my apartment just to try to talk to me. I didn’t want that for either one of us.
More importantly, however, I didn’t want him to realize how hard it was for me to walk right by him on a daily basis and not talk to him.
There was a large pat of me that was still very much pissed off about the lies he’d told me. I was petrified that I’d been with an ex-convict and didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t like he was arrested for some kind of non-violent crime.
He’d been in prison for attempted murder.
That was one thing I never understood. I’d never so much as seen him lose his temper so how he ended up in a bar fight was beyond me.
I had a battle going on inside my heart. The part of me that was still mad at him was fighting with the part of me that still loved him. The fact that he was obviously such a hardened man but still let me in was not lost on me. It probably took him a lot to let his guard down, especially after what he’d been through.
I’m sure it was difficult for him to show any emotions, especially after the childhood he was brought up in. For someone who had been so broken to be able to love me so openly and deeply was something truly unique. He treated me far better than any man had in the past.
The two of us also had an incredible sexual pull to one another. There had been many nights when I sat at home by myself and thoughts of our time together would creep into my mind.
I would remember lying there wrapped up in his strong arms, reminiscing about how safe and protected he always made me feel. When I was with him, I felt like there was nobody who could touch me.
Nobody would be able to hurt me. Never in a million years would I have thought that he’d be the person that would hurt me the most.
As summer ended, the season gave way to fall, my favorite time of the year. I loved watching the leaves on the trees turn into beautiful shades of autumn colors. I enjoyed the feeling of the brisk wind hitting me in the face while the sounds of the drying leaves crunching beneath my feet surrounded me. There was something calming about the season. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it seemed to relax my soul.
I’d had to stay late after work one night and got home quite a bit later than usual. The temperature had dropped, and we were getting ready for our first big snow of the year. Even though the temperature outside was barely above freezing, Nick was still sitting there when I got there.
“Hey,” he said, smiling through teeth that looked like they were about to start chattering.
He had an excitement in his eyes like he was happy to finally be seeing me for the day. I don’t know what it was, but I shot him a smile.
“Hi Nick,” I said in response.
Nick cocked his head and looked at me. He reminded me of an excited puppy who is trying to figure out what you’re doing. He had a look of surprise on his face, not quite believing that I had spoken to him after ignoring him for so long.
“You need some help?” he asked, referring to the large number of bags I’d been carrying.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I began fighting with myself in my head and questioning whether or not I was making a mistake in even speaking to him.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I told him. “I’ve got a few bags left in the car if you want to grab them for me.”
Chapter 12
Nick
I jumped up off the bench and ran to retrieve the rest of her bags. My heart was racing, and I felt as though I was in a bit of shock. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I needed to calm myself down, though.
Her letting me help her carry some things in didn’t mean anything. The last time I’d been inside her apartment, I’d also helped her carry bags and the day ended very badly for both of us.
I tried to push that experience out of my mind. I needed to focus on what was happening right then and there. She’d finally spoken to me. I was finally getting the opportunity that I’d waited too long for. I just had to be smart and make smart choices this time around.
Setting the bags on her kitchen table, I turned to look at her. She had her back to me, emptying the bags. It looked like she was getting ready for Halloween as she’d purchase decorations for her windows along with big bags of candy. I smiled watching her, remembering how much she loved every holiday, regardless of which one it was.
“So, here we are,” Shay said after putting the last of the things away.
She leaned back against the kitchen counter, forcing a smile across her lips. It was nice to see a smile on her face again,
although it didn’t look nearly as good as the smile she used to wear when we were happy together. I could tell she was nervous and uncomfortable. I hated the fact that she was so tense because of me.
“How in this hell did this happen, Shay?” I blurted out, not bothering to think about what I was going to say before opening my mouth.
I was worried about what her response was going to be. Was she going to say all the things she’d said before? Was she going to remind me that everything happened because of me? Was she going to tell me that we split up because I was a manipulator and a lying asshole?
I braced myself to hear hurtful words, but they didn’t come. Instead, she opened her mouth the say something but decided against it. She looked up at me with deep sadness buried within her eyes.
“I honestly have no idea, Nick,” she finally said. “I honestly have no idea.”
Shay stood up straight, no longer leaning on the counter. All of a sudden she looked strong and confident, a very different look than she’d had just seconds before.
“I really don’t know, but all of these things that you’ve been doing, showing up here everyday, it all has to stop.”
Shay was looking me directly in the eyes as I was trying to hide the hurt in them. Once again, I was being rejected, and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to handle it again. My stomach felt queasy as I listened to her continue.
“I know why you’re doing all of this, Nick. I really do. You’re doing this because you love me and you’re trying to prove it to me, right?”
I nodded my head.
“That’s the thing, Nick. I don’t doubt that you love me. I know you do. But none of this is healthy for you. You need to stop doing this for you. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to me. It’s just not good for anyone.”
Shay
I was trying to make things as easy as I could on him. I wasn’t trying to make him feel bad. I hated the effect my words were having on him. I could see in his face that he was being beaten down. He looked like a lost puppy. I tried to choose my words more carefully.
