Stripped

by Zoey Castile

  “You need therapy, bro,” Aiden says.

  “I need to make better choices.”

  “Bad choices are the only way to live and learn, man. Remember what happened last time?”

  I’m going to ignore the jab about last time. I know exactly what happened last time. But the rest, I’ll acknowledge. “Is that from your daily wisdom app?”

  Aiden slaps a towel on my ass. I hurt too much to do anything about it. I’m straddling a weird set of emotions. Instead of dealing with it, I decide to ignore it as best I can. I swap places with Aiden.

  “Take two of those plates off,” Aiden says, lying back on the bench. “I’m not trying to pop a vein like you, Winter Soldier.”

  “Nerd,” I say, standing right behind his head. “Besides, I’m more Captain America.”

  “And I’m the nerd.” Aiden wraps his hands around the metal bar and lifts. “Why do you care about what this girl thinks of you? You’ve known her for a day. A literal day. You haven’t even tapped that. Forget her.”

  Aiden does five reps without stopping.

  “Breathe,” I remind him. “You’re going to pass out.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Fuck you, bro.” I grin. “And I know I’ve only known her for a day. She just got under my skin is all.” Plus, she’s the best kiss I’ve ever had. I usually share that with him, but with Robyn? I want to keep that to myself. Anyway, I don’t need him ragging on me later.

  “You got a picture or should I be using my imagination?”

  “Sorry, I forgot to stop for a fucking selfie during dinner,” I say.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Robyn Flores.”

  “Is she my people?”

  “I didn’t ask for her DNA chart, either. But she said some of her family is from Ecuador.”

  “Paisa, son. Okay. Can I say something without you punching me in the throat?” Aiden laughs, does another couple of reps, and we swap places again.

  “No promises.”

  “You should forget about her.”

  I grunt a response and resume my bench press. I’m not close enough to being tired. The more I think about her, the more my blood rushes through my body, until I have to stop my muscles from shaking.

  Gross trashy stripper, I say in my mind.

  “Listen, man,” Aiden says, standing over me. “You’re overthinking this.”

  “You underthink things.”

  “Maybe, but at least I’m happy. You know who you are and what you do. She doesn’t. My friend Clara was dating this guy and when he found out she was a stripper, he dropped her just like that. Clara’s a nice girl and didn’t deserve that, but she couldn’t make him get it. Being a stripper doesn’t come with respectability. It’s easier when you’re a guy, but still. Whether we like it or not, we’re a joke. At least we’re jokes who can pay off our credit-card bills.”

  “I don’t want to be a joke anymore.” I do five reps before my arms tremble and Aiden intervenes. We slam the barbell onto its metal post. I can feel my heart beating at the base of my throat.

  “Do us all a favor, don’t chase after her,” Aiden says. “Don’t waste your time, amigo. Remember your last girl?”

  I let out a booming laugh. The gym’s thinning out. It’s a twenty-four-hour spot, which is perfect for our schedules.

  “I have never felt as old as I did when I dated Valeria,” I say. “Serves me right for thinking I should date a twenty-year-old.”

  “Hey!” Aiden says indignantly. It’s no secret that Aiden’s clientele are of the cougar variety. Aiden doesn’t mind as long as they have deep pockets. “Sometimes older people need company.”

  “You do you,” I say. “I just can’t believe it took me so long to see.”

  “Maybe you just have bad taste in women. You have a type. The type that drags you through the mud and sets your heart on fire. Find a regular chick who needs love. She’ll appreciate you more.”

  “You’re not fucking helping.” But I think back to the girl he’s referring to. Valeria was a twenty-one-year-old waitress from Hollywood Beach in Florida. I met her after one of our shows. She was in the VIP section of some club that was pitch black except for the neon lights that cut through the air. She danced like her soul was on fire, and her dark hair and darker skin stood out among the orange tans and sun-bleached blondes trying to get my attention. She smiled at me and it was over. I took her back to my apartment and she didn’t leave for a week. I was in love. Or I thought I was.

  I didn’t care when she asked for money to get her nails done, her hair done, her coffee. I was happy to buy her things. I was happy to make her happy. I didn’t mind that she texted while I paid for dinner. I didn’t mind that every now and then she’d vanish for a day or two without saying a word. Everyone needed their space, right? I thought I’d hit the lottery. A girl who was smoking hot and wasn’t clingy? I was ready to sign on the dotted line.

  Slowly, she’d come back. She needed a hundred bucks for something. She needed new shoes. She couldn’t make her rent.

  It was Aiden who’d made the joke first. “Where’s your Sugar Baby?”

  The other guys laughed at me. I really hadn’t seen it. And then I stopped opening up my wallet and she got sad, then angry, then she pulled another disappearing act. When she reappeared, she was on the arm of a club owner twice my age.

  Maybe I did have bad taste in women. There’s a reason I’m thirty and single, and I didn’t want to believe it was my career choice. I always chose the wrong girl. Robyn will just be another girl in the long list of failed attempts at relationships. One friendly casual dinner didn’t count as a relationship. One amazing kiss didn’t mean anything.... As much as I want to deny it, Aiden is right. I don’t know her. I don’t have to pursue her. I have a type—beautiful and destructive.

  I feel my arms shaking as I struggle to complete my final rep. That does it. I’m spent.

  “Feel better?” Aiden asks, his white teeth bright against his brown skin.

  I wrap my towel around my neck. “No.”

  “I know just the thing,” Aiden says. “Come on. Let’s get fucked up.”

  ROBYN

  I check my phone for the third time in ten minutes. It reads 9:15 p.m. My dress, a lacy black number I got on sale a year ago, feels tight around the middle. I tell myself to pace myself on the drinks and appetizers. Every few minutes, waiters bring out new dishes of tiny meatballs, empanadas, and everything-on-a-stick. I didn’t believe there was a way to make pigs in a blanket into a classy food, but somehow, Lily’s future sister-in-law, Sophia, figured it out.

  The bachelorette party is a moderate affair that started with an afternoon tea and has proceeded to cocktail hour. There’s plenty of champagne being passed around the massive Park Slope brownstone. The guests are equally divided between Lily and my coworkers from school, classmates and friends, Lily’s family, and David’s family. I watch the pockets of social circles mingle from a designated wall. Being a wallflower is familiar and comforting, but not the thing that’s expected from the maid of honor. I pick up a fried shrimp on a toothpick and another glass of champagne from the cute waiters who shove their trays in my face. Sophia did not spare any expense.

  Part of me is glad that, ultimately, the party planning wasn’t my responsibility. I’m the official maid of honor, but Sophia put herself in charge of the parties. Sophia is good at parties and she has time. Another part of me knows that I let Lily down once again, even if Lily won’t admit to it. Not to my face.

  The week that wouldn’t end is still going. It’s Saturday night and I’m not supposed to be drinking. Tomorrow’s the bake sale I’ve “volunteered” for. Three nights ago, I’d shared the most dizzying and passionate kiss of my life. It was followed by a casual dinner with the most interesting, strange, and exciting man I’d ever met. I haven’t heard from him since his sudden departure. Who goes to the gym after eating half a pie and drinking a bottle of wine?

  Since then, I star
ted lingering in the stairwell of our building. I rattled my key chain, as if he’d hear me and come out just to say hi. I even made sure I was in front of the building in the late afternoon when I’d last seen him take Yaz for a walk at that time. And yet, no sign of him.

  Fallon ghosted me. Only it’s worse because I don’t have digital records of flirty messages. I have the fading memory of his sly smile, his dreamy blue eyes, and that spark that made my heart ache.

  I don’t want to think of him. He was not mine to start with. I tell myself I don’t even have time to date, anyway. I tell myself that this is probably for the best because why go down that path when I don’t know where my life is headed? He wants to travel the world, and I have to balance my checkbook. Still, it would be nice to know what I’d said to make him run away from me. Because he did run away.

  I don’t even know his full name. Is Fallon his first or last name? Is it a nickname?

  “Having fun?” Lily asks. Her cheeks were flushed pink like the glass of champagne in her hand.

  “Definitely!” I lie.

  “You’re checking your phone a lot. Still no word from him, huh?”

  I put on my best smile. “Oh, I’m not worried about that. I just have to make sure I get enough sleep for tomorrow.”

  “Do you think everyone is having a good time?” Lily looks around the room with big, round eyes.

  Every bride and groom this past year asked the exact same question. I realized that weddings are not for the bride and groom but for the people attending. Get a nice dress, show up and drink wine, dance a little. It’s a reprieve from the banality of life.

  I’m sick of it, and I hate that I’m sick of it. Lily’s wedding was the one that was supposed to count the most, and here I am, pining over a cute guy and wishing I could get more than four hours of sleep a night.

  Sleep, my most evasive lover.

  “Sophia did a terrific job,” I tell Lily.

  Another thing I’ve learned from the number of weddings I’ve attended is that there is never enough reassurance that can be dished out. I could be dishonest about my own state of being. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Lily did not worry about a single thing.

  “Sophia is a doll,” Lily says. “I’m so happy with how this turned out. You’re okay with it, aren’t you?”

  I bat my hands in the air. “Of course! I told you, don’t worry about that. It totally worked out.”

  “It’s just that Sophia has more time on her hands since her kids are off to college now.”

  As if hearing her name from the next room, Sophia turns a corner, and rushes to where we’re standing. “There you are! Our cousin Liz from Florida just got here. She can’t wait to meet you. She’s putting her coat away in the guest room. Go say hi!”

  Lily smooths out her skirt. As an only child, Lily is still getting used to being surrounded by so much extended family. Her family now. It puts a smile on her face and I’m happy for that. I take Lily’s empty glass and wave to one of her friends.

  Sophia, David’s older sister, takes a long sip of her wine. “So, what do you think, Robyn?”

  It’s harder for me to fake a smile this time around. When I was little my father told me that smiles make people happy, and so I smiled at everyone. Too late did I realize that making people happy wasn’t my job. Still, it’s Lily’s big day—big few weeks, really.

  “I think it’s a great party,” I tell her, though I realize how fake I sound. “I can’t believe it’s only two weeks away.”

  Sophia puts her hand to her chest. Her eyes are done dramatically and her freshly manicured nails gleam in the light. “It’s my pleasure. David’s my baby brother and we know that Lily makes him happy. Besides, he’s the youngest. It’s been forever since we’ve had a party. Wait till you see the big surprise.”

  I sip my drink to stop myself from saying, “Lily doesn’t like surprises.”

  “It’s almost time!” Sophia huddles closer to me. She checks the watch on her slender wrist and barely stops herself from squealing.

  “Time for what?” So many of the women at the party are suddenly checking their phones. One of the waiters pulls a chair up to the center of the room. Women hold back giggles behind their champagne flutes. I look around the living room for Lily, but can’t find her. At that moment, I realize that I’m not in on the surprise.

  There’s a heavy knock on the door downstairs.

  Sophia turns to all of them and puts her finger to her lips. “Shhh!”

  One of Lily’s friends from grad school, Mindy Something, hands out eye masks covered in feathers and glitter. They remind me a little of Mardi Gras.

  “Hurry,” Mindy says, shoving the mask into my free hand. “Put this on. They’re here.”

  “Who’s here? What’s going on?”

  Mindy smiles from ear to ear. “Didn’t Sophia send you the e-mail? We’ve been planning this all week.”

  “Right,” I say, trying to save face.

  Lily comes down the stairs, led by a woman with giant hair and tan skin. Cousin Liz. Cousin Liz wears a gold sequin dress better suited for a downtown nightclub. She pulls Lily by the hand and sits her down on the chair in the middle of the room. Everyone is wearing their masks and I quickly put mine on.

  The energy has changed in seconds. It’s as if everyone has been keeping this secret all night and now it’s out in the open.

  “Wait,” Lily says nervously. She turns to me, clutching the sides of her chair. “You didn’t!”

  I shake my head, unable to stop what’s about to happen. Her next word is caught in her throat as Sophia reappears at the doorway. I can see the four giant men standing behind her. It’s like a Britney Spears video gone wrong. They’re all dressed in SWAT uniforms and giant aviator sunglasses.

  I grab another glass of champagne from the bar set up against the wall. I watch as Sophia steps aside and lets the men through. I can’t watch this. Lily’s face is a cross between terror and humiliation. Not only does Lily not like to be the center of attention, but she also doesn’t like to be touched by complete strangers. I told Sophia that.

  “Surprise!” Sophia tells me. She grabs my arm, like we’re longtime friends.

  I let my polite smile drop. I lean into Sophia’s ear. “I told you—”

  “I know, I know.” Sophia rolls her eyes. “But we just thought—”

  “No,” I say. “Lily doesn’t like people touching her.”

  “Well, that’s not going to help things on their wedding night.” Sophia looks affronted. She doesn’t want to hear what I have to say and she turns away toward the show, and joins the other girls in hollering as the sexy SWAT officers walk in. I am overwhelmed with the need to slap her, but I have to behave.

  The quartet of male strippers moves in slowly. There’s something predatory about them. In the dim light, I think they all look the same. The glasses cover most of their face and their black caps are tipped low.

  “Lily Shang,” the leader says. His voice is deep and silky. I’m almost afraid to look at Lily, but I have to. “We hear you’ve been a very bad girl.”

  The music starts, a deep treble that ripples across the room. All four men move the same way. They drop to the floor and undulate their bodies, then jump back up in formation. The tallest and most muscular one stands before Lily. His body moves with the music, and as if sensing how tense she is, keeps a careful distance. Instead, he dances around her, then bends over and rips his shirt off in one fell swoop. All the girls in the room lift their drinks in the air and shout, except for me.

  All I can do is stare as I push off the wall and take slow steps toward the crowd.

  Not at Lily or at Sophia or at the dozens of women howling like wolves. I stare at the man dancing for Lily. He throws his hat across the room, but leaves his sunglasses on. He runs a hand over his chest, the thrilled screams that cut through the music urging him to reach to his crotch. He pulls off his pants and they fly across the room right at my feet. The other men f
ollow suit, and three more chairs appear beside Lily. The men prowl around the room for three more ladies. Hands go up, begging to be chosen.

  When he turns around, we’re face-to-face, and I have no doubt it’s him. Fallon.

  I recognize him before he recognizes me. How could he, when my face is hidden under this feather mask?

  As his attention is focused on me, I feel frozen in place. I dreamed about him the other night. I spent all day fantasizing about seeing him again, bumping into him in the hall, seeing his number pop up on my phone.

  A chorus of whistles and hollers goes up all around me. I wonder how long before the actual cops arrive. He takes off his sunglasses and throws them off to the side. He has no idea, and part of me is thrilled. For the next moment, I can be just any girl. I can have his undivided attention.

  He points at me.

  He grabs my hand.

  He chooses me.

  He gives me that smile that’s like a slam to my gut. Damn that beautiful smile.

  I take off my mask and watch his features constrict in the shadows. His smile falters and he withdraws his hand. He looks away from me, like he’s never seen me before, like he didn’t have his lips on mine three days ago.

  He chooses Mindy instead.

  As the bachelorette party gets into full swing, I turn around and do the thing I’ve been good at doing lately.

  I run.

  6

  Tell Me Tell Me Lies

  FALLON

  I’ve danced through worse.

  There was the time a customer’s dress caught on fire. The bachelorettes had wanted to set the mood and, in a flurry of overexcited movement, she knocked over the candle and it went up in flames. Quick thinking on Ricky’s part had the flames out in no time, and the rest of us soaking wet as if it had been part of an elaborate plan all along.

  There was another time I sprained my ankle trying to pick up a girl and stepped wrong when my fingers hit a ticklish spot on her thighs.