ENSLAVED BY SHIFTERS

by Astrid Lee Donovan

  “So,” Stella said, positioning herself in front of the group, arms spread as she braced herself against the wooden bar. “I heard you boys aren’t too fond of one of our girls here. Sweet little thing called Candy?”

  She purposefully kept her eyes away from the green-eyed man, instead focusing on the cocky smiles that spread from ear to ear as the men turned to each other and then back to her. But, just Stella’s luck, it was the man she least wanted to interact with who answered her question. On the stage, Sugar had taken Tammy’s spot, and her song, some Velvet Revolver tune, filled the space.

  “Send along our apologies,” he said in a voice that dripped like melted butter across the space between them. “We didn’t mean to get her all upset. Just playin’.”

  Stella’s heart quickened in her chest, her eyes forced back to him. The smile on his face was begging to be slapped off…or covered in her lips. Shaking the fantasy from her head, Stella forced a smile in response.

  “I know you guys,” she said coolly. “You’re the Rolling Thunder crew, right? Well, we do certainly appreciate your patronage, but I’d sure appreciate it more if you treated my girls with a little more decorum.”

  One of the men hooted.

  “Decorum? What the fuck is this? I thought this was a titty bar, not a fucking tea party,” cackled a grey-bearded man with a huge gut. He was sitting right next to the green-eyed man, who swiftly turned and gave him a more-than-playful punch on the shoulder. Grey beard’s eyes narrowed as he rubbed the spot, and the two men seemed engaged in a staring contest. When green eyes came out as the winner, Stella felt her heart flutter a little more. Seems she wasn’t the only one who felt his power in those eyes.

  “A lady’s a lady, stripper or not,” green eyes growled before turning back to face Stella. He reached behind him and pulled out a huge wad of bills that made Stella’s eyes widen in spite of herself. He peeled off a twenty and slipped it across the bar.

  “Go on and buy the sweet little thing a drink after her next dance,” he said, making eye contact once more. “She can keep the change, too.”

  Stella shifted slightly, wondering what this guy’s angle was. Guys like him weren’t exactly notorious for being generous, or having much in the way of manners. But she took the twenty and pocketed it all the same.

  “I’ll make sure she gets it,” Stella said, making to leave.

  “I’m Tuck,” he said before she could walk away. Stella turned to him with a smile.

  “Tuck? Really? Tuck like…”

  “Like rhymes with fuck,” he responded, and Stella nearly shivered as the bar seemed to vaporize. In that moment, the only things that existed were his green eyes, his mouth saying fuck, and her heart beating like crazy. And the surprising tingle in her sex. She wondered if she was blushing as reality came zooming back in. She forced another smile.

  “Good to know you,” she said at last.

  “That’s what they tell me,” he replied quickly, flashing her a cocky smile. If she hadn’t been blushing before, she sure as hell was now.

  “Right,” she said coolly, walking away down the bar once more.

  “Wait,” he said, not leaning over the bar on his stool to shout after her. “I didn’t catch your name!”

  Stella stopped but didn’t turn. She wondered what her name would sound like coming out of his mouth, maybe whispered into her ear as their bodies pressed together…this night was turning into a night of surprises. She never got this way around men. Better to nip it in the bud.

  “Mud,” she said, flashing him a fuck-off look over her shoulder. His face crumpled slightly, then turned curious. “My name is mud.”

  And with that she was gone, swallowed up into the crowd and then into the dressing room, where Sugar was just returning from her dance and Candy was preparing herself, applying yet another coat of glossy lipstick.

  “Break a leg, Candy,” Stella said, ushering the girl out onto the catwalk while “I Want Candy” started booming on the speakers.

  2

  The rest of Stella’s night went off without a hitch – a happy occurrence for a Friday night, which was usually when the worst of the worst was likely to happen. She managed to avoid the bikers, specifically Tuck, until they eventually shambled out sometime after midnight.

  As the dancers left one by one, wallets full of singles, some on the arm of a customer who caught their fancy, some on the arm of a customer who promised to empty his bank account to be with her, Stella counted the till. Junior was closing up the bar, cleaning the last empty glasses and taking inventory of what would need to be replaced.

  “So those Rolling Thunder guys,” he said, flashing her a sideways smile.

  “What about ‘em?” Stella asked, still feeling some tension in her stomach as she remembered Tuck’s intense stare. Junior shrugged, the smile still plastered in his face.

  “One of ‘em fancied you quite a bit, Stel,” he said. She looked away from the money she’d been counting to give him a hard stare.

  “So?”

  “So…he happened to be the hot one,” Junior said with a shrug. “What? You got some secret man you’re going home to tonight?”

  Stella laughed, a genuine laugh, with only the slightest hint of sadness to it. Everything Stella did had the slightest hint of sadness to it.

  “I’m just saying,” Junior said, pulling out a plastic bag of the night’s empty bottles from underneath the bar. “You could use a little lovin’. We all could. But especially you.”

  Stella snorted, returning her attention to the money in her hand.

  “What makes you say that?” she asked, starting to feel a little hurt by Junior’s words. Was her loneliness that obvious?

  “Because as much as these bitches moan and groan about how hard their jobs are,” Junior said, “you’re the one who gets the worst of it. I can see the knots in your shoulders from here. Need a backrub, boss?”

  “Not from you, Junior,” Stella said, smiling and dropping the night’s profit into an envelope to go into the safe.

  “Can’t fault me from trying,” Junior replied, hauling the clinking bag towards the recycling out back.

  Back in her office, Stella put the night’s numbers into the spreadsheet, her computer so old and slow that she had to type with one finger so that it wouldn’t crash. She wished Johnny would pony up to update the club’s look and software, but times were tight and she knew that they were barely making ends meet as it was.

  Groaning as she finished up her work, she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. She was very much looking forward to her post-shift drink. She allowed herself one, at the end of every night. That night, she needed it more than ever. The way she’d reacted to Tuck had surprised her – and, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, it had also disarmed her a bit.

  She walked around with such a tough shell, never letting anything in through the cracks, but she felt something trying to snake its way in, past her defenses. And she didn’t want that to happen. She needed it not to happen.

  Stella had worked hard to get where she was. Her father had been gone long before she was born, and CPS had taken her away from her mother at the age of seven, deeming the drug den that she lived in uninhabitable for a child. Which, to be fair, it was.

  But then, most of the foster homes she’d been funneled through for the rest of her childhood and adolescence hadn’t been much better. In between the few loving, supporting families who’d taken her in had been homes where she was ignored or mistreated. Either no one cared where she was, or they used her as a sort of free maid.

  In the worst cases, she’d had to run away entirely to avoid the drunken hands of an over-interested foster father. She’d never been adopted; older children usually never got adopted, especially not ones whose lives were as rocky from the outset as Stella’s. She’d been labelled as damaged goods, and she’d spent most of her life doing all she could to peel that label away.

  She’d put herself through college, getting a d
egree in business, which had been more or less useless in the poor economic climate she’d found herself in after graduation. This job at Spanky’s had been a step up from the assistant manager job at Walmart, where she’d had to bartend at nights just to pay her rent.

  If she was being truthful, though, Stella had to admit the job wasn’t all she’d hoped it would be. She missed the bartenders she’d worked with before; they had been close, almost like a family. And what Stella wanted more than anything in the world was a family.

  At Spanky’s, even though she offered a shoulder to cry on and felt comfortable with her employees, she was still at a distance from them, having to think of the bottom line before anything else. And, of course, the girls would never see her as “one of them”. She felt that some of them probably harbored some resentment towards her, deep down, for being a woman and not having to dance for drinks.

  There had been a time in Stella’s life when she’d seriously considered doing so. She had a nice body; with ample, C-cup breasts, long legs, and a generous bottom, she had never lacked for male attention – even when she didn’t want it, which was most of the time. Her auburn hair and blue eyes didn’t help matters much. She’d had to fend off more hungry suitors than she cared to remember, and had never fully trusted a man to want anything except a roll in the hay and a story to brag to his friends about.

  She’d been with four men, none of who had cared to stick around after a month or two. Sometimes, she wondered if this was because she could only keep the smile in her eyes for so long before her truer self, sad and desperate for love, began to show.

  But never before had a man made her feel the way she imagined men felt about her: pure, unadulterated lust – until that night. Until Tuck. He crept back into her brain, unwelcome and unwanted but still there. He’d caught her so off-guard, made her feel…vulnerable.

  A knock at the door jolted Stella from her thoughts, and she blushed even though she was alone. Rolling her chair over, she opened the door just wide enough to see who waited outside. It was Junior, but someone stood behind him.

  “What’s up?” she asked, immediately on guard. Years of essentially taking care of herself, and being wary of unwanted advances, made her nervous when she didn’t have a firm grasp on a situation. The fact that someone else was in the bar when it should have been just her and Junior made her stomach tighten slightly. But it only tightened more when she stood to open the door fully and saw that it was Tuck standing behind him. He was smiling affably enough, but those green eyes held a constant threat – or promise – of seduction.

  “Homeboy here says he lost his wallet. Anyone turn anything in?” Junior asked, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Oh,” Stella said, trying to save face. She’d just been having thoughts about him. Not the most innocent of thoughts, either. To see him again in the flesh was a jolt to her system. “Um, not here. You can check around the bar if you want.”

  “Already did,” Tuck said, that honeyed voice making her heart twinge. “Nada.”

  “Sucks,” Stella said with a shrug she hoped was nonchalant enough. “Maybe the parking lot?”

  “Maybe,” Tuck said, seeming nonplussed about the whole thing. Which reminded Stella…he hadn’t pulled that twenty out of a wallet. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Well,” she said. “Sorry we can’t help you.”

  “No problem,” Tuck said, giving her a shrug that seemed, more than anything, to be a response to the one she’d given him moments ago. “It was worth the trip back just to see you again.”

  Stella flushed, taken aback by his boldness. The grin on Junior’s face widened, and he looked back at the biker in disbelief before turning back to Stella, eyebrows damn near lifted to his hairline.

  “Uh,” Stella stuttered, but before she could find a reasonable response, he’d turned.

  “Gonna let me out, friend?” he called to Junior, who turned on his heel with one last open-mouthed glance at Stella. She sank back into her chair, red and warm all over, until she heard the sound of the front door closing once more.

  3

  The next night, the bikers were back. She watched them from a distance; Tuck was looking for her, or for someone. She couldn’t tell which she hoped for.

  She managed to avoid him all that night. But then the next night, he returned, with fewer of his club mates in tow. And his eyes never stopped searching for her. He’d see her, and smile, and she’d feel herself tugged towards him on some strange and uncontrollable tide. But she resisted, and again, the night passed without meeting.

  The next night, he was there again, this time only in the company of four other men; and then the next night, with only two; and then the next night, with only one. Finally, he arrived all by himself. He always sat at the bar, ignoring all the dancers, drinking steadily, looking for her.

  “You can’t avoid him forever,” Junior said, with a knowing grin that Stella wanted to slap right off his face. But she sighed, knowing he was right. Finally, she went to him, standing in front of the mirror behind the bar, an expectant look on her face.

  “Well?” she asked, wondering what his angle would be.

  “Well, what?” he replied coolly, taking a sip of his drink.

  “Why are you here?” she asked, getting frustrated. “You keep coming back. And I know it’s not for the entertainment. Some of the dancers here are getting a little pissed that you keep all those singles to yourself.”

  “I’m not here for them, it’s true,” he said, leaning back. “I’m here for you.”

  “I know that,” Stella snapped, blushing bright red. “I’ve seen you looking. I’m not interested, so…”

  “Why not?” Tuck asked, leaning forward now, capturing her in his magnetic gaze.

  “Uh,” Stella stuttered, thrown slightly off guard. Why wasn’t she interested? Oh, right, because she’d basically sworn off men. All men. Including bikers with handsome faces and gorgeous eyes. “I’m just not. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  He narrowed his eyes slightly, a toying grin on his face. Then, he pulled out his wad of cash. Immediately, Stella jumped to conclusions, and was about to scream in his face about how she wasn’t a dancer and didn’t take money like that, but he seemed to sense it and nipped it in the bud.

  “Listen first,” he said, holding out a hand. “Your dancers are getting pissed? Here’s my deal. I’m going to come in here every night for a month. I’ll pay for my drinks, I’ll tip well. I’ll also give fifty bucks to one of your girls, no lap dance required. I don’t want to buy you, but I think you’ll find your ladies are in better spirits with fifty extra dollars of free cash in their wallets at the end of the night.”

  Stella’s jaw snapped shut. Hell, that kind of thing would make her a damn hero in their eyes. It might even make Tammy like her. Fifty bucks wasn’t much, but in their tiny, run down town, it went pretty far, and if it came without any strings that was even better.

  “And what do I have to do?” she asked, eyes narrowing to match his.

  “I want you to be my personal bartender for a half hour every night,” he said, laying his hands open on the table between them. “Doesn’t have to be all at once. I know shit happens, you’re gonna have to deal with emergencies and stuff. But thirty minutes, here and there.”

  “Uh,” Stella said, cocking her head slightly, confused. “And what do you get out of that? Is flirting with an uninterested bartender your fetish?”

  He laughed.

  “Hardly. But it’ll give me a chance to make you like me,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Maybe even enough to let me take you out at the end of the month.”

  Stella chewed her lip. It was a very enticing offer - very enticing indeed. Tammy was on stage at just that moment. Stella imagined how much more the girl might like her if she could slip an extra fifty into her hand at the end of the night. Looking back at Tuck, she thought it wouldn’t be so bad having to talk to him for thirty minutes a night, either. Especially if she made
herself promise to herself that it would never go anywhere but just talking.

  “Alright,” she said finally, feeling her heart melt a bit at his pleased smile. “It’s a deal.”

  “Fantastic,” he said, peeling a fifty from the billfold and slipping it across the table, then adding a ten to it. “Let’s start with a whiskey, neat.”

  4

  Stella laughed. Tuck was just finishing a story about a disastrous weekend in Venice Beach, complete with a transvestite and a hard-earned pizza being thrown into the ocean. Stella had been in stitches the whole time; so much so that she was drawing attention to herself. Only when she felt the curious eyes on her did she manage to stifle her giggling. Tuck was looking rather pleased with himself, which he often did when he made her laugh like that. Which was also often.

  They were coming to the end of their month-long experiment, with Tuck roughly $1,500 in the hole, plus the cost of drinks. Stella had done the math partway through, and felt slightly guilty about all the money he was willing to spend on her. But her dancers were thrilled, and she was finding herself eager- even giddy – to get her thirty minutes with Tuck each night.

  She hadn’t expected to like him so much, but she did. He made her laugh; he talked to her openly and candidly about his life with the Rolling Thunders, trusting her. And he asked questions like he wanted to know the answers – all without ever even getting a kiss from her.

  Now, on this final night, Stella was undeniably anxious. He’d mentioned, a month earlier, taking her out to dinner, but it had never come up again. Some deep part of her worried that his mind had changed, that he’d found her company unpleasant after all, and had only kept coming back out of some sort of politeness.

  Like a man like him gives a damn about being polite, Stella thought, still nervous. Now, she tugged a dishtowel between her hands as he eyed her. The way he looked at her never ceased to ignite a flurry in her stomach. Even after a month of talking to him about everything from peeing in public to snoring in bed at night, his eyes captured hers, never letting them go. She could feel herself drawn to them long after he looked away. She bit her lip, waiting for him to say something.