“I’m dead serious!” Brooke giggled, taking my hand in hers. “Come, let’s just do it for fun!”
“Fun?” I yanked my hand back.
“It’s a strip club, Isa! They’ll give us a job straight away and this way, we can make money doing something we’re good at!”
“You can, I’m not into the whole stripping thing…”
She winked at me. “Well, you can get drunk and watch me do the whole stripping thing, huh? How about that?” Mmm. She had a point.
“That sounds like a better plan.” I smirked at her, nudging my head toward the glass opening doors.
She hooked her arm in mine, then pushed open the door. I glanced around the dim setting, watching as the strobe lights flashed and the deep bass of some rock song electrified the atmosphere.
“Wait at the bar!” Brooke yelled into my ear over the music and I nodded, walking toward one of the leather bar stools.
“What can I get you?” The bartender asked me, but my eyes were still glued on Brooke and her retreating frame. It wasn’t until she slipped behind the stage curtain that I turned to face the bartender.
“Hi, ah, anything with vodka in it. Thanks.” His greying beard trailed down his chest, but not in a greasy way, more in a slick, silver fox way. His eyes were silver and his hair was styled back tidily. He must’ve been in his sixties? Or maybe late fifties, but he was handsome for an old guy, to say the least.
“Coming up, darlin’,” he winked, moving to the other side of the bar and pulling out a few more glasses. “You from around here?” He placed the glasses down and took out a bottle of vodka.
I shook my head. “No. Me and my friend are just passing through.”
“And this friend…” he asked, watching me skeptically while pouring our drinks.
“She’s stripping while you pass through?”
I laughed, taking the glass from him. “Yeah, well we’re sort of just drifting through while we figure out what college we want to go to. Or if we even want to go to college.”
“Huh,” he murmured, tilting his head. “That’s interesting.”
“Not really,” I muttered back, swallowing my drink. I looked around the room again, noticing that there were only a few people scattered around the place. “Is it usually this quiet?”
The bartender dragged his eyes over my seated frame and then shook his head.
“Not usually. But it’s Wednesday, that means that it’s private events only –
usually.”
“Oh!” I straightened in my seat. “Are we not supposed to be here?”
He paused, the wrinkles around the corner of his eyes crinkling, illustrating his age.
“Naaw, darlin’, you’re good.” I thank him and then turn in my chair, just in time to see Brooke sauntering down the catwalk stage to “Killing Strangers” by Marilyn Manson.
My head was a little hazy from my drink, and the lack of food throughout the day probably didn’t help, but I continued to watch as Brooke slowly wrapped her body around the beat of the song and all eyes in the room shot straight to her. I smirked, knowing full well what she was doing. Aside from being seductive and sultry, Brooke was the most exotic girl I had ever seen. With chocolate brown wavy hair, bright blue eyes, a tight body, and a tan most girls would die for, she was gorgeous. She looked toward me, body rolling against the poll and come-hithered her fingers. I was about to shake my head when the buzz from the alcohol shot straight to my brain and relaxed my frantic thoughts. I grinned, sliding off my stool and walked toward the front of the stage.
“Get it, darlin’,” one of the guys at the tables in front of us catcalled.
Looking over my shoulder at him, I winked and snatched the joint he had pressed to his lips, bringing it to my own. I took a long inhale of the harsh smoke, removing my leather jacket and tossing it across the room before blowing out a thick white cloud. Taking off my shirt, I popped the button off my jeans and shimmied out of them slowly, a smirk riding on my lips. Placing the joint back in my mouth, I kicked my jeans to the side and slid my butt up onto the stage. Smiling at the young guys in the front dressed in suits, I flicked the joint back toward them, the ash erupting over the impact of it hitting him, before gripping onto the pole and winging it. Whatever I remember watching on TV as a kid when it came to dancing, I used this night. In my drunken, stoned haze, nothing mattered. But truly, nothing mattered since that night in the tent. Somehow, all of that had made me
numb. Taking someone’s life wasn’t something to be proud of, but when a man doesn’t know how to take no for an answer, whether it’s his kink or not, then he deserved what he got. At least, that’s what I tell myself when it begins to be too much. Since then, living life in the fast lane with Brooke, a bottle of whiskey, a few lines of coke, and a strip club, seemed like the more pleasurable route to my destruction.
Brooke removed her bra and flung it across the room toward an older guy that had been looking at her like she was a big juicy steak and he was starved. She made her way down to him, jumping off the stage while still moving to the music. Wrapping her legs around his lap, she started grinding against him. I chanced a look at his friend beside him just as his eyes connected with mine. He nudged his head, pulling out hundred-dollar bills from his pocket. Smirking, I leaped down off the stage, turned my back toward him, and ground my ass into his lap.
“Hey, baby, wanna let me have a touch and I’ll triple your tips?” He groaned hoarsely into the side of my neck. He smelled of stale beer and cheap cigarettes.
“Triple, huh? And touch where?” I spun around, wrapped my legs around his waist and took a seat on his lap, grinding myself over the bulge that was coming through the front of his pants. Money, think money. My head was drifting around to the music when a dark shadowed figure caught my attention. I couldn’t see from where I was what it was because not only was this object in the shadows, but their face was covered by a long hoodie. There’s one thing I did know, though. Based on the structure of the figure and the long hair, it was definitely female.
Bringing my attention back to the task at hand, he smiled, the wrinkles on his face curving around his teeth. “Anywhere I want.” He grabbed one of my tits and squeezed through my bra. I didn’t mind. After all, we needed the money. After I left home, my dad and Lydia disowned me. They never understood Brooke, but they never understood many people. If you couldn’t serve a purpose to my father or my family, then there’s no way they’d make time for you. Brooke had nothing to offer, and I figured that’s why they always had a very distasteful opinion on her.
I first met Brooke one night when I almost crashed my car into the town’s bridge. I skidded to a halt, tears streaming down my face, in full panic mode because I was drunk and was also hell-bent on thinking someone was following me. Brooke had said there was no one following me, so I eventually calmed down. I put it down to all my emotions running high from catching my then-boyfriend cheating on me at the party I had just come from, and the alcohol running through my system. Brooke had showed up as I was having a full-blown panic attack in my car that was up on the footpath to the bridge. I’ve often wondered why my family don’t speak to her or even acknowledged her when she was around, and I’ve always thought that maybe they assumed we dated because of how Brooke was and how close our friendship was. Wrong. Brooke and I enjoy dick too much to switch teams, but
we’re comfortable enough around each other to experiment with other people together.
I ran my hands down the old dude’s sides until they stopped at a cold metal barrel.
“Oh?” I smiled, attention perked.
“Just protection, darlin’, nothing to worry your pretty little self about.”
I go to reach for the gun but he stopped me with a firm grip of his hand. “Pretty little girls shouldn’t play with big ugly guns.”