Damaged Goods

by Nicole Williams

  Before I had time to erase every word, I hit send and powered off my phone. I hoped my message would set her at ease and she’d leave it and me alone. I just as much hoped she wouldn’t because, painful as it was, I liked the reminder of my former life, the reminder that the girl I was now—the girl wearing a sheer, form-fitting dress until she took that dress off for hundreds of eyes to see—wasn’t the girl I’d always been. When I was minutes away from stepping onto the floor, I needed reminders that I wasn’t just the stripper Noelle, who seemed to take over and define every aspect of my life, past and future.

  “Hey, new girl. You want some pointers on how to actually work a pole? The right way?” Amber, one of the dancers who had made it her mission since I’d started at The Body Shop to get me to finish at The Body Shop, scooted her chair into my path as I headed for the door.

  I’d known plenty of bitches in my life. That was par for course when it came to being a woman. And then I’d met Amber, and bitch had taken on a whole new meaning. However, some women rolled over and exposed their jugular to the resident bitch, and some women bared their teeth and fought back.

  “I don’t think I want to take pointers from a girl who makes less than the new girl. Less by about half.” I raised my eyebrow at her and sashayed around her chair. Yep, I was in the second category of bitch management.

  After a week, I’d figured the heels out enough that I’d stepped up to the eight-inchers. Talking to Amber made me wish I’d worked up to the ten’ers though—the longer to stab her through the heart with. Oh, wait. That would imply she had a heart. Which she didn’t.

  Most of the other girls had left me alone after they’d discovered I wasn’t going to be their nightly floor mat, but that didn’t mean I’d made any friends either. Cherry had assured me that most of them just didn’t want to mix their professional lives with their personal ones. Friends were for personal lives, co-workers were for the professional, so needless to say, I hadn’t been invited to any slumber parties. Plus, after working hard every night to fabricate relationships with strangers out on the floor, the thought of creating one more with a co-worker was just too exhausting.

  I felt lucky to have Cherry, but she’d made it clear that she was my trainer. I wasn’t expecting any invites to barbecues at Cherry’s house with her family. I didn’t even know her real name yet . . . That’s how “real” our relationship was. I was grateful to have her, but I knew if and when we went our separate ways, I’d never hear from her again.

  It was the way The Body Shop worked. It was a blessing. It was a curse.

  I felt the exact same way about V.I.P. night. On one hand, Friday night meant fewer marks and more money. On the other hand, it could mean another stint in the V.I.P. room with Will. Jake hadn’t mentioned anything about his “family friend” reappearing tonight, but that wasn’t a guarantee that Will wouldn’t show up. I reassured myself that if he did, it was no big deal. I was a professional, and I could handle him accordingly. Even at my most reassuring, I wasn’t very convincing.

  If I’d put myself under the microscope and taken a good look inside, I knew I’d still find that inexplicable attraction I had toward Will, right alongside my fear of giving myself over to that attraction. Will Goods was dangerous inside these walls, but he would be downright lethal outside of them. I’d be safer and better off in the long run to live out the fantasy here with him than I would if I let him take root in my reality. I’d ingrained that into my subconscious, but I couldn’t seem to recall why it was so important I keep him at arm’s length. I couldn’t remember the details of why it was so important to keep him out, just the vague concept that it was.

  When I was just outside the entrance to the main floor, I stopped to adjust a few things on my dress—a lifting here, a squeezing there, a smoothing down of what was left—then shoved all thoughts of Will Goods into the dark, cobwebby spaces of my mind. I knew they wouldn’t stay there, but they were sealed away for now. That was a silver lining I took gratefully.

  As expected, The Body Shop was busy. I hadn’t worked a single night that hadn’t been. Busy was good—it meant plenty of customers and a nice wad of cash at the end of the night. Busy was also exhausting. Too many customers, never enough dancers. That was probably why Jake had been so desperate to get me on board. I didn’t doubt he’d hire just about any girl under the age of thirty who could fill a bra and shake her ass. Like he’d said that day at the diner—business was good. I scanned the floor for a few moments, gauging who best to start the night off with. I’d narrowed it down to a thirty-something with a nice smile and a freshly pressed Oxford when Mr. Club Owner himself zipped up beside me.

  “Hot dress, Noelle. That one new, too?” Jake was in his standard-issue suit, but like last week’s V.I.P. night, he had on cuff links and wingtip shoes. I guessed that was his way of raising the bar.

  “It’s new. I found that Strippers R’ Us store down the road and stocked up.” I turned to face him. Jake never just came up to say hey or see how my night was going. He always had a purpose; he was always all business. It was one of the many things I respected about him.

  He chuckled. “A fancy new wardrobe . . . someone must be making some serious dough.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know about serious, but it’s enough to keep the utilities functioning, the fridge full, and purchase a few timeless and classy wardrobe pieces.” The sarcasm on my face matched my tone. “And you know exactly how much I’m making, thanks to the thirty-percent tip-out every night.”

  “Too true, I do know how much you’re making every night, and because you’re one of my highest earning girls, you’re also one of my favorites.”

  “Which means you’re giving me the night off?” I lifted an eyebrow.

  “Not even close,” was his immediate reply. “I just wanted you to know how much you mean to me.”

  I tried so hard not to crack a smile when Jake and I got into these back-and-forth conversations, but I never succeeded. “That’s touching. I’m touched. You move me . . . but what do you want, Jake?”

  “Damn, I love a woman who goes straight to the point.”

  This time, I lifted both eyebrows. “You and every other guy in this place.”

  Jake’s smile went wide before it cleared and his expression took on that all-business vibe. “Guess who’s working the V.I.P. room again tonight?”

  My mouth went dry.

  “I take your continued silence to mean you’re simply speechless with joy and overcome with gratitude,” Jake said, studying me curiously.

  I hadn’t told Jake about Will—that he was my neighbor and made my heart go thump-thump when he smiled at me a certain way or that something else went thump-thump when I watched him working beneath the hood of a car at night or that we’d made out like pubescent sexpots last week in the V.I.P. room. Yeah, those were all things I guessed were better kept to myself.

  I swallowed. I repeated. “The V.I.P. Room? Who with? I’m supposed to dance on stage tonight.” At this point, I was hoping to hear any other name slip out of Jake’s mouth.

  “Will Goods. The same guy from last Friday. And don’t worry about your dance. I’ll get someone to fill your spot.” Jake clapped his hand on my shoulder in a very guy-congratulating-guy kind of way. “I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but it took me—a guy he’s known for years—months and months to get him into this place, and after he spent a few hours with you, he didn’t let a second go by before agreeing to come back tonight.” Giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze, Jake dropped his hand. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. I’d give this guy my left nut if he needed it, so the least I can do is indulge him in the V.I.P. room every Friday night for as long as he wants to come back.”

  “What is it exactly that Will did to make you so willing to sacrifice your left nut or thousands of dollars a month?” I was missing plenty of pieces when it came to the mystery surrounding Will, but this seemed to be a big one.

  Jake eyed the back hall where t
he V.I.P. room was. In this place, time was money, and while money never seemed to be in short supply, time always was. “Tell you what, when I’m not in the middle of the busiest night of the week and you’re not about to go entertain the biggest V.I.P. I’ve ever rolled in here, I’ll tell you. But right now, you and I have jobs to do.”

  I sighed. “What a bedside manner you have, Mr. Clements.”

  Jake nudged me, winking. “You been talking to my exes again?”

  “You should know. I’m getting ready in the same room as them every night.”

  Giving him a small wave, I headed toward the back hall before he tried to get the last word in, because he always did. And he always wanted to. Each step closer to that room at the end of the hall became more difficult to take, like cement was being poured over my feet. The ability to keep marching forward while proverbial cement was concreting eight-inch platforms in place was a true testament to the training Cherry had given me.

  When I stopped in front of the door, I finally froze in place. My hand became a dead weight at my side, and despite several tries, I couldn’t lift it to open the door. The two-inch-thick door was the only thing separating me from Will. That nugget of knowledge was what managed to unfreeze me. Until I remembered what Will was capable of—making me feel too much, too deeply, too intensely. The pull to go to him was as strong as the one pulling me away from him.

  A mess. That was the term that described my mental, emotional, and physical state every time Will Goods came around. I was tired of being a mess. I was sick of feeling like I was holding my breath for that one look or touch that would completely unravel me. I was a survivor—if nothing else had demonstrated that, this month sure as hell had—and I was done with feeling like I was being devastated by one man. Setting my jaw, I lifted my shoulders and twisted open the door. I didn’t know what I’d say or what he would or if we’d say anything, but I was done acting like a frightened child.

  I didn’t have a feathery, lacy horror of a mask on tonight, so I found him immediately, despite the subdued lighting. He was in the same spot, in the same chair, seated in the same position. Everything looked the same, as if no time had passed from last Friday to this one, and yet everything had changed. The man I’d walked in on last week was a stranger, or so I’d thought, but the man I was walking in on now was far from a stranger. I’d said nothing to him last week, yet I felt like he knew me as intimately as I knew myself. That made me angry. I hadn’t given him permission to take a front-row seat to the Liv Bennett Soul Show, and what made me angrier was that I couldn’t figure out how to kick him out of that seat. How could I keep someone out when I wasn’t sure how they’d gotten in in the first place?

  The longer I thought about it, the angrier I became. I felt close to boiling over. So instead of glaring at his back, I headed for the front of the room so I could glare at him straight on. I had plenty more to glare about than him taking up residence inside my very core somehow—for instance, why he’d said nothing last Friday and why he’d said nothing this whole week about what had happened between us here. One week ago tonight. In that very chair. It was like he was one man in the club and someone else altogether outside of it. He was like a real-life version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . . . although I had yet to figure out which one was sitting before me now—the tortured soul or the instinctual monster?

  If he noticed me saunter up to the front of the room and level him with my glare, he didn’t show it. In fact, he barely seemed to acknowledge me which, of course, only made me angrier. Sure, last week when I’d been stuck to him like Velcro, he’d noticed me, but when I stood ten feet away with my arms crossed and eyes narrowed, I became invisible. For the first time, Will Goods had a very stereotypical man moment.

  I didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. The longer the silence continued between us, the more resolved I became that I would not be the first one to break it. If he was copacetic with working out whatever issues we needed to work out with a heavy dose of silence, I’d prove that I was even more okay with that. That’s what the outside Liv Bennett said, but the inside said the opposite. I didn’t only want to—I needed to talk about what had happened and what was currently happening between us. I could try to ignore it all I wanted to, but having him so close again, in a dark, private room with basically a hall pass to let our wild sides run free, was making all of those nerves and impulses I didn’t know I’d possessed until last week break to the surface.

  At least ten minutes went by with me holding him captive in my stare while he sat there playing the oblivious card like he’d invented the game. Other than blinking, my eyes had stayed glued to him. That was how I could say with certainty that he had yet to acknowledge me. Other than the occasional shift and staring at the floor, Will was a statue.

  One I wanted to unfreeze.

  One I wanted to unfreeze me.

  I didn’t let my mind get any further down that path before I slammed the lid closed again. I was getting better at reining in my lust when it got away from me, but I wouldn’t be satisfied until I didn’t even need to rein it in because I’d successfully killed it.

  I wasn’t any closer to breaking the heavy silence between us, and Will certainly wasn’t, when the door cracked open and someone slipped inside. Jake was quiet for a whole second before he saw what was or, as he was probably more concerned with, what wasn’t going on.

  He leveled me with a look that put my most impressive glower to shame. “Sorry for the interruption. Oh, wait. It doesn’t look like I’m interrupting anything.”

  Will jolted. Good to know I wasn’t the only one who jumped when Jake used that tone.

  “Hey, Jake. No need for the apologies. Nothing is happening,” Will replied, twisting to glance back at Jake.

  That only made Jake’s face go a shade redder. “Do you mind if I steal Noelle for a couple of minutes, Will?”

  “There’s nothing to steal, so be my guest,” he answered with a shrug.

  If I hadn’t been so terrified as to what Jake would do, I would have leveled Will with another glare. I didn’t care if his back was to me or not. The anger rolling off of me was enough for him to feel.

  “I’ll be waiting just outside, Noelle,” Jake said before slipping back out the door.

  “Noelle?” Will said slowly, twisting back around in his chair.

  I supposed I had forgotten to mention my “name” last week, since I’d mentioned very little other than a few breathy moans, but now wasn’t the time to shake hands and be properly introduced. Not when I had one pissed-off boss to deal with.

  “Mr. Goods,” was my clipped reply.

  In the club, we were supposed to refer to our customers as Mr. Such-and-Such unless they requested otherwise. Since Will had requested nothing last week other than what could be said silently, I had to err on the safe side. Especially with my boss within earshot.

  For the first time since I’d entered the room, Will’s gaze fell on me. The skin between his eyebrows wrinkled as he studied me before I made my way out of the room. Of course now would be the time he’d choose to acknowledge me—when I was probably moments away from being shown the back door.

  I barely got through the door before Jake slammed it closed. “What the hell was that?” he seethed, his eyes like smoldering black coals.

  Okay, correction. Jake wasn’t pissed off. He was a hundred shades of livid. I could count each one too. On his face alone.

  Instead of answering his question, because I couldn’t answer it for myself yet, I turned the question around on him. “What the hell was that? I thought the V.I.P. room was private. As in, no snoopy bosses allowed.” And with those words, I’d fast-tracked my one-way ticket to the back door.

  The good news? Jake’s face didn’t jack up any in the livid department. The bad news? Even if he’d wanted to, which I was sure he did, there was no possible way for it to get more angry. “Let me clarify a few points for you, Noelle. Since you’re new and all.” Jake cracked his neck before con
tinuing. “One, I own this place. I own it, so I can go wherever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want to.”

  In my heels, I was taller than Jake, but I felt like I was an ant looking up at him.

  “Two, Micah just told me he forgot to check the bar in here to make sure everything was fully stocked, so I wanted to slip in, check it out to see what and if you two needed anything, then slip right out. And three, you’re a dancer. The kind who is actually expected to dance. And you’re a stripper. The kind who is actually expected to strip.”

  “Isn’t that four?” I said under my breath. I wanted to curse myself for not keeping my mouth shut. Sure, I could keep it clamped closed in Will’s presence, but something about Jake made staying silent impossible.

  “And here’s five.” He flashed his hand in my face, his fingers spread wide. “Do you want to keep your job?”

  Right then, my answer was just as much yes as it was no. But that was only because I was thinking in the short-term. Stripping wasn’t a career I’d aspired to or dreamed of when I’d been a little girl. Stripping was a necessary evil. It was a means to an end. It was a way to stay ahead of the bills and provide for my sisters as my mother was God knows where. So yeah, there it was. My long-term perspective. I was there to provide, to support, and to keep two souls from being consumed by the insatiable appetite of hopelessness.

  “Yes,” I answered, meeting Jake’s penetrating glare. “I do want to keep my job.”

  “Here’s the first thing you need to do to convince me that’s true. Go back in there and do what a stripper’s damn well supposed to do in that room.” Jake’s finger wagged at the door as if he were channeling some of his anger into it. “You don’t get paid to act like a pissy ex-girlfriend. You get paid to act like the crazy, sex-driven girl guys forget to mention to their girlfriends. Got it?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Don’t you mean Any questions?” Not that I had any—Jake’s message resonated loud and clear—but he must have been way off key if his standard rhetorical question had slipped by him.