Club 42

by Joanna Angel

  I tripped over myself mid-spin kick. I’d like to blame my heels, but I’m not sure how smoothly it would have gone in any of my shoes. It was a lot easier to hold down the A and X button repeatedly on my couch than it was to use my actual leg. I didn’t fall completely—I found my balance and re-positioned myself in the same fighting stance Kitana appears in on the main menu.

  I shifted to the side, and kicked him right in the crotch. Unfortunately, Rob had reacted when he saw my failed spin kick, so this was a rather glancing blow. From the corner of my eye, I saw the juice bar girl spill a bottle of carrot juice all over the counter. Rob just stood there, shocked. I’m not sure if it was fortunate or pathetic that I’d clearly caused him absolutely no physical pain whatsoever, after all this effort.

  “You’re fucking insane, you know that? Seriously. You’re fucking insane. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  I was about to explain to him that I was on a quest for revenge and I wanted to take back the strip club that was rightfully mine. But then I realized this would only prove his point further, because that would be literally insane.

  I stood there, trembling. I had tears in my eyes. I’d had a routine all summer, strategically coexisting in two separate worlds, and it was crashing down right before me. I didn’t want to even begin to explain myself, I just wanted to get back to work. The dark-haired man by the stage had already found another stripper to shack up with. I was losing money as I stood here, and while it was worth taking a pay cut to kick Rob in the crotch, it was not worth losing money to stand here and cry and make apologies for things I wasn’t sorry for.

  Then I saw Melody, the guy who called himself their manager, and Tony, who actually was a manager, walking straight toward me.

  To go back and see what happens if Naomi slaps Rob in the face, turn to page 212.

  To continue with Naomi in this fantasy, turn to page 216.

  “This dancer is assaulting my client! I’m a VIP customer here, and I demand she be removed from the club!” Jerry frantically said this to Tony as the group surrounded me and Rob. What kind of a joke was this manager? He couldn’t even handle the situation himself, he had to outsource his dilemma to another manager.

  Melody stepped in and attempted to out-manage the other managers (and me).

  “Jerry, this is LeClaire, my girlfriend. I told you about her. I told her your guys were into BDSM, she’s just warming him up—isn’t that right sweetie?” She gave me an exaggerated kiss on the cheek.

  “Wow,” Rob said. “This just keeps getting better. Are there any other lies you want to tell me, Naomi?”

  Melody snapped out of stripper mode for a moment— the tone of her voice and her entire facial expression changed. “Alright dude, I don’t know how you two know each other, but you can’t come in here and shout people’s civilian names. It’s fucked up. So cut it out,” Melody said.

  Tony was completely flustered. Jerry’s eyes had started wandering, and he was obviously scoping out the other strippers walking by instead of paying attention to his “guys.”

  “That’s her fucking name. Naomi. She never told me she had another name. SHE told me she worked at a coffee shop,” Rob snarled.

  “She did work at a coffee shop!” Melody replied, pushing her face closer to his.

  Even though I was surrounded by coworkers, I couldn’t overcome my hurt at Rob’s disdain, and tears poured from my eyes as I said, “You’ve done nothing to deserve the truth. You’ve had every part of me from the moment I met you. I liked having this piece of me for myself.” I truly spoke from my heart, but I don’t think Rob heard a goddamn word I said, because the exact moment that I mustered up the strength to speak was also the exact moment TJ announced a two-for-one lap dance special, which was accompanied by a crowd cheering sound effect and the sound of fireworks. He was passionate about the two-for-one lap dance special today. I mean, rightfully so. It was a really good deal.

  Tony stepped in, utterly annoyed. The only time I ever saw him was when I went to trade in my singles in the office, and he was always, without fail, on the phone, so the two of us never spoke. This confrontation was disrupting his soda ordering schedule, and for a club that didn’t sell alcohol, I knew how important the soda delivery was around here.

  “Sir, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll have my hostess set you guys up at a VIP table and anything you want is on the house,” he said to Jerry. I found it funny that he had no inclination to apologize to Rob, the person who had been assaulted. Just to the person who allegedly was “managing” the victim. Anyone who came in here and wasn’t in a suit was like subhuman to the staff. Also, I’d like to point out that I’d heard every table in this club referred to as a VIP table, and there was definitely no extra cost to sitting at any of them. They were technically just tables. But Jerry nodded and gave me a smug look, as if he’d really showed me who had more power in this situation.

  Tony snapped his fingers, and the club’s one “hostess” immediately came over. I’m not entirely sure what this hostess did, aside from stand around in a revealing black pantsuit and walk people to and from the VIP rooms. Tony gave her a nod, and she immediately knew to take them to a fake table. Well, the table wasn’t fake, but the notion that there was anything important about it was.

  Tony pulled me and Melody away.

  “I don’t know what just happened. Melody, I know you’ve always been good in my book, and you . . . uh . . .” He glanced at me. “Well you seem fine. How about I get you guys a car home? Take the rest of the day off and come back tomorrow, so it looks like I did something. Okay?”

  “I’m sorry, Tony, this was my fault. Melody didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. Once again, TJ decided right at that moment to announce yet another two-for-one lap dance special, this time with the sound effect of a honking horn. I looked at Melody, and she smiled at me and took my hand.

  “Everything’s gonna be fine,” she said.

  I’m not sure if she heard me or not. Regardless, I sincerely found comfort in her response and held onto her hand as tightly as I could. I could feel our sweaty stripper palms pressed up against each other. Tony shrugged his shoulders.

  “Alright, now get dressed. I’ll have a car outside in five.” He walked away. Melody continued to hold my hand as she pulled me in the direction of the dressing room.

  “Wait, this way,” she said. She shifted directions and took me on a slightly more scenic route that involved walking around the dark perimeter of the club to purposefully avoid crossing paths with Rob’s table. I stopped in my tracks when I saw them, comfortably sitting at a table with an ice bucket full of root beer and a piping hot pizza, fresh from the freezer, sitting in front of each individual band member. Two different girls were grinding on Jerry’s lap as he sat there with his eyes closed.

  Rob was deeply engaged in a conversation with the hostess, who was sitting at the table next to him. This definitely wasn’t part of her job description, but then again, I had no idea what her job description was. I could tell by their body language that sometime in the very near future, he’d be in her bedroom ripping off her pantsuit and plowing his fingers into her cunt. And you know, I was pretty sure she lived in Staten Island, so he would have to sit in a whole lot of shitty Verrazzano Bridge traffic or take a goddamn ferry to get there. I wondered if this would be the last time I ever saw him. I wondered if this meant I got to keep the Xbox.

  Five minutes later, Melody and I were sitting in the car, holding hands in dead silence. We were in an actual “black car,” not a Lyft or an Uber. This was a legitimate town car, driven by someone who specifically drives people for a living and took pride in it, not a recently unemployed millennial with a clean Honda Civic and a good driving record.

  “So, I’m guessing that was your boyfriend?” Melody broke the silence. I never talked about Rob with Melody I never talked about Melody with Rob. But she knew I had some kind of complicated relationship situation back in Brooklyn, just from eavesdro
pping on phone conversations in the dressing room.

  “I mean . . . he was my something,” I said. “But whatever it was, it’s over now,” I added.

  “I gotta say, I never saw you as the type to . . . you know . . . fight people. You surprised me with that one!” she laughed.

  “Oh yeah? Were you intimidated?” I replied, in a bit of a flirtatious way.

  “Um, no. Not at all,” she laughed. “But be proud of yourself. He tried to manipulate you, and you rejected it. You believed in your own instincts, you were unapologetic, and you fucking did it. That kind of thinking will make you a very good stripper.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “The customers come in thinking their money and their suits are gonna control you, but you flip it around, and you control them, by taking every situation and making it yours,” she said.

  “Well, I had a good teacher,” I said.

  “You didn’t need a teacher. Just a fellow Brooklynite to make you feel comfortable.”

  “You did a lot more than just make me feel comfortable,” I said. Since she seemed to be such a champion of going with my instincts, I decided to obey them and move closer to her. I slid down the smooth leather seat until I was right next to her. The temperature-controlled car was perfect for getting close to someone. Normally the ventilation in the Lyft vehicles made it a constant battle between too cold and too hot, until you gave up on the temperature completely and tried to open the window, which left you smelling the scent of garbage and listening to loud car horns.

  Melody and I had met under the guise of two fake names, in a place where we were both pretending to be someone else. But where were we actually pretending? Was my life in Brooklyn the real me? Was Naomi the real me, just because that was the name on all my legal documents? I’d never thought my feelings for Melody could be real, because our relationship and our interactions existed in a place that wasn’t supposed to exist. But in this moment, everything I felt was very real.

  The release of Rob from my life was like quitting an addiction cold turkey. And while an addiction fills a lot of immediate voids, I knew I wanted to kiss Melody in a way that I’d never wanted to kiss Rob. I didn’t want her to reach inside of me and pull an orgasm out—I wanted to run my fingers through her hair, and I wanted to caress her creamy skin and count her freckles and make her laugh and wrap myself around her . . . and reach a simultaneous, beautiful orgasm. I wanted to run through a field with her, but in Brooklyn we don’t exactly have fields. We do have a nice botanic garden. I’d have to check out their membership prices.

  I was going to do this, I told myself. I was going to submit to my instincts and kiss Melody. But, like always, she was one step ahead of me. She kissed me before I had the chance. It was beautiful to know that in this moment we both felt the very same thing. Melody and I spent so much time with our naked bodies rubbed up against each other, with our hypersexual stripper personas aggressively flirting with one another, and at times we’d even given each other exaggerated, over-the-top orgasms that customers paid to watch. But this moment was real.

  We’d worked backward: we met each other naked and wound up kissing clothed. The moment was so intimate, but so innocent. Our professional driver caught sight of us in the rearview mirror and he turned up the music, which added the perfect soundtrack. Because guess what coincidentally came on the radio? Nickelback.

  I kissed her more passionately. This song was directly associated with the sexual beast inside of me, and it brought just the right amount of filth into this innocent kiss. We sucked each other’s faces in the back of the town car—I held on to the back of her hair, and we slid ourselves into each other like puzzle pieces. The car came to a stop in front of Melody’s apartment. We’d shared a car home many times this summer, and we’d always stopped at Melody’s place first and said goodbye as she disappeared into her own second life as a mother.

  “Well since I’m off early, Sophia won’t be home for a few hours.” She looked at me seductively. “So . . . you coming in?” I was already shutting the door to the ever-so-luxurious town car before she could even complete her sentence.

  Melody and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I followed her inside, walking and kissing at the same time.

  Her apartment was less than two miles from my apartment, but two miles in Brooklyn is like an entire city away. Her part of Brooklyn was known to be more family oriented. I was lost in the heavy make-out session, but in the brief moments when I opened my eyes, I noticed some sleek appliances from this decade, an assortment of well-maintained plants against an exposed brick wall, a teal velvet couch that looked intentionally vintage, an assortment of multi-colored throw pillows, and a coffee table with actual artistic coffee table books on them. It had all the charm of a Brooklyn apartment, but, like, for grownups. And I thought that was fucking hot.

  She threw me down on her teal couch and continued to kiss me. I’d only been with a few women before, and I wasn’t sure how much they counted. I’d been in college, and I’d wanted to experience being with a woman, so I’d agreed to a few one-night stands with the first few women who expressed interest. While I’d enjoyed the physical experience, none of them were women I had any emotional connection with. They were just kind of . . . there. I’m sure they all thought of me as a very forgettable lesbian, if they ever thought of me at all. This, with Melody, was different.

  We were inside of a dream, and this velvet couch was a big sea of clouds that we were floating around in. It felt like the most innocent first date, which was ironic considering we were two people who’d spent the summer naked together, listening to men talk about anything from wanting to get urinated on to fantasies about their aunts. Melody was my mentor in losing any shred of innocence I’d ever had, but somehow, right now, she brought it back.

  We couldn’t stop touching each other, we couldn’t stop smiling. She was on top of me, still fully clothed in black leggings and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. She smothered my body with her voluptuous breasts, and I couldn’t stop staring at her freckled skin peeking through the intentional holes in her leggings, and her soft pouty lips, shining with remnants of strawberry flavored lip balm. I was in a short, patterned summer dress, which slid up and down my thighs as we kissed. We pressed ourselves into each other, fully clothed. It was like we were giving each other a mutual lap dance.

  She pulled me up so my legs were wrapped around hers, and I was straddling her. She slid my dress up over my head with ease. It was safe to say we were both very good at taking off clothing. She kissed my neck. She moved her hands up and put her arms around my back, pulling me close to her. We released for a moment just to stare at each other.

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” I said.

  “I can,” she replied, and immediately she put her lips back onto my mouth. I was covered in goose bumps— cold on the outside and warm on the inside. My cotton panties were getting moist. I pulled off her Led Zeppelin T-shirt and the gray sports bra she wore underneath it. We pressed our breasts against each other, though hers were about twelve times the size of mine.

  She pushed me back down onto the couch. She moved down my body and licked my right nipple. My pussy thrust up toward her, eager. She caressed my torso while she licked my nipple with the very tip of her tongue. Then she moved to the left nipple, but used her fingers to caress the right, keeping both nipples nice and hard.

  The foreplay was getting less innocent, and I was beginning to moan heavily. My panties were in dire need of coming off. She let go of my nipples and kissed me again, sucking my face with more passion that she had before. She slid fingers under the band of my wet cotton panties, exploring my body as if she hadn’t already seen it naked a hundred times. She gently rubbed my outer labia, using a delicate circular motion with her fingers around my pussy. It was such a gentle, slow movement, like she was waking up my erotic senses from a midmorning nap. I let out another moan.

  “Melody . . . fuck,” I said. “You’r
e so fucking hot . . .” She put a hand on my mouth and shushed me, which was convenient, because I was completely ready to say “I love you.” Seriously! I was! I know. It was too soon for that. But in the thrill of this encounter, I was completely in love with her, and it had a little to do with the way she moved her fingers around my pussy, and a little to do with how fucking beautiful and incredible she was.

  She moved her lips down my stomach, and then her lips met my other lips. She licked up and down my vagina. My body could barely handle the intensity, and my legs tried to close. She opened them up, with one hand on each thigh, and she kept my legs spread wide open and my pussy in her mouth. My pelvis thrust against her dainty mouth as she rotated her tongue around and around. She merely brushed against my clit with her tongue, and I shook.

  “Ah! There it is!” she said. I felt like I had, like, twelve clits. Everything she did everywhere was heavenly, and every touch felt like it could have led to a climax. This felt like a tantric experience, like I was cumming the whole time, even while we were kissing.

  But while everything felt amazing, once she found my clit that amazing feeling multiplied exponentially. She put more pressure on my clit with her tongue, and used her fingers to spread my pussy lips open so she could get more acquainted with it. My insides were tensing up, my toes curling. She sensed my body edging toward completion, so she sucked on my clit even harder. Harder and harder she went—her tongue felt like it had a twenty-pound weight on it. The pressure of her tongue against my completely wide-open pussy was just incredible. And then, she slowed it down . . . she licked ever so gently and . . . god damn. Holy shit. I exploded.

  My body convulsed as she continued to gently kiss between my thighs. Who knew such a gentle grazing of the clit could cause such intensity inside of me? This was one giant orgasm. It had many layers. But Melody wasn’t done. She moved her tongue just slightly to the left, and it felt like a whole other orgasm. She moved it ever so slightly again, and I could not control myself. My entire crotch was flopping up and down, and somehow her tongue was able to follow. She licked all over my pussy, and it felt like some kind of grand finale, where every little part of my pussy was cumming at the same time.