by E. R. Whyte
“Of course, I am. I’m relieved you recognize my brilliance.” We laugh, and then she peers at me intently. “Now that’s out of the way… how hot is he, now that he’s all grown up?”
Dipping my head, I play with the sticker on my laptop. “Truth? He’s pretty effing hot. You remember that guy with the ass in The Tudors?”
Cotton licks a fingertip and holds it out as she makes a sizzling sound. “How could I forget?”
“He looks a little like him. Dark, wavy hair. Dimple in his chin. These glacial blue eyes that just make you stop and stare.”
“Damn. Can I audit your class? I’m feeling a need for some academic exploration.” She waggles her eyebrows and I have to laugh. She is such a say-anything kind of person.
“If you had a filter for that mouth of yours, I’d say sure. There’s no telling what foolishness you’d start spouting, though.”
“And how on earth is he even in high school? I’d have thought he would have graduated.”
“I did early college, remember? I had enough credits to start my junior year when I went to school.”
“If I remember correctly, wasn’t Gunner a freshman when he had the time of his life?” She sings the line, coaxing a smile out of me.
“Yes, he and Sammy were in the same grade. I want to say he was older than Sammy, though—fifteen when Sam was fourteen? So he’s eighteen or nineteen now and I’m a whopping twenty-one.” I shake my head. “I seriously don’t understand why they put me with seniors.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m kind of a pushover. And I’m practically their age.”
She clears her throat. “I was going to say you’re being silly, but I cannot tell a lie. You’re totally a pushover. You should be teaching kindergarten.”
“Ugh, you know I’m terrible with little kids. They think I’m mean because I’m not playful.”
We continue chatting for a while longer until it’s time for me to get ready for work and Cotton has to leave. I touch my lips with two fingers and extend them, blowing her a kiss. It’s our traditional ritual to end our Skype calls.
“Be safe, Cotton. Love you.”
She repeats the gesture back to me. “Ditto, babe.”
“Cotton? Something’s bothering you, I can tell. I’m letting it go for now, but I expect details next time.”
She waves me off. “I’m good.” I’m reaching to sign out when her next words reach my ears. “And if you get the chance, get you a professional piece of McHottie.”
Her laughter follows me into the night.
9
Shiloh
“You know you’re dancing a peep tonight, right?” Danny asks, eyeing me as I pass through from the ladies’ room. I’m exhausted after a long day at work and I’d much rather have gone to the school’s football game tonight. It’s well past being over by now, but there’s this little voice that keeps reminding me that a certain senior would have looked damn good in football gear. I can see him now, streaked with sweat and dirt, his hair sticking up after tugging his helmet off…
I give myself a shake. Not that I think about stuff like that. I’d be a terrible person if I did.
I sigh and look at Danny. “Yes, I know. Headed that way now.”
“Knock him dead, babe. This one likes you. Always asks for you, specifically.”
I nod and try to ignore the slightly skeeved feeling that gives me. I’ll have to ask Danny about bartending again soon. It doesn’t pay quite as much, but I wouldn’t feel as though I was in the spotlight all the time, either. I’ve never enjoyed it, but it makes me doubly anxious now that I am working as a teacher. When I first started, Danny allowed me to work just peeps, giving me time and space to grow accustomed to the job. That time is officially lapsed, though.
I make my way down the hall to the peep boxes, exchanging quick greetings with a few people in the hall as I go. There are ten peep “boxes,” five small rooms on either side of a narrow hallway. Dancers enter and exit from this hallway, while the patrons do so from separate corridors accessible from a second door in each room. It’s designed in such a way that we never make contact with each other in the physical sense, never pass each other in the hall.
In the peep box, the dancer is on one side of a glass partition, the subject of a fantasy dance pre-selected from a menu of offerings. Most fantasy dances are simple and entertaining—Sexy Schoolgirl, Horny Housewife, Slutty Cheerleader, Hot Nurse.
Tonight’s fantasy dance is Horny Housewife. I settle myself in my cubicle in my starting position on a simple, sturdy stool, rolling my eyes as I position my broom between my legs and wait for my spotlight to rise and my music to start. Horny housewife, my ass. I’d love to show the jackhole out there waiting for me to grind all over this thing what he can do with this broom.
Just then the lights settle and darken beyond the glass shielding me and I tense in anticipation as I hear my client enter and seat himself. He moves quietly, but I can hear his footsteps on the carpeted floor and the rustling of upholstery as he sits down in the room’s plush chair.
My music starts. “Good evening,” my visitor greets, his voice a whisper. I uncoil my body from the stool and begin to move sinuously about with the broom. I feel ridiculous—Lucy Ricardo trying to be seductive, but everyone has their thing, I guess.
“Hello, there,” I purr in response. His whisper is familiar. He’s a regular for sure. This guy comes in at least once a week. He sounds relatively young, maybe middle-aged. Slight southern accent like most of us around here. Not much of a talker. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“You can see me?” There is a startled edge to his voice, and I understand why.
The dancer’s side of the peep boxes are small, no more than six by six square, with slats cut hip high for sliding tips through and allowing communication. Lighting reflects on the glass in such a way that the watcher’s space beyond is shadowy. Although I am visible, the clients are anonymous.
It used to wig me out a little that I had no clue who I was dancing for, but it has grown on me, the anonymity becoming a comfort rather than a curse. If I don’t know who’s out there, I don’t have to hide disgust, or disinterest, but can instead concoct a fantasy that will allow me to do my job professionally. I don’t have to worry that it’s someone I know but can instead be ignorant in lieu of that knowledge. What I don’t know can’t hurt me.
It also helps that the club is a good hour away from the small town where I live and work. I’m not as worried about accidentally performing for people that know me.
I guess the same anonymity is vital to this client.
Shit. I hurry to soothe him.
“Not literally. I meant it’s nice having you back. They told me you’re a return client.” I try smiling seductively and hope I don’t look too idiotic.
“Oh.” He sounds surprised that I recognize him. “I guess I like watching you. You’re so beautiful.” His voice is wistful and thicker than before with what I recognize as lust. I am mostly out of the ensemble I picked for his dance, with my bustier-top and panties remaining. I lean on the broom as I face away from him and look over my shoulder.
“Thank you.” I give a half-smile. “Any special requests tonight?”
I see a faint movement beyond the glass. Then, “Turn around and bend. Do it slow.”
I do as he asks, closing my eyes and sending myself to my old high school ‘studio’—the school gym. If I try hard enough, I can smell floor polish and sneakers, feel the shadows as the afternoon closes in and it’s just me and the music.
Swiveling, I face him again. “Touch your body.” I hear the excitement in his voice and pull calm around me. With unhurried movements, I palm my breasts, untying the laces of the boned bustier to let the cups loosen. I trail my hands down my sides to my hips, looking out into the darkness beyond the glass. “Keep going,” he directs.
Without hurry, I touch my fingertips to the smooth skin of
my thighs. I trail them sensuously up, down, in and then even further up the center of my torso. His breathing is quickening.
“What else?”
He is silent for a moment. Then, “Say you love me.”
“I…” I stop. I can’t bring myself to speak the words. Those words are special. They hold power, meaning. I don’t say those words, not to anyone. Not unless I mean it.
I’ve seen too many couples damage each other with those words, given too lightly. Too many families broken by a lack of commitment in them.
Turning, I let the broom fall softly into the corner and come closer to the glass. I remove my top, listening for the hitch in his breath that tells me he’s watching. Then I press my forehead to the glass and close my eyes, allow my hands to drift down my body and try to convey how sorry I am to disappoint him. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry,” I say, my voice laced with regret. He fumbles at the tip slot and a moment later something clinks on the floor beside me. I bend to pick it up, no longer dancing. “What’s this?”
“It’s okay, sweet Shiloh. You will.” I hear him moving away, feel a draft as the client door opens, and then there’s simply the absence of presence. Although I cannot see him, I know he is no longer there.
I’m still staring at the object. “What the hell? How did you get this?” Fury laced with fear courses through me. My hands are shaking. I fly to the door and fling it open swiftly, running into a brick wall, my hand wrapped in a tight fist around the small object he’d pushed through the glass wall. A harmless object. Innocuous. Nothing more than several colorful beads on a leather string, with a single white alphabet bead in the midst bearing the letter S. Nothing scary.
And yet it is as if that string of beads has wrapped itself around my neck and is crushing my trachea. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe.
The brick wall is Jamal, our giant, ebony-skinned bouncer. He catches me as I stumble into him, his light brown eyes skating around rapidly for danger. “Ayo, you good, honeybee? What the fuck happened in there?” Jamal is still trying to find the threat, but he’s not in this hall; clients exit on the reverse side. I can’t bring myself to open my fist and show him. I can’t make my words make enough sense for an explanation.
“Where is he?” I try to push past him to the client half of the peep room, and after wrapping me in his jacket, Jamal allows it. The room is empty. “Dammit!” I clutch Jamal’s shirt, the bracelet spilling out between my fingers. Vaguely, I’m aware of a small crowd gathering around me. A couple of the other girls hover, along with the boss and a few clients that I ignore. “He was in my car, Jay. I don’t know when or where it happened, but whoever that asshole was, he got in my car and stole my bracelet out of it. We need to find out — ”
“Okay, honeybee, stop yer buzzing. Calm down. We’ll take care of it.” Gently Jamal pushes me into Leila’s arms, and she leads me down the hall, murmuring soothing words that say little but mean much. I try to relax, knowing that we are family at the club, and family holds family together.
My head rears back as a thought strikes me. I clutch her arms. “Leila!”
“What, Shiloh? Gracious…”
“He knows my name. He called me ‘sweet Shiloh.’ How the hell does he know my name?”
Leila shakes her head and makes a tsking sound. “Shit like this happens sometimes, hon. In our world, it’s normal to run into some crazies here and there—even in a nicer place like Kendrick’s. Regardless of how it’s prettied up, we’re still in a high-risk profession, you know? So be careful, but at the same time try not to worry yourself over it.”
“How can I not, Leila? What if he knows where I live?” The phone calls I received the other day spring to mind, and I shudder.
“That’s highly unlikely. Employee records are protected. More likely is that he heard some idiot in this place say your name in the public rooms. Danny’s checking the book; we’ll find out who it is.”
“Fine. But I can’t come back until this is resolved, Lee.”
“I have no doubt they’ll figure it out fast. We have the cameras, after all. And client records.”
I let myself be pacified. I allow Leila to push me gently down on the worn loveseat in Danny’s office. She brings me tissues to wipe my face and a mug of coffee. I drink it gratefully, waiting as dancers move in and out of the room, murmuring low and giving me sympathetic looks.
“I need my knitting, Leila,” I whisper.
“You still working on that ugly sweater?”
“You know it’ll look good with Jay’s eyes. That creep said some weird shit, Leila. Said he wanted me to tell him I loved him. And he had the bracelet Sammy made me.”
Leila shakes her head. “Jay’s on it, Shy. Just chill. We got you.” She tugs me close and hugs me and I allow myself to melt into her for a few seconds.
Calmer, I take a shaky breath and roll my eyes. “I might make everyone a sweater before this shit night is through.” I straighten my back, feeling Jamal’s jacket brush against my bare chest. “Let’s go knit.”
10
Gunner
What. The. Fuck.
I slam into the bathroom at Kendrick’s and beat my fist against the paper towel dispenser once, twice, three times, wishing it was that creep’s face. A man at the urinal sneaks a hasty glance at me over his shoulder, zips, and beats it without washing his hands when I offer a snarl.
She was crying. Standing there in that cold hall half-naked with some other man’s coat around her, mascara streaking her face, crying and terrified. And I can’t even do what I want to do and just pick her up and hide her in my arms like she’s mine, because there’s no telling what that fool woman would think and do if she saw me in the club right now.
Mine. I don’t know where that idea even came from. I lean on the sink and look at my reflection in the mirror, unsettled by the random thought.
I’m just her student. Worse, she no doubt still thinks of me like that ninth-grade kid from years ago. And I’m here to get something from her—a passing English grade. I mean, yeah—she’s fucking hot and I’ve always been hung up on her. But that’s secondary to my ultimate goal.
So instead, I backed away into the shadows, pushing aside every instinct clamoring at me to do just the opposite, and walked away, seething. “Shit.” I run some water over my face and rack my fingers through my hair before exiting the bathroom. I leave the club and make my way to my truck. I parked on the edges of the lot where I’d remain unnoticed but could still keep an eye on Shiloh’s little aging Mini Cooper. It’s still in the lot, parked under the single pole light a few rows back from the employee entrance.
The light casts a flickering circle of illumination several cars out, dimming and becoming all but useless after around three cars in either direction of its central radius. The shadows on the fringes of the lot are deep, the club bordered by woods on the right and left and a deep field on its back side that is used in the summertime for concerts. It would be far too easy for someone to shove a woman into a car, I think with a frown.
But maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe it was just a stupid joke. I scrub my face with a hand and settle more comfortably into my truck’s leather seat. It’s late and I’m tired. There’s just something about it that doesn’t feel right and puts me on edge.
I watch, slouched back in my seat, until Shiloh emerges, accompanied by that big bouncer she was with earlier. She climbs in her car, starts it, and drives away. The bouncer remains, I note with satisfaction, eyes traveling around the parking lot for anyone who might be creeping out after her. When no one does, the tension in his shoulders deflates and he retreats inside.
That’s when I follow. Last I heard, Shiloh lives in her family’s old place, and at this point I don’t care if I have to sleep in my car to make sure she is safe until I can figure something else out. The irony of me more or less stalking Shiloh, myself, to make sure she’s safe doesn’t escape me. There’s no way I would do something like this under n
ormal circumstances, though. Maybe it’s overkill, but from what I overheard when I was standing in the hall, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to this than someone being Joe Pervert. There’s a wrongness about him. A good handful of guys I go to school with are pervs. Most of them don’t go to the trouble of breaking into a girl’s car and stealing something. I don’t know if he’s done anything else, but that’s stalker behavior.
My gut clenches. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep her safe. For Sammy’s sake, and the sake of old friendships.
Picking up my phone from the seat beside me, I call Twiggy. “Why da fuck you calling me so late?” she grumbles.
“I need some kind of security, Twig. Someone who can work in the background without drawing a lot of attention.”
When she answers her voice is wide awake and flat. “Security, huh? You ask for security like I’m a cop or the mob or something.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t bust my balls, Twig. I’ve known the shit your family was into since I was twelve. You going to help me or what?” My voice is brave, but here in my truck, where Twig can’t see me, I’m sweating. It’s unspoken knowledge that Twiggy Gentry’s dad has ties to the Irish mob. He’s far enough removed that it’s not flashy and hasn’t created problems in the community, but it’s present, all the same. I have no doubt that Twig’s genius has been brought into play when needed or will be eventually once she hits their radar.
Twiggy is silent. I hear the rustle of blankets and a faint click of something—light switch, I guess. Then, “Starting when?”
“Now.”
“Gonna be a lot of fucking doughnuts.”
“Covered.”
She sighs. “I’ll need some details, Gunner. These guys can’t walk into things blind.”