by Nikki Turner
“Perfect, baby,” she said, and rubbed his cheek and promised to return right away. Normally she would have never left his side, but she knew she had the fact that he’d turned down others on her side.
Cinnamon usually would’ve taken at least a twenty-five to forty-five-minute break between performances and outfit changes, but she wasn’t trying to give any of those thirsty, bloodsucking hoodrats-on-the-prowl a chance to beat her for her cheddar, so she took care of her business quick fast and in a hurry and was back out in ten. Wet-wiped. Ho bathed in the quickest way. Perfumed. Fresh outfit. Check, check, check.
Papi Chulo shooed the hovering vultures away when he saw her step in. Her seven-inch high heels stabbed the floor like daggers in the other girls’ hearts. Too bad, bitches, she thought, smiling and strutting her way past the other dancers while she made eye contact with him and never seemed to lose it as she successfully navigated the high-end crowd, dodging propositions and confessions of love at first sight. She stopped at the corner table where he was.
Papi Chulo aka Big Spender gave her an approving once over. She could tell that he was indeed pleased with her skimpy, bright orange, custom-designed costume hugging and biting in all the right peaks and valleys.
“Well worth the wait,” he complimented.
“Thank you, baby.” She smiled.
Calliope had gotten in good with the right people from the first day she started at Club Imagination. She and the DJ had a good understanding, and he liked that she played fair. She had previously tipped the DJ nicely to put on one of her favorite songs from her playlist that she provided him. Though she didn’t do drugs, music was her drug. This is why she always paid the jockey well to keep in mind her favorite jams as he spinned the records.
Calliope’s perfectly shaped ass started swaying to the beat of the music and then started to act as if it was operating to its own marching orders. She had Big Spender mesmerized and almost automatically he started peeling that paper off to her. She continued and dropped it to the floor, backed up on him, and made it pop like she was epileptic.
Her moves were unpredictable, hot, and quickly sparked a flame in the Big Spender’s pants and his pockets.
The heat-seeking missile in his pants prepared for takeoff, and he wanted more. “Sorry, fella, but dancing is all you get,” she said, but still kept dancing for him.
The harder he got, it seemed, the more generous he became. By the third song, he was throwing money like it was rice at a wedding.
Raising her leg, Cinnamon placed a foot with open-toed, laced-up heels beside him on the chair. Her pedicure was candy-apple polish, freshly done and sexy as hell.
He sucked in a breath.
Inhaling the aroma of the coochie just three-inches from his nose made his eyes roll in ecstasy. A spritz of Flowerbomb with the natural heat of her womb was a seductive allure.
Seeing the unmitigated lust in his eyes, Cinnamon gyrated her hips so close to his face, if he was to stick out his tongue, he’d have gotten a mouthful of her G-string. He was sprung … and she hadn’t even got loose yet.
More money than she could keep track of and four songs deep the DJ continued to rock her preselected music because he knew that one thing about Cinnamon was she was going to always make sure that he was taken care of on the back end too. If she did well, he’d do good. So, he saw to it that he played his position.
On came one of those high-testosterone tracks the dancers in the club loved because dudes usually lost their minds trying to outdo one another when they heard the verse and the chorus.
Her trance was interrupted a little but she never gave any of her attention to them as far as her Big Spender could tell.
“Party over here!” Some other hustlers, obviously new to the Big Spenders’ room, yelled from across the floor. She hated when the dudes in the club danced harder than the dancers. But she knew these kinds were simply begging for attention. She smiled thinking how real money boys did it for the sport, not the glory.
Then she realized that those were friends of Jean, which meant he wasn’t too far away. As soon as the thought ran through her head, that’s when she caught sight of Jean across the room, making it rain. She tried to act as if she didn’t notice him, and kept focusing on her Big Spender. The more she blocked Jean out, the more he went from dancer to dancer and out of spite spent crazy money on them. The entire time he threw bread on the other girls, he stared at Calliope, but she would never acknowledge him. Instead she put her all into making Big Spender happy and boy was he hers.
I know good and well you ain’t coming up in here with that foolishness on my job. She knew this night was about to go easily from good to crazy in a matter of minutes.
Big Spender was just about out of ones from making it thunderstorm and motioned for the manager to come over there and asked him for ten thousand more ones. As the manager walked away, Jean asked, “You know how much that clown sending for?”
When the manager said with great pride, “Ten thousand,” Calliope made sure she looked into Jean’s eyes with a smirk, as if, top that.
While waiting for the manager to return with the cash for Big Spender, she still danced; he was good for it. And that was Jean’s cue to come over. He started throwing money on Calliope. “Charity.” He leaned in.“Me and my niggas know ain’t no dance for free, so since your benefactor is out of cash, you can be my charity case. I don’t have no problem helping the needy,” he said with a smile, and then threw a handful of a stack of ones on her.
She picked up that handful and threw them back on him. “Nigga, I don’t need your shit. Your money is counterfeit as far as I’m concerned.”
“Everything a’ight, baby?” Big Spender asked.
“Stay the fuck out of lovers’ quarrels, my man. You don’t want none of this.”
Big Spender stood up, mildly exposing that he had a pistol on him. That’s how Jean and Calliope both knew that Big Spender was somebody with some supernatural clout in there. No one got in with a gun or any kind of weapon and there were usually no exceptions to the rule, for that matter.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Big Spender shot a firm look at Jean and didn’t flinch. “I was talking to the lady.”
Jean was drunk as a skunk but he was still fearless and with an ego the size of the Atlantic Ocean. He wasn’t intimidated and he got up in Big Spender’s face. “Your contributions here are no longer needed.”
“And your presence over here is not wanted, needed, or welcomed. The lady doesn’t want your money,” Big Spender said with a slight smile.
Calliope saw the fury in Jean’s eyes and knew that Big Spender’s light remark was weighing heavy and this could go from bad to real ugly in a matter of seconds so she intervened. She got in the middle of them both. “Listen, fellas, we not going to do this.”
She put her hand up for Jean to calm down and then she told Big Spender to give her a minute, before she walked a couple of feet away to talk to Jean.
Big Spender nodded. “I’ll be right here, baby.”
“Why in the hell you bringing this bullshit on my job?” she asked, while the manager was coming in her direction toting the ten thousand ones over to the table where Big Spender was. When she saw him placing the money on the table this domestic dispute with Jean wasn’t even important anymore. The only thing she wanted to do was to get that money from Big Spender’s hands into hers. She eyed Rabbit; he was the guy who went around the club raking the money up for the girls when they were in puddles of dollar bills.
“I need another minute, and about two more trash bags, Cinnamon,” Rabbit alerted her. “Might as well clean up your playground so he can make it thunderstorm.” Rabbit’s comments added insult to injury.
“I’m not bringing nothing on your job. I’m just enjoying you and myself over there with that lame. Acting like you can’t speak and shit. I thought you were jealous because I was dancing with other girls.”
Honestly it did hurt her feelings a little but she couldn�
�t dare let him know. “Why would I care?” she asked, then she decided to hit him with a jab. “I have the biggest spender spending his money on me, and me only, while you spreading yours around thin.”
She knew that cut Jean deep and he looked like he was about to smack the cowboy shit out of her, but again, Big Spender saved the day. “You ready, baby, cause everything all set over here.”
“Motherfucker, do you see me talking? Now you being disrespectful,” Jean said with slurred words. “I’m talking to my whore, motherfucker.”
Cinnamon had had enough. “Okay, Jean, you need to go.” She was pissed and hurt all at the same time. She looked for security and had motioned for them to come over and assist her.
“Oh, you her pimp now?” He nodded. “Let me understand, you a pimp?” Big Spender asked. “Because a few minutes ago, you said it was a lovers’ quarrel. And if this is your woman and you pimping her, how does that work, or you her pimp and you in love with your whore? If so, that’s not good pimp practices for sure.”
Jean tried to swing at Big Spender but was so drunk that he missed. When he did he grabbed the bottle of rosé and when he did security grabbed him and escorted him out of the club.
She was so apologetic to Big Spender and her mood was thrown off. She wanted to cry but she couldn’t. Not there, not in front of all of those people and especially not the other dancers. Big Spender tried to comfort her, he told her to sit down and talk to him and take a load off her feet.
“I’m supposed to be entertaining you, and making you feel stress-free, and you are the one who seems to be making my night. It should be the other way around.”
“Well, it seems like you need a real friend, and a realer man in your life.” He grabbed her hand.
She smiled. “You read my palm correctly.”
He looked into her eyes. “It seemed like there is so much more depth to you than meets the eye.”
She nodded, showing her dimples. “Yes, there is.”
“I’d like to get to know you and maybe we can be friends and I can help you accomplish some of the goals you want.”
“That would be nice.” There were so many men frequenting the strip club proclaiming to be Captain-Save-a-Ho. And then there was that handful who were really looking to do so. “My superman,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for everything tonight.”
“Well hopefully this can be the start-up of many miraculous nights to come.” He kissed her on her hand.
They talked for the rest of the night and under the circumstances, she exchanged phone numbers with him and agreed to go to dinner with him the next day. Which was something that she never did. She almost never met men outside of the club, because once she did, then what was the purpose of them coming to see her and spend money. Once they got to know her, she was no longer a fantasy and there was nothing left to their imagination, and that was a gamble that normally she wouldn’t take, but this guy was different. He was alluring, charming, and mysterious, and one dinner date may just help.
“Think I’m calling it a night,” he said. “You promise as soon as you wake up, you going to call me.”
“I promise!” she said with a smile. She gave him a hug. “I can’t thank you enough, for everything, and the headaches you got from my ex—and the way you support my hustle, for calming me and comforting me. But most of all for the conversation.”
To really make her night, Big Spender gave her half of the ten thousand that had been sitting on the table. “Here, I will give you half of what I got here.” He smiled. “I guess this is persuasion to call it a night, huh?”
“Yes it is!” she agreed.
* * *
Calliope was floating on cloud nine, heading to the dressing room to get dressed to go home. When she approached her locker, she saw that it was already opened and there was nothing inside of it. Everything had been taken. “Ain’t this a bitch?” she screamed. “Who the fuck took my shit?” Everything was gone. Her entire workbag, shoes, cell phone. Everything. Not only her expensive custom costumes but also her sweat suit that she wore to work. She had nothing to change out into. She was outdone.
She told the housemother and she said she would look into it.
She started to tear that locker room up, and turn it upside down but she didn’t. The sun had risen, and most of the girls were gone anyway and the morning shift was coming on. She was pissed at the thought that she’d have to go home scantily dressed. Though her neighbors might have suspected, that would be all they needed to confirm.
Someone gave her an old smelly shirt and she slipped that on over her dance clothes but she wondered if she should just settle for her dance clothes.
Thank God that she had valeted her car, or else she wouldn’t have her keys or a way home.
Once she stood outside, she saw one of Jean’s homeboys walking over to her. He handed her a sweat suit. “Man, that nigga passed out in the car, over there. He was trying to wait for you. But he had too much to drink.”
“Thank you.” She kindly accepted the clothes.
“You know he love you, he just don’t know how to show you.”
“So he tricks off and on the girls that work with me and then manages to get my locker broken into?” She laughed with a slight chuckle. She slipped on her clothes and thanked the guy again. Once her car was pulled around, she loaded her money into the car.
She pulled off thinking of how much of a bittersweet night it had been overall. Though her feelings were hurt and emotions were still running wild, she had made in one night what most people made in a year of working.
20
Ring … Ring …
The ringing of the doorbell startled Calliope. She was sleeping like a baby and tried to block it out because she didn’t want to wake from her peaceful slumber. Someone was mashing down on the doorbell and the annoying sound wouldn’t go away. “Got-damn it,” she said, wondering where in the hell was Compton or his girlfriend, Neka, who seemed to be at their house more than hers and more than he was even there. She stumbled out of the bed not wanting to even remove her eye mask that read BEAUTYREST that did an immaculate job at keeping the light out of her eyes so she could sleep during the day. She was afraid if she exposed the light to her eyes that she would not be able to continue her sleep.
RING! Then she heard loud knocks turn into pounding. As much as she hated it, there was no way to stop this ringing noise. She gave in to acting as a blind woman to get to the door.
RING! Still followed by knocking.
When she removed her mask, she grabbed her robe and headed to the front door. Her first thought was that if it was Jean she was going to really go into psycho-crazy-woman mode. Just then the noise stopped. The visitor must have gotten the message that she wasn’t there and if she was, she wasn’t answering and decided to leave. Thank God, now she could get more of what her body was yearning for, rest. The second she was back in bed and had pulled the covers back over her head, that’s when it got real. The tapping on her bedroom started and then someone started calling her name, “Calliope. Calliope!”
She removed her eye mask and peeped out of the plantation blind. She saw Mocha standing on the other side of the door. “Oh, shit,” she said. She jumped up and hurried to the front door to let Mocha in.
“Girl, I thought I was going to have to call Fred, the Fed, and tell him to knock your door down for a dance.” She joked of one of her faithful clients.
“Girl, if you knew the kind of night I had, you would have just let me sleep,” she said as she went down the hall and into the bathroom to pee. Mocha followed her and stood at the door.
“Girl, I’ve been calling you all morning, afternoon, and evening.”
“Evening?” she questioned, turning her nose up as she was pulling the toilet paper off of the roll. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost nine, girl.”
“Shit!”
“No shit,” Mocha said. “Me and some of everybody been calling you all day.”
“Girl, you have no idea what kind of night I had. Shit was mad real to the point I don’t even know where to start. My Big Spender found me at Imagination and Jean came trying to make me jealous, spending on every girl in the club but me. And that shit backfired on him when my Big Spender sent Jiggilo and his people in the vault for me!” She smiled as she washed her hands.
“Girl, I heard. They were talking about that shit all the way over at the Sugar Shack.”
Calliope started brushing her teeth, and asked, “For real? Damn, news travel.”
“You ain’t no gossip traveling faster than the ho stroll girl,” Mocha said.
“Did you hear that Jean got some hoes to break in my locker and steal all my outfits, my phone, dancer bag, just everything?”
“That’s ’cause he don’t feel you should dance and though he don’t show it he really love you. You know he feels like his woman shouldn’t be dancing at no club.”
“Well, if that’s love, then I don’t want or need his love. He hits me, he doesn’t talk to me, he doesn’t want me to work and make money, but what is he doing for me, besides getting me fired?”
“Well you know.” Mocha started to give her in-depth opinion on the situation but she didn’t. She looked at Calliope as a little sister she wanted the best for. “I told you that Jean was crazy and I’m not going there with you but that’s not why I drove all the way over here, damn near broke in your house, and probably got the police waiting for me to come out so they can arrest me for breaking and entering,” she exaggerated.
Calliope went back and jumped back under her white sheets and white comforter to warm up from the blasting air conditioner. “So what’s the scoop, what got you over here?”
“I got a call from the Shack and they said that your Big Spender was looking for me. Girl, I got dressed and went up there thinking that this man about to spend on me, I’m about to take over your sloppy seconds.”
“Oh yeah…” She was puzzled because she knew she was supposed to call him. She wasn’t shocked that he was back over at the Shack, but she was a little disappointed that he didn’t waste any time. But that was the typical man that frequented a strip club. This is what they did. Club hopped and chilled with the biggest booty or baddest chick from club to club. “What he spend?” she asked, curious as to how he was moving, trying not to get in her feelings. She just took him to be so different.