HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1)

by Lexie Ray

The coffee table in front of the sofa was covered in medical books and study guides. The tiny television perched on top of a small bookcase had a piece of paper taped over the screen.

  “You can start watching again once you become a nurse,” the note read.

  “You can take that down anytime you want to watch,” Casey had said after I pointed it out. “But I adore TV. It’s a problem around midterms.”

  The kitchen was cozy but functional. Casey kept it free from clutter even as her refrigerator exploded in color. There were sticky notes in every shade imaginable touting reminders about test dates, quizzes, shopping lists, to-do lists, phone numbers, and other square-shaped bits of information. Nuzzled in between these notes were photos of Casey in various colors of hair, smiling alongside laughing people clutching drinks, glossy brochures for shows and exhibits around the city, and kitschy magnets to hold everything together.

  “I don’t like telling people this when I first meet them, but I’m not a natural redhead,” Casey had said. “I change it about once a month. I’m kind of addicted to color.”

  “There are worse things to be addicted to,” I said.

  Casey’s bedroom was so bright that I wondered how she slept in it. Posters of bands covered every available inch of the walls in there and it was a miniature disco ball that hung from the ceiling fan instead of origami swans.

  My bed was a futon crammed against the wall.

  “It folds out to a full-sized bed, but I’m not sure the old bedroom is going to accommodate that,” Casey had said, looking around forlornly. The room was already struggling to fit a twin-sized bed and a dresser alongside the futon.

  “It’s not a problem,” I said. “I can sleep wherever.”

  “Well, if you ever want to have male company over, let me know,” she said. “I’ll move to the couch to give you some privacy.”

  “Male company?” I laughed. “I don’t think I’m ever going to bring a man back to your house. I need some time to get to know myself.”

  “Female company, then,” Casey said, winking. “Should we devise a way to let each other know? Maybe I could come up with some kind of ‘do not disturb’ sign to hang from the bedroom door.”

  “Very funny.”

  Casey had let me go to sleep that night — finally — only to wake me up a few hours later to go to the nurse’s school for an X-ray. Thankfully, having a nursing student as a roommate did have its perks, especially for how beat up I was. Casey had a pair of crutches on hand and shuffled down the stairs on her butt in a show of solidarity as we had to make our way down for the day.

  The bus ride wasn’t painful or very far. And I found all of the nursing students — Casey included — to be cute in their excited curiosity over my swollen ankle.

  “This is a valuable opportunity for hands-on learning,” the instructor announced as they bustled me to the lab in a wheelchair.

  Thankfully, the students determined, my ankle was only sprained. They strapped a cushioned boot on my foot, let me keep the crutches, and told me to try to keep it elevated as much as possible.

  “You can return to normal activity in two weeks,” Casey said, looking to her textbook for guidance.

  “Very good,” the instructor said.

  The two weeks flew by in the best way possible. I had enough money to start contributing to rent, even though Casey set it at a lower percentage. She didn’t want me wiling away my savings, as she put it, before I was able to start work.

  I slept in until a gloriously late hour, snoozing away most of the time that Casey was in school. When she came back, it was her turn to take a snooze. While she did that, I got my day started with a shower and some chores. If Casey was letting me stay for less than half the rent, I could step up my contribution to the home in other ways. When it was time for her to wake up to do a little homework for school or get ready for work, I had something for dinner prepared for her.

  “Ugh, you’re going to make me look fat in my costume,” she complained good-naturedly, shoveling down whatever I fixed.

  While she was gone “working the pole,” as she put it, I’d read or watch television, flipping up the note on the screen to fit in some time letting the characters do my thinking for me. I never had this kind of free time at Mama’s nightclub.

  In time, my body healed. Parts of me missed life at the boarding house — strange things, like hearing girls running down the hallway, giggling, or having to wait in line to use the shower. There were times when I felt unbearably lonely. I was so accustomed to having thirty other women close at hand.

  Casey, though, could sometimes have enough energy for thirty other people.

  I never understood how she was able to bounce back and forth between school and work and still have time for things like assignments and sleeping.

  “Nature of the beast,” she explained, cleaning glittery eye shadow from her face with a cotton ball after her shift had ended. “Gotta strip to eat, gotta go to school to stop stripping.”

  There were nights when she came back from work on fire. She’d pop a CD in an ancient boom box and dance around the apartment, drawing me in to dance with her and singing at the top of her lungs. She didn’t consider these dance parties complete without a neighbor shouting for us to shut up. Casey was on a constant high, it seemed like, and didn’t have an off switch.

  It made me feel like I had to constantly catch up. I didn’t mind much. She was so positive that it was hard to feel anything negative around her. Casey drew me into her orbit of optimism and I stayed there.

  In time, the hurts and betrayals I’d suffered at Mama’s hands fell away. Casey’s ready smile and constant friendship helped heal me.

  By the time I’d graduated from not using the crutches to taking off the boot, I was feeling very good. I was intrigued by all of the costumes that Casey was wearing and ready to start a new career there. She talked to her boss and got an approval to bring me in one night.

  “I know you said you weren’t going to sell your sex,” Casey said as she presented me with a wrapped package. “But you do know that you’re going to be selling your body, right?”

  I opened the package, which contained a chocolate-colored lingerie set that dripped with crystals.

  “This is gorgeous!” I exclaimed, letting the light play off of all the rhinestones. “I don’t think I’m selling my body. I’m just selling my dancing skills.”

  I wriggled my hips and pushed my ass against Casey’s hip. She laughed, shoving me away.

  “You’re going to give a girl ideas if you keep that kind of behavior up,” she said. “Well, are you excited for your first night, then?”

  A twinge of nervousness blossomed in my stomach. I was more than used to performing in bed, but this was going to require a much more visible form of acting. Casey had been teaching me some basic footwork and other moves, but I’d still had yet to touch a pole.

  “Of course I’m excited,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like I was trying to convince myself. “I just wish I had time to practice on an actual stage.”

  Casey waved her hand. “You’ll be great,” she said. “Just don’t try to do anything stupid like flips and shit on the pole and you’ll be swimming in singles. Now, let’s get out of here so we have plenty of time to get our makeup on.”

  The strip club was closer to Casey’s house than the nursing school, which said a little bit about the neighborhood. We were some of the first girls who arrived. They all seemed jovial, almost a sisterhood. It made me pine a little bit for Mama’s girls, but I hoped I could start to fit in here, instead.

  “Pleased to meet ya, Cocoa,” a beefy man said, pumping my hand. “I’m Marco.”

  “Of course, Marco,” I said. “Casey told me about you. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here.”

  “She’s got a tongue of honey, this one,” Marco said, looking at me with a pleased expression on his face. “Maybe you can take some notes, Casey.”

  “Fuck off,” she said.

&nbs
p; Marco explained — though Casey had told me what to expect beforehand — that every girl had to “buy in” at the beginning of each night. That meant that if you wanted to work, you needed to pay fifty bucks for the privilege to do so. You didn’t have to come in every day, he said, just the days when you wanted to try to make a little money. In essence, you had to work to earn your fifty bucks back — and then try to rake in profits.

  Patrons usually paid a dollar for the favor of my attention when I was working the pole. They could, of course, pay whatever they wanted, but they could never, under any circumstances, touch me while I was up there. Doing so would get them kicked out of the club.

  Touching, however, did take place in an area partitioned from the rest of the club by a heavy, velvet curtain. If patrons liked you well enough while you were strutting your stuff up on stage, they’d ask for a lap dance. A lot of them were a little grabby back there, but there was a bouncer to ensure that nothing out of line took place.

  There were many ways to make money besides that, Marco said. If you got a patron to buy you drinks, you’d get a small percentage. They could also pay to dance with you on a dance floor adjacent to the main stage. Table dances were less intimate, more affordable options and took place right in the middle of the club.

  Of course, Casey told me privately, agreeing to go to a patron’s home or hotel room or car after the club was closed and doing even more intimate acts would get you the big money, but I’d resolved to never do that again.

  Things were going to be different, now.

  Casey brought us little combination locks to secure our street clothes in the lockers. We changed in the middle of the room, unabashed. Everyone was there to get paid to take off their clothes. It wasn’t a big deal for any girl.

  I caught a couple of them eyeing me, but Casey just laughed and pulled me over to the mirror.

  “They’re just trying to take in the competition,” she said, pulling out a makeup bag that rivaled her well-stocked first aid kit.

  “Competition?” I asked. “But we’re all trying to make money, right?”

  “Exactly,” Casey said, handing me a brush. “Who do you think isn’t getting paid when a patron takes you to the back room for a lap dance?”

  “Oh,” I snapped. It hadn’t been like that at Mama’s nightclub. We all worked together to make money for Mama. I guessed that business model didn’t work everywhere.

  I did my makeup just like I’d do for a shift at the nightclub. Red lipstick was always required. I played up my eyes a little more than I’d usually do, sweeping a velvety black over the lids before finishing it off with mascara.

  “How do I look?” I asked, turning to Casey.

  She looked over and I gasped. One of her eyes was covered by what looked to be a peacock feather. Upon closer examination, I realized it was artfully done in shades of eye shadows.

  “More,” she said, smiling and turning back to the mirror to complete work on her other eye.

  I blinked down at the squares of eye shadow in the bag. This was more for me. I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

  “Fill in your brow line and extend it,” Casey said without looking on me, concentrating on her peacock feather. “Remember that you’re going to be on stage. You need stage makeup. You want patrons to notice you once you get up there and remember you after you’ve left.”

  I seized a pencil and did what she told me to do, coloring my brows out almost to my hairline. I was surprised by the drama of the look. I looked like a vaudeville actress.

  “Glitter,” Casey advised, pinning an actual feather into her hair, which had been dyed blue just yesterday. “You can never go wrong with glitter, and you can never have too much of it.”

  I dusted some in a dark gold color up to my newly extended eyebrows, dazzled by how it changed my face.

  “Good choice,” she said, peering at my reflection. “It goes with your costume.”

  My lingerie set matched my skin tone almost perfectly. It looked like my bare body was encrusted with gems — Casey said it was going to make the patrons go wild.

  A ripple of excitement went through the dressing room. I cocked my head and realized that the club was already buzzing with voices and bumping with music.

  My first night as a stripper was about to begin.

  “They’ll call us up on stage by name,” Casey reminded me as she shimmied into an iridescent mini skirt that matched her bra. “Until then, your job is to be seen by the patrons. Be friendly. Be courteous. Ask how their night’s going. Ask them to buy you a drink.”

  “Got it,” I said, teetering a little in sky-high stilettos.

  “Try not to break that ankle,” she said, steadying me with her hands. Casey handled herself just fine in five-inch heels, I noticed. “My instructor would be super pissed after our stellar diagnosis and treatment plan.”

  “Whatever,” I teased. “You’re probably dying for me to break it just so you can analyze another X-ray.”

  “Guilty,” Casey admitted before hooking her arm in mine. “Now let’s go show the patrons what they’ve been missing out on.”

  The crowd was still filtering in, a mix of subdued and rowdy. Some looked like they were just getting out of work, loosening their ties and draping their suit jackets on the backs of the chairs. A table of about ten guys looked to be celebrating a bachelor party, balloons and bags likely filled with gag gifts crowding the drink-laden table.

  I greeted people, smiling, until one man offered me a drink. He was handsome, blond hair, and a million dollar smile. His tie was knotted around his neck and the blues woven into it brought out his eyes. The shadow of a beard covered his cheeks, upper lip, and chin, but it made him look rakish. I couldn’t help thinking that I’d seen him before somewhere. Surely I hadn’t served him at Mama’s nightclub. The possibility made me squirm. All I wanted was a clean break — no more reminders about what I’d been forced to leave.

  “Don’t think too hard about it,” he said, his face bemused.

  I gasped and blushed, realizing that I’d been spacing out, thinking about my silly past. I put it behind the door in my heart and slammed it shut.

  “A pineapple juice,” I said, pleased that I’d gotten the ball rolling at last.

  “Really?” the man asked, wrinkling his nose. “Not a tequila shot? What about a beer? Or we could put some rum or something in that pineapple juice.”

  “No, sir,” I said, batting my eyes at him. “I want to make sure I don’t fall on my fanny when I’m up on that stage, dancing for you.”

  “Touché,” he said, laughing. “Good thing I’m not going to be dancing tonight.”

  He swept his hand out to indicate his table, where three shot glasses already stood empty.

  I shook my head and clucked at him. “You’re partying pretty hard tonight, aren’t you?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know if I’d call it a party.”

  A waitress brought my juice and I sipped on it.

  I didn’t get a chance to respond to what the man had said about not partying. “Cocoa, Cocoa to the stage, please, Cocoa to the stage,” the announcer said on the loudspeaker, my name punctuating the air.

  I jumped, my hands shaking. “That’s me,” I said, looking at the guy.

  “Nice to meet you, Cocoa,” he said, holding out his hand. Shaking it was nice. His grip was firm but tender, stopping my trembling. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret if you promise not to tell anyone,” I said, bending down to whisper in his ear. “It’s my first time.”

  His laughter followed me up to the stage.

  The music started and I smiled. Casey had picked the song, promising me that it was a crowd pleaser. She was right — several patrons began hooting and slapping the tables.

  I walked out into the spotlight in time with the throbbing beat. It was easy to forget how nervous I was when I was just concentrating on not tripping and falling on my face. Reaching the pole, I grabbed it
. Casey had told me that I could use the pole to my advantage — especially when trying to maintain my balance.

  Still holding the cold metal, I did a couple of squats, giving tables nearest the stage a nice view of my ass. At the end of one squat, I got down on all fours, crawling to the other side of the stage. I licked my lips before grinning, flipping my hair and doing a complicated little scissor kick that scooted me back to the pole. I had Casey to thank for that little number.

  I hauled myself up using the pole and walked around it, gyrating my hips. Two men were standing up at the edge of the stage. When this happened, Casey had told me, I was expected to sashay over there and treat them to a more personal view of myself. This included — but was not limited to — whispering sweet nothings into their ears, rubbing my boobs in their faces, and bending over right in front of them. I’d burst out laughing when Casey said that, but she’d told me she was serious.