YOURS TRULY

by Bella Grant

Jarrod

  “Anabelle Simpson.”

  Beside me, Laurel clapped almost as hard as I did, waving to Ana on the stage as she collected her high school diploma. We beamed proudly at our daughter, who had graduated with honors and had been on the honor roll all through high school. Tears brimmed in my eyes as I stared at her, the beautiful young woman, now eighteen years old, and who was so different than when she had come to live with me. Tall and slender with her black hair cut in a bob and bangs, she was my pride and joy along with all my children. She was heading off to Harvard, and on a full scholarship no less, so she could study law.

  “Isabelle Simpson.”

  We clapped as hard for Isabelle, who sauntered on the stage in a dramatic fashion, which was completely her style. Over the years, the twins had blossomed so differently as they grew into their separate identities. Isabelle may not have graduated top of her class as Anabelle had, but she had left her own unique mark as well. With purple highlights in her black hair and several piercings, she collected her diploma. She had been Prom Queen and had already started her own fashion line, which I had willingly funded. And not just because she was my daughter. She was gifted.

  Unlike Anabelle, she wasn’t going to a traditional university nor following a traditional career path. She was heading off to Milan to attend Instituto Marangoni, not a decision I’d taken lightly since it was far away. Whatever made my kids happy made me happy too, and it was a dream of hers that I wouldn’t blight in anyway. She would always be a plane ride away and had my private jet at her disposal.

  “Is it over now?” my nine-year-old son Jeff grumbled beside his mother. He had her fair hair, but outside of that, he favored me like the girls did. The day the nurse had placed him in my arms when Laurel had given birth to him, I’d cried, a man undone by the new life he was responsible for creating.

  “It will be over soon,” Laurel assured him, then turned to place her hand on my thigh and sniffed. “I’m so proud of them, but I don’t want them to leave home yet. It’s too soon.”

  I smiled at her with so much affection, my heart felt like it was ready to burst from my chest and present itself to her. She was an incredible woman, and life with her had not been boring these past ten years. I loved her more with each year that passed of our contract. She had walked into my broken life and been the glue that kept us all together.

  She was also very pregnant with our baby. Another boy, according to the ultrasound. I reached across her to rub her belly and as if sensing my touch, the baby moved and butted against my palm. I never got tired of experiencing it. We hadn’t expected another baby. My sperm count was still low, and we hadn’t really tried. We simply never used protection, and since another baby was never conceived, we thought it safe to say another wouldn’t put in an appearance.

  I loved it when we were wrong about things like this because I now anticipated the birth of another child. Especially with two flying the nest.

  “I think this baby is ready to come out soon,” Laurel whispered to me, grinning.

  “Two more weeks left,” I reminded her. “I don’t mind waiting. I have something for you.”

  I reached in the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which I passed to her. She glanced at me curiously before taking the papers from me and unfolding them. I stared at the front page which had been stamped in red, “Invalid.”

  Tears shone in her eyes as she smiled at me. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

  “Yes, you’ve completed your duty to us,” I told her. “And I want to marry you again, for real this time. Not for the kids but for us.”

  She squeezed my thigh. “Silly, our marriage has always been real. And I haven’t been living these ten years only for the kids but also for us.”

  “Then no wedding?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “But I can take a renewal of our vows, though.”

  Hooking her chin with my finger, I tilted her head towards me and kissed her at the same time the graduating class erupted in screams and shouts of glee. Once again, although there were more than a hundred people around us, we were lost in the two of us. Lost in our love.

  VIRGIN STRIPPER

  Randi

  Sighing, I lifted my hair off the back of my neck as I walked out of the nursing college where I was attempting my degree. The heat in Atlanta this time of year was exacerbated by the humidity. My hair was rarely affected by the moisture though—I was born lucky—the thick brown layers maintaining whatever style I had put it in that morning. But when I wore it down, the hair was like a heavy blanket lying across my neck and shoulders.

  My backpack weighed a ton, but I’d read somewhere that knowledge was often weighty. I laughed at my thoughts as I tossed the ridiculous thing into the back seat of my old car with a loud thump. I turned the ignition, a little prayer in my heart, and felt an inordinate amount of relief when it started without any issues. The power windows still worked, thank God, so I lowered them all. The air conditioner hadn’t worked in over a year, so the summer sun beating on the metal meant several showers a day if I had to get out of the house. That was pretty much every day of my life except Sundays. On Sundays, I relaxed.

  Grateful the day was Wednesday, I drove straight home rather than to the club. I only worked Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and luckily, I made enough money in those three days to pay my rent and buy food. But not much else.

  As a stripper at a high-end club in Atlanta, I made more money than I could at any other part-time job, by far. Only the top beauties were hired by the owner of Burlesque, and only men who made upwards of half a million a year could become exclusive members. According to the Yelp descriptions, the establishment was considered the classiest strip club this side of the Mississippi.

  I had snorted when my boss informed me of that particular review, which had earned me a glare. Thankfully, I was a popular dancer—for reasons I couldn’t fathom—and could get away with certain comments other girls couldn’t. Regardless, that oxymoronic description of the strip club amused me.

  I parked in my spot outside the apartment building that I’d moved into six years ago, happy to be home. I had time for a short nap before dinner and studying until I had to go to bed. I trudged across the parking lot, frowning, my heavy backpack slung over my shoulder, bitching internally as the sweat dripped down the center of my back. I actually liked being on the first floor: no stairs to climb. I had a little porch, about five feet wide and six feet long, and after the sun went down, I sat out there to study, burning my citronella candle to keep the mosquitoes away.

  My cat greeted me with a loud yowl when I walked in the door. “Good afternoon to you too, Snickers.” He meowed louder in response and began winding through my legs as I walked to the tiny kitchen and I dropped my bag on the table before my shoulder gave out.

  Snickers continued his rubbing against my legs as I tried to walk further. I tripped over him, as usual, but caught myself before I could hit the counter with my arm. “Snickers,” I murmured as I picked him up to give him the love he needed. With irritation, I thought about the rule at work about no visible bruises, which sounded terrible the first time I heard it. When I asked what he meant, my boss, Mr. Carpenter, had explained.

  “These men pay an exorbitant membership fee for perfection. Any mark on the skin, regardless of how it got there, will not be tolerated. If you’re clumsy, you’d better know how to apply makeup to cover it up or you won’t work here long.”

  “What about scars?” I’d asked. I didn’t have any large scars, but here and there were marks from childhood.

  “I don’t hire women with scars,” he’d replied, ignoring my somewhat disgusted expression. As an interview, I had performed a set for him, complete with stripping, so he had seen me naked even before hiring me.

  I had never been clumsy, thank goodness, and when I did have a random bruise, my best stripper pal, Rita, helped me with the makeup. I thought the makeup was obvious, but on the stage in the da
rk room, it was invisible. And the men there weren’t looking at a bruised shin or bicep. They focused on my tits and ass.

  Shaking my head to rid myself of that creepy thought, I wandered to the tiny bathroom and turned on the equally tiny shower. I took my time undressing because the water wouldn’t be hot for at least two or three minutes. I’d asked the super about a million times to check my water heater, but he couldn’t ever seem to stop by when I wasn’t already in the shower. The man was a creeper, and I really didn’t want to be in the room alone with him anyway.

  So I bided my time, wandering around my apartment naked, waiting for the water to heat up. I grabbed a glass of water and walked back to the bathroom to wash the sweat off my body. I had nowhere to go but studying and bed, so I allowed myself a lengthy shower.

  I hurried to work in my nursing scrubs the next afternoon, a Thursday. The athletic shoes nursing students wore to ease the soreness of our backs after a long day of clinics squeaked as I entered the cool, dark atmosphere of Burlesque. I treasured my last few minutes in the sneakers before I had to put on my stilettos. I kept a pair or two of flip-flops in my locker for between sets. Occasionally, we were allowed to dance barefoot for different theme nights, but tonight was just a regular night.

  Beach night was probably my favorite theme, though the bikinis we wore were absolutely ridiculous and covered nothing but nipples and the barest essentials down below. But we got to play with beach balls, and the customers—those who wished to and paid the price—could join us on the stage, one or two at a time, and have us rub them down with tanning lotion. By the end of the night, everyone was greasy, and the club smelled like coconuts rather than booze.

  Mr. Carpenter had banned smoking years before I began working there, so the place never smelled of cigarette smoke, thank God. The men who could afford to join this club were not the type of men who smoked anyway, unless it was a cigar or two from Cuba—the most expensive kind—and Mr. Carpenter asked them to kindly step out onto the patio to enjoy their cigars.

  I meandered slowly through the tables—spotless after last night’s shows—and walked to the bar, shivering at the sudden cold blast from the air conditioner. The club was always freezing before it opened, but once the crowd of horny men surrounded the stage, the place heated up quickly.

  I glanced at the stage in the center of one wall with a catwalk that extended twenty feet from the main stage. Four poles were bolted to the stage and ceiling, one at each end of the catwalk and two on each side of the stage. Lights created a trail for the girls to follow, a sort of boundary that helped us place our feet safely. Falling off the stage not only meant a possible injury, it also meant being fired. Surrounding the catwalk and stage were the spotless tables with comfortable leather lounge chairs around them. In the bright fluorescent lights, the decorations were gaudy and seedy, almost frighteningly so. But the golds, reds, and blacks were perfectly elegant in the darker lighting, which had been fine-tuned for the eye’s pleasure.

  The bar was on the far side of the club, away from the stage and a bit of a walk in high heels, which was why I thanked God I wasn’t a waitress. The poor girls wore as little as we did when we walked out on stage, but they didn’t get the tips we did. And though it was an unkind thought, I knew it was true: the girls who were waitresses weren’t pretty enough to be on stage, though none of them were ugly. Mr. Carpenter did not hire ugly women. They were plain or cute, or too skinny or too chunky. They were tipped well and touched more often by the patrons, but the strippers made the real cash.

  I made enough cash each weekend to pay for my apartment, bills, and the small interest I had to pay on my student loans each month. On top of the tips slipped into my G-string—sometimes twenties and even a hundred if I performed a lap dance, which I rarely did—Mr. Carpenter, to maintain legalities for taxing purposes, paid each girl a small salary, much like a waitress makes. My check might only be a hundred dollars, but the tips made up for that small amount. The most I’d made in one weekend—a holiday weekend—was five grand. Typically, I made around a thousand to fifteen hundred for three days of work, which sounded like a lot until the cost of living in Atlanta and going to college was taken into account.

  The Thursday night bartender, Louis, wasn’t there yet, so I continued past behind the stage to our dressing rooms. I had learned quickly who to make friends with in this line of work—the DJ and the bouncers. The DJ was in charge of playing your music, and if he was mad, a girl’s music might not play and she’d have to wing it to whatever shit he felt like playing. Mr. Carpenter didn’t like it, but he didn’t stop it, either. A girl had to learn, after all, he would say. The bouncers watched out for the girls, protecting them from unwanted attention because, occasionally, one of these rich men thought they could do whatever they wanted because they had money. The bouncers also walked girls to their cars at the end of the night.

  And it didn’t hurt to make friends with the other girls, which I had made sure to do. Mostly, we were a close-knit group. We took care of each other, shared product if someone ran out, checked for stray hairs, and things like that, almost like a theater troupe. We had fun, we had spats, but overall, we helped each other through everything from breakups to bad customers. One gal, Carrie, whose dad had been a doctor, helped me study for exams between performances. And Rita and I had become the closest friends the day we met on my first day as a stripper.

  I’d been terrified. No one had seen me without clothes, let alone taking them off for watching eyes. My hands had shaken, and I bit my lip continuously. The girls had been nice, but only Rita stepped over to my dressing table.

  “Honey, you’re gonna bite a hole in those pouty lips,” Rita commented, brushing a fingertip over my lips to stop me.

  I’d giggled, a high-pitched, nervous sound. “I’m so nervous.”

  “Chica, with that body and that face, you have nothing to be nervous about,” Rita had assured me in her thick accent. And she’d been right. As soon as I stepped out on the stage and my music started, I danced like I was in my bedroom. I had a blast. The cheers were disconcerting, though certainly boosting for the self-esteem. I’d made five hundred that night and learned that I could do something most people thought was terribly inappropriate.

  I pushed open the door to the dressing room, which looked a lot like the green room for actors. Ten tables with lighted mirrors lined both walls, and little chairs were pushed under each, with a wall of lockers against the back wall. Each stripper had her own mirror and had decorated it with personal paraphernalia as well as makeup and random items for hair. Mine was mostly bare, with only the essentials of stripping cluttering the top, no pictures of family or friends. The girls asked occasionally, though only Rita knew that my parents had died while I was in high school.

  Rita was leaving the shower room in all her glorious nakedness as I walked in. Few of us had a shred of modesty left after working here for more than a week. Even I, the girl who had covered up in the locker room in high school, was comfortable walking around with nothing on.

  “Hey, Randi! How’s my chica?” Rita called, her sultry, smoky, accented voice as enchanting as her face. Rita was Brazilian and a favorite with the clients. Exotically beautiful, she had almond-shaped eyes that could stare through a man into his soul, or so they said, and she dressed those eyes with makeup like an artist. Her waist was small, her tits average, but her ass and legs were a man’s wet dream—tanned, toned, and perfect.

  “Going to class, kicking some ass,” I replied, winking at her when she laughed at me.

  “You know, for a girl who has an innocent air about her, you sure do have a mouth on you,” she told me.

  “Innocent my fucking ass,” I laughed, pretending, like I always did, that I wasn’t as innocent as a little girl. I was a cliché, the stripper with the heart of gold, another oxymoron. I was also a virgin, though no one knew it there, not even Rita. As far as any of them knew, I was too busy with school and work to have a boyfriend, which was true, but th
at I just wasn’t interested in sex was the bigger truth. Life had played that little trick on me early and stripped me of the desire for sex. “We can’t all be hos, you know.”

  “I’m not a ho,” Rita defended blandly, “I’m just a nympho!” We cackled at her inappropriate rhyme. “So, I’m going back to the samba routine for the next two weeks.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked. She’d been dancing to some pop rock she’d discovered on the hit station, which had seemed popular over the last couple of weeks.

  “Remember Andre? The Brazilian millionaire?”

  “The one we’re pretty sure is a high-ranking member of the drug cartel there?” I asked, gaping at her. “You know, the one I’m pretty sure I saw on the news who may or may not be responsible for the deaths of a shit-ton of people.”

  Rita shrugged. “Yeah, that one. He’s back in town and specifically requested me and the samba routine. Says it reminds him of home.”

  I scoffed and waved a hand dismissively. “Please, please don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like fuck him because he’s Brazilian.” I pinned her with a look.

  “That’s against the rules. I’d get fired,” Rita pointed out.

  “As if rules stop you.” I laughed though I didn’t want to joke about this.

  “I won’t fuck him. Promise,” Rita replied, crossing her heart with a painted nail. “But if he offers to take me away from all this, I’m not sure I’ll be able to say no.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “You’re a hoot.”

  “I’m something, alright. What are you dancing to tonight?” Rita asked, changing the subject she didn’t want to discuss.

  I glanced at her, worried, but answered her question. “I haven’t choreographed a new routine yet. I still have this weekend and next before I have to revamp my set.” Each girl had a set she created, and once a month, she had to change her music and choreograph a new routine. We were required to have two sets prepared at all times because some of the regulars noticed if a girl danced the same dance more than a handful of times.