Tameless

by Gilmore, Jess

  Nothing would have been normal if I’d only been a stripper. There was too much temptation around. I could drink in moderation and handle it, no problem. But the drugs, not so much. And there was no shortage of drugs at the club. Some of the girls who danced there would bring them, the selling point being that it would make it easier to detach from what you were doing. I had resisted successfully for a long time. I had my own way of detaching.

  The sign at the front entrance to the club, the one listing all the rules, stated that there was to be no touching of the dancers. That applied to the other six nights, when the girls were dancing. On ladies night, that rule didn’t exist. They were allowed to touch, just not under the g-string, which we had to keep on at all times, keeping us from walking around with our dicks swinging in the air.

  I never got hard while I was working because I quickly developed my own way of detaching. The first step, as that more experienced dancer had told me, was to not focus on the customers’ faces. Some of the female dancers I had met said the same thing.

  So while I was being felt up, my mind would go elsewhere. I’d remind myself it was just a job. I was doing it for the money. I wouldn’t be doing it for very long. I’d think about the day job, the spreadsheets listing all of the wines and which stores were selling which brands more than others. I’d think about the displays I had set up, following the schematics provided by the wine-makers.

  But there were times when I would slip and think too much about what I was doing. Sometimes I even thought to myself: You are one small step away from being a male prostitute…what’s the ridiculously sounding word for it…ah, yes…gigolo! You’re almost a gigolo.

  Fuck.

  The truth was, I never touched the women. Maybe their shoulders, their knees, but that’s it. I’d never tried to remove a customer’s shirt. Never even thought about lowering my g-string so a customer could touch and stroke my cock.

  But that’s exactly what I found myself doing last night. Literally my last night. Having more fun with this girl because she was quiet and seemed shy and that kind of thing turns me on. And she had a great body. Those tits. If the song hadn’t ended, if our time wasn’t up, I’m not sure I would have been able to stop after sliding my cock between them. Unless she had freaked and run out of the room.

  Confession: I hadn’t had sex in four months. It was driving me crazy. The girl in the VIP room was too tempting—her brown hair, my favorite color; her tan skin to match, another favorite; big tits, enough said.

  I was recalling all of that the next day as I was doing an inventory count in a grocery store. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the wine section wasn’t busy. I was trying to concentrate on the count, but all I could think of was that I wished I had stolen a few looks at that girl’s face. I had stuck to the rule of not looking at her face, and for the first time, I regretted the hell out of that rule.

  All thoughts of last night and the mystery hottie vanished when my cell rang. I looked at the screen and saw who was calling: Meghan. Or, as she was known at the club: Skye. She was a dancer, a girl I had hooked up with shortly after starting the job, and it had gone on for two months before I couldn’t take it anymore.

  She was heavily into drugs, but she had a nearly flawless way of concealing it. I just couldn’t be around it anymore, so I stopped seeing her. Stopped taking her calls. Stopped responding to her texts. No matter how hot she was, the temptation of drugs wasn’t worth it.

  But I had eventually given in when she left a frantic voicemail about having been arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute. She was bonded out of jail—don’t ask me how—and she was calling me for help. I told her she did need help, but not from me.

  Since then, she’d become the psycho-ex everyone worries about having in their lives. Unpredictable. Vengeful. Desperate. And a world-class liar.

  I let the call go to voicemail, but she didn’t leave one. Instead, she texted: Please please help me my electricity is going to get cut off and I only need 60 more bucks please Wes?!

  Chapter Three - Dawn

  I should explain about Scott. I’d known him since we were kids, middle school to be exact. We started dating in our senior year of high school, and continued through college, though that was mostly summers and holidays since our schools were so far apart. Now that we were both back in town for good after graduating, our annual casual dating period turned into a full-time, year-round deal.

  I’m deliberately not using the word “relationship” because it wasn’t like that at all. It was more like something we fell into once we were back home. It was routine, mundane, the kind of thing you start doing and then keep doing just because it’s what you’ve been doing.

  If it sounds as sad as it does boring, you’re right. Sometimes I’d think of it more like one of those marriages people stay in “for the kids” (although we weren’t married and didn’t have kids), or one of those marriages in which people stay together because they both have busy, time-consuming, demanding careers, and home life is easy and predictable and they don’t even have time to divorce (even though we didn’t have serious careers and we didn’t live together).

  Scott and I were together because…we were together. There was almost no other reason, except for the pesky little fact that our parents were close friends and the whole thing had come to feel like I was expected to be with him. I sensed that he felt the same way about me, but neither of us ever brought it up.

  We just didn’t click. At all. Nothing in common. And, worst of all from my perspective, there was no intensity in our sex life.

  But his parents seemed to adore me, and I know beyond any doubt that my parents loved him and hoped I would marry him.

  Despite how frustrated I come across while talking about him, I cared about Scott. I really did. I hoped he would realize his goal of becoming mortgage banker. I really did. I hoped he would father a kid or two and I knew he’d make a good father. I really did.

  I just didn’t want any of that with him.

  He had asked me about the bachelorette party. I hesitated at first, then played off that hesitation by acting like it hadn’t been anything exciting. And that’s how I portrayed it. Nothing special. After all, what was I going to do? Tell him that the six or so minutes I was alone in that private room with the dancer was the most exciting sexual experience I’d had in years?

  I didn’t want to admit it to him, for fear that I’d sound like a bad person, but also, truthfully, I didn’t want to hurt him. He didn’t deserve to be hurt. If I had a way of easing out of this situation—some kind of spark, a catalyst, something to push me in that direction—I would take it, but I didn’t want to trample on Scott’s heart in the process.

  . . . . .

  Corrine’s wedding came and went, Christmas and New Years came and went, all of which brought some happiness and joy. But as the new year began, I was falling into the rut again because there was really nothing “new” about it.

  So this year was just another year.

  I decided to drown the self-pity by shopping after work one day. Always a good idea.

  I kept looking at this guy who was browsing in the men’s clothing section right next to where I was looking at shoes. His hair was shorter than it was seven years ago, now just long enough to mess up, and brown, darker than it used to be. And he was bigger than I remembered. Bigger in the sense of broader shoulders. Like he’d taken up working out, which would be a good sign that he had changed his ways, if true. I kept glancing over, trying to look at him without being noticed. That face. Yes, it was him.

  “Wes?” I finally said.

  His head turned toward me, removing what little doubt still remained in my mind. He looked at me for a couple of seconds, then said, “Hi?” His eyebrows raised up a little on his forehead, but I got the feeling it was more from trying to place me rather than being surprised at seeing me.

  “It’s Dawn,” I said, smiling.

  His eyes widened.

 
I took a few steps toward him, stopping on the carpet at the edge of the women’s shoe section, a walkway of tiled floor separating us. I didn’t want to rush up to him and hug him. Okay maybe I did. But I also wasn’t sure how he would react to seeing me.

  “Dawn.” His voice was lower than it had been seven years ago. Deeper, smoother. A man’s voice, rather than the voice of an eighteen-year-old still in the process of becoming an adult. “Wow. Hi. I’m sorry…I didn’t….”

  I waved off his apology. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t expect you to recognize me.” My heart started beating faster in my chest. Was he okay with this? Would he quickly put a stop to this with some reason why he had to go? I had no idea if he would even want to talk to me. The last time we’d seen each other all those years ago, it wasn’t exactly the greatest situation, and certainly not the goodbye either of us would have wanted.

  “Is this…okay?” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course. It’s really good to see you.”

  My nerves calmed a bit. “You, too. You look great.”

  “Thanks.” He shook his head a little, his eyes drifting from my face, down my body, and then he quickly caught himself. He laughed, and I laughed with him. “You look great, Dawn. I didn’t recognize you at all.”

  “Well, it’s been seven years, and I was about to turn eighteen at the time. Plus,” I said, “no braces,” and gave him a big smile, almost showing off my teeth like I was a child.

  “Right.” He nodded, and I could see him processing all of this. As surprised as I was to see him, it was becoming clear that he was more surprised than I was.

  I decided to take the initiative and step across the tiles, right up to Wes, and I put my arms out. He bent down slightly—not as much as he used to the few times we hugged back then. As we embraced each other, I smelled the leather of his jacket and some kind of mild cologne.

  “So, how are things?” I asked, after he released me.

  He touched his fingers to his chin, a nervous action I’d never seen Wes do before. “A lot better than the last time you saw me.” Nervous laugh.

  All I could do was smile. It was good to see him like this.

  “What are you doing these days?” he asked.

  I told him about just having graduated from college, but not finding the job I wanted yet, and so I was working retail. “A cosmetics store here in the mall, of all things. I’ve really hit the big time.” My words were drenched in sarcasm.

  “You do what you have to.”

  “True,” I said. I felt bad for being so sarcastic about my current job. There was nothing wrong with it. I had just been hoping for more. And since I had no idea what kind of work he might be doing, I had inadvertently run the risk of making him feel like I was going to judge him.

  He fidgeted with the items he was holding. “I figured you would have been running Sea World by now.”

  I had always wanted to work in marine biology, and Wes had been my biggest cheerleader for chasing my dream. Not because he was particularly interested in it, but he knew I was and he knew it’s what I wanted to do with my life.

  “Uh, no,” I said.

  “I’m kidding. I know you hate that kind of thing. Or used to.”

  “Oh, I still do,” I said. “But, yeah, you’re close. I should be doing something related to the ocean, but it’s been tough finding a job. Anyway, an undergrad and grad school degree later, here I am at the mall selling lipstick and mascara.”

  I asked him what he was up to lately, and as he told me about his job as a wine sales rep, he was having a hard time keeping eye contact with me. He looked over my shoulders, left and right; he fumbled with the hangers on a rack of clothes, nervously straightening them out and lining them up; he even looked down at the floor a few times. Was he nervous? Embarrassed about something? Worried that I’d ask for the details of his seven-year absence?

  I wasn’t going to get too deep into it, but I did wonder something. “Did you stay around here or are you just coming back?”

  He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. Not like he was annoyed. Total nervous move. I kind of wished I hadn’t asked the question.

  “Just moving back,” he said. “Actually, I’ve been back about six months now.”

  He asked where I had gone to college. I told him, and then said I’d been back in town about a year, and then I wasn’t sure what else to say. This was a complete shock, running into him.

  “Are you busy?” I asked. “Want to grab lunch, maybe?” There might have been a little too much pleading in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to talk to him, but standing here in the middle of the store wasn’t a good place, and it felt like any second it could be over. Getting something to eat, sitting down, was much more preferable.

  He wasn’t looking at me when I asked. He’d been looking over my shoulder again. But his eyes darted back to mine after he heard what I said. Those eyes—I remember them well, but they had a somewhat different look now, brighter, more…alive. There was a sad sort of deadness in his eyes right before he left back then. It was one of the things I thought of most whenever he came to mind.

  “Ah, you know…I actually have to get back to work. I’m just on a break now.”

  Trying to hide my disappointment, I reached into my bag and cast my gaze downward so he wouldn’t see the regret in my eyes. “Well, here. Give me your number and I’ll give you mine.” I looked up. “I mean, if you want to talk sometime?”

  Wes looked at me for a couple of seconds, lowered his voice, and said, “I’m sure your parents would just love that.” Smirk.

  I felt my stomach turn and tighten, a reaction to the guilt I felt over how my parents, especially my dad, had treated him at the end.

  “I’m an adult now,” I said. “So I can make my own decisions.” I grinned, letting him know it was okay. What I didn’t tell him was that he was probably correct about my parents’ reaction, and I also didn’t tell him I was living at home again.

  He reached into his slacks pocket and pulled out his phone.

  We both started to say our numbers at the same time. Pleasant laughter. It broke the tension, and it reminded me of how we used to do that a lot, sometimes even finishing each other’s thoughts. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

  “Give me your number,” he said. “I’ll send you a quick text.”

  I gave him my number. We had to move out of the way as an employee rolled out a cart full of boxes.

  Wes had been holding a couple of shirts and he put them back on the rack. “It was good seeing you again.”

  This was starting to feel awkward. I tried not to let the negative thoughts take over, telling me that we wouldn’t be able to catch up again, make some kind of connection after all this time. No, it was just the setting, I told myself. Such an unexpected thing, and we were right here in public. That’s all it was.

  “So, we’ll talk?” I said.

  “Anytime.”

  I guess he was leaving it up to me to make contact.

  Neither of us moved. Getting more awkward now…

  So, I took a step back, wanting to hug him again, thinking of all the times I wished I had done something to make it all right for him back then.

  “Bye,” I said.

  “See ya.”

  As I was leaving the store, it occurred to me that I had never seen him at a loss for words. I’d never seen him appear even slightly nervous.

  I was also thinking: HO-LEE. FUCK!

  Chapter Four - Wes

  You’re probably thinking: Didn’t he recognize her from the strip club a couple of months ago?

  The answer is yes, yes I did. But not right away.

  When I first heard my name being called and saw who it was, I turned and immediately thought: How does she know my real name? I always used a fake one in the club.

  She was my very last customer, the one I had gone further with than any other woman I had danced for.

  But that recognition lasted onl
y a couple of seconds. When she told me her name, it was as though every aspect of the way she currently looked fell away, and there before me stood the Dawn I knew as a teenager.

  And then, again in the span of just a couple of seconds, the two thoughts merged: My last customer was the girl I had grown up with, under the same roof, and several weeks ago I had sucked on her tits and she’d played with my cock.

  So while I was surprised to see Dawn after all these years, the fact that she was the girl in the private room at the club made the whole situation a double shock.

  My brain was doing a terrible job of sorting out all of this, screaming a warning to me: She knows! She knows it was you in that private room!

  But she didn’t know.

  Her lack of braces wasn’t the only thing that made her look different now. Her hair, formerly a strawberry-blonde color, was now a deep, rich brown. And it was shorter than she’d ever worn it when we were teenagers. It was now cut in almost a bob, barely touching her shoulders, all the same length with the right side pulled back and secured with a barrette.

  My God, she had grown up a lot since I had last seen her. Truth was, she was always attractive, hot even, but she must have been kind of a late bloomer and done most of that blooming after I left.

  It became obvious to me fairly quickly that she didn’t recognize me from the club. It didn’t surprise me. For one thing, I had grown as well. I’d filled out, gained some muscle weight. My hair was different now than it ever was as a teenager. It used to be sandy blonde, literally—all that salt and sand from all the time I spent on the beach and riding waves. Plus, I’d had it slicked back, flat on my head that night I had danced for her. Then there was the mask, which covered three quarters of my face.