by Zoey Parker
I was introduced, and the music started. Miss Ginger apparently liked pop music with a driving dance beat. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. I was going to leave Lucy behind and take Miss Ginger on stage to let her finally show herself off.
I hit the stage. I walked out underneath the lights. There was my color, and it kept changing with the music. I felt the bass pulsing through my body. I gave in to it. I started moving with it, and I could feel the energy coming at me. It wasn’t coming from the music or the lights.
The energy I felt on stage came from the shadowy figures sitting just beyond the lights. They were waiting for me to get closer. They were staring at me, and their eyes were pressuring me to take my clothes off while I danced. I tried to move seductively, just as I had in the office with Blade. I imagined his eyes on me, his hunger for me. I watched the eyes, working to see that same hunger in them.
It was a blast. I reached back and opened my top, letting it slide down from my shoulders to slowly reveal my breasts. I kept them cupped in my hands as I danced and teased my audience. Money appeared on the stage, and I danced for the hands that dropped it.
I turned away from the audience and slid my bottoms down off my ass in front of them. As anxious as I had been before going on stage, taking off my clothes felt liberating. It was my body, and I had nothing to be ashamed of.
Before walking on stage, I had only been comfortable enough with one person to show them my body. That had been Dylan. Dylan was an asshole, and he didn’t deserve the privilege of being the only person who had seen me naked.
I was about to show a room full of strangers my excellent body. I felt ownership over my body and my nudity for the first time in my life. The eyes watching me appreciated what they saw. I could feel the appreciation flowing past the lights.
I had to remind myself to keep dancing while I stripped. It wasn’t just taking off my clothes. I was taking my clothes off and working to mesmerize the men watching. I wasn’t even listening to the music anymore. I didn’t hear it; I felt it. I heard the men whistling and cheering as the new girl showed off her body for the first time.
I bent over just enough to tease them with the prize between my legs as I slipped off my bottoms, but I stood and turned around as they hit the floor. My breasts were no longer covered. My pale skin and pink nipples stood out in the lights.
I ran my hands over my breasts and squeezed them, pulling them up and letting them bounce back into place. More money, more cheers, more love and appreciation. I realized I was baring it all, and I gave myself completely to the movement of the lights and the music.
Before I knew it, the music stopped, and the announcer was coming through the system again. I couldn’t understand exactly what he was saying, but it sounded like he was commending me for a job well done. I grabbed my money and my clothes and swayed my hips as I walked off the stage, back into the dressing room.
“Good job out there tonight,” green eyes said when she saw me.
“Thanks.” I didn’t have a hand to shake or hug with.
“I’m Ariel,” she said, rubbing my arm to let me know she was accepting me.
“It’s good to meet you, Ariel,” I told her. I figured I’d get her real name eventually. Ariel was her stage name. She was up next, and the music started as she stepped through the curtain without any hesitation.
I went back to my chair in the dressing room and changed back into my regular clothes, pocketing my money. One of the things we had discussed that really did feel like special treatment was that Blade was not going to take any cut from my money like he did from the other girls.
My nerves hit me all of a sudden as I finished getting dressed. Suddenly, all the adrenaline of what I had just done hit me. I was in shock. I actually did it! And from what I could tell, I did all right.
I left the dressing room to look for Blade. He wasn’t in his office. I left the back and walked into the main room. The men in the audience were watching Ariel. They didn’t even notice me, fully clothed, as I walked through to the bar.
The bartender came over. “Good job tonight, doll,” she said.
“Thanks.” I reached across and shook her hand.
“Molly.”
“Miss Ginger,” I said, introducing myself the same way Ariel had introduced herself to me, using my stage name. Apparently, that was what people did around here.
She winked. “It’s okay, Lucy. I know your real name already. Looking for Blade?”
“Yeah. Is he around?” I asked, still looking around to see if I could spot him.
“He stepped outside. He’ll be back in any minute. Want a drink?” She picked up a shot glass. “It’s on the house for a job well done.”
“No thanks,” I said, laughing. I didn’t want to do anything else until I had a chance to talk to Blade about my performance.
“If you change your mind, come see me,” she said.
“Thanks.” I started to sit down, but the side door opened. I felt the warm air rush inside immediately.
Blade came in a moment later, emerging from the darkness back into the dim light of the club. He did not look happy, not at all. My stomach sank. I knew my performance sucked and he wasn’t happy with me about it.
“Let’s go to the office,” he said gruffly as he walked past me. I could smell whiskey and cigarette smoke on him.
I looked at Molly to see if she could give me any indication of what might have been wrong, but she shook her head and shrugged. I moved back from the seat and walked behind him. The dread in my stomach grew as we approached the back of the club and the office door.
I went over my performance in my head. I knew it had been my first time, but I didn’t think I could have been that bad. I tried to think about what I could have done wrong or what the other girls could have said to him about my performance.
I couldn’t think of anything.
He threw the door open to his office. It hit the wall with a thud. He walked past his desk but didn’t walk around it. He stood on the other side of it, facing away from me as I walked in. I was in some serious trouble. That much I knew for certain. That was the only thing I knew for sure.
I closed the door carefully behind me as I walked into the room. I was afraid to be in the room alone with him when he was angry. I had no idea what to expect from him, but I was a little scared I was about to see him live up to the stereotypes I believed about guys like him. I stood by the door so it would be easy to get out if I needed to.
“What did I do wrong?” I asked quietly.
Without turning around, he said in a hard, solid voice, “You are not going onstage again.”
Chapter 7
Blade
“What did I do?” Lucy asked me in a hurt tone.
It wasn’t her, but I didn’t know how to tell her that. I didn’t want her going back on that stage because she’d done too well. She had killed it out there. They loved her, but they loved her a bit too much for my taste.
I didn’t want her going back on that stage because I didn’t want to see those hungry eyes staring at her, lusting after her. She was too innocent, too pure for that sort of thing. I’d had no business putting her on that stage to begin with. She needed someone to help her get back on her feet and return to some semblance of normalcy. She didn’t need someone throwing her to the wolves like that.
It was disgusting how they’d stared at her with such perverse desires in their hearts and minds. I could read what they wanted to do to her in their faces. Watching them as they watched her, my protective instincts kicked in. The things I’d said to try to discourage her originally were true, and I didn’t want to see the stage do to her what it did to so many other girls.
“I originally told you no, and I’m going to have to stand by that after seeing you onstage tonight,” I told her, turning around to face her.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“You just can’t do it. I’m sorry,” I said. The last th
ing I wanted to do was admit that she was too talented for her own good on the stage. I didn’t want to encourage her in any way to continue or try harder.
“What the hell, Blade? If I did poorly, just tell me. I’ll get one of the other girls to show me what to do,” she snapped.
“No, you won’t. In fact, I’m going to let the girls close up, and I’m taking you home,” I fired back.
“Are you my father now?” she asked.
“No. Unlike your father, I’m not going to throw you out to fend for yourself, Lucy. You’re better than that,” I said. I knew it was a risky move to put her father down like that, but I wanted her to know that part of why I didn’t want her out there was because I was feeling protective. She was my girl, dammit, my prize. I didn’t want anyone else to have her.
She huffed and crossed her arms. She glared at me with resentment in her beautiful blue eyes. The look on her face threatened to melt me, but I refused to budge on the topic. She wasn’t going back out on that stage, and that was final.
“Furthermore,” I said, “you’re sleeping in my bed tonight, with me, as we discussed on the first night.”
She took a slow, deep breath. She’d been keeping odd hours to avoid sharing the bed with me, but that was going to stop. Instead of sleeping with me, she’d been cleaning and cooking for me in an effort to make me forget our agreement.
“Our original plan was that you were going to share my bed at night. You haven’t been upholding your end of the bargain. You’ve got a place to stay, food, and anything else you want or need. I even let you try out stripping and dancing for the night. I need something from you now.”
I had seen her naked on that stage with her hands running all over her body. She had shown herself off, and it made me want her even more than I had before. I was going to take her in my bed as soon as I got her in it. My hands wanted to be on her breasts. My cock ached to be inside her. I wanted to taste her and feel her all around me.
I wanted more than just sex with her, more than her body in my bed. I wanted to please her. I wanted to help her explore her pleasure, to figure out what she liked, what felt good, and what got her off. It was hard to explain what I wanted because I hadn’t wanted more than a piece of ass since my ex had left me.
“Okay,” she said meekly.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Okay, I’ve got it,” she said.
“No, I don’t think you do, Lucy. I’ve been nothing but nice to you, and you’ve been trying to run the show. You’ve been trying to have things your way without thinking about what that means for everyone else. I had no business putting you up on that stage tonight. You should have been at home, far away from all of this.” I took a step toward her.
She stood still, an unreadable look spreading across her face. Was she scared of me? Did she want me like I wanted her? I knew I should have cared, but the hunger for her blowing up in my chest was so powerful that I couldn’t think of anything else. I wanted her. Now.
It turned me on to be telling her what she was going to be doing, to be taking charge again. Ever since I had encountered her crying in the parking lot, I’d been bowing down before her. I even bent the rules to let her keep all of her money after going on stage. That was a surefire way to piss of the other girls, if they ever found out. It was time for me to take control.
“I don’t think you’ve got it at all,” I whispered huskily. I took a step closer. “Listen very closely. We’re going home, and when we get there, I’m going to do what I promised you I’d do a long time ago: I’m going to make you mine.”
Her eyes flared, still undecipherable, but there was a fire in there that I thought maybe, just maybe, I recognized. It didn’t matter. The time for words had passed. I didn’t want to talk to her about it. I just wanted to do it.
She backed up to the door and pressed herself against it. The flash in her eyes made my manhood throb against the dark jeans I wore. It wasn’t that she was afraid of me. It was that I had control over her at that point. I had power. I was putting her in her place and making her subservient before me. She was mine – and she liked it that way.
She trembled. Her breath even shook.
I stopped just in front of her. I reached around her for the doorknob.
“Come on, we’re going home,” I told her as I turned the knob and pulled the door open.
“Okay,” she said, shaking, as she slid around the door and into the hallway, as if touching me might be too much to handle right now.
She knew what we were building between us – the heat, the intensity. She had to know I was going to take everything from her when we got to the house. I was going to enjoy every inch of her delicious, tight body. I was going to have my prize.
She didn’t let me walk with her as we left. She stayed in front of me as we walked through the bar. I stopped to talk to Molly as Lucy walked through the door.
“I’m leaving early. Close up for me,” I said, tapping the bar.
She shook her head and smiled. “Can’t say I didn’t see it coming, Blade. Everyone has seen it coming.”
“Well, be quiet about it. I’m not sure anything’s even going to happen. What you saw onstage tonight isn’t really her. She’s a bit more repressed than that. I’m probably going to have to open her up a bit more before I can get anything out of her.” I tapped the bar and started to walk away to catch up to Lucy.
She was standing outside the door when I walked out. She was looking around the packed parking lot. I stepped up beside her, and she turned to face me. She didn’t have an angry or pouty look on her face anymore. She had a look I hadn’t seen yet, but I knew immediately what it was. I knew what it meant.
She grabbed me by my vest and pulled me against her, planting her lips on mine. Our mouths stayed closed together like that for what felt like an eternity. Her lips were as soft as I imagined clouds would have felt. Then, her lips parted and our tongues met. She rolled her hips against me while our mouths worked against each other.
I put a hand behind her head to hold her in place and a hand on the small of her back to hold her hips against me. She pressed her whole body into me while we kissed. I felt the desire emanating from her body.
I pressed my hips forward, pressing my erection against her. I wanted her to feel my desire as well. I grew harder and harder. I wanted to pull her into the shadows and take her right there against the building, right there where no one could see us.
She pushed me back suddenly, breaking the kiss. “Take me home,” she said.
“Not yet.”
I pulled her back to me and kissed her again. Her grip loosened on my vest, and she melted into me. She stopped resisting her desire and let her body crash into mine. That was when I let go of her. That was when I grabbed her hand and decided it was time to leave.
I pulled her with me through the parking lot toward my car, still reeling from our first kiss. There had been so much pent up passion and desire in the way she kissed me. I was going to take her back to my place and help her set the rest of her desire free.
Judging by the way she danced, I was willing to say Lucy wasn’t a virgin, but judging by the way she carried herself and her modesty, I was willing to say she hadn’t been with many men.
She seemed like she would have been inexperienced in bed, just as she had been onstage. Everything about her turned me on more and more. By taking her away from the prying eyes at the strip club, I was going to make her mine, all mine.
That meant having to find another way to help her, but I didn’t want to think about that at the moment. All I wanted to think about was finally getting her into bed with me and claiming her for myself, at least for a short time.
I did wonder if I would still feel protective over her after we slept together. I hadn’t felt protective over anyone like this in years. It had been so long that it was almost a new feeling all over again.
We got to the car, and I unlocked the passenger side door for her. I held it open and kissed her quickly o
n her lips before she slid into the seat. I closed the door and walked around to the driver side. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves before getting in the car.
I was leaving The Bounce House in the middle of the busiest night we’d had in a long time. I backed out of the parking space and put the car in drive. I was confident the girls could handle the club as well as I was going to handle the hot little strawberry blonde in the seat next to me.
Chapter 8
Lucy
I was nervous leaving the club with Blade. I was nervous because I wanted him so much, because I thought I would develop feelings after sleeping with him.
I had done that before, with Dylan. To be fair, I had fallen in love with him long before we slept together. There was no comparison between the situation with him and what was happening with Blade. I had been sleeping at odd times for the last few days specifically to avoid sleeping with him because I hadn’t wanted to complicate or confuse the situation between us.