by Lexie Syrah
“Building more strip clubs isn’t the way to do it. This is your club. Not one twenty miles away. The other club will make more money, but it won’t be the same. You’ll lose the single-minded focus that has let you be so successful. You have find a different way to keep building your empire without losing yourself in the process.”
I looked at the floor and said, “You’re right, Viv. I don’t know what to do, though. I’m tired. I’ve worked 12 to 18 hours a day for three years now, and there’s a part of me that just wants to take the money and run.”
“Then just relax. Take tomorrow off. Check your emails and everything, but do it from the house. Rest up, and take a girl home with you tonight. Maybe the one that you hired today. Or maybe just a random girl from the club. That way you can use and abuse her without worrying about whether she’ll be able to dance tomorrow night.”
I turned to hold Vivian around the waist and said, “Thank you for helping me like this. For being the one to hold me up when I feel like I’m falling.”
Vivian stared into my eyes for just a second before breaking away from our embrace. “Come on downstairs for a while. Your new girl should be getting here soon, right? Let’s watch her try to make some money while we chat with some of our old friends.”
She grabbed my wrist, and I followed her out of my sanctuary down the stairs to where the real party was starting. Day shift was for the businessmen who didn’t want their wives to know, but night shift was for the people who didn’t give a fuck. They were the wild ones that would drop their entire paycheck on a night worth of booze, atmosphere, and sex with a woman that would never have given them a second look.
When I had gone downstairs earlier, it had been relaxing in the nearly empty room. There was nothing relaxing about the atmosphere now. The walls reverberated with the beat that the DJ was playing, the smell of cigarettes and booze mingled with sweat and lust into an intoxicating mixture that would drive anyone to do things that they’d regret tomorrow. It was this atmosphere that my business was built on. The floor out here was all about the tease, the booze was about lowering the inhibitions, and the back rooms were to collect every dime that the hundreds of patrons could muster up.
A waitress walked by in a corset and thong and offered Vivian and myself a drink. We turned her down, and continued to wander around the club. We had seven stages in the club, but tonight only four had strippers on them right now. Fucking Wednesdays. There were still a hundred people sitting at tables and around the stages. I saw a city council member that I knew and interrupted his conversation with a blonde bimbo. He immediately got up and shook my hand, completely ignoring the woman he had been fingering a second ago.
“How have you been, Blake? I haven’t seen you around for a while!” I knew he had a wife and three children, and he knew that I had video-tapes of him being fucked in the ass by a big tittied stripper in my club.
“I’ve been good, John. I’ve been working on a big project lately and have been leaving the club in Carlos’s hands. I hear that you’ve been doing good work at the council. I’m glad that you’ve pushed so hard to keep from rezoning this area. I really appreciate the support from such a valued VIP member. The last thing anyone needs is to have our little club be scrutinized because someone wants to build a residential area across the highway.”
He was sweating bullets because he’d been markedly absent from all of the city council meetings involving the rezoning. His supporters other than myself were all businessmen who kept their noses clean. A new residential area would be a boon for them, but it would be disastrous for me. Luckily, I had several other council members in my pocket other than John. As long as he wasn’t voting for the rezoning, he wasn’t hurting me. It was always better to keep people on their toes than to let them think they could get away with things though.
“Well, I hope you and your friend have a good night, John.” I looked at his girlfriend and saw how her eyes kept flitting among the nearly naked women in the club. “If either of you want to take a trip to the VIP rooms tonight, just let me know and I’ll make sure that someone comes by to help you enjoy yourselves.”
The blonde looked up at me with wonder in her eyes. John would be getting laid tonight just for being an important person at the hottest club in town. Women loved power, and being invited to the VIP room at Bound Temptations meant that you were someone important unlike other clubs where you could just buy your way in.
I walked away and saw an actual friend from the old days getting a lap dance from Bianca, one of the only girls to wear a black scarf. She was only five foot tall, and with her abnormally petite body and brunette pig-tails, she looked like jail-bait even though she was 24. Her small A-cup tits were in Hank’s face, and her hand was at his crotch. I knew that she was whispering in his ear about all of the dirty things she’d do for him in the VIP room.
Hank was a giant of a man from my past. I’d worked for him, hanging dry-wall when I sixteen. I had been homeless at the time, and when I’d applied at his office, he’d offered to pay me under the table as long as I showed up every day. It had given me a chance to stay away from the drug game and still keep a roof over my head. I’d worked my ass off for him, but he’d paid me fairly, and we’d kept in touch ever since.
Hank wasn’t a stranger to the club. He knew exactly what he could find hidden behind that velvet curtain since he’d been one of the first regulars in the club. That was back when the prices were low and the girls were uglier. I sat down across from Hank and someone he had brought. Vivian sat down next to me, and I told Bianca, “Sweetheart, why don’t you give someone else a dance. I need to talk to Hank.” She smiled back at me and got up even though I knew she was frustrated. Hank was a known big spender, and he almost always ended the night in a VIP room.
Hank turned to me and gave a full-belly laugh when he realized who had just cut his dance short. “Hell Blake, I thought I was going to have to take someone outside when that cute little thing stopped dancing. How have you been? Oh yeah, this is Ryan, my new VP.”
I reached my hand out to shake the black haired young man’s hand. He seemed intense, and for a second, I almost saw boredom in his eyes. “Good for Hank. He needs someone that’s serious to back him up,” I thought.
“Nice to meet you Ryan. I hope you’re enjoying your time at my club.”
“I’d never been here before, so when Hank heard, he told me that he was bringing me whether I wanted to or not.” I knew he wasn’t making it up. Hank had a way of ignoring what people actually wanted.
“If you’re interested, we could find a girl to give you a dance.” He shook his head, and Hank said, “Oh this one’s too serious to be interested in paying a girl to dance. I would expect that he’d enjoy the back rooms, though. If you were interested in another VIP member, Blake.” I hadn’t done any research into the young man, and there was no way I was going to let someone that focused behind the curtain without knowing his history.
“If you’re interested, Ryan, I can take down some of your information, and then I’ll give you a call after we’ve done due diligence on your background. I’m sorry that I can’t give you a card tonight, though. It’s only for the most elite patrons of the club.”
Ryan nodded and sipped his Scotch while he watched the girl on the stage. “So Hank, how’s the construction business going?”
“Oh, it’s booming Blake. We just got a million dollar contract with the mall downtown to remodel. It’s a three month contract, so we’re going to have our best year ever.” He pulled out a cigar from his case, cut the tip, and lit it. The scent of honey filled our table as large puffs of smoke bellowed from the large man.
“That’s fantastic. Maybe then you can finally retire and enjoy all of the money that you’ve managed to horde, you cheap old bastard.” Hank laughed and started coughing as he inhaled a big puff of smoke.
Vivian’s soft laughter at the old man’s antics made me smile. She was right about needing to spend some time with old friends so th
at I could relax. When Hank finally caught his breath, he said, “What would I do if I retired? Mary passed away 10 years ago and all of the kids have moved off. I’d end up drinking and whoring myself to an early death.” He was right. The old man didn’t have anything to fill his time other than work.
“But Hank, you’re too damn stubborn to die as long as you’ve got your scotch and whores. If someone took those away, I’d believe it, but until then, I couldn’t imagine you dying anytime soon.”
Chapter 6: Punishment
Hank smiled at me and took another puff on his cigar. All of a sudden, I heard a commotion on the other end of the club. I jumped out of my seat, and ran to it. Girls were screaming, and I heard a table break as a 300 pound Mexican threw another man through it. My street instincts kicked in, and I shoved people out of the way to get to the tattooed giant. I saw the tats on his arm and knew what was happening. I picked up a bar stool and swung it as hard I could from the side of the big bastard.
The seat hit him squarely in the nose, and I heard the sickening crunch as bones shattered. He crumpled to the ground, and I gave him a swift kick to the side of the head to make sure that he stayed down. I didn’t want that son of a bitch standing up behind me. I was big. I was strong. But there was no way in hell I would be able to do anything if he wrapped those meaty arms of his around me.
The small guy who’d broken his fall on my table was trying to stand up and was having trouble. He looked like he was from a South American country but didn’t have any markings on his body that I recognized. I called the bouncers over to me. “Carry these guys to the warehouse and put them in the chairs.”
Carlos came up to me then and said, “What the fuck happened?” I shook my head and watched as the three bouncers tried to carry the unconscious Mexican but ended up just dragging him. He would be an even uglier bastard if he didn’t get that nose checked out. I questioned calling 911, but decided against it. They broke the rules of the club, and there was no mercy for people that broke the rules, even if they were ignorant of them.
“That big Mexican is part of LM, and I have no idea who the other guy is. Fucking fights aren’t going to happen in my club. Everybody knows the rules.” I turned to follow the bouncers as they escorted the little guy to the back room.
I quickly got on the phone with the head of the Legion de la Muerte or LM as they were normally referred to.
“Santiago, I just broke up a fight in my club that involved one of your guys. His nose is broken and I’m taking him to the back to deal with his transgressions. Do you have a problem with me taking care of the problem, or do you need to come down here to witness it?”
Santiago had made a name for himself as a cruel bastard who took inspiration from the Mexican cartels for punishing anyone who pushed him the wrong way. His favorite punishment was the old art of flaying someone alive. He was a sick son of a bitch, but if there was one thing he was known for, it was his belief in rules and laws. Obviously, he had no care for the rules of the common man, but in our world, the one that lay in the shadow of society, he lived by the unwritten rules.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know. Some 6 foot 5 inch, 300 pound bald Mexican with LM tats on his arm.”
“Fucking Ernesto. Do what you need to, pero don’t maim the pendejo.” I hung up the phone.
Nobody wanted the neutral ground to be fucked up. It was too useful for everyone if they knew that they could talk in safety. They hadn’t initially thought it would be a good thing, but eventually all of the powerhouses had warmed up to it, and they had agreed to the terms that I set for punishments.
My idea to have a no-man’s land was one of the things that allowed the club to climb to the top so quickly. Within the first three months, it was the number one club in the city, and most of the reason was because no one was afraid of getting shot or beat up while they were here. It didn’t matter who you were, if you were on my property, you were safe, and I made sure of it. Even if someone didn’t know the rules, they were subject to the same punishment.
I texted Vivian to tell her what had happened and where I was before I walked into the warehouse. Boxes of booze were stacked against the walls, but in the center were two steel-framed specially made for this specific purpose: punishment. The stainless steel that they’d been made from reflected the bright lighting of the warehouse and burned my unadjusted eyes. The chairs were simple. The metal was heavy and sturdy to hold the largest of prisoners, and there were attached handcuffs for the prisoners’ ankles.
The wrist restraints were a personal invention, though. The prisoner would put his hand through a cuff and their fingers would enter “finger restraints” made of steel. They solved a very unusual problem: men had a tendency to make a fist when they were scared or angry, which all prisoners would have at least one of those emotions. The finger restraints combined with a manacle across the wrist made it to where the man would be unable to close his fist or move his hand.
Ernesto was dripping with water, spouting curse word after curse word in Spanish, and the other guy was sitting quietly.
“What the fuck were you two thinking? You knew the rules, didn’t you?”
“Let me fucking go. You don’t know who you’re fucking with, esé.” Ernesto was going to be a pain in ass.
“Ernesto, I just talked to Santiago. His only request was that I didn’t maim you. If you’d like, I can call him back up and tell him that you’re not cooperating.” Ernesto’s eyes got big at the mention of his boss’s name, and he shut the fuck up in a hurry.
One of the bouncers handed me the bag of tools that I’d need. I opened it and pulled out the butane torch and the brand, a foot long solid iron bar that ended in an ‘X’. Ernesto was breathing heavy as he watched me begin to heat the X of the brand with the torch. The South American guy was silent as he glared at Ernesto and then at me.
Anyone who broke a rule of the treaty that all of the major illegal organizations in the area had agreed to was given a choice, be dealt with by their leaders or accept a brand that would ban them from entering the club again. If the rule-breaker chose to go back to their organization and be punished there, the entire organization would be barred from club until adequate punishment was dealt and the club provided me with reparations typically in the form of large cash donations. Almost no one opted to leave without the brand.
The brand was giving off heat waves as I brought it to Ernesto so that he could see the red-hot iron. The room was silent other than his whimpering as I slowly placed the X on the back of his hand. Immediately, his skin began to sizzle and smoke rose from it. Ernesto screamed in pain as I held it tightly to him. He tried to pull away as everyone did, but the chair held him perfectly in position. I could see that he was pulling hard enough that the manacle was breaking the skin and a jagged cut circled the fleshy part of his wrist.
After ten seconds, I pulled the brand off of him, and smoke continued to rise from his burnt flesh. He looked down at the brand that would be a part of him for the rest of his life. He would go back to his gang, and I wouldn’t have any more problems from them for a while. Eventually people would forget, though, and then I’d get more use out of my chairs.
I put the torch back to the brand as the nameless man watched me. He was silent as he followed every movement that I made. I was wearing my Master’s smile the entire time, and I wondered if Autumn would have wanted to interview for her red scarf if she’d seen me doing this. The brand didn’t take very long to warm back up to a crimson glow, and unlike Ernesto, this guy stared into my eyes silently with a burning hatred as the smoke rose from his charred flesh. His body shook, but no sound came from him. I cocked my head to the side as he sat stoically in the chair.
This was new. Everyone screamed, shouted, or cried. Everyone. I pulled the brand off of him and placed it on the ground next to the bag. This guy’s reaction made me hesitate to let him out of the chair. Now that I thought about it, he hadn’t said anything since I’d broken up the fight.
That was strange as well. He was not your average thug. I tried to shake the bad feeling that had flooded me.
“Unlock them,” I told the bouncers, and it was like I’d just slapped them out of a daydream. The three bodybuilders jumped to the task and started unlocking the restraints as Ernesto whimpered and the other guy glared. His eyes still hadn’t left my face as though he were trying to memorize every feature.
When they were free, Ernesto pushed himself out of the chair and held his hand tenderly as one of the bouncers escorted him outside of the club. He’d call one of the LM guys to give him a ride. The mute stood up and walked out as well, but he didn’t seem to even notice the burn that still smoldered.
I shook my head at his strange pain-tolerance, and left the warehouse to go back to the club. Carlos had already cleaned up the broken table and replaced it. It was almost as though it hadn’t ever happened. The girls were dancing and the money was flowing like wine at a Bacchanalia.