by Alexis Gold
“Now baby, don’t you fret. Your makeup still looks amazing. You look beautiful. Don’t you think on that awful night too much. You’re right, it never should have happened, but it did and here we are. It’s always going to hurt, and you’re always going to hold on to the memory of her, so just hold on to the good times and let the bad things go. No good can come of them, so there isn’t any reason to hold on to them.
Just be here now, and do the best thing that you ever could for your best friend. You look after her baby girl, and give her all the love and care that her mama would have given to her if she’d had the chance. And honey, that’s just what you’re doing. You just keep on doing it, and you’ll do right by her, and you’ll do right by Jenny. That little girl is in the best place she could be right now because you were so good and so selfless to take her in. Nobody but you could love her as much as her mama did. Things have worked out in the face of adversity. Just you mind that. It’s a different road than we all thought we’d be on, but we’re on it together, and we have each other, and that’s the main thing.” She gave Callie a wide smile and a kiss on the cheek.
Callie nodded and wiped her cheeks and eyes dry. “You’re right, Mama. Thank you. You always have such wise words for me. I appreciate it.”
Noel gave her a pat on the back. “Now, you go off to work and be careful tonight, do you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am. I’m always careful.” She managed to give her mother a smile and then she kissed her cheek and headed out of the door. Her thoughts stayed on her friend as she drove her old car to work. They would all be on very different paths if one man had less to drink, or had called a taxi or a friend, or had been delayed even one minute. But life turns on a dime, she thought to herself. It’s crazy how things happen, simple little things that change everything.
Callie pulled up to the strip club and parked her car in the back, giving the back door a dark look. She hated stripping, but she needed the money badly and there was nothing else that she could do while going to college, raising Jenny with her mother, and needing a good income. Callie was a very beautiful woman; everyone told her so, and when she had received guardianship of Jenny, she was just starting out as a college student with no money. She had no idea how she was going to come up with the money to raise a little girl until one of her friends told her that she could strip.
At first the idea was repulsive to her and she wouldn’t consider it, but she knew that the cost of herself and five-year old Jenny living with her mother was too great a financial burden, but they had nowhere else to go, so she found a strip club that would hire her without any experience. Two of the seasoned dancers there took her in and showed her how to dance.
It wasn’t more than a few nights before she had gotten it down enough that she started making more money than she ever had in her life. She couldn’t believe how much money men would pay for the temptation of sex with a beautiful woman they couldn’t have.
She told herself that she was only going to do it for a few months, but then the months turned into years, and she became one of the seasoned dancers there. She made enough money that she, Noel, and Jenny were able to not only live comfortably and have no real need, but it also allowed her to do extra things for Jenny like the ballet classes and it helped to pay for Callie to keep going to school without having to get student loans. She promised herself that one day she would never have to take her clothes off for a man unless she wanted to, and she promised herself that that day would be sometime in the near future.
Locking her car, she went into the empty club and waved hello to the bartender as she walked up to him. Max was handsome with wavy black hair and bright blue eyes. He was always behind the bar unless someone got unruly, and then he was out from behind it quicker than a flash. There were bouncers, but if Max came out, everyone knew that the trouble would be done immediately. He took good care of the girls there, and he wound up marrying one of them, though after they were married, he insisted that she stop dancing.
Callie went to him and gave him a hug in greeting and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Hey, Max.” She smiled at him. He had been there longer than anyone, and he had seen a lot of people come and go, but he always treated everyone with respect.
“Hey Callie. How are things going for you?” He gave her a smile and the dimple in his chin deepened.
“Good, I think. Pretty good. Jenny is going to audition for the lead role in The Sleeping Beauty production that her ballet academy is doing.” She gave him a smile as she told him, thinking about it.
He grinned. “I bet she’s excited about that! You tell her good luck from me, or break a leg, or whatever they say.”
Callie lowered one brow and leaned in close to him. “Actually, they say merde.”
Max looked confused. “What’s that?”
“It’s literally French for crap. It’s the ballet world’s version of break a leg, which is saying the opposite of what you want to happen, I guess, but it’s what they say.” Callie shrugged.
His expression shifted to surprise. “You let Jenny say crap?”
Callie sighed and smirked disapprovingly. “Well… they all say it, it’s tradition, and it’s in another language, so it’s not as vulgar, I guess. It’s part of the package, I think. There’s not really a way of getting around it.”
He shrugged too.“Well, if that’s the tradition.” He laughed. “I think I might start saying that around here. Merde. No one will know what I’m saying.” Chuckling to himself he went back to wiping glasses clean. “Merde tonight on your dancing.” He teased her.
Callie nodded and gave him a wink. “That’s it!”
She walked back to the dressing room and saw two other women in the room getting ready for their own dancing that night. One was a pale redhead with bright blue eyes. Callie went to her and hugged her warmly, kissing her on the cheek. “Hey Trixie.” She smiled, and Trixie grinned back at her.
Callie hugged the other woman next; a dark haired Mexican beauty who was feisty and fun. “Hey Felicity.” Felicity gave her big hug in return as well.
“How are you?” Trixie asked with a smile.
“Good. Wishing I wasn’t here tonight, but here I am.” Callie set her bags down on the floor and counter at her prep station. “Who’s on first?”
Trixie stood up. “I’ll go first and warm the boys up for you two tonight. It’s my turn, right?” She winked at them both and they laughed a little. A bell chimed and Trixie gave them a grin. “Well, that’s me. Sounds like Max has opened the doors. I’ll see you two in three songs.”
They waved to her and she left them. Felicity went back to doing her makeup and fluffing her long, black hair. Callie changed into her stripper clothes and touched up her makeup and hair. One of the best parts about having a pixie cut was that she didn’t have to do much to it to get ready for her show. She set her headpiece on the countertop so that it would be ready for her show.
Callie pulled her laptop from her bag and opened it, setting it on the counter and turning it on. She rubbed her hands together and concentrated on the screen as it lit up and she began to type quickly, tapping away at the keyboard to log in to a website.
“What are you working on tonight?” Felicity asked lightly, glancing over at her for a moment while she was waiting for the glue to dry on her false eyelashes.
Callie took a deep breath and set her hands on the keyboard. “I’m taking a math test for my online class tonight.”
Felicity gave her a puzzled look. “I don’t know why you do that. Why do you even bother with it?”
Callie looked at her in surprise. “With what?”
“With online classes. I mean, who wants to take a math class in their twenties!” Felicity rolled her eyes.
Callie looked straight at her. “I do it because I don’t want to have to dance for the rest of my life or however long the body holds out. I don’t want to take my clothes off for strange men every night while they try to cop a feel and grope me. I don’t want to kee
p taking huge stacks of ones to the bank every day. I want to get a degree and have a real day job where I can do what I like to do, computer programming, and where I can have benefits, and paid vacations, and paid sick days, and some kind of respect from the people that I work for.
You think these men here respect us? Not even close. They never will. We’re just something for them to look at and lust after, to pay to touch and tease, and we don’t actually matter to any of them. What we do for them doesn’t matter, in the long run. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t do any good for society or help it along, it doesn’t leave a legacy behind, it doesn’t contribute to anything, it’s just for instant pleasure in the moment and then it’s gone. I’m worth more than that. My time and my life is worth more than that.”
She saw the vacant, uncertain expression on Felicity’s face. “Don’t you want to get out of here and do something with your life?” She asked with a quiet voice, staring at her friend.
Felicity shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it. I like doing this. I like the men adoring me and giving me money and drinks, and sometimes dinner. Sometimes a solid good lay. I love all the attention. I’m beautiful and I love being told that I’m beautiful and I love the money. Maybe one day a rich man will come in and fall in love with me and decide to marry me.” She laughed and looked back into the mirror at her reflection.
Callie went back to looking at her laptop and there was silence between them for a long moment, but then Felicity turned slightly toward her, not really looking at her, and she spoke in a soft voice. “You know, I did used to want to open up a coffee shop. I thought that I would love to make coffees and bake every day and see the same people come in and out and talk with them, and play my favorite music all day long. Maybe have books around. Games. You know, a really good coffee shop… but that’s just a pipe dream now.” She sighed and looked back into the mirror.
Callie looked back at her intently. “If you work for it and you save, you could do it. You would be amazing at that. I hope you don’t give up on that dream. Sometimes dreams are all that gets us through.”
“Amen, sister.” Felicity said to her reflection as she touched up her lipstick.
Callie went back to her math test and a short while later Felicia left for the stage and Callie finished up her test. She saw immediately that she passed it and she grinned at the monitor. “Degree, you are one step closer to me. It’s going to happen.”
She reached for her headpiece and pinned it on, giving herself a last look in the mirror. The bell chimed and she left the dressing room and went to the stage. It was dark and she took her stance beside the pole.
Her music began and the lights slowly came upon her, leaving the rest of the room dark. She began to move and sway, turning this way and that, dancing in her high glittering heels to the edge of the stage here and there where she teased the wall of men around her. They hooted and called out to her, holding money up to her and waving it wildly, hoping to tempt her to come to them.
She moved all over, flipping around with acrobatics that drove the men wild, flying around the pole and offering them hints of a view at her curves, collecting their money here and there until she slowly peeled off one layer after another, making them all frenzied until she had an enormous take of cash, and she finally peeled off her last layer, exposing her breasts to them and wearing little more than a G string. The men went wild and roared with delight and pleasure, their eyes lustful and their hands reaching out for her, for even just one feel of her skin on their fingers.
When she’d gathered the last of the money, she left the stage and went to the back to redress for her second act, but the phone on the wall rang and she picked it up.
“This is Callie.”
“Callie, it’s Max up front. I need you to become cocktail waitress. Jan didn’t show up for her shift and it’s insanely busy out here. I’m sorry. I really need the help. Trixie is already back up on the stage and Felicity is going after her.” He sounded sorry, but Callie only smiled.
“Don’t you fret, Max. I’ll be right there. Besides, I just finished my set, so the men will be generous with the tips when they see me out there with them. That’s the way it goes. I’ll be right out.” She had a small wave of relief in her that she could spend the rest of her shift earning money while keeping her clothes on. It wouldn’t be as much money as she’d make on the stage, but it would be good, especially since she had just danced. It would be an easy night, she hoped.
Chapter2
Callie dressed in a skimpy skirt and revealing top with sexy thigh high black stockings on, and went out to the bar to cocktail waitress. Max hadn’t been kidding about being really busy. He was behind on delivering drinks because he had so many orders.
She grabbed a tray and began taking drinks around to patrons as quickly and pleasingly as she could. The men recognized her right away, and gave her more money because of it, hoping to get closer to her since she was no longer on the stage. She had to work to keep them at bay and remind them to keep their hands off of her. It always seemed like a fine line to her, selling herself to them as an appetizer while withholding the main course.
Though she had had countless opportunities over the years, she had never gone out on a date with any man at the club, and she had never been intimate with one, from kissing to having sex. Not one man had ever turned her head or interested her. It was always a one-way street with her; they wanted her, but she hadn’t ever wanted even one of them.
With her tray full of drinks, she approached a table in the far corner of the room where two businessmen in their fine suits were sitting and talking.. One man was showing something on his cell phone to the other. Callie smiled a little. The man with the cell phone hadn’t even looked up from his phone, but his friend was gawking at Callie.
She could see right away that the gawker was hot for her. She had seen the expression more times than she could remember. The wide vacant eyes, the partly opened mouth, the spread knees, the shortness of breath. She knew that in his mind the rotund dark haired man before her was imagining her without her clothes on, and it was all he could do to maintain any kind of public politeness.
She reached the table and the other man didn’t look up at her. He was still talking to the fat man about whatever was on his cell phone.
“When we released this app, we thought that it was ready; that it was perfect, but it’s been a bit challenging. Everyone has gone crazy for it as you know, but we’re running into problems with it integrating into other software as seamlessly as we hoped that it would. It’s only working at half capacity for what we wanted, and I’ve got a team of people working on this, but it’s just taking some time to get through the bugs.” He sounded frustrated as he traced his finger back and forth over the screen, showing the app to the man with him.
The heavier man, who wasn’t listening to his friend at all and who was still staring at Callie, held his hand up to stop his friend. “Alexander, you gotta stop, buddy. I just can’t concentrate on anything but this beautiful woman in front of me. Have you ever seen tits like hers in your life? I’m in heaven. She’s an angel. Baby, you are an angel.” He babbled on, his eyes steady on her.
The other man finally looked up and blinked, realizing at last that there was someone standing at the table beside them. Callie had a half smile on her face. She hated it when men spoke to her that way, but she knew the look on the heavy man’s face. He would be thrusting money at her all night long just hoping to convince her to do something for him or to him, anything at all. He wouldn’t figure out that her body or her personal affections couldn’t be bought until she was deep in the money he had given to her.
The man with the phone who was talking about his app stared at her for a moment and then looked over at his friend in clear aggravation. “Hey! Tony! don’t talk about her like that! What do you think you’re doing? You can’t talk to women like that no matter where they are or what they’re doing! Can’t you see she’s tryin
g to work here? You don’t need to make this a hostile work environment for her!”
Tony turned and looked at his friend Alexander in shock. “You gotta be kidding me! This chick just got up on that stage and stripped all of her clothes off! She’s the hottest stripper they have here tonight! I mean, wasn’t that strip tease the hottest you’ve ever seen? I’m still hard from her show!”
Alexander seemed caught short, blinking again and speechless for a moment. He looked up from Tony to Callie. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. Did you dance? I’m sure it was very good. I… I was just talking to Tony about this app, and I guess I must have missed it.” He turned and glared at his friend again. “Still though, I might have missed it, but seeing her do an exotic dance doesn’t give you the right to talk to her that way.”
Tony was affronted. “It’s her job to do what she’s doing and me talking about her tits or her ass or her incredible legs is all part of the gig! That’s just how it goes here! Isn’t it, baby?” He turned and looked at her, giving her an inviting grin.