by Robin Leaf
Once Vanessa settles herself back on her stool, she turns to me, smiling. “I apologize.”
I raise my glass. “No need. Not offended.”
And really, I’m not. Tater and I joke about our how we’re each other’s life partner all the time, but they’re just that. Jokes. He’s my buddy, and I have no issue admitting that I love him, but I can say with certainty that I have no sexual feeling toward him whatsoever, repressed or otherwise.
“Ma’am,” a man bellows over my shoulder, startling the shit out of me, “please don’t touch the dancers.”
“He just called me ma’am,” Vanessa says to Emily. “Don’t call me ma’am. And I can’t shove dollars in his underwear?”
“No, ma’am,” rent-a-cop grumbles, ignoring her request. “It’s been a rule for a while here.”
She grinds her teeth. “I said don’t call me ma’am. Then how am I supposed to tip him?”
“You may hand it to him, ma’am,” he says distractedly as he heads off to reprimand another touchy offender.
She scoffs, “Well that’s lame.” Her phone is pulled out of her purse, and she swipes the screen. “I need to check on my babies. I miss them.”
I snicker. Before she starts talking, I ask, “I’m going to the bar, so do you ladies need anything?”
Emily lifts her glass to show me hers is still full.
Putting the phone to her ear, Vanessa shakes her head and talks into it. “Hang on a sec, babe.” She pulls the phone under her chin and addresses me, “No, that first fucker was strong. You’d think something so big would last a little longer, but I don’t think I can handle a second one.” Pulling the phone back to her mouth, she coos, “Hi, Honey, how’re my little angels?”
Smiling, I glance at Em who takes a sip out of her glass with a smirk. “Okay, then. I’ll be right back.”
I take the few seconds walking to the bar to gain a little of my sanity back, strongly considering ordering about ten shots to numb my brain from Vanessa’s attempt to root around in there. If it weren’t that I’d promised myself that I would make this Vanessa’s night, I’d forge through with a new plan.
“Hey, Tanya,” I call to the friendly bartender who flirted with me earlier when I ordered the first round. “I just need a glass of water this time, and can you send any available dancer over to my table to give my friends a lap dance?”
She smirks. “Sure, hon,” she croons, leaning over the bar, lifting up her cleavage. “If I can have your number.”
I pull a bill out of my pocket and slide it across the bar toward her. “Is this number okay instead?”
Her eyes go so wide, I think she’s gonna shoot them at me. “It’s not quite what I had in mind, but a hundred’ll definitely get you what you want. Thanks.”
A hundred?!? Shit. I meant to give her a fifty. Fuck these dark-ass club lights.
She pulls the bill off the bar and tucks it in her bra, an attempt to direct my focus there, before starting my drink. “In fact, I’ll ask Beck. He’s our top dancer. It might take a while to get him out here, though. He just left for his break.”
“That’s fine.”
I knock my thanks on the bar and head back to the table, dragging my feet because I really don’t want to be under Vanessa’s emotional microscope once again.
When I arrive, Emily appears to be helping Vanessa, who is trying to stand on the stool to get a better look. I back Emily out of the way and grab Vanessa around the waist before she ends up splatted on the floor.
“No, no, no, ladies. That’s not a good idea.”
“I told you, Vanessa,” Emily reprimands.
“Yeah, she knows I have a bad history with bar stools. She’s smart. Thanks for the save.” Patting my cheek, she adds, “You really are a great guy in spite of your downward depression spiral –”
“I told you I’m not –”
“You’re sweet and smart,” she interrupts, pulling away from me and slowly dragging her eyes from my face to my toes. “You’re hot enough to be on that stage,” she purrs, throwing her thumb over her shoulder and winking, “and you can even make a dad bod look damn good.” Patting my chest, she changes her expression to sincere. “You run a successful business with your best friend –”
“He’s the talent behind our success,” I smile, shrugging. “I’m just riding Tater’s coattails.”
Her eyes narrow and head tilts.
“Hmph, I think I get it now.” She grabs her drink and sucks up the rest, making slurpy sounds with her straw to get every last drop, and just keeps staring at me for a few minutes before announcing, “I need to pee.”
“Wait,” I say, grabbing her arm to get her attention back on me. “You get what?”
“Well, I thought that you believed you weren’t good enough for Kaelyn,” she rushes out, setting her glass down and grabbing Emily’s hand. She turns back to me before she walks away. “Now I realize that you just don’t believe you’re good enough, like at all.”
Three
Ember
I stop short in the parking lot once I realize where we are. “A strip club, Kelly? Are you serious?”
“Girl,” she barks, grabbing my arm. “I told you we were going to celebrate your divorce from that fucker, and what better way than looking at oiled-up men taking their clothes off just for us?”
I let her pull me toward the club, but not without offering my special brand of snarky comments first. “They’re actually taking their clothes off for money.”
“Yeah, so why not reap the benefits of their chosen cash-hungry profession?” She stops in front of me and grabs my face. “C’mon. Let’s get a couple or seven drinks in us, ogle a few beefcakes, let our hair down, and live a little.”
She pays the cover charge and pulls me through the doors. The bass from the music hits me in the chest, reminding me of the one party she dragged me to in college, the one where we had to run home because the cops raided it, which caused her to throw up all over my shoes halfway home. Yeah, not a pleasant outcome, and the memory almost feels like an harbinger.
“Smell that, Ember?”
“Coconut-scented baby oil and estrogen-infused desperation?”
She laughs. “No. It’s your freedom, baby.”
Freedom, yet she tightens her hand shackle around my wrist and pulls me deeper into the club, toward a few of our friends sitting at a round high top.
Let me paint this picture. I’m five feet tall, and this table comes to my nose. The stools around it are boob high, so I’m going to look like a three year old at the adult table, complete with swinging feet. Yeah. This night is going to be super awesome.
It’s obvious when we make it all the way to the table that the rest started the party without us. About ten empty shot glasses litter the table with discarded limes.
“We’re here,” Kelly announces, right before the table erupts in cheers louder than I expect. Then I get the intentionally encouraging comments by random friends, but they just this much miss the “uplifting” mark.
“Congratulations, Ember.”
Why do they feel the need to congratulate me on my failure?
“Welcome to the singles club.” A sash is placed over my head. “We missed you.”
I look down to see my sash says “newly single.” Joy. Just the thing to advertise in a club full of women. But you know… I’m never one turn down options.
“Girl, you look like you just lost two hundred pounds of dead weight.”
Okay, that comment makes me smile, but for some reason, I don’t just take the joke. No. I have to comment back and make it awkward. My specialty.
“Yeah, but except two hundred pounds is a generous guess. Walker only weighs one-sixty-two, so you over shot by thirty-eight pounds,” I say, getting me some strange looks. “What? That’s like an entire four-year-old too heavy.” I look around at their uncomfortable faces. “What can I say? He is very health conscious.” More blank stares, so I nod. “Yep. He’s a vegan. Rock-wall climbs. Likes to hi
ke. And run…” I look down, adjust my sash, and continue the awkward. “…apparently to someone else’s bedroom.”
Kelly smacks the table. “No speaking of the cheating ass hat tonight.” A shot is shoved in my hand. “You have some catching up to do.”
Okay, I don’t particularly like tequila, but I figure with the rip-roaring splash I made upon arrival, I better do something to get myself off the, “What the hell is wrong with Ember?” train. So, after throwing the shot back, I turn my eyes to the stage, where a few men are performing a group dance, humping the stage in perfect precision. How do you practice something like that? I picture some woman dressed in black pleather with a whip screaming, “Hump, hump,” cracking each time someone isn’t in sync.
God, why am I like this?
Whoa, the dancers are standing now, rubbing their hands up their chest. I bet they will synchronize ripping the matching white t-shirts in three… two… one. Yup. Right on cue.
Another round of shots magically appears, and I’m obligated to drink a second one. People who don’t believe adult peer pressure exists have never been around a bunch of females determined to give a friend a good time, even if it’s not her idea of one.
Nope, mine is a bit different. I just want to go home and finish the episode of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix I started last night. I have a feeling that bitch Gemma with her wonky Jaffa Cakes with the soggy bottoms and her blobby Sticky Toffee Pudding is going down. Really, I just have an unnaturally wicked crush on Paul Hollywood. That silver fox can cream my cannoli anytime.
And that starts a new wave of fantasies, which certainly don’t include the boys on stage. They are probably working their little ways through college. And we, this table of late-twenty-to-early-thirty women, are gawking at them. How much of an age difference makes us cougars?
I look over to the stage just in time to see a firefighter unbuttoning his fire gear pants. What is it with women and their obsession with the these friggin’ stereotypes? I mean, yeah, I get it, and this guy is pretty nice, but there are sexy professions other than firefighters, police officers, and cowboys, like bakers, and bonus, they probably smell like chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon and not like smoky soot, sweaty Kevlar, and poopy livestock.
The excited chatter and the woo girl atmosphere around this table is giving me hives. I love these women individually, but get them all together in a place like this? Let’s just say the setting is not ideal for my average Friday night.
I don’t blame Kelly, although she did purposely neglect to tell me the plan was to come here. No, she just wants to have a good time and is thinking of ways to make me smile. But she has to know I never would agree to this. However, now that I’m here, I should try to make the best of it.
Oh look, up next is a doctor stripping. Yay. Just what every ER nurse wants to see.
Yeah, I can’t do this.
Especially when I hear their not-as-quiet-as-they-think-they-are whispers that they already ordered me a lap dance. Great.
I have zero time for escape when a strapping young lad arrives at our table and all the women start pointing my direction. He approaches and leans down to my ear.
“May I touch you, gorgeous?”
Gorgeous? I mean, I might fall under “cute,” possibly even “comely” as an adjective, but my haphazard ponytail and after-a-full-shift, mascara-only makeup shouldn’t reap the title of “gorgeous.” It just feels insincere.
“Sure thing…” I’m at a loss at what to use here, so the lengthy pause is yet another awkward moment to add to the list. “…Partner.”
Partner?
It would make sense if he was dressed as a cowboy or some wild west guy, but he’s not. In fact, he’s not really wearing a costume, just jeans. I recognize him as one of the t-shirt rippers from earlier. At least I know his humping will be synchronized.
He just smiles. “My name’s Diesel.”
Yeah, I highly doubt that. It’s probably Austin or Dallas or some other trendy-twenty-years-ago geographical name. I don’t offer mine. Why bother? He’s going to rub up on dozens of women tonight. Like he’d remember everyone’s name.
He begins his routine, moving around me and giving me bedroom eyes. He gyrates and pulsates quite nicely. Wow. This isn’t exactly terrible. I’m kind of enjoying his attention. I even smile and move to the beat a little. Hey. Who knew? Whoa, and there go his pants. I try to play it off like I have men dancing in their underwear around me all the time.
It’s when he leans over me and grabs my hands to puts them on his chest, moving my hands around, that it gets awkward. First of all, his skin is slick, so the oil thing is not a myth. Secondly, it feels unnaturally smooth, like he just waxed. That is until I feel something weird, a little bump that shouldn’t be there. It wasn’t visibly noticeable in the darkness of the club, and it’s not sizable, but it is obvious, right there under his pec toward the center of his chest. It could be a third nipple, but that doesn’t feel right. He tries to move my hand, but I keep it there, palpating the thing, like a small marble floating under his skin, with my fingers to make sure it’s not attached to his breastbone or a rib, which could be bad.
“Sweetie, have you noticed this?” I whisper toward his ear.
He doesn’t stop flexing his abs. He’s just looking at me with either lust or murderous intent. I can’t quite tell.
I furrow my brow and look in his eyes to show I’m serious. “You might want to have this checked.”
That gets his attention. He stops moving and looks at me quizzically. “What?”
“This little lump.” I put his hand on it. “Does it hurt?”
He shakes his head.
“It could be nothing, but it probably deserves a trip to the doctor as soon as you can get an appointment.”
He looks worried, raising his eyebrow at me, manipulating the spot with his own fingers for a second or two. It’s when the girls at the table start to protest his inactivity that he turns away from me, grabbing one of my friends to start his seductive movements that were obviously lost on me.
What can I say? I bring the super-fun good times.
I really want to get out of here, but since I’m not that bitch, I’ll at least wait until my lap dance, which is being enjoyed now by every other member at this table, is over. Even a woman from another table comes over to stick some bills in his shiny underwear as he’s dancing for Kel’s friend from college, Caroline. I thought only men shoved bills at women in strip clubs, and that thought reminds me of Caroline’s comments a few years ago from the night when we celebrated my Nurse Preceptor graduation.
Back then, at the bar, which, coincidentally, was where I thought we were meeting tonight and the only reason I agreed to come, Caroline told us the focus of her master’s women’s studies class paper was how “female strip clubs, which profit off of the over-sexualization and objectification of women and perpetuate the skewed perception of female sexuality, were the leading cause of toxic masculinity in our society.” Imagine that said just as snottily as one would think it would be. Nope, today she’s gonna ignore all the irony, allowing some young dude to grind all up on her, and do the same thing to this poor boy that she accused men of doing for centuries. She probably thinks it’s retribution or some shit. Go figure.
“Thank you, Diesel,” Kelly says, handing him a generously collected wad of cash. He salutes her, smiles, and turns to walk away, but not before flashing me a worried look.
“Get that lump checked,” I yell to his back, which was unnecessary since the song finished right before I started yelling. He waves, and I’m fairly certain all his fingers were raised.
Jeez. Forgive me for being concerned, pal.
I turn back to the table only to find everyone glaring at me, some with open mouths.
“What? He has a suspicious lump under his right pec. I’m bound by my pledge to tell him.”
Okay. Dousing water on this girl-bonding bonfire is complete. Yay me.
“You know wha
t we need?” Kelly announces to take the attention off of me.
“More shots!” everyone else says in unison.
So I spend the next twenty minutes smiling and nodding when they all start telling stories of their awful breakups. I even offer an appropriate sarcastic comment here or there, gaining a few laughs. Humor is my shield, but occasionally, I don’t always hit the target of what others find funny. That’s usually when I get awkward.
When I’m certain they no longer want to kill me, I make my way to the bathroom. I don’t really have to go. I just need a minute to regroup. Crowds aren’t really my thing.
As I make my way to the side of the club where the restrooms are, I feel a hand on my arm.
“Hey,” Diesel says nervously, running his hand through his hair. “You kinda got me freaked out. Do you think I should go to an urgent care or to an emergency room?” He steps closer. “Oh my God, do you think I have cancer? Am I gonna die?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, sweetie. I never said –”
“I’ve never noticed it before, so I think it just popped up, and I think it’s bigger than it was when you felt it a few minutes ago, isn’t it?” he whines, putting my hand back on it.
“I really don’t think it’s any –”
“And what if I wait until Monday and it grows to epic proportions? I have shifts all weekend, and nobody’s gonna tip the guy with a huge tumor the size of a boulder.”
I shrug, mostly to hide how ridiculous he is right now. “Maybe you can use it to your advantage? It might get you bigger sympathy tips.”
The still-worried-but-scowly look he gives me screams that this was one of those times my humor isn’t well received.
“Wait,” I say right before he runs off, probably to go cry.
I dig in my purse to find the cards Maddy from HR had printed for all of us at the hospital, which I thought was weird. Why would an ER staff need business cards? Whatever. They’re coming in handy right now. Of course, they still have my married name on them, but since the divorce was just finalized today, it doesn’t matter. The point is I never intended to actually use them. I make a mental note to tell her how these bad boys actually came in handy.