AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Always.”
Lucinda did what she did best, and within seconds my favorite song was pounding through the stereo. I took a moment to let the beat roll through me, let it pump me up, the adrenaline rising until I couldn’t wait to get my ass out on that stage. I’d always love dancing. Even as a little kid music had called to me. I’d had stupid dreams of dancing on stages behind famous singers and traveling the world on their dime, doing what I loved.
Stupid childish dreams in a world that would crush them before I even turned sixteen.
But I found another way. School hadn’t been my thing. I just wanted to move my body and make money. I’d been walking home from school one afternoon with some friends and had seen an ad in the club’s window advertising for strippers, no experience necessary. One of my friends had dared me to apply. I hadn’t needed much of a shove.
I’d always been attracted to trouble. Danger. The forbidden.
And Saint View Strip Club offered all those things as well as a hefty paycheck each night. The owner at the time, Sal, a short fat white guy with a beer belly that stretched his shirts, hadn’t cared that I was underage. He’d asked if I was eighteen, even though he knew full well I wasn’t. I lied and said I was. I told him I’d repeated a year because I wasn’t big on the smarts and that’s why I was still at school. He’d bought it, or at least pretended that he had. I’d started that night and had never gone back to school. I didn’t regret a single minute of it. I’d bought the club from Sal a few years later with money I’d earned stripping, and never looked back.
Ten years later, nothing had changed. Did I have to dance? No. I could live off the cut I took from the others. But I loved it. So why stop doing something that brought me joy?
I grinned at the crowd getting riled up by Fawn and Lyric. And then I strutted onto the stage. A cheer went up as I swung around the nearest pole and waved at one of our regulars, sitting in his usual spot by the stage.
“Good day to you, Miss Eve,” he called above the music, throwing a couple of bills onto the stage.
“How is my favorite guy?”
Simon grinned and nodded. “Real good, thank you.”
And that was how more than half of our interactions in the club went, every single night. So many of these men were just sad and lonely, and wanting company. I couldn’t even count the amount of times I’d been booked for a private room, only to find myself sitting on the couch, fully clothed, and listening to a man talk about his day. Or how his kids had grown up and left the nest. Or about his job that he hated. So many of them cared little for the actual act of stripping, and I was happy to provide what they needed. Within reason. I would get naked and dance, but that was as far as I went.
But they weren’t the only sort of patron. And by the looks of it, there was a large group of college guys here tonight. We’d become popular with that crowd, despite the fact there was no college nearby. But with the rent as low as it was in Saint View, it allowed me to keep my prices down. So drinks were cheap. And Terry didn’t check IDs as thoroughly as he probably should.
I kept it light and teasing to start with, a few swings on the pole, and some gyrating of my hips caught their attention. I waited until they started throwing money on the stage and then rewarded them by shimmying out of my shirt.
My tiny bikini top didn’t cover much, and the guys let out a cheer.
“Shorts, too, baby girl.”
I tried not to make a face at the ‘baby girl’ comment. They’d learn pretty quick that I controlled the show, not them. “Start putting money on the stage, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Maybe it should have bothered me, the way they were only here to see me naked. But it didn’t. I had a body. Just like every other woman in this world. These guys had seen women naked before. Why was it a big deal? Nudity was never something I had a problem with. Dancing naked or dancing fully clothed, it made no difference to me. I just wanted to dance, make money, and live the life I chose for myself. Not a nine-to-five where I was chained to a desk all day, every day like my father. Not some diner job where I only made minimum wage like my mother. I knew I only had a certain number of stripping years in me. Until my tits sagged and my ass grew flat. Those years probably weren’t far away. Despite my decision not to have kids, gravity would get me eventually. It was why I’d bought the joint from Sal when he’d decided to ship off to Europe. It was a business I could run for my entire life.
Lucinda changed the track to a bump-and-grind sorta song. All too soon, I was itching to get on that pole and really show this crowd what I was made of. I stripped off my booty shorts, flashing the guys an eyeful of my ass before I launched myself at the pole.
I inverted, spreading my legs wide as I twirled around. I saw every inch of the club from this angle. Lucinda cheering me on from her DJ booth. Lyric and Fawn working the room, Lyric already topless and giving a regular a lap dance, Fawn winding her way through the room with drinks in her hands, allowing men to put their tips in the elastic of her G-string.
And Joshua Boston, stopped dead two steps inside the club, his gaze pinned on me.
An instant flood of heat rushed my body, taking me by surprise. That was new. I never got turned on at work.
I maintained his gaze, until my rotation on the pole forced me to break it.
That seemed to snap him out of his trance as well.
“Shut it down,” he shouted.
The music cut out, and I flipped myself upright. “Excuse me?”
He pushed his way through the tables of bewildered men who were starting to stand up, some, the ones who weren’t twenty-one likely, edged toward the exit.
All I saw was money walking out the door.
“Hold up, nobody needs to leave.” I stormed to the edge of the stage and glared down at Boston. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We’ve got a warrant.”
