Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Sophia
With all of us in line according to his orders, Nash walks past each of us, making adjustments he deems necessary before we hit the floor.
He pushes all of my hair behind my shoulders and runs his finger under the strap of my bodysuit.
“Sophia, sweetheart, I want you in blue,” he tells me, hooking a finger under my chin.
Great, that means I’m up in VIP.
He continues down the line, assigning more of us to our designated tables, and as soon as he leaves the lounge, I head for my locker, digging out the only blue outfit I still have here; a navy bustier with two rhinestone chains that hang under the bra cups, a matching set of panties, and a garter belt to tie it together and hide my pantyhose.
I stop in the mirror once I’m dressed, fixing my hair back into its usual sleek style, then I grab my tray and a few menus, heading up to my assigned table while I try to swallow the sense of dread crawling up my throat.
Throwing a wide grin onto my face, I walk to the table just a few feet ahead of the girl working with me and set the menu down. “Good evening, boys!” I greet them, “Can we get you started on some drinks?”
“Hey,” a familiar voice says from behind me, almost sounding surprised. I turn to find a red-haired guy seated at one of the couches. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Oh hey,” I say, trying not to dissolve into nothingness over the embarrassment of my first high school boyfriend sitting at a table in my club.
Anytime that I see a man I know in any of the clubs owned by Nash Montgomery, it sets off an alarm bell in my head, but I brush it away and give him the benefit of the doubt, because I’ve never seen him here before; maybe he just doesn’t know how things work here.
My coworker and I give the six of them some time to decide on their drink choices before we head down to fill up our trays and grab the massive, pricey bottles that they order; they clearly have some money and want to show it off.
Setting the tray down onto the large table at the center of the couches, I reach for one of the champagne bottles and make a show of popping the cork for them, pasting surprise on my face as it flies across the booth and foam spills out of the mouth of the bottle, earning chuckles from the group, like I thought it would.
After a while, you can tell which guys are the ones who want you to seem helpless and stupid, and you learn how to play to that to boost your tip – hopefully entertaining them enough that they don’t want anything else from you.
An hour of pouring drinks, flirting, and being touched in places I really don’t care to be touched by strangers passes before my ex drunkenly slips his hand around my waist and pulls me to his lap. “Where’s the special menu?” He shouts into my ear.
So he does know.
My mouth goes dry as I reach for the large printout on the table and pull it close so that he can read it along with me, pointing to the section of the menu printed with HOUSE SPECIALTIES.
“You can order the house vodka,” I say, pointing to myself, “or the house red,” this time I gesture toward my coworker.
His eyes flit to her, watching for a second while she dances with one of his friends, then turns back to me. “I’m more of a vodka guy,” he tells me.
“Should I get that for you now, or do you want it later?”
“I’m pretty parched,” he answers.
Standing, I take his hand in mine and pull him with me, leading him out of the booth and behind a curtain toward the back, through a door tucked into the wall, until we reach a private room. Thankfully, it smells like disinfectant and soap in here, so I can breathe a little easier.
“You get a half hour for a shot of vodka,” I tell him.
“Can I make it a double shot? I’ve never had this brand before, I want to enjoy it for a while.”
I give him a tight smile, shaking my head.
“Sorry, the owner doesn’t like the space hogged back here.
” I get to work, removing my outfit piece by piece while he watches, my skin crawling just a little bit.
He was fine when we were together, he never pressured me into anything or acted like he was annoyed that I didn’t put out for him.
That was a long time ago, though, and this gives me the willies.
People change; not always for the better.
“Do you order house specials often?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t know they existed until my buddy told me about them.”
He steps toward me, his hands wrapping around my waist, and he presses his lips to mine. I’m honestly not used to being kissed at work, it’s...different, but I let him do it. He paid for it, didn’t he?
Locked in a kiss, we move toward the small bed against the wall until he falls onto it, and I climb on top of him, working the button of his slacks and slipping them down to his ankles.
I climb over to the table at the side of the bed and reach for a condom from the bowl sitting on top of it, bringing it back to him and tearing it open.
“Yeah, I guess we’re gonna need those, huh,” he muses. “I don’t want to catch something. Good call.”
Forcing my grimace into a smile, I tell him, “We get tested regularly. These are for our safety, because you don’t.”
I shouldn’t be doing this; Nash would kill me if he knew I was talking back to a paying customer. Probably literally – I’ve seen pictures of him in a fucking prison jumpsuit – but I don’t care. I am miserable here, and this guy is being a dick.
“You can’t talk to me like that when I’m paying for you,” he scolds.
“You know what,” I gasp, “you’re right. I should take that shot off of your bill, it looks like we just ran out of vodka. So sorry about that.”
“Get back over here,” he orders while I slip my outfit back on. “I paid you.”
Ignoring him, I step out of the room, making my way down to the bar.
“Vinnie, my dear,” I say to my friend pouring someone a drink, “there’s a customer in room two that could use some tough love.”
“He hurt you?”
“No, he’s just an asshole,” I smile.
“Alright.”
“Love you, big guy,” I tell him as he slips out of the partition, following me back upstairs.
I stop back at the table, because I’m still working and still assigned here, and my ex is still throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t get what he wanted.
Vinnie’s going to have fun.
Gosh, I just wish I could feel terrible for him.
·
“Sophia,” Nash scolds from behind me as I enter the lounge. “You denied a paying customer service tonight.”
“Oh he hadn’t paid yet,” I assure him; not making much effort to hide the sass in my tone, which might be a mistake.
No, it is a mistake.
“Sophia.” He circles me, his movements fluid like those of a cat stalking its prey. “That’s twice in as many months. Are we going to have an issue?”
“I have personal issues with the guy,” I tell him.
I probably could have lied, but lying to Nash is a risk, and I have to start being more careful in taking those here. I’m getting reckless and it’s going to put me in danger soon, if it hasn’t already.
Was I petty tonight? Could I have just stuck it out and drifted off to my happy place? Sure, I’ve already been doing that for years. With the way that Nash is speaking to me, though, I may as well have made as much a scene as I did when I ran out on the first guy.
That guy was another new client, and he was not safe.
That didn’t matter to Nash, though. I told him that the guy had slapped me across the face without me agreeing to it, and that he wanted to use actual, genuine weapons with me.
He didn’t just want it to be rough, he wanted it to be violent.
He wanted to hurt me. So I ran out of that room as if I was running for my life – because it felt like it was.
All that Nash could say to me was ‘the customer is always right.’
“You leave those at the door, you know that. You have a job to do.”
I step closer to my locker to get away from him, scrolling through the numbers on the combination lock holding it shut. “Right.”
A hand finds its way to my shoulder blade, sliding across my skin until it wraps around to the side of my chest. Nash’s middle finger traces lazy circles at the skin on the side of my breast and a shudder runs down my spine at the contact, making my stomach churn.
I can feel his breath hot against my skin as he leans in closer to me.
“Don’t make me have this conversation with you again, sweetheart. You won’t be happy with the outcome.”
“Right,” I say through gritted teeth. “Sorry, Nash.”
I’m going to go crazy if I stay here, if I even survive it.
Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better to run and just accept whatever it is that he would do to me.
·
“Oh my god, I would have knocked him out,” Ava tells me, pouring herself a glass of red wine while I recount my night at work.
“I think Vin probably did,” I shrug. “It was so gross. I really need to get out of there.”
I didn’t mind my job when I first started; actually, I loved it. I was working birthday and bachelorette parties almost every night, doing the job that I thought I had actually signed up to do. It wasn’t until I was moved up to working VIP that I started to hate it.
I guess, if I had to find a positive spin to put on it, gun to my head, I at least had the opportunity to learn what I liked, what I definitely did not like, and what I might like to try again in the right circumstances with the right person.
Now, after years of clients with more particular tastes, I’m coming up on the sour end of my time here.
But I’m not sure that anyone has ever quit working for Nash Montgomery. I think they only get fired or...well, there are rumors that accompany those photos that I’ve seen, and I have no interest in finding out if they are true or not.
“What would you do if you got out?”
I shrug again, pulling a pizza from the freezer. “Literally anything else.”
The truth is that I don’t know what I could do.
I don’t have any other marketable skills and I never finished high school.
Maybe I could go back and get my GED, but if I was the oldest person in the class, I’d be absolutely mortified.
I’m twenty-eight, I should have gone back and done it years ago, but life happened and I just never got around to it.
Maybe I could go to cosmetology school or something and learn how to do that; I’ve always liked getting my nails done, maybe it could be nice to do it for someone else.
This is all assuming that I could even get out of Envy, which I just don’t see happening any time soon. I think I’m there for the long haul, or at least until I’m too old to bring in clients. I wonder if anyone has ever actually aged out of that place.
“We could always pool our savings and move to a farm somewhere in Georgia or something,” Ava shrugs with a laugh. “Farmers can be sexy, right?”
Cackling, I bring my own wine to my lips and take a sip of it. “I can just see you now, shoveling cow shit in your neon stilettos.”
“You’re such a bitch,” she laughs, and I press my fingers to my lips, blowing her a kiss. Ava walks toward me and throws her free arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to her while she presses a firm kiss to my cheek. “We’ll get it figured out, angel. We always do.”