Chapter Two - Cat
CHAPTER TWO
Cat
THE FIRST NIGHT I gave Harry a private dance, he sat there stiffly with his hands at his side. I again thought he was just shy. Looking back, I think he was having a hard time restraining himself from acting on all the dark desires swirling through his mind. After that night, he’d come back at least once a week. Other girls would approach him to ask if he wanted a dance from them, but he always declined, stating he was waiting for me.
He’d stare intensely from his seat while he drank his drink, then approach me, get his dance, then leave. Like clockwork for another six months, always with his hands glued to his side, rigid as all hell. It really didn’t bother me. I preferred his awkward demeanor to some of the other customers I’d had to deal with, all cocky thinking that they’re god’s gift to women. Oh yeah? Then why do you have to shell out cash to see one naked?
One night, he had a different air about him entirely. He was there finishing his drink, when he’d normally sit there still as a statue. He was looking around the place and anxiously tapping one leg. It looked like he was shaking the whole bench seat because the guy at the table next to him kept glaring over in his direction.
When it came time for him to ask me for a dance, I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I was about a good month or two away from my goal. I’d finally have enough money for a lawyer, a new place and then some leftover for a safety net. My new future was so close I could taste it.
“Good evening, Cleo,” he mumbled, shortening my stage name, Cleopatra. Both my old best friends had called me Cat, and the ancient Egyptians had adored their feline companions, so I thought it was kind of clever.
“Hey there, Harry,” I purred. “You ready to come to the back with me for a dance, sweetie?” Putting on my fake persona, pretending I’d love nothing more than to be alone with this guy.
“Y-y-yeah, that sounds nice,” he stammered out.
He ran both hands on his pant legs on both sides like he was wiping away sweat from his palms. What had him so wired tonight?
As he followed me into the back, I waved to the bouncer on our way through and he gave me a curt nod back. He gave Harry a puzzled look on his way by and his head tilted inquisitively the slightest bit. So I’m not the only one who’s noticed the vibe he’s throwing off tonight.
When we got to an unoccupied booth, I held the curtain back and motioned him through seductively. He took a seat on the plush red chair as I dimmed the main lights and prepared myself, throwing on my best game face before turning back to face him.
My body started to move to the loud booming bass pumping through the speakers of the club, circling my hips and running my hands up and down the front of my body. I took a few sultry steps forward, then I was standing a foot away from him. Gyrating my hips even further, I then spun around, bent over and shook my ass in his face. When I came back up, I gave him my best bedroom eyes over my shoulder and moved my hands up to untie the bikini top I was wearing as part of my outfit tonight.
While I did that, his eyes never left mine, and they had the strangest glint to them. After I dropped my top to the floor, I spun back around and prepared to straddle the chair. The second I put my legs on either side of his, his hands reached towards me so fast I couldn’t stop it. He reached right up, grabbed both my tits, and I shot off him with lightning speed.
“What the fuck, Harry!” I screamed at him. “You know that you’re not allowed to touch me without my permission!”
I went to the red button on the wall that was there for our safety. For situations exactly like this one. The second I hit it, the lights came back on and I could hear footsteps coming down the hall.
“No! But Cleo, we’re in love! We’re meant to be together!” He cried with his eyes wide in panic. Both his hands reached up to his hair and began tugging on it.
“Uhm, yeah no. I’m sorry, but I definitely do not love you. And that is definitely no excuse to fucking grope me!” I said with disgust.
As sad as it is that this guy created a fake relationship with me in his head, it certainly does not justify putting his hands on me. As I put distance between us, the curtain pulled back and three bouncers came pouring in.
“He totally just grabbed my tits. He’s gotta go,” I told them as they started hauling him out.
There was a strict no touching without permission policy here. There was a big sign when you came in that said if you violate said rule it’ll result in a permanent ban. He started begging as they headed for the rear exit to toss him out.
“No, no, no! Cleo, please, tell them it was a misunderstanding. Tell them I didn’t do it! Please don’t do this!” He was absolutely losing his mind, crying and pleading.
I’d never seen him even remotely close to acting like this. I’d barely even heard more than five words come out of him at one time. This behavior was so completely out of left field it scared me. He must have been really good at hiding his crazy if he had it in his mind we’d been in a relationship this whole time.
When he got to the door, he shot me one last urging look, and I shook my head. When I did that, he looked at me like I’d slapped him across the face. His eyes hardened as he gave me a look of absolute hatred that froze me to my core. I just knew this wasn’t over.
Later on, with the rest of the night going by uneventfully, I had assumed it was at least over for tonight. One of the bouncers walked me to my car as was protocol after an incident like that, I thanked him then started my drive home. Not before I looked around the parking lot first, though. After only finding the cars of my coworkers, I determined that the coast was clear and headed home.
It was about three o’clock in the morning by the time I got home and I noticed my parents’ car wasn’t in the driveway. It was Friday night, so it was safe to assume that they just went up to the lake and didn’t tell me. Thanks for the invite, guys . I guess I was in for a pretty boring weekend home alone, but at least I wouldn’t have my dad breathing down my neck.
I unlocked the front door, walked in, and set my purse down on the kitchen island to grab a snack. After that, I went upstairs to my bedroom to start getting ready to take a shower. First things first, though, I wanted to put the money that I had earned tonight in the little safe I hid in the crawl space of my room. I didn’t want to keep it in the bank because I didn’t want there to be any kind of paper trail my dad could snoop around and find.
I unlocked the small door, shuffled some boxes around and pulled out the safe. After unlocking it, I counted out what I had made tonight, then added the amount to the tally I had in a little notebook to keep track of how much was in there. I had managed to save a little over $100,000 and was feeling proud of myself. Then suddenly, I heard the floorboards creak behind me, coming from the en suite bathroom attached to my room.
“So, you think that you can just use me for my money and then throw me away like I’m trash?” I heard a menacing voice say that I recognized immediately.
I stood up and spun around, coming face to face with Harry. Standing right in the doorway into my bedroom.
“What are you doing here? Did you follow me home?!” I screeched.
“Well, no...not tonight, since you had me kicked out earlier. I thought I might come here and wait for you this time. But I do spend quite a lot of time following you, Catherine Marie Bailey.”
I took a discreet glance around me, looking for my phone and not seeing it anywhere. Fuck. It’s in my purse on the counter down-fucking-stairs. What scares me even further is he knows my full real name. He really has been doing his homework on me.
“What do you want, Harry?” I asked, staring directly into his eyes and searching for a hint of what his intentions may be.
“I want you to love me. I spent a year dedicating my time to you and supporting you financially like a good man does. Then the second I try to show you affection, you turn on me and have me tossed out like a filthy mutt! Why would you look at me the way you do if you didn’t love me?! I know you do, even if you don’t realize it yet!” He pointed an accusing finger at me and took a few steps closer.
“That’s because it’s my job!” I replied, trying to make him see reason. “Men come in to pay us to act like we’re interested in them and take off our clothes. Everyone knows that. You can’t really have expected a relationship from me? It was a business transaction. It’s not like I asked you for money. You were buying dances!”
“I know you don’t mean that. I saw the look in your eyes every time you were dancing. The way you’d look at the other girls when they’d try to talk to me, like you was jealous. They wanted me and I turned them down for you!” He spat back.
“I’m only nineteen, you’re too old for me. Besides, I’m not looking for love right now. Please, Harry, come on. I don’t want to have to call the cops. Please, just leave.” I tried to reason with him again.
I prayed a gentle approach would calm him down and get him out of here before anything drastic happened. All hope was crushed when I saw rage take over his face the second I mentioned the police. His eyes darkened, looking like a piece fell into place behind them. A decision was made.
“You led me on and took all my money, you whore!” He growled and lunged at me.
I tried to dodge out of the way by leaping over my bed to get to the hall, then run down the stairs right out of the house, but he grabbed me by my ankle and dragged me back.
“If you won’t see it my way, then I’m just gonna have to make you see. I’m gonna take something from you if you’re gonna take from me. Something you can’t get back, just like I can’t get my money back, you little fucking thief. That’ll show you,” he said as he flipped me around and pinned my arms above my head.
I started to struggle, and he switched my wrists to one hand and punched me right in the jaw.
“Stop fighting me, you stupid slut. I’m gonna do whatever I want and no one’s here to stop me. Go ahead, call the cops after, I dare you. No one would believe a girl like you anyway. I’ll just tell them you’re a hooker who’s mad I didn’t pay up for a mediocre lay, then we’ll both go to jail. Or how about this? I find out you call ‘em and I’ll come back for that pretty little sister of yours I seen in the pictures downstairs.”
With that, all the fight I had remaining in me drained out of my body. As my vision swam, darkening around the edges from the hit, I had one thought: please no, not again.
Then I lost consciousness.
When I finally woke up, my room was silent and I was naked from the waist down. I was sore down there, so it didn’t take a whole lot of investigating to figure out what he had done to me while blacked out. I just laid there for a minute with my eyes closed, not ready to open them and face the reality I’ve found myself cursed with once again.
There was a faint memory while in my blacked-out state of hearing steps descend the stairs and the front door slam, so I assumed Harry had fled the scene of his crime. He must have truly believed that I wouldn’t call the police if he left me alive. A part of me wished he hadn’t. The deep, dark consuming part of my soul that only grew larger with each person who stole a part of me that was never theirs to take.
I sat up groggily, dizzy from the blow to the face, and looked around my room, scanning for any evidence he may still be around. That’s when my eyes caught on my still open safe. A wide open, completely empty safe. I rushed towards it. The sob that had been caught in my throat since waking came crashing to the surface.
Every single dollar I had saved over the past year, gone. Just like that. Not only did he steal from my body, but he stole my future, too. There’s no way I could take another year working at the club, not after tonight. I don’t think I could even step foot in there ever again now. What the absolute fuck am I supposed to do?
I just sat there in front of it, staring at the empty space where my salvation should have been looking back at me. I can’t even tell you how much time passed. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. It was almost like I expected to blink and have it all be a mirage. The money would all be there and I had just imagined the safe empty. Or maybe I was dreaming. I had just fallen asleep on the couch when I got home from work. Who could blame my mind for conjuring such a nightmare starring Harry after the production he put on at the club?
I stared and stared, waiting for something beyond my control to happen because my mind could not wrap around the fact that this was real. After a while I got a painful sensation in both my forearms. It came on slowly then became unbearable. When my gaze finally dropped to inspect, I realized it was my own doing causing it.
My hands were clenched in an iron grip around both arms, digging my nails in to the point of drawing blood. This seemed to snap me out of the trance my mind had fallen into while trying to explain away the truth of the situation.
I got up and walked numbly to the bathroom, not knowing what to do with myself now. I turned the shower on as hot as it would go and avoided my eyes from the mirror on the wall across from it. It took all my strength to take the rest of my clothes off and sit myself on the floor under the water with my arms wrapped around my knees. Staring at the floor, I was mesmerized by the drain, wishing I too could dissolve and run down it, disappearing forever. I grabbed a loofah, put some body wash on it, then started on the first round of many of scrubbing my skin raw.
I contemplated calling the police, but he was right. The odds weren’t in my favor. Even if I thought for one second they’d take me seriously, I couldn’t risk anything happening to Rhiannon. What if he got arrested only to get out on bail and make good on his promise? Also, what if it was like before? I go to the police and I’m not believed once again, just like he’d said. I couldn’t go through that again. Plus, there wouldn’t even be any guarantee I’d get my money back. It’s my word against his for how much was truly in there.
Where I felt numbness before a fire started to light in its place. No, I wasn’t going to do that. I had put my faith in the justice system before only to be let down. Plus, if I do that, then my parents would find out about where I’d been working and that I’d been saving up to get away from them.
No, I wouldn’t go to the cops. If I was already sitting here wishing he’d left with my life instead of my will to live, what did I really have to lose? I would take a page out of Harry’s book; I was going to follow him to find out where he lived, then steal my money back. Most importantly, I was going to fucking kill him like he should have done to me.