CHAPTER 2
I feel the beat of the music from the soles of my feet up to the top of my head as I grip the inside of the cape I’m wearing, using it as a shield and a tease as I start to move. Every time I get on the stage, adrenaline flows through me. When I’m performing, I find peace that I’ve never known before.
It’s not just the silence in the chaos, like standing in the eye of the storm as thunder booms around me, that I seek. It’s so much more than that.
When I’m dancing, I have confidence in my body and myself. I know who I am when I’m dancing. I feel powerful when I’m dancing that has nothing to do with the way I tease the men—and women—who enjoy watching me.
If I hadn’t found burlesque, I have no idea who I would be. I would probably be a shell of myself. I would have been married off by my parents to some man in the church that they deemed to be nice enough for me. Hell, I’d probably have a few kids too.
But I’d be miserable.
The only reason I was allowed to go to college was because my parents thought that the husband they would find for me would rather I have an education than not. Not because my education could have real value to him or to me. No, it was so I wouldn’t embarrass him.
And, yes, they told me that very explicitly.
Just like they told me how a woman’s body is made of sin and that I should find shame in my every curve. Don’t even get me started on the shaming of desire, passion, and pleasure. That was hardly talked about except from the pulpit and then it was always in terms of Mary Magdalene, Jezebel and Sodom and Gomorrah.
For most of my life, I believed their words. I took those lessons to heart, and I had a deep sense of shame and hatred for the urges I could hardly suppress and the curves that had grown on my body throughout puberty.
College changed my life because it gave me a little bit of freedom since I chose a school that required all freshman to live in a dorm, even though it was local. I became friends with women who had totally different backgrounds from me.
Seeing them not have the same kind of shame in their bodies that I did, the same body I tried to cover up as much as possible, made me want to be like them. I wanted their confidence. I wanted to feel secure in my own skin. I didn’t like the way hating my body made my skin feel like it was too tight.
It was hard to stop hearing the voices of my parents in my head who constantly pummeled me with how women’s bodies were the root of all sin. How we seduced just by existing. How we couldn’t be trusted to walk God’s path because we knew nothing but spiritual destruction with every breath in our lungs.
I had to unlearn so much. And I did. Quickly.
A few months after school started, a friend asked me to join her for a class she was taking. It changed my entire life. She was taking a burlesque class for fun as she wanted to give her boyfriend at the time a present. No, she didn’t tell me where we were going at first, which was probably a good thing.
If I hadn’t gone with her, I don’t know what would have happened to me. Taking the class gave me a way to connect with my body. After the first class, I kept going. I needed to.
The more classes I took, the better I felt about myself and the less hate I harbored for my body.
Even though we were learning burlesque, it wasn’t about sex or even teasing men. It was about being okay with taking up space and being okay with finding beauty in myself and in my body.
I never told my parents about the class, but they knew something was going on. I wasn’t willing to listen to their bullshit as much as I was before. I changed the subject whenever they brought up finding the perfect husband for me. Avoidance became second nature to me.
But I wasn’t avoiding my own hopes and dreams anymore; I was putting off theirs and their beliefs.
The woman teaching the classes, Alora, and I became close friends before she offered me a job in her studio. I was shocked at first, but she just gave me a soft smile and told me, “You’re the best student I’ve ever had. Women come in here all the time and their only goal is to learn how to tease their man. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s clear from watching the way you glow when you dance that your purpose here is much deeper.”
Tears stung the back of my eyes with her words. Even though we chatted, I had never shared with her about my past or the vile words my parents planted in the dark corners of my mind.
Having burlesque gave me the courage to stand up to my parents when they tried to get me to move out of the dorms and back home with them after my freshman year. That conversation was scary and painful. There was no one to stand at my side to give me strength, but I found that I had it within me all on my own.
Dad was furious, his face turning bright red with anger, “We can’t protect you and your innocence if you aren’t under our roof. We had to allow you to live on campus because we had no other choice,” he insisted.
“I’ve gotten used to living in the dorms,” I hedged, trying not to be too combative or confrontational.
That was the wrong approach. I could almost see the steam shooting out of Dad’s ears as Mom sat there without saying a word while she worried her hands. She never said anything. She never stood up for me or my younger sister. She never stood up for herself.
It saddened me and as I looked for her, I saw the future that they wanted to lay out in front of me, the future I would have if I allowed them to force me down their path. My stomach turned and roiled at the knowledge that I would have no voice. No home where I felt complete and safe. No hope.
“You will come home,” Dad shouted at me, trying to bend me to his will. He wanted my compliance, and there was never a thought in his mind as to how he went about gaining it; there never really was, but I was too blind to fully see it before that conversation. “You will stay here. I’ll allow you to continue your studies, but before graduation, I’ll choose a man from church and allow him to court you.”
I swallowed down the bile threatening my throat as I shook my head slowly. I was afraid to defy him. Listening to my parents, my father really, was ingrained in me right alongside the notion of my body being made from sin as a lure of the Devil himself.
“I won’t,” I croaked out, forcing the words to fruition from sheer will. “I can’t,” I tried to change tactics slightly as the vein in his forehead started to pulse with vexation and annoyance. “There are study groups, extra credit and my work study program,” I reminded him.
I didn’t have a car and taking public transit wouldn’t be easy with my varied schedule. Living on campus was the right thing for me, on more than one level.
He stopped the way he was pacing in front of me, his entire body stilling to the point that I wasn’t sure if he was even breathing anymore. The way he turned toward me slowly had fear trickling down my spine. Though he’d never been physically violent before, I could see him justifying the action with scripture.
“Is this because you have some boy you’re seeing?” The step he took in my direction was menacing. “Have you given yourself away like some Jezebel?” I shook my head rapidly, holding back the tears threatening to spill over my lashes. When I looked toward Mom again, she was looking at me with a mixture of fear and hatred in her eyes and I had no idea why. “You better still be pure, Navy,” there was a clear warning in his words.
“I haven’t been spending time with any males outside of having them in my classes with me. I’m not friends with any and I haven’t been alone with any,” I swore, the conviction of truth coloring my words. I could only hope they would hear it. “You know my dorm is all female. Men aren’t even allowed except in common areas and never at night.”
That was the only reason they had allowed me to live in the dorms. It didn’t matter to them that I had a full scholarship, and they weren’t paying for my education. It didn’t matter to them that I could do so much more with an education than hang on the arm of a man and pop out babies.
Dad’s eyes narrowed at me, and he spit out, “You will come home and if I find out that you’ve opened your legs and lured a man in with the sin of your body, you will know real punishment.”
That was the last time I entered their home. I didn’t need their support anymore, especially not while I was working for Alora. School was paid for, and my grades were great. Then when Alora offered me some performing jobs, I didn’t really have to worry about anything.
My parents tried to stay in contact with me and berate me to move back home, but I never budged; not even after I graduated. It didn’t matter what they threw at me. I wasn’t going to give my power back to them, and I definitely never stepped foot back into their church.
Why would I? The hatred I had to unlearn was suffocating.
A piercing whistle coming from the back of the seated men in front of me pulls me out of my thoughts about my parents and my past. If the lights were fully on instead of the dim colorful lights bathing me, they’d be able to see my face and neck turning red.
Normally when I’m dancing, I’m in the moment and focused on the performance. Letting thoughts of my parents into the forefront of my mind is a painful distraction I don’t need or want. They haven’t let up on their mission to get me married off or back in the church, but I’ve been able to avoid them and push them off for years now.
It feels like my time is running out and if they ever found out about my dancing or the job I have at Alora’s studio, I have no idea what they would do.
As I turn and drop the cape from around me, the lights go off, and I bend to pick up the giant feather fans I put on the edge of the stage when I came into the room. The lights are brighter when they turn back on to allow the audience to see more, but they’re still soft.
The way the fans flutter around me as I cover my body and start to move to the next song on my playlist. The bass is hotter in this one, the seduction felt through the music as much as what they can’t see of me. I know my legs are sparkling as I turn slowly, the small crystals in the netting catching bits of light.
The way a hush falls over the men in front of me tells me just how mesmerizing and effective the effect is. I’m not normally able to look out past the stage and see the audience, but this is a small party and there’s barely any space between the stage and the chairs.
Honestly, I almost didn’t take this job because I wasn’t sure about dancing for a motorcycle club. But when I found out that it was the DSMC, I knew I needed to say yes. You can’t avoid hearing whispers about the DSMC when you live in Seattle.
Not only do they organize charity runs throughout the year, but there have been murmurings about the work they do against trafficking. If that’s not something to be respected, I don’t know what is.
I turn slowly, flicking my wrist out and flashing my body for a second to the men in front of me. They all seem to lean forward a little bit, but my eyes snag on the man in the middle of the front row. He’s huge and menacing, an air of authority and power wafting off him.
His blue eyes look like glittering crystals even in the low lighting in the room. The heat I see in his eyes takes me by surprise for a moment. It’s like looking past the veil and seeing the truth of something when I’ve never allowed myself to look before.
My eyes slide to either side of him to see two more men, one is even larger than the first, with the other leaner, but still with an air of ‘don’t fuck with me’ coming from him. They’re wearing jeans that are straining around their thick thighs and their torsos are wrapped in leather.
I’ve never seen a trio of sexier men and there is not a single one in the audience that is unattractive. My breath hitches and I’m thankful when the steps have me turning away from them. They’re a distraction that I can’t allow to seep in any deeper.
I like the lights on the stage and the distance between me and the people in the audience. It creates a separation, one I need. I’m not here to be anything more than a fantasy.
I’ve worked through a lot of the doctrine I was raised in. Hell, I’ve even dated and had sex, but performing is my job and that is a line I don’t cross. I’ve never even considered it before.
As my body moves to the music and my eyes continue to stray back to the men, I consider if that’s a rule that needs to stay in place. I don’t even know who I would choose.
When some women who are dressed even more scantily than me slide into the men’s laps my heart sinks. I’m reminded, again, why that distance is important.
This is just a job. Nothing more.
And when I walk off the stage tonight, they’ll be just some men who sat in the halo of the lights that illuminated my sequins and made them sparkle.