Zoë
ZO?
USUALLY, DANCING IS an escape for me. The messier my real life is, the more I lose myself on stage. But nothing can pull me out of my head tonight.
Big Rob points at me when I walk onto the floor after finishing a number. “No more sad songs,” he barks out.
He turns to the DJ and repeats himself, slicing his fingers across his neck to indicate that the DJ shouldn’t take any more requests from me.
The DJ shrugs nonchalantly, and I ignore Big Rob as I walk past him, my eyes on the ground. The drabness of the carpet feels overwhelmingly depressing, the childish pattern of ringed planets and soaring rockets tamped down and overlaid with a dark patina of dirty shoes and spills.
Everything new turns rotten in the end, I guess.
* * *
By midnight, I’m circulating on the floor, ignoring Big Rob’s strong suggestion that I go home but not really hustling, either. A table of men waves at me, and I wave back and keep walking, as if we were all just here to say hello to each other. Rachel, AKA Jazmyn, takes me aside and orders me a shot of tequila.
“How can I go home when he’s there?” I say to her.
She screws up her face in pity. She doesn’t need to say it. You fucked up is written all over her features.
* * *
A little while later, she catches up to me on the floor and points to a table.
“He’s asking for you,” she says in a serious, searching way.
I follow her hand, for one stupid, delusional moment thinking it’s Nick, that he’s come here to make amends—but it’s not Nick.
It’s Tate.
Sitting at a table with two of his douchebag friends and watching us expectantly.
“You okay?” asks Rachel.
“It’s fine,” I tell her, hiking up a bra strap and swallowing.
It’s not fine, but whatever it is, I’ll have to deal with it.
It’s been almost two weeks since he cheated on me and left without so much as a word of courtesy—not even a goodbye, let alone a sorry. Yet he has the nerve to show up here at my strip club, flanked by his posse? Whatever the purpose of this visit is, it doesn’t look like an apology, and as I walk over to the table, my heart is in my throat.
Last time Tate was in the strip club, I’d had one inappropriate interaction with his father and I was worried he’d found out. This time it’s so much worse. His father’s cum is still inside me. Once again, I find myself praying that Tate is in the dark.
I don’t bother with any niceties. “I’m surprised to see you here,” I say to Tate directly, ignoring his friends.
“Are you?”
And there it is. A snide tilt of the head. The mocking smiles on his friends’ faces. This is going to be Tate at his most asshole. Again.
“What do you want?”
“I want a lap dance.” He smiles, a cold, serpentine curve to his mouth. One of his friends snickers. “I thought we could talk while you get me off.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter, does it, sexy?” says the other friend, trailing his hand up my thigh and cupping my ass. “It’s your job.”
I swivel in his direction and smack his hand off of me. Then I see Tate turn and look directly to where our security guard, Patrick, is handling a drunk customer at the door. He knew exactly where he was. He has security scoped out in advance, which feels sinister.
Tate’s not a bad-hearted guy. I really don’t think so. He squints and waves at dogs on the street, and he likes to hold hands. The Fault in Our Stars is his favorite movie. But there’s this bro side to him that maybe I just never saw before. An ugliness that comes out when he’s angry.
And these two clowns certainly don’t help.
I scowl at his friends. He’s probably acting worse with them here as an audience.
“It’s actually not my job to deal with slime bags like you,” I tell his friend. “Tate, I think you and your friends should leave.”
Before I have a chance to turn on my heel, Tate cuts his eyes quickly in Patrick’s direction and then reaches out and grabs my wrist.
“Hey!” I pull my hand back, but Tate doesn’t loosen his grip.
Customers at other tables turn and look, but no one does anything.
“I just want to talk,” he says more earnestly. “Please, . Can we go somewhere for a minute?”
Now it’s my turn to look over at Patrick. He’s got his back to us, towering over a rough-looking guy in a tank top who could use a shave and pointing angrily towards the door. Jesus . I have half a mind to scream to get his attention but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. Making a scene would be embarrassing, and I can already feel people’s eyes on us.
Besides, I don’t know what Tate wants to talk about—either he wants to apologize for cheating on me, or he found out about me and his dad. Either way, it’s probably a conversation that’s more comfortable in private for me as well.
“Fine,” I bite out. “Just let go of my wrist.”
I scan the room, looking for somewhere to go. Somewhere private but not too private. Somewhere Patrick can see us if he ever gets a moment to look out for the girls again. I spot a break in the crowd near the hallway to the washroom and lead Tate to it.
“I want to buy a lap dance,” he says again when we get there.
“No fucking way,” I answer.
“What, you won’t let me pay for something I used to get for free?”
Tate’s drunk. Standing in front of him, I can see how unfocused his eyes are and smell the beer on his breath.
“Why are you here, Tate? It’s not bad enough that you cheated on me, now you need to come sexually harass me at work, too?”
“Sexually harass you!” He actually sputters in disbelief. “Sexually harass you? I hate to break it to you, , but you’re a sex worker. So, yeah, I had sex with someone else, too. How does that even matter? How is that even a drop in the ocean compared to the fact that you were here cheating on me every night?”
“I never cheated on you!” I flinch, hearing the lie.
I never had sex with anyone else when we were together. It’s different… right?
“How many months were you giving lap dances for, huh? Grinding on some guy’s dick and then coming home to my house as if nothing happened?”
A young guy in a plaid shirt walks past, shooting a sideways glance at us, and I smile apologetically.
“Can you please leave?” I hiss at Tate. “I’m at work.”
“And I am here as a customer, trying to buy your services. Simple as that.”
I have no fucking idea what his endgame is here, no clue what even the point to all this is. But now Patrick’s nowhere to be found, and Tate’s on the verge of causing a disturbance.
“Fine,” I say to buy time. “Let’s go to a booth, and we can talk there.” I indicate the VIP booths at the back of the club and let him step forward and lead the way. “No lap dance, though. Just talking.”
Where the fuck is Patrick? One more look around the bar reveals that he is now nowhere to be found.
I check that Tate is walking towards the booths with his back to me and pull out my phone.
“Tate is here,” I text Nick. “He’s drunk.”