Chapter 18
Navy ‘Nay’ Prescott
Day Six
By the time I made it back into the VIP room, the tequila had finally started doing what I needed it to do.
Not enough to have me stumbling around the club looking stupid, but enough to loosen the knot that had been sitting between my shoulders since I clocked in, which reminded me that I still needed to find time to book that massage.
The music from the main floor blasted through the walls making the crystal fringes on my costume tremble every time the bass dropped.
The room was dim except for the gold lighting beneath the shelves and the soft purple glow coming in from the hallway whenever the door opened.
Everything in there was made to feel private, expensive, and far away from whatever problems waited outside.
Hell, that was probably why men liked it because they could come inside, spend way too much money, and pretend they were somebody else for a couple of hours.
The man in front of me definitely had money to waste.
He was older, probably somewhere in his early fifties, white, clean-cut, and corporate down to the cuff links.
His suit jacket had been folded over the arm of the couch, and his was tie loose, while the first two buttons of his shirt were undone.
His hair was gray on the sides but dark in other parts like an equal mix, but it only made him look better in a fine kind of way.
He looked like the kind of man who sat at the head of a table and made people nervous with one look.
His face was handsome in that polished, expensive way, and judging by the watch on his wrist, he had never checked the price of anything a day in his life.
He had been respectful since we walked in, which was more than I could say for half the men who paid for VIP from what I heard.
Some of these girls had a terrible experience and end up fucking or sucking dick every night, but not me though, and thank God.
It was something about my aura that was comforting to them and most of them wanted me to dance and be their therapist at the same time.
This was one of the main reasons Tasha didn’t work VIP.
For one, after dealing with her mother and my problems constantly, she doesn’t want to hear anyone else’s problems, and for two, she damn sure didn’t want to slut herself out to strangers.
Me personally, if anyone asked me in the sessions, I’d tell them no, find another VIP room with a girl who is willing.
The guy’s hands rested against my waist while I moved in front of him, never gripping too hard, and never getting too bold.
Every now and then his palms slid along my sides feeling my softness, but he kept them where they belonged.
That alone made him easier to deal with.
I was in no mood to spend the night slapping hands and reminding a grown man that paying for my time didn’t mean he bought me.
My costume helped keep his attention without me having to do much.
It was black and silver, fitted so perfectly it looked like someone poured it right onto me, with hand-sewn stones scattered across the bodice and thin chains draping low around my hips.
The matching stockings had crystals running up the sides, and the whole thing caught the light every time I turned.
It was one of the better outfits in my locker, that I’d just purchased.
Tonight, I needed serious money. I needed twenty-five hundred dollars, to be exact and since this man had booked two full hours, I planned on smiling, nodding, and letting him believe whatever he wanted as long as that money ended up in my hand.
His fingers loosened around my waist after a while, and he leaned his head back against the couch with a tired sigh. “You can stop.” He said. I slowed down and looked at him over my shoulder, making sure I heard him right. He gave me a faint smile. “I’m serious, come sit down.”
That was the best thing he had said all night because my thighs were beginning to burn, and those heels were cute until they were trying to separate my feet from my damn ankles. I stepped away from him without letting the relief show too much and reached for the glass I had left on the table.
“You tired?” he asked.
“No,” I lied, taking a small sip. “Just making sure you’re enjoying yourself.”
“I am.” His eyes followed me as I moved toward the other end of the couch. Before I could sit, he tapped his thigh with one hand. “Here.”
I looked at his lap, then at him. He wasn’t giving off the kind of energy that made my skin crawl, so I eased down sideways across his legs, keeping one hand wrapped around my glass. His placed his arm around my waist, loose enough that I could move whenever I wanted.
For a second, he just sat there staring into the liquor in his glass. Then he sighed again and it wasn’t a normal sigh either. It was one of those deep, worn-out sighs that usually came right before somebody started telling you things you never asked to know. I already knew where this was headed.
“You ever feel like everybody around you wants something?”
I almost looked at him crazy. Sir, you are in a strip club. Of course everybody around you wants something. Instead, I softened my face and gave him the kind of patient expression that said I was listening. “Sometimes.”
He nodded slowly like I had just confirmed something important. “My wife wants the lifestyle. My partners want the company, and my son wants access to my money without having to earn any of it. My daughter barely speaks to me unless she needs something.”
Here we go, I thought. I brought the glass to my lips so he wouldn’t see the reaction trying on my face.
The way men came into this club and unloaded their whole life story on women wearing seven inches of shoe needed to be studied.
They wouldn’t sit in therapy, they wouldn’t talk to their friends, they wouldn’t communicate with their wives but put a woman in a rhinestone costume in front of them, and suddenly they were ready to dig up wounds.
I kept my voice soft. “That has to be hard.”
“It is.” He looked at me as if I was the first person who had ever understood him. “You build something from nothing, and all anybody sees is what they can take from it.”
I nodded slowly. Meanwhile, all I could see was that two hours had already been taken from my life, and I needed my twenty-five hundred before he decided to turn this into a three-part documentary.
He went on about his business next. Something about a merger, board members, and a man named Howard who had betrayed him after twenty years.
I had no clue what Howard did, but apparently it was serious because the man’s jaw flexed every time he said his name.
“Howard sat across from me every Monday for two decades,” he said, swirling the ice in his glass. “Then he went behind my back.”
“Mmm. That has to be tough, shame on Howard.”
“He smiled in my face while negotiating with my competition.”
I frowned and shook my head looking sympathetic. “That’s terrible.”
It probably was. Still, I didn’t care about Howard.
Howard could have set the whole building on fire for all I cared, as long as it didn’t affect my money.
The man kept talking, with his voice growing more irritated as he moved from Howard to his wife, then from his wife to his children.
He told me his marriage had been dead for years, but neither one of them wanted to be the first to leave.
He said his son resented him, and that daughter of his felt like he missed too many birthdays and important moments, while his wife slept in another wing of the house.
Another fucking wing, I thought to myself.
This man didn’t say another room, he said another damn wing.
I had to lower my eyes to hide the brief flicker of disbelief that crossed my face.
Rich people really lived different. My husband had barely let me breathe in another room, and this man’s wife had a whole section of the house where she didn’t have to see him.
That sounded less like marital trouble and more like luxury to me.
“I don’t think she even knows me anymore,” he said.
I rested my hand lightly against his shoulder. “Maybe you both changed.”
He stared at me for a long second, like I had just said something profound, but I hadn’t. It was common sense, but if he wanted to think I was wise, I was not about to stop him.
“You’re different,” he said.
I smiled because that was clearly what he needed. “How?”
“Because you listen and that’s something most women don’t do.”
Baby, I was listening for that money. I didn’t say that, though.
I only tilted my head and let him keep talking.
By the time he got to the part about his daughter no longer answering his calls, some of the humor left my thoughts.
Pain was pain, no matter how much money somebody had, and the look on his face told me that part was real.
His eyes lowered, and for the first time that night, he didn’t look like a powerful man with an expensive taste.
He looked like a father who had no idea how to fix what he had broken.
“She says I chose work over her,” he said quietly.
“Did you?” I asked.
His eyes met mine. I didn’t mean to ask it that directly, but it was too late to take it back. He let out a humorless laugh. “Probably.”
“Then maybe start there.”
“Start where?”
“With telling her she was right.” I told him.
He looked stunned. I shrugged. “You want her to answer your calls, but maybe she wants you to admit what happened before she can hear anything else.”
The room got quiet except for the muffled music shaking the walls. For a moment, I thought I might have said too much.
Then he nodded slowly. “That’s the first honest thing anybody has said to me in a long time.”
Before I could answer, he glanced at the time on his watch and sighed. “I’ve taken up your whole night.”