Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Mercer
I’d been to a strip club before.
On deployments, the guys and I would check out the local scene in our free time—sample the food, experience the culture, meet the locals. Sometimes that meant finding the kinds of places where the drinks were cold, the music was loud, and the girls looked at you like you were the only man alive.
Most of us were married, but that didn’t stop the guys from hiring company for the night. It was easy to arrange with a bit of cash in the right hands and a cab ride to some pay-by-the-hour hotel. I mostly avoided it; I had enough trouble at home without borrowing more.
I didn’t judge the other guys, though. It was lonely out there. Spending weeks or months without my wife’s voice in my ear or my daughter’s laughter rattling the walls. Loneliness made men do things they swore they never would.
The absence didn’t make my heart grow fonder.
Instead, it made me ache in a way I didn’t have words for.
Pictures came in the mail, Molly’s little smile missing another tooth, Rachel holding her hand at the school fair.
Meanwhile, I was halfway around the world, smelling sweat and diesel and spices I couldn’t name, trying to pretend I still belonged to the life I’d left behind.
And now here I was, years later, working the door at the Devil’s Dollhouse, thinking I’d seen strip clubs before.
I hadn’t. Not like this.
The most obvious difference was the dancers. Male strippers weren’t common anywhere I’d been, and I’d never gone looking for them. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen another man move the way the ones on the Dollhouse stage did, except maybe in that Channing Tatum movie from a few years back.
Had I thought things, watching that?
Felt things?
I couldn’t remember. Just like I couldn’t name what I was thinking or feeling now.
The opening act was a pair of raucous cowboys who danced, sang, and stripped like a two-man variety show.
They were good-looking enough. Fit, oiled, and glistening in the spotlight.
And there was a lot of bare skin to glisten.
By the end of their set, one was down to boots, assless chaps, and a ten-gallon hat, while the other sported nothing more than a bolo tie and fringed Daisy Duke shorts.
The crowd loved it. People were practically climbing the stage and flinging bills like confetti. It was rowdy, loud, and the bass thumped so strongly I felt it in my chest every time I opened the door.
Colette had been patrolling the floor most of the night, leaving me to manage the line outside. From there, besides getting my eardrums punished with every admittance, I could steal glances of the performers as they worked through the roster.
After the cowboys came the aerialist. A leggy, androgynous-looking redhead who did a full routine without ever setting foot on the stage.
Then came the verified beefcake the announcer introduced as “Marvel.” He was tall, blond, and broad, wearing glasses with a red satin cape, blue underwear, and posing in front of a stylized “S” projected onto the curtain behind him. The combination had me perplexed.
Wasn’t Superman a DC character?
It didn’t bear scrutiny.
As the night wore on, I waited for someone in particular.
Luxe. His card had been tucked in my wallet since he gave it to me.
Too many times, I’d pulled it out and admired his little smirk.
Studied the color of his eyes, like burnt honeycomb.
Wondered how someone so small could have such an enormous presence.
I imagined he would command the stage. Cause a damn riot with his frills and heels and the sway of his hips.
I could almost see it: supple brown skin bared from his neck to his navel, tapered waist, flat stomach, maybe a belly button ring?
And when he stripped, what would remain? Shorts? Panties? Even less?
“Alors, mon grand.” Colette’s voice sliced through my thoughts, rich and amused. “How goes it?”
My gaze snapped to the line snaking through the cordons. The man at the front was glowering, ID in hand and arm extended toward me. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been waiting.
Colette leaned over, her perfume trailing through the air as she unhooked the red velvet rope from its stanchion and swung it across to block the line.
She offered a trite smile to the man still flashing his ID. “Sorry, we’re full.”
The man’s scowl deepened as he stepped aside and muttered something under his breath.
Colette sidled up to me, her gaze sweeping the queue as she counted heads. There looked to be about twenty left, and since she’d roped off the entrance, a few stragglers were already peeling away toward their cars.
I’d been posted here for hours, watching people stream in and out while the sun slid below the horizon.
Now it was fully dark—or as dark as it ever got on the Strip.
I’d always thought the city was at its best like this, neon flashing like multicolored stars and the traffic flowing past in bright ribbons of tail and headlights.
“I’ll ask again,” Colette said, clearing her throat. “How is it?”
Pulling the tally counter from my pocket, I glanced at the number. Almost three hundred guests so far, which was paltry by Basilica standards, but with the Dollhouse being only a fraction of the casino’s square footage, capacity must have been somewhere in the low hundreds.
“Busy,” I replied, which might have been an understatement.
Patrolling the casino required a lot of movement.
Walking the circuit, making my rounds. Here, I was mostly stationary, yet so much more active.
Looking ahead and looking back, watching for trouble in what felt like multiple dimensions.
It was hectic then loud again as the door swung open behind me and the entirety of a bachelorette party stumbled out.
No penis hats. I’d checked.
Despite the flurry of activity, I’d had time enough to fantasize, and the presence of mind to wonder what I was missing now that the doors were closed to newcomers.
I tipped my head toward the building behind us. “Shouldn’t you be inside?”
“There’s no room inside,” Colette replied. The club’s red devil sign tinted her blonde hair and cast ghoulish shadows across her face as she grinned. “Or weren’t you listening?”
“I heard.”
“Bien.” She nodded. “I’m here to relieve you. You can take a break. Get a drink if you’d like.”
A break sounded nice. And it made for a timely excuse to see who was coming next to the stage.
With a quick thanks to Colette, I slipped inside.
Thus far, my time at the Dollhouse had been like putting together pieces of a puzzle.
During my interview, it had been quiet and lifeless, almost dull.
When I arrived for my shift, the place was waking up—dancers drifted across the floor and the air hummed with anticipation.
The owner, a stoic middle-aged man who’d introduced himself as Lucas Beckett, shook my hand and then left me to it.
The entire onboarding process had been so informal that I wondered if I’d be getting a paycheck at all, or if this was the sort of place that paid cash under the table.
Now, with the building packed to the gills, the Dollhouse had a heartbeat. Strobes flared and a disco ball spun overhead, scattering droplets of light across the crowd. Between sets, the chatter swelled, people leaning close and shouting over the relentless music.
Waitresses—all human from what I could tell and sporting demon horn headbands and rubber tails—weaved through the throng.
Behind the bar, the bartender was a show unto himself, slinging drinks in a blur, filling four, five, six orders at once while the counter stayed lined with customers three deep.
I made my way in that direction just as the next dancer was announced.
“From shadows to spotlight, he commands the pole. Give it up for Hemlock!”
Not Luxe.
A pang of disappointment tightened my chest, but I kept moving, weaving through the mob until I found an open spot at the far end of the bar counter.
The bartender caught my signal between pouring shots and shaking a cocktail tin, and I asked for a glass of water. He slid it over without missing a beat.
With the drink in hand, I turned toward the stage.
Hemlock emerged in fishnets and leather, his black hair a stark slash against his pale skin. Dark, curved horns jutted from his temples, and a slithery tail coiled around his thigh. As he strode toward center stage, his red eyes panned across the crowd, glowing like hot coals.
The music swelled, deep, growling metal sounds that vibrated through the floor. He gripped the pole, twisted sideways, then inverted completely, balancing upside down with impossible ease.
The crowd noticed. Those closest to the stage surged forward, electrifying the air with their attention. Shouts broke through the music, riding the beat as Hemlock shifted into a dizzying spin.
It wasn’t the show I’d been hoping to see, but I couldn’t deny it was captivating. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or aroused, which reopened that can of confusion I’d been trying to close since I’d stumbled onto Luxe a few days prior.
Male demons were still men. Adding a tail and horns didn’t change other… anatomy. Body parts I’d never considered beyond their basic functions. I’d handled my own dick, indulged in plenty of self-love while overseas, but I didn’t exactly salivate at the thought of a stiff cock.
Why, then, was my mind drifting again, my attention roaming the room in search of a shock of white hair on a petite body? It wasn’t Luxe’s cock I was interested in. It was just… him. A piece of the Dollhouse puzzle I had yet to fit into place.