Visha #2
There is a package on the bed, it’s wrapped in pale pink silk, and when I open it I find a baby pink outfit.
It’s bikini style and the top has tiny red shimmering gems dangling from it.
The straps are embossed in the same red gems as is the waist of the minuscule panties.
It is a good outfit for a pole, nothing to flap around or get tangled.
I flex my fingers remembering the shape and grip of a length of metal.
Then I roll my neck and arch my back. The moves will come back to me I am sure of it.
Working in Vegas kept me afloat for three years until Helen came along with her proposition.
What she saw in me I still don’t know. Desperation?
Misery? A soul-sucking depth of lonely despair?
But she’d been right. I did want out, and away from a loser on-again, off-again boyfriend, and the ticket she’d offered had me hooked.
“You can do this,” I say, and quickly strip off my gown.
The bikini is super-soft and fits to perfection. I braid my hair and twist it atop my head, then I add a swipe of the red lipstick I find in the en suite. There is everything I could want in there; it’s a treasure chest of toiletries, makeup, and perfumes.
I perform a few stretches, limbering up and using muscles that have been neglected. My stomach is flat and I tense it, searching out the defined abs I once had. They aren’t as visible but they are still there. Dancing for hours a day had kept me in great shape. One advantage of a job I’d hated.
Knock. Knock.
“Yes?”
“The medic is here, and when he has completed his examination the king awaits you in his bedchamber,” a formal voice informs me through the door. “Take the stairs up one floor.”
“Thank you.”
Footsteps fade.
The medic comes in, an older male, and is swift. I get the all clear in seconds and he is gone and I am alone again.
“Right, let’s do this and then he’ll know.” I push down a spike of fear that he’ll reject me. He said it didn’t matter but did he mean that? I’ve had men say things they don’t mean many times before.
I walk barefoot from the room and make my way to the spiral staircase I’d used in my escape attempt. Nerves twist in my belly and the air breezes over my skin as I go up instead of downward.
There is no one around. It is as if the palace has been emptied for my performance to the king. Thick silence surrounds me.
The upper floor is even grander than the lower section of the palace. The corridor leading to an enormous purple and golden double door is decorated with an elaborate frieze containing silvery images of planets, mountains, and creatures I don’t recognize.
It dawns on me just how much I have to learn about my new home.
Home?
Am I beginning to accept it?
I don’t have time to ponder the thought because I am at the ornate heavy doors. Two empty chairs are positioned either side and I wonder if guards or servants usually occupy them.
This is the King Athos of Planet Hade after all.
I knock, twice.
There is no response but the left door slowly and silently opens.
Inside the lighting is dim and buttery and it smells of incense, similar to the spiced clove scent of Athos himself.
I step inside; the flooring is like velvet on the soles of my feet.
Before me is indeed a silvery pole. It is sturdy and a decent diameter. Beyond that is a huge pillared bed with an embroidered gold and purple canopy. Seated on the end of the bed is King Athos.
Bare-chested, he wears only pants that show a bulge over his two cocks.
The nerves in my belly wind ever tighter. Two big hungry cocks! He is indeed alien. A flush travels up my neck to my cheeks. There will be a point I have to get up close and personal with his double dicks.
“How did I do with the outfit?” he asks, his voice deep and gruff as he looks me up and down. There is no attempt to hide his perusal of my body. It is a blatant drinking up of my long legs, pale torso, and finally my face.
A pulse sets up in my clit and my pussy clenches. There is undisguised appreciation in his eyes and he curls his fingers into the material he’s sitting on.
I’ve seen enough men get turned on by me and a pole to know he’s thinking of sex. I make a point of not looking at his groin.
“You did very well.” I shimmy my chest and the gems sway and tickle my flesh.
“I am pleased.” He points at the pole. “And this?”
“Yes, though one thing is missing if you want the full experience.”
“What is that?”
“Music.”
“Ah, yes, I have that.” He claps and twists to face a panel on the other side of the room. “Earth music, popular choices.”
Suddenly the room is full of an up-beat tune and my body reacts, limbs twitching to move and dance.
Dancing was always my happy place.
Until Vegas.
But maybe it will be different here. I’ll feel lighter because I’m more settled.
“How is that?” he asks, stretching his arms out behind himself and propping his weight back on them.
Now I can’t avoid looking at his groin and the outlined wedges of flesh there. “I think it will work.” I hope he doesn’t hear the tension in my voice.
“What should I do?” he asks.
“Nothing.” I take a step toward the pole, hips rolling and chin tilted. “You just have to watch.”
“Like the men did…before?”
“Yes.”
“I have no money to give you.” He raises his eyebrows and a smile tugs his lips.
“I do not want your money, King Athos. I want you to know what I did before I signed up to Project Hope. If you can get past that, perhaps we have a chance.”
“I already know we have a chance,” he kind of growls. “More than a chance, we are meant to be.”
His belief gives me some confidence.
I take hold of the pole and strut around it, my fingers butterflying on the cool metal. Memories tumble into my mind and I swear the scent of alcohol and smoke fills my nose even though there is none here.
I push those memories away. This is the here and now and I’m being as honest as I’ve been with anyone in a long time.
And I have just one man to dance for—a man who has already pledged loyalty to me.
I press up close to the pole, familiarizing myself with it, then spin and align it with my spine. The crown of my head presses against it, solid and sturdy, and then I hook my left leg around it and arch my back so that I am tipped right over and away from it.
The music beats through my body and I twirl and let the pole take my weight for half a rotation. The metal slides beneath my palms and the air caresses my warm skin.
My body is coming to life again, muscle memory taking over, and I climb higher, ankles locked and spin several times around it.
“Visha,” he says in a low guttural voice. “You are beautiful.”
I don’t reply, my next move is itching to get out. I lean back as I spin, my vertebrae relishing the stretch, and straighten my legs, toes pointed. A thrill grips me. I’d always enjoyed practicing before the club opened, before the customers arrived. When it was just me and the music and my dancing.
I still and move into what we called a chopper at the club, an upside down hang, legs in a wide ‘v’. But I only hold it for a moment, the music is calling me to move. So I spin fast and end it on an outside leg hang that shows off my long limbs and graceful neck.
Before long I am going through my repertoire of moves, I feel alive, at one with my body. I am not thinking about the club or the mean fat manager and the groping men. This is me.
I am aware of Athos standing, hands on his hips.
I fly into a ballerina spin that takes me almost to the floor and then back up.
And then I still, feet grounded.
I am hot and breathless and a few strands of damp hair cling to my neck. Dancing and twirling has injected exhilaration into my blood and I stand, back to the pole, and stretch my hands above my head to grip it, breasts jutted forward. A smile curls my lips.
“I like to see you smile.” He is standing right before me.
I am taken aback at the speed he moved. But then my smile drops. His expression is unreadable. His dark purple eyes flash and his nostrils flare. There’s tension in his jaw and the tendons of his neck are rigid and he is breathing almost as fast as I am.
My stomach flips. He hated it. He’s seen me for what I am—a woman who used her body to earn a living. Legs akimbo, very little clothing, crotch grinding on a pole.
“Pole dancing is a skill I didn’t know existed,” he says gruffly.
“Sometimes I wore even less clothing.” I continue to stare up at him, waiting for the admonishment, the disgust, the judgment that my mother had layered upon me making me feel worthless and lazy.
“You…” he says, placing both of his warm palms on the inside of my upper arms and sliding up until he reaches my hands. He grips over them, keeping me trapped against the pole. We are chest to chest. “Are a woman of incredible grace and skill no matter what or how much you are wearing.”
His warm breath washes over me as my breasts shift up and down with my panting.
“And I thank the Sky God Butan that he chiseled into the mountains that you are to be my destiny.” His lips are so close to mine I can almost feel them moving.
“I am?” A nugget of hope grows inside me. He doesn’t care about my past. “Your destiny?”
“Yes. And if your beautiful body and your pole dancing is the worst of your darkness then we do not have any problem.”
“We don’t?” Hope is a dangerous thing but still I let it in.
He presses closer, and those two solid, appreciative wedges of flesh shove into me. “No, Visha, there is no problem. For I admire an instinct for survival. I admire the sense to know when to walk away from people who do not appreciate you. And I admire you for taking hold of a chance at a new life.”
“You do?” I am grateful for his words and lap them up.
“Yes. And you should be rewarded. Celebrated for that.”
I wait for him to go on. My nipples are tight points poking at the bra top and I am hot between my legs.
“You will keep your hands up here,” he says, capturing my wrists in just one of his hands. He pulls out a length of rope from his pocket.
“What are you—?”