PART TWO
Jennifer - Two Years Later
Iadjust my crown, strategically placing it to hide the honey-blonde regrowth which has started to make an appearance, then place one more bobby pin in my hair to keep it in place, making a mental note to get some more chestnut-brown hair dye tomorrow.
Sliding my gray eyes down my body in the mirror, I linger on the black lace lingerie, then the black satin fingerless gloves that go up to my elbows. Next, I adjust the garter around my thigh, making sure everything looks perfect.
One of the curls hanging down over my chest doesn’t look quite right, so I quickly use the curling iron on the vanity to fix it. Stalling. Once I’m completely satisfied, I step into my stilettos and walk to the door.
The nerves are there, like always, buzzing through my skin and swarming around in my stomach. But I ignore them, forcing myself to push past the discomfort.
You deserve this.
After sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I release it slowly between my fuchsia-coated lips, then step through the door and out into the dim, red mood-lit room.
Heads turn in my direction and eyes land on me, slithering down my body in a way I’m so familiar with, yet hate with every fiber of my being.
I plaster a practiced smile on my face and walk through the room with a swing of my hips, immediately noticing how particularly sticky the floor feels tonight.
I’m guessing it’s from the bachelor party that was held here last night.
It’s not surprising that they didn’t bother cleaning the floor properly.
This place is one of the shittiest and seediest dives around and cleaning is not high on the priority list. Just the thought of what else is mixed in with the spilled drinks on the ground makes my gut roll.
I scan the area, making eye contact with patrons and watching them for a signal that I’m wanted. Sundays are usually on the quieter side, but it’s never empty here.
The club is one large, open rectangle space, filled with chairs and tables for drinks.
A stage with two poles juts out in the center of the room, while a bar stretches across the opposite wall where a few people stand chatting while waiting for their drinks.
To the right, is a hall that leads to the private dance rooms, changing rooms, bathrooms, and side exit.
A man who looks to be in his fifties dips his chin and crooks a finger at me, a command to come to him. I swallow down the nausea and sudden panic that surfaces every single time and make my way over to him, the remaining light in my soul dimming with each step.
The man who summoned me is flanked by two others around the same age, which is always preferable to us being alone. They’re all wearing suits and look well-off, which makes me wonder why they’re here of all places. They must have taken a wrong turn at some point.
I guess it doesn’t matter.
“Hello there.” My voice comes out as a purr even as bile rises in my throat. “How can I help you this evening? Would you like a dance?”
“Well, I didn’t call you over for a conversation.” He pats his thighs and leans back in his chair.
I smile widely at him, as if that’s exactly what I wanted to hear, and set the timer on my watch.
Some clubs run things a little differently and go by the length of a song, but here, we go by ten-minute intervals—the owner and my boss, Chester, likes it that way.
Taking my mind far, far away to its happy place, I get to work, moving my hips in time with the music and grinding into his lap.
Zoning out is usually the only way I can get through a dance.
Forcing myself to live like this is one thing, but being here mentally while doing it is another entirely.
I’m not really working at one of the worst strip clubs in a terrible area as an exotic dancer, grinding on a stranger’s lap because I know that’s all I’m worth now.
I’m lying in a hammock with the breeze blowing softly through my hair, ruffling the pages of my book as I turn them, a German Shepherd laying below where my toes lazily rub his fur . . .
The safety of my daydream bursts when the man gropes my ass cheek, causing me to jerk to my feet and spin around to face him.
I try settling my heart and will myself not to react too strongly.
“I’m sorry, but you can only touch the dancers on Feel-it Fridays, and only if the girl doesn’t mind. Otherwise, you are to keep your hands to yourself. Do you understand?”
It’s a joke, really, trying to give patrons of this place rules. Nevertheless, it’s attempted anyway, and giving them an option of touching one day a week usually works.
Thank goodness I don’t work on Fridays.
He raises both hands, palms outwards. “Sorry, sorry.”
We’re supposed to give everyone several chances before calling security for help.
But just like the rules, the bouncers here are just as much a joke and hardly intervene.
If someone does manage to get themselves thrown out for the night for not listening and obeying the rules, they often waltz right back inside the next day because security isn’t paying attention.
It’s mostly harmless touching that happens, a natural reaction to the desire we evoke in them, though some girls do get a little roughed-up occasionally.
Nodding, I settle onto his lap again, this time facing him with my knees bracketing his thighs, breasts in his face.
“What’s your name?” he asks my chest.
I hate it when they ask questions, because that means I have to be present instead of escaping into my mind. It means I teeter that much closer to the edge of a panic-induced breakdown—one I force myself to get close to every time I come here.
But a happy customer means they stay longer. They spend more. They leave bigger tips.
It means no trouble.
“JJ.”
“Like the letters?” For someone who didn’t want to have a conversation, he sure is chatty while I’m practically naked on top of him.
I keep my gaze fixed over his head. “Yes.”
“Is it short for something?”
“No.”
At least, not anything I’d tell him. JJ is my dance name, and that’s all he needs to know.
Jayne is the name I go by now, which is my middle name.
I ditched Jennifer two years ago and have tried hard to separate myself from the person I once was.
Jennifer was the one who was assaulted.
Jennifer was the one who never went forward when she found out the truth.
Jennifer is the fucking coward.
Not that changing my name really matters.
I’m still stuck with all the same terrible memories.
I’m still stuck with the same suffocating guilt that erodes my soul like acid on flesh.
I grip the back of the man’s chair and adjust my knees on either side of his thighs, shaking my tits and rolling my hips. All the while trying to ignore the growing erection in his pants.
Without the safety of my happy place, every bone in my body protests against the actions I’m forcing it to do. My mind revolts against the mental stress it’s enduring.
But I keep going.
You fucking deserve this.
“Do you work in the private rooms as well?”
I resist the urge to recoil. “No.”
It’s not entirely true. Chester requires all of us to work in a private room at least once every six months to give the regular customers a treat and the regular girls a break.
My time in that room is coming up soon. I won’t tell him that, though.
If he ever asked for me, Chester may just send me in there to make the customer happy, even if it wasn’t my scheduled night.
Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl.
How much time does he have left?
“That’s a shame.” Lifting his hands, he moves them around my breasts and hips, as if sliding over my skin, but he keeps an inch of space between his palms and my body.
Seconds feel like minutes, minutes like hours, and then finally, the timer on my watch goes off. The song happens to finish at the same time, and I leave him with cash stuffed into my bra.
I want to run.
Run far away from here and hide away from the world, but that life would be a blessing I don’t deserve.
And the night is only getting started.
Six hours later, I hit the bathroom on my way to the dressing room, collapsing onto the toilet seat and burying my face in my hands.
Another night done.
Breathe.
Eyes closed and body curled forward, I allow myself a minute to unravel at the seams, spilling all the emotions that have been trapped inside all night onto the floor.
This is your sentence. Suck it up.
Swallowing, I drag my body to a sitting position, mentally shoving all my thoughts and emotions back inside and covering them with a neutral expression. Another ten seconds pass and I get up, walking out of the stall to find a few girls chatting by the sinks.
They mostly work the stage and pole, while I stay on the floor, so we don’t interact a lot—not that I interact a lot with anyone here.
They smile, acknowledging me as they continue their conversation as if they were in a coffee shop, not shimmering with glitter and dressed in tiny pieces of lace and fabric after rubbing their bodies all over a pole or men and women all night.
I smile back but quickly leave. They know I’m not chatty, so it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Tired legs carry me into the dressing room, and the second I reach the vanity I’m assigned to, I fall back onto the chair, peeling off my stilettos and shoving them under the counter. I wiggle my toes and arch my feet with a slight wince, trying to stretch out the ache.
“JJ, you going to come have a drink at my apartment?” Melody asks, leaning a hip against her vanity to the right of mine.
Melody is a beautiful African woman, who I’m sure could be a model if she tried but somehow ended up here. She’s a few inches taller than my five-foot-seven, though she still wears heels that shoot her well above six-foot.
Her gorgeous chocolate eyes stay fixed on me, waiting for an answer, though she already knows what I’ll say.