18
Sable
Idirected the men carrying my new couch up the stairs. The thing was huge. While it was new to me—it wasn’t brand new. It was still one of the nicest things I’d ever bought.
“You’re really settling into this place, huh?
” Victor asked as the men set the couch in the living room before leaving.
The place was slowly coming together. It would take time before I was able to afford all the things to furnish the place.
I was still sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but at least people had a place to sit now.
“I’m trying to,” my eyes straying once more to the little kitchen nook where I’d stupidly kissed Orion the other night.
He hadn’t been back to the club since. I couldn’t blame him.
There I was trying to climb him like the proverbial tree.I’d gone too far when the guy had just been nice by giving me a ride home.
Victor came over, placing his hand on my forehead, making me jump back in surprise. “Are you okay, dude?”
“The fuck? Yeah. Why would you think I wasn’t?”
Victor laughed. “Because you keep zoning out looking at your kitchen. Did something happen the other night when Orion took you home?” He pumped his eyebrows at the question.
I rolled my eyes, but said nothing.
I never had an issue sharing the details of my sex life with my friend, but something about the moment I’d shared with Orion felt different, special, like it was only meant for us.
Tell the press. Sable has suddenly become a man who doesn’t kiss and tell.
“Come on. You can’t tell me nothing happened. A man like that? Fuck, Sable. I’d be ashamed of you if you didn’t take the opportunity once you had him alone again.”
I sighed, dropping back onto my new couch. It had a weird smell coming from it. I probably needed to go to the store to buy one of those fabric refreshers or something before I spent too much time on it. Maybe the cases on the cushions were washable.
“He’s married.” It was the only thing I could think of to say.
“And? He’s coming to the club for a reason. You’ve never been judgmental of a client before. What’s different about this guy?”
I glared at Victor, flipping him off. “You know it’s different. I don’t get to know my clients like this. He’s crossed the line to friend and I—I don’t know. It feels weird to go there with him now.”
Victor sat next to me on the couch. I had to fight back a laugh when his face screwed up noticing the smell like I had.
“Sable. Love. Please. For fuck’s sake. Fuck the guy. You like him. He likes you. Don’t make it more complicated than that. We’re friends—you don’t seem to have that problem with me.”
He was right. Victor and I had been in bed together more times than I could count, so I couldn’t figure out why the hell I was still hesitating.
“I don’t know.”
Victor threw his arms up in exasperation, standing back up from the couch.
Couldn’t blame him—the longer we sat there, the worse the smell got.
I’d need to look at the thing to make sure there wasn’t anything spoiled, or worse, dead, inside it.
That would be my luck. The price was maybe a little too good to be true, but it was now my problem instead of the previous owner’s.
“What the hell is up with this couch?” he exclaimed, hands on his hips, face scrunched up in disgust.
I was thankful for the distraction and change of subject. Victor had to help me up from my spot because I’d slouched too much—the soft cushions were eating me alive. I’d probably need to look into a little extra batting as well.
“Wish I knew. Better take a look.”
We both started taking the pillows off the couch—the smell only got worse the further inside the couch we got.
There was a hole in the upholstery under the cushions.
I suspected that was where the smell was coming from.
I hated to admit that my fear that something had died in the damn thing was right.
Hopefully, whatever it was wasn’t too terrible to clean up.
Against my better judgment, I stuck my hand inside the hole, feeling around. I couldn’t feel anything at first. I also didn’t want to make the hole any bigger in an attempt to make things easier to see.
When my hand hit something that was stiff and somewhat slimy, I fought back the urge to puke. “I think I found it.”
“What is it?”
I glared at Victor because that wasn’t what I needed. What I needed was for my friend to get over there and take care of the problem for me. Not just stand there watching me.
“I don’t know, you jackass. It feels stiff and slimy.”
He laughed, and the sound only made me bristle more. I wanted to punch his smug face with the slimy hand that was currently buried in my couch.
“Keep laughing. I don’t want to know what the hell I just touched. It feels so damn gross.”
It only made Victor laugh harder. I knew one way to make him shut up. As much as it grossed me out to do it, I wrapped my fingers around whatever the hell it was, pulled it out, throwing it across the room at my friend.
The smell was so much worse when it was free of the couch. Victor screamed as the small dead mouse went sailing across the room. It hit him square in the chest. He rushed to wipe whatever decomposition slime had been forming on the thing from his clothes.
Now I had another problem. The dead mouse was still in my damn apartment. Without the fabric of the couch to dampen the smell, it was nauseatingly bad, as could be identified by the two of us beginning to dry heave.
I got up from my spot on the floor running to open the front door.
At least, this forced Victor to touch the vile little thing as he picked it up from the floor, throwing it outside over the balcony into the parking lot.
I followed him outside. We both stood there looking at the tiny little dead thing lying there between two cars.
For the first time since the sad little adventure began, I felt a little bad for the thing—it deserved a proper burial, didn’t it?
“Let me see if I have a small box or something.” I said as I rushed back into the apartment.
“What the fuck, Sable. You threw a dead mouse at me, now you’re looking for a box?”
“Yes, so we can bury it.”
Victor stood there, staring at me.
“Don’t give me that look,” I said, placing my hands on my hips.
It seemed wrong to just toss the thing outside, leaving it for the birds to pick apart.
Sure, that was the circle of life and all of that, but realizing that we’d tossed the poor thing out there after it had died in the comfort of the confines of my couch…
“You’re insane, but I love you. Don’t ask me why, but I do.” Victor walked into the tiny bedroom with me helping to look through my things in hopes of finding something suitable to bury it. It was because of those small things that we’d become such good friends outside of the occasional hookup.
I was the first to find a reasonable box. We made our way down to the parking lot to perform a proper burial for our dead little friend.
For Your Life by Led Zeppelin blasted through the speakers as my hand wandered up my bare chest. The club wasn’t even open yet, but that didn’t mean I danced like people weren’t watching.
No, I practiced as if I were enticing a million sets of eyes.
I swayed my hips to the beat of the music, kicking up my leg before falling into a split on the stage.
“Damn. It’s a shame that you’re gay.”
The song ended, and I laughed, opening my eyes to see Justine leaning against the edge of the stage. She still looked like she wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, but better than she had been when she left the other day.
I slid off the stage, wrapping my arms around her in a hug. “Hey, Jazzy. Good to see you back.”
She returned my embrace—her smile weak when she pulled away. “It feels good to be back. I hated taking a few days off, but I think I finally got this stomach bug under control.”
“Did you see a doctor? You were out for a whole week?” I asked while walking back to the dressing room.
Justine only shrugged. “Doctors cost money, you know how Henry is. He’s so stingy about things, and while he’s supposed to provide us with insurance...”
She didn’t have to continue. I was all too familiar with the shitty health plan that Henry had provided us with at the club.
It barely covered my health checks that I got every three months.
The man should be making sure that our bare minimum needs were being met, but he wasn’t.
He took the requirement of providing insurance for his employees by going with the cheapest route he could find.
A lot of times when I went into doctors’ offices, they hadn’t even heard of the company.
One office thought it was a scam, refusing to accept my card.
I insisted that it wasn't. They reluctantly ran it only to discover that it actually worked and that the appointment was covered with a fifty-dollar copay.
Those appointments were more than a little important when you sold your body for a living.
It didn’t change the fact that I was worried about my friend. A week was a long time to be sick, especially when she was still not feeling all that well. Something else had to be going on. No one should have to make the choice between their job or their health.
As we got backstage, I was mothering a little more than necessary. I held Justine’s chair for her, helping her to take her seat at the vanity. It was a move that wasn’t missed by the other dancers in the room.
For the most part, we all got along. Every once in a while, the green flare of jealousy reared its ugly head, and tonight looked like one of those nights as Raven made her way over to us.
She had a look of displeasure on her face, her lips curled up into what was almost a snarl as she rested a hand on Justine’s vanity.
“You know, most men won’t pay for a woman who looks like she’s going to vomit on them, Jazzy.”