Chapter 4—Payton
The silk glides through my fingers one last time before I spin up to the railing. I secure myself for a second, then dismount from the rigging and undo my system while the spotlights find the dancers below to entertain the guests.
I did it.
Again.
I’ve been doing aerial acrobatics since long before I came here. It was a secret release outside of ballet and toe class. It let me feel as if I was gliding through the air, unbound from the rules of dance. Don’t get me wrong, I love dance. Or I used to. It was my everything—till it wasn’t.
But even though I loved it, I needed a break just to move. And aerial acrobatics was the only class close to campus that no one suspected me to go to after I did ballet for several hours a day before I went home. It was also a great way to stretch every part of me. And get me off my feet.
The classes became my escape for a bit. I never expected them to be my starting career. Not that this was ever the plan. Aerial acrobatics at a strip club? Yeah, not on my counselor’s list of post-ballet jobs. Then again, I didn’t think there was anything after ballet for me.
I’ve been dancing all my life. Got accepted early to ballet school at age seven and never looked back.
I even got my GED online to make sure nothing affected my dancing.
I was one of the top students who was going to make it out of the school after I turned twenty-one and get invited to an academy to perform for years.
When I “retired,” I was just going to teach.
I had zero plans for anything else in my life.
Not even boys or the idea of a family were going to sway me from my goals.
Or so I thought.
Then, nearly eight months ago, everything changed.
Now I’m here. No longer a ballerina. No longer part of a family. Just surviving.
Which is why I take twenty minutes—longer, if I can—with me still up on the rigging to secure my equipment.
I don’t need to take it down each time, but I do.
It’s my way to make sure everything is in working order and prevent anyone from tampering with it, but it also keeps me away from the rest of the people who work here.
When I started a few weeks ago, it was made crystal clear that newcomers weren’t welcome. Once they learned I wasn’t stripping, they gave me a reprieve, till they learned they had to tip me out like the waitstaff at the end of the night. They didn’t like me much after that.
But they saw the benefit. My work was for them, not for the people watching.
The manager who hired me said it on day one: I had an innocence about me that made men want to break.
I still get shivers of fear thinking about the way he looked at me then; my skin crawled under his gaze.
There was nothing nice in the way he spoke.
It was all predatory. But I had very little choice.
He was willing to let me perform without taking off my clothes.
That was what the ad wanted—performers. Not strippers.
That’s the only reason I came here. I don’t think I could ever take my clothes off for money.
Never say never.
I acknowledge my inner voice with a nod.
She’s right. I used to think I could do this a legit way, or at least a way that made me happy to come to work.
Instead, I shrink into the shadows and hope no one sees me unless I’m above them and too far out of their reach for them to touch.
What I once thought would never happen has.
Which is why I force myself not to use the n-word—never.
It’s a recipe for disaster in my experience.
I keep my head down and head to the dressing room at the back. I have to walk through the main room, but I keep to the back wall as much as I can and scurry along. If someone reaches out to me or calls for me to stop, I ignore them all and just keep walking, almost running sometimes.
Men in general don’t scare me. It’s men that look at me as if they’ve already decided something before I’ve even been asked.
I’ve trained my entire life, and while I might have strong toes and can balance all my weight on them, I won’t be able to hold off an attacker.
I’m 5'7", but my figure has always been petite. I might have some leg muscles, and now with my efforts focused on aerial work vs. barre, I’m gaining arm strength, but it’s not enough to push someone off me.
I have a lot of fears in my life, and being attacked in any way is one of the biggest. I’ve heard too many stories about it happening to both random people and people I know to think it would never touch a part of my life.
Might seem harsh, but I live in New York.
Sure, crime is everywhere, but I already know how bad it can get.
I’ve lived through some of the worst of it, and I know it won’t be the last.
“You went over time,” Trixie says the second I enter the dressing room, stopping me from going farther in as she blocks my path with her wide stance and hands on her hips.
“S-s-sorry.” I try to walk by her, but she pushes my shoulder, and I stumble back a step.
“Sorry means shit. You fuck up my tips, and I’ll fuck you up. Get me?”
I’m not even looking at her, but I feel her in front of me as I look to the ground. I think she’s shorter than me, but I’ll never know since she always wears eight-inch heels every second of the day.
Mom would classify her as a grade A bully.
Not that labeling her does anything for me, just reinforces that I’m not where I was almost eight months ago.
I was never bullied, but I never looked down on someone either.
Sure, the teachers and instructors were tough, but it was for the routine, not the personality.
And yeah, I went over my time, something my own teachers would have talked smack about, but they would just say it and move on.
With Trixie, I have half a mind to cut out early to prevent a beatdown.
I can only pray my dance was enough. I like to say my work is the appetizer. The tease of the night for the customers. I slink, slide, and glide along my ropes. Use moves I would never do in ballet school but do here to appear sexy. In the air, I’m confident and composed, unlike on the ground.
I’m the innocent one, just out of reach for anyone to corrupt. The Crown Jewel, they like to call me. Never attainable. But if the customers are willing—and most are—they use whatever lust they built up with me on another dancer. One who doesn’t mind them touching and… other things.
I’ve never seen a person have sex in the club, but the girls talk about the private rooms, the ones on the other side of the club that I stay clear of.
Rooms that don’t have cameras in them, with locked doors and time limits that only allow a person to leave once the timer zeroes out and the lock disengages.
Some claim the tips are better. That some being Trixie.
Others… they don’t say much. But I see the tears down their cheeks.
I don’t know what for, but I can guess enough to fear the private hallway like I do other things. Like guns.
I’m terrified to death of guns. The very thought of one makes me break out in a sweat. Seeing one? I think I might go into shock. Don’t even get me started on the crazy thought of trying to overcome my fear by putting one in my hand. Pretty sure I’d throw up and then go into a catatonic state.
Trixie releases an annoyed huff before she pivots away, tossing her hair so I feel it against my skin.
If she could give me a beatdown, I know she would.
Only reason she doesn’t is because she won’t admit that I can actually help her get money.
And getting seriously hurt keeps me off the rigging, which means less money in her pocket.
I’m safe—for now. Doesn’t mean that after my shift she won’t be waiting. I can only hope I get out of here before she does. It’s something I aim to do most nights, leave before the others. It’s not much, but it’s all I have to keep myself safe.
When Trixie’s shoes leave my periphery, I beeline to my vanity.
It’s the smallest, which is fine because it’s also by the back stairs.
Stairs that no one uses because they’re rotting out and might kill a person if they put too much weight on them.
But I see them as my safety net. If something gets really bad, I can leave.
I would rather face a broken leg than some of the things my imagination has conjured up about what can happen in here.
Some might think if I’m scared to work here, I should leave.
Those are probably the same people who think I have other options.
I don’t. This is it. There is nothing else out there but this.
So I live with my fear and keep going. One day at a time.
Sometimes it’s one hour at a time, but I just keep going. There isn’t any other option.
“CJ.”
I look up in the mirror at my vanity to see the room behind me and meet Carl’s eyes.
When he hired me, he called me the Crown Jewel, and since then I’ve gone by CJ to everyone.
I don’t think anyone but Carl and the bouncers use their real names.
I doubt Trixie was named that by her parents.
But who knows? I think I read somewhere once that a person was called Apple, so what do I know about names.
“Room 3.”
“What?”
I’m not sure whose eyes go wider, Trixie’s, who spoke up in that shrill scream, or mine.