Page 8 of Dirty Puck

We hung up andyes! I got to have a lazy day with Benny. We didn’t often get those.

After giving Mrs. Grazia a quick call to let her know of the plan change and having her tell me what she always told me,“It’s no problem,”I turned into the parking lot to the club. Staff parked around the side of the club and had a separate door to enter through. We had a code to type in. The door otherwise stayed locked and the owner had cameras installed all over, so I never felt unsafe to walk in or leave alone.

The door from the parking lot led to the hallway that housed the offices and dressing room for the dancers. I walked to Steve, our manager’s, office to clock in. I hated Steve. He undressed me with his eyes every time he saw me and that was just creepy, considering I stripped for a living. Wait twenty minutes, then you could see it for real.

“Bree,” he said in his smarmy, weasel voice. He had short, dark hair, wire-framed glasses, and his neck was almost as thick as his head, but his head was this long, oval shape. Given his tall, lanky stature, he reminded me of the kid from the movieSuperbad, so the girls and I always referred to him as McLovin—behind his back, of course.

“Hey, Steve.”

“Your son still going to that therapy shit?”

“It’s not shit, and yes,” I answered. Steve was forever trying to get me to go out with him—and I said ‘go out’ loosely. He just wanted to sleep with me. Never. Never in a million years. But I didn’t have to explain mynobecause the owner had a zero-fraternization policy in place. Plus, as the manager, that’d be a huge sexual harassment lawsuit for theclub. He constantly asked if I was going to quit because then he could take me out.

“Waiting on your resignation.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ll be the first to know.”Barf.

After clocking in, I walked across the hall to our dressing room. Missy and Renita sat at their vanity stations glamming up for their shifts.

“Ladies,” I said while heading to my locker, deciding on the metallic purple sequin number for my first dance. I liked the bling—not that it mattered because I wouldn’t be wearing it for very long. The men liked big hair so I gave them big hair. They liked heavy makeup so I gave them heavy makeup. It suited the situation, as I didn’t need any regulars to recognize me outside the club. In my day to day, I wore my hair natural and very light makeup. Since they mostly looked at my tits anyway, I felt confident that I looked different enough as to not be harassed in public.

I went by Sapphire because Diamond, Amber, Crystal, and Jade were already taken when I’d started work here.

Most of the men had their favorites and I relied on those tips. We got paid well, but the tips helped me the most. Once they announced me, I took to the stage and when the music started, I got to work.

Jesus, I remembered the fear of showing my tits to a room full of strangers for the first time. Given only two men had ever seen me naked up till then, I had to fight back tears throughout the routine.This is for Benny. I kept chanting that over and over in my head for the entire first dance.

Now, whatever. They were just tits.

I shook my ass in a new guy’s face, and he slid a crisp hundred into my garter without blinking. Don, one of my regulars, wasn’t about to be outdone. By the time the first song ended, he’d tucked five hundreds into my thong, and I knew he was just getting warmed up.

My routine built with each set. First number: the top cameoff, revealing sparkly heart, diamond, club or spade shaped pasties, depending on the costume I wore. Second set? No more pasties. Full-on nip. And by the third and final dance of the night, the thong disappeared, too. Don really got generous once the thong came off.

Technically, men weren’t allowed to pleasure themselves in the club, but I’d seen Don’s hand dip below the table the first night I’d gone full nude. Gross? Sure. But he kept it in his pants and brought the mess home, so I figured we were even. I never said a word to management. As long as he didn’t cross the line, we had a solid, if unspoken, agreement.

Big tips. Minimal drama. Win-win.

At the close of the song, I picked up the bills that hadn’t made it into my garter or my thong and ran off the stage. Renita went on next.

Dancers were allowed to keep locks on our lockers because even though I trusted my fellow dancers, you couldn’t trust everybody who worked the club and all the staff had access to the room. After counting out my first take, I shoved it inside my purse and dressed for my next number. I strictly worked the stage. Some clubs had their dancers do private dances and lap dances for the men—or sometimes women—in the audience who paid for one. But when I’d come in as a new hire, I’d been warned by Renita that a lot of the high-paying customers expectedmorethan a dance—especially in the private rooms—and management did nothing to protect us.

The girls threatened to call the owner. We all knew McLovin was getting kickbacks from those dances. If he forced any of us, he’d be acting as a pimp and that meant jail time. Instead, he hired on dancers who strictly worked the floor and private rooms. Whatever they did or didn’t do was up to them. I didn’t judge.

Since I didn’t get to see very much of my boy on dayswhen I worked both jobs, I FaceTimed him before he went to sleep for the night.

Mrs. Grazia did the talking for him. He loved seeing my face and hearing my voice. I loved seeing his sweet face. She had him tucked into his little toddler bed and I read him one of his favorite stories. Yes, I kept a small library of books in my locker for just this purpose.

“Night, buddy,” I whispered, watching his eyes lull closed. Mrs. Grazia gently ran her hand over his hair and walked out of his room, flicking off the light as she passed the switch. “I’ll be there bright and early tomorrow.”

She swatted my words away like always. “No. You need your sleep. You work too hard.”

“I do what I have to do.”

“He’s lucky to have you.”

God, I loved Mrs. Grazia. If anyone ever needed a boost to their self-esteem, they only needed to talk with Mrs. Grazia. Building people up was her superpower. My mother had passed from cancer when I was seventeen. My father lived in California with the family he’d wanted and just because my mother died didn’t mean he’d changed his mind. Thus, I’d quit school my senior year, didn’t re-up the lease on the house because I couldn’t afford it, and moved to Charleston, where I’d found the job at the arena.

That was how I’d hooked up with Dane, Benny’s father. The man played for the South Carolina Stingrays out of North Charleston. They were an ECHL farm team for the Washington Capitals. As farm teams worked, the Capitals got their talent from the AHL Hershey Bears, and the Bears got their talent from the Stingrays.

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