Page 4 of Crow
Someone thumped on the door, and a voice shouted through that I was up.
“Just a minute!” I yelled back.
I pulled the money the regular had given me from my cleavage, rolling my eyes when I saw it was only a measly couple of dollars. I didn’t know what I had been expecting; he always had been a fucking cheapskate. I shoved the bills into the back pocket of my shorts because, hey, money was money, and pulled out a little baggie full of fine white powder.
I tapped some of the coke out into a line on the ledge by the sink and was just stashing the baggie away again when someone else started pounding on the door.
“Jade!” they yelled. “Get a fucking move on, the crowd’s getting antsy and Cameron’s about to lose his shit!”
“I saidjust a goddamn minute!” I yelled back, holding my hair out of the way as I bent over the line of coke. “Jesus…”
I snorted it up, gasping against the burn in my nostrils. I felt my nerve endings come to life, lighting up as colors and smells and sensations became brighter, stronger,better. Whoever was outside was still hammering on the bathroom door and yelling for me to hurry the fuck up, so with a final check in the mirror that my eyeliner hadn’t smudged and there wasn’t anything under my nose, I headed out.
Glimmer was standing outside, glaring at me with her hands on her hips. I made sure to smirk and toss my hair over my shoulder as I passed her.
I wove through the tables to make my way onto the main stage, relishing the wolf whistles that followed me. The familiar sensation of the hot spotlight bathed my skin, the smaller flashing neon lights pulsing seemingly in time to my racing heartbeat. Just past the blinding light I could see the table full of bikers, with my biker sitting at the edge of the rowdy group. I winked and blew him a kiss.
Jess, or Sunburst, as she was known to the clients, was still at the bar. She never strayed far from it unless it was her turn on stage or someone wanted a private dance, because she stashed her phone behind the really expensive shit people hardly ever ordered so she could text her boyfriend during her shifts. She was standing on the bar instead of behind it now, and a horde of men was crowded around her feet, stretching on tiptoes and waving fistfuls of bills at her. She beamed at them, taking the money and every so often bending down to pour drinks from the bottle in her hand into their glasses as they tucked the money into her blue thong. She stood on one man’s hand, and I winced at the idea of that stiletto meeting his bones, but he looked like he was about to come just from that as he slumped against the bar. I shrugged it off. To each his own, and all that.
She beamed when she caught sight of me, her tanned face lighting up. Her bare boobs jiggled as she waved hello, much to the pleasure of the men, whose cheering only got louder. She pointed toward the table of bikers, and when I nodded at her, she pulled an impressed face and gave me a thumbs up. I laughed at her, then caught Cameron waving frantically at me and headed up onto stage before he really got his panties in a twist.
As Cameron played my song, the heavy bass thrumming through my bones, I turned my back to the audience to give the show more of a tease. This routine was almost as familiar to me as breathing. Lately, I had been letting my body roll and sway to the beat without thinking about it, my mind far away. But tonight, I put more effort in. There was a little extra tease as I pulled the string holding my bikini top onto my torso loose and dropped the top to the floor. I shook my hair out, I tensed my stomach, I arched my spine, I swayed my hips more as I turned to reveal myself to the cheering audience. I wanted that biker to look at me, and I wanted him to regret not getting a lap dance from me when he had the chance. I wanted him to want me, want me so much he came back.
When I looked, he wasn’t in his seat.
I scanned the crowd and saw a single figure walking toward the exit. I couldn’t be completely sure it was him, but I also couldn’t think of anyone else it could be. Everyone else was trying to push closer. He was the only one I could think of who had ever said no when I had offered him my body, and it seemed he was doing the same again.
Whatever. Screw him.
I closed my eyes and pushed the mystery biker out of my head. There was no point letting him get to me. I stripped my shorts off and lost myself to the drug-heightened sensations as I twisted around the pole, drinking in the crowd’s roars of want and approval.
***
It was always a long walk from the strip joint, Tease, to home, but Jess made it bearable. We walked arm in arm, swapping stories from our shifts, and after a quick laugh over the guy who almost came from having his hand stood on, tonight’s conversation was focused on the table of bikers.
“I’m so jealous you got to dance for one of them!” she was saying, watching her feet so she wouldn’t tread on any of the cracks in the sidewalk. Superstitious bitch. “I woulda happily taken a bite of any one of them, they all lookeddelicious.” She licked her lips with a wink, and I shoved her lightly, laughing.
“Oh, fuck off, Jess. You’re way too devoted to fucking Breaker to even consider somebody else. Besides, can you imagine what he would do if he knew you were hooking up with another guy?”
“A girl can look,” she said primly, turning her nose up. There was a moment of silence as I raised my eyebrow at her before we both dissolved into laughter. We reached the block Ray’s house was on, still giggling.
“Mmm, you’re right though. The one who got the private room? Completely edible. Didn’t want a dance though.”
Jess paused in tying her long blonde hair into a ponytail, sending me an incredulous look. “The fuck?” she asked.
“Fuck if I know.” I shrugged. “Dude stood as far away from me as he could and had a fuckin’ conversation with me.”
“Why’re the best ones always gay?” Jess mourned.
“We don’t know he’s gay,” I scolded her, struggling to keep a straight face when she turned to frown at me. “He could be a prude.”
“You’re right,” she agreed in an exaggeratedly understanding voice. “Those are the only two options for why a man wouldn’t want you all up in their business.”
“Exactly.” I nodded, snickering. I kind of felt bad for laughing at him though. It had been a good conversation. I couldn’t remember the last time Ray and I had talked like that, about real stuff and not just “do this” and “touch that”.
“I guess it’s for the best though,” Jess mused, breaking me out of my thoughts. “It would be an utter waste for this dude to get obsessed with you when Ray’s got you completely under his thumb.”
“Ray’s not that bad!” I protested and could practically hear her roll her sky-blue eyes next to me.
