Arya
I could hear the men chanting from their seats and I blinked nervously. I couldn’t believe what had happened. As soon as I had arrived at the job, they’d led me to the back and told me to change into this absolutely horrendous outfit. I’d had a bad feeling as soon as I’d been asked my favorite songs to dance to. Now thinking back to the earlier conversation, it all made sense. I wasn’t here to tend bar. I was here to be a stripper.
I’d wanted to leave right away, but I was too embarrassed to just go right home. Especially after Chet had told me he didn’t think it was a good idea. But now, here I was, playing this Texas Two Guns and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I felt someone pushing me from behind.
“Get on the stage and start dancing,” Jimmy said roughly. I took a step forward. The cheers went even wilder as I made my way to the front of the stage. Just dance, Arya, was all I could think to myself, just dance. I felt completely exposed in my bikini top and was glad that I’d been able to wear a long skirt as opposed to bikini bottoms.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when the men started shouting for me to take my top off because there was no way in hell that was going to happen, and there was also no way in hell I was going to give any private lap dances. Really, I knew I should just leave, but I figured maybe if I just did a dance that would be good enough. Maybe people would throw money on the stage. Maybe they would realize it was my first time and cut me some slack.
I started moving my hips back and forth to the beat of “Sweet Home Alabama.” Please, God, let this end quickly, was all I could think. Let there be a fire in the kitchen or let a tornado hit the state right now.
But I wasn’t that lucky.
The next song that started playing was “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” A man at the front stood up and walked towards the stage.
“Pour some sugar on me, baby!” he shouted and a bunch of other men cheered. I tried to smile, but I felt like I was grimacing.
“Sit on my face!” someone else shouted. And I strutted, I turned around so that my ass was facing the crowd and my face was towards the back. I moved my hips back and forth to the beat, I knew that I was an absolutely crappy dancer, but there wasn’t really much else that I could do.
“Start taking off your clothes!” someone else shouted. I would rather have died than take anything off.
“Come on, sexy. Let me see that ass!” another man yelled. I took off my cowboy hat and threw it into the crowd, and the cheers went even wilder. I could see how the fanfare might be appealing to some women, but it wasn’t appealing to me.
“I want that bikini top!” someone else shouted.
I took a deep breath, unsure what to do. Suddenly, a guy jumped on the stage and wrapped his arms around my waist. I turned around and pushed him off me.
“Hey,” I said, “stop it!”
“I’m helping you, beautiful,” he said. “You seem to forget where your bikini strap is.” Before I could respond another man had jumped onto the stage and punched the guy right in the face. The guy went flying to the ground and I screamed.
“It’s okay, Arya,” said a deep, familiar voice. My savior was wearing a cowboy hat, a fake mustache, and overalls, but as I looked into his eyes, I knew it was Chet.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed at him.
“Saving you.”
“Chet!”
“Don’t you mean, thank you?” He grabbed my hand. “Come on”
“What’s going on here?” a man shouted.
“Let me take you home.” Chet squeezed my hand. “She’s done,” he shouted at the crowd. “Go home to your wives, fellas.”
“I want to see some titties and some ass!” an older man from the side yelled angrily. Chet let go of my hand and took a menacing step in his direction.
“You want me to beat your ass well?”
He took a hasty step back. Chet walked back towards me and grabbed my hand.
“Chet, this was my—”
“Really, Arya?”
He gave me a look, and I pressed my lips together. Before I knew what was happening, he swept me up and jumped off of the stage with me in his arms. He carried me as if I were light as a feather.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, “I just need to get my purse, it’s in the back.”
“Wyatt?” Chet barked. I blinked as I realized that his brother was there as well in an equally ridiculous get-up. “Go to the back and get Arya’s things. I’m taking her to the truck.”
“Okay. Hey, Arya,” he said with a smile.
“Hi, Wyatt,” I said sheepishly.
“What a night, eh?”
“You can say that again.” My entire body was hot with embarrassment. “You can put me down now, Chet.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on.” He carried me all the way through the bar and only let me down when we got outside.
“I cannot believe you just did that,” I snapped.
“You cannot believe I just saved you from a bunch of dirty old men?”
“I didn’t need you to save me!”
“What were you going to do next, Arya? Tell me that.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“They were begging you to take off your bikini top. A man jumped up to help you. What were you going to do next?”
“I….” I paused “Fine, I was out of my element and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but you shouldn’t have come. You can’t fight all my battles for me.”
“You want to bet?” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you make stupid decisions, I will be here for you.”
“If I make stupid decisions—What stupid decisions did I make?”
“You took a job here, for one.”
“I thought I was going to be a bartender.”
“But you are not. You’re a stripper.”
“When you found out you were a stripper, why didn’t you leave? Did you want to be a stripper? Did you want to give dirty men lap dances? Did you want to feel weird men underneath you growing hard trying to grab at your pussy and…”
“Chet! You don’t have to say that!”
“I don’t have to say what?” You didn’t think every single man in there wasn’t thinking about how they could finger you and maybe pay you big bucks?
“No, I wasn’t thinking about that. They told me I could make $500 in…” I sighed, “Now I know why I was going to make so much money.”
“Arya, I’m not trying to prevent you from earning money and making a life for you and Eloise. I am trying to protect you from signing up for stupid,” he glared at me “and yes, I said stupid jobs that will put you at risk”
“I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“I know you’ve been doing it your whole life, Arya, but maybe I want to help take care of you too.”
“Why? Why do you want to take care of me?”
“Maybe because I like you, you stupid woman.”
“Okay, well you like me, but I need more than like to pay the bills, okay? I have to provide for me and Eloise—”
“Maybe I want to provide for you and Eloise!”
“No, you don’t. I appreciate your friendship, Chet. It means a lot to me. You’re one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, but—”
“Oh, you’re not going to give me the friend talk right now. You fucked me in my bed last night.”
“So? It didn’t mean anything to you. You said it yourself.”
“When did I say it didn’t mean anything to me?”
“You told me that.”
“I don’t think I did, actually. I think you assumed that without talking it through with me.”
I blinked. “So… what are you trying to say?”
Chet swallowed. “I’m saying that maybe, just maybe, I want to step up to the plate. Maybe I want to have a real go of this with you, Arya.”
“A real go of this?”
“Maybe it means that I’m falling for you, and I want to step up to the plate and take care of you.”
“I don’t need you to take care—”
“I know you don’t need me to pay for everything for you and for Eloise. And I know you don’t need me to be Eloise’s father, but I want to be there for you. Maybe I’ve realized that what I’ve been fighting is myself. And maybe I realize that two is always better than one. Or in our case, three.”
“What do you mean three?”
“You, me, and Eloise, silly.”
“You can’t just say things like that, Chet. This isn’t a game.”
“I never said it was a game.”
“I can’t just have someone in and out of Eloise’s life. If you’re going to be in her life, it has to be…”
“Forever,” he said softly. “I know that, and that’s what I want.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I know you don’t believe me, and I know this has just been an absolutely crazy week, but I want to be in your life forever. And I want to make this work. I want this to be a real relationship. Will you give me a shot? Please?”
The silence stretched out between us as I considered his words. “I have to think about this,” I finally said. “I just don’t know.”
“Okay. I’ll give you as much time as you need, but promise me one thing, Arya.”
“What, Chet?”
“Promise me you’re not going to take another job without talking to me first, please.”
“Fine,” I said. “I can do that, but…”
“What?”
“If I like the job, you have to let me do it.”
“Fine. I promise.” There was another long pause, then he smiled. “So does this mean you’ll spend the night with me?”