The VIP room is not the version of VIP I’m used to.
The carpet could use a clean and the covering on the comfortable chair—the only chair in the room—has seen better days. This is not my idea of high-end and it makes me sick to think Ashley works in a place like this every night.
Of all the ways I imagined we’d reconnect, I could not have guessed at this one.
My daydreams are running rampant right now, though.
Travel. Beach holidays. Every moment spent together holding hands and talking. Catching up on ten long months of lost time. Spiriting her away from this place and showering her with gifts. I’ve built up my memories of Ashley so that she’s a goddess in my mind. I can’t wait to see her face when she recognises me. We’re not going to need four dances. We’ll be out of here before the timer goes off on the first.
My credit card statement will show I’ve ordered private lap dances, but I plan to leave with so much more.
ASHLEY
No matter how well it went, I still wish I hadn’t had to do it.
And I really wish I wasn’t walking toward the VIP room with plans to get naked with a stranger for money. At the entrance to the room I nod to Elvira—not her real name—and she beckons me over to her podium with her long red talons.
“First time, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well, remember the rules. You nod to me if something happens that I don’t see. I’ll stop things if he gets too handsy down below. I’ll stop things if there’s kissing, or anything else inappropriate. And no sex. No matter how much money he offers you. Not even outside the club. Understand?”
“Eww. Yes, I understand.”
“You’d be surprised what girls will do for cash. Especially new girls.”
“You don’t have to worry about this new girl,” I mutter under my breath. Her rules recap has made me even less enthusiastic to do lap dances, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible.
I squeeze my eyes shut and order my racing heart to calm. If it goes any faster, I’ll be leaving here in an ambulance. If I can’t get through these dances I can’t pay the rent, and the only place to go from stripping is down, as Elvira just kindly pointed out. That will never happen, though. Zeke and I will be homeless before I’ll ever sleep with a man for money. I do have a line, and though it’s ankle height, I’ll never cross it.
With a jolt, the last time I had sex flashes in my brain. I gulp and open my eyes, trying to push the images that I dream about back into the safe recesses of my mind. They crowd into the now, though, like a beacon warning me to turn and leave this place as fast as my bare legs will carry me. There’s nothing behind that curtain that leads somewhere great, not like the night I spent with Kent.
The memories persist, despite my best efforts.
He held me, like he really cared. He laughed at my jokes and told me about his old dog. We held hands across a table and afterward… Well, afterward the release was so, so great. It makes my mouth water, even now when I’m about to let another man put his hands on me. For a second, I pretend to myself that it’s not another man. That it’s Kent back there waiting patiently for me. Wanting me to dance for him, and only him. Booking my whole night so no one else can see me. Or touch me.
Of course, that would never happen. A guy like Kent would be unlikely to frequent a place like this. He was just a normal, everyday good guy. Not a high roller who liked to grope girls. Of course, how would I know that? We only had one night together. The next day, we grinned at each other as the breakfast tray was wheeled into his hotel room. His work required him to leave but we had an hour together when it was just like the night before. We talked and shared, and laughed the time away, until it was over.
The kiss we shared at his hotel room door curled my toes. We promised to always remember our fun night and to keep it to ourselves. I wonder if he ever told anyone. I didn’t. Not even when I discovered I was going to be a mum to Zeke. Not even when my own mother disowned me for being a floozy—her words, shouted loudly down the street as she pushed me out the front door when I was three months pregnant. Right now, in my current circumstances, it feels like it was an irresponsible thing to do, but I wanted that baby. So, I kept him. And loved him.
I couldn’t have known the food poisoning scandal a month later would shut down my employer’s business and take my caterer’s assistant income, and all the money I was owed, with it.
“You going in?” Elvira’s voice snaps me out of my reverie, and I give her a sheepish nod.
My hand is on the curtain and I take the obligatory deep breath to give myself courage. In that moment I decide to pretend it is Kent in there for the next four hours.
It won’t hurt to fantasize a little that he’s come back for me. That he was watching earlier when I slid my hands across my buttocks and leaned forward to clutch the stripper pole in both hands. I hate that pole, by the way. Even now the skin on my palms is chafed. The nasty thing squeaks, too, though no one would hear it over the booming soundtrack. It’s not sexy to spin on, but it was sexy enough to get this booking. This booking that I’m going to pretend is for my dream guy.
It’s the only way I’ll survive the rest of this night.