Beauty (11 page)

“Damn…” I whispered, making a mental note to stay far away from those.

“Yeah…that’s what I said when I woke up in a hospital two days later after receiving two blood transfusions. Damn…” she laughed as she dropped her shirt, picking up on
e
last Ziploc bag. “My best seller…” she opened her eyes wide, her thumb drawing across her throat as if she’d slit it. “Rohypnol…”

“The…date rape drug?!” I questioned, unable to hide the horror from my voice. “Who the hell would buy those…?”

“Guys…lots of them…you’d be surprised. Jocks, nerds, techies…doesn’t matter. They all want to get laid, and this little sucker…” she plucked the bag, dropping
it
back in
to
the stack with the others. “That’ll make it ten times easier.”

“So you help them…
? M
en…rape…us…women…
?
” I barely breathed out, my throat tight as my gaze ran over all the different pills. “You’re…
?
”

“A dealer, and that’s all I am. I sell for personal use only. What they do with it after the money is in my hand
s
is no concern of mine.”

“But…”

“It pays for college,” Becca interrupted me, pointing to the bag of Adderall I still had. “Five hundred dollars.”

I looked at the bag, trying to count the number of pills in it, before looking at her open mouthed.

“But…you gave me a bag like this with about the same amount of pills…”

“Yeah…I know. That’s how much you owe me for it. Five hundred dollars. I normally don’t do credit…ever…but you needed them, and besides…I know where you live,” she smiled, pulling out a box of rubber bands from a wicker basket under the table.

“Five…
f
ive hundred dollars!
?
” I gasped as I watched her
wrap
each stack of bags together in a bundle. “I thought… I thought you were just being nice… I thought they were…”

“Free…?” Becca laughed lightly, her head shaking as she tos
sed each bundle into the
basket. “Um…I can’t afford free
. I sell because it’s the only way I can pay tuition and still take classes. My cut is forty percent. Not much after he takes his sixty.”

“Who…
? T
he guy with the dreds?
”

“Yeah…” she shrugged, folding a bla
nket on top of the basket
so that the bundles were hidden.

“But…
I don’t have five hundred dollars. My parents send me a hundred dollars every two weeks, and I only have twenty of that left until next Friday. I…went shopping…” I added, gesturing to the too tight outfit I wore.

The clothes fit a lot bigger when I
’d
first bought them. The shorts barely buttoned now, but the ballooning tank top covered the
slightly
mushy belly I sport
ed, perfectly
.

“Time for a new wardrobe,” Becca commented
, eyeing
the red rings the shorts had left on my bare thighs. “Speaking of which… I know a way you can make some money. You could work with me tonight.”

“Selling!?” I squeaked before she could finished, my mouth dropping open as she stood, stretching.

“No…not selling. You’re too much of a good girl for that. Follow me. I think I have some clothes that will fit you.”

In her bedroom I waited while she pulled out various sparkling outfits, all of them made of less material than what I was wearing now. She checked the tags in the last three she pulled from her closet, throwing me a little black two piece number.

“What am I going to do in this?! Strip?!” I exclaimed, holding the sequined bra top over my chest.

“Exactly…” Becca nodded, hanging the rest of the outfits back in the closet –except for a purple one she held up to herself.

“What?! I can’t…I can’t strip! You’re a stripper too!?”

“It pays the bills Eve,” she reminded me with a shake of her head, pu
lling her tank top off and throwing it on the bed
.

I swallowed hard as I stared at her tiny breasts, her long red hair covering pale puffy pink nipples as she bent to remove the shorts she wore. She stood in front of me in just her panties,
unashamed that she was practically naked in my presence.

“I’m going to shower, and then you can go. I
like to show up
completely dressed. Sometimes you can grab an extra spot on stage if you show up in between shifts. Five minutes,” she promised, heading into the bathroom, her hair tossed over her shoulder.

I tried to think of a way to back out of going to work with Becca, but there was no way around it. I owed her five hundred dollars. She was being nice about it now, but I wasn’t so sure she would be that way if I didn’t pay up. An hour later I was riding in the passenger seat of her car, my hair straightened and shellacked into a style I could have never created
on my own
. Dark black eye shadow smudged my features, my face and body sparkling from the body glitter she’d cove
red me with me. I’d popped two A
dderall before we left, but it was the fat ass blunt we shared on the way there that calmed the butterflies in my stomach. By the time I stepped from the car, the id
ea of stripping seemed like fun. Kind of…

Chapter 9*

The club wasn’t even full yet, and the scene was loud. Half naked gyrating bodies glistened as several strippers wormed their way up and down
shiny metal
poles positioned
on stands
throughout the club. There were four different
seating
section
s
, two on either side of a main section of
round
black
tables and chairs that faced center stage. It wasn’t a ritzy club, but it was upscale enoug
h that most of the men here wore suits. We’d
entered through
the side to avoid
the line out front, but Becca was snaking her way through the patrons, heading straight for the bar. I followed, my arms crossed in embarrassment over my bare tummy. The high waist sequined bottoms I wore, dug into the crack of my ass a
nd pinched in all the wrong places
when I walked. It was more than uncomfortable. It hurt!

“Eve, Troy, Troy, Eve
,”
Becca
introduced me to a tall dark haired man -dressed in an all black suit-standing at the bar alone.

H
is dark eyes looked almost sinister
as he met my gaze for a moment, his eyes traveling the length of my body before settling on my face again. A smile
finally
tugged at the corner of his lips, and the menacing features I coward from softened. He was much older than either of us. His perfectly manicured nails, expensive clothing, and professionally done hair told me that he was probably the owner
of The Sweet Spot
.

“So you want to dance tonight? Give it a try?” he asked, holding his hand out for me to take.

I could only nod as he spun me slowly, admiring my ass for longer than necessary.

“There’s normally an audition process, but I owe Becca a favor. When I said cash in anytime I didn’t expect her to just show up with you…”

“If it’s not a good time,” I jumped at the escape, my gaze slipping to the dancer that had just taken the main stage.

I’d somehow forgotten to mention that I couldn’t e
ven dance, much less work a stage
. The dancer was u
pside down,
her
thighs gripping
the pole to hold her in place
while she removed her top slowly. Cat calls and whistles filled the middle of the room, and there was a sudden explosion of
green bills floating down around her
.

“No…tonight’s perfect actually. I’m short two dancers.”

“Yes!” Becca cheered beside me, clapping her hands before grabbing my arm.

“If you’re any good, I’ll let you come ba
ck. But for now…tonight only,”
Troy offered, giving us a small wave as Becca pulled me towards the back of the club.

He’d never even asked if I was twenty-one. It was the minimum age posted on almost all the signs outside the club, and even on a few around the bar.

The back of the house was even louder than the front, dozens of women milling about in the halls, talking, laughing, dressing and undressing.
Some of them looked younger than I did, so that answered my question of whether it was okay to not tell Troy my age.
I still followed behind Becca, only because she pulled me, my feet desperate to run in the opposite direction. All I knew was when they called my name, I was to go on stage and take my clothes off for the crowd of men waiting to be pleased.

In the car,
Becca had told me to think of a stage name, but I’d been stumped, the bud so strong that my mind felt numb. My buzz wa
s
only starting to
wear off now, and I became
vaguely aware that the person she was introducing as Eden to everyone, was me.

“Star,” a buxom blonde smiled at the two of us, nodding at me as we passed.

“Simone…”

“Diamond…”

“Deli
l
a…”

“Chasity…”

“Lovely…”

“Kiss…”

“Dew…”

I lost track of all the
different
women, my system of associating their stage names
with a feature each of them had
,
failing before I’d even committed the first two to memory. We walked along the long hallway, passing several closed door
s before we entered one, the florescent
lighting replaced with brillia
nt globe like vanity bulbs circling
the ceiling.

There weren’t any names on the dressing stations, so I took the empty chair next to the one Becca chose, looking at myself in the mirror
mounted on the wall in front of me
. I hadn’t weighed myself in what seemed like forever, and even though I’d gained more than a few pou
nds, I still looked skinny enough to me
. The double chins were still gone, my cheeks were full, but not pudgy like they’d been when I weighed three hundred and fifty-three pounds. I
did
look hot. My plain brown eyes popped under the dark shadow, and my skin glowed bright and healthy looking thanks to the body shimmer. I stood and turne
d slowly, just as I had for Troy
, admiring the womanly curves that had filled in since packing on the
last few
pounds.

“I’m up,” Becca smiled at m
e, winking as she jumped from her
chair.

I hadn’t even heard her name being called.

“Red…
that’s me,” she reminded
me
, tossing a wave over her shoulder. “Back in ten…”

Ten minutes…that’s how long I had to survive on stage naked. She’d skimmed over the rules in the car, and from what I remembered, I’d have a chance to dance on the main stage for ten minutes, and then
the
smaller station
s
for five minutes
each
.
There were no paid wages here, so the cash I collecte
d while out there, was what I
made for the night, minus the two hundred I would owe the house before I left.
The girls went in a rotation, their stage names called over a loud speaker, along with the station number they needed to be at.

“Eden,” I spoke my own stage name out loud, my ears perking when someone named
Essence was called.

Right first letter, wrong stage name. I wasn’t alone in the dressing room, but the other women ignored me, some of the
m
stretching on the floor, others changing from one outfit to another. The thump of the music coming from the club was loud enoug
h for me to pick up the beat
, so I tried moving my body
to the exact same r
h
ythm
, my hips twitching awkwardly from side to side.

If I did it slowly, I looked sexy, any faster and my body jerked robotically like I was trying too hard
. I honestly doubted any of the
men out there
would pay to see me dance for them
, much less take my clothes off. Almost all the woman seemed prettier, and skinner
than I was, their tanned bodies
toned and used to dancing on stage.

The heels I’d borrow
ed from Becca
were a half si
ze too small, and my toes
already
ached
, killing my buzz even further. Two more names were called, and I continued to practice my moves, deciding the shoes would be the first to go when I hit the stage. The longer I stared at myself in the mirror, the more nervous I felt, my stomach churning into knots making me nauseous.