RICHARD (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (24 page)

I
opened the door, calling out her name. “Tanya?” I took a deep breath and walked
down the hallway, pushing open her door without so much as a knock.

“Tanya,”
I began, but the room was empty, and the bed not so much as touched since I
made it.

I
let out a snarl, driving the heels of my palms against my forehead in a feeble
effort to calm my anger. The hell was she doing taking off like that? I told her
to rest!

I
marched back out toward the kitchen in the hopes of grabbing myself a beer to
calm my nerves. I’d never been a big fan of booze, but beer had a way of taking
the edge off. It was just as I was reaching toward the handle of the
refrigerator that I finally saw the note.

Gunner,

I just couldn’t sit around
all day and do nothing. I went to work and I’ll be back late. I’ll catch a ride
home with one of the other girls. Don’t wait up.

Tanya

“Goddammit!”
I growled, crumpling up the note as I pressed my back against the fridge. I
shut my eyes tight, struggling to think. This rage was like a fog that just
wouldn’t lift, no matter how hard I tried. All I could think about was finding
Tanya and bringing her home.

I
pulled my phone out of my pocket and started a search for strip clubs down
town. I knew that one of them had to be the one Tanya worked at, and I’d check
them all if I had to. I had all night.

Chapter 6

Tanya

Maybe
I couldn’t work a pole so good with my crispy right hand, but that didn’t mean
I couldn’t dance.

I
used the pole as a prop, sliding my back down it as the bass throbbed in my
chest. When I got low to the ground I opened my legs, showing off the goods
covered by only a semi-sheer thong. What I was wearing tonight wasn’t my
hottest ensemble, but short on time and short on cash, it would have to do.

Thank
God I’d kept a few outfits in my locker, or I’d really be shit out of luck.

There
weren’t a whole lot of men crowded around my stage tonight, which wasn’t doing
much for my self-esteem. Ginger—not her real name—had twice as many guys as I
did, all of whom were in various stages of professing their undying love to her
ass. On most nights I drew a decent turn-out, including a few regulars. I had
something of a cult following here. Guys had even followed me from my old club,
the Dollhouse, just so they could keep watching me and my show, the one that
kept their greedy eyes glued to me and my tits half the night.

It
wasn’t rocket science. All I did was take a few classes—belly dancing, air
aerobics, and some “stripping for exercise” course all the new moms were dying
to try. Shit, I think I even got a
Groupon
for that
one. It pissed me off a little that these middle-class thirty-
somethings
thought working a pole was all fun and games.
They didn’t know jack shit about being a stripper. They wouldn’t have lasted
five seconds in any of the clubs I’d worked in.

The
classes paid off, though. Gave me an edge over my competitors. And that was
what they were at the end of the day, all these women grinding on the stage—my
competition.

And
tonight, I was failing miserably.

I
lunged forward and crawled toward my audience. It didn’t come off as sexy as it
usually did—I had to sort of army-crawl on my forearms
so’s
to keep pressure off my bandaged hand. I tried to make my movements sensual and
slow, but the guys couldn’t get a good view of my tits, and when I looked into
their eyes, I saw frustration. Pity.

I
wasn’t sure which made me feel worse.

But
then I saw it: somebody holding up a twenty, waving it around like a matador
flagging down a bull. I blew out a sigh of relief and sat up, sweeping my legs
off the stage and putting my feet on the ground.

Thank
God. I was starting to think I wasn’t going to make back my bus fare for the
evening. Not to mention that the more money I put in my pocket—or my
G-string—the quicker I could get the hell out of my stepbrother’s house.

Asshole thinks he owns me
now,
I thought, walking toward my customer with long strides
that made my tits jiggle.
Like he can
just swoop in after all these years and start acting like we’re family again.

But
Gunner wasn’t
really
acting like we
were family at all. The way he’d looked at me when I stepped out of the shower.
The way his eyes had roamed over every inch and curve of my body. The way his
jaw twitched like he was just barely holding back. God, he’d looked at me
like_.
_._.

Like
he wanted to fuck me.

On
the other side of the group of men, I finally caught a glimpse of the guy with
the twenty. My heart sank. Motherfucker—it was Gino.

He
folded up the bill in one of his pudgy hands and gave me an appraising look.
His lips tightened into a thin, grim line across his sweaty face, and he slowly
shook his head as his gaze snagged on my bandaged hand.

“Shit.
If you’d told me it was
this
bad, I
would’ve let you stay home.”

I
did
tell you it was this bad,
I
wanted to say, but I knew better than to argue with Gino. It was like playing
chess with a pigeon. No matter how right I was, he was just
gonna
shit all over the board and strut around like he’d won, anyway.

“Chastity’s
got your stage for the next hour,” he continued, using the bill to mop sweat
from under his chins. “You got a visitor.”

I
squinted at him. “A visitor? I’m
workin
’ here, Gino.”

“Yeah,
and now you’re
workin
’
there,
” he said, jerking his head toward the back of the club, “in
the champagne room.”

The
Domino wasn’t nice enough to have a real champagne room, but what we had did
the trick. It offered the girls and their customer privacy whenever somebody
decided to spring for a more intimate lap dance. I knew some of the other girls
found ways to earn a little more back there—blowjobs,
handjobs
,
full-on fucking. I wasn’t part of that club. That stuff led down dark paths.

We
got a lot of lonely guys here. A lot of guys that came in because nobody else
would have them. They ran the gamut from just a little awkward to real goddamn
creeps. But one guy had transcended all the regular weirdoes we got around
here. One guy had scared me so damn bad I’d almost quit working right then and
there.

I
shook off the chill snaking up my spine and said to Gino, “How’s the money on
this one?”

Gino
shrugged. “Not bad.
Ain’t
the world’s biggest
spender, this one, but better than you would’ve made out here.” He handed me
the damp twenty-dollar bill. “Here. Maybe this’ll sweeten the deal.”

Gross!
I plucked the money from his hand with the tips of my nails. Twenty dollars was
still twenty dollars, even sweat-stained and reeking of Crown Royale.

I
wove through the tables, spying Ginger grinding on stage out of the corner of
my eye. Her red hair flashed as she flipped it, stealing a glance in my
direction. I saw her smirk—saw triumph glitter in her eyes.
Whatever, bitch. I won’t be out of
commission forever.

Maybe
if I made enough money, I could get a new outfit. Something skanky. Something
with higher heels. And then maybe Ginger could go jump off a fucking bridge.

I
was halfway to the champagne room when Chelsea spotted me. She was on some
drunk guy’s lap, which was pretty much where you could usually find her, if she
wasn’t at home. Even when we went out to the clubs—the ones
without
naked chicks all over—
Chel
was a bloodhound for the guys with one too many drinks
in ‘
em
and more money than they could spend.
Sometimes I wished I had her nose for it. Maybe then I could get the fuck out
of Gunner’s place, this club, and this whole damn city.

“Hey,
look who’s here!” Chelsea said, giggling as she bent backward. With her tits
straight up in the air she looked at me, batting her baby blues. “How’s the
hand, sweets?”

“Shitty
for dancing,” I told her, smiling as she straightened back up. She undulated
like a snake, her flesh always moving. Her customer seemed pleased. “I got
someone in the champagne room, though.”

Chelsea
spun around, kicking her legs off the man’s lap to grind her ass into him.
“Ooh, maybe you’ll get another regular? I’m
tellin
’
you, sweets, a steady stream of loyal customers is the only way to go.”

“You
want loyal customers?” one of the fat, greasy men next to her sneered over the
rim of his Jack and Coke. “Shut the fuck up while you’re on the job.”

The
man under Chelsea winced. “Jeez, Dad. Leave her alone.”

I
stood there for a moment, taking in the scene. Chelsea was ignoring the men
pretty successfully, but I couldn’t. I just didn’t have her resolve.

It
fuckin’ killed me to see the generational misogyny evolving right before my
eyes. Maybe the kid wasn’t so bad, but he was still here, wasn’t he—taking
advantage of women with no viable alternative for survival? Renting our bodies
like we were any other whore on the street? He might not have been a blatant
dick like his dad, but what would happen if
Chel
saw
him in a Starbucks someday, and he thought he could get her into his car and
back to his house because, hey, he’d bought and paid for her, right?

When
she said no, what was the first thing he’d say back to her?
No? You’re a fucking stripper. Who the fuck
are
you to tell me no? Fucking bitch. You’re nothing but a
whore.

I’d
seen it happen. I’d been on the receiving end of that shit way too many times.
Thank God I’d always been able to walk away. I knew a lot of girls who never
had that choice and came to work the next day with scrapes and bruises as a
result.

And
here that vicious cycle was, perpetuating right in front of me. Men’s ownership
of women, of our bodies. It made me think of what Gunner would say if he could
see me here, shaking my tits up on stage.

That
was why I had to get out of his house. He was just another Jim waiting to
happen. I was sure of it.

Hell,
they all were.

I
left Chelsea to it after mouthing “we’ll talk later” and seeing her wink in
reply. No way she was
gonna
give up a sweet tip just
‘cause of the guy’s fuck-face father. I understood it. Didn’t like it,
especially since she was my friend, but money makes the world go ‘round.

I
knew that all too well.

As
soon as I neared the back door, the smell hit me: sweat, sex, and somebody’s
shattered dignity. It hung stale in the air. I wrinkled my nose. It had smelled
exactly like this the last time I was in here with a man—the one who’d turned
me off to the idea of private dances for a long, long time.

Usually,
all a stripper had to worry about was some guy who didn’t know when enough was
enough. Some asshole who’d get too
handsy
, or who
wouldn’t listen when a girl said “no.” Then we’d just call one of the bouncers
and hope they got to us before the guy had a chance to clock us, or worse, get
their bodily fluids in our hair.

But
this
guy_.
_._._I’d known from the moment I shut the
door that something about him was off. Maybe it was the mask he wore over his
face. Like Comedy and Tragedy, only this guy had forgot the Comedy part.

I
could see his eyes glinting through the dark socket holes, and I think that’s
when I knew for sure shit would go wrong. There was nothing there. No hope, no
desire, not even a drunken spark. His eyes were flat and dead. Like a shark’s.

He
didn’t want me to dance, either. He wanted me to take my top off. He wanted me
to stand in the middle of the room and he circled around me, looking me up and
down, judging me, scrutinizing me. He’d made me feel like a slab of meat.

Then
he’d bent me over the stage, spread my legs, and began grinding between my ass
cheeks. I could feel him filling up, getting harder. When I tried to speak, he
put his hand on the back of my neck and squeezed. And then he’d started
talking.

He
used a voice scrambler—holy fuck, was that horrifying. He’d told me all about
his mother, how she used to be a stripper just like me. How she’d been a whore,
too, though he thought I might be above that. He said there was something pure
about me, something perfect. I reminded him of what his mother could’ve been.
I’d probably make a great mom, myself.

And
then he told me how she died. How one night, she’d fallen asleep after some rum
and Vicodin. He told me about how some nights when she was passed out, he’d
sniff her panties. But how on
this
night,
he’d stuffed them down her throat.

“The
way she choked is a sound that will never leave me. How does it sound when you
choke, Tanya?” Too fast for me to stop him, he’d wrapped his arm around my
throat. “I’ll bet it sounds the same.”

That’s
when I screamed. It took everything I had, but I shrieked and bucked and
bellowed Nick’s name until he’d come crashing in, murder on his face. But by
the time he had the psycho was gone. My backside was moist—he’d gotten off on
the sound of my screaming.

I
wobbled near the doors and put my good hand on the wall to steady myself. My
pulse pounded in my ears so loud I couldn’t hear the
bassline
anymore. My throat was dry and my stomach was turning, threatening to spill my
guts right there on the floor. I took a deep breath through my nose and shut my
eyes, telling myself the same thing I had every time I had to come to the
champagne room.