Stripped (23 page)

“I know. I get that, but I don’t know how to sit by
and say nothing as she lets people walk all over her.”

“This isn’t about me, though,” Abby interjected. “It’s
about you, and I’m so sorry about what happened to you.”

“I’m past it,” he clipped.

“Are you, though?” Charlotte asked gently. “You’ve
always kept everyone who tried to get close to you at arms’ length. A lot of
the women you’ve taken out over the years wanted more, but you never did.”

Chris shrugged.

“I want more now, with Abby.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s amazing, Charlotte. You know how I
feel about her.”

“I know, and I agree that she’s amazing. But do you
think that maybe you see in Abby someone who understands what it feels like to
be hurt in the way you were? That maybe you admire her survival because you’ve
been through the same thing?”

“I don’t know… Abby’s been through much worse than
me.”

“That’s not true, Chris,” Abby said. “Anytime
someone violates your trust in them like that, it hurts. And to have your own
mother not be in your corner makes it so much worse.”

“Is that how it was for you, Abby?” Charlotte asked.

“Sure. Having my Mom blame me for what happened
hurts. Just because I don’t show it doesn’t mean I don’t feel hurt.”

“Then why don’t you stand up for yourself?” Chris
demanded, anger seeping into his voice. Abby shook her head with frustration.

“Have you stood up for yourself, to
your
Mom?” she asked.

“Not in so many words, no. But I will. You’re right,
I should, and I will. Maybe it all comes down to that for me, I don’t know. Do
I not want to be close to anyone because of what that guy did to me, or because
of my Mom not supporting me? I don’t know.”

“Maybe what happened to me has affected me, too, I
don’t know,” Abby said.

“It’s affected you a lot,” Chris said. “I can’t
think of any other reason someone as amazing as you would have no self-worth.”

“I have self-worth!” Abby protested. “I put my body
on display to the whole world. That takes confidence.”

“Confidence is different from self-worth. If you had
self-worth, you wouldn’t let yourself be objectified. What if Audrey came to
you in five years and said she wanted to strip?”

“That’s not the same thing! Yes, I know the club is
a seedy place where trashy men come to fantasize, but that doesn’t mean
I’m
seedy and trashy,” Abby said.

“Okay,” Charlotte said, raising a hand to mediate.
“I want you to do something for me, Abby. The next time you work at the club, I
want you to think about how you’re feeling. There’s no right or wrong answer.
Just think about how working there makes you feel.”

“Okay.”

“Guys, these are difficult issues,” Charlotte said.
“You made progress today. Chris, you took a big step toward Abby by trusting
her with what happened to you. Try not to judge her. You’re here to support
each other.”

Abby reached her arms around Chris’ neck, hugging
him tightly.

“Thanks for telling me,” she said. His warm arms
wrapped around her back.

“Thanks for making me want to.”

The beat of the club’s music pounded in her ears,
and Abby wished for a moment of peace. She was tired, and she still had a long
night ahead of her.

The hard smack of a hand against her ass made her
spin around angrily. A table of men laughed, all feigning looks of innocence.

“Who did that?” she demanded.

“Relax,” a 20-something man at the table said.

“There’s no touching here, and whoever did that is
getting thrown out!” she yelled, anger rising within her.

“Sorry,” another man said. “Really. How much?” He
pulled out his wallet.

“How much for what?”

“For, you know, the slap. How much?”

“That’s not for sale here.”

“Everything’s for sale here. It’s a strip club. How
much to make you happy?”

“Touching my body is not for sale.”

“But you’ll grind me until I come. That’s touching,”
the man said, raising his eyebrows with amusement.

Abby sniffed, wanting to tell him that
she
chose that kind of contact, but it sounded so crazy as she thought it that she
couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Come on. Hop on,” the man said, leering as he
patted his lap.

“No.” Abby felt satisfaction as his dark eyes
narrowed when she refused him.

“Come on. Your ass is all red now, and it’s making
me hot. Get up here. I’ll pay double.”

“No.” She turned to leave, stopping as she felt
another smack on her ass. All the men at the table were doubled over with
laughter, and Abby was seething.

“Mickey!” she yelled, waving him over. He hustled
over with a phony grin.

“What, sweetheart?”

“This guy smacked my ass twice. I want him thrown
out.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, did you?”
Mickey looked congenially at the dark-haired man.

“Not at all. What I want is a lap dance. Here’s my
money.” He waved a bill in front of Abby and she shook her head with disgust.

“Go on,” Mickey said, nodding toward the table of
men.

“No. I want him thrown out.” She looked steadfastly
at him, and Mickey rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Nik. We can’t throw out every guy who gets
too friendly. Keep the peace,” he said.

“You won’t throw him out?”

“No.”

“Then I quit!” She turned to leave, with Mickey
gaping after her.

As she sorted through Sara and Audrey’s backpacks,
Abby frowned when she pulled out a math test that Audrey had gotten a D on.

“Aud!” she called down to the basement. Audrey
pounded up the stairs with an expectant look. “What happened here?” Abby asked
as she held up the paper.

“It’s really hard. I don’t understand it,” Audrey
said, looking away.

“I can help you study, you just have to let me know,
okay? Justin can, too. When is the next test?”

“We have one every Friday.”

“Well, it’s only Tuesday, so that gives us plenty of
time to study. Just let me get dinner in the oven and we’ll get started while
it cooks.”

“I need lunch money,” Audrey said as she looked
through her backpack for her math book.

“There’s money in my wallet, just take what you
need,” Abby said absently. Audrey walked over and pulled the leather wallet
from Abby’s purse.

“There’s no money here,” she said. Abby looked up
sharply.

“Yes, there is. There’s a lot of money there,” she
said, walking over. Audrey handed over the wallet and Abby stared at the empty
compartment where she stored folded bills.

“There was more than $300 in here,” she said,
grabbing her purse and searching through it frantically.

“It was in my desk drawer all day at work,” she
mumbled to herself.

“I have money I can use for lunch,” Audrey offered.

“Oh, sweetie, no, I’ll get more money from the bank.
I just wish I knew what happened to that money. Ask Sara to come up here, would
you?”

Abby furrowed her brows as she stuck a frozen
lasagna in the oven. She retraced her steps after lunch, which was the last
time she had seen the money in her wallet.

“Can I have some cookies?” Sara asked as she entered
the kitchen.

“No, wait for dinner. Did you take anything from my
purse?”

Sara shook her head solemnly.

“Mom was looking for something in there,” she said.
Abby froze, not wanting to believe her mother could have stolen money from her.

“Is she in her room?” Abby asked.

“No, she left. Somebody picked her up.”

Abby sighed and shook her head.

“Okay,” she said. “Audrey, let’s see what we need to
study.”

Abby squinted as she scanned the crowd in the club,
trying to locate John Houston. It was her last Friday night, and she was hoping
to say goodbye to him. He was one of the few customers she’d met that she would
have liked to know outside the club.

“Did I hear you’re leaving?” the bartender, Dave,
called to her. She smiled and nodded, and Dave’s look said it all. He was happy
for her.

Mickey had asked her to work this last weekend, and
it was hard to believe that tomorrow night would be her last night dancing at
the club. After working there three nights a week for the past four years, she
wondered if she would miss it at all.

Not likely, she thought as she pictured Chris. The
next chapter of her life felt more promising than the one she was closing.
After Malibu, she wasn’t feeling unworthy of him anymore.

As she shook her breasts in the face of the large
black man she was doing a lap dance for, her mind was elsewhere. She had
learned long ago to fake enthusiasm at times like this. His hot breath moved
across her breast to her nipple, which he closed his mouth around.

“No,” she said, moving back. “No touching.”

“Come on, you’ve got me all hot,” the man said.

“Well, it
is
a lap dance.”

He scowled at her and Abby reached for the twenty he
had given her, tossing it on the table and walking away. She didn’t care
anymore.

She spent much of the night in the back room,
talking to the other dancers and killing time. She would miss seeing them, and
she hoped a friendship between her and Charlotte would develop to make up for
losing all her friends her age.

Though she usually stayed until the very end of the
night, she decided to leave at two. It was slower by then, and she was anxious
to go see Chris. She packed her bag for the next to last time and headed to her
car.

As she was about to open her door, she was
distracted by a sound she couldn’t place. She strained, waiting for it to
return, and realized it was a woman moaning. She frowned, looking around to see
if another dancer was outside having sex with a customer. It had been known to
happen.

She walked toward the noise, crossing the parking
lot and reaching the woods that bordered it. The sound was in there, but it was
fainter now. Abby wondered if she should just go. But it worried her to think
of a dancer alone in there with a strange man. Which of the girls had been
stupid enough to go in there with someone?

She sighed, walking into the line of trees. As she
got closer to the sound, her skin prickled with the awareness that it did not
sound like the moans of sexual pleasure. Someone was in pain. Abby picked up
her pace, dialing Mickey’s number on her phone as she struggled to find the
voice in the darkness.

“Yes?” Mickey clipped in answer.

“Mick, get out here! Someone’s hurt! In the woods,
by the parking lot. I can’t find them.”

Abby gave a gasp as her cell phone sailed from her
hands. She momentarily wondered what had happened before her head struck the
ground, hard. Had she tripped? As a fist made contact with her face, she knew
she hadn’t.

For a second, she was too stunned to even think. The
pain was intense, and she was still breathless from the blow to her head when
she’d hit the ground. As her eyes focused, she made out the outline of the
figure standing above her. The lights that glowed bright from the parking lot
cast just a little light this far out.

A heavy foot delivered a sharp kick to her stomach,
and she howled.

“Mickey!” she cried. What was intended as a scream
was barely audible because she was so breathless.

She turned over, getting on all fours in hope of
crawling away. The foot dug into her side this time, and she sprawled out as
her body dropped flat into the ground. She stayed perfectly still, hoping to
avoid another kick so she could catch her breath, and her eyes focused on
something nearby that was familiar. It was red…what was it?

Her eyes widened in horror as she realized it was
Amber’s hair. She was crumpled on the ground, immobile. Abby couldn’t tell if
she was dead or alive.

“What have you done?” she mumbled into the ground.

“What she deserved,” a cold male voice said. “And
now it’s your turn.”

Terror flowed through Abby’s veins as she curled
into a ball. Amber was probably dead, and she would be soon. She thought of
Audrey and Sara, wishing she could tell them she loved them more than anything.

She couldn’t just let this happen. At the very
least, she had to try to get away, or fight back. She got to her hands and
knees slowly, pulling herself up.

As she raised her head, she made out the face of her
attacker. She hadn’t expected to recognize him, but she saw Amber’s least
favorite customer leering at her.