Big Brother Billionaire (Part Two) (3 page)

To be very honest with myself, this new Parker was a lot easier to be than my former self. This Parker was so self-assured. She was the person I wished I could be, the Parker who would’ve told her mother and stepfather to go to hell, the Parker who would’ve admitted to Marcus that she did, in fact, care for him and did want to be with him, societal ideals be damned.

Couldn’t I be this Parker all the time? Did I have to be in costume to do it?

I threw out all the clothes that reminded me too much of my life up until this point. Goodbye, old work uniforms. I hoped I never needed them again. I owned one nice pair of dark jeans, but the rest were light, battered, and full of holes. I mulled them over for a while. Couldn’t I just keep one for running errands or lounging around the house?

What would the new Parker do? She wouldn’t leave the house unless she was in full makeup, perfectly coiffed, dressed only in things that would flatter her—comfort be damned. She wanted everyone to know that she meant business, that appearances mattered, and that she was the most important thing they’d be seeing that day.

The sloppy jeans ended up in the donate pile.

I scraped together all the money I could manage and took myself shopping, wearing the dark jeans I’d been able to salvage and the same blouse I just danced in at the club. I didn’t own any fancy makeup—just the basics—but I took great care in applying it and reapplying it until I was satisfied with the result.

My dark hair was slicked back. It looked severe, but my thick eyelashes and luscious red lipstick softened the look and made it take on a persona of its own. If I looked like this all the time, almost with a mask of makeup, I felt that I could adopt this new Parker as my own. I wanted to be her all the time. It was all I wanted. She was so much stronger than I’d been. With this Parker, I felt that I could do anything.

I tried out the new Parker on a salesperson at a mid-level department store, employing her through sheer will to help me locate the pieces that would bring the rest of my look together. I required black pants, black shirts, black skirts, a black dress, a black blazer, simple but expensive-looking metallic jewelry, and black pumps.

Black was the new Parker’s color of choice. It was a color for power, for prestige, for elegance. The only color I wanted for myself was red lipstick. Red nails.

“This is going to be a very…interesting…new wardrobe,” the salesperson said, a bit uncertainly as she rang me up at the register. “Are you sure you don’t want to try on any blouses in those pretty jewel tones that I was showing you? Black is a great color to own, of course, but a little pop of color will help bring out the color in your eyes. You’ll really brighten right up. Wait until you see the difference.”

I held up a hand to halt her babbling, as I handed over way more cash than I wanted to. “Black is all I require,” I said, practicing that even, slightly detached tone of speech I’d started using at the club. It was a tone that brooked no arguments and invited no questions or protests. I watched with a little too much satisfaction as the salesperson’s throat bobbed up and down with a hard swallow of anxiety.

“Of course,” she said, taking the money and counting out correct change. “Black is really good. Never goes out of style. It’s just…um…what are you going to do in the spring and summer? This is Miami after all. People love their bright colors, their prints. You can’t wear black all through that heat, can you?”

I gathered my shopping bags briskly, depositing the change in my wallet. “I suppose I’ll just have to wear a black bikini,” I said, turning on my heel and walking out.

So I had the clothes I wanted in order to embrace this new Parker. However, there was nothing that screamed leather-clad dominatrix, the role that Jake had said he saw me in as a dancer at his club. I didn’t have much money left, so true leather was going to be out of the question. I was going to have to get creative, and that entailed a few trips to places that the new Parker wouldn’t be caught dead in.

The thrift shop was my first stop, looking for pieces that could be cut up and adapted for a new life in the spotlight. I found a slinky dress with a sheer, shiny finish. A few alterations and that would get the customers at the club on their feet. I picked up a couple of belts that I could put together as a BDSM feast for the eyes. This was off to a good start, but there was still one other place I needed to visit.

It was lucky for me that the club I’d gotten a job at was outside of the city’s seedier districts. The street blocks were home to strip club after gentleman’s club and interspersed with liquor stores and sex shop. The club I was about to start dancing at was actually not in a bad area of Miami, probably grandfathered into the area with some old zoning rules. However, this part of town was a place I knew about but had never ventured into, not even out of curiosity. I had never had any sort of business being in this neighborhood until now. It was a sex shop I was looking for after all, a store that stocked all sorts of costumes and accessories for every fetish and desire under the sun—and those quirks that most people preferred to keep out of the sun.

I was glad I’d gone out as the new Parker. As the new Parker, I eyed the assortment of furry handcuffs and whips arranged on the wall coolly, wholly disinterested. Without the persona of this new Parker, my eyes would’ve been bulging out of my head. I probably wouldn’t have even been able to bring myself to cross the threshold.

I got an appraising look from the tattooed woman restocking the display of condoms.

“Can I help you find something?” she asked, not stopping from her endless stacking and straightening of all the colorful packets.

“I’ll let you know,” I said, heading over to the costumes, still toting my purchases from earlier. I was sure I cut an interesting character with the variety of shopping bags in my possession.

It wasn’t until I chanced upon a rack of clearance items that I found what I’d been hunting for—dominatrix wear. I found a shiny pleather bra and booty short set priced at a steal, and a crazy mask lined with a toothy zipper that looked downright dangerous. I had just enough money to cover it, and then I was flat out broke. I needed to earn back all the money I’d blown on this new persona ASAP or I wouldn’t be able to cover rent this month.

“You looking to try some new things out in the bedroom?” the tattooed woman asked as she handed me my bagged purchases.

“Who said they were for the bedroom?” I retorted without so much as a blush or a batted eyelash. My attitude about purchasing this fetish wear shocked me to the core. Without this new Parker mask to wear, I would’ve been a gibbering mess trying to buy these supplies—no matter how essential they were to the job I’d selected.

I brought my purchases to the club that night, secured in my purse. I joined a flood of other dancers in the dressing room, applying their makeup in the mirrors and squeezing into costumes without an ounce of shame, boobs and butts hanging out everywhere. During my time crashing out on couches and floors in the homes of virtual strangers, I got used to seeing my fair share of nudity. However, this was excessive. There were perhaps twenty girls packed in the dressing room, many of whom were smoking cigarettes. The smoke hung low beneath the ceiling, making it a little difficult to see my own reflection in the mirror. I realized I looked scared and reasserted my Parker mask until my face was expressionless, cold even.

“Sweetheart, help us out over here.”

I turned at a voice at my elbow and saw a woman with enormous breasts and a bulging belly being hugged tightly by another dancer. The larger woman was partially ensconced in a purple corset with a zipper hanging open. A third woman, the one who’d spoken, beckoned me over a little impatiently.

“The corset’s not going to close itself,” she explained.

I blinked a few times and joined them. “What do I need to do?” I asked. It was a strange feeling, this effortless camaraderie in the dressing room. I didn’t understand how it was going to be. I’d assumed there would be an element of cutthroat competition. Weren’t we all trying to earn money that could go to another dancer instead? But here, in the dressing room, girls were sharing their makeup, braiding each other’s hair, and apparently aiding with the closing of corsets.

“Babs is going to suck it in for all she’s worth,” the woman who’d spoken said, jerking her thumb at the larger woman. “Mary’s going to help her.” That was the woman hugging Babs tightly from behind. “I’m going to get the zipper up. And you’re going to push Babs’ belly up under the corset as it closes. It’s going to want to squeeze out from the bottom, but you’re going to shove it back under there by the handful, if necessary.”

I swallowed, a little queasy. “Isn’t it going to hurt?”

“It’s going to hurt more if I can’t get all my fat underneath this thing,” Babs rasped, grinding out a cigarette in a nearby ashtray before steeling herself. “Here’s some unsolicited advice. Don’t have kids. Your body’s never the same. Nothing springs back to the shape it was before. And men won’t give you a second glance unless you do stupid shit like corsets, pushup bras, girdles, and pantyhose. You hear me?”

“I…I hear you,” I said, faltering a little bit before setting my shoulders, letting the new Parker take control of the situation. “Let’s do this, if you’re ready.”

“Carpe diem,” Mary laughed, squeezing Babs’ middle.

“All right,” the third woman said. “On the count of three. One…two…Babs, take your last deep breath of the night…three…suck it in, girl! Suck it!”

She started wrestling the zipper up the corset, each centimeter a battle, and Babs groaned as I pushed her soft belly up under the stiff purple fabric.

“Sorry, is it hurting?” I asked, concerned, backing off a little at the way Babs’ face was starting to match the corset.

“Get back here!” the third woman screeched, the zipper working itself back down. “We’re losing ground, here! Keep pushing!”

I did as she asked, urging the zipper upward with my eyes. This couldn’t have been comfortable for Babs, who looked like she was doing the most work out of all of us.

“Almost there,” Mary coached through gritted teeth. “Practically at the home stretch, Babs.”

I couldn’t imagine doing anything so painful for beauty, no matter how big my belly was. This couldn’t really be worth it, could it? The woman who was wrangling the zipper was biting her lower lip, her fingers red from gripping the stubborn metal, coaxing the teeth together as we all worked to restrain Babs’ flesh.

But finally, finally, the zipper was secure. Mary let go and Babs coughed, pawing at her cleavage until everything but her nipples bulged above the corset. We all stepped back from her, out of breath, and watched as she looked at herself in the mirror.

“Not bad, new girl,” she said, eyeing me. Her voice sounded like it hurt to speak. “But you missed a spot.” She pointed at a strange bulge of gut protruding from below the corset.

“Sorry,” I said. “It was just—that was really hard. How can you stand it?”

“I stand it because I have to,” she said, shrugging, as Mary basically punched the errant bulge back up under the corset. “My body’s my meal ticket—my kids’ meal ticket, too. I have to look good, or we don’t eat. If you think about that, people depending on you, then nothing hurts that bad.”

“I haven’t seen you around before,” the third woman said. “What’s your name, kid?”

I wasn’t a kid. There were some girls here who I seriously doubted were eighteen. I had been certain that I was getting into this career a little late. But I was still younger than this group of women.

“It’s Parker,” I said, raising my chin, trying as hard as I could to exude as much “new Parker” as possible. “This is my first night.”

“Well, welcome aboard,” she said, grinning and clapping me on the shoulder. “You’ve already met Babs and Mary. I’m Sally.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, and it really was. I hadn’t anticipated making any friends here. I’d only maintained working acquaintances with people at my former places of employment. In fact, I hadn’t had any close friends since winding up in Miami.

The group of women took me under their wings, eager to induct me into the secrets of dancing at clubs for a living,

Babs had been doing it the longest. “The secret is to always leave them wanting something,” she would advise me, puffing on a cigarette, zipped up into her corset, or snapped into a girdle several sizes too tight. “Never show them everything you got—ever. No matter how much they give you. Once they’ve seen it all, they won’t think they have to pay you anymore. You’re no longer a mystery.”

Mary was something of a surprise. She was working to get herself through college and was as smart and sharp as a firecracker. She was the first to admit that she wouldn’t be here forever, circling the pole like a restless shark.

“And you shouldn’t be here forever either,” Mary would say, a book open on her fishnet-encased knee, studying for a test the next morning, somehow able to concentrate over the boom of the music out in the club. “That’s the thing about this place, Parker. It’s easy money. It’s so easy to make a ton of money, but that doesn’t mean that this place doesn’t take something out of you. If you stay here too long, you’ll end up earning every single penny and then some. Do you understand? Only stay here as long as you have to. Don’t overstay your welcome. It’s easy money. That’s why it’s hard to leave.”

Sally was the queen bee of the trio, somehow. She hadn’t been working at the club for as long as Babs, and she didn’t have the schooling that Mary enjoyed, but something in her personality commanded respect. I often found myself hanging on her every word, abandoning my cool as a cucumber Parker façade in favor of gleaning wisdom from her.