Club Alpha (36 page)

~ 10 ~

Jay leads me by the hand to a new room. We're encased in a modern swath of chrome, metal, and glass. It’s so unlike the seedy, once-glamorous confines of the carousel of past venues.

The door is still marked with the number one, like the other doors before it. The number hangs slightly askew and I can't help but think Thorn has a sense of humor. He must run around with numbers in bulk. I put the fist of my free hand against my mouth to stifle the giggle. I know it's an insane stress reliever and take what I can get.

Inside the room, the bright city lights stretch below us. The acres of glass reflect the artificial lights like chips of brilliance embedded like diamonds. The dark velvet of the cityscape appears vast and untouched. We move to a chair that anchors the center of the room.

Ten chairs stand in a half moon around the one I know will hold Jay and me.

I whip around, my hand still clasped in Jay's warm, large one.

Thorn is there, the evil smile of accomplishment a natural break in a face that should be handsome but just looks chiseled apathy.

I can't believe I didn't anticipate this eventuality.

Thorn has met someone who presents a challenge. Someone he instinctively knows does not fit. Thorn doesn't know why, but his masochistic edge hones in on my innocence and desperation like a tuning fork, and I am helpless before him.

The old laps file in. Toward me, surrounding me. Their eyes tell the story of their intent.

They're the audience for my performance.

My eyes narrow on Thorn.

“This isn't a problem, Faren... right?” That empty gaze challenges me to deny him, to quit.

But like any predator who senses a weakness in his prey, he's got me by the short hairs. Thorn doesn't know the reason; he just knows he does. The soft underbelly of my desperation is present for slicing and dicing. Thorn jumps in with both feet to crush my hope.

I turn away from him as the men settle in. Jay squeezes my hand gently, and my eyes rise to his. Jay's gaze tells me it's still just him and me. We can do this. I don't know when I went from being a girl giving him release to a girl he wants to save, but it happened fast, like a switch being flipped.

We move toward the chair, and it looms large at our approach. Jay drops my hand, and the fringe of beads sways at my rear as quiet music fills the space. Not a murmur, mutter, or voice can be heard.

Jay begins a silent striptease, removing his suit. The tie pulls through his collar, a flag of silk floating to the armrest as he unzips his pants.

My hand shakes when I pick up the towel. I can't stop my eyes from making a downward shift to his giant erection. I swallow, brave as I've ever been, and stand before him, ignoring Thorn's presence at my back.

Jay reclines in the wide chair, a copy of every chair I've done a lap dance in. The cushion is wide enough to accommodate my knees on either side of his muscular thighs. I slide my knees in place, straddling him.

“Faren.” Jay threads his fingers through my hair. His grip tightens, and he pulls me toward his mouth.

No kissing.
The heat of his lips touches mine.

I pull away. The bruise on my upper thigh throbs as it begins to deepen, and I search his face. Beyond the tightness around his eyes is care.

Concern for me.

I can't have that. Right now, I feel as though I'm cheating on Mick. It doesn't matter that it's a job, that my mom is the beneficiary of these illicit monies. No, those are emotions. Real, vital, undeniable.

“No kissing!” Thorn barks. “You know the rules, Jay.”

I wonder what his full name is. I'm certain the reason for first names only is anonymity.

Jay's fingers leave my hair and trail down my arms, gooseflesh rising in their wake. He gives a barely perceptible nod, and I run through the “extras” I remember.

Hand job.

Breast suckling.

Vaginal digit penetration.

Anal digit penetration.

There won't be a police raid to save me.

My head dips when I think about anyone but Mick touching me there. I'm selling my soul to the devil. I can't go back. It's bought and paid for.

Being a virgin doesn't mean I’m innocent. There're degrees of compromise. I'm becoming an expert on skirting the inevitable, like swimming against a vortex.

I look into Jay's eyes and move. I’m subtle at first, my upper thigh pressing against his erection. He takes liberties without asking, and I bite my bottom lip when his hand covers my breast. He grips the fullness at the bottom and squeezes it just on the good side of pain. I muffle a gasp. His hand moves to my back, fingers spread wide, and he bends his head over my captive tit. He covers my nipple with his mouth, and my body's confusion surfaces.

Mick's tongue has been on my flesh, and my body remembers. It rejects all other tactile memory and latches onto the one that resonates. My nipple reacts in traitorous spontaneity. It rises as Jay laves the sensitive bundle of nerves, and my head tips back. My cheating mind thinks of Mick, and the thin strip of my panties grow moist.

The shifting of legs and clothes behind us breaks through my fantasy of dancing on Mick's lap. Ten rich, perverted men are watching a young, desperate woman dance on a stranger's lap.

I ignore them all, keeping my eyes shut tight.

I rise up, moving expertly, faster and faster. My legs are more powerful than they once were. The bruise sings like a beacon each time my flesh strokes his penis through the thin barrier of my clothes. Jay's breathing becomes harsh. I hear a distinctive groan behind me and move a little more slowly, grinding in deliberate, arced strokes against his rigidness.

His hands move to my ass and flip up the hem of my dress. The beads slide like cool ice against my flesh. The air glides against my butt cheeks, which are on full display. The slim thong offers no coverage.

Jay's hands slap on the globes of my butt, and my eyes snap to his. I’m startled me out of my fantasy, rudely awakened into the reality of the moment. I hear a symphony of sounds under the music. Primitive and dark, they speak of what's happening behind me. I suddenly realize I'm present. I can't watch from the outside. I begin to panic.

“I need this,” Jay murmurs as he thrusts his hips... and a finger penetrates my anus.

My butt clenches against the invasion, and I fight against moving away. I battle for my shattering fantasy as a stranger takes yet another liberty, stealing one more thread in the fabric of my lost innocence.

His finger breaching that entrance is so unexpected, I fall against him. His finger sinks a little deeper inside me, and I cry out in surprise and horror.

Jay mistakes my intense reaction for arousal. He forces my knees wider in a spreading shove of his knees, and I'm wide open. My panties are totally misplaced, and he crams his stiffening erection against the bare cut-out on my stomach. I feel his hard flesh connect with my soft belly, and I know what will happen.

I'm helpless to move away as he traps me, perfectly unbalanced. With a final thrust, he releases against my stomach.

I feel nothing as I hear the chorus of grunts and moans behind me. The only proof of Jay’s release is the cold edge of my dress as his cum soaks the material.

My heart tattoos a staccato rhythm. Artificial detachment coats me in icy calm as I crawl off Jay's lap. His penis sits like a limp, soggy noodle and provokes my gag reflex. My good hand comes to my mouth as I meet Jay's eyes and choke. He rises, stuffing himself inside his slacks and zipping up. He reaches for me.

I stagger back, vertigo hitting me like a released demon.

Strong arms come around me from behind. A man's forearm sinks into the damp mess at my front.

“Pull it together, Faren... or we're going to have some words.”

Thorn.

My teeth sink into my tongue. Copper pennies fill my mouth, and the dizziness floats away. Jay's face comes into sharp focus.

I elbow Thorn in the gut, and his arms release me. I run to the door while men in various states of undress follow me with hooded eyes.

I tear open the door and rush to the bathroom.

I shake as I empty my stomach into the porcelain bowl of the toilet.

I can't do this.

But when Thorn gives me my cut from the twenty thousand dollars, I bend my head as he berates me. 

I say yes to negotiations for something more.

With Jay.

Even though my heart longs for Mick, I agree to the deal with the devil for my reasons.

They don't seem as important as they once did.

~ 11 ~

I drop my keys twice as I try to unlock my apartment door. My bad hand trembles so much, I'll have to put a heat compress on it to loosen it.

I move through the door and slam it. I tip my head back, resting it on the solid wood, as I close my eyes. My heartbeat slows as I stand in my soiled dress and cry. Tears run down my face, and I stop the sounds that want to go from whimpers to wailing by sheer will alone.

Memories of my childhood after Ronnie Bunce took over fill me with steel. Nights when he creeped past my door as I feigned sleep. The doorknob wiggling. The kitchen knife in my sweaty grasp, underneath my pillow, that comforted me. Cold metal with killing potential guided me toward sleep in that faraway memory.

I slide down my door, and my soul shatters. Broken sobs tear out of me as I clutch my handbag in my good hand. I cry for what I'm becoming, what I've lost, and how the end of my life is turning out.

At first, I don't hear the pounding on the door. When the noise breaks through my despondency, I rise up on my knees and turn the bolt. I sneak it open a crack and meet Kiki's eyeball.

“Oh my god... Faren! Baby, what's wrong?”

What is right?

My chin sinks to my chest, and my tears soak the bit of material that makes up the bodice of my dress.

The door swings wide, smacking against the wall stop. Strong hands lift me by my armpits. My bad hand thumps Kiki, and a nervous laugh chuffs out of her.

“What the hell?” She kicks the door closed and looks down at the stiff material of my dress. Her eyes rise to my swollen ones.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

I shake my head, tearing off the dress. Somehow, as I trip out of the thing, the fringe comes away and tiny glass beads skitter across the scarred wood floor like rioting gems. The music of their escape scrapes across my raw nerves, and I hitch in another sob.

“Okay,” Kiki says, throwing up a hand. “We're getting you out of this...” She wrinkles her nose and picks up the ruined dress with her long nails. “
Dress,
and getting you into a hot shower.”

I laugh. Water won’t wash away my crimes, my grief... my sins. Her brows sink low over her brown eyes. She’s so full of compassion that I look away.

She grabs my arm, and I let her herd me into the bathroom. When the pipes stop groaning, I step into the spray. I let the warm water trail over my face, gather in my open mouth, and fall across my body.

Kiki’s silhouette remains a ghost of shadow through the opaque shower curtain.

I don't know how long I stand there, but when my fingers prune and the water begins cooling, I raise them in front of my face. My abused left hardly twitches. The steam and heat of the shower had restored most of its function. The bright pink scars crisscross my palm, and I squeeze it.

Kiki's shadow has departed. My hand jumps, and I force it to soap my body. I take my time, putting myself back together piece by piece.

When every part of me is clean, I move out of the shower and towel off. I tuck the edges of the towel underneath my armpits and move to the door, surrounded by a cloud of steam.

I hear low voices and hesitate on the threshold of the open bathroom door. I take a few deep breaths and pass through.

I’m not surprised when Mick greets me from my couch.

He holds up his phone. “You don't answer your texts.”

Oh yeah... midnight.
My eyes shift to my clock. It's twelve fifteen.

I nod and turn away, heading to my bedroom. I shut the door softly. I can't handle Mick tonight. I feel like the worst kind of human being. I’m losing everything that's ever mattered to me. Mick can't fix it, and he can't take away how he makes some of his money.

Nor can I stop my feelings for him.

I jerk on sweatpants and a cami, leaving my feet bare. I walk out of my room with my dripping hair and face free of makeup.

“What are you doing here?”

Kiki blanches.

“He was worried... and so was I.” She gives him a covert glance.

God, they're ganging up on me.
“There's no reason to worry.”

I turn toward the stove. It's pretty easy to act emotionless when I'm so numb. If I can perform one normal task, I have a hope of getting past this recent batch of misery.

I feel Kiki behind me. Her soft-scented vanilla body spray heralds her arrival.

“Faren,” she says in a low voice, “just tell him. Maybe he can help.”

Does Kiki think I don't want his help? That I haven't rolled the obvious around in my mind 102 times? I have, and I won't. I need Mick's money, but he has something I want more. I have almost enough to erase my mom's debt from the clinic. One more stint of laps, and I'll be free of that. It won't stop the pole dancing after the laps are through, but if I never see another lap in my life it'll be too soon. I'll still need the cash from a few times per week at the pole for my mom's monthly care. Or that debt I've danced so hard to get rid of will come back to take a second bite out of my ass.

“No,” I answer just as quietly.

Kiki lays her face between my shoulder blades and sighs. “I can't make you, but he's not stupid.”

“She's right, I'm not.”

Just his voice makes warmth spread from places that had been dry and quiet moments before.

How can I respond sexually to anything after what happened only a couple of hours ago? I can't answer. I don't know.

Kiki slips away from behind me as my hand grips the kettle.

I feel Mick’s heat behind me, radiating through my thin cami. I shiver as his hands drop to my shoulders.

His fingers dig in almost painfully when he leans forward. “Let me in, Faren. Please.”

I can't fight them anymore, my best friend and this man who is wealthy beyond my wildest imaginings. He can have anyone he wishes, and it’s me he pursues. My grip leaves the kettle, and Mick feels my subtle shift. I turn, and his hold on my shoulders softens just enough to allow it. 

When I face him, he crushes me tight. I shake in his arms, and Mick lifts my chin with a finger. Tears leak from my eyes all over again.

“Hey, hey,” he says, kissing each eyelid. “What's wrong?” When my tears become too much for his lips, he chuckles and wipes them away with the pads of his thumbs. “I can't stop this, but I want to try.”

I look at him through the waterworks and see Kiki behind him with her arms folded. Her eyes beg me to accept help. From him, from her... from anyone.

I put my forehead against his chest so I don't have to meet his eyes. His hand strokes my spine, his fingertips going from the top of my backbone to the bottom and trailing up again.

I speak into his chest, “I don't want to use you.” The truth eases out of me like a feather on the wind.

“Use me, Faren. I want you to,” Mick answers.

“Yeah, use him,” Kiki pipes in, and I smile through my sadness.

Mick chuckles. “Listen to your best friend.”

I tilt my head back. “You mean listen to you?”

His eyes search mine. His fingertip brushes away the last of my tears, and he nods.

“Yeah, that's what I mean.”

I feel my arms creep around his waist, and Kiki claps.

“Thank god,” she squeals in a whisper that sounds like a hushed shout.

“Yes.” Mick doesn't ambush me with his mouth but sips slowly, awakening me anew.

I rise on my tiptoes and press back.

I hate that a small part of me clings to a hope I don't have, that I don't deserve.

It's wrong.

Except, in Mick's arms, it feels so right.