Electrified (3 page)

Sienna Flower captivated the audience and demanded their focus, night in and night out. Not only did she own the Tunnel’s stage, but every other adult dancer in their attempt to be her, even if for just one single performance.

By necessity, she was an owner in heart and mind, but not on paper. It would never be official. Her past prevented that, so that a paper trail would never lead anyone from her past to her present. Sienna Flower was a mirage, a figment of the imagination, hiding who she really was from the real world.

The applause and cheering were deafening as she took the stage to perform. This wasn’t something new. Every night for the last four and a half years, the clapping and catcalls only got louder, the audience demanding to be pleasured with Sienna’s tantalizing curves and smooth moves. She loved and adored the noise the crowd made; it never got old. It wasn’t as much about adoration as it was longevity for her. The louder it was, the greater job security she had. For Sienna Flower, security was everything.

Men and women alike lined up outside the club six nights a week to gain entrance to the Tunnel, paying no mind to it being an all-female strip club. The people who pressed against the velvet rope outside didn’t discriminate by gender; each of them wanted to catch a glimpse or more of Sienna Flower. The season of the year made no difference. In the brutal heat of summer, or the chilly evenings of winter like now, they came in droves to get “electrified.”

They knew that if your name wasn’t on the list for Friday or Saturday nights, you could forget about even trying to get in the door at the Tunnel. “Try coming back on a Tuesday,” one of the bouncers would say, turning you away with no regrets before moving on down the line.

The first six months she danced were quite a different story. No one knew who she was, and her less-than-sultry moves met with vague stares and drew only small crowds, but then she started coming into her own. Back then she was still Lila, playing dress-up as a stripper. It didn’t take long for Lila to hold tightly to perfecting the role of Sienna Flower.

Like an empty, hollow Hollywood set, Sienna Flower was a stripper with no real sexual history to speak of, no experience with intimacy, and certainly no fantasies other than surviving.

She could never be Lila again, couldn’t go back to her old ways, so she was betting the house on Sienna Flower.

If not Sienna Flower, who would I be?

Asher was the only one who knew the real Lila. She was certain this was why he wanted her to have half the club. He knew what she fought against. Everyone else just assumed the personal and business relationship between the two was based on Sienna being the main attraction at the Tunnel.

Turning her focus to the crowd, her skin was glowing, her hair shining, and her smile radiant as she took center stage. Sienna was ready to thrill and entice like she did every time she performed.

Fully settled in her routine, Sienna’s thoughts drifted again.

“My name is Lila,” she’d told Asher when he first interviewed her all those years ago, “but I’m thinking about going by something different.” She had felt safe immediately with Asher. Something about him had made her feel protected, allowed her to talk freely.

He just shook his head, because he got it. It was Vegas. Everyone was hiding from someone or something, so she didn’t need to explain anything more to Asher. Most of the locals were hiding from one thing or another, and she blended in.

Asher hadn’t seemed one bit nonplussed with her two-bit story, which made her breathe a sigh of relief.

He’d looked her up and down, finally settling on her eyes. He’d given a final nod when he looked straight into her eyes. At the time, Lila had no idea what the big deal was.

Now, almost seven years later, she knew they were her calling card, despite the fact she always wore sky-blue-colored contacts. One prominent entertainment magazine had recently noted:

Sienna Flower pulls you in with her eyes, a tunnel straight to the desires of any man’s soul, an electromagnetic doorway to baser desires from what feels like a virginal source.

Seven years ago, with long, straight blonde hair thanks to a bad home-dye job and a motel hair dryer, and wearing what she considered to be a skimpy black halter top, too many bangle bracelets, bad boots, and skinny jeans hung low on her hips, Lila had answered Asher’s help-wanted ad in the paper for a cocktail waitress. She didn’t have any experience, unless one counted entertaining company—silently and begrudgingly—in her old life, although slinging drinks while showing a fair amount of skin certainly hadn’t been part of entertaining in her former life.

Lila had dressed how she thought she should as a potential cocktail waitress. She needed to at least look the part. Actually, what she needed was to hide, fade away from her former life, and immerse herself in a world so different from the only one she’d ever known.

She knew she had to play the person she wanted to become in order to get the job, which was a woman so intrinsically different and more sophisticated than the one she had been raised to be. It was a massive task considering the sheltered world Lila had been raised in, yet the seedy, sin-filled land of Las Vegas was her only choice in destinations when she fled years ago.

Once there, she decided to insert herself even deeper into a place where she’d never be found. While letting the bruises heal, Lila looked for a job with cash tips. One that was far removed from any of her old values.

Seeing an ad for a cocktail waitress in an out-of-the-way strip club, off the Strip, was the answer to her prayers, and she had a lot of those. Prayers. Much different from the ones she used to pray, but prayers nonetheless.

These days, when Sienna looked in the mirror, Lila wasn’t there at all. Her former nondescript brown hair was perfectly dyed and highlighted golden blonde. Her eyebrows matched her locks, showing off her big, beautiful, innocent eyes. She never went out without her blue contacts, so no one even considered her to have any other eye color.

Sienna was a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, supple goddess.

Lila had light green eyes the color of the sea and a slight bump in her nose. Sienna didn’t have even the tiniest bump in her button nose, thanks to another gift from Asher. After her first successful run at the Tunnel, Asher had a close personal friend, a regular at the club who happened to be a plastic surgeon, fix Lila’s nose.

It wasn’t just about making the club money, though. She’d become Asher’s family as much as he’d become hers. Their financial success was only the icing on the cake for them. The two had both been left without any family, so their bond ran deep. Deeper than blood. That was what happened when two people who had been abandoned found and learned to rely on each other.

When Lila began dancing, she was scared and timid despite the fact she’d already been waitressing in the club for close to a year. The slightest clap of hands made her shudder during her first performances.

With a little experience, some added confidence thanks to Asher, and a few dances under her belt, Sienna Flower bloomed in the bright lights, loud music, and throbbing pulse of the club.

This was the only place Lila felt safe anymore—shimmering in her solo spotlight. The club gave Sienna Flower life when Lila was dying.

I’m onstage right now, Sienna Flower, not Lila.
Sienna Flower to everyone but Asher, and that was the way it would remain.

She snapped out of her memories as the beat of the music deepened, causing the floor to shake from the vibrations. It was a mash-up of a rock song mixed with rap, made just for her by a local DJ. This wasn’t uncommon. Sienna Flower only danced to original music.

With her head tilted, Sienna’s hair flowed all the way down her back. It was loose tonight with a light wave accentuating her perfectly and professionally colored tresses. Wearing only a metallic gold bustier and matching thong, she slid her leg up a pole.

The thong crept farther into no-man’s land as she stretched her leg higher up the pole, giving her audience a hint of the goodness underneath. Just a hint. Everything else was left to the imagination. She knew how to show just the right amount of skin.

It was the beginning of her act but Sienna’s skin was already glowing, compliments of her signature sparkling body lotion. Every inch of her skin from the neck down was waxed smooth; the veteran dancers had taught her about this in the beginning.

The lotion was all Sienna from the beginning, though. Most of the other girls used baby oil to make themselves look sweaty, but she didn’t like that look. Sienna Flower was sparkly, iridescent, soft, luscious…yet very untouchable.

Sienna lowered her leg and swung around the pole twice with her eyes closed and a sensual pout on her lips. She knew what she was doing. This had been her life for the last several years, six nights a week. Playing Sienna Flower, enticing her audience with something in between innocent mystique and overt sexuality. Being a good girl with the moves of a seductress was her calling card.

She might not have believed this would be her life a decade ago, but it was, right down to the tiny tattoo of a flower permanently imprinted underneath her right collarbone.

Her moves had become more flawless as the years went on, but she finally learned it was her innocent eyes coupled with her illicit moves that captured her audience.

Sienna’s persona was her very own suit of armor. They would never find Lila here. Lila would have never dared to be in a place like the Tunnel.

The music sped up, snapping Sienna to full attention. She moved away from the pole, strutting up and down the front edge of the stage, and running her gaze along the faces of a few men watching. All the while she stared straight into the crowd, creating the feeling she was looking into the soul of each individual, reading their wants, and focusing on them and them alone.

With a flick of her hip and a toss of her hair, Sienna was back in the middle of the pole, hanging upside down, her bustier firmly in place with just enough of her breasts spilling out of the top while she was inverted. A quick flip had her climbing up to the top of the pole before sliding down in one quick motion.

Once firmly back on the ground, she took her right hand and seductively pushed the hair out of her face while holding on to the pole with her left. Slowly, she snaked toward the ground with her legs bent on either side of the phallic symbol, pushing and rubbing herself up against it. She knew the audience assumed it felt good and that she was getting off. She wasn’t.

When Lila became Sienna, she gave up the quest to ever really feel good. This was about survival for Sienna, though she did take pleasure in making others feel good. Sienna knew it was sick, but the smiles of appreciation did something to her. She had never really been appreciated; now she could make others glow and be valued in a twisted way, but important nonetheless. Men, women, and couples all came to see her, and she made their fantasies come to life. It was true beauty.

Disturbing, but it still made Sienna happy.

The music was coming to an end. It was Thursday, so Sienna only danced one act. The only nights she did two were Friday and Saturday. She used to do a double every night, but once her popularity exploded, Asher decided she should save her doubles for the weekend.

Weekdays and Sundays, Sienna went on around eleven, but Fridays and Saturdays, she was front and center at midnight and once again in the early hours of the morning. By two a.m. Mondays, she was truly off.

During the week, when it was only slightly less crowded, Sienna worked the room once or twice a night, saying hello personally to some parties and flashing a seductive smile at whoever looked her way. It was impossible to do this during the craziness of the weekend, and Asher, with her input, had decided long ago, there was too much pawing at Sienna during weekend nights.

She was hands-off, no lap dances, and no touching. Sienna was for looking and fantasizing only. The most expensive eye candy out there, the stuff sexual dreams were made of was who Sienna Flower was in and out of the club.

Years ago, she didn’t realize leaving her old life would mean never really being able to live fully. Since then, she played a role and never broke character in order to remain breathing. She never bared who she truly was because she actually had no idea.

Sienna went up the pole one more time at the end of her act. Her legs were once again wrapped tight around the pole, her gold stilettos pointed toward the ceiling, ass pointed to the audience. She didn’t need to twerk or hump the floor. She just looked seductive while entangled with the pole or performing her signature dance moves, and she had the whole crowd riveted.

Another write-up about the club and Sienna had said:

Sienna could simply stand onstage batting her long eyelashes over her deep, mysterious eyes filled with innocence and promise, and the audience would be titillated, turned on, and amped up. How the hottest stripper in Vegas creates that look, no one understands or knows, but everyone wants to sneak a peek.

Sienna finished her act by blowing the crowd a kiss after turning herself right side up on the pole. She always took the time to look out at the crowd when she did this. She liked to see them smile, and feel the electric charge. She liked to know it was an act well done at the Electric Tunnel.

That was when she saw him. She didn’t know him, but had seen him in the Tunnel a few times over the last few weeks. Dark black hair cut short with a little wave running through it where it curled around his ear, a scratchy shadow on his face, a day or two old, and jeans with a white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a masculine tattoo peeking out. He was always there on a Thursday or Friday, sat up front for her act, and quickly left when Sienna finished.

This wasn’t completely unusual, since many fans came to see just Sienna Flower regularly, but this guy seemed almost uncomfortable at the club, as if he wasn’t sure why he was there. Fidgeting in his seat, always running his hands through his hair and never smiling, yet being completely focused on her. He was her mystery guy, something she never had or thought about having before.