Objectify Me: A Fireworks Novella (The Fireworks Novellas) (2 page)

Chapter Two - Charlotte

I really don’t like it when the other girls use my eyelash curler. I mean, at the deepest level, I think what I really have a problem with is that I even
have
an eyelash curler. It’s a tool of my current trade though and I must remember that my current trade isn’t so bad most of the time. But it’s the little things. Every time I find my eyelash curler in someone else’s make-up kit, I have to take it into the bathroom and scrub it and disinfect it with rubbing alcohol, and that takes five minutes because I’m a little OCD, okay? I don’t want some skank’s eyelash cooties.

Skank isn’t a word I should use. We’re “hostesses”. If the other “hostesses” are skanks, then I’m a skank. And I’m not a skank. I’m a sex-positive, independent young lady who enjoys making money off male lust. Not quite a prostitute. Not that desperate yet. A little more than a costumed cocktail waitress, though, which is the lie I tell my dad.

“What kind of costume?” he says, because he forgets most of what I say to him in between visits to the group home.

“Like that movie,
Cabaret.
You know? You like that one. With Liza Minnelli?”

“You dress as Liza Minnelli? Like in
Arthur
?”

“Not that movie, though, Dad.
Cabaret
. It’s a musical.”

“You sing?”

Maybe I just make him a grilled cheese sandwich at that point because really, how can I tell my alcohol brain-damaged father that I’m a lap dancer without it being the most heartbreaking conversation in the history of daughter-hood?

It could be worse. That’s what I remind myself as I scrub my eyelash curler for the third time this week.

“What’s the crowd look like, Charlotte?” Barbie says. Barbie has giant natural boobs and gets hella tips because of it. None of the girls at Objections are allowed to have fake tits so Barbie is sort of a draw. I’m not super stacked but I make the most of push-up bras and such. There’s no topless here. That’s tacky, says our boss, Jack. Fake tits are tacky. Topless is tacky. Apparently grinding my ass against some douchebag’s crotch is not tacky, but whatever.  Our clientele cross their eyes trying not to jizz in their expensive designer suit pants.

So not tacky.

“It’s okay,” I say to Barbie about the crowd. “Not packed. Not empty. Our type doesn’t really go in for the parades anyway.”
Our type
is mostly lawyers from the nearby financial district. They spend the day wheeling and dealing, taking giant cuts of businesses lured back to post-Katrina New Orleans with subsidies and tax breaks, then come to Objections to unwind. And unload some of their money on me and my grinding ass.

On a good night I bring home two fifty in tips. That just about pays for a month of my dad’s medication. Another night pays my student loan bill. Four nights pays my rent. Five nights pays my dad’s rent at the care home. I can usually squeeze a car payment out of one customer because I drive a ten-year-old Mazda. If I want to eat well that month, I need to do a bachelor party of some kind. If I want the lights and WiFi on while I eat, I need to entertain a couple of old judges. Waxing and nails is a lunch shift – less grinding and more upselling the cocktails. If I have to bail Dad out again, I need a gazillionaire showing off for his fakey friends. And so on.

I dry my eyelash curler with toilet paper and go back to the dressing room. All tonight’s girls are there. Barbie with her giant hooters is holding court, telling a funny story about her three-year-old son. The other three girls—Felicity, who rubs sparkly moisturizer on her toned brown arms as she listens, Claire, who has her hair in sponge curlers like some 1950s housewife, and Louise, who is drawing an eye of Isis on her belly button—listen in rapt silence.

“…and he swore that he found it that way!” Barbie says, laughing so hard that tears are ruining her mascara. “Like chocolate frosting just magically got on his toothbrush!”

I have to smile too, as I finish my make-up. Barbie’s son sounds like a proper hell-raiser. Makes me want to double up on my birth control pills tonight.

I brush my hair. Jack keeps telling me I should curl it or something, but I prefer the kind of natural look. Dark-brown, soft bangs, just hanging loose. I think it makes me look young and wholesome. I shake off my kimono and take in the whole package in the full-length mirror.

“You look hot,” Felicity says.

“My boobs are disappointing in this bra.”

“You gotta scoop them, baby. Scoop in everything except your face.”

“I’d have to scoop from someone else’s body to make that work.” I don’t have a lot of spare curves. I’m not super skinny or hyper-gym fit or anything. I’m just kind of tidy. But Felicity is right. I scoop my hand into each cup and sort of mush things around a bit. It adds a bit of extra cleavage. Enough for an extra twenty bucks or two.

Our lingerie is supposed to be
tasteful,
whatever that means. No g-strings, no crazy corsets. Jack says he wants us to look like we might have been wearing our outfits under business suits or high-end evening gowns. He thinks our customers like the idea that we’re real women that they managed to convince to strip down and dance.

“You’re selling the fantasy,” he says.

My fantasy girl apparently wears a black push-up bra with a frou-frou half-slip garter and opaque stockings. I can’t imagine wearing it under a business suit or an evening gown. Then again, I can’t imagine wearing a business suit or evening gown at all. So there’s that.

Three years of college and nothing to show for it but debt and a lot of really impractical lingerie. Welcome to America.

Jack comes in with a tray of champagne. He discourages us drinking on the floor – in fact, if customers offer to buy us drinks, we order expensive cocktails and get cheap, watered-down juice – but at the start of the shift he likes us to relax with a little bubbly. I’m not crazy about drinking alcohol because of what it did to my dad, but a glass of cheap champagne hardly counts. I grab a glass and swallow it in two gulps.

My friend, Dusty comes in, counting her tips from the lunch and afternoon shift. Dusty was my roommate until she and her girlfriend got engaged. I try not to hold it against her that now I have to pay a thousand bucks a month for a tiny little shotgun house on Sketchy Street. I also try not to hold it against her that she’s happily paired while my singleness seems to have become like one of those voodoo curses that follow you forever, even after you’ve died. Six months without sex is too long for any sane woman who wants to stay sane. But it’s surprising how hard it is to meet a nice man when you work in a lingerie bar and spend your free time visiting an addled old drunk in a private halfway house.

“Decent haul?”

Dusty nods as she finishes counting bills. “Two-eighty-eight. There was a table of Chinese shipping dudes. They were pretty free with the green.”

“They still there?”

“Nope.” She pulls jeans right over her red satin merry widow and zips a grey hoodie over that. “But I do have a treat for you. Table eight. Just your type. Young. Clean cut.
By himself
.”

“By himself? By himself is
not
my type.”

Dusty mimes talking on the phone. “Hello? Lost Boys Anonymous? Yeah I think I need to start coming to three meetings a week. I just can’t seem to stop. It’s terrible. I’ve started hanging out at Radio Shack…”

I shove her out of the way as I pick up my tray and slide my pumps on. So I have a thing for being needed. With my family history, who is surprised?

The lounge is filling up nicely. It looks like it will be a pretty good night. Barbie is already dancing for a table of suits. Louise is flirting with two tourists at the bar. Claire is shaking her fresh curls as she waits for the bartender to fill a drink order. And Felicity is sitting dainty as anything in her hot-pink, lace teddy, chatting with a white-haired judge like he’s her grandpa.

Then there’s table eight. And damn if Dusty isn’t right. He’s a wide-eyed Yankee boy who looks just as lost as pie. Tidy hair, pressed shirt, brown puppy dog eyes. I should really run a mile, find a group of sheiks to fleece, shake my sex tutu in the face of a litigating son-of-a-bitch who probably writes crooked contracts that let oil rigs kill baby seals.

But who can resist pie?

“Can I get you something, sir?”

He looks up at me and, well, something just about breaks in my brain. He is
young
. Like I hope he showed some ID young. And he is loster than lost. Poor thing looks like he wants to suck his thumb and phone his mommy.

“No. Thanks. I’m still working on…” he looks at the glass in his hand. “What is this anyway?”

I bend over and take a look, making sure to give him an eyeful of the cleavage I scooped so hard for.

“That there is a Hurricane, honey. You be careful with that.” Some cruel person, probably Dusty, hooked him up with New Orleans’s most deadly cocktail within minutes of sitting down. I’m going to have to keep an eye on him.

“I will. Maybe I should have some water or something.”

“Club soda?”

“Okay. Sure.”

As I’m walking away, I make sure to wiggle walk. Jack trained us all in the wiggle walk. It’s especially cute in this outfit because the little skirt flips from side to side. Yeah, Barbie took a video and showed me, okay? I’m an object. Shame is poison. Deal with it.

Paulo, the bartender scowls at me when I order the club soda. Soft drinks are four bucks, which is highway robbery, of course, but it’s the only price customers ever complain about. Twelve-dollar, weak-ass “cocktails” are fine. Thirty-eight dollars for a “jug” of beer is fine even though it only holds three glasses. Two-hundred-dollar bottles of wine are fine. And don’t even start with the prices we negotiate for a little lap action. But no, four bucks for a club soda that will probably keep you alive tonight? That’s too much.

“Five bucks says he whines about the price,” Paulo says, plunking the glass down on my tray.

“Why would I take that bet, Paulo? You think I’m stupid?”

I grab a couple more drink orders and promise a dance to a bachelor party on my way back to Little Boy Peep, who doesn’t even blink when I tell him the price of his half-flat club soda with a shriveled piece of lime. He hands me a five and waves away my fake attempt to give him change.

“Your friends running late?” I say. I want to kill some time before I dance at the bachelor table. The song playing right now just doesn’t inspire me.

“My friends are on a river cruise with a bunch of drug dealers.”

“Fat Tuesday Cruise-itude? You didn’t want to go with them?”

“Cruise-itude? Is that like a thing?”

“Every year the gang big wigs invite all the sad little corner rats on an all-you-can-drink-snort-smoke-and-fuck-cruise to show their appreciation. Pardon my French.”

“Jesus. It really is a drug dealer cruise?”

“Pretty much. Are your friends into that scene?”

He looks a little worried. “No. We’re…tourists. I mean we’re students from Seattle. We just came down for the weekend. Are they in danger?”

“They’ll be fine. There’s a whole lot of rent-a-cops aboard, and they’re actually pretty stingy with the blow from what I’ve heard. As long as they use condoms and don’t fall overboard, they’ll get back to school in one piece.”

He stares into his soda, like he’d like to dive into it.

“Bit too much Big and not enough Easy for you?” I ask.

“Something like that.”

Poor little lamb. I just want to take him home and give him a bath. “Listen, I’m going to deliver some drinks, then I’m going to dance for a table over there. And after that, I’ll come and check on you, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

“You’re going to dance?” he says. “Like lap dance?”

“That’s the idea, yeah. You want one later?”

“No! God, no. I mean…” Even in the dim mood lighting, I can see he’s blushing. “I’m not really into that.”

“You prefer boys?” That would be just my luck.

“No!” He’s very firm with his no’s, this boy. “I mean, no. I like girls. I just don’t want…I’ve never, uh…lap dances are a bit…” I hold my tray on my hip, waiting for the inevitable insulting judgment. “…degrading.”

See, this is how I am. Most girls would just write him off at this point. He’s too young, too west coast, too civilized, uptight, and politically correct to be of much use to me tonight. But I’m contrary. His reluctance is just sexy to me. Now I really want to dance for him.

“Why don’t you let me decide for myself what’s degrading?’ I ask with a smile. “I’ll come back in a little while with a drink and we can talk some more.”

Then I walk away, wiggling, hoping to hell he’s looking at my ass and feeling his cock get hard in those preppy, good-boy pants.

Chapter Three – Levi

Degrading for
me,
is what I wanted to shout after her. But shouting in a place like this is probably frowned upon. I don’t even know why I stayed. Thaddeus dropped me off and waved to the doorman who let me in without paying the twenty-dollar cover charge. Then a beautiful redhead convinced me to order something vile and red that ate up the twenty I just saved on the cover. Now I feel like I have to stay out of pride. Like I have to prove to that girl in the fuck-me tutu that she doesn’t scare me.

She
doesn’t
scare me. She just…there’s something about the way her bangs fall in her eyes, the way she’s hardly wearing any make-up, the cute way her butt wiggles when she walks, that makes me so hard I pretty much can’t get up unless I want all the lawyers in New Orleans to see what a horny frat boy I am.

I’m going to have to get decisive. Maybe being degraded won’t be so bad. Maybe she can dance for me. I’ll drink another one of these revolting cocktails and then go back to the hotel. It’s only eight o’clock. I could be in bed and jerking off by nine-thirty. Like a fucking thirteen-year-old.

The music changes. It’s something slow and bluesy. And the brown-haired girl is moving her little tutu in the face of a slack-jawed dude in a loud tie while his friends laugh and throw money at her. I watch her because I can’t really look away. Her eyes focus just above the guy’s head with this kind of spaced-out expression, as though she’s imagining she’s somewhere else. The guy reaches for her and she slithers out of reach, like it’s part of the dance, not missing a beat, not letting the knowing little half smile fade from her face.

What I’m wondering is why guys throw money at a lap dance in front of their friends when for the same amount, accounting for drinks and everything, they could probably have a pretty nice call girl come to their house for some private actual sex. I mean
I
wouldn’t do that, because the idea of paying for sex is pretty weird if you ask me, but if you’re going to pay for a woman’s body, why not find one who’ll sell the whole thing? And why do it in front of your friends? It’s just showing off. What kind of guy is impressed with that shit? These guys all just look like losers to me. They’re actually making me feel pretty good about myself for a change. At least I’m not a desperate loser sitting in a lingerie bar…

Wait. Yes I am.

The song finishes and the brown-haired girl walks away with a handful of bills. She goes to the bar and drops the money into a jar while the barman pours five glasses full of the deadly red Hurricane. I resist the urge to check my phone as a way to have something to look at while she drops drinks at a table of suits. But as she walks towards me, I just give up. This little lacy thing she’s wearing is really very cute. It’s so cute, it’s almost
not
sexy, if that’s possible. Like she sort of looks like she should be in a little girl’s music box.

One of those red drinks clinks down in front of me as she reaches my table.

“Still breathing over here?” she says.

“If I drink this, I have a feeling I might stop.”

“Sip it, honey. Don’t gulp.” She sets her tray down on the table. “You want that dance now?”

I have a speech prepared. Something I’ve been putting together since she started dancing for the other table. But when I open my mouth, only one word comes out. “Okay.”

She stands there. Her smile grows a little warmer, but other than that, she doesn’t move.

And I don’t move.

And she doesn’t move.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” she says.

“What tipped you off?”

“Well, for starters, usually when a guy orders a lap dance, he wants to know what it’s going to cost. Or did you think they were free?”

“No!” I bluster. I seem to be shouting no a lot. “I mean, I thought you started dancing and I gave you money during the dance. That’s what those guys were doing. Not that I was watching or anything.”

She leans on the edge of my table, the curve of her hip pressing into the polished wood. “The cash is tips. The dance itself usually goes on the credit card. Did you put your credit card on the bar?”

“No. Should I have?”

She turns her head to the side. I almost feel sorry for her. I think this might be one of those situations where she is regretting the fact that she was assigned my table. Behind her I can see her colleagues are having a much easier time with the tables of cowboys and Japanese businessmen.

“I have cash,” I say. “Not like a ton. But some. What do the dances cost?”

“For you, sweetie? Fifty bucks.”

Fifty bucks. Half a shift at Seattle City Light. Plus tips. She lifts one leg and puts her foot on my chair. High heeled shoes with little bows. Black stockings with lace tops. Those suspender things that hold the stockings up. Something is happening to my blood stream.

“Seems fair,” I say pulling out my wallet. I dig out three twenties and hand them to her. She rolls them up and tucks them into her bra.

“You like this song?” she says. Her fingers trail over my ear and chin. I wish I had shaved, maybe. Now I’m itchy.

“The song’s okay, yeah.” I can’t hear it. I think all the blood has rushed away from my eardrums, leaving them useless. I’m so hard it hurts. I want to adjust things, not that it will help, but I don’t want to look like some kind of pervert all grabbing my crotch while she dances for me.

She starts to move, just slowly swaying her hips from side to side. “You got a name?” she says.

“Levi.” I’m just going to look at her eyes. They’re really blue.

“I’m Charlotte.”

“Is that your real name?” Why did I ask that?

She frowns a little as she answers. “It is my real name. Some of the girls make up porny names, but I figure Charlotte is cute.” She puts her hands on either side of my head, resting them on the back of the chair. “You understand the rules?”

“What rules?”

“Lap dance rules, honey. This club is a lot less permissive than most. No touching is the main rule. You don’t touch me at all, and I can only touch your face with my hands. No crotch contact, but I can get pretty close if you want. And you can get close enough to my boobs to smell my perfume, but no closer. Oh, and no jerking yourself while I dance.”

She looks like she expects me to say something. “I don’t usually jerk off in crowded rooms.”

That makes her smile. As she starts moving again, I run those rules through my head. The words “crotch contact” echo pretty loud in there. It’s been over a year since I had any kind of crotch contact, and normally, like any guy, I like it a lot. But somehow, this beautiful sexy girl has made it sound like just about the unsexiest thing ever invented.
Crotch contact
. Sounds like some kind of rash. I’m glad it’s not part of the dance.

And no touching. I put two hands on my drink and take long sips. My eyes drift down from her face. She has that coloring that’s always so pretty. Really pale skin with dark hair. Despite living in the South, she looks like she has never tanned in her life. Her boobs look like marshmallows in the black lacy bra. She has a slim body, but not so much that she has muscles and rippling abs. I always find that a bit off-putting on girls. I mean, I kind of admire girls with abs at the gym because they’re so dedicated and fit, but it doesn’t do anything for me. Not that they’re trying to turn on some random loser at the gym anyway.

In contrast Charlotte’s tummy looks a little soft. Of all the bits of her that I’m not allowed to touch, I want to put belly button at the top of the list. It seems to smile at me. And that makes me smile.

“There it is,” Charlotte says, putting her hand on my jaw. “He’s happy at last.”

Have I been scowling at her this whole time? That wouldn’t surprise me.

“You want some lap action?”

“Uh, okay.”

She turns and sways her butt in my face, the fluffy little skirt thing ruffles as she moves. Then she bends her ass down until it’s hovering and wriggling inches above my crotch. I clutch my drink on the table with one hand and the back of my chair with the other. Fuck. I’m so hard that if she so much as flicked me, I think my cock would snap in two.

I want to enjoy it. I know that’s the idea. And over her shoulder I can see other guys grinning like chimps and waving money around, but suddenly I feel a little sick. I glance down at my glass and see that it’s empty. Not even sure when that happened. “Can you…can you turn around again?” I ask.

Charlotte stands and turns, still swaying, looking at me, her eyebrows puckered together. “Are you okay, baby?”

“I’m fine,” I lie. “That just made me feel a little claustrophobic.”

She smiles and dances some more, bending over with her tits in my face. And I do smell her perfume. It smells like one of those hippy stores in Ballard. Patchouli maybe. Seems a weird choice for a lap dancer. My sister wears that shit to environmental rallies.

And then I’m thinking of my sister and it all goes downhill. It’s not like “ew, my sister, how unsexy”. It’s that I’m wondering whether Charlotte has a little brother, and what he would think of her doing this for money. I would punch someone for even looking at my sister the way I’m looking at Charlotte right now. You’d think that this kind of mindset would finally make my boner go away, but no. He’s still hanging in there. Always the little trooper, loitering around when he’s not needed.

“You don’t look so happy now,” Charlotte says.

I want to reassure her, because it’s got to be bad enough what she’s doing; she doesn’t need my shit piled on top of it. “I’m a little embarrassed,” is what I come up with. It’s the truth. Just not the whole truth.

“Do you want me to stop?” She looks down at my lap as she says this.

I know my jeans are tenting like a boy scout, but magically my body finds some blood left over to send surging up to my face. Our eyes meet and she stops moving. And man, if brains could just communicate directly without having to bother with the intermediary of mouths, I don’t know what she’d say. Maybe ‘what the fuck is the matter with you, you uptight preppy little creep?’ And here’s what I’d be saying: ‘I get that some men like this, and I even think that’s okay. And I get that some women think this is a good way to make money, and I guess that’s okay, too. But underneath all that, I know there’s a world where men get paid more to do stupid, easy jobs, and women have to do boring and dangerous jobs just to get by. And everywhere you turn are reminders that women are just objects to hang expensive demonstrations of wealth and power on. And every day, every hour, some degenerate takes that as permission to treat a woman like a commodity instead of a person. I don’t want to be part of that. It’s clear that my penis does, but
I
don’t.’

But I don’t say any of that. I just look down at my hands in my lap, where finally my cock has decided to lay off and get back in his cage.

“Wow,” Charlotte says. “I’m sorry. I…that’s never…I’ve never had quite that reaction before.” She reaches into her bra and pulls out the twenties I gave her. “Here, I better give this back to you.”

“No. Keep it. I want you to have it. You danced nicely. It’s not your fault I didn’t like it.”

Her face falls. Maybe up to that point, she was thinking I
did
like it but was just acting weird. Nope. I actually
am
weird. I’m a straight guy who doesn’t like getting a lap dance from a beautiful girl. Go figure.

“You want me to bring you another drink instead?” she asks. “On me. I feel kind of bad.”

I reach for her without thinking, just to pat her on the arm reassuringly or something, but she twists gracefully out of the way.

“Sorry,” I say, putting my hand back in my lap like a good boy. “Don’t feel bad. And no thanks to the drink. I think I’d like to use the men’s room if that’s okay.”

“Sure, honey.” She points to the other side of the room. “Through the blue curtain and down the hall on the left.” Picking up her tray, she steps out of my way as I get up.

I walk away from her without turning around. There are girls gyrating at several tables as I pass, so I don’t know why I feel like everyone is looking at me. But it feels like the blue curtain is a million miles away. From the corner of my eye, I can see Charlotte at the bar, and I risk a glance over. She’s talking to a guy in a cowboy hat. Probably negotiating her next lap party.

First of all, it’s rude to wear a hat indoors. Secondly – a cowboy hat? Thirdly, I’m a decent guy who kept my hands to myself, but what if this cowboy isn’t? There are a couple of bouncer types like Thaddeus discreetly placed around the room, lurking in shadows. How far do they let guys go before they move in, I wonder.

I hold the blue curtain aside and step gratefully into a long, empty hallway. As promised, there’s a men’s room door on the left. I push it open with my elbow because God only knows what kind of bodily fluids are smeared on these walls every day.

The men’s room is clean, at least. Spotlessly clean and smelling of something masculine…leather? Spice? Possibly a bit of both. I sway a bit as I stop in front of the urinal. I think that second hurricane is starting to take effect. Unzipping, I am relieved to find my cock is soft enough that pissing won’t require some sort of gymnastic prowess. There’s no graffiti above the urinals. I don’t know what I expect.
For a good time, just go back out into the lounge,
maybe.