She’s one of my fellow strippers at the Grand—and my only friend. When we started here, we were both young and hustled hard. On top of the fucking world. Just a few years can change all that. Maybe I was still young in years, but it felt like I’d been dancing and fucking and fighting off men all my life. And really, I had been.
She knows almost everything about my past, more than I know about hers. So she wasn’t surprised to find me practically catatonic on the floor of a VIP room. It didn’t used to bother me—when men grabbed my wrist, when they forced me. They’d have to really hurt me to get a rise. But lately I’ve been getting more sensitive. In this profession, that could be dangerous.
Because the Grand had once been a fancy theater, there’s an enclave with a musty sofa between the dressing room and the showers. Candy settles me there and covers me with some kind of blanket. I don’t even know where she got a blanket—maybe it’s a cape from someone’s outfit.
She leaves my side for a minute, and in her absence, I hear the chatter from the girls.
What’s wrong with her?
She think she’s too good to work?
Someone fucked her up.
They know better than to talk about us where Candy can hear. She’s the queen bee, and I wouldn’t exactly call her a benevolent ruler. But I can’t blame them for wondering. Yeah, someone fucked me up. It shouldn’t matter if a customer touches me. If they rough me up. I should be able to shake it off, but I can’t. So I guess I do think I’m too good to work. At the very least, I’m too broken.
And as for what’s wrong with me? That list is too fucking long.
Candy returns with a glass of something that’s definitely not water. “Drink,” she says, pushing it into my hands.
It burns on the way down. “Shit. What is this?”
Then she puts something else in my hand—a small white pill. “Swallow.”
“I charge extra for that.”
She gives me a faint smile. “Come on. You’ll feel better.”
“That’s what they all say,” I grumble. But I take the pill, swallowing it down with whatever liquid’s in the cup. I don’t know what either of them are, and it doesn’t really matter. Candy always has the good shit. That’s what I need right now—good shit to make me feel human again. To make me forget.
I feel the warmth spread through me almost immediately. It’s like she’s taking care of me, giving me milk and cookies in the form of alcohol and drugs.
The girls in the dressing room are quiet again, only murmuring to each other or back out on the floor. After all, we’re here to work. And even if they wanted to gossip, Candy remains by my side.
“You can go,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “For what? The crowd’s too fucked-up tonight. It’s not worth it.”
That’s a lie. It’s always worth the money to work a crowd that’s hot. Even if it’s a little dangerous. Fuck, this job is always dangerous. That’s why we show up night after night, because it’s worth it.
She’s staying for me, because she knows I don’t want to be alone right now. How does she know that? Why does she care? Even though I know we’re friends, it’s hard to trust that. It’s hard to believe in it.
“How’d you know to come find me there?”
I can’t read the look she gives me. “Blue.”
“Oh.” I shiver. “He handled the guy who messed with me. Can you give him a tip out from my stash?”
Tip outs are money paid to the bouncers and other staff members for helping us. Like if the DJ cuts you out of the lineup so you could work the floor longer or if a waitress brings extra drinks around to get a client spending. The client wouldn’t exactly tip the staff extra for their service—they especially wouldn’t tip a bouncer for throwing them out. So the girls say thank you with cold hard cash.
Curiosity fills Candy’s blue eyes. “You can’t do it yourself when you see him?”
“I don’t want to see him tonight.” Or ever, but that’s hoping for too much.
Hoping for anything is too damn much.
“Then don’t. Blue isn’t going to stop doing his fucking job because you didn’t pass him a twenty.” Her smile is sly. “In fact I don’t think he’s going to stop watching over you like a hawk no matter what you do.”
I shiver. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
The Grand doesn’t have mandatory tip outs per night. It’s optional. The owner, Ivan, is a scary fucking dude—but he’s fair. For that reason and many others I won’t strip at another club. Even so, we still sometimes tip the staff for going above and beyond, and I definitely want to pay Blue for what he did.
I don’t need to owe him anything more.
She shrugs, one slender shoulder rising and moving the pale pink silk ruffles of her bikini top. “Why are you so sure he hates you? From where I sit, it looks like he wants to fuck you.”
“What’s the difference?” Hating. Fucking. They’re the same thing. I swallow hard, forcing down my fear. And my desire. There isn’t much difference between those two either. “We have history.”
“Oh no, honey. You can’t tell me that and then just stop.”