Dancing on the Edge of Night

"Susan. Better get ready, Helen's finishing up."

I sighed. "I'll talk to you later, Chloe," I told the girl I had been chatting with and went over to the backstage fridge freezer. I grabbed a pair of ice cubes and held them on my bare nipples until the latter were hard and the former had begun to soften. Then I picked the most melted cube, tugged my thong to the right of my shaved pussy and quickly dashed the ice cube across my slit. Some of the girls get aroused just by performing, but that exhibitionism has never worked for me.

I checked myself in one of the dressing room mirrors – thick smear of red on my lips, making them seem bigger than they are; dark make-up around my eyes for that exotic look. My large, coppery nipples prickled. My thing was "Elrissa – Mistress of the Night". What it meant was smudgy make-up and black leather lingerie.

I grabbed my bra off the radiator, hauled on the straps and settled my breasts into the cups. "Gimme a hand, Chloe?"

Chloe was new. "I'm not that kind of girl, Suze."

"Oh well," I joked. "You can tongue my cunt later. Just tie my bra."

She did and I slipped on the gauzy night-gown – also black – that was the last part of my costume.

Helen came in to put on a thong before going out to work the floor. "Big crowd tonight. Plus a few businessmen."

Businessmen meant a lot of money for us.

Helen headed out just as I heard the manager, who doubled as announcer. Speaking like a boxing promoter.

"She's here! Immortally beautiful and immortally insatiable. She'll take your soul with her hot little hole. It's...Mistress Elrissa, Queen of the Night!" The promotion surprised me.

When the first chords of Sympathy for the Devil started I strode through the curtain. Initially my act had me wearing high-heeled black leather boots. But they so got in the way that now I just worked bare-foot like the other girls. It was for the best anyway, that podium was near frictionless so our skin didn't get rubbed raw.

I pranced about for a while, holding the pole at arm's length and circling, shimmying my hips at the ring of customer's around me and looking to see what business would be like for our "extra" services. At this distance from the spotlight I could see them clearly, and I was able to discern a fair number of small, and not so small, bulges. In my slow spin I trod on a small sticky patch. Usually security's pretty good, but sometimes some horny prick that can't wait yanks it out and hoses the runway.

I pulled myself towards the pole, spiralling into in, then rapped my arms and legs around it, pulling it between my breasts, seemingly tit-fucking the biggest cock in the world. I was in the centre of the spotlight now; the crowd invisible to me I seemed almost to be dancing for myself. Again I spun to give everyone a view, stopping with my back to the curtain, so that I was visible, though better to some than others, to the whole horseshoe of seats surrounding the stage.

I threw my head back and moaned loudly – whether they could hear it over the music or not, they undoubtedly saw it. Then I moved my head back to the pole, first kissing it swiftly, then wrapping my tongue around it. Finally, I gave it a few long strokes, like a cat slurping cream.

All this had taken about a minute. I didn't work in one of those high-class clubs where the dancing has to be good. This sort of town wouldn't support it. Our dances had two points, letting the customer's see the goods and getting them so horny that money became meaningless to them. Or as our manager – and dance coach – put it in induction – "let 'em see your cunt and make 'em happy to pay to fuck it". In fact, we mainly did oral.

Now was the main part of my act. Holding the pole with my legs, I let go my arms and leaned back, shimmying out of the transparent night-gown. As it slipped down my left shoulder, I readied myself and, as it dropped, slowly fluttering in the air, I caught it, rubbed it over my tits and tossed it to my left. I was down low now, so I stopped holding with my legs and, sitting, turned so my back pressed against the pole. Again I gave a moan – which our manager called "Susan's night howl" – and undid my bra. This was the only leather bit of my costume, and the only bit that we weren't willing to replace each night. I always threw it to an employee in the crowd, who'd make a big deal of sniffing it and generally acting like I smelled of pure sex, before he took it back stage to have it washed. He couldn't always get it, but he did often enough.

I let the bra hang on my breasts, held only by my cold-hardened nipples. I teased for a while before letting it fall and throwing it to Charlie.

My breasts weren't all that big. They were a fair bit larger than average, full and round, heavy but at 26 still happily swaying in gravity's face. To be accurate, they were the biggest natural tits at our club, but while mine were a size or two below double D, a few of the girls went a bit size-crazy when the manager – who also doubled as, in his words, "hands-on pussy tester extraordinaire" – said they'd need implants, and went into the far ends of the alphabet.

Now was an important part of my act. I stroked and pinched my breasts, fingered my artificially hardened nipples and acted like I was in heat. Club policy was that we had to look aroused as we danced. How we did this was up to us, and there were three categories. At least half, like me, faked it with the ice-cubes. A slightly smaller number just got off on performing. This did make for a better performance for those few who could hold of arousal until they were dancing – there's no way to fake nipples hardening and a pussy getting dripping wet as you dance. In the first two categories, dancers tend to last a while. The third is different.

These are the girls, some wannabe nymphos, others just young and stupid and, sometimes, stupidly rebellious, who think it's all some baroque sex party. They finger themselves before they go on stage, rubbing their little college-girl clits to orgasm then performing. If you have more than one of these dilettantes, they'll sometimes lick each other out, flick each other off, or 69 before dancing. I'm a working girl – I don't want to see two young girls ineptly sucking pussy on my dressing table. These girls don't last long. Usually once they've serviced a few customers and realised that mostly they won't get off and that there is no – zero, zilch – glamour involved, they quit.

I think Chloe hovers between the second and the third of these categories. She's definitely an exhibitionist, but I've seen her masturbate before she goes on and she doesn't seem to treat it quite as just a job.

The last stage of my act now, and I lie on my back, hips thrust into the air, hands squeezing my breasts. Then I slide one hand down, let it dally inside my thong for a moment, wiggling my fingers as if I'm pleasuring myself. Then I hook the fingers around the waistband and tear the thong off. They're designed to rip easily, and before we go on some of us, those who don't get aroused, spray them with a musky perfume, so that...

"I can smell your cunt!" The guy who caught them shouts.

They may not keep the gown, but I bet they all keep that thong, hiding it from the wives who won't do what they pay me to do and wrapping it round their cocks as they jerk off. Once a guy paid me to stand naked and watch as he did just that. He was in his late fifties, his cock small and wrinkled and for a while I though he was having trouble getting it up. Until he came, polka-dotting my black panties with pearly come.

For a moment I lie still, my pussy glistening wetly in the spotlight. Then my index finger touching, rubbing the long slit between my legs. No way to fake that. I stand, press my back against the pole and let my whole hand go to work. I don't properly masturbate, and I hardly ever come. Except once.

I'm a bisexual. I always – again, except once – keep work and life separate. And then Angie came to the club. She had long, red hair and a finely chiselled, classical face. Like me, she was unaltered by surgery; as anyone who has touched a pair of fake breasts will tell you, they feel more like large, warm bags than breasts. Which makes it all the funnier that so many guys splatter pictures of Pamela Anderson with their come. Angie's breasts were smaller than mine, shapelier, with the tiniest rose nipples. She was tall and slender and, even with her mouth tasting of some anonymous man's seed, walked like a goddess. Perhaps only a goddess could do that.

Angie and I became lovers. After work each night we'd go home, either to her flat or mine, brush our teeth, then step into the shower together, first washing off the sour smell of drink and smoke and then a subtler, less tangible air. We'd soap each other's breasts, touching slowly, as our customers never do, then our fingers would move down each other's bodies. Carefully, easily, dallying over flat stomachs, slyly tickling belly buttons, occasionally caressing and even probing buttocks, before reaching that sacred fountain. We'd fuck each other simultaneously, fingers stroking the lips of the other's pussy, penetrating deep, caressing – eventually, after agonising waiting, the clitoris. And we did wait, always coming in perfect synchronicity: "I'm nearly coming Susan. Are you there?" "Not quite." And I'd lessen my work on her cunt as she increased hers on mine. Finally, both of us moaning, fingers darting in and out of our pussies, we'd kiss, my tongue entering her mouth and meeting hers as our orgasms shattered through us. Then we'd sleep, spending, if we could, the morning and afternoon before work exploring our bodies with our tongues.

One night Angie was sitting with a customer as I danced. He was watching me and squeezing her tits. (Angie told me after, laughing: "He couldn't believe how wet you were all the way through". "Ice, ice, baby.") And Angie was watching me. Our eyes met and, in that crowded room, dancing just for her, I knelt at the front of the podium. My eyes never left hers as I masturbated to a gasping orgasm. Our manager, and critic, said it was a great show, but I needed to work the whole crowd.

Angie's left now, gone to work at a slightly more prestigious establishment than this one, which is about the level "Rat Hole". The difference between her and me, why she's not stuck here like I am, isn't in our looks – if anything I'm slightly more outright God-I've-got-to-fuck-that than her. But she can dance. I do my best, but I've basically got one clumsy routine. The first time I saw Angie dance I knew she wouldn't stay here long.

I'm finishing my dance now – moaning more and more. My hand swirls over my pussy like a fortune-teller's over a crystal ball. It gives the impression that I'm desperately fucking myself, but in reality I'm barely touching my pussy, mainly circling the general region. It means my cunt isn't just sitting on display and adds some artifice to the performance. Finally, I arch my back, give a few desperate moans, then fall back, lying with one leg bent vertically, the other straight out and one hand on my left breast, one resting on my pussy.

On cue the spotlight dies and I quickly jump out of my feigned state of orgasmic exhaustion and head back stage. The manager/announcer: "And Mistress Elrissa will be serving...drinks in a few moments." He goes on to announce the horny schoolgirl: Chloe in a costume that Britney Spears could probably sue as libellous.

I walk back, slap Chloe on the ass for good luck and grab another thong. These are the good ones that we wear and wash and wear again, not the cheap ripping kind in which we perform. When "serving" we only wear a thong, sometimes shoes, never a bra – it keeps the customers going. I head out.

I actually do serve drinks for a while. It's a sop to the police, who pretty much know what goes on here, and it gives us time to judge which customer to work with. Our ideal is the rich businessman from out of town. He's horny – away from the wife and aroused on pure possibility – won't usually last long, and normally just wants a blowjob so he won't have to go to the effort of accommodating a girl on his lap or wiggling his fat-smothered hips. They usually also tip pretty well. We have to give half the money we charge to the manager, but tips are all ours.

The worst are the young, drunker bachelor-party types. They don't last long either, but they usually want to fuck and never, ever tip.

Tonight was businessman heavy, and I soon picked one. He waved a twenty at me and I swayed slowly over. I sat on his knee for a moment, keeping my breasts level with his piggy eyes. He's bald, just a thin ring of hair surrounding the sweat reserve shimmering on his pate. I let my hand stroke his cock through the suit. It's hard and he gasps. "How does this work?"

I crane my neck so I'm talking into his ear, deliberately breathy. "Well, I can give you a handjob right here for ten or a twenty gets you a lapdance. Or we can go to the backrooms. There, for twenty, I'll blow you – and your mind. Or for fifty, I'll fuck you. For that I should ask for medical records, but you look..." I pat his cock, "strong to me." My patter is pretty much memorised – the only thing I vary is that, if the guy seems unused to this, I just say we can go to the backroom, and then price my other services there.

Perhaps only the lapdance needs explanation. Like the handjob, no one else really sees anything, so it's not a sex show, which really would get us busted. I sit on the guy's lap, grinding either my ass or my pussy – usually both – against his cock until he comes. It's rough but slow and so not as profitable as the blowjob or sex. While it's nicer for us girls not to have to suck or fuck, a lapdance takes a good few minutes, whereas the other stuff usually only takes moments.

We all do other things as well. Tit-fucking, water-sports – though we never let them piss on us – domination, never submission which can leave marks, pretty much anything, though most girls won't do the water-sports. We don't announce these though – if the guy wants it, he'll ask for it. The one thing we won't do is anal – it's too much effort, some of the girl's simply can't do it, and it often hurts.

My guy decided on a backroom blowjob, so I led him through. It's really just an annex behind the club with a few rooms just large enough for a bed. I pulled down his trousers and underwear and said, "My, what a big boy we are". I always say something like this, just as I always fake a climax when someone asks for sex – it gets you tips. This time I was lying more than usual, which is sometimes risky. If the guy knows you're bullshitting him he can get angry.

This guy didn't, just beamed proudly about his three skinny inches and sagging grey testicles. There's no derision implied here – my job is to get this guy off and it's much easier coping with a small penis than some monster cock, which only the nymphos want or expect. Even in my private life big doesn't always mean better. I sat him on the bed and knelt in front of him. I slurped at the head of his penis then took it all inside my mouth, tightening my lips around it then bobbing up and down. It took him about thirty seconds to come, a watery salt stream slicking my mouth. He gave me thirty and told me to keep the change. Not a bad guy, after all. Some people, and some dancers, make fun of the guys we service. But it is a service we provide, and if you can go to a restaurant to satisfy one appetite, why is there some stigma in coming to me about another? Perhaps I believe that.

I showed him out of the backroom then headed through the side door to the dressing room. While putting my money away I gargled, then reapplied my lipstick. I checked my appearance, wiped off a small trickle of semen from my right breast and went back out.

My next customer was another businessman like the first, though with less hair and less fat. He too wanted the backroom.

"I want to fuck you while you're handcuffed to the bed."

We do have handcuffs, but only use them on customers, for reasons as obvious as they are sensible. I told the guy I couldn't do what he wanted.

"I'll pay you double."

I said no again and he started to look angry. Next to the bed is a small button that most people think is a light switch. It actually summons two huge black guys who will take the guy outside, and there put his lights out. Most of our customers are white, and for many of them the fact these guys are black is enough to convince them that they are brutal, mindless thugs. In fact Roderick and Ethan are students, the first studying mathematics, the second philosophy and, when they're not putting on a gangster front for the customers they're fun to chat with on books, movies, anything.

He calmed down and settled on just a blowjob so I didn't press the button. I serviced him quickly and without frills. When he was finished he grabbed a twenty from his wallet, threw it at me and thumped off.

Again I cleaned up and went back to work. After the fourth of fifth client of the evening, I found Chloe in the dressing room. Her face was pale and she was hunched in a corner, all her weight resting on one hip.

"What's the matter?" I asked, sounding brusquer than I meant. How these girls crumble with their delusions.

"It's nothing...there was this cop." That was strange, the vice cop who managed this area hadn't been in tonight - and I'm his favourite anyway. Plus all he ever wanted was a blowjob and the occasional quick fuck, which Chloe was used to by now. So why was she this upset?

"_______," I asked.

"No a new guy."

Oh fuck, I thought.

"He said if I didn't do exactly what he said he'd shut us down. Then he..." She lost control of her face for a moment and some tears slipped out. "He handcuffed me to the bed and fucked me up the ass."

When she mentioned handcuffs I knew what had happened. Mea Culpa. I should have pressed that fucking button.

She cried again, and I hugged her. "I can't even fucking sit down."

"Chloe," I said, "I know this is hard to hear, but that guy wasn't a cop."

She looked worse now, as if I had raped her too.

"He didn't have handcuffs, right? Had to use yours?"

She nodded, believing me and hating me.

"You always, always have to ask to see a badge, and call for Roderick and Ethan. _______ is the only cop we deal with."

Sadly this did sometimes happen. Our manager – and counsellor - did his best to take good care of us, but sometimes inexperience wins out. All I could offer Chloe was practical advice – in this situation anything else would be hurtful hypocrisy. Not even a woman can understand what being raped is like.

Chloe would probably quit now, maybe try one more night and find she was too scared to go to the backroom. She's better getting out of it, that's what I wished I could tell her. Better not living alone when the latest of your few and far between boy-or-girlfriends decides they can't take what you do anymore. Better not realising that after eight-years of low-rent stripping no one legitimate wants to hire you. Better not to wake up in the night, worried that today is when your pussy will become flaccid, your breasts will begin to sag and your "career" follows them down and down. Until finally you're forty looking seventy and sucking off guys in shadowed alleys behind bars for the price of a drink inside, hoping they'll still pay when they see you under the lights. Better she finds that out for herself. I called the manager – and caregiver – and went back out to work.

* * * * *

Author's Note:

Thanks to all those who wrote to ask me to write more. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, let me know.

And if you really enjoyed it, send it to a friend or read it to your lover.