In Love With An Exotic Dancer

She swayed seductively from the pole, all eyes were on her. She could feel eyes boring holes in her, as she sauntered around to do her last tease, she still could not shake the feeling of someone staring at her. Fair enough, having people look at her came with the territory of the work she did. But this felt.....different.

Prince Malik Nasir Al Din could not keep his eyes off her, as she moved seductively and in tune with the beat. She had untold rhythm. Her beauty was dazzling. Her body came close to perfection. She moved with such grace and had the most gorgeous, shapely, long legs. She had a tiny waist and well-formed hips with a perfect shapely behind. It was not hard to tell that her body was close to perfection from the revealing bra and pants she had on. Her skin was a flawless chocolate brown shade; her lips looked soft and full. She had a cute round nose and almond shaped eyes fringed with lovely curled lashes. Behind those lashes sat dark brown eyes that drew even the most unyielding soul in. Her hair was jet black and fell past her shoulders in layers. Malik stared down at the picture in his hand, and then stared up at the ebony goddess on the podium. He could not comprehend how such a fine young woman who looked barely twenty years of age could be doing in such a club?

At that moment, she turned around and looked in the darkly lit corner he was sitting in with his friend Akil. Akil thought it would be a great idea to drag his friend to some sleaze club as a birthday gift. The moment he sat at that table he was struck by such beauty adorned on the flyer sitting on the tables in the VIP section of the club, she was one of the special performers this night. He had picked up the flyer with the mysterious lady's face on it and he had not been able to put it down since. From the moment she had climbed on that podium, he had not been able to shift his gaze from the exotic dancer. Malik was certain of the fact that she could not see him, because Akil had specifically requested the anonymously darkly lit corner as both men's reputations lay at stake if the media or their business associates caught wind of the fact that two well respected business men were caught in some sleaze club, no matter how exclusive the club was, a strip club was a strip club. The few seconds she stared in that corner, Malik found himself shifting in his seat, albeit the fact that she could not see them. He was finding it difficult to seat down comfortably in his chair with his arousal evidently pressing in his thigh, he shifted again. Why was this woman having such an effect on him? He'd never felt such desire from a mere glance of a woman. From his string of women in the past, he'd dated everyone from models to actresses, and he could not fathom of why a mere exotic dancer was having such an effect.

Salina saw movements in a darkly lit corner. She guessed that was where the staring was coming from. She was so happy she was going home in half an hour, this club might be exclusive and you only got descent men coming in, but, you often got your usual sleazy men and perverts who wanted more than a strip tease. She was so happy that she only had two more weeks to work in this godforsaken club, she'd now been working there for over a year, somehow she had managed to fit it in with her tight schedule of juggling another restaurant job and studying for her Masters finals. As she was getting off the podium, she could not help another swift glance towards that darkly lit corner. As she got in her room, she sat at her vanity table removing all traces of the little make-up she had on; she could not help her mind from wandering back to her rather unfortunate childhood.

At the age of six and a half, her father walked out on both her mother and herself, she could still hear her mother's cries every night after he left, this went on for over a year and then she could hear nothing at all for another year that followed. Her mother had tragically turned to sleeping pills to numb the pain and had become dependent on them. Her mother had bad mood swings and would often lash out on her as she resembled her father. A few months later she was put into foster care as her mother was branded as "unstable and unable to take care of her". From then on she was raised in one social home after another. She recalls how many times she had managed to escape the clutches of many attempted misdemeanours against her purity. She thanks God everyday on how far he has brought her. Growing up as a child, she remembers growing up very shy but had a drive to succeed and prove all the people wrong who thought she would amount to nothing because she was a foster child. She cannot say she was proud of her job, but it had somehow managed to help her with her expenses in University. And now she was in her final year preparing for her final exams to become a full fledged Marriage Therapist.

A light tap on the door of her dressing room brought her back to reality. She quickly cleared her throat and called out for the person on the other side to let them self in. Sharon let herself in with her hand on her face, but her eyes were visible through her fingers.

"Are you descent?"

"Yes Sharon.... I'm descent, but do not pretend that this is not why you came in here, to find me half naked?" Salina slightly chided her.

"You know you have a hot bod Salina, I wouldn't mind having a bit of an eyeful".

"Sharon you are retarded".

"And I know you love it", Sharon swiftly joked.

Sharon came in for a hug, "I'm going to miss you, why do you have to go in less than two weeks? Not fair" she said in a baby voice.

Sharon was one of the foster children Salina had met at the foster home when she first moved in, before they found temporary accommodation for any of them to stay with brief foster parents. They had became instant friends, they were separated when they went their different ways due to being fostered by different foster parents, contact was lost for a few years until Salina saw Sharon in a cafe shop over two years ago, and this was how Salina was introduced to exotic dancing a year and a half ago.

Salina instantly fought back tears and hugged Sharon back tightly.

"Hey Shaz don't make me cry, and you know you don't want to ruin your mascara before you go up there, don't forget you will be up there in five minutes, you don't want to have panda eyes".

Sharon gave a hoarse, muffled laugh against Salina's shoulder before giving a last tight squeeze and a peck on the cheek. Sharon quickly exited the room to make her way to the podium before Rafael their boss got impatient. Salina thought to herself, 'goodness that man can be discourteous'.

Malik stared after Salina as she left the podium, he really wanted to go after her and take her with him; he just felt that, a woman like her, a woman with such beauty and grace did not belong in a place like this. Malik did not have a degree in Psychology but he could tell that albeit the fact that the mysterious woman had untold rhythm, she did not look comfortable on that podium. Malik had conflicting emotions going through him, he knew he could not up and go after her, as this would raise suspicions and gossip mongers would be all over this news like diaper rush. So Malik decided that he would do things the old fashioned way.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Here is the file you requested, your Excellence". Raom said with a curtsey. Raom was Malik's loyal personal assistant for over two years now. Malik shook his head and tried to correct her for the up tenth time that 'Malik' was just fine, but opted not to, as she would not call him by his first name no matter how hard he tried.

"Thank you Raom, you can take your leave now. See you tomorrow morning". Raom made her final curtsey and exited the massive office, closing the door behind her. It was running close to six post meridiem and getting dark. Malik could not leave just yet as he had to do one last thing he had been anticipating since leaving the club last night and calling up his personal contacts to fish out information. He always did this when dealing with business associates, he had a zest for information and he liked finding out things before he got knee deep involved with business acquaintances. Only this time the information he wanted about a certain someone was not business related.

Malik gave a long sigh and leaned back in his leather seat. He felt somewhat deviant about what he was about to do. He ran his long tanned fingers through his jet black hair that nearly touched his shoulders. He quickly scanned the cover of the file and his eyes rested on the name at the top right hand corner of the file, 'Salina Riley'. "Salina", Malik repeated the name softly in the empty room. He liked that name; he wondered how that name would sound as he muttered it to her in the throngs of passion, as he made passionate love to her. Malik laughed at himself and shook his head, he knew nothing about this woman, and yet, there he was, imagining her limbs tangled around his waist and her head thrown back in oblivion.

Malik ran his hand over the file and opened it........