Adult World

"Is there another girl back there?"

Luna kept gyrating and kneading as she answered. "Yeah," she said, "that's my friend Christine."

"Christine," the voice repeated. "Hi, Christine."

Hi?

I felt my face getting hot. Should I answer?

Luna looked at me and blinked twice, as if to say "Speak up!" So I did.

"Hi, there," I said, hesitantly, a little nervous.

Luna stood up straight and stepped in close to the mirror. "You wanna see her?" she said to the face on the other side.

"Yeah," the customer's voice said, and at that point, I heard a sound of metal hitting glass, and I looked down at the corner of the mirror, where a folded ten dollar bill was sitting on the platform under the mail slot. He'd slipped a tip into the booth.

Luna looked over at me. "Ten bucks says 'come out, Christine.'"

I slowly leaned my face and shoulders out from behind the partition and immediately I heard the customer laugh.

"Damn, you're cute! Wow!"

Luna laughed. "Isn't she? It's her first night here, so she's a little shy."

"Oh, don't be shy," the customer said. "It's just me. Besides, you can't see us anyway."

"Yeah, but YOU can see ME!" I said.

"Well, that's the point, isn't it?" the customer said. "So... are you gonna stay hidden behind that wall, or come out and show me what you got?"

Now I'm a swimmer... I've always been one, as long as I can remember. And one thing I have always done as a swimmer is NOT ease into the water. I've always found that the best way to get into the pool is to take a breath and just dive in and start swimming. It's how I approached the shoots with Gerry: I tried not to think about what I was doing or about to do; I'd just take a breath and get into the act and lose myself in it... lose myself in whomever I was with.

So before Luna had a chance to look at me and try to persuade me to get up on the platform, I took a breath and stepped up the two steps and stood next to her. She put her right arm around me and pressed her bare boobs against my side, and leaned her head on my shoulder. She was warm and a little sweaty, but somehow I felt safe with her holding me.

"Damn," the customer said, "you two look great together. Are you two lovers?"

I started to say "no" but Luna said, "Yeah. We did a video together." And as she said it, she slid her fingertips along the waistband of my daisy dukes, raking my hip skin lightly with her nails. I shivered just a little at the feeling of her fingers on my skin, like just her touch brought back body memories of our shoot and what we'd done with and to each other.

"Really?" the customer said about the news of our video. "Is it for sale out front?"

"No," Luna said, still pressed against me. "It's going on cable."

"Cable? When?"

"I don't know," Luna said, a little exasperated. "SOME time. What do I look like, TV Guide?"

This made the customer laugh and made me laugh, too, and when we calmed down, the customer said, "So, Christine... can you talk?"

I laughed. "Yeah. I'm just a little nervous, that's all."

"Awww, how come? You look great."

"Thanks," I said, and I swear I blushed a little, but that was nothing. Luna looked out at the mirror. I couldn't see a thing except our reflection.

"So," she said, "you want me to take her clothes off her?"

The customer laughed once. "What do YOU think?"

And as I stood there, I felt Luna's other hand take me by the hips and rotate me slowly to face her, as she stepped one of her legs between mine. "Just relax, Chris," she whispered, looking down, and she squatted down and took the fabric knot of my t-shirt between her lips and her teeth and slowly worked the knot loose, breathing warm, smoky breath on my belly as she worked. I shut my eyes and put my hands in her soft black hair, and she slipped her hands behind my legs and up into my shorts, palming and kneading my ass, her bare boobs and hard nipples pressing against my upper thigh as she nibbled at that knot to untie my shirt, occasionally sliding her tongue across my belly and into my navel, flicking the belly ring I was wearing. I shivered at the warmth and wetness of her mouth, and I didn't even realize that she'd untied the knot in my shirt with her teeth and lips (not that I'd tied it all that tight) until she reached up and took the tails of my t-shirt in her hands and pulled my shirt up over my bare boobs (I hadn't worn a bra), over my head, and off, tossing it down onto the bench back in my hiding place.

Topless. I was now a topless dancer.

No turning back now. Luna stood and pressed her bare boobs against mine, and as she shut her eyes, I shut mine and we kissed, open mouth, deep and wet and warm, our tongues playing with each other, and she raked her nails down my bare back and I ran my fingers through her soft raven hair, and we pulled apart and exhaled, and before she had a chance to make a move on me, I ran my tongue down her chin and her neck and collarbone and the middle of her chest, and then kissed across to her sweet bare breast, teasing her hard nipple with my tongue before I took it in my mouth and sucked her hard. She had both of her hands in my hair and was pressing my face to her chest, purring softly as I nibbled and bit and sucked her. I stood back up and we kissed again, and this time she moved her mouth down my neck and started eating my boobs hungrily. Her mouth felt so good, so gentle and almost ticklish, but every so often she'd bite softly to perk me up.

I thought she'd bring her mouth back up to mine, but instead she knelt down in front of me and kissed my belly and flicked my belly ring again with her tongue, and then took her fingers to the front of my shorts and started to unsnap the clasp of my daisy dukes...

I just shut my eyes, my breath shallow and goose pimples breaking out up and down my arms (WHO said the air conditioning wasn't working?), and my nipples puckering and standing out even straighter and harder as Luna unsnapped the snap of my shorts, and then slowly unzipped them, pushing them down my thighs. Almost automatically I stepped out of them and as I did, she pressed her face against the front panel of my panties and breathed hot and moist and smoky right over my clit. Now I was really shivering, and I did what she'd done, put both my hands at the back of her head and pressed her face tight to my crotch, and she nudged at my panties (my clit) with her nose and then, like she had with the knot of my shirt, took the elastic edge of my panties between her teeth and slowly tugged at it to expose my--

"I can't see what you're doing! Could you turn her a little toward me?"

Luna sighed hard into my crotch and then pulled her face back a little. "You better get more tokens if you wanna see me eat her pussy," she said.

"I'll get tokens... just... just turn so I can see what you're doing to her."

Looking back, hearing Luna say she was going to eat me out in front of this guy should've made my breath catch and my heart flutter and everything tingle, but really it just made me want to get out of that booth. It wasn't just the demanding invasiveness of that guy's instructions (something that never ever happened in a shoot with Gerry. He gave minimal direction, if any at all: just let us get in there and do what we felt and get lost in the moment and each other, and he'd stand out of the way with the camera and capture what happened, whatever it was).

But it was also something that started when Luna said "You wanna see her?" It was the way this "customer" (AND Luna) were talking about me like I wasn't even part of the conversation or the negotiation. "Her, she." I'd done almost two dozen video and photo shoots and it was the first time I ever felt like an object. Even in the roughest shoots I'd done (one with four guys at once), I was a PARTICIPANT, never just some HER or SHE that they were doing stuff to.

I went from 60 to zero in less than three seconds flat and I just wanted to pull my shorts and my t-shirt back on and slip out the back and finish my Pepsi, and maybe, while I was at it, just run out the back door to my car and drive home and pay the sitter and take Maura into the bedroom and turn on the air conditioning and pull her close to me under the covers and cry... and when she asked me why I was crying, I'd say that I just didn't understand why I did some of the things I did, what I was thinking, don't you ever do the things mommy does, I'm so sorry I'm such a bad mommy sweetie, I love you I love you I love you.

I'm so sorry.

But just like that, it was over. The curtain was closing, and as I exhaled, I could hear our audience on the other side of the mirror getting up and opening the door.

"I'll be back," the voice behind the curtain said. "Don't let anyone else in."

"That's not up to me," Luna called after him, and as she stood up, the door on the other side of the mirror slammed shut.

Luna sighed and looked at me. I was looking down.

"You all right, Chris?"

I shook my head. "I'm just... I wasn't ready for this tonight." Our eyes met. "It's not, you know... I liked what you were doing, but really? I wasn't ready to do this." I could feel myself starting to cry and I sniffled to try to keep the tears in. "Sorry," I said.

Luna put her right hand gently on my bare left shoulder. "No, I'M sorry, Chris." She looked down, and I could tell she was looking at the floor, at my feet, if anything... not at my bare boobs. "Look, if you don't want to--"

"--But he's going to be back."

"So?"

"Well, he'll want to see both of us."

"So?"

I sighed. What a weird feeling. Almost every part of me wanted to leave, but there was a louder, smaller part of me that wanted to stay, that didn't want to get the guy angry or let him down. I think part of me was afraid that if he came back and didn't find both of us, he'd wait outside for us to leave or something... maybe follow me home. Scared.

But the bigger part was that I didn't want to let the guy down. He liked me. ("Damn, you're cute!") I didn't want to blow THAT.

How weird.

Luna patted my shoulder. "Chris, it's up to you. If you want to stay and PLAY for this guy, do it." She paused and then looked at me seriously. "I mean, you DO know that I wasn't REALLY going to do that, right? That it's just a show."

Well, actually, I thought she was going to push me back onto the bench and pull my panties off and spread my legs wide apart and bury her face deep in my snatch and go to work and make me CUM, you know?

I laughed nervously.

"Yeah..." Had to look away. "...yeah, of course I knew."

"O.K.," she said, softly, looking down again. "So," she said, tapping her fingers on my shoulders for emphasis, "if you want to stay here and play and split my tips, that's up to you. If not, I'll just tell him you got called to another booth. OK?"

I nodded. "OK."

And as she leaned in to kiss my cheek softly...

...the door opened. Not the door on the other side of the mirror. The door behind us, the one going back out into the lounge area. Luna backed away from me as if by reflex.

"O.K.!" It was the night manager. Not Bert, but the man who'd been at the register when I came in. He was about 35, I'd say, with neatly trimmed blonde hair and big arms, but a belly that kind of hung out over his belt, like he did a lot of curls at the gym but decided to skip the situps and ab work. He'd seemed friendly enough when I came in, but now, his green eyes were burning with authority and just a little bit of nervousness and anger.

He looked at me. "I need YOU to get dressed and get out NOW." He looked at Luna. "YOU... hit the lock and come to my office."

And as the manager stepped back out of the booth, Luna sighed and said "Guess you better leave, Chris," and she followed him out, the door shutting behind her.

And a couple seconds later, I heard a magnetic lock seal the door on the other side of the mirror: shhh-TUMP!

And I sat down on the bench, pulled my shorts on, pulled on my t-shirt --it was slightly damp at the wrinkle where Luna'd untied the knot, but I didn't knot it; I just tucked it down, deep down, into my shorts-- pulled on my sandals, and went out the back door of the booth.

As I walked through the lounge, there were three other girls sitting there in various stages of dress and undress, and I felt their eyes follow me as I walked toward the exit to the parking lot. As I started to open the door to the outside, I remembered my half-drunk Pepsi, and as I turned to go back and get it, I saw one of the girls-- a redhead with flat green eyes: pretty, but with no sparkle-- pick up the can from the chair where I'd set it. She took a sip from it and then said something that I couldn't hear, and the girl standing next to her was looking at me and she said something back that I also didn't hear, and the three of them laughed, and I just turned around and went out the door to the parking lot, my car, and home and Maura.

I never did find out exactly what the violation was, but on Thursday, when I got home, there was a message on the answering machine from Bert, saying that, given what had happened, they wouldn't need me to come in on Friday night, but thanks... CLICK!

And that, I told Marty, was my career as a stripper.

"Well," he said, "here's the ad. So do I get 50% off a private dance or what?"

As he leaned in to kiss me, Maggie, our seven-year-old, ran into the room and wrapped her arms around both our legs, and I just whispered "Maybe later."

"No," Maggie said, "let's walk for a frozen coke NOW."

I hadn't even heard Maggie ask, but I said yeah, sure, let's walk to the mini mart, mommy needs to cool down, and she ran upstairs to get her sandals ("So we match!") and when she came back down, Marty came back into the foyer and kissed me and squeezed my ass, pressing his hardness against my thigh just to let me know what'd be waiting when we got back.

As Maggie and I stepped outside into the August heat, I felt like my shorts or panties had ridden up when Marty palmed me-- the waistband felt itchy, like the tag was folded over-- but I adjusted my waistband and we walked, hand in hand, down the block and around the corner to get frozen cokes-- Maggie a large, me a small-- and as we stood in line in that cold, air conditioned store, I realized...

"Shoot," I said.

Maggie looked up at me. "What, mommy?"

I shook my head. "Maggie, I don't know if I have enough money."

Maggie nodded her head. "Mommy, you have money."

"Yeah," I said, reaching into the front pocket of my shorts and jingling my loose change, "but I don't think there's enough here for both of us."

Maggie drew a sip from her frozen coke. "No, you have..." She paused and winced slightly as a mini-brain freeze hit her. She let it pass and then took a breath. "You have money," she said matter-of-factly. "That money daddy put in your underwear."

"What?" I said, and I reached back behind me to the itchy spot on my waistband, to adjust the tag, which, I discovered as I reached in with my fingers and pulled out, wasn't a tag...

"See?" Maggie said as I removed a folded piece of paper from my waistband. "Ten dollars. He put it in your underwear when he hugged you."

She was right: it was a ten, folded lengthwise and stuck in the waistband of my underwear, like a lapdancer's tip. On the front, to the left of Alexander Hamilton's face, Marty'd written, in red sharpie: DAMN, YOU'RE CUTE. WOW! and, on the back, TEN BUCKS SAYS 'COME OUT, CHRISTINE.'

Maggie looked up at me. "What's it say, mommy?"

My face was burning bright red. "It says, 'Save me for later,'" I said, and I folded the bill into quarters, stuck it down between my cleavage, and stepped up to the register, dumping my pocketful of change out onto the counter and counting out the dimes and nickels and pennies-- just enough, with six cents to spare, which I put in the TAKE A PENNY LEAVE A PENNY dish-- and Maggie and I walked home, sipping our frozen cokes, the scratchy ten between my boobs.

I figured I'd give Marty at least a lapdance once Maggie went to bed. I mean, he'd not only shown me the ad; he'd prepaid ten dollars. That had to be worth something.

After 25 years, I'd finally be a stripper...

...if I didn't get brain freeze.