He Made Me Ch. 07

"Yeah?" she replied, with an unusual excitation.

Concentrate Jules!

"Yeah… Look, have you seen Morgan anywhere?"

"Come smoke with me," she repeated resolutely, tightening her grip on my arm and leading me towards the exit: since when we smoked in the parking lot?

"What's happening?" she asked, taking the words out of my mouth, as she lit up the cigarette dangling from my lips. "I overheard a couple of girls in the changing room claiming that you were a junkie and now you seem on the verge of murder."

As she spoke and the truth dawned on me, I felt my spirit crumble: so when I said hello and they smiled… One of them had actually asked me if I was high! They were making fun of me! Morgan had convinced all of them… I wanted to die, right there and then.

"Azure?"

"It's Morgan, she must've worked on this for a while now… That's why all the strippers stare at me all the time… I thought it was because they agreed with her about the butt-plug, but she's been going around telling people that I'm a junkie! And they believe her! A customer didn't want a lap dance because he thought he was paying for my next fix!"

"The bitch…" Lotus commented.

Tears blurred her face and then everything, acting like a film transition between the parking lot and the flashback that started to play in my mind. So many details were finally making sense! For example, when Terry had told me that one day they would stop talking, he meant behind my back!

How ironic! I had believed that I was good at spinning lies to my customers because I could draw inspiration from the truth, but I was actually the one who couldn't tell the difference! When I had told Bill that everyone hated me, I thought I was telling a lie, while instead I had unwittingly guessed the truth! The humiliation was unbearable, now I only wanted to run away, no matter the fee for not completing the shift!

"I didn't know, I'm so sorry," Lotus added and then she did something much more effective to make me feel better: she hugged me tightly and let me cry on her beautiful tanned shoulder.

After a few minutes I calmed down and regained my composure.

"You know what? If she thinks that she's going to drive me out of her stupid turf with cheap tricks like this, she's sorely mistaken!" I said resolutely, sniffling. "I turned the tables immediately with the guy and after a few minutes I had him wrapped around my finger!"

"Yeah, I saw: you were amazing, you won!" Lotus added, a little too hastily and uncharacteristically emphatically to be spontaneous.

"Oh no, it's not over, as soon as I find her…" I growled.

"She will finally get to enact the second part of her plan to get you fired," she completed, putting her hands on my shoulders and looking at me in the eye. "Azure, don't you see? She's cleverer than you think. She wants you to attack her."

Of course!

"The bitch!" I hissed, blushing for my naivety.

"Please don't do anything stupid, you are kinda the only friend I've got," she begged, albeit with her usual flat tone.

"And you are a great friend, not just kinda," I whispered hugging her again.

Lotus answered with a shy smile.

"So, what should I do?" I asked then.

"Ignore her and show that no matter what she does, you make a ton of money. She thinks that she has all this power here… This will actually piss her off without putting you in trouble. Remember that she's the owner's daughter: they will always believe her over you."

Wait, what? No way… She couldn't be…

"You mean Dana? She's Dana's daughter?" I squealed.

"Uh, I don't know her name, she's a redhead too, in her forties…"

I slapped my forehead: I had even noticed the resemblance the first night I had met her! My nemesis was the frigging daughter of my frigging pole dance teacher and dear friend of Mikey and part owner of the club! Of all the people in that damn place, I was about to pick a fight with her! Nice, real nice! Why lately everything seemed just a silly mistake away from going epically shitways?

Lotus helped me fix my makeup and hide the fact that I had cried, so that I was in (metaphorical) fighting shape again. Back inside, it all seemed so clear now: Morgan was truly the queen of the place. Everyone appeared to know her and be in a good relationship with her. Whether because they were afraid of her or they genuinely liked her didn't matter: the only relevant consequence was that they were all on her side. And yet I had someone on mine too, Lotus, who was worth ten of them.

Anyhow, even though I was in a terrible mood, I lucked out with a guy who took me to the private room for a whole hour, allowing me to make a lot of money and, at the same time, tune out the club, so that the night still turned out a profitable one. Anyway, I decided to call it a little early, in order to avoid meeting any of the other strippers in the changing room, and I bolted home.

Considering the amount of cash I had in my wallet, according to Mikey's rules I had earned an orgasm, but that didn't cheer me up either. Instead of him, I would have to get it from a vibrator, but an object could give you a climax, not a reward: only Mikey could make me feel great and accomplished that way. Also, I was in dire need of being cuddled. With a hint of anger I hoped that at least the old fatso was missing me at least as much as I was missing him!

The day after, when he called me, I omitted the incident from my account of the night, adding a new item to the heap of things I'd been hiding. The last thing I wanted was for him to know that without my mentor I was crumbling down, and quite fast at that.

In the afternoon I tried to relax a little by exercising at the pole. Physical activity always made me feel better, but when I turned off the music and fetched my phone, the notifications on my screen drained my strengths much more than the pole had done:

"Hey, I've been thinking about our last call… It was so nice hearing from you again! I miss being part of your life! You never even post anything online anymore…"

Amy. She hadn't bought my story. Sure, she phrased it like a worried friend, but deep inside I was sure that she had some suspicions. So, I flopped on the bed, in a catatonic state that was at odds with my fast heartbeat. I didn't even cry or anything, I just felt… Defeated by the universe. Every single fucking day a new punch in the stomach!

After what seemed ages, I found the strength to come up with an answer:

"I feel the same, but… Right now my life isn't exactly glamorous and… I'm kind of ashamed."

Nice, humiliation, exactly what I needed.

"Hey, everyone falls on hard times sooner or later, but that's exactly when you need your friends the most! I'm here for you, girl!"

Was she though? Would she, if she found out what I was actually doing?

As I idly swiped our messages, I saw the selfies we used to exchange to share our experiences, back when I had no secrets with her. Simpler times… Wait!

"You know what? You are right. Life is already depressing enough without me telling myself that I'm a loser. Tomorrow I'm going to do something for myself, a day trip or something," I wrote.

Perhaps the habit was too ingrained in me, but I had never stopped taking selfies and documenting all the exciting moments in my life: I could recycle some of those I had taken before meeting Mikey, with my old look, and send them to Amy pretending that they were shot in present-day San Diego!

"That's great!" she replied.

"But first, let me show you my mansion!" I added, attaching a picture of my first shitty apartment.

After that, we ended up texting about life in a dorm, while I listed the photos in my phone and made a plan to eke them out in our future exchanges. For example, my touristy selfies in famous places in Los Angeles could be spun as the day trip I had hinted about earlier! And I could go on with this for a while: the following week I would tell her that I decided to make my place more homey and send a picture of my decorations for the old apartment!

That was not a solution, that was delaying the inevitable, I realized when my screen started to show pictures of a much cooler girl than Jeri, with turquoise hair and no fear of being awesome… One day at a time, I reminded myself dispirited.

That evening, for the first time, I wasn't feeling much like going to work and I even considered skipping my shift, but then I realized that this would make Morgan happy and there was no way in hell I would allow that! I also thought about working in another club, but that wasn't fair either: the Connoisseur was nice and I wanted to work with Lotus! Another possible solution to our unspoken war could be that I stopped wearing a butt plug… Well fuck that too! No compromises, not with such a bitch!

As combative as I began the night, back at the club the embarrassment got the best of me. It wasn't just that everybody apparently had a terrible opinion of me, it was also that I hadn't properly fought back: I wasn't on the ground, but still I was just standing. Not weak, but not strong either. So, trying not to look at anybody in the eye, I just rapidly got dressed and went to the floor: I would wait for my turn on the stage hustling the whole time.

Well, trying to. My game was totally off: customers seemed to find me boring, or annoying. One even told me:

"Go get some boobs and then come back to me."

My usual reaction would have been flipping him, but not that night, that night it stung.

Lotus had disappeared very soon. Should I have waited for her in the changing room? Was she offended that, after being such a good friend, I had been avoiding her? I wasn't though! Well, maybe a little: sadness is a beast that likes to feed itself. Was I losing her too? Every shitty scenario seemed possible now.

The night proceeded just as bad, and around 2 A.M. I was raking a few crumpled dollar bills from the tipping rail after a completely uninspired second stage show, when a rowdy group entered the club. Bachelor party. That was a challenge that I had not yet tackled as a stripper. Despite what may seem from my actions and my story, I am a shy person. Well, perhaps not properly shy, because as long as the interaction is with one or two people I'm kind of confident. Walking into a crowd to talk to someone, however, terrifies me and turn me into a clumsy, boring blob.

Other strippers avoided those parties too, but some of them were attracted to them like bees to honey: apparently you could make serious money out of those drunk, loud and frankly a little scary guys. Our strip club had a whole room just for such occasion, where you could take strippers and have your celebration in private. Not a wild thing like the parties organized by agencies that you could have in a hotel, where I heard that girls allowed guys to lick whipped cream from their nipples or even use sex toys on them, but still quite fun, especially if you had had your fill of alcohol in a bar already and you were an unorganized best man.

Oh, there was Lotus. What in the world was she doing around them? She hated that kind of clients even more than me. Probably it was just a coincidence, and I really needed a cigarette now, so I walked towards her. Wait, had I finally become a real smoker now, addicted to nicotine? There was no time to ponder on that:

"Hey, if you really want one for every race, you need a white girl! What about Azure?" she proposed to a tall, lanky young guy, the best man in all likelihood, as soon as she saw me.

"Oh, geez, why are we being racist now?!" the groom was complaining, hiding his face with his hands and sitting on a chair, while another dude was giving thwacks on his back, sadistically enjoying his embarrassment.

"Yeah, a punk girl seems fun!" the best man approved.

My mouth opened, but Lotus quickly came to my side and took my hand, whispering:

"Come on, we can do this!"

It was a lot of money, after all:

"Yeah, let's have fun!" I exclaimed, perhaps not very believably.

We followed the group to the "party room", which was fancier than all the others and decorated with a golden mosaic all over. One of our customers was a woman! Perhaps she was a lesbian. Straight women in strip clubs were a mystery to me: why would anyone take their girlfriend there? Anyhow, besides us, there were two other strippers: a Hispanic girl who went by the name Lara and, of course, Vanessa, the cunt who had run to Morgan to complain about my butt plug. Wonderful.

As soon as we entered, bottles of vodka appeared from nowhere. That surprised me at first, because at the Connoisseur we couldn't sell alcoholic beverages, but I figured that one could bring their own.

Both I and Lotus had no idea what to do, but thankfully Vanessa did and she explained the idea as we huddled like football players:

"Ok, basically the goal is to embarrass and arouse the groom, while we give his friends a sexy show. It's a fine balance, so try and be classy," she whispered, looking straight at me.

I didn't dignify that with a reply.

"Also, they will be handsy and expect more contact than usual. I'm sure it won't be a big deal," the bitch added, again looking at me, "but if it's too much, just pretend you have to entertain the next guy."

There were eight of them and four of us, after all.

The first thing we did was to arrange the chairs in a circle for everyone except the groom. Taking one of his arms each, Vanessa and Lara brought him to the center, while I and Lotus followed. Sure, he was embarrassed, but that didn't stop him from groping the girls' asses in the process. Well, things were just about to get even better for him. I turned on the music with a remote and the lucky guy found himself surrounded by four hot girls dancing around him, touching him and kissing him everywhere, even on the mouth (talk about classy, Vanessa!), while he did the same with us.

Whistles and minds were blown as our clothes slowly fell to the ground. As usual everyone was fascinated by my octopus and even more by my plug. Curiously, however, the groom was intimidated by our growing nudity and that's when I had real fun for the first time that night: the more embarrassed he grew, the more we made sure to brush against him as we danced. We played with his hair, we undid his tie and toyed with it, we passed our hands on his chest and back, we slapped him with our panties and bras and so on: I loved being so mischievous!

Since no more than two at a time could do that, the other two could dance for the rest of the audience. My lingerie, for as long as I had it on, got decorated by bills quite fast: that's why the other strippers wanted this job! I also noticed that the woman was thoroughly enjoying the show, so I imagined that she was at least bi.

In the meantime, the best man was spiking with vodka the drinks that had been brought by a waitress. We danced naked around the groom for a little while and then the best man offered him and us glasses, insisting that we drank. Even though I was 18, I finished mine anyway. My first, believe it or not: alcohol had never particularly fascinated me.

We proceeded to play a series of games, where one of us made the groom do silly things while the others entertained the rest of the guys. Every time I saw Vanessa, I was reminded how much it hurt being rejected by my coworkers. The best man, in the meantime, kept offering us drinks, which I gladly accepted as an antidote to her presence: I just wanted to stop thinking about my shitty life and have fun, as it used to be before at the club!

"You approve our choices, Betty?" a man was asking the woman, who was tipping me generously while I danced on her lap.

"Hell yeah! This one's good!" she answered, fondling my boobs.

"Thanks, you are my first girl, you know?" I murmured sultrily, playing with her long curly hair.

"No, I'm not!" she replied, slurring a little.

"Seriously, I'm kind of new and usually here's a sausage fest!" I said, giggling uncontrollably for my silly joke and realizing just then that I was probably drunk.

"I'm not your first girl, you can't lie to my gay-radar! It's beepin' like crazy!"

"Yeah? How so?" I asked, a little curious.

"I saw the way you look at the Asian girl, Lotus or what's her name," Betty replied with a huge grin.

"You got me!" I revealed, feeling control over myself slipping more and more. "She's so fucking hot!"

There, I had said it. Ever since we had had that kiss in the room adjacent to the one I was now in, I had started feeling a tingling inside whenever she was around. Was I bi? Or was it just a fetish, like for men who liked watching girls having sex with each other? Knowing myself and the amount of porn I had watched and let influence me, the latter wasn't all that unlikely.

Anyway, the question never received an answer because, as the night progressed, I got drunker and drunker, until everything was just a haze…

I woke up and I wish I didn't. The headache I had was epic. Everything was so confused! I had no idea of what time it could be or even what day, for that matter. The only thing I knew for sure was that light was my enemy. Perhaps that was the reason why it took me so long to register a precious detail of what I had seen when I had peeked into the world for a brief moment. The ceiling! It was white, why was it white? I was pretty sure that I had painted it lilac too, like the walls…

My heart sank when I painfully opened my eyes again. That wasn't my room and therefore that wasn't my bed. Also, I was naked. I couldn't possibly have slept with a customer, right? What if they had an STD? My career would be over! And even if he hadn't one, it was such a bad idea sleeping with a client, the umpteenth screw-up in the worst week ever!

I slowly turned my head to the left. A nightstand, a wardrobe… My butt-plug! Fuck fuck fuck! I felt dying inside, as I turned right, and I saw the silhouette of another person sleeping peacefully on my right, partly hidden by a bed sheet and a pillow.

The smell of weed in the room should've given it away immediately, but I was too out of it to make the connection. Raising my head a little I finally saw their face: Lotus!

"Thank god!" I gasped, relieved.

"You are awake…" she mumbled, with a smile, rolling over: she was naked too!

And… Back to panic!

"Yeah, hi, sorry, but I don't really remember… What happened last night? Did we…" I asked, blushing and pointing a finger back and forth at her and me.

"I wish," she yawned, for my great relief.

"So… Why am I naked?"

"You insisted," she replied with nonchalance, propping herself on an elbow and fetching a packet of cigarettes. "You tried very hard to have sex with me. You are not great at seducing women, though."

I almost spit out the cigarette she was lighting up for me.

"I mean, you started well, 'Teach me how to love a woman' was a great line, but then, after I told you that you were too drunk, you put your finger in your kitty and then you offered it to me, saying: 'But I taste great: here, have a free sample!'"

Now I knew how the groom had felt the night before, because I had a sudden urge to cover my face. Unless…

"Oh, you are bullshitting me!" I shouted triumphantly, hating myself for the noise immediately after.

"You do taste good, though," she replied very seriously instead. "I liked the free sample."

As usual, her face and tone were perfectly inexpressive, so that there was no way of telling whether she was joking or not. I was about to rule in my favor just not to feel ashamed, when a vague memory of the scene came back to me.

"Oh, god, Lotus, I'm so sorry, this is so embarrassing!" I murmured, covering my eyes with my hand.