Holly Helps the Displaced Elf

"Why?" he said. "I was kissing you."

"But it's not right. I'm not that kind of person who gets between a guy and his girl."

Linus looked confused. "Girl? What girl?"

Holly shook her head. "That's what they all say. 'I'm not married.' 'I'm not engaged.' 'She's not really having my baby.' But it's all a bunch of lies." Then she looked directly into Linus's eyes.

"Please don't lie to me, Linus. I saw the way you look at Raven. She's the reason you're here, right?"

Linus nodded. "Well, sure. Of course I'd want to look after her."

Holly pushed him away from her. "Oh, great! You invited me here to be part of your harem? Is that it? Just forget it, Linus. I'm here to solve the problem, and help another friend of mine."

Whsht whispered in her ear, "Thank you, Missy Holly. Now get back to work."

Linus let her talk for a bit, and then said, "I think you've got it all wrong."

"Don't lie to me, Linus, please," she said. "I'll still work with you, but don't pretend you don't care about Raven."

"Of course I care about Raven," Linus said. "She's my sister. She's my sister."

Holly thought about that for a minute. "Does that mean you're into kinky stuff?"

Linus shook his head vigorously. "Hell, no. I'm just here to protect her. You've seen the slime that comes here."

"Why is she here at all then?"

"Same reason you are, Holly," Linus said. "For a woman with a great body, you can make great money. She's only doing this so I can finish my degree or get my app going. She's already got her own degree, in interior design. She wants to set up her own shop advising clients someday. I'm going to help her as soon as I finish my projects. In the meantime, I'm here when she's here, to protect her from the likes of Ladislaw."

Holly moved closer to him, and put her arms around his neck. He did not fight it. He put his arms around her, too. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment.

Whsht interrupted the moment with a quick whisper in Holly's ear, "This isn't solving the problem. At this rate, you won't solve the problem until next Christmas. That's too late!"

They dropped their embrace, and started to attack the problem again. It looked like they had the answer. The theoretical formula was a thing of beauty. They started putting in numbers, and it seemed to hold.

Then they tried the number 7. They worked through the formula and when they saw what it predicted, they realized -- the formula had fallen apart. It was not the answer yet.

Whsht began to pull his hair out.

Holly said, "No problem. We'll just exclude the number 7. When that number is to be input, we'll just devise an answer to use. That could work, right?"

Linus looked at her. They both knew the answer -- it would not work. They had not yet found the answer to the problem. They had to keep going.

Fidel came to the room, and announced that Dakota was going to be on stage in a few more minutes.

"No!" said Whsht, then covered his mouth before anyone noticed him.

"We'll get right back to this after my time on stage," said Holly.

"Not immediately," he answered. "Lucy is up right after you, and I have to watch her perform. Not to perv on her, but to protect her."

Holly kissed him on the nose. "I know," she said.

"Will you think of me while you're dancing?" Linus asked.

Holly was confused. "Think of you? What do you mean?"

"Pretend you're dancing just for me," he said. His face was bright red.

"Oh, come on, Linus. You've seen me dance once tonight already. You saw me last night modeling nude. You're going to see me dance a couple more times tonight. Aren't you being silly?"

Linus shrugged. "Maybe it's silly. But I would like to pretend that you're dancing for me up there."

"Will that make you happy? Even with all the other guys watching and shouting?"

"It will help," he said.

"I think I have a better idea," she said. "After all, we'll still have the private room after Raven's dance. Maybe you might appreciate me dancing for you with no one else around."

Linus smiled broadly, then pulled her close for a hug. She kissed him, then ran to the wings of the stage.

Lexie finished her set. She picked up her dollar bills and her costume while the audience continued to clap and shout at her. Her platinum blonde hair was still in a tight bun against her head. Her athletic performance on the pole had not caused any strands of hair to shake loose.

Lexie brushed past Holly as she left the stage.

"Big audience tonight," Lexie said. "I don't know what going on, since this is a weekday. Good luck out there."

"It wasn't my idea to switch my performance time," said Holly.

"I know. Andrew did it. It's his club."

"You're not going to hold it against me?"

Lexie laughed without humor. "No, of course not. Actually I owe you for letting me dance with you earlier tonight. We made a bundle off those two suits from Kansas City."

The DJ announced the next act. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to True North as little lady you are going to love. This is her first night at the True North, but she is already a favorite here. Welcome Da--kota!"

Dakota's music started up, the sound of rain and gentle drums from "Riders on the Storm." She was ready to go out there, but Linus's words kept playing in her head. He wanted her to dance just for him. He wanted the fantasy of her performing in front of others, but with him as her focus. It was an insight into the male psyche that she hadn't realized before. Suddenly the VIP rooms and the private dances made a little more sense. She saw that her job was not just to dance. Her job was to provide a fantasy for each man or woman who had come to watch her. She had to dance not just in front of them, but to them, for them, to get a reaction from them.

The idea brought a smile to her face. She realized that this could be a lot of fun!

"Get your ass out here!" one of the customers yelled. Others started clapping and pounding the stage or their tables, eager to get the golden short-haired Dakota out on stage.

Dakota strutted out onto the stage. The sniff seats were all filled, and the chairs and tables behind her were also nearly filled. At the tip of the penis stage, she recognized Ladislaw. Then she saw that the seats next to him were filled with other faces that looked familiar. One old guy was also with them. Then she recognized him -- her math professor. The other faces came into focus as well. They were students from her math class.

She thought about the fact that they would all see her naked tonight, and wondered whether it might affect the way they thought about her at school. They were barely controlled when she was in class fully dressed. Or, as fully dressed as she ever got for school. Seeing her in the all-together might push them over the edge. She focused on dancing for Linus.

Then she saw Linus taking a seat at a table behind Ladislaw. Linus had seen her modeling at the Life Drawing Class, and earlier today when she made her debut performance. He hadn't morphed into an animal crazed with lust. He had been made even more shy when he saw her nudity. He was a gentleman. Perhaps she could expect this from the rest of the crowd? In any event, Moe and Fidel were close at hand ready to intercede if anyone became too persistent in giving her attention.

The students had quieted immediately when she came on stage, some with their mouths hung open. She was surprised, since she was wearing the business suit with stockings and heels. Their anticipation had frozen most of them in place. But not Ladislaw.

"See?" Ladislaw called out. "See? It's her. The one from the math class. Yeah, you know the one I mean. There she is. Take it off, Dakota!"

What else could she do? She slipped off the jacket first. Her figure was hugged by the blouse and the dark pencil skirt. She saw just off the side of the stage some props used by one of the other girls -- a white board and dry markers, and a pair of large stage glasses. That dancer used a school girl persona, which worked well until she revealed the dramatic multicolored serpent entwining her left leg and torso. Dakota slid the white board out put the glasses on. The crowd thrummed with excitement. She erased crude alphabet letters and numbers, making sure she bent fully at the waist.

The white board was cleared. Dakota danced as she pretended to think about something. She gave a quick look at Linus and winked at him. Then she wrote the Pythagorean Theorem, a squared times b squared equals c squared. The crowd laughed, then started asking for more.

She pretended she had a spot on her skirt, and removed it. Her blouse still covered much of her ass as she danced before them. She went to the white board again, and wrote another formula. She readjusted her glasses as she looked at it.

"Volume of a sphere!" someone shouted. Then they started to clap in time to the music. Then they sniggered, pointing out to one another the symbol for pi.

"Another one! Come on, another formula!"

"More pi!"

Dakota smiled and toyed with her blouse, loosening the buttons along the front. But before she removed it, she turned to the board and wrote another formula. She glanced over her shoulder at Linus, and shrugged her shoulder at him to remove the blouse.

"Quadratic Equation? Boo! Child's play! What's the matter, can't think of any more?"

That choice was not a hit. Dakota quickly removed her blouse, and spent a few dance steps going up and down the stage in her bra, panties and stockings. And of course, still wearing the glasses. That seemed to shut them up. Unfortunately, the music had stopped. Her performance was supposed to be over.

The DJ knew to continue it, however. He started the next wild song, the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil." He seemed to have remixed it to add even more percussion to the song. It got under Dakota's skin, making her move in long sultry moves. The audience was getting into the music, too. She made sure that when she danced, she looked a lot of the time at Linus.

Dakota went back to the board and faced it while she stripped off her bra, still facing the board. She took the dry marker and wrote another formula. She looked over her shoulder at some of the non-math people in the audience. They had no idea what she had just written. They just wanted her to turn around and show the wonderful chest that had been portended when she wore only the bra to cover herself.

"Huygen's!" her math professor shouted.

"Yeah! Huygen's formula for a pendulum."

They were excited by the strange scribbles she wrote on the board, and even argued among themselves about the correct name. The consensus was that the equation represented Huygen's formula for the period of an ideal mathematical pendulum. When she turned to face the audience, she saw that even shy Linus was sitting bolt upright, the better to see the board. His eyes were wide open, and he was smiling. He seemed more interested in what she was writing than in what she was wearing, or not wearing. She couldn't blame him. She was pretty excited to be scrawling these formulae on the white board.

They watched her as she moved from side to side of the stage, but they also kept watching the white board. She played at covering her breasts with her hands, in an attempt to capture their undivided attention. She bent forward and swung her tits a little -- not too much. She didn't want to seem vulgar. Still the white board was a strong competitor with her for their attention. Her hands drifted to the sides of her panties, and pulled them so that her most private area was nearly disclosed. From behind, the panties were deep in her crack, and her round mounds were on full display.

"Another one! One more formula!"

Were they kidding? What started as a kind of joke had become a competition among the audience members who had passed high school math. She thought about what might be an appropriate closer for them.

First, though, she lowered her panties, so that they could see what a close shave Whsht had given her. She could feel their eyes on her hips, tracing their way from their width to the warm, narrow slit between her long legs. The legs seemed a bit truncated because she still wore the hosiery and garters. She walked close to the edge of the stage, where the audience started to drop dollar bills at her feet. A few of the braver ones tucked the bills into her garters. She let them see how her ass muscles flexed when she strutted around the stage, and even took a quick swing around the silver pole.

"Another formula!" someone shouted. Soon, the room was chanting for another formula. After all, they had seen everything she had to offer, right? Holly wished she had paid more attention to Whsht's instructions on how to delay gratification.

She used her best slinking walk to approach the board. She put the temple tip of her glasses against her lips, and touched her white teeth before replacing them. She pressed her breasts against the board. When she backed up, there were two round marks on the board, and streaks of dry marker on her areolae. The board was too high for her to press her ass against it, but if she could figure a way to lower the board, she would have tried the ass press next.

"Formula!" the chant continued. Just then, the DJ let the song end. He had been extending its play, particularly the wild percussion. But one dancer could only monopolize the stage so long.

"That was Da--kota!" said the DJ, bringing up the lights a bit. "Let's show her your appreciation. Remember, this is her first night here. You are among the privileged few to see her perform."

"Formula!"

Dakota grabbed the dry eraser and cleaned the entire board, leaving it gleaming in the spotlights. She was reflected in the glare, with dark curving shadows caressing her hips, her ass, her shoulders and her breasts. Then she gripped a blue dry marker and wrote one of her favorite formulas. No, not Euler's constant, although she had considered it. Instead she wrote one of the modern world's most important formulas.

"Bayes' Theorem!" they began to shout when they recognized the collection of probability symbols divided to find the likelihood of one outcome given that another outcome has already occurred. It made Holly's heart beat faster just to write it in front of the entire audience. And they appreciated it.

She took her bow, then a curtesy. More money flowed toward her. She scooped it up, helped by Whsht's nimble fingers. She found her clothing, and pushed the white board back to its place on the side of the stage. She looked back at the audience, and could see from the look in their eyes that almost everyone of them wanted to buy a lap dance or time in the VIP room with her. She saw her time with Linus diminished to the point that they would not have any time to solve the problem.

Raven's music started, and the DJ announced her entrance. But before she went on, she caught Holly's shoulder.

"Stay back here," Raven said. "I'll keep the audience busy until you and Linus can get to the private rooms. Okay?"

Holly nodded. "Thank you."

Raven shook her head gently. "That was the most bizarre strip act I've ever seen." Then she threw her head back, pasted a large smile on her face and prepared parade out onto the stage. She wore a kind of Cleopatra number, with lots of veils and pieces of brass to hide her more important bits. A metal looking crown or headdress squatted on her head, her raven locks flowing beneath it. The first song was playful -- Walk Like an Egyptian. Raven entered the stage playfully, with her arms akimbo, to loud appreciative shouts.

Holly watched from the wings, holding back and hoping that the audience might forget her, and that she and Linus could work on the last few vestiges of the problem. Raven's act was terrific, with lots of flowing veils promising a taut bronzed body for them to gaze upon. Every so often, like Salome, Raven would loosen and lose one of her veils.

The audience gawked at Raven, but they were also watching for Dakota to come out. They were dying to engage Dakota for private dances and the VIP room. Raven had a challenge awaiting her if she thought she could make them forget about Dakota, of the short hair, glasses and unashamed body.

Holly was surprised to see the next performer who stood next to her in the wings. It was the first-time dancer with auburn hair, bangs and a fuzzy bikini. Her gutless boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. The dancer was still nervous, but not angry any longer. She studied the moves that Raven was making, trying to pivot like Raven did and hold her arms like Raven.

"I don't think I'll ever be as comfortable as you are on the stage," she told Holly. "Then again, I'm not as beautiful as you are. Is this really your first night at the True North?"

"First time," said Holly.

"But you danced other places, right? I mean, nothing seems to phase you. I envy your confidence," the dancer said.

"Well, don't envy me too much. I don't know any better. I grew up in an orphanage, and we didn't have much privacy there. I guess I got use to various people seeing me in the all-together." Holly finished dressing herself in her business suit costume so that she could join Linus. Whsht appeared with a robe and offered to take the money and hold it. Before Holly could agree, Whsht had the money in his hand and was waiting by Linus's table.

The music on stage changed, playing an exotic song from Beyoncé with lots of opportunity for hip gyrations. Since Raven was down to just the metallic underwear and crown now, she was able to thrust her hips and shoulders without the inhibition of veils. The audience was entranced and leaned forward as she strode the length of the stage.

"I look pretty foolish up there, don't I?" said the dancer. "I mean, I don't have any tattoos. I have huge ugly tan lines over my boobies and over my gi-gi."

Holly noticed that she used a childish term for her vagina. She wondered if she was really twenty-one as the club required.

"And my costume is stupid. I'm wearing a furry swimsuit! Who does that turn on?"

Holly put her arm around the dancer, and patted her on the shoulder.

"You are beautiful," she said. "What's more, you are unique. I saw how everyone loved the performance you gave earlier. They couldn't get enough of you. I bet you raked in big bucks for your show. And you left before you had the opportunity to have drinks with anyone, or share a VIP room, or give some lap dances. You probably forfeited hundreds of dollars by not sticking around. This crowd will love to spend time with you."

The dancer shrugged her shoulders.

Holly asked, "Let me ask you. Why did you come back? I was convinced you wouldn't. But Moe disagreed. He said you would return. So why did you come her in the first place, and why did you come back now?"

The dancer looked at Holly for a few seconds before deciding to answer. "It's probably an old story. My boyfriend and I ran away together on his boat. I suppose he's my ex-boyfriend now. We sailed down here, and ran out of money. We both looked for work, but this was the only thing I could find. At first, we thought it would be an adventure. Something we could remember when we got older and had finally made it big, part of our crazy younger days. But it turned out to be something that was completely humiliating. That was the first time I'd let anybody but my guy see me naked. Now, everybody in the world has seen me."

"So, why did you come back?" asked Holly again.

"I don't know for sure. It can't get any worse, can it? I kind of liked the tension between the people watching me and my own reactions. I felt the beginnings of a power that I'd never tapped into before. I think I can be better at this job. I set a goal for myself to be as good as Raven. Or as comfortable as you, Dakota. There is something more though. I sensed a kind of influence over the audience. It appealed to me. I want that. I want to control those horny men with the power of my skinny, nothing body."