My Little Ventrue Pt. 04 Ch. 04

Escort girls. Not hookers.

He chuckled as he slapped himself in the forehead, leaning back on his couch. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to bite his tongue enough to do this job. Not punching people would be easier than keeping his mouth shut. Maybe people would leave him alone? He couldn't get away with that, since Ganders wanted him to socialize, mingle a little, and make the customers feel welcome, protected. Desired. And despite Eric's protests that he'd suck at it, Ganders assured him his attitude was exactly what the club needed. A dark, brooding jerk attitude.

The man was wrong, and Eric's attitude would only cause problems, but whatever. He needed the money, as Mr. Pitt so eloquently explained, and if he could hold the job for a little while he might be able to make some dents in that problem. Not that he should have to, he felt. But maybe it was just dues, for being such a fucking idiot and trusting that woman.

He held out his arms for Kat, and after a few curious meows, she crawled onto his lap.

"If this doesn't go well Kat, I'm in shit luck. Quit my job for this."

She meowed.

"Not a care in the world. Good. Keep it that way." He picked her up, cradling her like a big, dumb baby, and went to his bedroom. Hanging, hidden away in the storage closet, were his suits. He almost opened the closet before he realized a big problem.

"K girl, gotta try one of these on. Don't touch. Cat hair not allowed on the suits."

She tilted her head to the side, looking up at him, and meowed. Didn't understand a word of course. But she understood plenty once he set her outside in the hallway, and closed the door. The meows were loud, and constant, each a ringing siren that might as well have said 'blasphemy!'. But he needed to try these on.

The trip down memory lane was not fun. The parties, the Broadway shows, the quote unquote balls, the interviews with news crews inquiring about his next match. Ashes in his mouth. But the suits still fit. He knew they would; a bad knee and a shit life didn't mean he stopped taking care of his body. It almost did though. Every night, it almost did. Fuck, if it hadn't been for Kat, he'd probably be a fat angry drunk by now.

Sheryl had taken everything. Every god damn thing from him, but she didn't bother with his suits. And, much as it was a tainted memory, he did used to live in decent luxury, with money to waste on quality suits that Dolareido's expensive nightlife demanded. Maybe she left him with the suits as a way to rub his new, ruined life in his face. What good was an expensive suit if you couldn't go somewhere expensive to wear it to.

He should have sold the fucking things. Might have gotten enough money to get that fat bastard off his back. And, much as he didn't want to admit it, he was about to do just that before he'd ran into Ganders. Good thing he didn't. Now, he could go look like a fool, bouncing for a club notorious for its sex, drugs, money, and everything in between.

He opened the door, and reached down to stop Kat from rubbing against his leg, as she inevitably would have. "Sorry girl, not tonight. I'll be back in nine or ten hours." Had to hold her out at arm's length to minimize the damage, but when he set her down beside the food bowl, he put a treat into it, like he always did when he left for work. One tiny treat a day. Probably why she was a bit chubby. But, it was better to not have her see him leave, than have her meowing the neighbors into a stupor while he was gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now that! Is what I am talking about." Ganders snapped his fingers, and pointed at Eric as he walked up to the front entrance of the club. Not many people around, with the sun only starting to set. Customers didn't show up in their typical waves for an hour or two yet.

"This'll work?" Eric said.

"Yeap. Gotta admit, seeing you in a taxi, and then talking on the phone, I was wondering if I should have called you back to inquire about a suit. But this is fine. Perfect even."

Eric sighed and followed the man into the club. No one was in yet except the bartender. The music wasn't on either. And thank god the lights weren't doing that flashy thing he hated so much. He was going to have to get used to it though.

"Derek, Colin, Teller. This is Eric Tanverson. He'll be joining you in rotation."

Three other men, all taller than him, bigger than him, and dressed sharp. He was dressed sharp too, but it definitely screamed 'bouncer' when a guy who was easily two-twenty of muscle was standing around in a sexy suit, and these guys fit that description better than he did. They all could have worked for Mr. Pitt.

A light switch flipped in his brain, turning on a searing beam of scrutiny that hit every man before him. One of them had a scar on his chin, and he didn't fold his arms his chest, so he kept them at his sides and at the ready. Dangerous. Another one of them folded his arms across his chest, a small smile on his lips, and the most amount of meat on him. Dangerous only if someone attacked his ego, but otherwise probably the least dangerous of the trio. The other one came up to him and held out a hand. Thinner than his friends, but still quite tall, with a warmer smile on his face and some striations showing through on the neck. A white man, with a head shaved smooth except for a single, thin line of solid red hair down the center, front to back. Fashionable, eclectic without being ridiculous.

Most dangerous of the group, this Colin fellow.

"Mr. Tanverson," he said, "glad to see you up and moving, after the shitshow that has been your life as of late."

Eric raised a brow. Hell, everyone raised a brow. But as Colin stood there, hand out, smile unwavering, Eric burst into laughter, and shook the man's hand.

"Wife left me, haven't been laid since, debts to pay, and my knee is fucking killing me. Shitshow is a good way to put it."

Everyone chuckled. A little self deprecation humor was a good way to break the ice, and these people seemed nice. Weirdly nice. Or maybe he was just a jackass who was too used to everyone in his life being a colossal asshole.

But that didn't mean he stopped analyzing them, seeing if he could rip out their throats.

Stop it. Stop remembering it. Calm the fuck down.

"Teller and Derek are at the door today. Colin and Eric will be watching the floor," Ganders said. "And Eric, since this is your first night, just remember that Bloodlust is pretty loose about a lot of things. See someone doing lines? Let them, as long as it's in one of the darker corners. See a couple fucking, or whathaveyou? Let them, as long as, again, it's not on the center floor."

"... anything I should genuinely throw people out for?" he said. Teller and Derek moved on to stand by the door; probably waiting to go outside when the night officially started. Just him and Colin watching the floor then.

His partner for the night shrugged and gave him a tiny nudge of the shoulder with the back of his fingers. "People getting too aggressive with their flirting; not just the guys, but the girls too. It happens sometimes. Anyone asking for money for anything too, give them the boot. We're trying to keep it a classy place after all." A few more chuckles. Man knew full well classy wasn't exactly the word people thought of when they thought of Bloodlust.

But, all things considered, it really was a nice place, both in presentation and in physicality. His first time being in the club in a while, and now with the lights on, he hadn't realized before how everything looked spotless, clean, and almost shining. They kept the place in very good shape. A surprise considering how much shit went on in the dark. And with the lights on, he imagined the dance floor could actually serve as a stage for a far more presentable affair like lounge singing. Now that he thought about it, the place did look like a fancy lounge, that morphed into a sex club once the lights went red and the electronic music kicked in.

The bartender, a woman, was wearing clothes not dissimilar to the bouncers, a suit with open jacket to expose a comfortable white shirt. Attractive, to say the last, and she winked at him as she wiped down the counter. He knew better than to dip his pen in company ink though, and besides, she was probably just playing her role as the flirtatious bartender who, if you tip her generously or buy just one more drink from her, will sleep with you.

Club might as well have had sex for a subtitle.

"How much freedom I got?" Eric said.

Ganders stroked his chin, and walked toward the center floor. Eric and Colin followed.

"Freedom? I mean if you want to sit down with a particularly horny guest for a quickie, go ahead. Just keep it under fifteen minutes."

"... I meant with how I handle the people I'm throwing out." Good god this man. No wonder the place was the way it was.

"Ah. You can get pretty rough, but if you break any arms or noses, you need justification. Feel free to lay down a bruise or two if someone deserves it."

That was good, he could do that. Hell, he looked forward to it, to letting out some frustration. Tossing some dumbass punk onto the street with perhaps a little more force than necessary? Just what the doctor ordered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He didn't like the music. Didn't hate it, but didn't like it. He thought he'd hate it, expected it, but something about his new role changed his mind. It was like listening to a heartbeat, strong, steady, and pulsing. Combined with the white light timed with it against the dark, red light that buried the club, it made the whole club feel like it was the heart of the city, a literal heart pumping sex and drugs and blood through its veins.

It definitely got people into the mood. As he stood by the wall, off to the side where one of the staircases rose into the second floor, he watched the nightlife of Dolareido. A strange mixture of millennial attitude and the freedom being rich provided made for rather adventurous, directionless customers. Rich, or at least well off people came in, and drifted around from table to floor, floor to booth, and around and around talking to random people. No one knew what they wanted, they just knew modern life was a hollow existence, with every facet of reality succumbing to the destructive tides of the current world.

Sort of like the opposite of people in the sixties, but leading to the same behavior. Drifting, naive people, fucking and snorting and shooting and fucking some more, all the time.

He laughed, and took a deep breath to help cool himself down. It was a fairly cool night in Dolareido, the heatwave having finally passed a week or two ago. But in the club, where the bodies were grinding on the dance floor, the heat picked up again.

His senses were in overdrive, and it was making it difficult to breathe. He could smell so many things, so many people. Instead of just the odor of human skin in the air, he could smell individual people, individual colognes and perfumes, individual deodorants. Even as the music buried his ears with bass, he could hear people talking, overhear nearby conversations, hear a few mewls of some women. At first he thought he might have had some rescuing to do, but it was just how high pitched sounds were more piercing, and the women making them were very much enjoying themselves. One of them had a man on his knees under her booth, mostly hidden in the dark, eating her out. The other had a female friend beside her, drinking with one hand and fingering her with the other.

But at least most of the booths were of people talking, hanging out, socializing. He'd been worried that the whole club would be sex sex sex from ceiling to floor, but at any given time he found only maybe two booths on the bottom floor were actively engaged in sexual play. Maybe three on the second floor. And the people doing drugs were at least subtle about it. No one was doing literal lines on their table booths, and if they were, they kept it to the darkest corners.

All in all, standing around and watching people like this for eight hours was turning out to be far less stressful than driving people around. No more stop go stop go stop go. No more drunks and their ever-present threat of vomiting in his cab. No more awkward conversations about tips.

God bless cab drivers. He used to fight for a living, and compared to driving a taxi, fighting was easy.

The hours went by in a weird mix of joy and frustration. Happy to be standing around, watching people, making good money, wearing a nice suit, all around better everything. Not so happy that every single person that went by, he couldn't help but picture fighting, breaking apart, pinning down, tearing into. The tearing imagery was particularly problematic. Why tearing? Why the fuck was he imagining if he could rip out their throats with his teeth? Why—

"You're new."

He turned his gaze to the woman approaching from the door. A woman about his height, or taller given her heels. She had a skimpy little black dress that only covered one shoulder, and the skirt was barely long enough to cover her ass. It was a really nice ass though, and he took a second longer than he should have looking the woman up and down. Short blond hair, a white girl with some bite to her eyes and the physique of a fighter finishing a cut. He liked what he saw.

Until the switch in his head turned on again. Look at her, look at her and see the truth. Breathe in the air around her.

She was dangerous.

"I am," he said, a touch of withdrawnness to his voice. Apprehension, maybe. Sirens, or howls, were going off in his mind, and as much as he tried to keep his eyes on the girl's, they kept going to her arms and the power he could see in the slim-but-hard muscles. Something else to her though, something else that was screaming at him to be careful. Something that screamed beast.

"You look familiar."

"Watch any MMA?"

"Oh! Right. Saw you in an injury highlights playback." She came closer, set her hands on her hips, and looked down at his knee. "Shit was fucking gross."

"Gross and painful." He smirked, the sort of smirk people put on when they were trying to seem a bit imposing; he was no exception. This girl didn't seem to notice though, or care, and she raised her gaze to look at him straight on, meeting him in the eyes with zero awkwardness. Yeah, a little taller than him with her heels on.

"Name?"

"Eric Tanverson."

"Right right. Rings a bell now." She snapped her fingers, nodded with the unearthed memory, and came over to stand beside him. "Jessy Herrington."

The hairs on his arms stood up, and goosebumps started to send chills into his spine. Be fucking careful.

"... did you need help with something?"

"Me? Fuck no. Just got here, looking for a snack, saw the cute new bouncer and thought I'd say high."

Cute. Something about the way she said it would normally have been irritating, like she'd normally be ripping up the buried memories of his divorce and making him hate her for doing it. But, for some reason he didn't know, he didn't feel that from her. Maybe it was the strange, danger vibe he was getting from her, but the compliment came off more genuine.

"Thanks. You're gorgeous."

She grinned, and gave him a gentle punch in the shoulder, a buddy punch, something normally reserved for friends. As normal as saying hi for this girl, apparently.

"Fucking right I am." She put her back to the wall, same as he had. And it wasn't long before she had a knee up, foot to the wall, with her arms folded under her breasts and her eyes scanning the crowd. "Uncomfortable on your first day?"

"That obvious?"

"A bit. The other guys are a little more relaxed."

"You want relaxed in a bouncer?"

She laughed, shrugged, and gestured to Colin. The man was standing beside a booth, and talking to the few in it. Laughing, gesturing with his words, telling a joke maybe.

"You don't have to get drunk and shit, but in Bloodlust, you... well, relax. No one's going to cause trouble, and if they do, I'll break em for you." And to prove her point, she raised her hands and cracked her knuckles, putting a hand into the other's palm for each resounding crack.

"Please don't. That's what Bloodlust has bouncers for."

More laughter. This girl did seem to be actually having a good time, but he couldn't smell any alcohol on her breath. He shouldn't have been able to notice that in a club, where the smell was everywhere, but he could. The fact she didn't have alcohol on her breath was the more unusual thing at the moment though.

"Not true. You're here to stand around and look pretty, and make people feel more comfortable. Actual bouncing? Doubt it. Besides, lot more people here than me fully capable of taking care of any problems ourselves. Been working well for... what, ten years now? Hell, longer, just had a name change at some point."

Ten years to be running a club with this much illegal activity was a pretty impressive time running. He managed a small whistle.

"Well, I guess I'll just stand here and look pretty."

Jessy didn't seem to like that answer. She looked him up and down, a few times at that, each taking him in like she wasn't sure what she was looking at. Well, same for him. Each time her eyes caught his, they locked, and they stared at each other for a few seconds longer than was normal, than was socially acceptable. Attraction, sure, but he could tell she was sizing him up, the same way he was sizing her up.

"You should come hang out near our table," she said.

"Our? You're here alone."

"Ha, observant fuck, aren't you?" She shrugged, and gestured to the door, where some more people were coming in. "I'm with the two tiny chicks."

Two tiny chicks. He imagined this Jessy character pictured her two friends as literal chicks, baby chickens, considering how small they were. A redhead stepped in first, quite short, curvy, with pale skin and freckles. The long red hair was frizzy, and he smiled at the sight of it. The girl that came in immediately behind her was even shorter, so short Eric doubted she cleared four ten barefoot. Long dark hair and a skinny frame, combined with her rather conservative business suit, painted her as meek. He doubted that was entirely true, coming to a club like this, but the first impression was loud and clear, especially compared to the redhead beside her, who was wearing a green dress with a long, double split skirt, a stomach window, and plunging cleavage. The only thing holding her large breasts in was a tiny strap of the fabric across the chest.

"See something you like?" Jessy said.

"I do. Your friends are quite attractive."

"I know right? Well Fiona wears it on her sleeve. Natasha though? Looks great when I can convince her to wear something more revealing. And she's so damn tiny and tight you can barely fit a finger inside her."

Eric forced himself to look away from the two women, and back to the one beside him. He expected to find her smiling a big smile, the sort you'd wear when being sarcastic, but she didn't have that. Her smile was subtle, and serious.

"... I have to admit, that is a very appealing thought."

"Ha! Well damn, I like you Eric. Normally I can get a guy either too embarrassed to talk, or reduced to a horny child too stupid to talk."

He rolled his eyes, but his own smile refused to leave. This Jessy girl was fun. Would any of his passengers have been this fun, if he'd bothered to talk to them?

"Been around the block a few times, I'm afraid."

"I don't see a ring," she said. She got what he was hinting at pretty quick.

"Divorced."

"Ah. Shitty divorce?"

"Very."

"That sucks. Single?"

"Yeap."

She clapped him on the shoulder, winked, and motioned with her head toward the stairway he was standing near. "Come upstairs, stand around, be our guard dog. We could use a guy to talk to. And I'm single, after a fashion, so play your cards right and I'll fuck you. Or the redhead might." Not a blink or break in her smile or anything. She was serious. "The super tiny girl isn't single though."