more about Sapphire, in whatever way I can
4) Try not to get killed
One and two I’ve got down. I’m working on three and four.
“Work experience?” he asks.
“Oh, yeah. Yes. Absolutely.” I put my hands on my hips and push my chest out—normally, I try to hide my C-cup boobs, but now, they might be just what I need—just a little, three little juts, as I gaze around the club, formulating answers: I’ve never been to a strip club before, and Tens is not what I imagined. I thought it would be glossy, larger-than-life and distant, like a movie.
Instead it’s just a dim room, and there’s a lingering cigarette smell in the air and a half sweet, half sour liquor-y smell layered somewhere beneath it and big men dressed all in black clomping onto the main floor from what must be a basement or secret level below, watching, waiting.
The customers—the men lined up at the bars and at the tables— look surprisingly normal. I guess I expected some leering, bug-eyed creepers. But they look like guys my dad might play golf with, newly beer-bellied and taking a load off in their post-work polos. One table is full of boys just barely older than I am. They’re laughing too loud, at jokes I’m sure aren’t funny.
A girl with feathery dyed-red hair slides down the pole cross-legged, her back arching toward the audience. Look. No hands.
Her skin puckers slightly against the slick-looking metal, thigh-sliding, ankle-gripping, all of her skin flashing in the light. She seems to be floating through air, her body pliable and shiny as bubble gum.
She makes it look like the whole thing’s a breeze: capturing metal between thighs, making it melt between warm skin and muscle. I can’t imagine being her, being up there, eyes snaking over every inch of my skin.
I focus my eyes back on Mustache. “I just moved here from … Chicago. But I was working there, for a while, in a club. Waitressing.”
His eyes rove up and down my body, lingering momentarily on my slightly lopsided boobs (can he tell?); a sick feeling floods my belly. I force myself to keep smiling.
“You seem like a good girl. Good body, good attitude, good face, nice long, thick hair—you got an Irish look to you. You Irish?”
I shrug, again, again, trying not to shrink into myself. “I don’t think so.” Hearing his “assessments,” I feel both weirdly satisfied that I’m good enough and disgusted with myself for caring and then, again, more of the half-sick-feeling excitement.
“That’s what we’re looking for around here,” he continues, rocking back and forth slightly in his leather shoes, lips pursed and hands perched on his hips in a way that makes him look oddly feminine. “Just lost a girl, so we’re definitely looking for, uh, some, uh, new blood.” His eyebrows crease together. “You’re eighteen, right?”
The way he so casually throws out the phrases lost a girl and new blood makes me stiffen, though I answer yes with three curt nods.
“Let me get you an application,” he says. “Stay right here.” He pushes through swinging doors just next to the deejay booth; I make out a dimly lit hallway, and what must be the entrance to the office, before the doors swing shut again.
A new girl takes the stage. She is wearing sparkly pink underwear, and sprawls majestically onto her taut stomach, then cat-crawls, lollipop in mouth, toward a wide-eyed customer in the first row. She’s Tens’ answer to Carver High’s Jessica Fisk-Morgan: The Cheerleader. All sugar and fluff. Ever vapid, ever bouncy, she earned yearbook superlatives “First to get Married” and “First to get Pregnant” four years in a row. It makes me feel better to think of the girl onstage this way, less freaked out and out of place.
Mustache returns with several slips of paper, clipped together, and slaps it on the bar. “Go ahead and fill out the forms and I’ll give ’em a look-over, ask you some questions, see if you’re a good fit.” His head bobs as he
4) Try not to get killed
One and two I’ve got down. I’m working on three and four.
“Work experience?” he asks.
“Oh, yeah. Yes. Absolutely.” I put my hands on my hips and push my chest out—normally, I try to hide my C-cup boobs, but now, they might be just what I need—just a little, three little juts, as I gaze around the club, formulating answers: I’ve never been to a strip club before, and Tens is not what I imagined. I thought it would be glossy, larger-than-life and distant, like a movie.
Instead it’s just a dim room, and there’s a lingering cigarette smell in the air and a half sweet, half sour liquor-y smell layered somewhere beneath it and big men dressed all in black clomping onto the main floor from what must be a basement or secret level below, watching, waiting.
The customers—the men lined up at the bars and at the tables— look surprisingly normal. I guess I expected some leering, bug-eyed creepers. But they look like guys my dad might play golf with, newly beer-bellied and taking a load off in their post-work polos. One table is full of boys just barely older than I am. They’re laughing too loud, at jokes I’m sure aren’t funny.
A girl with feathery dyed-red hair slides down the pole cross-legged, her back arching toward the audience. Look. No hands.
Her skin puckers slightly against the slick-looking metal, thigh-sliding, ankle-gripping, all of her skin flashing in the light. She seems to be floating through air, her body pliable and shiny as bubble gum.
She makes it look like the whole thing’s a breeze: capturing metal between thighs, making it melt between warm skin and muscle. I can’t imagine being her, being up there, eyes snaking over every inch of my skin.
I focus my eyes back on Mustache. “I just moved here from … Chicago. But I was working there, for a while, in a club. Waitressing.”
His eyes rove up and down my body, lingering momentarily on my slightly lopsided boobs (can he tell?); a sick feeling floods my belly. I force myself to keep smiling.
“You seem like a good girl. Good body, good attitude, good face, nice long, thick hair—you got an Irish look to you. You Irish?”
I shrug, again, again, trying not to shrink into myself. “I don’t think so.” Hearing his “assessments,” I feel both weirdly satisfied that I’m good enough and disgusted with myself for caring and then, again, more of the half-sick-feeling excitement.
“That’s what we’re looking for around here,” he continues, rocking back and forth slightly in his leather shoes, lips pursed and hands perched on his hips in a way that makes him look oddly feminine. “Just lost a girl, so we’re definitely looking for, uh, some, uh, new blood.” His eyebrows crease together. “You’re eighteen, right?”
The way he so casually throws out the phrases lost a girl and new blood makes me stiffen, though I answer yes with three curt nods.
“Let me get you an application,” he says. “Stay right here.” He pushes through swinging doors just next to the deejay booth; I make out a dimly lit hallway, and what must be the entrance to the office, before the doors swing shut again.
A new girl takes the stage. She is wearing sparkly pink underwear, and sprawls majestically onto her taut stomach, then cat-crawls, lollipop in mouth, toward a wide-eyed customer in the first row. She’s Tens’ answer to Carver High’s Jessica Fisk-Morgan: The Cheerleader. All sugar and fluff. Ever vapid, ever bouncy, she earned yearbook superlatives “First to get Married” and “First to get Pregnant” four years in a row. It makes me feel better to think of the girl onstage this way, less freaked out and out of place.
Mustache returns with several slips of paper, clipped together, and slaps it on the bar. “Go ahead and fill out the forms and I’ll give ’em a look-over, ask you some questions, see if you’re a good fit.” His head bobs as he
Similar Books
