“Well, well, well. Beast told me we had some visitors, but he failed to mention how beautiful they were,” the man with the smile says as he moves in our direction and stops right in front of Ariel, a light from above shining down on him, making it easier to see his features.
He has the same dark hair as PJ, but it’s styled neatly with hair gel. Looking at his clean-shaven face, lovely green eyes, and charcoal suit that fits him like a glove, my immediate thought is that this man is exactly my type.
So why in the world can’t I take my eyes off of PJ? He’s wearing another pair of worn jeans, but instead of a T-shirt, he’s paired it with an untucked, fitted button-down the same vivid blue color as his eyes, worn with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. The five o’clock shadow is still present on his face and, just like the other night, I have the urge to run my cheek against it.
I take my eyes off of PJ long enough to watch the man in the suit hold his hand out to Ariel.
“My name’s Eric Sailor. I like long walks on the beach, watching romantic comedies, and snuggling after sex.”
Ariel visibly dry heaves before giving him a bored look.
“Fuck off.”
Eric tips his head back and laughs before shaking his head at her.
“You must be the mouth Beast was talking about,” he says, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Incredible Hulk, still standing next to PJ with his arms crossed and his legs spread in a wide stance.
“I’m sorry, did you say his name is Beast? My goodness, that’s . . . unusual,” I say politely, when what I really want to say is that it’s the most accurate name for a man I’ve ever heard.
“And you must be the prude. Eric Sailor, nice to meet you,” he says with an even wider smile, dimples appearing in both his cheeks.
“I am not a prude,” I argue.
“You wore a suit from Talbots and pearls to a strip club. You’re a prude,” Ariel informs me.
“It’s from Ann Taylor, thank you very much. And these pearls are a family heirloom,” I tell her, picking a piece of lint off of the three-quarter-length sleeve of my navy blue-and-white tweed jacket before smoothing my hands down the sides of the matching, knee-length skirt.
Granted, maybe wearing something so businesslike wasn’t the best idea when coming here today, but this is what I feel comfortable in. It’s like my suit of armor, and it gives me confidence. Ariel wears a low-cut pink tank top, which shows off an ample amount of cleavage, paired with an extremely short, tattered jean skirt, and flip-flips; and Isabelle wears a white eyelet-lace sundress that comes to her knees, and a pair of ballet flats. We all wore what we feel most comfortable in so we could face this day. There’s nothing wrong with that.
“Did you know the word prude originated in the early eighteenth century from the French word prudefemme, which means worthy or respectable woman?” Isabelle asks the room.
“And you must be the librarian. A prude, a mouth, and a librarian walk into a strip club . . .” he trails off with a laugh.
“Look, Chuckles, we’re just here to meet with Tiffany. So if you’ll just move the fuck out of our way so we can get down to business, that’d be great,” Ariel tells him.
“And since Tiffany is one of my employees, you’ll understand why I’m a little hesitant to let just anyone into my club to speak with her,” PJ says, finally stepping forward to stand next to Eric while Beast continues to glare from a distance.
“You own Charming’s?” Ariel asks in shock while the butterflies in my stomach suddenly come to an abrupt halt, each one dying a slow, painful death.
Of course. The first time my libido decides to wake up and take notice in lord knows how long, it’s with the owner of a strip club. Granted, it’s a lovely strip club and very well taken care of, but it’s still a strip club.
And then I remember I’m standing in the middle of said strip club, fully prepared to take stripping lessons from one of the dancers here as a last-ditch effort to try to make ends meet before my house is foreclosed on. I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs over the last few months, but no one wants to hire a housewife with no college education, no matter how many bake sales she successfully ran or how many marketing ideas she came up with to make them successful. So I really have no right to judge. If I didn’t think everyone would look at me like I’d lost my mind, I’d smack myself in the arm to save Ariel the trouble.
“We’re actually co-owners. Well, I own a fleet of luxury yachts that I rent out and just gave him investment money for the place, so I guess you could say I’m more of a silent partner. He does all the heavy lifting,” Eric says, shooting Ariel another dimpled grin.
“Is that supposed to impress me or something? How about you practice that whole silent thing and stop talking already?” she responds.
PJ finally shows an emotion on his face other than annoyance, and he chuckles softly, the sound of it making my heart beat faster.
I really need to get a grip. I have no business feeling anything when it comes to another man. Sure, I’m divorced, and I guess what one would call a “free agent.” But I have too many other things to worry about it my life right now to let this man, who so clearly is annoyed by us, give me butterflies. I also have zero experience when it comes to the opposite sex, and something tells me I’d need to have a lot of experience to catch the eye of someone like PJ. No matter how rude and annoying he is, he’s still nice to look at.
“Look, we’re not here to divulge any secrets about what goes on in the underground world of strip clubs or anything. What happens behind closed doors, stays behind closed doors and all that shit,” Ariel tells PJ. “Your buddy John suggested we come meet with Tiffany, and since you got a front-row seat to our disastrous first attempt at stripping, we thought it was a good idea.”
“Wait a minute. You’re the strippers that were hired for PJ’s thirty-fifth birthday party?” Eric asks in astonishment before letting out another laugh. “Oh my God. Now I’m even more pissed off that I had a date that night and had to miss all the excitement.”
He gives Ariel a wink, and she rolls her eyes.
“Someone actually agreed to go on a date with you? Did you have to pay her? Because where I’m from, that’s called hiring a prostitute, not going on a date,” Ariel says sarcastically.
“Alright, that’s enough,” I say, stepping in between Ariel and Eric before she starts throwing punches. “We’d really like to just speak with Tiffany, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Holy shit, you’re serious? I thought you were kidding. You actually think the three of you could make it as strippers?” PJ asks, letting out another soft chuckle, this one doing absolutely nothing to my heart, since I don’t really care for the disbelieving tone of his voice.
“Yes. We really think we could make it as strippers. Why is that so hard to believe?”
He moves closer to me until I can feel the heat from his body and smell his spicy cologne.
“You have a stick up your ass the size of the Empire State Building, your friend can’t keep her mouth shut, and your other friend looks like she’s going to need some smelling salts just from setting foot in this place. You’re not cut out to be strippers. Go home to your husbands and bake something. Find another hobby to fill up your bored little lives, and get out of my club.”
With that, he turns and stalks away, leaving me standing with my mouth wide open, unable to believe that a man who knows absolutely nothing about us would speak to me that way.
“You’ll have to excuse my friend. He’s a little protective of his club, considering his name is on the sign,” Eric apologizes.
“His name is PJ Charming?” Ariel asks in surprise.
“Yep,” Eric replies with a nod.
“What does PJ stand for?” she asks.
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to take you into the back room and screw you.”
“You are a pig,” Ariel mutters in disgust.
I’m too busy staring across the club toward the
hallway where PJ disappeared, wishing I had the courage to start using all that foul language Ariel has been going on about, to worry about Eric and Ariel bickering with each other. PJ would be a great reason to forget about my manners and start shouting expletives.
“Well, I don’t care if he does own this club, I kind of want to rip his dick off and make him eat it,” Ariel complains.
“You kind of scare me,” Eric mutters, still smiling down at Ariel.
“Good. Now go get Tiffany before I shove my foot up your ass and really terrify you.”
He shakes his head and laughs, but heads off down a different hall than PJ did, shouting Tiffany’s name as he goes.
“I hope you’re still on board with this, because there is no way in hell we’re changing our minds now,” Ariel whispers, saluting Beast, who still stands a few feet away in the same position, not saying a word as he glares at the three of us.
“Oh, I am so on board with this. I’m going to show that jerk face he just made the biggest mistake of his life,” I reply angrily, opening up my purse and pulling out a package of Clorox wipes.
Moving over to one of the tables, I rip open the package and begin wiping down the leather chair, crumpling up the wipe when I’m finished, tossing it on the table, and taking a seat.
“What?” I ask Ariel when she makes no move to sit down next to me but continues to stand staring at me.
“Yo, Beast!” she shouts. “Get us some booze. The top-shelf stuff. We’re gonna need a lot of liquor.”
Chapter 8: Forget About Dicks, I’m Switching to Chicks
“Move your hips slower. If you keep dry humping the pole at that rate of speed, you’ll break something. Slow and steady wins the race and gets you the most tips,” Tiffany instructs Ariel in the middle of the room.
With her hand clinging tightly to one of the four stripper poles lining the center of the room, and her leg wrapped around the pole, Ariel glares at Tiffany for a few seconds before doing as she’s instructed. Tiffany gives her a smile and words of encouragement before moving a few feet away, to where Isabelle stands in front of her own pole.
“Sweetie, I know it’s scary, but you’re gonna need to release the death grip you have on that pole before you cut off circulation to your fingers and snap this thing in half,” she says softly to Isabelle while rubbing small circles against her back in a soft, soothing manner.
I have to say, I really like Tiffany. I was surprised when she came out into the main area of the club to meet us an hour ago. She’s not at all what I expected a stripper to look like. She’s a little over five feet, with a small, curvy body and short, wavy brown hair with blond highlights. She doesn’t have a stitch of makeup on and she’s wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt and a pair of black yoga pants. She made us comfortable immediately by talking about herself as she led us here to a small dance studio hidden behind the stage.
We found out that not only is she a Sunday-school teacher, she’s also a single mother to a two-year-old boy. Being a stripper gives her the opportunity to work nights while her parents take care of her son, and be home with him all day, making more than enough money to support them, since the father of her son decided he didn’t want to be a father at all and left her the minute the stick turned pink. I appreciate her even more knowing she asked her parents to watch her son for a few hours so she could help us on her day off.
“Tell Clorox Rain Man over there the pole is clean enough!” Ariel shouts so she can be heard over the thumping base of the music Tiffany turned on, giving me a cheeky smile in the reflection in the mirror as she dances around her pole.
The room has one wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and a row of stripper poles, so we’re each able to have our own pole and watch what we’re doing. Or I’m able to stand and watch what Ariel and Isabelle are doing, since I haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to do much more than stand in front of my pole wiping it down with an entire pack of disinfecting wipes.
Tiffany leaves Isabelle and slowly makes her way over to me, giving me an encouraging smile.
“What are you afraid of? It’s just us, no one else is watching. All you have to do is hold on to the pole and move to the beat of the music. Nothing fancy,” she tells me.
“I don’t know if I can do this. My husband . . . I mean, my ex-husband, is the only one who’s ever seen me without my clothes on,” I inform her as Isabelle and Ariel abandon their poles and come over to join us.
“We’re not getting naked today. We’re just dancing and learning how our bodies move to the music. And anyway, Charming’s isn’t a fully nude club. And I’m guessing the house parties you ladies plan on doing won’t be either,” Tiffany replies. “Stripping is all about anticipation. Building excitement and making the audience want more up until the very last second. You’re not going to walk out on stage, or in front of a living room full of people, and immediately take your clothes off. You’re going to dance, you’re going to move sensually, and you’re going to tease them. I’m not stripped down to my bra and underwear until literally the last thirty seconds or so of the song I’m dancing to. As much as the audience wants to see that moment, the excitement is over as soon as they see it, and they’re going to start looking forward to the next dancer and lose focus on you. They want the thrill. They want the expectation; they want the fun of imagining what you look like under your costume more than they want to actually see it. Trust me. You get more tips during the lead-up to the big reveal than you do once your clothes are finally off. You just need to learn how to tease.”
Tiffany turns to face Ariel then and starts swaying her body to the slow beat of the music. She runs her hands over her breasts and down over her hips before grabbing the hem of her T-shirt and slowly sliding it up, stopping when just her flat stomach is exposed.
I watch in awe as she moves closer to Ariel, taking one hand off the hem of her shirt to run her palm down the side of Ariel’s face before turning around, slowly bending at the waist and then creeping back up, running her hand up her leg as she goes, then looking back over her shoulder to give Ariel a wink.
“Damn. That was hot. Forget about dicks, I’m switching to chicks,” Ariel mutters, which earns her a laugh from Tiffany.
“That’s all there is to it. Tease and taunt. Make them want more.”
“I can totally do this, but I think Miss Prude over there might need a few more hours of instruction. And a lot of liquor. And a ban on Clorox wipes,” Ariel says, snatching the now-empty package out of my hand and tossing it to the side. “Stop being in your head so much. Forget about the bills and the pressure and just think about showing that asshole PJ that you’re not who he thinks you are.”
I’ve done nothing but stand for the last hour being hurt and angry about the assumptions that man made about us. And me in particular. It’s one thing when Ariel calls me a prude and tells me I have a stick up my behind, because she sort of knows me and she’s kind of right in most circumstances, but I’m working on it. It’s another thing when a stranger thinks I’m only doing this because I’m a bored housewife. When he assumes I have nothing better to do than go home and bake something for my husband.
It hurts something deep in my soul that six months ago, that’s exactly what I would have done. For thirteen years I was bored, and I volunteered for anything and everything just to give myself an identity and a purpose. For thirteen years, I made sure there was a home-cooked meal on the table every night, a freshly baked dessert waiting, and a martini with extra olives in my hand when he walked through the door, no matter how busy I might have been at the time. I dropped everything to cater to his every whim, went to his work functions when I wanted nothing more than to soak in a bubble bath or curl up with a book. I put my life on hold for someone else, and I became something I never thought I’d be: a bored housewife.
I did all of this and lost myself in the process because I was scared to death of the alternative. I was afraid the clock would strike midnight and everything I had would disappear. I was sca
red to death I’d wake up one day and find myself back inside that two-bedroom trailer with the mold on the ceiling, and the stained shag carpet full of cigarette holes, and the fridge with nothing in it but an expired jar of pickles. I was afraid if everything wasn’t perfect and just the way Brian liked it, he’d send me back.
But I’m not that person anymore, and PJ had no right to say those things to me when he knows nothing about me. And now I know how Ariel felt all these months living on our street.
“I’m sorry I judged you,” I tell her softly as the song playing over the sound system ends and the room goes silent.
“Um, okay,” Ariel replies uncomfortably, giving me a funny look at my sudden apology.
“I’m sorry I thought you were the street harlot, and I’m sorry I talked about you behind your back with all of those shallow women and never made you feel welcome,” I continue, realizing I never felt one minute of jealousy or hatred toward her when I found out she’d slept with Brian.
Realizing I never felt those things because I stopped caring about him a long time ago, and saying these things out loud, and admitting this to myself, makes me feel more free than I have in a long time.
“Are you going to hug me now?” Ariel asks with a small look of horror on her face.
“Um, no. I mean, unless you want a hug?”
As Ariel starts to shake her head and take a step back, Isabelle comes up between us, wraps her arms around both of us and pulls us to her until we’re all squished together in a tight huddle.
“A recent study found that women learn they’re not supposed to be competitive and win at others’ expense, and their natural competitive spirit can’t be shared openly, happily, or even jokingly with other women. What could have been healthy competition becomes a secret feeling of envy and desire for the other to fail—laced with guilt and shame,” Isabelle speaks in a rapid voice. “And this is why women find it hard to be friends with other women, but we aren’t going to have that problem because we want each other to succeed and we’re going to be the best friends ever!”