CHAPTER 13
Haley
Dahlia hadn’t set up a contract with the potential new hires yet, only told them about the ‘amazing’ opportunity at the club. Instead of having the audition before the club opened, Dahlia held the performances at the height of the weekend to see how the members reacted. This meant that a few of our performances, including my aerial dance, were canceled so that the staff could get the stage ready for the fire dancer.
All of the members and servers sat in the audience, gazing up at the stage. Dahlia brought in a new team to prep the stage, as she had never had a fire dancer in the club before. The group pointed to each other and ran back and forth. Iris was the only server who was assisting Dahlia. Everyone else was gawking.
“A fire dancer?” one server said. “Won’t they have to increase the staff to make sure that the club is safe?”
“It can’t bethatbig of a deal,” another server said, “or Dahlia wouldn’t consider it. This is a quick check to make sure everything is ready.”
I turned to Lucas and whispered, “What do you think of it?”
“Fire dancing?” he asked. I nodded. “It seems like it would be more hassle than it’s worth.”
“But?”
“But fire is primal. It would tap into a raw urge inside of all of us. It could make for a unique experience.”
It had taken a while (and my first orgasm—thank you, Lucas), to realize that hiring another dancer was not the end of my career at the Dahlia District. It was a different category of entertainment entirely, one that would probably focus on the fire, and not on the dancer. I was still intimidated, but I didn’t feel threatened like before. Like Dahlia had said, a fire dancer’s feet stayed firmly on the ground. It wasn’t the same as aerial dance.
Besides, it wasn’t like we were enemies. She would be another server. We were all in the same boat, trying to work towards our futures.
A few staff remained on the stage. Dahlia was standing off to the side, answering the questions they asked.
“It’s about time they hired a new dancer,” a male voice said. A club member. My face was instantly hot. “That dangling hula hoop girl has been around for a decade now.”
Dangling hula hoop girl?
I shrank in my seat. I couldn’t even look in the direction it had been said. The servers around me erupted in discussion and I held my hands over my ears. I couldn’t listen.
“You mean Haley?” a server asked.
Lucas furrowed his brows. “It’s not a hula hoop,” he said, angling forward, “And it’s been five years.”
“So? Are you fucking her or something?”
“I’m not, unfortunately.” I blushed and covered my eyes. They were talking about this here, andnow? With all the other servers around? “To say that Dahlia should hire a new dancer because Haley’s performances are stale is absurd. She draws the largest, most consistent crowd every night.”
“Hmm,” the man grunted. “I guess that’s true.”
The dancer stood in the shadows of the stage. She lit a long, stretched out fire pit in the back, then moved forward and lit another. I tried to focus on the stage, and not on the fact that Lucas had defended me in front of everyone. I didn’t know if what he was saying was true, if I actually drew a crowd like that every night, but the fact that he had even thought to say anything meant a lot to me.
And I didn’t want it to mean anything. I was already swimming through murky waters with him. Doing things I shouldn’t.
A song started, the lyrics included ‘fire’ and ‘desire’ every other line. The dancer moved to the floor and let the flames in the fire pits illuminate her while she humped and writhed on the ground.
There was a sexy aspect to it, seeing her body move like that in the flickering light, but the performance was missing something. I zoned out, more on the light than on her. Lucas held my thigh. A warm rush inside threatened to drown me. I didn’t want to, but I liked him. Even worse, I trusted him. Hearing him basically defend my honor in front of other guests and servers, as small of an act as it may have been, only fueled those feelings. He could have pretended he didn’t hear the member or whispered his defenses in my ear. Instead, he chose to take a stand.
The dancer was now on her hands and knees as she bounced her butt in the light. I had expected more. Many of us had shaken our asses out in the middle of the floor as a joke to make the members laugh. I had thought she would spin fire, or poi, something I had heard about back when I was still in high school. Wick material lit on fire at the end of a chain or rope, so that the performer could spin the fire, manipulating it into intricate designs that were both hypnotizing and impressive.
I turned to Dahlia. She was looking down at her phone. Not impressed or hypnotized.
The song ended, and the woman stood up. The lights came on, and she bowed.
Everyone began shifting in their seats, eager to stretch before the snake dancer came out. Lucas leaned over to me. “Let’s go to the Terrariums,” he said. We grabbed our drinks and headed towards the private rooms. My heart started beating rapidly, knowing what we had done last time, and what we could do again, in those rooms. All of the things we could do.
It’s not like one orgasm had completely thrown me over the fence and into the territory of servers who dothosethings. But the possibility was there. And with one experience of that rule broken under my belt, it was hard not to consider what a second time would be like.
