But they were so comfortable with themselves. They weren’t hiding at all. I wished I had that.
Did their preference for title matter? Did it show a hint of shame at what they did for a living? Out of curiosity, I decided to ask. “Do you prefer to be called dancers or strippers?”
“I prefer stripper!” a redhead called out.
“Exoticdancer,” another said.
“Call this one ‘a fucking whore.’”
“Shut up, bitch!” They cackled in laughter.
“The truth is,” Alice leaned into me, her bare arm against mine, “Everyone has their opinion and yet no one fucking cares. You clock in, you dance on a stage, you dance on a lonely fucker’s lap, you get paid money, you clock the hell out, and on your way home, you pick up a breakfast burrito. Wash, rinse, repeat.”
It made sense. I could picture Mama back here, teasing her curls and spraying fake tanner to hide her single spider vein. Alice linked arms with me and led me down the hallway again.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Lucas said you had some hang-ups about your own job. Whorephobia or something. Thought I’d help,” she paused at the DJ booth, and the DJ handed her a piece of gum. She popped it in her mouth. “Remember,” she said between chews, “it’s entertainment. Nothing more. Everyone has a libido. We just get paid to flirt.”
She led me back to Lucas, talking the whole time, but those words stuck with me. I had never heard of the term ‘whorephobia’ before. Maybe I did have resentment towards Mama for forcing me into a life at the Dahlia District, a life I never wanted. Maybe I had some deeply ingrained repulsion for the job, for my own sexuality, for stripping especially, because all of it seemed to point back to our debt and her death.
But stripping was only a job, wasn’t it? Did it matter that Mama had chosen to come to a strip club to finish off her debts to Dahlia? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was all chance. Maybe it was never about stupidity or love. Maybe Mama never loved my father, or Nora’s father, or whoever that last man was. Maybe she just happened to get pregnant. She never planned to birth me into this life as a server at the Dahlia District, but she had done the best she could to raise me.
Maybe it was about going to work, like anyone else, and things happening along the way. Things like meeting Nora’s father, wherever he was.
Just like it happened with Lucas.
So I had to see it that way: chance, and work.
I halfway expected to see a dancer on Lucas’s lap, but he was talking with a man in a red vest. I assumed it was the manager. Once I sat down next to Lucas, the man left, and Lucas finished pouring the rest of the champagne bottle into our flutes.
“My sister wanted to take pole dancing lessons like Mama,” I said. I expected him to ask about my sister, who she was, why this was the first time I had mentioned her, but he didn’t. He listened. I kept my eyes on the stage, watching as one the dancers, the redhead from the dressing room, twirled around it.Stripper, I corrected myself. She was the one who said she preferred to be called a stripper. Because she wasn’t afraid of who she was. She was proud of it. “Mama used to show her videos on her phone of the tricks she could do, and that’s all Nora wanted. To be like Mama. An acrobat.” I shook my head. “I never let her go near a pole. I kept her in the academy. Even when her friend’s mom had a fitness pole in her she-den, I refused to let Nora spend the night.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m a jerk.” He stroked my back. “I guess it’s just work. I think I was judging them before I actually knew anything about them.” My shoulders tensed. “Are you mad that I hid my sister?”
A subtle grin spread across his lips, then disappeared. “I had my suspicions.”
“She goes to Sage and Ivy,” I explained. “Please. Don’t tell anyone. Dahlia thinks she died during birth.”
“Like I told you, don’t let anyone see you at the academy.”
I remembered his warning. It had made me uncomfortable at the time, but even then, I trusted him to be warning me about the truth.
Another dancer finished her performance, and I took a glance around. I thought about Alice’s words, saying that these men were lonely. How much of that transferred over to the Dahlia District? Was Lucas lonely too? Had he found some sort of relief from that feeling, in me? And was I lonely? I couldn’t connect with anyone at the club, for fear that they would find out about Nora. Lucas was the first person I was comfortable opening up to in years.
What did it mean to finally trust someone in this way?
“You ready?” he asked.
I straightened. “Ready for what?”
“I have one last thing to show you.”
“Another surprise?” I grinned. “What might this one be?”
“Nothing like this.” He stood up and offered me his hand. “You’ll see when we get there.”
