We watch more and more people go down a dark hall and never come back. We see things being passed between open palms from one person to another after a wad of cash is exchanged. We notice Carl’s wandering eyes and hands with each girl who passes close—and very few do.
We still say nothing.
When the lights dim, the atmosphere changes. An electric charge seems to come over everyone, even Carl as he sits down at our side.
“You’re going to love this.” He nudges me, and I take that moment to scoot my chair just a hairbreadth away.
I don’t miss Dante’s smirk before my attention is pulled to the lights that flicker to illuminate the ceiling.
A single maroon silk cloth drops halfway to the ground in a flourish of red. At first, I notice nothing. Then the last ends unravel and a woman appears.
“What the…?” Dante murmurs as he strains to look closer but doesn’t move more than an inch.
Carl’s raspy chuckle filters through the silent room beyond the sensual notes that float from the speakers above. “What’d I tell ya? Something else, right?”
“Who is it?” he asks as I watch her weave up and down the silk rope in a dance without touching the ground. Her movements are sensual, and the silk around her is seductive, but nothing beyond a leg or an arm is seen. A flash of stomach maybe, but she’s completely covered compared to what the other performers were wearing, all of whom are no longer onstage but watching like the rest of the place. One show that draws all eyes.
“We call her the Crown Jewel.”
“Why?” Dante asks, pulling his attention from her. Something I haven’t been able to do yet.
“Because she’s the pinnacle of what you desire but can’t have.”
I nod in understanding. She is by far the best thing I’ve seen since I got here.
“Not without a price, of course.” Carl snickers, and now it’s my turn to clench my fists to keep from harming him. Something about what he just said makes me think he offers more than a traditional lap dance. And while thefamigliadoesn’t stick to just legit shit, the idea of her, someone so clearly innocent that you can see it in one glance, being involved in something like that makes me want to burn the place to the ground just to keep her from doing anything Carl is thinking right now.
As her music fades and she does a simple move to curl herself back up into the scaffolding above that I didn’t notice till now, I ask a simple question.
“Howmuch?”
Chapter 4—Payton
The silk glides through my fingers one last time before I spin up to the railing. I secure myself for a second, then dismount from the rigging and undo my system while the spotlights find the dancers below to entertain the guests.
I did it.
Again.
I’ve been doing aerial acrobatics since long before I came here. It was a secret release outside of ballet and toe class. It let me feel as if I was gliding through the air, unbound from the rules of dance. Don’t get me wrong, I love dance. Or I used to. It was my everything—till it wasn’t.
But even though I loved it, I needed a break just to move. And aerial acrobatics was the only class close to campus that no one suspected me to go to after I did ballet for several hours a day before I went home. It was also a great way to stretch every part of me. And get me off my feet.
The classes became my escape for a bit. I never expected them to be my starting career. Not that this was ever the plan. Aerial acrobatics at a strip club? Yeah, not on my counselor’s list of post-ballet jobs. Then again, I didn’t think there was anything after ballet for me.
I’ve been dancing all my life. Got accepted early to ballet school at age seven and never looked back. I even got my GED online to make sure nothing affected my dancing. I was one of the top students who was going to make it out ofthe school after I turned twenty-one and get invited to an academy to perform for years. When I “retired,” I was just going to teach. I had zero plans for anything else in my life. Not even boys or the idea of a family were going to sway me from my goals.
Or so I thought.
Then, nearly eight months ago, everything changed.
Now I’m here. No longer a ballerina. No longer part of a family. Just surviving.
Which is why I take twenty minutes—longer, if I can—with me still up on the rigging to secure my equipment. I don’t need to take it down each time, but I do. It’s my way to make sure everything is in working order and prevent anyone from tampering with it, but it also keeps me away from the rest of the people who work here.
When I started a few weeks ago, it was made crystal clear that newcomers weren’t welcome. Once they learned I wasn’t stripping, they gave me a reprieve, till they learned they had to tip me out like the waitstaff at the end of the night. They didn’t like me much after that.
But they saw the benefit. My work was for them, not for the people watching. The manager who hired me said it on day one: I had an innocence about me that made men want to break. I still get shivers of fear thinking about the way he looked at me then; my skin crawled under his gaze. There was nothing nice in the way he spoke. It was all predatory. But I had very little choice. He was willing to let me perform without taking off my clothes. That was what the ad wanted—performers. Not strippers. That’s the only reason I came here. I don’t think I could ever take my clothes off for money.
