Twelve
Walking into Pole Kisses felt like an exhale. Gucci sat on the chill room couch with a laptop perched on her knees, arguing with Zhang Xiu about whether or not Megan Thee Stallion was the modern-day female equivalent of 50 Cent. Gucci had done a refresh on her hair color so it was an even brighter shade of blue, the right side shaved almost to the scalp. Her skin must’ve cleared up because she was down to one star-shaped yellow pimple sticker. I felt a surge of affection for her. She’d had a horrific upbringing and had somehow risen above.
But there was no sign of Shade.
Zhang Xiu spotted me. “You’re alive!”
“Nikita!” Gucci said. “The girl who wields a vodka gimlet as a weapon.”
“The girl who wields her fingernails as a weapon!” Zhang Xiu said. She fluttered her coffin-shaped nails at me. “Respect.”
I winced. Luckily, Layna burst into the room behind me, giving Gucci and Zhang Xiu big, no-holds-barred hugs. The Bettie Page wall clock read 6:01. Still no Shade. But we seemed to be missing a teacher too. “Where’s Salma Hayek?” I asked.
Everyone shrugged.
Gucci snapped her laptop shut. Standing up, she pressed her palms together overhead and bent her torso into a half-moon. “I’m so fried from studying.”
“You at Boise State?” Layna asked.
“Yeah. But I’ll be lucky if I get to do any real field work before I get my master’s.”
“How come?” Zhang Xiu said.
“My advisor has sidelined me because I don’t flirt with him,” Gucci replied.
“Ugh!” I said. After all she’d been through with her terrible uncle, she shouldn’t have to deal with a vile professor wrecking her studies.
“Salma Hayek’s out today,” a voice said.
The substitute teacher stood in the doorway wearing a cropped T-shirt that saidYour Boyfriend Follows Me on Instagram. A tattoo of a brontosaurus slithered up from undies I now knew were technically called pole shorts.
“Hey, Olympia!” Gucci said. “I love your cross-stitch.” She gestured at a framed rectangle of needlework hanging on the wall over the couch that readSEX WORK IS A VALID CAREER CHOICE.
“Thanks,” the substitute teacher said. “I made it while talking on the phone to some of my favorite clients.” She spun and headed to the pole studio, revealing cheeky bottoms with garters that stretched right under her buns.
“I think I need to go,” I said. The reminder that a whole bar full of people had seen me rake my nails across the dead guy’s face made me feel sick. It was so unlike me it begged the question: What if I’d killed him too?
In the pole studio, Olympia idly grabbed onto the pole with her outside arm. “I have the biggest bruise in my armpit from doing teddy bears last night,” she said. “They don’t call them pole kisses for nothing.”
“That’s why I don’t get rid of this.” Shade sauntered in dramatically, lifting one arm to show off a thatch of armpit hair. A bluebird of hope landed on my shoulder.
Olympia laughed. “I wish I could get away withthatat the club.”
Luckily, Shade took the pole next to mine.
“Can I talk to you?” I whispered.
“After class!” Olympia boomed.
Shade shrugged apologetically. “The queen has spoken.”
“Today we’ll mostly be doing floorwork,” Olympia decreed.
It didn’t take me long to figure outfloorworkwas French for crawling around while trying to look sexy. I suspected it was a talent that couldn’t be taught. Either you had it or you didn’t. Olympia had it.
“First we’re gonna learn the Vagina Monster,” she said. Lying on her back, she propped herself up on her elbows and raised her legs into a giant V, so that her cookie—as Salma Hayek would’ve called it—was pointing right at us. When she waved her legs in the air, an optical illusion occurred. Her knees turned liquid, the entire length of her legs rubbery as octopus tentacles. “And if you get good, you can crawl it across the floor,” she added. With each wave of her boneless legs, she scooched her hips from side to side, advancing across the floor, cookie first. She really did look like a giant Vagina Monster ready to devour us. “Easy-peasy. Now your turn.”
My efforts made me look like a beached sea lion on epinephrine. Meanwhile, Layna appeared to be having a seizure while making the lewdest pass in the history of the world at an invisible paramour. But my inner comedian was beyond pleased with the absurdity. If I everwasgoing to work on a new set, this could be interesting.
