Page 3 of Queen of the Pole

“Thank you, auntie. Ima save it. Stack it with the other money that I’ve been putting up,” I let her know, reaching down for my purse that was sitting at my feet.

It was a small Louis Vuitton Nano Speedy that my aunt blessed me with a couple of months ago for my 18th birthday. It was the purse I told her I wanted. It was small, but I was able to fold all the bills up, and stuff them inside. Once I closed it, I kept the purse in my lap, instead of putting it back on the floor.

“Alright, so let’s talk about it. You already know my thoughts. I love you so much that I don’t want you to be shit like me. I want you to be different from me and Meka. Have your own mind. Live your own life without following in our footsteps. It’s plenty ways out here for you to make money. You know you don’t have to do what I’m doing,” my aunt started, and when she said that shit, I rolled my eyes, while leaning my head against the headrest.

I processed what she said to me for a few moments, before turning my head so that I could look at her.

“Auntie, you can’t put ten bands in my hand on a random Friday and then turn around and tell me that there are other ways out here for me to make money. I know it’s other ways. Those just aren’t the ways that I want. I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful, but you and Meka should have been a little bit more mindful of what ya’ll exposed me to because maybe my goals would have been a little different. You can’t put designer bags, fresh hair and nails, stacks of money, designer clothes and shoes in front of me, and expect me not to want it, and to get it the same way that ya’ll got it. I’ve watched the way you and Meka lived and made money for years. I watched the friends that ya’ll brought over to the house that lived the same lifestyle as ya’ll. You want me to dream bigger, but how when I’ve never seen anything but the shit that was exposed to me?” I asked her.

I could tell that it was a hard acceptance for her. I saw the stress all over her damn face. It was too late for her to try and change my mind. I already knew the life that I was trying to live. I wanted what she said. I wanted what my mom once had. My mom used to dance herself, but she stopped about six years ago. Her name was just as big as my aunt’s. I’ve heard so many stories about the two of them. From what they say, there wasn’t anyone in Miami that was killing it like the two of them.

“Alright. I’m not going to try to sway your opinion anymore. This is a fight that I already know I won’t win, so I’ll stop. Let me just tell you the real though. The cutthroat version that people leave out. Growing up, you saw the money. You saw the glitz and the glam of it. You didn’t see what came with getting the money. Before the club, I used to be sweet. The club made me tough. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in there. It’s no fuckin manners, etiquette, or people like your principal Mrs. Watson who actually gave a fuck about your dreams. The only thing you are inside that club is a fuckin body,” she started.

We were sitting at a red light now, so as she was speaking to me, she was able to look me in my eyes.

“They not going to call you Deja in there. That’s fine though. Never tell your customers your real name anyways. Shit, they probably won’t even call you by your stage name. In there, most times, you going to be called bitches, and hoes. That’s how they view us. Just a woman that’s selling her soul, showing off her pussy and titties to make a view dollars. Some respect us, but most don’t,” she finished, and even with me hearing all these things, it still wasn’t enough to sway me. I knew what I wanted.

“And when I get in that club, everyone in there can call me a bitch and a hoe, and it still wouldn’t compare to the number of times that my own mama called me that. She’s been calling me out my name my whole life. That’s not new to me. The way I look at it is this… she’s been calling me that since I was little for free. At least when they say it in the club, I’ll make a few dollars off it,” and that was all that I had to say in conclusion of this conversation.

I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. My mind was made up. I was getting ready to be the hottest shit that ever came out of Miami. I was going to shake shit up at these clubs. With this face on me, this body, and my dancing skills, I’m telling you that the world has never seen anything like me before.

Miami has had a lot of legends in the stripper world. So many beautiful women have made their mark here. I’m going to be different though. They were going to be calling me the queen of the pole. Just watch.

CHAPTER 1

DEJA MCCOY

FIVE YEARS LATER

“Baller alert! Baller alert! Ya’ll hoes better beat them faces, make sure your pussy is clean, and everything else on you smells good because the niggas with the motha fuckin coin just walked in the building. Bitches, it’s big out there!” Lucky, one of the dancers came in the locker room yelling, getting everyone’s attention.

I was sitting at my secluded station, touching up the wand curls in my hair, also on a facetime call with my little sister, but when Lucky barged in, I looked up at her. Hell, I was curious who the niggas with the coins was that just walked in, that had Lucky so excited.

“Who’s the niggas?” one of the other dancers asked. She asked the million-dollar question that we all wanted to know.

“Girl. The Bennett brothers just walked in. Not just one or two of them. All four of them just walked in. Even Wolf, and ya’ll know we can never get Wolf’s ass to come outside. They said that it’s the younger brother Demarco’s birthday. They at the front, exchanging cash right now. Get ya’ll asses ready,” Lucky finished.

I knew exactly who the Bennett brothers were. Like Lucky already said, it was four of them. Kingston was the oldest brother. He didn’t really show his face too much in the club. Every now and then he’ll pop up. Then, there was Kendrix. We all knew Kendrix because he made it his business to be here a couple of times out of the week. The third brother was Wolf. I didn’t know him enough to know his real name though. I don’t think anyone in here knew his real name. To me, Wolf was the finest brother out of all of them. He was the brother that everyone wanted to fuck. Even me. Yes God, even me. The thing is, Wolf wasn’t the kind of nigga to be outside like his brothers, so it was hard to get at him.

The last brother was Demarco. He was in here just as much as Kendrix. The two of them spent bags every time that they pulled up. I’m talking, your rent and other bills will be paid up for at least two months. I could only imagine the money that I was going to make tonight, knowing that all four brothers were here.

“Deja, Ima just call you back. I’m trying to vent to you and you not even paying me any attention,” my little sister Nari whined to me, as she sat on the facetime call, holding her newborn son in her arms.

My nephew was only four months old, and he was sound asleep in his mother’s arms. Nori was only 17 years old, and she had a kid already. I fell to my fuckin knees and cried when my sister told me that she was pregnant. Nori was the good girl. She was the kind of kid that’s never been into a fight in school, never skipped classes, never brought home bad grades, none of those things. We all thought that she would be the first one in our family to go off to college and live a completely different life from all of us, but she got pregnant.

College was still on the table, but she continued with the tradition of teenaged pregnancy in our family, and I hated that shit. My grandma had my mother and aunt as a teenager. My mama turned around and did the same thing, getting pregnant with me at only seventeen. The cycle skipped me, but Nori got a hold of it.

I threw five hundred dollars in my sisters lap the day she told me about the pregnancy, telling her that I would make sure I didn’t sleep during the day on whatever day she chose to terminate the pregnancy, so I could take her to have it done. Her ass had the nerve to get offended when I told her that she needed to get an abortion. She told me that she didn’t want to kill her baby. I think about that day, and how I felt like I turned into my mama in just one split second. My mama had a habit of crashing out, putting her hands on people when they said something to her that she didn’t agree with. Man, I spazzed in that room and beat Nori’s ass like she was my child. With all the commotion going on, it forced our mom to barge in the room, just to see what was happening.

I normally kept my sisters secrets, but I exposed her right there, telling our mom that she was pregnant, thinking that she was going to tackle her ass the same way that I did, and tell her to get an abortion, but she didn’t. Her dumb ass told Nori that it was her decision on what she wanted to do. Anything to go against me though. That’s how her weird ass was.

She told Nori all these lies about helping her with the baby, and how she would watch the baby while Nori goes to school, but the baby came, and she didn’t stick to her word. Our mama is barely fuckin home. She’s always outside, on a trip or something. She was a young mom. Only 40. Young has hell to be a grandmother, and she knew with the life she lived, always on the move, that she wouldn’t be able to help Nori with the baby, so till this day, I don’t know why she lied to my sister like that.

My nephew is either with me or my grandma during the day. We did it because we wanted my sister to finish high school. I didn’t want her to have the same loser ass story as our mama.

“My bad. I was listening to you though. You said that you texted your baby daddy, asking him to get Nico this weekend, and he didn’t respond. Nori, I’m not trying to justify shit that he’s doing, but that nigga is moving exactly how I knew he would. He’s a young nigga that doesn’t want to have any kind of responsibilities. Stop forcing that shit on him. I told you about that the other day. What did you have to do this weekend?” I asked her, sitting the curling iron down, so that I could lean back in the chair a little bit, and look at her.

My little sister was drop dead gorgeous. I hate that she allowed a nigga to take her out the game so early and become a mommy at just seventeen, but it was done already, and I had to stop dwelling over it.