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All the while her heart hammered, and she couldn’t help keeping one eye on the audience. She knew they were shouting, but whatever they said was blessedly drowned out by the din from the sound system.
Ellie was actually thinking she might come through it all relatively unscathed. Until a drunken, greasy-haired man lumbered onto the stage with her and pinned her between the pole and his not inconsiderable bulk. She froze, knowing her face had taken on a ‘deer in the headlights’ look because she could see it in the lurid reflections that bounced back at her. The man started to grind his pelvis against her, groping for her boobs with meaty hands as she politely tried to sidestep him. Was there any kind of club protocol for this kind of thing?
A banknote was jammed down the front of her bra and the guy brought his slobbering lips way too close to her face for her peace of mind. She managed to duck out of the way, but not evade the harsh pinch to her nipple.
“C’mon babe,” he slurred, his hands everywhere. They grabbed at her butt and slithered around to cup her mons. She screamed for Frank before realizing it was pointless; the music was way too loud for anything to be heard above it. For several long seconds she thought she was going to have to watch herself being assaulted in the gruesome carnival mirrors as well as experience it, before a tattooed hand ripped the drunk away from her.
“Enough of that, Vince. You know the stage is out of bounds.”
Thestageis out of bounds? Ellie thought wildly as the music wound down. What abouther?Was being publicly mauled just part of the deal? No one had mentioned that to her!
She gripped hold of the pole for a moment to gather her strength and get her racing heart under control. Then, realizing where she was, she scampered across the stage and blindly made her way back to the dressing room. Finding her clothes, she pulled them on as quickly as she could, then wrenched the long length of her hair into a crude ponytail before grabbing up her bag.
Frank intercepted her before she made her escape. “Sorry about that, doll,” he drawled unapologetically. “There’s always some bum that gets a bit carried away. Anyway, you handled it pretty well. Job’s yours. Come along at nine tomorrow night and I’ll have Candy show you the ropes.”
Ellie couldn’t even speak. She just nodded, lifted a hand in a vague goodbye salute as she slipped out of the door. She walked, albeit at a fast clip, until she reached the corner. Then she broke into an all-out run and had never been so thankful that she’d decided to splurge on the fuel and drive her car over here.
She couldn’t remember the drive back to the homeless shelter in her desperation to get a shower. The only thing she was aware of was Gran’s blunt voice babbling in her subconscious.
‘Well, what do you think goes on in those kinda places, girlie’, it’s a den for sinners and if you set foot in one, don’t you be surprised when some of it rubs off where you don’t want it to.’
Not that Gran had ever actually said those words to her in real life, of course, but she shouted them now, loud and clear, from beyond the grave. The voice of her conscience, perhaps? Because really, what did she expect was going to happen? She wasn’t totally naïve. She knew taking a job as a stripper was going to come with a fair amount of hands on. Still, common sense didn’t alleviate the need Ella felt to scrub herself clean. Her hair stank of cigarette smoke and she felt dirty.
Perhaps that was her conscience talking too. Or Gran’s idea of being herself appointed fairy godmother to stop her from doing the wrong thing.
Chapter Two
The next morning Ellie was awake at dawn. Hard not to be, sleeping in a car with nothing to black out thelightand thenoise. Still, it was something she was well used to from her formative years with her parents and life with Gran. It seemed almost normal now and since there was little else to do, given her current circumstances, she was well used to settling down for the night as soon as it got dark, no matter what the time was.
Except last night she had mixed up her routine. When she’d gone to the shelter to shower the day’s embarrassment away, she had persuaded the manager to let her charge her laptop while she used the facilities and then use their Wi-Fi to send an email. She’d told them it was for a job, which she supposed was true in the loosest sense. She wasn’t so comfortable divulging the truth about the wife advertisement. They’d think she was certifiable. And maybe she was, but there was nothing left to lose.
Just like there was nothing left for her here in Nowheresville, Washington State. She was currently homeless in a rundown town on the edge of Centralia where another boarded-up building popped up with each month that passed. Where unemployment was twice the national average and where crime was rising right along with it.
She had no family, no friends, no home, no job and, right now, no future. It might reek of desperation, but responding to that ad could give her all of those things. She had a little money and her car. Montana was only a few days’ drive away and if things really didn’t pan out, then she could move on easily enough. That was her plan, at least. The way she saw it, she might as well travel to somewhere that had more opportunities. It might not be Montana in the long run; that might just prove to be a stop along the way. But at least it provided some sort of direction.
Carting her laptop along with her and praying she’d managed to charge it enough to still have some battery life, Ellie headed for the cafe. Today she might just treat herself to breakfast if things were looking up. She’d missed dinner the day before, she thought, justifying the expense in her mind.
She went through her usual daily routine and set up her laptop as she waited for her cheese and bacon omelet to be served. Ellie held her breath as she delved into her emails to see if there was a response. When she found one, she hardly dared to look.
She took a bracing gulp from the coffee cup which had already been filled and stared at the listing for long seconds before she steeled herself to read the reply.
And that’s how, two hours later, she found herself driving away from Washington State and on her way to a potential new life in the wilds of Northern Montana.
She had fueled her car and checked the oil and water. She filled not one, but two-gallon bottles; one with drinking water and the other for anything else. She’d visited the grocery store and stocked up on a couple of boxes of cereal bars, a large multipack of chips, a bag of apples and a block of cheese with some crackers to put it on. She’d stop where she could, but it always payed to be prepared. She’d even taken the precaution of finding room for a gallon of gas in her trunk, even though the smell made her slightly nauseas. She didn’t want to risk running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere.
She felt surprisingly little as the town grew smaller in her rear-viewmirror. It may have been her home for the most part of fifteen years, but there was nothing left there for her now. Only the pain of everything that had been taken from her.
It was time to move on and find her new beginning. She didn’t expect a fairy tale or anything like that, although she couldn’t deny some kind of reasonably happy ending would be nice, but right now she’d settle for just a change in her luck.
And really, what at the heck had she been thinking, looking for a job in a strip club? She deserved a spanking for that little stunt.
The thought came out of nowhere and Ellie gave a full body shiver as the idea took hold and grew teeth. It was one of her deepest, darkest fantasies. Maybe it was because there hadn’t been a strong alpha male figure in her life since her father died, but Ellie longed for someone who cared enough to hold her accountable. She read books and daydreamed about what it would be like to have her clothes stripped off, or to be on the receiving end of a demand that she strip herself. She wondered what it would feel like to be pulled across a man’s knee and physically held in place; to feel the flat of his hand connect with her buttocks and the heat of that care spreading out over her skin. And then afterwards to be held tight and cherished like she was the most important person in the world. She couldn’t help wondering if the cowboys she was about to meet were the spanking kind. They always seemed to be in books and even movies.
‘Easy girl! You’d better stop thinking about them like that or you’ll never be able to look them in the eye when you meet them!’
It took her two days to drive to Libby in Lincoln County. That was as far as she could manage without some kind of help with the directions she’d been given. From here she knew she had to drive approximately halfway to a small outpost called Yaak, but then things got confusing. The email had said something about a weekly bus and somebody meeting her, but since she had her car she hadn’t considered any of that applied to her.
Stopping at the gas station, Ellie decided the people here must surely be familiar with the Carson brothers, since this was the closest town and there was only one place to get fuel.
