AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Natalia
Inever really thought I’d look good as a brunette.
The cheaply dyed sheen of it in the mirror does nothing to convince me. It’s no artfully layered and balayage salon job, that’s for sure. I manage well enough with my own two hands and a box from the store that it doesn’t lookentirelyflat and fake. Still, it’s a far cry from my days as a natural version of what I hear they’re callingexpensive blondethese days.
Of course, dyed hair–even the cheaply done kind–isn’t strange in this place. Which is part of why I’m here. It’s easier to blend in.
Even if a few months ago, I’d never have been caught dead in a place like this.
“Athena! I didn’t know you were dancing tonight!”
Ruby's sharp, crowing voice–not her real name–reaches me from all the way on the other side of the room as she bursts in, dressed in shorts so short that they’d almost count as stage lingerie and a crop top that barely covers her breasts. She’s curvier than I am, and the clothes cling to her like a secondskin, accentuating every swell and curve of her bust and hip. Combined with a narrow waist, huge blue eyes, and dyed red hair, she drives all the men who come to the club absolutely wild.
We all have our strengths. Mine is being an actual,traineddancer, once upon a time. In a place that prioritizes lewd gyrating over real skill, I bring something to the table that the customers here rarely see.
They’re not exactly the types to hold season tickets to the Moscow ballet.
“I picked up a shift.” I lean forward, brushing eyeshadow over one closed lid. My look is always the same, and I don’t deviate from it. The most important part is that it looks nothing like what I used to do with my makeup. Before, I was a devotee of a bare lid, a clean face, a sharp wing, and a red lip. Now, I’ve learned the art of a smoky eye, thick liner, and faux lashes to make my blue eyes look wider than normal and how to apply contour and blush to accentuate my sharp cheekbones and delicate features.
The red lip, though, stayed. I’ve learned that men–the type of men who frequent this club especially–like brightly colored lipstick on the dancers. It encourages them to spend more, to take us back to the inaptly named champagne room, where they can more intimately imagine us leaving traces of that same lipstick on their cocks.
It’s not something I’d ever entertain the idea of, but plenty of the girls do, and I can’t fault them for it. Tips aren’t the best in a place like this, and a girl’s got to get by.
“You need to take a day off.” Ruby plops into the chair next to mine, unzipping her clear makeup pouch as she pulls it out ofthe huge tote bag that she always carries with her. There are more things in there than I’d ever dared guess at–I’ve seen her pull all sorts of items out over the span of time I’ve worked here. Lingerie, tampons, makeup, a curling iron, a dildo, a lunchbox full of snacks, water bottles of vodka–I’m pretty sure it’s less a purse and more a bag of wish fulfillment, as if Ruby is some kind of particularly benevolent genie. “I don’t think there’s been a night that you haven’t been here inweeks.”
I shrug, peering in the mirror as I carefully apply lash glue just above my actual lashes. I hate wearing falsies–they feel thick and heavy and as if I have a creature glued to my eyes–but they’re a must. I made it precisely one shift at the club before Ruby whipped out a spare set and showed me how to apply them, lecturing me thoroughly on why I couldnevergo out on stage without them ever again.
She’s been the closest thing I have to a friend ever since.
“Gotta pay rent,” I say casually, tapping my nail against the lash as I let it dry. “It’s criminal, what they’re charging for that shithole I’m living in.”
“That’s why you need to take me up on my offer and move in to my place.” Ruby glares at me playfully. “I have a spare bedroom and everything. We could split the rent and have girls’ night every night. It’s not the Ritz, but it’s a hell of a lot better than where you’re at now, from the sound of it.”’
“And you know I’m never going to take you up on it, as much as I appreciate the offer.” I grin at her as I glue on my other lash, trying to soften my words. “I like my quiet time.”
I can’t tell her the truth, of course, which is that I lay awake some nights wishing that Icouldtake her up on her offer. As much asI really had enjoyed my personal space and quiet in my old life, I crave company now, to not be alone with my thoughts, especially in the dark. I’d give anything not to live alone.
But I can’t. It would put her in too much danger, and Ruby doesn’t deserve that. She’s been nothing but a good friend to me, even if she is loud and abrasive at times.
Ruby rolls her eyes playfully. “Well, you can at least come over after our shifts next Saturday. I’m throwing a party.”
“Afterwe get off work?” On Saturday nights, closing the club means staying until two in the morning, even later sometimes if there are enough paying customers still spending. The thought of partying after a long night of dancing at that hour makes me feel exhausted beforethisnight has even begun–which makes me feel much, much older than my twenty-five years.
Ruby wrinkles her nose at me. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” she declares, getting up and shimmying out of her shorts as she starts to change into her lingerie for the night.
It’s just a turn of phrase, but a shiver runs down my spine anyway, an echo of the one I felt earlier tonight as I walked to the club. The neighborhoods that I live and work in aren’t really ones that a young woman wants to be on foot in, but I hadn’t been lying when I said that I picked up a shift because money is tight. Getting a cab is a luxury I can’t afford.
I nearly did tonight, though. The letter I found shoved under my door this morning when I padded out to my tiny, cramped kitchen to brew coffee is buried deep in my garbage can now, under potato peels and coffee grounds, but it doesn’t matter. I can still see the words stuck to it, cut out and glued to the standard-issue sheet of printer paper.
It should have been laughable. It was something straight out of an early 2000s serial killer movie. Hardly original–the nondescript paper, the mismatched words from magazines and newspapers, as if the person who wrote it and left it had done so after reading a copy ofTerrifying Young Women for Dummies. I should have crumpled it up and thrown it away without a thought instead of standing frozen, staring down at it for long, ticking seconds with my blood turning to ice in my veins before I finally shoved it down into my trash can and dumped the old contents of my coffee filter over it.
But it wasn’t funny. Not just because of my present situation, but because I’ve known the kind of men who do these things. I grew up around them.
I can’t help feeling that whoever left itwantedme to think they were stupid. That they’re just some obsessed customer from the club who’s watched too many Netflix documentaries and thought it would be funny to scare a stripper into thinking she was being targeted.
They want me to let down my guard and assume it’s just some idiot. To not take it seriously.
The alternative, of course,isto take it seriously. Which is bad in its own way.
