Esmeralda and I release each other, and I stare down at her for a long moment. She’s so fucking beautiful. Her eyes suck you in. One is violet the other is gold and when she’s doing magic they actually legitimately fucking glow. The moon shines off of her long dark hair — which smells fucking amazing. I trail my eyes down to her lips. During our Tradition is probably the only time that that mouth isn’t frowning or sneering or cursing at or looking disappointed or annoyed with me. Nope. She looks at me softly, and it’s absolute heaven. I don’t trust myself to trail my eyes down further to her tits and her fucking incredible body. You’d think I’d have gotten used to it by now since she doesn’t wear much around the apartment. Legs bare. Nips out. Nope. It’s fucking unbearable at times. So close, so casually touchable — fuck, I can stick my hand between her tits (Fuck yeah!) without getting in trouble — yet so fucking untouchable.

You could change that, the voice in my head pipes up.

Shut up.

I’ve dragged this out too long. Emmy reaches around with her leg and playfully swats me in the butt with her ankle. Her frown is back, and I know she’s freaking out that we’re late.

I hustle my ass into The Sexy Kitty, heels beating up the pavement, leaving Emmy in the night. I step inside, into the backstage area. Muffled music booms all around me.

“ROXY!” I flinch as the manager screams my stage-name in my face, “YOU’RE FUCKING LATE!” he grabs me by the arm and yanks me toward the stage. His grip hurts. He turns me to face him. The manager is a fat, sweaty bastard with a thin mustache. With more touching than necessary, he yanks my trench coat back down so that it hangs off my arms loosely. He casually slides a hand over my mostly bare ass, as if he’s just innocently pulling it away, the fat fuck.

Stab him with your heels! the voice in my head offers.

Shut. Up.

I do step on his foot though. He howls, enraged, but before he can retaliate, I haul ass onto the stage.

The stage is massive, jutting out in all directions, poles and cages everywhere. My fellow dancers, skinny twink-tacular boys like myself and girls with big asses and tits climb up and down, doing tricks, shaking shit for cash. The Sexy Kitty is packed. Red light flashes around us and “Hold Me” by Delta Heavy is blasting over the speakers. Patrons are dressed like they’re in fucking Vegas. Gowns, suits, jewelry (that I kind of want to steal just for the hell of it…) Only the finest of the worst are here tonight.

Each stripper has its own little fan club gathered around it. Some people are here for Ginger’s long red hair (it’s a wig) and the opportunity to tuck a few bucks in between her colossal fake melons. Some people are here for Peaches’ ex-ballerina ass and legs. (If he hadn’t gotten a little too into his role during the Nutcracker last year and hadn’t tried to set the Rat King on fire during a performance, he probably wouldn’t be here.) The list goes on and on. There’s a dancer here for every person’s sick fantasy. I cat-walk to my empty pole. Since I’m late, nobody is gathered around it. Yet. I could steal some attention with a super flashy entrance, front walkovers and flips — be the fucking male Catwoman. But, Emmy isn’t here yet to bring me my target. I’ll save the big guns for later. I’m good enough at pole dancing to get even some of the straight guys interested in me.

The song finishes and something slower, more sexy, comes on, “You?” by Two Feet. Slowly, I let the trench coat slide off. The patrons have begun to notice me now. The red lights dance around my platform. They spell “ROXY” in red neon. The beat drops, and I am upside down, legs wrapped around the pole, boots taking hold, standing on my hands. I do sexy things with my legs, patrons beginning to gather around me. More and more spill through the door as they will continue to do as the night goes on. I’m upside down, legs in a full split. I hook my legs around the pole and launch myself upwards to spin in slow circles around and around it. I switch, grabbing the pole with my arms and allowing my legs to spin out over the audience, falling down slightly toward them before catching myself. Money covers my platform. I look down at their faces, the fantasies obvious in their eyes. I smirk, red lips curling. This gives me a feeling of power. The family that was never there for me… The family that chose evil fucking Janice over me… All the people who said I was nothing but a messy weakling and a liar… All of that fades away as I swirl around on the pole and let my body hang down, held up only by my ankles, and I come face to face with Esmeralda.

I didn’t see her come in. We make eye contact, and I lower my self slowly on the pole, still hanging upside down from my ankles. She smiles up at me, acting as though she were nothing more than an enchanted patron and cheekily sticks a green bill between her lips, tilting her head up to me.

Shit. I thought I was supposed to be the seductive one?

I lower myself even further and open my mouth to take the bill. Our lips are separated by nothing but a thin sheet of paper. She releases it, and I yank myself back up again to spin around my pole. I look down my nose at the bill.

Green suit big muscles black hair gold earring Without any punctuation, Emmy has scrawled a list of attributes for my target onto the bill. Smooth, Em.

I look around the room for him. There! He’s staring down some other twink. It’s Bay-Bay. Aw. Bay-Bay is cute, but he has no game and no upper body strength.

I hold myself suspended outwards from the pole with one arm, slowly playing with my legs in the air. The crowd around me cheers and throws money, and it’s loud enough to draw some attention. The Target looks over, the look was probably meant to be brief, but it turns into a full-on stare. Because, I’m looking at him. Dead in the eyes. And I’m smiling. And everything about me promises more. With a subtle incline of my head, I call him over. He gulps, but then quickly tries to cover his shock with confident posturing as he smirks and makes his way over.

For the rest of the night, I make out as though I’m dancing for him, playing with his tie, holding eye contact. I get down on the floor, crawling toward him. An army of hands from my admirers reach out to try and grab at me, but I ignore them.

I get really, really close to him, and breathe softly, “This is my break. Come meet me out back for some fun…” The Target is smirking so much, so much arrogance in his eyes…

As I saunter out for my break, I catch sight of Em, sitting at the bar, drinking something that looks like alcohol but I know is most definitely sparkling water.

I step out the back door, lucky that the manager is too busy drooling over Ginger to notice me step out.

I’m lucky that this guy is young. (30 is young compared to some of our previous jobs.) And admittedly, kind of hot. Those muscles are pretty nice.

Not even two minutes have gone by when the guy appears. I take a few steps towards him, but before I can even say a word, he has swept me up off of my feet, pinning me up against the wall and kissing me. I wrap my legs around him. He’s feeling me up everywhere, excitedly, and even though he’s not unattractive, it feels greasy and disgusting. I have to endure this.

I have to get him to get his dick out.