Stripped (9 page)

Dance
.
 

Yeah, I’ve started thinking of it that way. I’ve been there three months, and I’m the most popular dancer by far. All the VIP rooms request me. I do five stage sets a night, and I always pull in at least a hundred dollars per set. I charge twenty per table dance, five for lap dances, and VIP rooms start at one-fifty.
 

I still get sick before each performance, and I still cry myself to sleep some nights. I hate being a stripper. An “exotic dancer.” It’s not dancing; it’s lewd provocation. It’s performing to make men lust after me. I’ve been groped more times than I care to count, and propositioned even more. I’ve been offered a thousand dollars to “entertain” a celebrity in private for one hour. I turned him down.
 

Now I’m going in for my first real assignment with the Fourth Dimension internship. I’ve been learning the ropes so far, filing papers, working in the office, taking dictation, following the real producers around. I worked my ass off to get the internship, and I worked even harder for Fourth Dimension as an office assistant, hoping to get noticed and given work on an actual project. Apparently it worked.
 

John Kazantzidis is an important producer, known for having a good eye for strong, compelling scripts. He’s worked on some of the best-selling films of the last ten years, including the recent blockbuster film adaptation of
The Sun Also Rises
. He’s always been polite to me, and he seems to take me seriously as a production student. He’s a partner in the studio, so working with him directly is a huge deal. My classmates are crazy with jealousy.
 

I wait outside his office until Leslie, his secretary, answers the intercom and sends me through. Mr. Kazantzidis, or Kaz, as he likes to be called, is tall and broad with thick black hair and dark brown eyes. He exudes authority and power and wealth, although he’s not ostentatious. For an older man, he’s very attractive and charming.
 

He waves at the deep leather chair in front of his desk, a phone pressed to his ear. He listens for a few moments, then interrupts in Greek before hanging up. “My apologies, Grey. That was my mother.” He grins at me, showing white teeth.

“No problem, sir. I think it’s nice that you talk to your mother.”

He nods. “Mothers are important. Do you see your family at all?”

I shrug. I’ve tried to avoid talking about myself or my family. “Not really. My mother passed away, and my father and I…well, we don’t really get along, unfortunately.”

Kaz frowns. “I’m sorry to hear of your mother. How did she pass?”

“A brain tumor.” I pull my new, company-issued iPad out of my purse and open Pages, ready to take notes. “What’s my assignment, sir?”

Kaz leans back and fiddles with a pen. “You can put that away.” He waves at the iPad. “It’s very simple. You’ll be working as the direct liaison between Fourth Dimension and the lead actor on our newest film. We’re partners in the remake of
Gone With the Wind
, and I know I don’t have to tell you how important this project is. The original is an iconic part of American culture.”

“Yes, sir.” I slip the tablet back in my purse and cross my leg over my knee, listening carefully

“I’ve emailed you all the pertinent files on the film, including the bio on your assignment. Before you come in tomorrow, study all aspects of the project. Filming begins next month, so there won’t be much to do until then, but your assignment begins as of now.” Kaz leans forward and sets the pen aside. “Grey, you’ve proven yourself thus far. I like you. If you do well on this assignment, I’ll bring you on board full-time when you graduate. Until then, you’ll receive base-level salary.”

I try not to squeal. This has been an unpaid internship so far. If I get paid, I can quit stripping.

“Thank you, sir! I won’t let you down, I promise.” I can’t help grinning.

“I know you won’t, Grey.” He leans back and slides his phone from his blazer pocket, tapping a message. “I believe Leslie has some paperwork for you to file, and then you may go.”

The paperwork for the assignment only takes a few minutes, which is good, since I have to get back to my dorm, finish a paper for my lit class, and then change for work tonight. This internship is a godsend, but it’s kept me busier than ever. I work four nights a week on top of five classes every semester and thirty hours per week at the internship. I barely eat, barely sleep, and haven’t had time to dance for my own enjoyment in weeks.
 

It’ll be worth it all if I can get hired full-time by the studio.
 

I get back to my dorm and finish the paper as quickly as possible. I start going over the files Kaz emailed me. Fourth Dimension is the primary production studio for the project, along with Orbit Sky Films and Long Acre Productions. Jeremy Allan Erskine is directing, and I spend the rest of my study time going over Kaz’s notes on Mr. Erskine’s body of work and his overall ideas for the project. He’s best known for
Red Sky
, a post-apocalypse drama that won six Oscars, including Best Picture. He worked with Fourth Dimension and my boss Kaz on
The Sun Also Rises
, so a film adaptation isn’t new to him. The intent with this remake—according to Mr. Erskine’s notes in my file—is to stay true to the novel and pay homage to the 1939 film, while rejuvenating it with a more modern aesthetic.

Kaz isn’t just treating me as an assistant because I know it’s not normal for a lowly intern-assistant to a lead actor to have this kind of project file. He genuinely understands my passion for film and hopefully is grooming me to work with him on future projects. Still, he has to answer to the spirit of the internship, which means a low-level assistant assignment to complete the grade.

I don’t have time to get to the cast list before I have to leave. I peel out of my skirt and blouse, put on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, and head out to catch the bus to the club. Once there, I change into my costume, the booty shorts and flannel shirt. I cake on the makeup, tease out my hair into glossy honey-colored waves, and then check myself in the mirror.

 
As always, I barely recognize myself. My hair is huge, hanging down past the middle of my back and brushed out for maximum volume. Makeup turns my gray eyes stormy and, if I’m admitting it, hypnotic. Bright red lipstick, rouge, thick foundation, mascara…

I’d have expected to lose weight, seeing how infrequently I eat and how much I’m running around, but I’m still me. I’m still thick through the hips and bust. I see my body differently now. I’m not just a woman with clothes on. I see the body beneath the clothes, which I never looked at before. Not really. I’m not just a person, just like anyone else. I’m an object, a thing to be desired. I’m aware of my breasts and backside and of the fact that men enjoy those parts of me.
 

I sigh as I loosen the knot in the shirt a bit, adjust my breasts and retie the knot so my cleavage is more accentuated. I brush some foundation over my hip where I bumped into the desk in my dorm room. Guys don’t want to see bruises.
 

I’m delaying. I always delay. I never want to go out there. I thought I would get used to it, but I never have. My heart still hammers and I still feel ashamed, still feel nauseated. When the moment comes that I have to peel my shirt off and bare my breasts, I always want to crawl into a hole and pull dirt over me. I hate the lewd gazes and the pawing hands and the whistles and the suggestions.
 

I’m about to reach out to open the dressing room door when Timothy barges in. “Grey. Glad you’re here early.” Excitement gleams in his eyes, which worries me. “Tonight’s your lucky night, Grey. Some bigwig actor rented out the whole club! And guess what? He wants a private dance in the VIP room with just you and him. I told him you don’t do nothing extra, so you don’t have to worry about that. But this is big, Grey. Big, big money.”

I nod and try to calm my nerves. It’s just another night. I’ve done celebrity VIP rooms before. We’re a tiny little club
way
off the beaten path, and most of our clientele are lower-middle-class working men, and sometimes a few Hollywood types out to “slum it up.” But every once in a while, an actor or sports star will show up, hoping to get a night out away from the paparazzi. One thing Timothy is adamant about is no photographers and no journalists, ever.
 

I touch up my makeup a bit, recheck the knot in my shirt, and make sure my cleavage looks right, and then I go out there. Lydia is on the stage at the moment, dancing to a Ludacris song. She is a short, big-breasted Iraqi girl working her way through nursing school. Lydia’s sweet and a good dancer, and like me she refuses to do private parties outside the club, and never does extras of any kind. I walk the club floor, assessing the guys. They’re all Hollywood, sleek and attractive and polished and oozing faux-charm. Most are already drunk, and I do half a dozen lap dances before I’ve even gotten from one side of the club to the other. I haven’t seen the actor who rented the place out yet, but he’s in a VIP room. This is just the hangers-on, the sycophants and the assistants. I do a few tables, then do my turn on stage. Part of my draw is that the only time I’m actually topless is during dances. I do the tables and work the floor in costume. Guys are into it, I guess. They like the mystery. Of course, the flannel shirt is opened far enough that I’m basically topless, so it makes the guys nuts.

I do my basic routine, spinning and twisting around the pole, teasing by unbuttoning the shirt but not letting them see anything, then re-buttoning and popping the buttons. The topless part I’ve nearly gotten desensitized to. Nearly. Meaning, I don’t actually start to cry until I have to take off the shorts and they’re next. Since they’re tight, it’s actually quite a feat to get them off gracefully.
 

Then I’m dancing in nothing but a skimpy thong. I’m close to tears the whole time. They can see my bottom, all of it. The thong is little more than a minuscule triangle over my privates, and barely covers that much. When I dance and move around the stage, they can see everything.
 

I finish my stage set and retreat to the backstage area to re-gather my nerves. The guys in the club are hammered, and they’re tipping like crazy. I pull a hundred and fifty from the first set on stage, and I had another eighty from the lap and table dances. And I haven’t even been to the VIP rooms yet. But the stage number…oh, god. The catcalls and the suggestions were worse than they’ve ever been. The reaching hands, which is technically against the club rules, but really up to the individual dancers to discourage…they grab me and touch me and try to peel the thong off. They ask me to go home with them. They shout in crude detail what they’d do to me. I blush when they shout those things. I can’t help it. I don’t think they can see the blush underneath my makeup, but it’s there. I blush and I cringe and I swat away the hands playfully but firmly, and I avoid their eyes.
 

When I’m backstage and Inez is up for her set, I feel my stomach revolting. I hurry into the dressing room and barely make it to the little toilet, where I heave my stomach empty. Tears mingle freely with the sweat on my face. When I’m done heaving, I slump to the cold floor and rest my face against the cool porcelain, and I let myself sob for a moment. I let myself wish I was back home in Macon. I can’t help but picture Mama’s face if she could see what I’m doing to survive.
   

A fist pounds on the door, and then it opens. “Grey, goddammit, you don’t have time for this!” Timothy is pulling me away from the toilet and dabbing at my mouth with a paper towel. “They want you in the VIP room. Right now. Room three. Brush your teeth and then go!” He doesn’t cop a feel this time, just shoves me toward the sink and then once I’m done, out of the dressing room and through the doorway leading to the VIP rooms.

I catch my balance and my breath, and then shoo Timothy away.
 

My heart is pounding and my skin is crawling, tingling. I stand outside room three with my hand on the knob, but I hesitate. Something inside me is rebelling, telling me to run, to go back, to leave. But I can’t. I’ll lose the job, and I’m not guaranteed the full-time spot at Fourth Dimension, not yet.
 

I twist the knob and push the door open. A scarlet leather couch runs in a semicircle around the room, which is lit by a pair of lamps with shades to match the couch. The walls are matte black, and side tables endcap the couch. A bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label sits on one end table, surrounded by bottles of Coors and Bud Light, some empty, some full. The room is hazy with cigarette smoke, and beneath that is the acrid scent of marijuana. One of the end tables has a pile of white powder on it, with some divided into thick lines.
 

There are four men in the room. Three of them are stunningly gorgeous. The fourth?

He’s a god of the big screen.
 

The three men are off to one side, near the pile of cocaine. I recognize them all. One is Armand Larochelle, who won Best Actor for his role in
Name of Heaven
. Armand is tall and slim, with shoulder-length blond hair and sculpted features. The second is Adam Trenton, a character actor and supporting actor in action movies. He recently did a role in a sci-fi action adventure that landed him his first leading role. The third is Nate Breckner, mostly known as a romantic comedy lead, but he’s been doing roles to get him out of that typecasting.
 

The fourth man is Dawson Kellor. My heart stops, my breath catches. I’ve seen pictures of him, I’ve seen him in his latest films. But none of that does him justice. Not even close. Onscreen he’s breathtaking. Sharp features, penetrating hazel eyes, dark hair somewhere between brown and black. Tall and ridiculously ripped, with sculpted arms and a broad, hard chest. He’s Brad Pitt and Henry Cavill and Josh Duhamel and so much more. That’s just how he seems on screen.
   

In person…he’s beyond perfection. I can’t look away from him, but his beauty burns me, like staring into the sun.