Believe Like a Child (14 page)
A
lessa was directed to take a seat at the bar, as Harlin went off to find Jay. When he returned with the manager, Harlin motioned for her to follow them down a long hallway to the man’s office. Once there, Jay turned to Harlin and said, “You stay out here. No need for you inside.”
Harlin was visibly annoyed. He stood fuming at Jay’s nerve in taking
his
property into the office, while telling him to stay outside, but he did not argue. When Alessa walked in, she was relieved to see another woman dressed in her kind of costume sitting in front of Jay’s desk.
The manager took his position behind the desk and said, “This is Shiver. That’s the name we use for her here, because the men say when she dances, it makes them shiver from head to toe. Shiver helps me with all the girls here. Keeps things in order and prevents the girls from trying to make money on the side doing the kind of shit I don’t allow in my bar.”
Alessa extended her hand and Shiver stood up and grasped it firmly. Pulling Alessa toward her, she wrapped her in a heartfelt hug. Responding to the warmth and friendliness of the embrace, Alessa felt herself melting into it. Shiver liked the young girl instinctively. She could tell by the response to her hug that the girl was nervous and instantly felt a stab of empathy for her.
“Okay,” Jay said briskly, “take off that robe so we can see what you got underneath there.”
Alessa complied. At the sight of her tight, young body, a smile spread across the manager’s face. He instructed her to turn around and was pleased to see that she was well toned. Jay knew she wouldn’t need any diets to keep herself in shape. And if she could dance, she would be a great addition to his lineup.
Turning on the music, he told Alessa to just relax and dance the way she wanted to. Her gaze flashed to Shiver, who gave her an encouraging look. A minute later, Alessa was moving to the music, caught up in its beat, as if there were no one else in the room. She threw in some of the moves Harlin had made her practice in his living room. She bent over and touched her toes, swaying her ass high in the air so that Jay could get an eyeful.
The manager and Shiver exchanged a look that confirmed the newcomer was a keeper. When the music stopped, Alessa appeared to emerge from a trance.
“Did I do okay?” she asked, as she caught Jay and Shiver smiling at her.
“Yeah, you did better than okay,” the manager assured her. “I want to get you out there tonight. Shiver will teach you some moves that can help make you some more money. She will help you with everything you need. If our customers like you—which I’m pretty certain they will—I will need you to work at least five nights a week. You okay with that?”
Feeling quite at ease with the two of them by now, Alessa readily agreed. She already felt very comfortable with Shiver. Neither she nor Jay had done anything or made Alessa do anything to embarrass her or make her feel cheap. After Jay had left the girls on their own in his office, Shiver turned to Alessa.
“You’re gonna like it here,” she told her. “Jay is a really cool guy. He doesn’t pull any shit with his girls. Just so you know, he won’t tolerate you having sex with or giving sex to any of his customers. He will fire you immediately, if he finds out that you did. All you need to do here is strip, dance and socialize. The clientele is pretty decent. Of course you’ll have some assholes trying to get you to do stuff, but just refuse them firmly.”
Alessa was immensely relieved to have Shiver confirm that having sex with the customers was off-limits. Her sense of betrayal on being forced by Harlin to dance for his crew made her question his advice of everything he had told her so far about the profession.
Shiver led Alessa into the dressing room, where four other girls were getting their hair and make-up done. They all looked up as the two came in.
“This is Alessa,” Shiver said, introducing her. “She doesn’t have a stage name yet, but I’m taking suggestions, once you see what she’s got. Alessa hasn’t danced in a club before. So we need to watch out for her and make sure things go smoothly.”
The other women were as welcoming as Shiver had been and Alessa started to feel things might work out. Shiver was quick to get her out on the stage. She assured her that the men would love her. The two of them practiced some moves on the pole in the dressing room. For the moment, her instructions to Alessa were to dance with the pole as though it were a lover. Most of the girls could hang on the pole and do other things that required practice.
“Over time, we’ll all teach you new moves and erotic ways to dance. For now, just go out and do what you did in Jay’s office. For a while, the men will like that you are new and trying to find your way.” Shiver walked Alessa to the curtain behind the stage. “I picked a good song for you to start out with,” she told her. “It has a great beat—not too slow and not too fast. It’s perfect for your debut.”
Shiver smiled warmly at the newcomer. She could see Alessa was becoming nervous again. Remembering how petrified she herself had been the first time she went out on stage, Shiver said, “Listen, you and I are going out there together. Once you get your rhythm, I’ll go off-stage and you can keep going, okay?”
Alessa immediately felt the tension drain out of her body. She felt much more relaxed, knowing she wouldn’t be out there alone. She heard the music start and recognized the song: Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. She was relieved it was a song she knew. Shiver moved out from behind the curtain, with Alessa following close behind. Shiver danced over to the pole and motioned for her to go to the front of the stage, close to where the men were seated. Just as Shiver had predicted, the crowd immediately perked up when they noticed the newcomer.
Alessa moved to the music like she normally would without an all-male audience staring at her. Without warning, Shiver was behind her. Wrapping an arm around Alessa’s waist, she whispered, “You want to get down on the stage and move around, honey.”
The men had been steadily laying money on the stage while Alessa was dancing. When she got down on her hands and knees and swayed to the music, the money began pouring in so fast she was shocked. The men went crazy tucking bills into the side of her thong. When the song stopped, she rose to her feet with as much grace and dignity as she could muster under the circumstances and walked off-stage. She was exhilarated by the feeling of having kept a roomful of men captivated while she danced.
As she was talking to Shiver, a tall man who clearly worked at the bar came over. Handing her a pile of money, he said, “This was for your dance.”
Shiver laughed at Alessa’s confusion. “That’s the money the men laid on the bar,” she explained. “After you finish your act, you need to delicately pick up all the money on the stage and take it with you.”
Caught up in the pleasure of her performance, Alessa had forgotten all about the money the men had kept tossing onto the stage. When the two girls got back to the dressing room, she took all the bills out of her thong and added them to the pile the bouncer had handed her. She and Shiver counted the money. Alessa had made 88 dollars. She was beside herself with delight. She couldn’t believe she made that much money in three minutes. She reached over and hugged Shiver.
“You and I should split this money,” she suggested. “You danced with me.”
“No, that’s your money,” Shiver told her. “I left the stage a minute after I led you on. That’s just my way of saying, ‘Welcome’. We’re a family here. We all help each other and there is plenty of money to go around. We have generous clients.”
Alessa hugged Shiver warmly, thankful she had met her and relieved that this place wasn’t as bad as she had initially believed it to be.
“Okay,” Shiver declared, “well, you’re done for tonight. I’m sure Jay is happy with what he saw out there. The men were obviously impressed. They sure hooted and hollered enough! It means they liked you. You go home and rest up. Be back here tomorrow night at seven, okay?”
Alessa nodded, put her robe on and headed back out to the bar where Harlin was waiting. When he saw her, he smiled and asked, “How much you make?”
Alessa told him.
“That’s real fucking good for one dance!” he declared. “You were great! You’ll need some more pointers from me. Over time, I’ll teach you what men are looking for.”
In an instant, Alessa’s mood was ruined. She didn’t want Harlin telling her what to do. She had Shiver and the other girls now. They would help her with that. Pushing back the feeling of despondency that threatened to overtake her, she decided she’d just be happy with how the evening had turned out. She couldn’t wait to tell Tasha everything when they got back to North Philly.
On the ride home, Harlin and his crew talked about Alessa and the other girls at the club. All of them seemed pleased by her performance. Once she had entered Harlin’s house, he grabbed her by the arm and said, “I’m going to need half of that money you got now.”
Alessa took the money from her small purse and handed him 44 dollars.
“At the end of your first full week,” he added, “you’re gonna need to pay me back the 200 dollars I spent on your costumes.”
She promised to do so, annoyed and hurt that all he wanted to talk about was the money. Even though she knew by now that it was all about money for Harlin, she had mistakenly believed he might have come to care for her as a human being. Alessa realized that the sooner he was paid off, the better. For the first time since she had started living there, she felt a twinge of bitterness toward Harlin. He had a way of making her feel cheap and used and she didn’t like it one bit.
A
s the weeks and evenings passed, Alessa became more comfortable about dancing at the bar. She and Shiver had grown closer and were friends now. She understood why they called her Shiver. She was a beautiful woman. Her soft, square jaw outlined her strong face and the green eyes, framed by long, thick eyelashes, were stunning. Her wide mouth, with its plump, luscious lips, always shimmered just right under the stage lights. Shiver’s nose was elegantly tapered along the bridge and had the perfect width at the nostrils. Her light brown hair gleamed with beautiful blonde highlights. Her long, lean body revealed her commitment to staying fit. Her stomach was taut with muscles and her long, shapely legs supported a high, round ass.
Although her beauty made her stand out in a room full of women, it wasn’t until Shiver moved all that God had given her to the music’s rhythm that her audience shivered. The first time Alessa watched this magnificent being dance, swaying to the beat in way that transformed eroticism into an art form, she had shivered herself. No wonder the men never got tired of Shiver. When she was off-stage, she was sweet and warm and genuinely nice, never the least bit sleazy. This enhanced her sex appeal, while heightening the aura of confidence and innocence that surrounded her, so that she exuded all these qualities when she talked to the men at the club. Shiver taught Alessa how to do her hair and make-up, insisting that she unlearn all that she had picked up from Tasha.
“Less is more,” she explained. “You have beautiful bone structure and small features. You need to enhance your natural beauty, instead of camouflaging it with all that make-up.”
Alessa would arrive at the club early so that Shiver could take her shopping for stage costumes in her sleek Mercedes Benz. Alessa was building an exceptional wardrobe for her dance performances. The clients were happy to see the transformation she underwent as the weeks passed. Many of them wanted her to pay attention to them—both on and off-stage. In her first several weeks, while on stage, Alessa was in her element when the music was playing, but she was awkward when it came to making her way around the bar and mingling with the clients. At first, Shiver stayed close to her while she socialized. As the weeks went by, however, she felt Alessa would do fine on her own.
After an exceptionally good evening at the bar, Alessa was socializing with the men, when one of them asked for a lap dance.
Startled, she replied, “No, I don’t do that.”
Harlin was within earshot and as she looked over at him, Alessa saw that his face had turned a bright, furious red. His jaw was clenched as he glared at her. No matter how far away she moved from him, Alessa could feel the intensity of his rage and disgust in his scorching gaze. She had never seen Harlin in such a fury. Her heart raced and her stomach churned, as though she were on a roller coaster.
An hour before her shift ended, Alessa went back to the dressing room to change into her jeans and tee shirt. She was so terrified by Harlin’s reaction that she hadn’t been able to focus on any of the customers. Shiver was in the dressing room, talking to one of the other dancers, when she noticed Alessa enter before her time was up.
“What’s going on?” she inquired anxiously. “You still have another hour left on your shift. Has something happened? If one of our customers has been giving you a hard time, you just need to tell me who it is and he will be out of here in a minute. Jay doesn’t tolerate his dancers being harassed.”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Alessa explained. “One of the men asked me for a lap dance. I told him I didn’t do them. Harlin overheard me and I can tell he’s really pissed. I’ve never seen him look so mad. He scared the shit out of me. I’m afraid of what he’ll do to me, once he gets me in the car.”
Shiver had been curious all along about Harlin’s relationship with Alessa. Now she had the chance to ask about it.
“What is Harlin to you anyway?” she asked “He’s always around with those creepy friends of his, watching everything you do. Is he your boyfriend?”
“No, he’s my best friend’s brother. He lets me live at his house and provides me protection.”
Shiver laughed. “Protection from what?”
Feeling stupid now, Alessa mumbled, “You know, if any of the men that come in here follow me home after my shift. Harlin makes sure I don’t have to ride the bus to and from work. He looks out for my safety in North Philly too.”
Shiver was visibly disgusted by what she had just heard. “He sounds like an asshole to me,” she quipped. “How much does this protection and living in his house cost you?”
Alessa plopped down on a chair. “I give him fifty percent of everything I earn.”
“What!” Shiver yelled. “Are you fucking serious? That motherfucker is using you, Alessa! He is earning a lot of money for doing absolutely nothing!”
Alessa agreed with her. Weeks ago, she had caught on to what was happening. She didn’t think it was fair that she should have to hand over half her earnings, but it was the deal she had made with Harlin. Shiver didn’t have an inkling of the kind of power he held. She didn’t know that Harlin could kill someone on a mere whim, without wasting much thought over it.
Shiver sensed the conversation was just making her feel more nervous than ever. Worry and fear were plastered large on Alessa’s face. She was having a hard time focusing on what Shiver was telling her.
Poor kid,
Shiver thought to herself. She herself knew a lot about being on the streets. It wasn’t like she had grown up in a perfect household and then decided to become a stripper. Shiver had begun dancing for survival. Now she danced because she enjoyed it and loved the money. It allowed her luxuries in life that she wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.
“Don’t worry, Alessa,” Shiver assured her now. “Everything will work out. I promise. For now, keep giving the bastard half your money, but things will change soon. In the meantime, tell the prick that I am going to teach you how to perform a lap dance. You get paid a lot of money for lap dances and they are easy, not as scary as you think. I will teach you everything you need to know. Okay?”
Alessa reluctantly agreed, trusting Shiver not to make her do anything she wouldn’t be comfortable with. She quickly changed and gave her a long hug.
“Thanks, Shiver,” she said gratefully, “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad I can help,” the other girl told her. “When I started out myself, someone was there to help me. We’re a family here, remember?”
Alessa smiled and headed toward the door.
“By the way,” Shiver told her, “the girls voted on your stage name. It’s Rana. It means beautiful and eye-catching. What do you think?”
“Yeah, Rana,” Alessa said musingly, feeling the sound of it on her tongue, “I like it. But everyone who works here will still call me Alessa, right?”
Shiver smiled. “Of course, if that is what you want. You’ll be Rana only when you’re dancing.”
When Alessa approached Harlin at the bar, she could tell that his fury hadn’t lessened. He got up abruptly and impatiently walked out to his car, with Alessa and his crew hurrying to catch up. Getting behind the wheel, he glared at her and unleashed his fury.
“You fucking little bitch!” he snarled. “You don’t turn down a lap dance. Do you know how much money you threw away tonight?”
Alessa was terrified of what he might do to her.
“I-I’m sorry Harlin,” she stammered, “it’s just that I’ve never done one and I don’t know how to. I was scared. Shiver promised to teach me how to do one, though. Isn’t that good?”
“Fuck Shiver!” Harlin replied through clenched teeth, “I don’t give a shit what that bitch thinks.
I
will be teaching you how to perform a real, fucking lap dance! You hear me?” His eyes were wild and his words were cutting. “This is about making fucking money, bitch!” he screamed, his face inches from hers. “I thought we had an understanding. Maybe you’re too stupid to get it!”
Alessa was totally silent as they drove back to North Philly. Her stomach burned as though she had swallowed acid. She couldn’t figure out why Harlin had suddenly become so vicious. He had started out being a decent guy. Now he treated her like she was a piece of meat. Panic bubbled up in her chest when she heard him call Tasha and warn her off.
“I don’t want you coming over tonight,” he ordered his sister. “I got some work to do with Alessa and she ain’t gonna have time to hang out.”
Alessa knew her friend was arguing about it, when Harlin said, “I ain’t fucking playing! Tasha, you heard what I said. I will see you tomorrow.” Then he snapped his phone shut.
Once they reached the house, he parked the van and ordered his gang to go home. They boys looked at him with knowing smirks, as they sauntered off. Then Harlin led Alessa up to the apartment and shut the door. Gripping her by the wrist, he said, “Go put on one of your costumes. Wear one with a thong—none of those short pants.”
Filled with dread, Alessa went off to her room and began to change. Other than the time he had made her dance for his crew, before taking her to the club for her audition, she had never seen Harlin behave in this manner. It terrified her, particularly as she was alone with him in the apartment.
When she emerged from her room, he stared at her, then yelled, “Go put your fucking heels on, bitch! Don’t you dare come out in half the fucking costume!”
Alessa went back in and obediently put on her high heels. When she returned to the living room, the lights had aleady been dimmed and there was soft, slow music playing. Her stomach began to turn at the realization that she was about to give a private show.
Harlin ordered Alessa to get up on the coffee table and start dancing. Trying to push down the nausea that was building inside her, she began to dance the way she would have without an audience watching her. Harlin sat on a sofa before her, reaching up and stroking her thighs whenever the mood seized him. After a minute or so of this, he rose abruptly to his feet, unzipped his jeans and tossed them down on the floor. Then he sat back on the sofa in his boxers.
Just as Alessa was beginning to feel relieved that he had, at least, kept his boxers on, Harlin ordered, “Now come on over here and straddle me on the couch.”
His tone of voice told her clearly that she had better not disobey his command. Spreading her legs, she went on her knees on the couch so that she was straddling him. Harlin laid his head back on the sofa and put a hand on each of her hips.
“You need to fucking move around!” he barked at her, when she remained motionlessness, wondering what he wanted next.
As Alessa started swaying back and forth, Harlin grasped her around the hips and pulled her down on him so she was positioned on top of his erect penis. “Keep moving,” he commanded. “I want you to do a slow grind.” Then reaching up, he snatched the pasties off her breasts and tossed them aside. “Now start running your fingers through my hair and let them slide slowly down over my chest,” he told her.
Alessa complied and felt his heart pounding under her fingers as they moved down his chest.
“That’s right,” he said, his voice growing languorous. “That feels good…” His hands crept to her inner thighs which he began caressing. Then without warning, his fingers slid inside her.
Alessa froze momentarily as she felt the intrusion.
“You don’t stop until I tell you it’s time to stop!” he snapped.
As Alessa continued to grind her hips, terrified of what he would do to her, if she paused, Harlin lifted his own hips slightly off the sofa, removed his boxers and flung them aside. Before she could react, he had stretched her thong taut so she was completely exposed to him and thrust himself into her. She felt as if his soul had left his body and he was no longer a human being, but a beast, as he gripped her cruelly by the hips and raised and lowered her on his penis. In between, he would maul her breasts and gasp how good it felt. Alessa felt herself receding into the remote recesses of her quiet place until Harlin came, collapsed back on the couch and pushed her roughly off him onto the sofa.
When he opened his eyes again, it seemed to her as though he had regained consciousness. He was himself again. Then he looked over at her and said, “See, there’s nothing to it.
That’s
how you give a lap dance.”
Wary though she was of the fury she might unleash, she couldn’t help reminding him, “Jay would never allow that at his bar. The girls don’t have sex with the clients. They aren’t allowed to touch us either.” She held back the stinging tears that seemed ready to burst from her eyes. “I thought you were against men stealing sex from women,” she dared to point out. “You said it had to be consensual.”