Pink Butterfly (17 page)

Alicia stood her ground and refused to hand over anything to her mother. Mary stood her ground and the two faced each other for what seemed an eternity. “I’m not twelve any longer mother,” Alicia stated.

“Then get your shit and get out tonight!” Mary barked back. “You better hope you land that job because you aren’t coming back here you mouthy little bitch!”

“Fine,” Alicia stated. “Don’t think you’re going to stand there and watch me pack my stuff, get out.”

Mary looked at her watch and back at Alicia, “You’re father will be home in a half hour, we’ll see what he has to say about this.”

“I told you I was leaving, leave dad out of this.”

“He’ll give you an ass whooping, a whooping you deserve.”

“I’m eighteen, nobody’s giving me an ass whooping.”

“You have a lot to learn young lady. There will be many men in your life that will give you an ass whooping. One day I’ll get a call from the police and they’ll tell me they found your dead body next to a dumpster after some customer decided to rape you. Maybe a good beating by your father will keep you away from that kind of life.”

“I didn’t go into this lightly mother, I put a lot of thought into it. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you do. Squatting in a mirror is not real life. It’s not a job skill. It’s demeaning and degrading. If you’re looking for attention, wait until you get to college and meet a nice boy.”

“I’m not stripping to find dates mother, I’m stripping for the cash.”

“I am so disappointed in you,” Mary said with a tear in her eye. “My only daughter wants to be a whore, where did I go wrong?”

“I’m not a whore! I’m not fucking these guys!”

“Not yet, but wait, once you start stripping, what’s next? And the drugs, and the booze?” Mary asked crying. “Please can you at least wait until you start college?”

“What’s the difference if I start tomorrow or in three months?”

“It will give you time to think about your choices. I think you’re rushing into something that looks glamorous on the outside, but rotten on the inside. Just because your friend Jenny does it, doesn’t make it right. Please, I beg you.”

“I have to do this for myself,” Alicia stated firmly. “If it’s a mistake, I’ll quit. Hell, I don’t even have the job yet.”

“You’ll get the job. You’re a beautiful young woman and they would be insane not to give you the job.” Then an idea crossed Mary’s mind. What if her daughter wasn’t so beautiful after all? What if she was so ugly she would never pass the audition? Horrible thoughts crossed her mind. Thoughts of tossing acid on her face, thoughts of cutting her with a knife so no man would find her attractive. In distress, Mary turned and walked out of Alicia’s room and back into the living room sobbing.

The next day at two in the afternoon, Jenny walks into the Pink Butterfly looking for Alicia, all she sees is Jeff Delgado, formerly Melvin Skankmeyer sitting behind the bar poking at his cell phone. Jeff has been promoted to assistant manager of the Pink Butterfly after being granted asylum by the country of Labiastan. Now that he is an unofficial citizen of that country, he is basically trapped on their land. Things have changed at the Pink Butterfly, and now the club has been taking on help due to some of the strippers going back home and not being replaced by the government. Labiastan is a poor country, and they can’t afford to keep the embassy going like they should.

“Have you seen Alicia?” Jenny asked trying to pry Jeff from his phone.

“You’re the first person through that door since I unlocked it twenty minutes ago.” Jeff replied still staring at his screen.

“I’ve never seen this place in the daylight before.”

“Seems odd I know,” Jeff replied. “Usually the only one’s here at this time is the house cleaners or the bar manager working the delivery truck. What are you doing here? Do you know this new girl I’m auditioning?”

“Yes, from school, I’m the one who told her about the opening.”

Jeff looked up at Jenny and smiled. “Thanks, we need some more girls, I think our customers are getting a little tired of the three we have.”

“Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that,” Jenny said concerned. “We are short staffed, yet you only schedule me three dances a night, I don’t understand what’s going on. If I don’t get pole time, I don’t make any money. Did I do something wrong?”

“I was hoping we could avoid this conversation actually, but your coworkers don’t seem to care for you much,” Jeff explained.

“I know that,” Jenny said pissed, “What does that have to do with my dance time?”

Jeff took a deep breath and tried to think of the best way to explain the situation to Jenny. “As the assistant manager, I have to deal with all sorts of personality issues that come up. Frankly, you women are a bunch of bitches and act like children. I get crap from one of you then from the other and the other you all expect me to take your side and give you what you want. Problem is, you were the last one to talk to me so I already gave them what they wanted.”

“What are they trying to do? Get me fired?”

“I think the plan is to get you to quit on your own,” Jeff replied.

“Those two fat whores don’t pull in as many customers as I do! Nobody comes to see them! They are jealous! Neither one of them can climb the pole, they slide back down on their greasy thighs!” Jenny yelled.

“You don’t think I already know that?” Jeff asked.

“If you knew that, why did you let them have their way?”

Jeff leaned back on his bar stool and looked away almost ashamed of himself. He looked back at Jenny and under his breath said, “They put in a little extra effort if you know what I mean.”

“What? You fucked those two fat ugly bitches so they could get their way?” Jenny asked almost shouting.

“No, I didn’t fuck either one of them,” Jeff said calmly trying to lower the tension.

“Then what did they do?”

“That doesn’t matter, they were willing to sweeten the pot and they got a little extra time on the pole.”

“A little? They practically live up on the stage. I get stuck working the crowd for tips like a cheap hooker.”

“Nothing says you can’t sweeten the pot as well,” Jeff said waiting to be yelled at.

“I should have known. All this time I thought I pissed off some jerk who wanted to cop a free feel who complained to you, and all it was, was a whore and an asshole boss. I’m telling Alicia to get the hell away from this place before she gets burned.”

“Now don’t do anything rash Jenny,” Jeff said now in a pickle. “If this Alicia girl works out, I might give you a few extra dances on the stage.”

“Might? I want equal time, I want the exact same amount of songs as every girl here gets. Otherwise I call her up and tell her the audition is off!”

Jeff took a deep breath and stared Jenny in the eye. It was a game and they both had escalated the confrontation to the point that neither one of them wanted to back down. “Come in my office, we can talk about it there.”

“There’s nobody here but Minnie and her vacuum cleaner, and she’s so old and deaf she couldn’t hear us if she tried. We can talk right here.”

“My schedule is in my office.”

“Go get it,” Jenny snapped back upping the tension. “I can wait.”

“No, we’ll talk about this in my office or I’ll scratch you off the schedule completely. Don’t think you’re not disposable. If I put a little effort into it, I could find ten girls by Friday.”

“Oh really? And how would you do that mister assistant manager?”

“I thought about this already, I’d park the Pink Butterfly van across the campus at the student union at the college and put up a help wanted sign. I’d probably have twenty applications filled out in an hour.”

Knowing Jeff was probably right, Jenny backed down a bit and her face showed it.

“Now, we can go into my office and I can get you a few more dances, or we can continue this pissing match until I fire you.”

“Alicia expects me to be here for her audition, if I’m not here, she won’t stay.”

Jeff snorted a little laugh and tapped his fingers on the bar. “Still think you’re going to win don’t you?” Jeff got up off his barstool and started walking back towards his office. “If you want your job, you better follow me, otherwise it’s been nice knowing you.”

Jenny, livid and ready to burst stomped her foot, grit her teeth and followed Jeff around the bar back to his office.

“Close the door,” Jeff stated to Jenny and proceeded to look around his disaster of an office like he was looking for something.

Jenny closed the door and turned back to meet a glass mug slamming against her head. She fell to the floor hitting her head against the wall and laid on the cold tile floor in a daze. In a second she felt the weight of Jeff kneeling on her chest and she struggled to breath. She reached out blindly and began to scratch and paw at anything she could feel. Jeff felt the sting of nails on his face and neck and fumbled to grab her hands and stop her from tearing him apart. He grabbed on hand, then the other and held them while searching his desk for anything he could bind her wrist.

With nothing useful in sight, Jeff was stuck and had to make a quick decision so he punched Jenny in the face repeatedly until she stopped fighting back. He let her hands drop and took his weight off her body to see if she would breathe. She did and he continued to search for something to bind the girl’s hands and feet. It was then he noticed the blood dripping off his chin onto the floor and knew Jenny had torn him up pretty good. He wiped the blood from his chin with his shirt and thought about Minnie with her vacuum in the main room. How would he explain the blood if he ran into her? Maybe Minnie had some rope or twine? Jeff’s mind raced as he tried to think of what to do before Jenny regained conscience.

Then he heard a knocking sound at the bar. He peeked through the crack in the door and saw Alicia standing at the bar looking for someone to help her. “Fuck,” Jeff said under his breath. He knew he had to leave the office to talk to her, or Alicia would go find Minnie with her vacuum and together they would come to his office. “Hold on!” Jeff yelled. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

In a panic, Jeff looked around his office and found nothing. It was then he remembered he was wearing a belt and quickly removed it. It took a minute or so to wrap Jenny’s wrists with the belt but then realized that if she woke, she would scream. Now what? He thought dripping sweat from his forehead mixed with blood. He knew he was fucked. Then he had an idea. He stepped back over to the crack in the door and asked as calmly as he could muster, “Do you mind if we reschedule the audition? Something came up and don’t have time today.”

Alicia heard the voice from the other side of the door and wondered why he didn’t open it and ask her in person. His behavior was quite odd, but he was the boss and she was in no position to make him angry. “Sure, that’s no problem, when should I come back?” she asked.

“How about Thursday, same time?” Jeff asked keeping an eye on Jenny lying on the floor.

“I have to meet with my admissions counselor at school and take a tour most of Thursday, I won’t be done until after three,” Alicia replied.

“How about Friday?” Jeff asked.

“Friday is orientation day, another tour and I set up my internship.”

“Can you give me a few minutes then?” Jeff asked. “Maybe I can still fit you in.”

“Sure,” Alicia replied.

“Go over to the stage and get ready, I’ll be out as soon as I can,” Jeff said shaking his head, dripping in blood and sweat with an unconscious girl lying bound on his office floor.

Alicia left the bar and walked down towards the stage carrying a bag with her shoes and stripper clothes. She didn’t know where to change so she got Minnie’s attention and asked where the dressing rooms were. Minnie, a very nice older lady pointed to the dressing rooms and continued to vacuum under the tables.

Once inside the dressing room, Alicia looked around to get a feel for what a stripper’s life was like. She saw lockers, a bathroom, a long well lit makeup table with a huge mirror and pictures of the girls taped up on the walls. By the door was a handwritten note stating, “Clean up after yourself, I’m not your mommy” signed Minnie.

Half excited, half scared to death, Alicia removed her clothes and put on her stripper outfit. A neon green and black panty and bra set with matching heels. She stood up and practiced her walk with the shoes and posed before the mirror looking for anything that might keep her from landing the job. She did a tug on her bra to lift her tits higher and made sure her lipstick was still fresh.

“Don’t worry honey,” Minnie said from the doorway scaring Alicia to death. “I’ve been working here a long time, and the only girls they don’t hire are fat, ugly or look like they’ve been on meth a little too long. You look fine.”

Alicia looked back and Minnie and smiled. “Can I use you as a reference?” she joked back to the cleaning lady.

“Sure, you know back in my day, I used to work the pole pretty good myself.”

“You were a stripper?” Alicia asked.

“Stripping didn’t start yesterday honey,” Minnie laughed. “We didn’t go fully nude back then, but my tits were like gold. I was house mom for years and kept all the other girls in check.”

“You laid down the rules?” Alicia joked.

“I kept a clean house I tell you. None of that drugged up shit, none of that under the table hand job shit either. Nowadays I have to wipe the cum shots off the bottom of the tables from the girls whacking these guys off in the corner for a few extra bucks. No better than a whore house these days. Might as well rent out rooms.”

“I thought the men weren’t allowed to touch?”

“That’s the rule, but nobody pays attention to it anymore. If you don’t get at least three fingers up your pussy a night, you’re not doing it right.”

“That’s gross!” Alicia stated with a furled brow.

“It’s not too late to apply at the grocery store, they don’t finger your pussy there. And you don’t make six hundred a week either.”

Now realizing that this stripping job wasn’t what she thought it would be, Alicia stood dumbfounded wondering if she should go through with this audition or not. “What’s the assistant manager like?” Alicia asked.