Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) (7 page)

I’ll be in the club tonight. Speak to me only if you wish.

John

I let myself laugh at the ruler. I hugged the note to my chest. No one was there to see, and I only let myself do it for a minute. John wasn’t giving up on me. After our crazy talk last night, and my suspicions about his motives, I was irritated with myself to find that I was very relieved to hear from him.
He was still out there. He still wanted me to think about him.
He might be crazy, but he was thinking about me ... and I couldn’t lie to myself, my heart felt full and happy at the thought. I was not alone today. I didn’t know how long it would (or should) last, but at least this morning, in the privacy of my beat-up apartment, I could let myself beam a little.

I packed my ruler in my bag with my glasses tucked safely in their case. I practically skipped out to the Fiesta, heading for the urine-soaked parking lot with a big smile on my face.

Alex let me work another double. Some of the other girls might raise their eyebrows about that, but I was the one who showed up here two days in a row, dancing during the day while guys wiped ketchup off their mustaches, and begged to stay. I ordered a burger for dinner, hoping that I could eat it quickly and then run and brush my teeth before John showed up. But dinner came and went, and there was no sign of him.

I was applying my chunky brown eyeliner a little halfheartedly. The excitement that had been so fresh this morning had started to fade, and the memory of the package and the note had lost their urgency. He wasn’t here. I wasn’t the most important thing he had to do today. I was starting to lose hope when Alex showed up at my station.

“Hey gorgeous,” he said, and gave me a full-wattage smile. “Your little friend is back, and he’s looking for you.”

My heart dropped to my knees, in sort of a good way. “He’s hardly
little
,” I said, unable to remove a trace of pride from my voice.
He was here! He came back!

“Oh honey,” Alex said, looking at me with a worried expression. The tone of his voice was scolding, motherly almost, and it wiped the smile off my face. “Don’t take it to heart. You’re a beautiful girl, but remember where you are. Remember, he’s a customer. And he’s here with Cruz, so I need you to be your best, most professional self.”

Cruz was here. I’d never seen him before. Maybe that’s what John had been busy doing, catching up with his old friend. That made me feel a little bit better and I nodded at Alex. I straightened my shoulders and took a deep breath, preparing myself to see John again, come what may. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Go give ‘em a show,” said Alex, as he very kindly patted me on the shoulder instead of the behind. “We got, like, five bachelor parties, too. Go make some money!” He shooed me towards the stage.

I was as ready as I’d ever be. I went to my locker, took my glasses out of their case and slid them onto my nose. I smacked my bubble-gum scented lips together, pushed up my boobs and fluffed my hair. And I grabbed the ruler, just in case.

The nerves I normally experienced before I went out on stage had gotten better over the last couple of days. I guess I had other things to worry about. But now they were back, big time, and I felt a knot in my chest and butterflies in my stomach, wanting to come out. I made myself strut to the stage. This DJ liked me because I always thanked him and tipped him well. When he saw me coming he put on a very popular song about a girl who was nice on the outside but trouble on the inside ... the crowd got rowdy, clapping and whooping. I felt the wild girl inside me practically push me aside as she claimed the stage, strutting around in those ridiculous pink heels, a small smile playing on her lips.

I let myself get into it tonight. It was hard not to with the music. I felt in character — a good boarding school girl gone bad. Wouldn’t you know, the bachelor party guys ate that up. I took off my clothes more quickly than I usually did, and there was a lot of bills coming my way. When I took off my skirt, I turned around and showed the crowd the wooden ruler I had shoved through the back of my thong underwear, like my underwear was a tool belt. The crowd went ballistic as I took it out and tapped it against my palm, winking at them. The next guy who tried to put a single dollar bill into the side of my thong got swatted lightly with it, but I blew a kiss to the guy who gave me a ten. The crowd actually laughed. This was it. Stripping mecca. I was putting on a performance and the guys were loving it.

My song was ending as I collected my things and started to sashay towards the back. I felt eyes on me and I turned and saw John standing quietly by the stage, watching me. His hand was covering his mouth and his eyes were hooded. I smiled at him, unsure, and he raised his hand up to give me a small wave. But he wasn’t smiling. Instead, he looked pissed.

I hurried to get dressed and cleaned up.
Why would he be upset?
I used his ruler, it helped me make more money than I normally did….and that’s what I thought he wanted. I got a lot of attention from the crowd tonight, but so what? John was well aware that I was a stripper. It’s not like he hadn’t seen the show before.

Troubled, I put my outfit back on and buttoned up my shirt. I headed out to the floor. He was out there waiting for me by the entrance with the same disgruntled look on his face. His eyes looked hollowed out.

Forgetting all about my reservations from last night, I went up and grabbed his arm and rubbed it. “What’s the matter?” I asked, and I could see his entourage over his shoulder, standing against the bar, talking amongst themselves and drinking beer. John put his free hand over mine and sighed and smiled, relaxing a little.

“Hi,” he said, and his grip on me became a little firmer.

“Hi!” I said. That was more like it. That was the John I recognized.

“So, what has you looking so glum?” I asked, and my heart sped up as he laced his fingers through mine.

“You,” he said, and shaking his head and smiling down at me. I pulled my hand away a bit and he tightened his grip.

“Me?” I asked, and I widened my eyes at him in mock surprise. “But
I
used the ruler!
I
did what you suggested! AND
I’m
speaking to you, because I wish to, or whatever weird thing you said in your note!” This time I succeeded in shaking my hand free of his, and I promptly placed it on my hip. Now we were both laughing.

“True, true,” John said, and he reached out to slide my hands to the side and put
his
hands on my hips. It was like we had broken some barrier, touching each other, and now he didn’t want to break the connection. I didn’t want him to, either. It was like last night, when I
wanted
him to catch me. It was like some sort of force field was pushing me to him— like I was compelled to be connected to him. His hands on my hips felt totally right and totally foreign at the same time. I didn’t know what to do with them, but I didn’t want them off me, either.

“So?” I asked.

His face, which was looking pretty pleased to have a hold of me, went totally blank. “So?” he asked.

“How am I your problem, exactly?”

“Oh,” he said, remembering, and he flexed his fingers on my waist, exerting just a little bit of pressure. That place
down there
started throbbing again. I desperately hoped he couldn’t tell somehow, couldn’t feel it through my hip bones.

“It wasn’t so much you,” John said. “It was those other men touching you. They shouldn’t do that.”

“Earth to John,” I said, exasperated. “I’m a stripper. People put money in my underwear. That’s how I make a living. You know this.”

“You should retire,” he said, “tonight. No one needs to touch you again. Except me.” We just looked at each other for a moment. Me, laughing; John, dead serious. This was probably when he was going to ask me to be his mistress.

“I’m not going to ask you to be my mistress, or anything crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, and laughed a little. I think my face fell a little bit. Not that I wanted him to do that, but he was narrowing the list of things he might be asking me for, and that made me nervous.

“Cruz might not like me being so proprietary with his star this evening,” he said, wistfully dropping his hands from my waist. I felt cold with his hands off of me, and it made me shiver a little. “I have to leave to go back to work. Do you want a ride home? I could take you, or get you a cab?”

“I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head. “I have my car.” And there was no way he was going to see my sad apartment complex. Not only because it was disgusting, but also because he could still turn out to be a freak, like the guy Keisha brought home who offered her a thousand dollars if he could pee on her face. (She let him, by the way.) I didn’t believe that he was crazy, in my heart, but my head wasn’t going to forget years of experience.

“Will I see you again?” I asked. I held my breath. Everybody goes home from Vegas eventually. It was not the real world, and the real world always called all the real people back. While we, the props, the set pieces, stayed here waiting for the next act.

“Tomorrow,” he said. He reached out, grabbed my hand and held it to his lips. “I can’t wait.”

I woke up to sun streaming through my windows and again, a ridiculous smile on my face. I was going to pay for this later. I would pay for letting myself think happy thoughts, for enjoying someone touching me, for letting myself hope for God knows what. When John left, or when he turned out to be recruiting me for some sex ring or whatever horrible alternate ending awaited — this was going to hurt me too much. I would have to learn again not to let my guard down.
I would have to learn it again, the hard way.
Then I was going to have to close my heart down for the final time so I never ended up like this again, with a silly smile on my face, hoping for something that was never going to happen.

I was berating myself in this fashion while I was pouring my coffee. Then the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and it was the same courier, wearing what appeared to be the same clothes as yesterday. Ew.

“You know the drill,” he said through the door. He rang the buzzer and left.

Again, I quickly opened the door, grabbed the package and relocked. This one was much bigger and heavier. I got out my scissors to cut the heavy packaging tape. Inside was a silver backpack, large and heavy. I laughed. So now John wanted me to wear a backpack to work, to complete the schoolgirl look. He really was crazy.

I unzipped the backpack and gasped.
What?

Okay. He really
was
crazy.