Private Dancer (17 page)

        
"Can I talk now?"

        
"I'm done. Yeah."

        
"You don't know what I feel. I don't know what I feel. I do know that I don't want her taking her clothes off and waving her fucking pussy around in some dickhead's face for a fucking dollar. She's better than that."

        
"And I'm what? I wave my pussy around and dance for a fucking dollar! Sometimes I come home with goddamned food stamps. Am I less of a person? Why is she so different? Tell me!"

        
"Because... " Reece stood up abruptly, her mind reeling with the three words she would never speak aloud. Like at Frankie's funeral, if she says it out loud, it would be true. Because she's..."

        
Cori stood up and blocked her from leaving.
Say it, Reece...you love her.
"Well? Am I so disgusting for doing it? You like me, you don't think I'm trashy do you? How come if she does it, it would be any different?"

        
"Fuck you, Cori, you don't know anything!"

        
"I do know this, she was offered a job dancing at The Playhouse, and if she's as fucking spiteful as you are, she'll be waving her tits around for not only dickheads, but drunken ones. And you won't be there to protect her. "

        
Reece sobered up pretty quickly hearing that. "She wouldn't."

        
"Why, because
you
forbid her?"

        
"Well, yeah."

        
"You know you are impossible. I don't know why I bother trying to help you. You're pigheaded and stupid."

        
"I don't need your help, Cori. And I'm not stupid."

        
"Well, I think so. ou are so worried about your own feelings that you don't care how badly you're hurting someone that you..." Cori sighed heavily. "Never mind."

        
"What, Dr. Ruth...tell me about my feelings, would you?"

        
"You love her and you're too stupid to admit it. Even to yourself," Cori blurted, before slamming the door behind her as she stormed out.

        
"I don't know how," Reece murmured softly. She sat down and buried her head in her hands. "I am so fucked."

        
*  

        
Reece sat there on the couch for a while, trying to put her jumbled emotions into some semblance of order.
The Playhouse, huh? Shit, she blushes just trying to say the word tit.
She rubbed her eyes several times hoping it would help her see more clearly when she opened them. It didn't, she was still confused.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? This is what it feels like? I don't need it, thank you. I did just fine before she walked into my office, I can do fine now.
She stood up and went for the bottle.
Damn, the witch took it with her. Old burnt coffee? No, not tonight…alcohol.
She turned off the machine.
Lots of alcohol…I want to be oblivious to this nightmare. Tomorrow, I'll deal with it all. Dancing, stripping, Faith, like, love, caring, and goddamned feelings.

        
She shook her head to get it all out of her brain.
I don't need anyone.
Stepping out of the room and locking the door behind her, she was the second person to walk through the club that night with her mind reeling. Walking into the night air sobered her up the rest of the way. Taking a deep breath of cold air, she headed towards the only place where emotions and feelings weren't ever an issue. She went to get drunk and laid.

        
Entering her second-favorite haunt, she made a beeline to the bar.

        
"What ya having tonight, Reece?" the girl shouted.

        
"Kamikaze. Big ones."

        
"Rough day in titty land?" the bartender questioned as she placed two drinks in front of the dark haired woman.

        
"You could say that. How much I owe you?"

        
"On the house. If it weren't for you, this place would've been closed hours ago." She nodded towards the back room where a small crowd of women were waiting not so inconspicuously by the pool table.

        
The tall woman snickered. "Thanks, keep ‘em coming." She downed one and took the other with her, leaving a twenty on the bar. The bartender just smiled and shook her head.

        
"Hey, sexy, wanna play some pool?" A cute little blonde fondled a pool cue suggestively.

        
Reece shrugged indifference and was already thinking pool was not what she wanted to play right now. The blonde was sexy, wearing faded jeans, a very small shirt. She had a great stomach, tight ass...she looked a lot like Faith.

        
Throughout the whole game, the blonde found every excuse to rub against the blue-eyed woman, driving her insane with need. Reece, who was feeling every ounce of the five drinks she had consumed, captured the girl's attention and crooked her finger at her. She obeyed and quickly moved to stand in front of the seated woman. Reece walked her fingers up the woman's leg until she reached her belt. She pulled the woman down on her lap by the buckle and kissed her, letting her hand spread out across the exposed skin on her stomach.

        
"What's your name?" she whispered

        
"JoAnn."

        
"No, your name is Faith tonight. Do you understand?" She kissed her again, long and hot for emphasis.

        
"Faith, it's a pretty name. I'll be anyone you want me to be."

        
"Good," she purred. Being as drunk as she was, Reece thought this might work. "And I'm your boss."

        
"And am I a good girl or a bad girl, boss?" She wiggled on her lap.

        
Reece took hold of both her arms and stretched them over her head. She bent down and tasted the woman's stomach and sighed. "We'll see what kind of girl you are," she leered and lifted her off her lap, and out they went.

        
The blonde was on her knees, holding on to the twisted iron headboard with both hands. Reece had her hands on top of them and was draped over her, fucking her from behind. JoAnn wondered just who she was pretending to be. They had been fucking for hours…all ways, all kinds. She was enjoying it, but felt bad at the same time for the tall drunk woman.

        
"You gonna share this with everyone?" Reece pinched a nipple hard, and thrust the dildo even harder.

        
JoAnn didn't know the right answer.

        
"Answer me, Faith." Another, harder pinch.

        
"Ow! I don't know what you want me to say!"

        
"Shut up then. Don't talk, just fuck." Which was fine, she wasn't really in the mood to talk anyway. With her eyes closed, this was Faith. She laid her cheek against the sweaty back and pushed. In her head she kept repeating "Faith, Faith, Faith" like a mantra. She opened her mouth to grunt and tasted the sweat from the woman's back. She grimaced; it wasn't Faith. She got up on all fours and held on to the woman's hips and fucked, skin slapping sounds filling the room. She was close to coming so she squeeze her eyes shut tight and imagined seeing Faith under her, writhing with her. "Oh god, boss...I'm coming again!"

        
"Yeah, baby, again" She grunted and sweated her way through her third orgasm of the night. Totally exhausted and half dehydrated, she rolled off, the dildo making a popping sound as it twisted on the way out of "Faith".

        
JoAnn rolled onto her back and looked at Reece. The sweaty woman was already asleep. She stared a little at the odd image of a beautiful naked woman with an eternal erection standing proudly in the moonlight. She shook her head, unstrapped the leather, and hoped that whatever demons this sexy woman had, they wouldn't haunt her this night.

        
Faith was sitting on her bed nursing a second beer and watching 1960's sitcoms. After she left The Lounge, still angry and feeling very hurt, she went to The Playhouse. The manager was a middle-aged guy whose ears turned red at the very mention of her previous place of employment. Mentioning Reece by name turned the rest of him crimson. Faith felt herself smirk when he called the tall woman a bitch, and he hired her on the spot. She never told him she hadn't been a dancer; she was feeling too righteous at the moment.

        
So now she was patiently waiting for her roomie to come home and help her. She didn't foresee this type of future when she was living in Long Island and golfing at the country club, and now she had to laugh at the irony of it all. She was living the life of the people she herself had shaken her head at. It wasn't so far off from acting was it? She was performing, in a sense, on a stage. f she thought of it as acting, maybe she could do it without all the thinking. She stared at the TV as Endora waved her arms and Darren turned into a chimp. If only she could twitch her nose.... Nah, this was life, she had to live it.

        
Cori came into the room and flopped down next to her. They watched TV silently for some time before Faith spoke up and filled her in.

        
"No shit? You're gonna do it?"

        
"Yeah, but you
have
to help me."

        
"I already did, didn't I? We had a whole routine and everything."

        
"Yeah, but you should see this stage! It's all over the place. Not exactly the one pole, one spotlight deal."

        
"I can't believe you're doing this! This is so awesome. Why don't I tell the girls to come down and see you? It'll be fun!"

        
"No! I don't want them to know anything. Especially Reece. t would appear he's not too happy with her and I don't want any trouble." Faith's forehead crinkled in a slight scowl. "What's with that anyway?"

        
"He used to run a back room, illegal shit, and our place was starting to hurt. We even lost a few dancers to him. Frankie sent Reece in to 'fix things up' so he said, and ever since then... " Cori shrugged. "Whatever she did, it worked. He even paid Frankie back for the 'loss of business'. I wouldn't even
think
of inviting her to that club. She'd fire us all if we even mentioned going there."

        
"So, I'm working for the enemy? Great, that oughta go over big."

        
"Enemy or not, honey, this is
not
going to go over at all. And it sucks, too."

        
"Why? I thought you were excited about it?"

        
"It sucks because Reece won't get to see you. She'd drop like a stone. I'm sure of it."

        
"Oh, how romantic. C'mon, I can't sleep, show me what to do."

        
"Here goes nothing."

        
The two women practiced until sun up and celebrated with the Sunday paper and breakfast in the diner.

        
Reece wasn't celebrating this morning. She woke up covered with the blanket and Tylenol on her nightstand, next to a note that said "thank you". She turned over and covered her head, even more sick at herself this morning than all the other times.