Closed Legs Don't Get Fed
Chapter One – Sweetest Girl
"She was no stripper with a heart of gold, that was for sure. A heart of steel, more like."
—Shannon Celebi
Momo looked at herself in the mirror of the dressing room at work. Nervously, and hating herself for feeling nervous, she leant close to check her make-up. She'd had to put slightly more on than usual today to cover the circles under her eyes—a testament of sleep deprivation. The number of hours she had to be putting in was ridiculous.
A pained look slid across her face.
Her cheeks were flushed too she realized and she would've scrambled for some powder to try and disguise it except that if she put any more make-up on, she'd end up looking like a clown.
She glanced at the clock and then stood; balancing on eight-inch platforms as naturally as on bare feet.
"You're on in three minutes, Momo." The cool voice cut through her like a knife as she turned around and saw her boss's assistant standing at the door.
Ichimaru Gin.
She looked at him, nonplussed for a moment.
He smiled a slow, languorous smile that turned her insides unpleasantly.
She gritted her teeth. He was immaculate as always. Dressed in a dark suit and pale shirt, a silk tie that made him look every inch of the stupendously successful business man that he was. "Well don't you look like you're about to entertain a bunch of Egyptians tonight?"
She glared at him for a long moment and struggled to control herself. He hadn't taken his eyes off hers.
With a monumental effort, Momo found her cool poise. "It goes with tonight's theme."
"You're just the sweetest girl." His eyes flicked over her in a brazen appraisal. "I can see why the boss favours you."
She had traded in the sweat pants that she'd arrived in for a filmy gold Grecian goddess thing that left one shoulder bare. Her hair was piled on top of her head, dark curls spilling down, with a gold patterned band circling her forehead. Fabric draped loosely over her bust and then gathered at her waist, belted by a thin gold chain. The skirt was barely deserving of the name, short and insubstantial—revealing peeks of the black thong underneath.
Before she could react or respond to his comment he materialized before her with a mocking smile and an extending hand. "In that shiny, little get-up you're just begging to be stolen—" His eyes bored into hers, an edge of humour playing around his lips. "—and you know how littered Huecho Mundo is with hollows. I wouldn't be doing my job if I allowed the club's cashcow to get kidnapped now would I?"
With the utmost reluctance she put her hand in his and felt another blush spread through her like quick fire. She didn't need a reminder of how she got drawn into this sickening lifestyle in the first place.
Hollows.
It was a term given to criminals inclusive of but not limited to; rapist, thieves, murderers and arsonists.
Momo would've died contently at the hands of the mob of them that had attacked her several years ago, had she known that self-proclaimed Samaritan who rescued her would've demanded that she devoted herself to a life of servitude in order to repay him.
"Shall we go?" she asked stiffly, she was so incensed that she could hardly get the words out. Ichimaru didn't have a single honest bone in his body. He emitted a sort of sinister aura that curdled her blood and frankly, he gave her the creeps. "Who have we got tonight?"
"The usual," he answered flatly, which was odd. There was always a tinge of mockery in his tone whenever he spoke—even to the boss. "But I'd make this performance a memorable one if I were you," he remarked with an odd note of something in his voice as he ushered her out the room.
She didn't try to figure out what it was, but slipped past him and went down the hall.
As she approached the stage door, a new song started. R&B was the music of choice at Club Las Noches, though on occasion she and the other Espadas—as the dancers are typically referred to as—opted for blues or something sensual and sexual and steamy.
There were three levels of staff beneath their boss. Arrancars resided at the bottom of the hierarchy. Waitresses, administrative personnel, janitors and the kitchen crew all fell underneath this category. Espadas were of a slightly higher stature—or importance—they were the revenue earners. This group consisted of the exotic dancers, hired escorts, masseuses and the more private entertainers. Vastro Lordes were second in command to the big man. An example would be Ulquiorra Cifer, operator of Club Gillion. They controlled finances and oversaw the activities of the boss's other ventures throughout Huecho Mundo.
Momo took a deep breath before walking out. The music filtered out into the dimly lit space.
"Some live for the bill. Some kill for the bill...
She whine for the bill. Grind for the bill."
The stage lights were bright enough to make the customers shadowy, but there was nothing muted about their reception. There was a whistle or two, some applause, a murmur of encouragement as she wrapped herself around the pole.
"Way to go Tobiume!" someone cheered her on, using her stage name.
She used the pole much as a woman might use her lover, swaying around it, rubbing against it, sliding down until her knees were splayed, then rising again, twisting until the pole was centered in her back, repeating the long, languid slide down.
Her eyes were half closed, her lips half curved, as she let the music surround her. Dancing came as naturally to her as breathing.
"And she used to be the sweetest girl…
Some steal for the bill, if they got to pay the bill
…and she used to be the sweetest girl"
She heard a note or two, and her body began to sway. She didn't have to think, plan or concentrate. The music took over, and everything else faded into the background.
The voices, the heat that formed a sheen over her skin, the gazes and leers...none of it mattered.
Only the music.
She loosened the chain around her waist, letting its length trickle between her fingers into a small mound at the base of the pole. The hook that secured her dress was next to go. With a shimmy, the gold lame puddled at her feet, leaving her in a strapless black bra and a thong.
The act brought the usual reaction, still muted in her music-dazed brain...then her muscles went taut. A shiver rippled along her skin, making her feel exposed; heat followed in its wake.
"She had a good day, bad day, sunny day, rainy day
All he wanna know is (where my money at?)
On opening her eyes Momo had no warning for what or who faced her.
A gorgeous, brooding stranger was right in front of her. One that she had never seen around before, because surely she would've remembered a face like his.
Just feet away.
He looked up from adjusting his cufflinks then, and the snowy perfection of his hair made the turquoise of his eyes pop out. He ran quick eyes over her, making her squirm inwardly. It was almost as if they were standing alone in the spacious club—that seemed to shrank to the four square feet surrounding them.
And it was then that she had to acknowledge that the prickling awareness she'd been dismissing had just exploded into full-on shock. The blood seemed to thicken in her veins; her heart pounded again in recognition of some base appreciation of his beauty. He was drop-dead sexy enough to be any woman's fantasy.
And he was watching her with enough intensity to make her feel like his fantasy.
He stood with his head tilted back, hands in the pockets of his trousers.
His eyes—so fucking beautiful.
She couldn't take her own shocked gaze from them.
They were wide, intelligent and full of something so hot and brazenly sensual that she felt breathless.
Then she turned her back to him, a bit reluctantly.
He was a cop.
She saw the badge and it was more than enough reason for her to keep her distance. But it didn't stop the warmth from seeping deeper insider her.
Damn she felt like a newbie, experiencing the power of her own sexuality for the first time.
Focus on the music, she chided herself.
"Closed legs don't get fed, go out there and make my bread
All he wanna know is (where my money at?)"
That was how she'd survived her first night—it was how she survived the first month on the job—how she'd survived eight years. And it was how she would survive this dance.
OoOoOoOo
"—all I'm requesting is a night off Aizen-sama." A woman's voice quivered as it came through the heavy oak door with effortless ease.
There was silence, and then the ominously low rumble of a man's voice. Short, sharp, succinct. "Closed legs don't get fed—"
Hinamori knew too well the glacial look that most likely had accompanied those distinct words. She had had them directed at her a countless number of times—had had those distinctive brown eyes skewer her on the spot too. The rumors she'd heard about her boss before she got involved hadn't been myths at all. He was truly without empathy.
"—go out there and make my bread."
She heard the girl splutter indignantly, but then she was off again, her voice rising so high now that Momo feared for the crystal decanter on the serving tray she carried.
The door flung open. "My brother will hear about this!"
There was a lull, before the door slammed shut with such violence that Momo winced. Aizen wouldn't appreciate that. She had been working for him long enough to know that he hated scenes.
"How did it go?" She asked curiously as the petite frame of Kuchiki Rukia emerged from the room. She was a new recruit.
Stunningly beautiful, from the top of her shiny head to the tip of her expensively manicured toes, evident through the peepholes of a pair of sky-high heels. She was reputedly one of the most alluring women to grace the club—one of the noblest too—hailing from the once great, now fallen Kuchiki clan. But to the customers she was known simply as Sode No Shirayuki.
She didn't say anything at first, but a frown marred that high, satin-smooth brow. Then she shrugged offhandedly, "You heard for yourself. It doesn't matter how ill nii-sama is, he won't let me leave."
"It's been six months now," Momo murmured thoughtfully, recalling Rukia's story. "Your debt should've been covered by now."
Lifting her hand, Rukia began rubbing at her brow with weary fingers. Her head was beginning to ache. She didn't want to think about any of that right now. "Don't worry about it," she brushed it aside and retrieved her tray from Momo. "I have to do this for my brother," she declared, her face firmed and her small chin lifted determinedly.
Then she was off.
Nice legs, expensive silk hose and the kind of hips that a man could sink his fingers into. Her calves were well formed, tapering down to trim ankles and a pair of stilettos that sent libidos into overdrive. It's no wonder why Aizen proposed she be upgraded from an Arrancar to an Espada.
A body like hers was highly profitable.
It would take some of the pressure off herself if Rukia started offering private services, Momo reasoned.
She gave a start when she heard a loud thump, as if a fist was connecting with a hard surface. She mentally counted to ten but before she got to five the door opened again. She looked up and willed any emotion or reaction from her face. Her boss stood there, filling the frame easily. Veritable sparks of energy crackled from his body.
Dressed in a conventional black bow-tie and dinner suit, he stood a good head and shoulders taller than anyone else. His hair was chestnut, curly and shiny, flicked uncaringly back from a lean, darkly tanned face. A riveting face. A face with eyes that seemed to be piercing right into her from beneath the smooth brown brows he had lowered over them. Thin nose, straight, chiseled mouth and chin—he had the haughty look of a conquistador about him.
Sousuke Aizen.
Instantly she felt breathless; her heart hammered. Much to her chagrin and dismay, she couldn't halt her reaction. It was something about the way he'd obviously just raked a hand through his unruly hair, leaving it even more disheveled, and the way his jaw was so defined and hard it looked as if it was hewn from granite.
"Momo," he rapped out, distaste for the recent dramatics etched all over his handsome face. "Break's over. Get out there!"
She blinked and landed back to earth with a bump. What was she doing? Standing there mentally listing her boss's attributes as if he wasn't standing there looking at her as if he wanted to throttle someone.
She should hate this man after what he made of her.
"My apologies Aizen-sama," she said, thankful that her voice sounded cool and calm, unruffled.
He glowered at her for along moment. "There's a nosey detective from the Seireitei out there," His voice sounded rough. She guessed it must be the remnants of his anger at the recent scene, but even so Momo's belly quivered. "Occupy his time so he doesn't go snooping around."
"Hai," was all she managed to get out.
She didn't like that she always got stuck with the priority clients but she supposed it only meant that Aizen had more faith in her than the other girls. Still, Momo wasn't particularly thrilled about being stuck with the cop—as cute as he was.
"Table twenty-three," he dismissed her with a brusque flick of his hand. "It's very important that you keep him busy. A drop is supposed to be made tonight and I will not tolerate any fuck ups."
"Of course not," she remarked humbly.
After all she worked long enough for him to know exactly what happened to those who disappointed him...
A/N: This is the first time that I've ever posted a Bleach fic and I have a feeling that it sucks. So here's the deal…if you would like a continuation, please review to let me know. I would really appreciate the feedback. Heed my warning that this fic is rated M for obvious reasons. And please note that IchiRuki and HitsuHina are the two main pairings being featured in this story.
Thanks for reading.
Inspired by the song: Sweetest Girl
Performed by: Wyclef Jean Ft. Akon, Lil Wayne & Nia