Chapter 14: Angel
Disclaimer: The Mouse's Ear is a real gentleman's club located in Knoxville, TN but for the sake of the story, I figured I would move the name to Chicago. I don't own any parts of it so, please don't sue me. I'm not worth it!
"Hey Charley!" a very peppy young woman's voice said through the phone.
"Oh my goodness! Angel! It's been forever since I heard your voice" Charley smiled.
"I just read the paper! Is it true? Are you really getting married?" Angel exclaimed, feeling very excited for her oldest friend.
"Yes. Carbine and I are going to go dress shopping. You wanna come along?" Charley couldn't wait to spend time with her two best girlfriends.
"Duh! Yeah. I'm so there" Angel laughed.
"Meet us here at the garage. I gotta quickly get cleaned up before we leave" Charley said, feeling a lot more at ease about the wedding than what she did before.
"Okie dokie. I'll be there in twenty minutes" Angel said.
"See ya then. Toodles" Charley said as she hung the phone up.
"Wow! She's peppy!" Carbine said with a small chuckle.
"That's Angel. She'll be joining us on this crazy adventure" Charley said as she turned the bath sink water on and began to wash all the grim off her face and arms.
"I'll grab you a change of clothes" Carbine stated as she pointed to several grease and oil stains on Charley's pants and shirt.
"Thanks, Carbine" Charley said as she quickly striped out of her work clothes and tossed all of them into the laundry hamper next to the bathroom door.
Charley grabbed a face cloth and began to quickly scrub as much of the grim off of her face and arms as she could. She felt blessed that today wasn't busy or else she could have easily taken a dip in a pool of oil. Satisfied with the removal of all dirt on her body, Charley wet her hands and ran them through her dark auburn curls in an effort to make it look like she had actually done something with her hair instead of just allowing to hang there.
It had actually been a while since she had done any real shopping with anyone female. In fact, the last time she could recall was when her parents were still alive and she worked with Angel at the gentleman's club. Her father didn't approve of her affiliation with the club but, he understood that the garage didn't pull in enough funds to pay for her education. She didn't work out front with the rest of the girls but, instead, she worked in back helping the girls get ready and making sure their rooms were clean.
After she turned twenty-one, Charley would dance out front to make a few extra bucks. More like a couple hundred extra and that was only on the weekends. Angel had taught her how to dance around a pole like you meant business. She learned how to do some advanced pole dance techniques and really found herself enjoying having that kind of power, not only over men but for herself as well. She only did that for six months until her parents died and then she devoted her entire time to the garage.
She never told the guys about her interesting life before they met and she had stashed all evidence of it in the boxes under her bed after her parents' death. In those boxes, Charley had everything from seven inch glow-in-the-dark platform heels to barely there matching tops and bottoms to sexy little cop costumes. She was almost half-tempted to give her soon-to-be husband a private performance before the wedding but, then became indecisive about it.
"Here ya go" Carbine handed Charley a pair of light blue jeans and a mint green top that had a v-neck with three-quarter length sleeves and a loose fit.
"Thanks. She's here" Charley said when she heard the all too familiar sound Angel's Honda Gold Wing and her extra loud techno music.
Charley always chuckled whenever she saw Angel riding that bike because she was only five feet tall and the bike made her look incredibly petite on it. Her attitude about the bike was you either go big or go home. The last time Charley had seen the bike, it was neon pink with lime green stripes. Angel always had a knack for picking colors that were very loud and obnoxious...like Vinnie.
Even though Angel was considered a plus size gal, even though she wore a size fourteen, she had a tremendous amount of confidence in herself. Angel didn't see herself as a plus size gal...she refereed to herself as extra hot with a side of curvy. She also liked to tell guys that heat made things expand so she must be extra hot.
"Hey girlfriend!" Angel exclaimed as she walked into the garage and then stopped short when she saw Carbine. Angel did a quick look over of Carbine and then smiled while extending her hand.
"You must be Carbine. I'm Angel" Angel smiled when Carbine accepted her gesture of friendship. Angel could only gather that Carbine was either a mad scientist's experiment or an alien from outer space. She was leaning more towards the latter.
"Hey. How's it going?" Carbine was taken aback by Angel's bubbly disposition and her attire.
Angel wore a long sleeve cutout dress with criss cross neckline in fireball red that came to her mid thigh. She also wore a pair of five inch high, zip up, thigh high boots in black matte. Angel's pale blonde locks hung straight to her waist. Her large eyes were the color sapphires. Overall, Carbine found Angel to be a very attractive girl. Carbine could only guess that Angel had no inhibitions but, was naturally blessed with a very happy and outgoing disposition.
"Going good. Let me guess, she hasn't gotten shit done" Angel made it more of a statement than a question.
"You got that right" Carbine found that she liked Angel's blunt forwardness.
"Sounds about right. How much time do we have to put things together?" Angel inquired, knowing her dear friend Charley all too well.
"Couple of weeks" Carbine stated, matter-of-factually.
"Y'all seriously gonna talk about me while I'm in the bathroom?" Charley already knew that was going to happen. Charley had finally gotten dressed and was brushing her hair while she walked into the garage. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw Carbine and Angel communicating very well. Angel, from Charley's perspective, could sometimes be a wild handful...very much like Vinnie.
"Well, I'd say it to your face too. You should know that by now" Angel chuckled.
"True that. I see you changed the bike color...again" Charley commented as soon as she realized that Angel's bike was now Candy Apple Red with gold tiger stripes.
"Oh yeah. I think I'm gonna stick with this one. I am really lovin' it" Angel smiled. Charley never missed a thing when it came to bikes. Men, on the other hand, she missed the mark.
"Ready?" Charley asked as she grabbed a scrunchy from the bathroom and quickly put her hair up into a ponytail.
"Definitely" Charley and Carbine agreed.
"So, are you an alien or experiment?" Angel just had to have her curiosity satisfied.
"Alien. Mars" Carbine answered. It was obvious that Angel also didn't have a filter on her mouth. She just opened her mouth and said whatever came to mind.
"That is so cool. So, Charley, are you getting married to an alien from Mars? And, does he have any single friends?" Angel inquired. She always wanted to walk on the wild side with an alien but none ever showed up at The Mouse's Ear.
"Yes to both questions" Charley answered.
"You know he needs a bachelor party, right?" Angel hinted with a grin and raised eyebrows.
"Angel...NO!" Charley knew where her friend was going with this conversation and wanted to put a lid on it before the pot exploded.
"What's a bachelor party?" Carbine just had to know.
"Angel...no" Charley's cheeks began to turn pink as she tried to get her dear friend not to say anything that might embarrass her.
"Okay. It's so cool. I've done several of them myself. It's actually a party for the groom to celebrate his night of freedom before he gets married. But, they are sometimes before a couple of weeks before the wedding so the guys aren't totally plastered" Angel completely ignored Charley's request because she had an idea that would make her fiance drool.
"We have something similar on Mars. It sometimes involves dancers" Carbine mentioned.
"I can totally set up a private showing and nobody will know but us gals. That would be an awesome engagement gift for your man" Angel mentioned as she watched Charley grit her teeth and then chuckle.
"Please" Angel said as she clasped both her hands together and then batted her eyes while tilting her head towards Charley.
"Okay. Okay. I give" Charley relented with a laugh. She wasn't too sure if she could show Throttle what she use to do before everything fell apart.
"Awesome. I'll let the girls know tonight and let's say we do it this coming Thursday. That's one week from today. It'll also give you the opportunity to brush up on your moves" Angel winked.
"I didn't agree to that part" Charley was shocked that Angel would even mention that she should dance again.
"He can have his own private room" Angel winked before putting her helmet on.
Carbine chuckled because, for the first time since she had met Charley, her friend actually managed to make her blush ten shades of red with very few words. Carbine put her helmet on and mounted her bike.
"Where to first?" Angel inquired.
"Dress shopping" Charley was grateful for a change of subject. She didn't know how much more of Angel she could take. She loved her dearly but, sometimes she was too much like Vinnie. That's it! Vinnie loved to brag and Angel may be just the perfect woman to level him out. She had no problems with outdoing anyone.
"You know what? That party sounds like an awesome idea. Let's do it" Charley agreed.
"Just give me a number of guys and We'll take care of the rest" Angel was really delighted over the fact that Charley finally agreed to a party. Besides, it would do just the trick to loosen everyone up because wedding planning was very stressful especially when there was so little time to do it in.
"Alright, let's go dress shopping" Angel said as she watched Charley put her helmet on and mount her bike.
The three females sped off to go dress shopping for themselves. Charley was finally looking forward to getting married to Throttle. She was happy that Carbine was such rock that she could lean on when needed and she could finally make Vinnie very happy with Angel. She just hoped Vinnie didn't mind a curvy girl with as big an ego as himself.
I want to thank everyone who has enjoyed this story so far. If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to speak your mind. If there's anything that you would like to see in the upcoming chapters, let me know. Big cyber hugs to everyone out there.