Stripped
A/N: I disclaim. Enjoy!
Between the hours of 10 PM and 3 AM, Pandora's Box was one of the hottest gentlemen's clubs in all of Atlanta. They opened, and closed, earlier than most, but Melinda always said that it was better to get the big spenders into their establishment first. She didn't care if they went elsewhere after Pandora's closed, as long as they spent their money in her club first.
To its patrons and industry insiders alike, it was an establishment known for employing only the hottest women, the best bartenders, and the baddest bouncers in the city. Their reputation was built on professionalism, credibility, and a degree of glamour that was often imitated, but never duplicated. Quite simply, Pandora's was everything that a strip club was supposed to be.
A good business, Melinda always said, was the sum total of it's equally important parts. She insisted that each employee perfect his or her craft on a daily basis, and that they treat each co-worker with the utmost respect. Individually, they were no different than any other staff in any other club. But when the emotionally damaged and broken pieces came together inside the walls of Pandora's Box, they were a family.
And it wasn't at all uncommon to find the club alive and buzzing with the sounds of several employees fluttering around in the middle of the afternoon. Those who wanted to work on new drink recipes or dance steps, or just had nowhere else to go, often gathered at work during their off-hours.
"Hey, Rico," Arykah Daniels called from the end of the bar. The buxom blonde held a magenta feather boa in one hand, and a matching pair of stilettos in the other as the dark-skinned bartender stopped the concoction he was perfecting and looked her way. "Is this too much pink?"
Before Rico could answer, the front door of the club banged open, disrupting the relative stillness of the spacious room. Hurricane Olivia had been loosed on them, and no one was about to ask the headliner what was wrong. In reality, they didn't have to.
The solemn-looking child behind her told them everything they needed to know. Brandon was a tall, lanky adolescent with long, stringy hair and baggy clothes. At some point in the last few months, he had developed an affinity for dark eyeliner and nail polish, as well.
Olivia stopped near the bar and whipped around, her green eyes blazing with anger as she gritted her teeth and narrowed her gaze at her son. "You sit your ass at that table, and keep your fuckin' mouth shut. Do you understand me?" Brandon stared at her blankly. "If you so much as think about moving, reconsider." She pointed to the chair and he rolled his eyes, flopping down.
"Can I get a soda at least?" he asked, his voice defiant and his glare mirroring his mother's.
Shaking her dark ponytail, Olivia seethed. "No. Rico, do not give him anything to drink. Or eat. Or read." She leaned on the bar and crossed her arms. "Until I figure out what the fuck I'm gonna do with a fifth grade drop out, you're just gonna sit there and be fuckin' miserable." Glancing around the room, she nodded toward one of the huge bouncers that had just emerged from the company gym. "George, can you keep an eye on him for me?"
With a stoic nod, George moved toward Brandon's table and stood directly to the boy's left. When Olivia met her son's eye, he raised his middle finger and an eyebrow, as if to dare her to respond. Instead of his mother's wrath, however, the young punk seemed to elicit something deep within the brick wall of a man beside him as George reached his hand out and rapped the back of Brandon's head, sending the kid further into his seat, his eyes trained on the table.
Grabbing Arykah's arm, Olivia made her way toward the dressing room at the end of the hall. Once the door was slammed, she threw her denim jacket onto the couch and started pacing. "He got expelled. Again," she spat angrily. "Three schools in one year, Arykah. What the fuck am I supposed to do with him now?"
Arykah sat at the vanity, watching her friend move back and forth like a caged animal. She wasn't sure what to say, as she had never actually been a mother before, but it was obvious that Olivia wasn't really looking for advice. For as long as they had known one another, the Olivia was always just looking for someone to hear her, not to tell her what to do.
The women had started working at Pandora's roughly nine years earlier, each at the tender age of eighteen. They had trained together, learned the ropes of the business together, and on occasion, performed at private parties together. Best friends were hard to come by in a world driven by sex, drugs, and plastic surgery, but Arykah and Olivia had formed an unbreakable bond.
Olivia spent her childhood dreaming of a life outside the dirty ghettos of Detroit, while Arykah did her fantasizing in a middle-class neighborhood in St. Louis. Both ended up in Atlanta through a series of unfortunate events – Arykah fleeing from an abusive boyfriend, while Olivia tried to raise a two-year-old on her own. Nights at the club were followed by mornings of tears on the floor of their shared apartment, each bearing her soul to the other. They both knew that the other had no way of understanding their individual predicaments, but it didn't matter. They listened to each other, without judging, and it was enough.
"What did he do this time?" Arykah finally asked when she saw the tears in Olivia's eyes. She was a hard-ass when it came to disciplining Brandon, but behind closed doors, she wept over what her son had become.
The kid had been so happy, once upon a time. When he was little, he had the sweetest, most infectious laugh. It was the tiny giggle that started in his throat and eventually worked its way all the way down to his belly. Even when he started school, he had been the picture of obedience and curiosity, two elements that made him a stand-out student with a promising future. For the first ten years of his life, Brandon Stewart had been the perfect child.
And then he started the fifth grade. Teachers started to call Olivia, telling her that Brandon was struggling with his homework, and failing tests. They would leave messages to let her know that her son was becoming a behavioral problem, as well. He was acting out in class and distracting other students. His outbursts became more frequent, and by October of his fifth grade year, he had been expelled. In January, school number two had asked him to leave. And now, in May, he had been booted from number three.
"Oh, nothing major," Olivia raised an eyebrow and looked at her friend. "He had a half ounce of marijuana in his backpack, or starters," she held up one finger. "And then, when his teacher asked him about it, he told her to fuck off," she added another finger. "Oh, and when I showed up? That was just in time to watch him call the principal an 'ignorant cock sucker.' So, ya know?" She shrugged her shoulders and sank to the couch. "Normal ten-year-old stuff."
Her shoulders sagged and Arykah watched her transform. The woman on stage every night was in charge of every aspect of her performance. No one would ever call Olivia Dawn weak or incapable of controlling her environment. But Olivia Stewart had no grip on her reality, and it was painful to watch at times.
"You know what he said to me? On the way here?" She stared into Aryka's huge, blue eyes and wiped a tear from her own cheek. "He said that I was a lazy slut. That I never bothered to get an education because I was too busy getting knocked up in high school. And he said that I take my clothes off for money because its easier than getting a real job." She raised an eyebrow and licked another tear off her top lip. "That was before he said he hated me and his life would be better if I just ran the car off the road and died."
A thick cloud of silence hung between them as Olivia let the tears flood her perfect face. There was no one on the planet that she loved as much as her son. There was nobody who would ever mean as much to her as Brandon did. So why did he hate her so much? And why couldn't he understand that everything, even his birth, had been a sacrifice on her part? Why couldn't he just thank her for what she had put herself through for him?
A knock on the door caused Olivia to jump. "Come in," she managed to squeak, smiling as Melinda let herself into the room. "Hey, Melinda," she smiled weakly.
Melinda's severe, all-business features softened at the sight of her sobbing headliner. "Sweetheart, I heard about Brandon," she sighed.
Olivia knew better than to ask how Melinda knew. Melinda always knew. It was as obvious as the fact that the sky was blue. Wiping her hands over her face, she tucked her feet underneath her on the couch. "Um, yeah. We're kinda havin' a lapse in the communication synapse right now," she answered with a slight chuckle.
Sinking to the couch beside Olivia, Melinda held out a folder and waited for the woman at her side to take it. When she had looked it over, the brunette looked at her boss curiously. "It's a contract," Melinda said.
Nodding, Olivia pulled her hair out its ponytail and ran her fingers through the long extensions. "No, I get that," she answered, reading it again. "But what for?"
With an easy manner, Melinda crossed her legs and put a hand on Olivia's knee. "For a solution to your problem." She cleared her throat and rolled her eyes as Olivia's expression remained blank. "You were offered a job by Vince McMahon, Olivia. It is a fantastic opportunity for you."
Olivia laughed and shook her head, handing the contract back. "Um, I already told Mr. McMahon that I couldn't accept his offer, Melinda," she reminded her boss. They had this conversation the day after Vince had made the offer, and she hadn't thought about it much since. She wasn't going to change her mind. "I have obligations here."
"This contract," Melinda started, resting the folder on the coffee table before them, "states that your contract with Pandora's Box is being suspended. Starting June 1, you will be free to pursue an active position with World Wrestling Entertainment, for the duration of ninety days. At that time, if you are not interested in continuing employment with the aforementioned company, I will buy out your contract and bring you back to Pandora's, no questions asked."
It was unheard of. Strippers, even headliners, were a dime a dozen. There was absolutely no reason for a business woman like Melinda to offer her anything, especially ninety days off to find herself. "Melinda, I appreciate the offer," she started.
But her boss only stood, sympathy still emanating from her eyes. "I know you're going to say that you can't leave Brandon, but I'm suggesting that you can. Not only can you, Olivia, but I think you should."
Olivia wanted to scoff. If his life was already fucked up, being abandoned by his mother certainly wouldn't help anything. "No offense, Melinda, but," she stood and rubbed her hands over her jeans.
Melinda wasn't finished, though. Holding up a hand, she went on. "Olivia, I know that you love your son. But his father has a normal job, nine to five. He doesn't get to spend that much time with the boy as it is, and maybe a more traditional life, at least for a little while, would put Brandon back on the right track?"
"His father is a horse's ass," Olivia stated sincerely. Melinda and Arykah both smiled, and Olivia noticed that her friend seemed to be nodding in agreement with their boss. "You gonna turn on me, too?"
Arykah stood and shook her head, wrapping her bright pink boa around her neck. "It's your decision, Liv. But if I can say something?" Olivia nodded. "He's a ten-year-old boy, ya know? He needs a father-figure. And you only let him see his once or twice a month because you don't like the guy." She hated that she had to be the one who always told Olivia what she didn't want to hear, but it was one of the downsides to the "best friend" job.
Sinking back to the couch, Olivia looked from one woman to the other and then rested her head in her hands. "All I've ever wanted was for him to be happy. For him to have more than I had," she sighed, looking at the contract. Withdrawing a pen from her purse, Olivia scribbled her name across the bottom of the paper. "If this is what I have to do to help him," she left the sentence unfinished and cried again.
It would kill her to leave him behind, to go to sleep at night not knowing he was right across the hall. It would tear her apart not to wake him up in the morning with a kiss to the forehead, watching him smile in his sleep, before he remembered that he hated her again. It would hurt her more than any emotional trauma her mother and step-father had inflicted on her growing up, more than childbirth, even. Walking away from Brandon would be the hardest thing she ever did.
The second hardest would be calling Vince McMahon and accepting his offer.