Chapter 2- Ema
"Aw, Venus," the man tried to purr at me, "You deserve someone to take care of you. A beautiful woman like you shouldn't have to keep working in a place like this."
He had dropped his voice trying to sound sexy. He only succeeded in making his grating voice crackle and slur like a drunk toad trying to gargle the bog water. He flashed what I assumed was his big expensive gold watch and ostentatious pinky ring in the flickering lights as if a (most likely fake) Rolex and some gems would drive his point home. All it did was call attention to his fingers that were crusted in mechanical grease and his dirty wedding ring. Pig. They were all fucking pigs.
Want to learn to hate men? Work in a strip club.
"I'm pretty sure your wife wouldn't like having to share the leftovers," I told him sweetly, painting on the innocence with a smile and relishing the jeering laugh of his friends.
Deftly, I turned my blinding smile on the others as I sidestepped the pigs outstretched hand that tried latching onto my thigh. Not today, bucko. Grabbing my tray from the table, I was ready to turn when I felt an imposing presence at my back and froze.
"Found ya."
Nnoitra. One of these days, my creepy-ass boss was going catch a fist to the dick for sneaking up behind me. He knew I hated it, which only made him do it more often.
"Venus," he drew my name into a long hiss as I turned to face him, "You know we are here to look out for our customers every need."
"I was!" I replied in a too cheery voice, "I was rescuing his marriage!" His friends let out more sniggers as I flashed that innocent smile at Nnoitra, too.
He didn't buy it.
I didn't care.
Nnoitra's face dropped into a deadpan glare that nearly made my bones shake. How he managed that with only one eye was a mystery to me, yet here I was- shaking like a damn chihuahua. "You're due on stage in 10 minutes," he rasped, "If you ain't gonna do your damn job then what the fuck am I paying you for?"
"You don't pay me," I practically spat at him, "That's why I have to fucking dance." Asshole. I turned on my heel to go back to the dressing rooms anyways, like a good little girl, but not before I flipped the bird in his stupid face.
Then I damn near ran to the back. That was probably not my smartest move.
Nnoitra had a reputation as a party boy. He was always down for a good time and it didn't matter if it was fighting or fucking. But I knew better. He was Rank 5 of the Espada for the Hollow gang and was no one to trifle with. However, after the past year that I'd had, I was slowly but surely starting to not give a shit.
Shaking my head, I plopped in one of the cleaner vanities and took off my green wig with the buns. This was no time to get stupid.
I slid a long black wig onto my head in its place, the ends curling naturally around my shoulders and down to my waist, and made sure that every stray strand of my mousy brown hair was tucked underneath it. Using way more pins than necessary to secure it in place, I gave my head a full whip around like I was at a heavy metal concert and was satisfied when it didn't pull or move. This was no time to get sloppy either.
Stripping off my current outfit, I slathered my whole body in moisturizer, paying special attention to the still raised ridges of the finishing touches that had just been done to my black light tattoos. Next was the corsets, tights, garters… joy.
Six minutes later, the uncomfortable shit was on and covered by a sheer, gauzy swath of fabric. Couldn't. Fucking. Breathe... so I guess they were on right. The shoes… yeah those could wait.
I leaned forward and puffed some shimmer powder over my face, collarbones, and cleavage before moving onto layering on thick kohl eyeliner like an ancient Egyptian. Or at least I tried to until my seatback was rammed into and I wound up drawing a line down my fucking cheek and breaking the tip of my pencil.
"You're in my seat, whore."
I didn't even have to look up to place that obnoxious tone. Destinee. She may have looked like cupid and the Playboy bunny had a love child, but she was as rotten as her boobs were fake.
"One stripper calling another one a whore- that's rich," I drawled as I resharpened my eyeliner before checking out the damage in the mirror. Shit, I was going to have to start from scratch.
Taking out a makeup wipe, I rubbed off the one side of my face and began anew with the shimmer powder.
"I said," she emphasized, "got out of my mother clucking seat."
I couldn't help but roll my eyes and almost messed it up again. This girl was exhausting. Seriously? You spent money to show your boobs all night but can't curse except to call me a whore?
"Where do you think you are? LA?" I questioned her, not stopping my movements, "You're in a dump outside Soul City, sweetheart, there aren't assigned seats here."
I smoothly moved my hand away from my eye to preserve my newest attempts a full second before I felt the chair jostle again as she kicked it with her spiked platforms. Predictable turnip.
This time i rolled my eyes so hard I could swear I saw my brain before laying a coat of clear black light paint over the kohl lines.
"Yo! Bimbo! You gonna waste your whole break bothering her?"
Finishing my eyeliner, I blinked into the mirror and finally turned to let out my first real smile of the night. "Honey!" I raised from the chair, only for Destinee to snatch it from me and sat down it like she won.
Again. Turnip.
Ignoring her and her little huff of drama, I went to give my friend a hug. She'd been stuck waitressing in VIP all night and, god, did I need her positivity. I had to lean back from messing my makeup up on her exposed chest and she grinned down at me, her brilliant smile shining against her burnished copper skin and warm, dark eyes. I swear I had to physically beat away the twinge of jealously that always hit when I saw the beautiful woman. Seriously. She was unfairly gorgeous. She was also probably the single nicest person I had ever met in my life so I couldn't hate her for it.
When I walked into this club starving and begging for a job, she had vouched for me even though she didn't know me. When I didn't even have makeup to wear, she gave me some and then taught me how to use it. She was like a den mother and best friend all wrapped into one supermodel-worthy package.
"Lookin' good, Little Bit," she drawled while playfully biting her lip.
She also staunchly refused to call me by my stage name but gave no bother that I just as staunchly refused to tell anyone my real name.
"Ignore her," Honey told me breezily, plopping down a chair of her own and pulling a long, thin Virginia Slim from her bag before striking it up. Who even smoked those and looked that graceful doing so? This woman shouldn't be real. "She's just mad because Grimmjow the Unattainable is back and won't give her a second glance and Nnoitra wouldn't shut up about you."
"Grimmjow?" I asked her, sitting down on the other side of the same chair as she scooted over to share with me. Love her.
"The other partner who runs this place." She gestured vaguely around with her cigarette before offering it to me if I wanted a hit.
I obliged but handed it right back, leaning to grab a handle of vodka from my own bag. Unscrewing the lid, I took a gulp straight from the bottle before swirling it around my mouth like mouthwash and grimacing as it went down. Mmm, feel the burn.
"You know I need something harder than nicotine before I have to go up there." Taking another swig, I held it out to Honey, but she shook her head vehemently after looking at the label.
"That's not vodka, that's lighter fluid," she said with a giggle before bumping my shoulder amicably. "You got such a following so quick, it's hard to remember that you are still a newbie."
I shrugged back at her as I took another swallow before gargling out "Yay, me."
I didn't hear her reply as I tipped the bottle up again, debating on chugging the shit or not. It was a careful balance between not falling off my shoes while still being drunk enough to lose all my clothes in front of hordes of strange and horny men.
"Oooookay, that's enough booty-shaking juice for you," Honey wheezed as she pried the bottle down from my lips since my subconscious apparently had settled firmly on chug. "Lipstick and shoes! Let's go girl!"
"Yeah yeah, how are you so fucking okay with all this?" I asked her grumpily, smearing on dark red lipstick and boosting my meager 5'2" height by 7 inches with the clear platform stillettos.
"It could always be worse," she said with a grin, "You could be trying to fuck the boss."
I let out a loud guffaw and looked over to see Destinee glaring daggers at us before flouncing out of the room, the strings of her thongs pulled even higher. Back to Nnoitra's table no doubt.
I quickly settled back in her vacated chair to apply concealer around my lipstick, blending it in quickly before spraying a finishing spray. I saw my bottle of Chanel Allure perfume peeking up at me from the bottom of the bag, but I resisted grabbing it. Not only would it be useless out in the pits of the club, but I didn't have much left. Once this bottle was gone, there's no way I'd be able to afford another one and it would be just one more part of my old life lost.
I surveyed my appearance in the mirror, making sure the makeup was in place and even. Ridiculously green eyes glittered back at me. The gauzy wrap was folded like a toga and gave glimpses of the silky white corset top underneath. My (now) black hair was curled and pinned to perfection and looked about as natural as you could get. The blood red lips topped off the ensemble and made me look like a walking wet dream. I could admit it. But most importantly, I looked nothing like myself.
Nothing like before. "It could always be worse," I whispered to myself.
Well, I thought it was to myself until Honey's thin arm laid over my shoulder. "Yes, it could," she said softly, giving me a peck on the cheek and then smiling at me. Her sweet brown eyes held a warmth of commiseration over something she didn't even know. She was an angel.
"Any costume changes I need to be prepped for?" Honey asked, straightening her stance and switching the mood to almost business like.
To an extent my performances were for her. After Nnoitra and I had come to an agreement on how often I would be performing, he had laid down the law on what the word "spectacle" meant to him. It wasn't hard to convince him to let me barely dance to make it a rare thing. Laws of supply and demand made sense- or at least he pretended they did so he didn't have to look dumb in front of a dancer. Once I proved to him that I could pole dance damn well (thank you, pole-robics class) and could make both of us more money, we were off to the races.
He was also just delusional enough to let me plant "his idea" of making it a big deal into his own head. Unfortunately, he then took that shit and ran with it. That meant costume changes, multiple poles, light shows… the works. I had to put a stop to the pyrotechnics, though. Crazy mother fucker almost killed everyone when he decided to spit Everclear over one of the flames and caught a customer's hair on fire.
Don't get me wrong, I laughed about it for at least a solid three days, but someone really should have tightened Nnoitra's damn leash loooong ago.
While he agreed to no more open flame, that just meant that Nnoitra wanted bigger bolder everything. Enter Honey. My first dance set with costume changes was… interesting. Let's just say it's a lot to do on your own when corsets, fishnets, and boots were involved. Honey volunteered to help me out. Because of course she would. But I know that those 20 minutes of my show- of anyone's show- could make or break a waitress.
And let's face it, most of us were perpetually closer to breaking.
So, I made sure to always tip Honey out for her time and she always made sure Nnoitra never had an excuse to yell at me. That didn't mean this other owner wouldn't find a reason.
Fuck! Two Nnoitras!
"Simple stuff," I told her distractedly, mind mostly on how bad having to handle two bosses up in my business could be. "The black half corset is on under the white, so we'll just need the chains and to switch to the thigh high boots for the second song."
"Third song?" she prompted, and I couldn't fight my sigh.
I hated the third song the most. Full nude, no exceptions. Unknown to Nnoitra, I had something up my sleeve this time. Whether it worked to conceal me like I hoped would remain to be seen. Or maybe it would just piss him off- as seemed to be my trend today.
"Got my tattoos finished last week and they have had time to heal. So, we will ditch the corset and boots, do the laced thong so I can take it off easy and just the clear shorter clear shoes… make sure the DJ knows to switch it to black light only!"
Honey shook her head with a low laugh. "Playing with fire, girl," she muttered.
"I just hate it so bad." I took some test steps in my platform sandals to make sure they were latched well then dipped down to grab my bottle from Honey's vanity again for one last emergency swig.
"At least the job's secure," she said walking up to reach for the bottle again to take it from me, "unless the patrons pitch a fit..."
I quickly scurried to the other side of the room carrying the bottle like a baby with me and away from her grabby, grabby hands. "I think you mispronounced pigs."
"Whatever. If they don't complain, you're cool," she reassured me, crossing her arms across her chest. She actually looked rather intimidating considering she was scowling at me in nothing but a thong and stilettos- until her face turned pensive and she darted her gaze away from me.
"Eh, of course Grimmjow has to have a good opinion, too," she drew out.
Emergency drink, part deux.
"Dammit, give me that!"
Honey yanked away my bottle and ignored my pout, swatting my ass to urge me toward the door.
"But what if he- oh shit- I'll lose my job!"
"You'll be fine," she commanded, pushing me towards the hall, "Just don't look at him while you dance."
"What?" I was utterly confused. I didn't even know what this guy looked like to avoid him, but I guess I just had to give it the old college try. Tough shit I had dropped out of that then, huh?
"Why?" I asked as a follow up to the other question she had ignored, "Is he scary?"
"Oh, he's something."
That offered me no comfort whatsoever.
"At least tell me where not to look?"
Honey rolled her eyes and gestured at her rhinestone Y-string and perky, bare breasts. Oh yeah, he was an owner of the club. Duh.
"Got it, no VIP."
"Good girl, let's go!" Honey shoved me forward into the hall to walk to the stage, carrying my boots and chains with her.
I braced myself for the end of the hall. The lights. The noise. The fucking people! God, I hated them all. Immediately, the cacophony and violent lighting threw me into sensory overload as Honey whisked me behind the stage and a bouncer blocked the path of the crowd.
But, being the dumb ass I am, I just had to look up. Had to be curious even though it had gotten me in so much trouble before that I had wound up here. Had to pan my eyes around the sea of swine filling this place only for them to land on a fucking god.
A blue-haired, beautiful god whose chest was on display in his half-unbuttoned shirt and jacket.
A god whose eyes had no fucking business being that bright and blindingly blue in this dark, hell hole of a place.
A god who's pouting lips and muscular thighs encased in black denim made me want to CLIMB HIM like a tree to pick the forbidden fruit.
A god who sat up straighter at my attention and cocked his head like a curious cat…
Until he exposed that dark hole tattoo that all hollows had somewhere on their body. It grew as they raised in rank and his was huge. Until I saw that his whole right cheek and jaw had a tattooed overlay of skeletal jaws and fangs. He screamed DANGER and for once, just fucking once in my headstrong life, I should probably goddamn listen.
At least the Hollows wore their monster on the outside so I could know immediately that I needed to run.
I lowered my eyes and stepped back into the shadows behind the stage. I found myself, for the first time ever, thankful for the bright lights of the stage and distracting music because they were the only thing obscene enough to blur out his beauty.
Closing my eyes, I let myself enjoy it as my first song came on. Nnoitra generally hated my taste in music, but I didn't care because it helped me move beyond what I was having to do. It kept me in my head where no one could hurt me. Not them, not my past, and not the Blue Adonis whom I knew would inspire some serious vibrator fueled fun time later.
All too soon, it hit my cue and I climbed the stage. It was then I realized that I may be well and truly fucked because I had found the only person in existence whose stare I could physically feel.
When would I ever learn to just. not. look.?
