The next day was fun. I walked in to find Billy and his crew just chatting around some couches, and I decided to join them.
One of them whistled as I approached, and I curtsied very slightly before leaning on the edge of one of the couches. "You boys enjoy the show last night?"
"Hell yeah. You and the other girls were a great time." One of them said, and the others nodded.
"I'll let them know." I smiled.
"Can you give the cute little redhead my number?" Another one tried.
"Not a chance, but good effort."
"You ladies all enjoy yourselves last night?"
"Well we enjoyed the paycheck, that's for damn sure. We'll do it again if you keep paying well." I got up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have practicing to do. That didn't all come naturally you know." I stood, walking away with a wave of my fingers, and I could feel them checking me out as I walked away.
The next few days I came in I talked to them more. I'd been there long enough that I was an expected normalcy, so talking to them didn't intrude too much.
They were all jerks, shallow and misguided, but after seeing me naked it seemed like they had more respect for me, somehow. I wasn't complaining, they'd occasionally toss me a bottle of beer, or a small bit of cash in exchange for taking off my shirt, something I played with later by coming in with three layers on. They'd keep paying until they saw my breasts, but it was a fun way to get some extra money for my trouble.
It was two weeks after the first night I'd been hired to come in that I came to practice and didn't find anyone in the main area. A little odd, but I shrugged it off and headed up to my studio space.
The curtain was drawn, and I pulled it back to see a man duct taped together and handcuffed to one of my poles. I slowly pulled the curtain back across and took out my headphones, walking out of the room.
"Billy!" I called out, wondering where he was, and a door opened a little ways down the hall. I went in to find him with some of the others, looking over a table of information. "Why is there a man handcuffed to one of my poles?"
"We had to put him somewhere."
"So you put him there?"
"Didn't know you were coming in today."
I sighed. "Clearly."
"Boss." One of them nudged him, then looked at me, and they muttered to each other just quietly enough for me not to make it out. I stood in the doorway with my arms crossed waiting for them to finish.
"Actually… you could help us out."
"How?"
"We're trying to get information out of him. He's not exactly complying."
"I've never tortured anyone before."
"Not what I was suggesting. I'm thinking of your other talents."
"You want me to pole dance on him?"
"I want you to seduce him."
I sighed. "You're paying me for this."
"Absolutely. Name a price."
"I'll name it when I'm done. What do you need?"
"A name. The name of his supplier."
"Fine." I walked out, stopping in the hall to come up with a plan.
When I had one I took a deep breath, changed into my heels, took my hair out of its ponytail, and got rid of my jacket.
As I walked into the room I could hear them following me in to observe, and took another breath before slipping in through the curtain.
I bounced over to the man tied to my pole and bent over to rip the tape off of his mouth. "Hi there!" He looked very confused, a fact I was banking on. "Sorry about all this, you know, boys will be boys. See, they told me that you're not playing nice, so they asked me to come in and… well, I wasn't really paying attention, but they want a name from you. You don't want to get hurt do you?"
He shook his head quickly.
"Good! So here's how this is gonna go. All I want you to do is tell me the name. Just whisper it in my ear. They said I could rough you up a bit, but I don't really want to. That sounds so messy. So…" I straddled his lap. "Let's have some fun instead. You want to have fun with me?"
He looked over my almost-naked body, and I could see desire in his eyes.
"That's it. Take a good look. You could let them do it their way, or you could just have fun with me. All you need to do is tell me the name." I leaned in to his ear, not-so-subtly moving my breasts right into his face. "It's only one little name. Just tell me, and you can do anything you want to me."
"Anything?" He finally spoke.
I grinned. "Anything you want. Just say those magic words." He looked me over again, and I slid a hand between his legs.
"John."
"John what?" I murmured.
"No no, no more out of me until I get what I want."
"And what is it you want?"
"I want you to dress up like a little kid."
That was my cue to switch tactics.
"Hard way it is." I grabbed his head and slammed it into the pole before pinning it to the floor under my shoe. "Give me the name."
"Jesus! I liked you better before!"
"Too bad you fucking creep. Give me the name."
"Or what?!"
"Or I'll take a knife and start cutting. Might start with your fingers. Might start with your dick. Either way I'll make sure to cut nice and slow. What's it gonna be?" When he didn't reply, I pressed my heel into his head harder.
"Okay, okay! James Manser!"
"You're sure about that?"
"I'm positive! Christ, don't hurt me!"
I got off of him, giving him a kick for good measure, and strolled past the curtain, noticing everyone positioned by the holes in it.
"That good enough?" I asked Billy.
"More than. Here." He passed me a stack of bills that I looked over and guessed to be about a grand. "That good?"
"Plenty. Get him out of my space. I'm gonna have to spend the day disinfecting it."
"Go relax downstairs for a bit, we'll take care of things here."
I nodded thanks and strode off, collecting my jacket from the hallway and going downstairs.
I put the money in my bag, and after sitting around for ten minutes waiting I got bored and hopped up on the stage they'd made up, getting my stereo out and playing a few of my old favourites on low to mock out the routines, just to get my body moving.
When they still weren't back, I put on a new song and started mocking out the bits I'd figured out so far, rewinding over and over as I refined it down.
I was pushing my hair out of my face in frustration as the choreo wasn't coming together when I saw Billy watching me from the upstairs office window. I got back to it, and a minute later he came down.
"You look tense."
"I'm getting easy to read." I said in the middle of a move, sighing and giving it up.
He climbed up on the stage and moved behind me, rubbing my shoulders. "What's got you frustrated?"
"The choreo isn't working out, I can't pin it down." I sighed. "And I hate people like that."
"What, that piece of shit upstairs?" I nodded. "Why?"
"My best friend in elementary school was abused by our grade 5 teacher. She killed herself over it before she could turn 13. It took him doing it to three more kids before anyone clued in and did something about it."
"God. Is he in jail?"
"Better. Punisher killed him. He's probably the only justice this city has anymore."
"Punisher? Who's that?"
"He was running around New York for a while. Some ex-military guy like you guys, just went around murdering criminals. Had fights with Daredevil I think? Not sure, he got caught, the whole trial and everything was on the news, he broke out of jail in like a giant murder spree apparently. Guy runs around with a skull on his vest."
By now I'd relaxed a little into Billy's arms, so I felt him tense when I said skull.
"He wears a skull on him?"
I nodded. "Yeah. You okay?"
"I… have nightmares about what happened to me. The scars. This whole time all I've been seeing is a floating skull."
"If Punisher came after you and left you like this, you did some serious shit. He's famous for killing criminals, not defacing them. You had to have pissed him off hard."
"You said he was ex-military? You remember his name?"
"Rook? No… Castle, maybe."
He froze completely. "Frank?"
I turned to face him. "You knew the guy?"
"He was my brother in arms. Frank Castle was probably one of the only people I ever really cared about."
"I'm probably just misremembering the name-"
"Find it."
"Okay! Okay." I pulled out my phone and searched for articles about the trial, holding my hands up in surrender when Billy snatched my phone out of my hands, staring at the picture of the Punisher on the first article I'd pulled up.
"It's your guy isn't it?" I asked softly.
Billy was shaking, just staring at the skull in the picture. I reached out and very gently touched his arm, and when he didn't react I slid my arms around his waist, pressing myself against his back.
"How could he do this to me?"
"He never went after someone who didn't deserve it Billy. You're missing a big chunk of your life, right? Past few years? Maybe you did something to him."
"I don't understand."
"Look through this stuff. Maybe… maybe there's a clue in there about what could have happened between you two."
Billy's only response was to shove my phone at me and walk away.
I took that as my cue to leave for the day and went back home.