Weeks came and went, every Saturday the young girl was in attendance, finding her blonde dancer waiting for her. Other dancers gave them sideways looks, and whispered to each other. Although the blonde dancer had an abundance of self confidence, it bothered her a bit knowing she was being talked about. The young girl noticed, and felt a twinge of guilt twist her stomach into knots. Customers saw them together and stared. Men who wore cocky grins as they saw the blonde, soon faded when she walked past them to the young girl. The scene played out like a modern day fairytale… in a different setting.
The two sat together, bodies turned to face each other; sitting so close their vision was blurred when looking at each other. They sat watching a round of amateur night when the young girl sighed slightly. The dancer sat back, and looked at the young girl with a questioning look.
"I'm not going to be coming in here anymore." The young girl announced with a shaky voice. The dancer's facial expression changed from confusion to worry.
"What? Why would you say that?" She asked.
"It's just…it's getting too hard. I can't keep doing this." If the young girl listened close enough, she would have heard the dancer's heart shatter.
"Why is it getting so hard? Things are great." She said rubbing the girl's forearm. The girl closed her eyes and looked away. She knew she had to do this.
"For you!" The girl snapped. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry." She said quietly. "I'm wasting your time."
"You're not… What are you talking about?"
"You come here to work. Granted, you don't take my money from me, but I'm preventing you from doing what you're supposed to be doing." It hurt the girl to verbalize that the woman who held her heart was there to be dancing nude. It made her sick that there were men who leered at her every night. It made her stomach turn even more to know that to make a living, the dancer needed to grind on and act interested in every one of the Johns.
"I don't need you to tell me what I should be doing." The dancer said coldly.
"Why do you think I come here?" The girl asked as she picked at the small table in front of her. "Why do you think I'm here instead of somewhere else?"
"You know a lot of people here. You come here to relax and you just have a good time." The girl scoffed and looked into blue depths.
"At a strip club… men come here and spend hundreds of dollars in a night and some nights I don't even break twenty. Why do you think I come to a strip club, of all places, to hang out?" The dancer tilted her head at the girl, not losing eye contact. "Forget it. You don't even get it." The girl stood up before the blonde grabbed her hand.
"Don't go." She said in a small voice.
"Nothing's happened! It's been a year and a half. I have made myself clear in what I want or so I thought because you have no idea what I'm talking about. I can't keep coming *here* to see you. I won't." The young girl stalked to the door, nearly ripping it off the hinges at it opened. She knew she probably come off as crazy, but if the dancer knew her as much as she led on, she should understand… or so she hoped.