1988

The bass of the dance music thumped loud against Karen's eardrums, and she felt each pulse in her chest, coursing through her body. Leaned back on her hands, she dangled her legs off of the table and tossed her head back as she pressed the toe of her six-inch platform stilettos against the chest of the horny businessman seated in front of her.

She watched as his eyes grew wide as she gyrated in front of him, wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. Karen smiled at him under the dirty pink and purple spotlights that were mechanically scanning the room. She was putting on a real show tonight, for this fancy, rich bastard who was grinning up at her like an idiot while she pulled herself down onto his lap.

Karen swiveled her hips against the guy's knees as he loosened his tie and hungrily eyed her breasts, which were spilling out of her iridescent purple leotard. Karen ran her hands up her sides and drew them up her neck through her hair, pulling her long brown tresses to the top of her head. Three feet to her right, one of the other dancers was mimicking her motions with her own client. As Karen brought her hands down and massaged her breasts, the other dancer, a blonde a few years younger than Karen, did the same.

Karen didn't like what she did to make money, but she couldn't deny that she was good at it. She had learned at a young age that she could use her sexuality to exert a type of power over people, especially men. And she had used this power for the majority of her teenaged and adult life to not only gets what she wanted, but also to support herself.

When she married her first husband, she had thought that her days of dancing in gentlemen's clubs like this one were over. And even after he left her and she had found Stan to support her, it still wasn't enough. She wanted to be sure that this time, she was prepared for life on her own when her man left her. After all, it was only a matter of time until Stan didn't show up to their hotel suite one night. He was a married man, and she hardly expected him to leave his wife and kids for her.

And so, she had found a club in Manhattan just down the street from the apartment Stan had set her up in and had been dancing there, night after night, for three years. After the club closed at 2 a.m., she would hurry back to her apartment to wait for Stan and they would make love for an hour or two before he had to leave and sneak back into his manse across town. It wasn't much of a life, but it was her life, and she had to deal with it in whatever way she could.

Karen bit her lip seductively and stared down at the man beneath her, running her hands along his chest. She whipped her head around, throwing her hair over her left shoulder as she stroked the cotton of his white button up shirt. This was getting to be too much for him to handle, and suddenly his hands were gripping her waist, then massaging her ass.

"Hey! No touching," Karen grumbled, slapping the man's hands away from her body. He retracted his hands instantly, but his eyes became dark and ferocious.

"Whaddya mean, no touching?" he asked, his New Jersey accent thick with contempt. "I'm paying you good money."

Seeing his distress, Karen backed off of him quickly, drawing the attention of the club owner who rushed to her side.

"Hey, buddy," the owner warned, throwing his large, rough hand out towards the man's chest as he stood angrily, "no touching the girls. That's our policy, it's posted right over there," he explained, gesturing toward a blue and white sign posted to the wall behind him, near the door.

"Well that's ridiculous!" the man yelled, kicking his chair over violently behind him.

"I think maybe you should leave."

"You gotta be kidding me!" the man exclaimed, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair and glaring at Karen. He may have been a shlubby, red-faced cubicle worker, but Karen could tell he had a temper. She backed behind the club owner as she locked eyes with him. "And just so you know, sweetheart, you weren't worth it."

Karen and the owner watched him storm out of the club, and by now the rest of the dancers and their clients had stopped what they were doing and were watching too. Karen was embarrassed and shaken, but tried to smile as the door swung shut and the owner turned to face her and make sure she was alright.

"Why don't you take the rest of the night off, Anastasia," he told her, patting her arm gently. "It's almost closing time anyway."

She looked at the clock; 1:42. In less than an hour, she would be in Stan's arms in the comfort of her own bed, and she would've forgotten about this whole incident.

Karen tied her black trench coat around her tightly as she stepped out into the alley behind the club. Since she lived so close, she rarely bothered to bring a change of clothes with her to work, choosing instead to pull a long coat around her scantily-clad body and make the three blocks walk in her stilettos.

Safety wasn't normally a problem when Karen left the club. She was usually with at least three of the other girls and often times the owner, and they all walked together until she turned off at her building. But tonight, she had left earlier than all of the others, and she was actually frightened. It was probably just because of her client who had lost his temper, the malice boiling up behind his eyes like a tea kettle about to explode. She tried to tell herself that there was no real danger here - the night was young and there were still plenty of people around. And she was only one block away now. Still, she hugged her coat tighter around her and quickened her steps as the streetlight outside of her bedroom window drew nearer.

When she arrived at the door of her apartment - the third door on the left of the fourth floor - she stuck the key in the lock only to find that the door swung open under the weight of her touch. Her heartbeat quickened. Why was it already open? Could it be that her pissed off business man had come into her home, waiting for her return to do God-knows-what to her as a form of revenge?

She snuck into the kitchen quietly, holding her breath as she listened for any sign of movement. Preparing herself for a struggle, she slipped her keys between the fingers of her fist, the long part pointing out. She edged across the living room to the bedroom doorway, and slowly pushed open her bedroom door, peering around it cautiously.

"Oh my God," she exhaled, finding Stanley lounging across her bed, the dim side table light switched on next to him. He grinned up at her as he heard her enter. "I thought…" she laughed nervously, set her keys on the dresser. "Nevermind."

"Sorry, darling, I didn't mean to frighten you," Stan purred as he grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the bed next to him. "Cathy took the kids for a long weekend so I made it over a little earlier tonight."

"Mmm," she replied, his lips finding hers. His right hand gripped her breast under her trench coat.

"You seem kind of shaken up…is everything ok?" Stan asked, pulling away from her to allow her to remove her coat.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she told him, smiling slightly. "There was just some jackass at the club tonight."

"Karen, when are you going to quit that job? I told you I'll take care of you and you'll never have to work another day in your life."

Karen sighed.

"We've already been through this, sweetheart," she reminded him, removing her stilettos. "I need the independence." She paused as she stood from the bed and walked to her closet to remove her leotard and fishnets. She frowned; she may have been safe once again in the arms of her lover and the comfort of her own apartment, but the man's angry words were still echoing in her mind. "Stanley?"

"Yes?"

"Am I worth it?"

"Worth what, darling?"

Karen re-emerged from the closet, sporting nothing but one of Stan's undershirts, which was like a shorty nightie on her petite frame.

"Everything….everything you're risking to be with me."

Stretched across the bed on his stomach, Stan grabbed her waist as she walked by him en route to the dresser and pulled her back down onto the bed as she giggled.

"You," he began, tickling her side and kissing her neck, "are worth every penny spent and every second of sleep lost." Her soft giggles ceased as he kissed her mouth passionately. "But you are too good to be working at that strip club."

Karen took his face in her hand and looked at him with adoring eyes.

"Well, thank you. But until I can be sure that you're not going to stop showing up here every night, I can't lose my income."

"Karen Delaney Popeil, I promise you that I will marry you one day. And then," he slid his hand underneath the bottom seam of her night shirt, up her supple thigh, "you'll only ever have to work if you get bored with me."

He kissed her again and laid her back onto the soft sheets of the mattress.

"Oh I don't think that will ever be a problem, honey."