Even if that was a burlesque show run by a closeted g*y man.
I made serious cake. Lash paid me a mint. And he sent a driver to get me and take me home mainly because the losers in the audience often thought they could f**k with me in the parking lot or trail me home.
Brutus (not his name, what I nicknamed him, his real name was Freddie), my driver was two hundred, fifty pounds of black man on a six foot five inch frame.
The losers who trailed me home drove on by when Brutus got out to open my door.
I also got my own dressing room. This was because I was the headliner.
This was also because Lash knew his other girls secretly hated me.
It wasn’t a lavish dressing room with chaise lounges and silk screens.
But it was better than sitting with those bitches who were fake being nice to me.
Lash came up behind my chair and put his hands to my shoulders as I dropped the makeup brush and went for the sequins I’d stick around my eyes.
“Right, Ivey, I asked, you answered, you lied, I’ll ask again,” he said softly. “How’s my girl tonight?”
At his strange question and tone, my hands arrested and my eyes went to his in the mirror.
“I’m doing fine, Lash.”
He held my eyes in the mirror a beat.
Then he whispered, “It’s his birthday.”
My throat constricted.
That was Lash. Something like that, he wouldn’t forget.
Then again, the first one he lived through with me I got drunk, blathered out the whole story and ended the night sobbing in his arms.
So that kind of shit made you remember.
“I’m fine, honey,” I whispered back.
He continued to hold my gaze. Then he squeezed my shoulders. Then he dropped his handsome head and touched his beautiful lips to my shoulder.
Then he let me go and walking out, reminded me, “You’re on in ten minutes.”
“Right,” I said to his back.
He went through the door.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
God, seriously, I loved Lash.
Then I leaned forward and stuck sequins around my eyes.
* * * * *
I was three and half minutes into the dance.
I could hide the hard in my eyes and around my mouth with makeup and spotlights.
They weren’t looking anyway.
All they saw was hair and flesh and all they could take in was the way I moved.
I started in a bra, corset, panties and feathered fans. I had ten sets. Purple with hints of pink and pale pink fans. Emerald green with hints of peacock blue with baby blue fans. Shocking pink with hints of red and red fans.
It went on.
I loved my getups. They were the bomb. And they were the bomb because Lash laid out a wad to get me he best.
The corset went first. Then the bra went. That was when the fans came in handy.
It was all twirls, bends, deep squats, sticking out and swaying my ass slowly, fan flashes and come-hither looks that came with a come-hither smile and fake bedroom eyes that weren’t hard to affect mostly because the makeup did all the work.
The men ate it up.
Two dances, ten minutes, six nights a week and Lash paid me five hundred dollars a night.
The best gig ever.
I was whipping my fans back to front, torso bent slightly forward, head tipped back, lips parted, ends tipped up. I could feel my hair tumbling down my back, my ass pointed out and swinging slowly when my come-hither eyes moved through the tables at the side of the stage and I saw him.
Gray.
Gray.
My heart stopped beating and my eyes locked to his but I didn’t stop dancing.
Oh no.
The show must go on.
Even if the love of your life who crushed your heart who you hadn’t seen in three years was sitting by a stage while you were essentially doing a striptease on said stage.
He looked good. God, amazing. The same, a little older as he would look seeing as he was older, three years older.
Today.
He was sitting, lounged back, one arm out, forearm resting on the table, ankle resting on his opposite knee.
Yes, he looked amazing.
And he looked pissed.
I tore my eyes from him to see Shim and Roan with him.
Boys trip to Vegas.
Fuck me.
Gray’s friends didn’t look happy either.
My eyes left their vicinity; I worked the stage, the crowd, my body and my fans.
I knew how this happened.
I didn’t let Lash use me for any of his promotional materials and I explained to him why. If someone I hustled in the past happened into Lash’s club, they might not recognize me. If they did, they certainly couldn’t get through the bouncers or Brutus.
But if I was on pamphlets and billboards, that was a different story.
And they might try to find me.
It sucked for Lash at first but then he loved it when he found it worked in his favor. Pictures told a thousand words but mouths had a bunch more and if people talked about me, and if you couldn’t see me unless you paid to see me, you wanted to see me, you paid to see me. Not on a billboard, pamphlet, poster or magazine ad.
And I danced under the name “Rue”. Lash made it up, thought it was funny. His name was actually Lash, his parents gave him that name. He wanted me to call myself “Larue” but I convinced him that was too corny.
So Rue it was.
Only a select few people in the inner sanctum (namely, Lash and Brutus) knew my name was Ivey.
No one knew I danced here unless they saw me.
And not a lot of people would recognize me under all this makeup, big hair and sequins.
Not to mention, most men didn’t look at my face.
I finished the dance, took my applause like a professional, smile on my face. Then I got the f**k out of there, flashing one of my fans in a farewell wave per usual as I strutted offstage, back bare, ass covered in sequined emerald green panties, come-hither look thrown over my shoulder, other fan pressed to the front of me.
Once out of the spotlight and backstage, I ran to my dressing room.
I tossed down the fans, snatched up my robe and pulled it on, tugging the belt tightly.
Then I paced.
Gray was out there.
Gray was out there!
God.
God!
Could I go out there for the next dance?
I had to go out there for the next dance.
But Gray was out there.
And he looked amazing.
And pissed.
Why did he look pissed?
What did he have to be pissed about?
He certainly didn’t have anything to be pissed about.
Hell, he was lucky I didn’t jump off the stage and beat him with my feathered fan.
He was a dick like all men were dicks (except Lash but it was my experience g*y men weren’t dicks except, according to Lash, to other g*y men, primarily lovers turning dick before becoming ex-lovers, the way of the world no matter which way you swung).