“A thousand dollars. Per hour. Just to dance… and not take my clothes off,” I reiterate.
When I’m done applying her second strip of lashes, she crosses her legs and leans to the side in her salon chair, propping her elbow on the arm and rubbing her forehead with her long, French-manicured fingertips. “Sweetie, do you realize I live in a five bedroom, three and half bath 4,500 square-foot house that I paid for cash? And I made that money in seven months. Now, I’m not one of the dancers. I have a different job here in the club, but still. The customers have more money than they know what to do with, and they choose to come lavish it on us girls for shit we already enjoy doing.”
“The girls enjoy taking their clothes off for men who see them as objects?” I ask so only Crystal can hear me, because I don’t want to offend the women who I’ve gotten to know and like a little more and more each time I work with them, but I want to understand.
She shrugs. “They’d most likely be taking their clothes off in front of fuckboys who would only buy them dinner for the night—if they’re lucky—so at least this way they’re making bank. And what girl wouldn’t enjoy someone thinking they’re so beautiful and impressive that they’re willing to throw twenty-dollar bills at them?” When I lift my eyebrows at that, she nods. “Oh yeah, blondie. There ain’t a one-dollar bill in this entire establishment. Maybe in the bathroom on a roll instead of toilet paper, but you get my drift. Smallest bill is a twenty, and those are the low rollers. And that’s only on the stripping side.”
“There’s something higher than the stripping side?” I ask, starting on her brows.
She smirks. “There are three levels. The dance club, where you’d be if you grow a pair of lady balls. The men in there only want to either watch or dance with girls. Nothing naughty going on there, right? It’s the only place inside the mansion non-members—females only—are allowed to go. Our dancers are there to make the crowd happy, to dance with the members that the outside females take no interest in. Then there’s the second level. Typical strip club setting. Girl gets on stage, dances, takes off her clothes while men throw money on the stage, she gathers her shit, and that’s that. And then there’s my level.” She flips her hair over her shoulder.
“What’s your level?” I prompt when she doesn’t just spill.
She purses her lips, eyeing me as I finish her other brow, and I pull back to let her speak if she’s going to. “I don’t know if I can trust you to keep your mouth shut, blondie.”
I look at her deadpan. “You think I’m really going to compromise a job where I make over seven hundred bucks a night, with the potential to make a thousand dollars an hour? Try me, bitch.”
A wicked grin spreads across her beautifully made-up face. “All right. I’ll take a leap of faith here. The third level is much like the second—a normal strip club scenario—but instead of the girl gathering her money at the end of her dance, the customers have the option to bid, an auction, if you will, and the winner gets to climb the stairway to the rooms above and spend the night with her.”
My brow furrows. “Like… lap dances? She’s his stripper for the night?”
She giggles. “God, you’re so adorably naïve. No, silly. If he’s paying upward of twenty thousand dollars for a night with her if he wins the auction, then she’s doing much more than lap dances, hun. Think… high-end brothel.” At my shocked look, she brushes me off. “It’s fine. It’s not like any asshole can just walk in off the street. The members are vetted. And they’ve gotta pay for everything upfront, so there’s no screwing the girls over after they’ve been screwed already.” She giggles at her own joke, but I can’t even speak, let alone laugh.
After a moment, I remember what she said. “Twenty thousand dollars, and the girls like doing it?”
She nods. “Like I said, we’d all be out there having one-night stands with motherfuckers who suddenly want to go all ‘girl power’ and make us pay for our own meal on dates. Why not have sex with someone who’s going to pay us that kind of money instead?”
I tilt my head to the side, thinking about her logic. I mean, she’s not wrong.
“I personally could never do it, but I see the appeal,” I admit, and she smiles knowingly.
“Come on, blondie. Just try it one time. The dancing, not the escorting. You’ll be here later than usual anyway. What’s one more hour, where you can let loose and dance your little heart out, and then you can go home to your Hottie McNaughty a thousand bucks richer?” she taunts, and I’m surprised I’m really considering it. She makes a good point. A thousand dollars just to spend an hour dancing in the nightclub room with a bunch of lonely rich guys?