Another guy came out, a gigantic, jacked motherfucker, who smirked and danced across the stage to R. Kelly, and I zoned out. Not my type. He was too … brunette.
I frowned.
He was too Not-Bodie.
I was instantly uncomfortable, which instantly surprised me.
Never in my life had I been with a man who no one could match up to. I’d never been with a man who was so easy to be with that I found myself on a date with him without even realizing it. I’d never been with a man so much over such a short period of time and not gone insane or driven someone else insane.
The whole thing was baffling and made me so uneasy that I needed to get up. To walk. To change the scenery.
So I leaned into Ramona and grabbed some of her singles. “I’m gonna go get a drink. Be back.”
“Don’t we have a waitress?” Her face quirked up like a cartoon character.
“Yes, but I forgot something. I’ll be back. Just watch that.” I pointed to the stage, and she smiled.
“Okay, hurry up!” she slurred, not taking her eyes off the stripper.
I nodded to Veronica to make sure she knew she was in charge before heading deeper into the club.
It was co-ed — really, most of the club was women with just a small stage for the wang. And as I walked through the club, I zeroed in on a girl with a superhuman bootie who was working her way up a side stage pole. When she did the splits with her crotch an inch from the ceiling and the pole wedged between her tits, my mouth hit the floor, and I cheered, hurrying over.
“Shut up and take my money!” I called, waving a stack of dollars as I took a seat on the edge of her stage.
The woman defied gravity. Her hair was long and curly, and she spun around that pole like it was easy, which I knew to be an absolute lie. I’d tried it once on a dare and had pole-burn for a week.
I had no idea how long I sat there, but let me tell you this; when she got down on her knees in front of me and booty-clapped to 2Pac’s “Hail Mary,” my life was forever changed. I swear to God, I found Jesus in her G-string.
Ramona materialized at my side. “What the fuck, Pen? What are you doing over here? You know I depend on you for supplementary entertainment at these things.”
“Because, look.” I grabbed her by the chin and turned it so she could see the Booty-Clap Queen speak the gospel.
Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. That is incredible,” she said reverently.
“I know. Plus, those guys were just meh.”
“Just meh?” she asked, turning to look back at me like I was nuts. “You’re kidding, right? That breakdancer was hot enough to have made the cut for Magic Mike, and he wasn’t even gay. I’m about ninety-six percent certain he wanted to impregnate you.”
I laughed. “I mean, he was okay. But he wasn’t like this.” I gestured to my new hero as she spun down the pole like a goddamn sexual siren.
She giggled and grabbed my hand. “Come back over. It’s almost time for Annika’s lap dance, and you know the look on her face is going to be so fucking worth it.”
I sighed and followed her back to the men’s stage, but she’d let my hand go before we got close, so I hung back for a second, watching my friends from afar.
I felt so weird, so off. I was usually the one up at the edge of the stage, stuffing money in my bra so the only way the strippers would get paid was with their faces in my cleavage.
But tonight it seemed kind of boring.
In fact, I kept thinking about Bodie. I wondered if he could dance like any of these guys, and then I wondered if I could convince him to strip for me. I wondered if he would have liked my new mentor’s galactic ass as much as I had. I wondered if he would have been jealous when B-Boy Johnny was all up in my grill.
I wondered if one of the ladystrippers had been on him, how I would have felt.
And then I imagined pulling a stripper out of Bodie’s lap and shoving her, subsequently being escorted out of the club by security. It didn’t make me feel better. I mean, shoving an imaginary stripper who had dared to touch Bodie made me feel better, but the reality was that I felt a little tingle in my chest that scared the shit out of me. Feelings. Real feelings.
Not-Bodie’s Armani cologne hit me before I sensed someone standing next to me.
“Hey.”
I turned to find B-Boy Johnny smirking at me, fully clothed, with his hat pulled down over his eyes.