Redemption

I never had it easy and I never expect my life to have any value. I was never the smart, pretty girl who suddenly turned bad. I was the girl who lived in Manhattan and was beaten by her father and whose mother was a druggie. I started drinking when I was fourteen, got high for the first time when I was fifteen, and had sex for the first time when I was sixteen. To say the least my life was a shit hole, I dropped out of high school right before my senior year and moved out of my parent’s house. Determined to make something of myself I gave up drinking and drugs, and for the first time in my life I felt like a good, normal person. But when I couldn’t find a job and I found myself homeless-something had to give. I needed money, I was desperate, so I walked into the strip club and got myself a job by means that I am not proud of. I felt dirty again, ashamed, and even after I made a thousand dollars my first night, I still felt like a whore. I was seventeen at the time and my body became my way of making a living. I wouldn’t drink or do drugs, but would sleep with my boss on a few occasions as well as other men. I had wanted to make something of myself, but I made myself into a piece of trash. I have always wanted out, but I’m smart enough to know that no one would want to hire an ex-stripper.

So here I am, nineteen years old and living in a cute little apartment that I pay the rent for by stripping. Here I am so ashamed to look in the mirror because I see nothing even slightly attractive about myself. I see a girl with black hair, brown eyes, and a body that has been used for men’s pleasure. It sickens me, makes me want to scream and break that mirror, but life is what it is-hard and it isn’t about to change for me. No good can come to a person like me because I don’t deserve good and I never will.

“Mallory, hurry the hell up!”

Great, Lacy was drunk and was probably going to go home with some guy and come cry about it to me tomorrow. If there was one true slut in this club it was Lacy. She was more gorgeous that a Victoria Secrets model, yet she loved sex more than a man and was an alcoholic who was addicted to heroine. She started here when she was sixteen and is now twenty one, another way of saying that is that Lacy will die in this strip club-if she doesn’t die of some sexually transmitted disease first.

“I’m coming!” I called as I fixed my red lacy bra and buttoned up only three of the buttons on my white collared shirt.

“At the speed of a snail,” Lacy slurred and then let out a string of curse words.

My high heels clacked as I walked over towards Lacy who was smoking a cigarette behind the curtain that led to the stage. She was sitting on one of the bartender’s laps and he looked high and drunk.

“You’re up honey, show off the girls,” Lacy said as she stood up and grabbed my breast planted a kiss on my cheek. I could smell the alcohol on her breath and smelled the drugs in her hair. Lacy had a life of problems, which in a sick sort of way made me feel better about all this.

My first few times of stripping felt so raw, so real. I actually cried after the first few times because of how it made me feel. The fast paced music was stuck in my head for weeks, the things those disgusting pigs said to me were also ingrained in my mind, but now things are so distant. I block it out; I have gotten so good at just blocking this all out so it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

I look at the faces of the people sitting there, all men, all the time. Some are older with grey hair; some look like they are high schoolers who snuck in here, while others are simple college students or middle aged men. I enjoy looking at their left hands, counting the number of them that are married and wondering if their wives know where their husbands are.

I slowly take my blouse off as I count five married men, all of them smiling and probably imagining me lying in their bed. Thinking of what they are probably thinking makes me internally shiver, and I am almost positive that you can see that sudden flash of guilt on my face. No one looks like they noticed it though, they are probably too focused on my hands dancing around my underwear, teasing them as to when it will come off.

From the minute I am completely naked I have to concentrate more to keep what the men are saying out of my head. All of their crude remarks, all I do is take their money, feeling dirty just touching it. The total of ten minutes I am on the stage goes by agonizingly slow and the applause at the end does nothing to calm me down.

“You are hott babe,” Lacy said once I went behind the curtain, quickly slipping my panties on and putting on my bra.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“You goin home now?”

“Gonna go help at the bar for an hour or two,” I replied.

I performed anywhere between one to four times a night, and tonight it was a total of two times. It all depended on how many of the fifteen girls showed up at nine o’clock when we opened and how many stayed till midnight. Some of the girls would stay on the stage for close to an hour, but I couldn’t make it past ten minutes and as long as I got the cash I was fine. Unfortunately I needed more money for my electricity bill, so helping at the bar was a sure fire way to make a few more hundred bucks.

“Well the big man sent Kristen home so I’m takin her spot tonight,” Lacy said, lighting up another cigarette.

“Why?” I asked, not really interested considering the only time I had talked to Kristen was when I was telling her that her shirt was covering a bit too much for her performance.

“She came in her with a black eye and the nastiest bruises. Her boyfriend fuckin beat her again! She is so stupid to be in that relationship,” Lacy laughed.

“You’re not really one to talk Lacy. You have never even been in a relationship,” I replied.

“Ya but at least I can get some without having my face blown in,” she snarled and blew smoke right in my face.

“Love ya babe,” she whispered in my ear and kissed the nape of my neck and strutted off to go get ready.

I got dressed in another slutty outfit and averted my eyes when I exited the backstage and went towards the bar. Lacy was up on the stage and I knew she would be up there for a while. It always sickened me to watch other girls because I not only felt like a pervert, but I thought about what I looked like up there.

“Hey Mallory,” Steven, the main bartender said as he gazed intently at Lacy.

“Who was that new guy tonight?” I asked as I put a short black apron on over my skirt.

“No idea.”

“Where is he?” I asked, trying to get Steven to stop being dazzled by the half naked girl on a light stage.

“In the back, getting a blow job from Tamera,” he said as if it didn’t surprise him one bit.

“More than I needed to know,” I mumbled.

“Well you and I both know that Tamera is the all time welcoming committee, just how it works here,” Steven laughed but I shuddered because of how right he was.

That was just the way it works here, and it was grotesque. People were constantly having sex in the back rooms, or even on some of the tables and it was okay. Guys loved watching two of the dancers start making out and almost have sex on the stage, and blow jobs were common and the sound of moaning and groaning became something so normal. It was horrible, so unnecessary, this place was like hell on earth for me and here I was, a steward of the devil.

“There’s my girl.”

My head snapped to my left to see Charlie, the boss, the owner of this sinful place. He walked over to me and gave me a kiss-full on the lips. I could taste the beer and smell the sex on him.

“Well don’t you look sexy tonight,” he whispered seductively in my ear.

“Thanks,” I smiled but I felt about ready to throw up.

Charlie hovered around for the next hour or so, watching me make drinks and flirt with random guys. He kept trying to get me to bend down so he could look up my skirt, and he kept staring at my breasts. I knew what he wanted and I was prolonging it as long as possible. I felt like a jerk because I kept taking away Steven’s customers, leaving him with nothing to do. I just didn’t want to be left with nothing to do myself and be pulled into Charlie’s back office.

“I think I’m gonna head home,” I told Steven once it reached about eleven o’clock.

“Where you going?” Charlie demanded as he grabbed my arm.

“Home, I’m tired and have worked over my shift anyway,” I said, my voice small and weak. I never was one to have much confidence.

Before Charlie could say another word a loud crowd of men walked in.

“Guys, seriously I don’t need this experience!” I heard one yell but I couldn’t see his face. His buddies simply laughed and dragged him to an empty table, right up next to the stage. They began pulling out wads of ones while the one who spoke earlier kept talking about leaving.

“Let’s just go, I really am okay without this!” he frantically said.

“What’s a twentieth birthday without a strip club!” another yelled excitedly.

“I thought that was twenty first birthday?” the nervous one asked again.

“Are you even listening to me!?”

I was snapped out of my eavesdropping to see an angry Charlie. I glanced down to see that he had a huge boner and I knew that he wanted to relieve his sexual tension on me.

“Sorry, I missed what you said,” I said as my knees began to tremble.

“You can-“”Hey you the owner of this fine establishment?”

A man with light brown hair asked Charlie as he laughed hysterically. I could tell he was drunk, which was the last thing I needed to deal with tonight-another drunk.

“Yes,” Charlie answered curtly and soon a wad of hundreds was shoved in his hand.

“Make sure my friend gets the best lap dance known to man okay?” he slurred and winked and Charlie immediately smiled.

“No worries, we will make sure of that,” Charlie said as the man walked back over to the throng of guys that were all chattering loudly.

Charlie then looked at me and shoved a hundred down my bra.

“You heard him, go.”

“But I’m done for the night,” I demanded and took the bill out of my shirt and put it back into his hand.

Charlie pulled me close to him and whispered in my ear “Fuck me or fuck him, but you are not leaving.”

I gulped and slowly nodded my head while Charlie slid the bill back into my bra. He smiled and kissed me on the lips again, savoring my taste while I was repulsed by his. I made my way to the backstage, Lacy was no where in site, which made me believe she had already gone home. Tamera, with her fiery red hair was sitting naked in a chair, fixing her makeup. Other girls were around her, but I didn’t know any of them. They had arrived for their few dances and would be going home in an hour.

My change was quick and I was out and the music was playing in no time. I saw the group of guys, several pointing to the one in the center while chanting ‘birthday boy!’ I smiled at him, but he didn’t notice, he was too busy trying to get the others to quiet down.

I had no idea that that stranger would look so familiar, and I had no idea who he really was. He just smiled awkwardly as I danced on him. I put no further thought into who he was and blocked out the chanting of his friends and moans that would escape his lips whenever I did something especially pleasing. The whole ordeal was over within five minutes, but it had felt like an eternity to me.

“Hey can I have one!?” one of the guys called and high fived another as I backed away from the birthday boy.

“Shake that over here!” another yelled.

“Thanks for your time,” the birthday boy said smugly and high fived a friend.

“Happy birthday,” I said softly and I noticed something change in his eyes. He looked ashamed, yet pity played on his face.

I walked away from them, leaving them to watch as another girl came on the stage and attached herself to the pole. When I got backstage I threw my heels at a wall as a tear slid down my face. I felt so dirty, so ashamed, I just wanted to go home and forget my life.

“Good job,” Charlie said as he appeared behind me, kissing my neck softly.

“I’m going home,” I said, trying to hide my tears. I grabbed my stuff and walked out into the main area, going towards the bar to grab my jacket.

“No you’re not,” I heard him say but I just kept walking.

“Night Steven,” I mumbled and slid my jacket on.

“You can leave in an hour babe,” Charlie said as he sneakily grabbed my arm in his tight grip.

I looked at Steven, but he wasn’t even paying attention, then I looked toward the stage and then at the birthday bash. They birthday boy was looking at me, concern on his face.

“Okay,” I whispered and followed Charlie into his office.