Code of Ethics

I was covered in sweat, the little droplets dripping down my skin and clinging to different parts of my body, making my pores feel like they were suffocating. Or maybe a better word was drowning, considering the presence of water. Either way, my skin was begging for some kind of air and breathing.

Once backstage, I pulled my towel out of my bag and headed back toward the showers. I was so relieved that they’d installed the facilities a couple of months previously, since, prior to that, I’d had to deal with my sweat until I got home. It was disgusting and uncomfortable, and I was incredibly thankful for the new renovation.

I stripped out of my clothes and hopped into the shower, lining up my soap, shampoo, conditioner, and razor just outside the raised edge of the porcelain floor. The spray of the water almost immediately turned warm, and I loved the way it washed off most of the stifling sweat.

“Hey, Tara,” one of the other strippers on duty, Isa, called. “Is that you in the shower?”

“Yeah,” I replied, using my hands to slick my hair back before sticking my head out between the edge of the curtain and the tile wall next to me. “What’s up?”

“There’s a guy out there looking for you,” she replied. “He says that he knows you, and he wanted to come back here, but I had to explain to him that it’s against the rules.”

I rolled my eyes, figuring it was one of my admirers or something. “Did he give you a name or anything?”

“No, but it’s kind of obvious who he is,” she laughed. “God, I used to be so obsessed with them. Being a teenager feels like so long ago for some reason.”

My stomach constricted as I recalled what she meant. “If you’re heading back out there, can you just tell him that I’ll meet him in a few minutes and that I’m in the shower?”

“Will do,” she replied, a smirk pulling at the corner of her beautifully-shaped full lips. “Just try to hurry up. I’m pretty sure the Harry Styles isn’t used to waiting.”

When she turned her back and started to walk away, I let the curtain fall closed and rolled my eyes dramatically. If Harry wanted to talk to me, he was going to have to wait. After all, if he gave me that lecture at the party about how I wasn’t supposed to treat him any differently because he was famous, then he better have the common sense to know that I wasn’t going to rush for him. I didn’t rush for anyone.

After my hair and body were washed, and I was cleanly-shaven, I hopped out of the shower and got changed into the tank top and yoga pants I’d brought. After throwing my hair up into a fast ponytail, not caring to smooth out all the bumps, I made my way out to the floor.

As I’d expected, Harry was still waiting. Although Isa had started dancing, her ever-present Pitbull mix blaring behind her, Harry’s eyes didn’t even flick over for a second. He seemed focused and very pensive as I made my way toward him.

“What?” was the best thing I could come up with as I approached him. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to ask you out,” he said simply. “I think you’re gorgeous, and in the few conversations we’ve had, I think you’re really sweet and intelligent, if a bit tough. I like you, and I want to get to know you better.”

“I don’t go out with clients,” I recited from practice. “Sorry.”

“Do you usually talk with your clients like you did with me at the party?” he interrogated, raising an eyebrow.

I refused to respond.

“Exactly. I just want you to give me a chance. If we go one date, and you decide that you hate my guts, then we can go our separate ways. But I really think that we could work out.”

“Look, Harry,” I started, my voice much harsher than I’d intended, “this isn’t my first rodeo, okay? I have clients asking me out all the time, and I know they don’t really want to get to know me. They want to go out with me because they think that I’m some sex expert, and I’ll be able to show them a good time. Like I told you before, I’m not a prostitute, and I’m not going to fall for your dimples and cute face. And I’m certainly not a sex expert.”

“Wait, are you a virgin?” He seemed amused by the possibility, that I could dance onstage virtually naked, yet I’d never done the horizontal tango.

“Fuck you, Harry,” I snapped. The truth was, I wasn’t a virgin, but I didn’t figure that I should have to tell my whole life story to the creep that was standing in front of me. “That’s none of your business. Now let me out and try your shit on one of the other girls here.”

I brushed by him, pulling the strap of my duffel bag further up my arm as I went. I really didn’t need the added confusion of Harry showing up again. I already kind of hated him a little bit after he gave me what my mind wanted to view as a handout, and the fact that he kept popping up was annoying.

And surely enough, just when I thought I was free of him, I heard his familiar footsteps following me. “Harry, this is getting freaky. I will call the police on you.” Spinning around, I came face to face with the childish teenager, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, trying his best to look innocent.

“Can’t you just give me a chance?” he asked, batting his eyelashes a little. “I swear I’m not going to use you for sex.”

I swallowed and felt my temper start to boil as I shook my head violently. “No way. I know that you look down on me, that you think of me as some little charity case that you have to save. But I’m not doing this because I have no other options. I’m doing this to put myself through law school. This isn’t my dead-end future, so stop believing in all the stereotypes.”

“I don’t think of you as a charity case,” he started to argue, but I cut him off with an evil, spiteful laugh.

“Oh, really? Then why did you pay me ten thousand pounds for a three-hundred-pound job? Because you felt sorry for me, right? You wanted to give me what you thought would make me happy because I’d be able to buy my drugs or the rent on my apartment or whatever other things you believed about me. You gave me a fucking handout, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“That’s not why I gave you the money!” he argued, his face starting to take on a red hue so bright that I could see it through the darkness of the nighttime. As he drew closer, I started to notice that he seriously was humiliated and disgusted by the accusation. “I gave you that money because I promised I’d pay you well for overcoming your fears of performing in front of us. I gave you that money because Louis had the best birthday of his life. I gave you that money because I kind of like you, for some crazy, strange reason. It was not a handout, and I think it’s really shitty that you’d think that low of me. Maybe everyone else in the world looks down on you, but I’m not one of them.”

I stared at him for a long time, watching his chest fall up and down rapidly as he struggled to regain his cool. And then it struck me: we couldn’t be in more different situations, and yet we were the same. We fell into simple categories that were easy to stereotype, with him filling the role of the cocky, sex-obsessed, girl-crazy pop star, and me, the slutty, poor, drugged-out stripper.

Yet neither of us fit our roles. We were unique, both desperately trying to break out of those parts we were expected to play and convince the other people around us that we were more complex than society wanted to believe. And while he was trying to understand me for who I was, I fell into the hole society dug, and I’d figured the rumors were true without bothering to search otherwise.

I felt like shit. As he calmed down, I bit my lip. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But that money has been bothering me. I kind of hid it and refuse to use it.”

“I’m sorry the money made you uncomfortable,” he responded honestly. “I just thought you deserved it and figured that it would make you happy. Who doesn’t like a little bit of money to make life easier?”

I had no idea where the two of us were going to go from there, but when I said, “Alright, I’ll go out with you,” I knew immediately that I’d regret it.