Stirred Up (25 page)

Did he? Yes and no. He wanted to see her more
than anything, but he wouldn’t be able to act like nothing was
wrong.

“Of course,” he said, a moment too late.

“Right. I’ll see you soon then.”

That was it. He sat there looking at the
phone, wondering if he should call her back. But their playful
banter seemed out of reach now, and he’d probably just make things
worse. Or maybe he was being pessimistic. Maybe everything would be
fine and she’d understand why he was upset and agree to stop
stripping for good.

***

Cheryl paced her apartment, willing herself
to calm down and not read too much into how he’d sounded. Except
he’d sounded bad. Almost like a different person.

She knew this feeling all too well. It was
the feeling before a breakup. The pit in her stomach, the lover on
the other end who sounded like he dreaded seeing her. How had she
thought what they had was immune to danger? Nothing was safe,
especially not when it was this good. If only she hadn’t come to
rely on him so much.

She needed to calm down and stop overreacting
before anything had even happened. Maybe she was projecting because
of all the other relationships that had blown up in her face. Not
that this was even a relationship. It was supposed to be casual,
and she’d assumed all along it couldn’t last. So why was she
hyperventilating?

She was sitting at the kitchen table,
pretending to do a crossword puzzle, when he knocked. As soon as
she opened the door she knew she’d been right to worry. He looked
awful, tired and sad, and instead of grabbing her up in his arms,
he smiled nervously and slipped by her, setting his helmet on the
coffee table.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said, trying to
sound steely instead of wrecked.

“Can we sit down?” he asked, his eyes darting
around the living room, as if the furniture could save him.

“You’re really freaking me out now,
Jason.”

“I went to see you last night.”

“What do you mean? You went to the club?” she
asked, sinking down onto a chair as her legs gave out.

“I wanted to be more supportive, so I figured
I’d give it a try. I thought it would be fun to watch you, and I’d
realize there was nothing to get upset about.” He ran a hand
through his hair and sighed. “At first it was pretty sexy. You’re
amazing and gorgeous and I thought I could handle it. But then I
couldn’t.”

“Jason–”

“Please, let me finish.”

She sat there, helpless, as he struggled for
words.

“I knew I needed to calm down so I went into
the bathroom to take a break and splash some water on my face. I
felt better, but I also figured I ought to leave. Except when I
went back out I saw you…I saw you giving some guy a lap dance.”

“Oh, God,” she said, clenching her arms to
her stomach, nauseated at the thought of him seeing her like
that.

Jason sat down, finally, but not next to her.
He sat on the armchair miles away. He didn’t want to be near her.
And how could she blame him?

“Cutter caught up to me before I did anything
stupid. I wanted to kill that guy, and I wanted to…”

“What? You wanted to what?”

“I don’t know. I just know I don’t want you
doing that anymore. It made what you did with me…It was like
watching you have sex with someone. I know that’s not what it’s
like for you. But I just can’t…”

“I didn’t ask you to go down and spy on me,”
she said, suddenly furious. “If you hadn’t been sneaking around you
wouldn’t have seen anything and there’d be no problem.”

“Fine, it’s my problem,” he spat, standing
up. “But what about what you promised? You said you couldn’t wait
to be done with stripping so you could move on with your life. And
yet here you are, right back at it.”

“I didn’t make anyone any promises, and I
don’t have to answer to you, either.”

“Something else always comes up, you know.
That’s just life. Are you going to strip every time you get nervous
about money? You couldn’t wait to put all that behind you and
become a teacher. You hated doing something you had to hide.”

“All this time you’ve been acting like you
accept me, but now that we’re having sex, you want me to stop.”

“I’m not telling you what to do. I’m trying
to point out how you’re using it as a crutch.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know
what it’s like to not have anyone else to depend on.”

“You’re not in danger of starving anymore,
and you’re not alone. I’d never let anything happen to you.”

“Right now, you’re what’s happening to me. I
knew I couldn’t trust you. You acted like you could handle who I
am, but I knew one day you’d throw this back in my face.”

He stared at her, the color draining from his
face, his expression tight with strain. She almost took it back.
But she was too angry. He had no right to make demands like this on
her.

“After all this time, that’s what you think
of me?” he said.

“What else am I supposed to think?”

“I’m crazy about you,” he said, his voice
suddenly hoarse. “I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

“All I see is you trying to change me,” she
said. “I thought it would be different with you, especially if we
kept it casual. But it doesn’t seem to matter.”

“We were never casual, Cheryl.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but found she
didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you,”
he said. His eyes burned into hers. “I’m in love with you. But I
guess it’s not enough, and I don’t know how else to prove myself to
you.”

She choked back a sob. “How can you say you
love me when you don’t accept who I am?”

“Christ, Cheryl. Of course I accept you.
Stripping isn’t who you are, it’s something you’ve done, and it’s
almost beside the point now. Nothing matters if you don’t trust
me.”

The pain in her chest echoed what she heard
in his voice, but she didn’t contradict him. She couldn’t give up
who she was, not even for him.

“I’m sorry, Jason. I guess we just need
different things.”

He nodded his head, his throat working. “I’d
better go,” he said, picking up his helmet, and the look he gave
her was the bleakest she’d ever seen.

She said nothing, just watched him turn and
walk out the door. She heard his bike start up and drive away, and
still she didn’t quite believe he was gone.

She cried until she fell asleep, waking up
hours later with a throbbing headache and puffy, red-rimmed eyes.
She didn’t look like a woman who was holding onto her power. She
looked like a woman who’d been dumped. Even if she did manage to
cover up what a mess she was, she couldn’t fathom getting through a
whole night at the club.

A five o’clock she drank nearly a pot of
coffee, a playlist of woman power songs playing from the other
room. “I Will Survive” couldn’t touch the way she was feeling now,
but she did feel a tiny flame of resolve flicker to life in her
belly.

She’d been through a lot worse than this. One
man wasn’t enough to take her down. She’d obviously let herself
become too dependent on him, and it was never smart to rely on one
person so much. She ought to know that better than anyone.

Her first dance that night was in dominatrix
regalia – a black bustier with clasps she hooked onto her fishnet
stockings, and thigh-high black stiletto boots. If that didn’t give
her strength to get through the night, nothing would.

She’d put on most of her make-up before
leaving the house to cover the evidence of her crying jag, so no
one looked twice at her when she got to the dressing room. As soon
as she was in costume she felt invincible, and when she walked out
onstage to the Nine Inch Nails song “Closer,” she was ready to let
loose her anger on the crowd.

Luckily, her edgy dancing seemed to strike
the audience as in character, since she didn’t smile so much as
snarl at the men crowded around the stage. The music pounded
through her blood along with all her frustration and anger, and she
took it out on the patrons of the Pink Pussycat.

They ate it up. The more disdain she felt for
them, the more money they threw at her. The whole room leaned
toward her, enraptured, watching every move. She was in control
here, just as she was in her life, and nobody was going to tell her
what to do.

Her hair whipped around her head as she
twirled, pushing the toe of her boot into one man’s chest, rapping
another with her crop. She could have gone on forever, fueled by
ten years of disappointment and rejection.

She danced several beats past the end of the
last song before she regained control of herself. Her chest
heaving, she walked along the edge of the stage, trying to smile
and play along as men slipped cash between her black garters and
sweaty skin.

By the time she made it back to the dressing
room she was utterly depleted and wondering how she’d go on five
more times. She’d never danced like that before – like she had
something to prove, like demons were not only on her heels, but
whispering in her ear.

The girls already in the dressing room hadn’t
seen her routine so they didn’t say much, but a minute later Tina
walked in.

“Goddamn, that was some serious shit. You
trying to make us look bad?” she asked, hands on her hips, fake
mad.

Cheryl gave a wan smile and continued
counting her money.

“What? What did we miss?” a new girl named
Anne asked.

“Cheryl just seriously threw down out there.”
Turning back to Cheryl, Tina looked her up and down, waiting until
she’d finished counting. “Are you okay? You look…”

“I’m just tired,” she answered, in no mood
for anyone to be nice to her. She could feel the brittle shell
holding her together starting to crack, and the one sure way to
shatter it to pieces was someone showing concern. “Nothing a swig
or two of that gin wouldn’t take care of.”

The gin helped, and somehow she made it
through the rest of her sets, and even worked the floor, though she
couldn’t bring herself to do any lap dances. She showered and left,
another five hundred and sixty dollars in her pocket. Combined with
last night’s take, she’d made over a thousand dollars more toward
her savings. So why didn’t she feel any better?

“’Night, Cheryl,” Cutter said, smiling as she
passed him in the hallway on her way home.

She muttered a goodbye but kept going, afraid
to talk to anyone, especially him.

“Hey, wait up.”

She stopped and let him catch up, but didn’t
turn around until she’d composed her face into something that felt
less like a person who was about to cry.

He frowned down at her. “You don’t look so
good. Are you okay?”

His concern nearly undid her, until she
remembered how angry she was.

“Actually, yes. Jason and I broke up. Or
whatever you call it when you’re doing whatever we were doing.”

“Damn, I’m really sorry. I thought things
were going pretty well.”

“Me too. Until he started in on me about
working here again.” But then, Cutter knew all about that. “He told
me you saw him last night.”

“That’s true,” he said, hesitating, like he
wasn’t sure how much to say. “Seeing you give a lap dance hit him
pretty hard.”

“Then you know he totally overreacted. I
mean, I don’t expect him to love it, but why is it the end of the
world? It doesn’t bother you that Emily strips. He has no ri –”

“Well, yeah. Actually it does.”

“What?”

“I pretty much want to kill every guy who
looks at her.”

She stared at him. “Seriously?”

“It’s part of the reason I avoided getting
involved with her as long as I did. And she doesn’t even do lap
dances. I’m pretty sure my skull would split open if I saw her do
that.”

“But...but I don’t get it. You know it
doesn’t mean anything to us.”

“Maybe not to you, but it means something to
me, and it means something to those men you’re crawling all over.
Jason and I know what those guys are thinking, and it’s not
pretty.”

Her head spun as she absorbed what he said.
Of course she knew it wasn’t all fun and games. The men she danced
for imagined screwing her every which way till Sunday, she just
purposefully didn’t think about any of that. But obviously some
people did.

“Look, I’m not taking sides here,” Cutter
said, his voice soothing. “If he wasn’t treating you right, then
it’s best that it’s over.”

“No, I…it wasn’t like that,” she said,
suddenly wanting to defend Jason.

Of course he’d treated her well. Better than
any man ever had. He’d been her personal cheerleader since she met
him, believing in her more than she’d believed in herself.

“I have to go,” she said, leaving Cutter with
a worried look on his face. She made her way to the parking lot and
got into the car, trying to make sense of everything.

She had no regrets about stripping to put
herself through school, but maybe Jason was right about her using
the club as a crutch. She had no debts and a good job. She was
better off than most people. If she did need money, she could do
other things. Teach summer school, tutor kids on the side.

Maybe she was just hanging onto the past – to
the first thing in her life that had made her feel strong and
independent, able to take care of herself financially. She knew
stripping inside and out, but the teaching thing was brand new.
Maybe she was afraid of her new life. Maybe she was afraid of
failing. But she couldn’t go through life acting like she was about
to fail. And she couldn’t go through life treating people like they
were bound to disappoint her.

Her expectations of Jason had been both too
high and too low. She’d been unforgiving about his reaction to
seeing her strip back in September, and she’d assumed he could
never give her what she needed. She’d assumed no man would ever
accept her if he really knew her, but Jason already had. There was
nothing to be afraid of now.