Читать книгу Live And Learn - Niobia Bryant - Страница 13

“Players…ballers…shot callers. Welcome…to Club XXXcite!”

I squinted my eyes against the silver haze of smoke I exhaled and looked through the stank-ass curtain at Vic, the club owner, out on the stage.

Damn, Mookie got the best weed ever. Three tokes and I was already feelin’ it. I was gettin’ seriously f’ed up.

Ain’t no shame in my game. Besides, I wasn’t the only one gettin’ blunted. Streams of thick smoke drifted up from different corners of the crowded club. There was no mistakin’ the scent in the air.

I checked out the crowd. The spot was live tonight. Good. The ching-ching of money was ringin’ all up in my ears. I was gonna drain these m’fers for all I could. I was here to get paid. Straight up.

Maybe even enough to buy those bad-ass Cole Haan boots I saw in Nordstroms last week.

“Give it up for a club favorite. Her name says it all. Here’s…Juicy!!”

I took one last drag from the blunt, lettin’ it fill my lungs as Vic finished my introductions. “Here, Candy,” I called over to another dancer waitin’ backstage. I handed her the blunt. “Go ’head and kill that.”

She took it with the tips of her four-inch acrylic nails. How she washed her ass, I don’t know.

“Is it laced?” Candy asked, her eyes already glassy.

“Hell, no,” I snapped.

Candy stepped back from the pissed-off look on my face. “Chill out, Dom.”

“What a blunt and some damn Henny don’t do for me, I don’t need,” I spat, angry as hell that she thought I’d lace my weed with cocaine or pedope.

“Whatever,” she sighed, before she walked away on five-inch heels in her pink sheer baby doll.

“Dumb ass,” I muttered, forgettin’ about her as I stepped through the break in the curtain to take my spot on the T-shaped stage.

The lights lowered, and the spotlight fell on me. I felt like Mary J., Alicia Keys, Beyonce, or some shit. A star. All eyes on me. Wantin’ me.

But I can’t sing.

I don’t act.

I ain’t rich.

I’m a stripper. So?

“I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” by T-Pain started playin’ loud as hell, drainin’ out that ying-yang them fellas was hollerin’ at me from the floor. I’m glad ’cause I just wanna shake a little ass, flash a little titty, get my loot, and head to the crib.

A bunch of regulars from Hawthorne Avenue started singin’ along with the song, their champagne bottles and Heinekens swayin’ in the air as I gave them m’fers a reason to fall in love.

Dressed in nothing but my red plastic thong and thigh-high boots, I danced to the music, slow and sexy, just the way these hardheads wanted. I could dance my ass off, and when it came to performin’, I could work my body like a snake and make my ass tremble more than a saltshaker.

Being a stripper you can’t have hang-ups and shit. When I was on stage I was willing to do whatever to make my money. It was my job to turn these cats on. That’s why I was the best at Club XXXcite.

Squattin’, I knew they didn’t have to imagine a damn thang as all my business pushed forward like a fist. Bam!

Them fellas went wild, and the paper money fell down around me like rain.

That’s what the hell I’m talkin’ about. Makin’ that loot. Dollar dollar bills, y’all.

I finished my set, grabbed my cash, and hauled ass off stage.

Sweat was pourin’ off me as I walked that walk in my stilettos and counted my cash. One hundred and ten, thirty, fifty, seventy-five, two hundred dollars. That was cool. We made the real money durin’ the club’s showdown. That was when all of the dancers either mingled with the crowd givin’ lap dances or took customers into one of the special rooms for some freak-a-deak private dances and who knows what the hell else.

I danced. I gave hellified lap dances. I might even let a dude suck a tittie or two, but no fuckin’, no suckin’, and no dykin’. Period.

I went downstairs to the dressing room. Man, it smelt like old fish and feet up in this piece. Damn.

I grabbed my Coach leather sac from my locker just as my cell phone rang. Flippin’ it open, I answered it. “What?”

“Kimani wants to talk to you, if you ain’t too busy shakin’ that little ass of yours.”

Oh, Lord, here we go. I hated to hear the sound of Diane’s—she’s my mother—voice when she was in her “I’m a bitch” mode. She was trippin’ again ’cause I stuck her with baby-sittin’ my four-year-old daughter, Kimani. Okay, it was foul for me to lie and tell her I was going to the store when I knew I was really headed to Lex’s for me a good dickin’ down before I went to work.

Ain’t like I never did it before. Dang, she should be used to it.

“Diane, you wasn’t complainin’ about me strippin’ last week when I bought that big screen TV for your bedroom,” I snapped back.

“You want that sorry m’fer back, because you can have that sorry m’fer back,” she yelled at me through the phone line.

See where I get my nasty mouth? Diane’s a straight wacko. Either she boostin’ me up to do this shit—talkin’ ’bout make that money—or she wreckin’ my nerves tellin’ me I’m wrong. Her praise or criticism depended on her moods, which depended on whether she was f’ed up or not.

Ready to get off the phone, I promised to bring her some goodies so she would calm her ass down: a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice—which she drinks like water—and a couple of Philly blunts. You know she wanted a little sum’n sum’n to go in the blunts.

To get ready for the showdown I wiped the sweat from my body with a towel and did a couple of spritzes of my favorite perfume, Beautiful by Estee Lauder. I threw on a two-piece sheer bathing suit and headed upstairs before all the free-givin’ customers were taken.

Funny-colored lights flashed around me as I danced around in the dark until I chose my first mark. I didn’t feel nervous. Ain’t had no shame. I just wanna make my money. These men don’t mean shit to me. Most of the time I’m thinkin’ ’bout anything but the m’fers while I’m grindin’ on ’em.

I saw a big buff brotha still in his work uniform with a wad of money in his hand tryin’ to catch my eye. I saw the glint of his wedding ring on that left hand, too, but that ain’t my damn problem, ya heard me? I headed straight in his direction.

He was a new face in the crowd. Another lost soul lookin’ for a damn fantasy. As I gave him a lap dance—grinding against his hardness—I had to hold my breath to keep from swallowin’ down the stank of his breath and his crotch.

Damn.

What people do for money.