Double Love

Chapter 4: New York

Melanie

This was turning out to be a bad idea. The weather in the city was awful, for one. A heavy mist saturated the night air, making my brown hair even curlier and frizzier than normal, and I pulled my jacket tight around my shoulders. New York has always been scary to me because it’s so huge, and showing up at this cement block on one side of the West Side Highway put me on edge.

But I suppose it was better than some rural location because at least there were people around. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, there were plenty of passerby goggling at the club’s giant neon sign with a picture of a donkey braying on it. They laughed and elbowed one another, making crude jokes.

“Let’s see if the New York strippers are hotter than the Wyoming ones,” said one overbuilt cowboy to his friend. Both guys stood out like sore thumbs. They had huge white ten-gallon hats on, plus black leather vests with no shirt underneath. Their muscles bulged like overdone gorillas, and I glanced at them from the corner of my eye.

“No way the strippers are hotter than the ones back home!” crowed his friend. “Besides, I’m not spending my money on some New York hos. We can get the real thing in Wyoming – sweet, succulent, and ready to ride a horse. You know the girls here have probably been with thirty guys by the time they’re sixteen.”

That got to me because although I’m shy, I’m also a feminist. Why is it okay for guys to hook-up with lots of women and for that to be seen as cool? In fact, he’s more of a man if he bags a lot of female ass. By contrast, women who do the same thing are labeled as whores and hookers. That’s not fair, and I stepped up to tell them so.

“Gentlemen, I’ll have you know that I’m eighteen and I haven’t bagged thirty guys,” was my frigid comment. “Sorry to disappoint, but New York women are not hookers.”

They guffawed, looking at me and then each other.

“Come on, Mel,” said Lauren, grabbing my elbow. “Don’t even bother to talk to these losers.”

But it was too late because the two cowboys were intent on making trouble now.

“Oh yeah?” one grunted while swiping at his nose. “What’s it to you?”

Oh no. Had this guy been using drugs? Sure enough, there was a telltale smudge of powder on his upper lip. No chewing tobacco for these dudes. Instead, they were going at the cocaine hard, and probably felt as impervious as tanks right now.

“Shut up,” his friend snapped. “Don’t talk to this skanky ho. Look how fat she is. She’s bigger than the cows back home.”

I gasped, all the blood draining from my face. How could these strangers call me fat? I’m not fat. Maybe I’m not thin, but I’m not huge or anything either. More along the lines of pleasantly plump. After all, the average American woman is a size twelve, so my size fourteen made me only slightly bigger than average. How could they say that about me?

But Lauren leapt to my defense.

“Shut up,” she hissed, staring daggers at the two men. “Both of you are f*****g dongheads with tiny p*****s. Trust me, I’m a ho so I’ve seen a lot of guys. I know,” she said evilly.

Both guys looked about ready to punch her, but that’s when a bouncer the size of a refrigerator stepped in.

“If you folks ain’t gonna buy, then it’s time to be on your way,” he grunted. “Move along. Clear the sidewalk.”

“What?” shrieked Lauren. “What did I do? It’s these two f*****g dongheads who called us names when we didn’t even do anything. They said we were hoes!” she cried. And to my disbelief, tears started rolling down her pretty face. I swear, any man would melt seeing my beautiful friend cry, and the bouncer was no exception.

“Get out of here,” he growled at the two cowboys. “Before I get my gun.”

Of course, the only thing he was carrying was a clipboard, but the guy was so huge that both cowboys trembled in their boots.

“Come on,” one said to the other. “Let’s beat feet. New York sucks.” The one who’d originally insulted us nodded and quickly, the two scurried off with their cowboy hats under their arms. Good. I’d had enough.

“Thank you,” I said to the bouncer, my cheeks flaming despite the cold night air. “We really appreciate that.”

“Yeah thanks!” added Lauren chirpily. Of course, the waterworks had stopped instantaneously, and she flung a long lock of blonde hair over one shoulder. “Lauren and Melanie,” she said, announcing our names.

Despite scaring off our harassers, the bouncer looked at us skeptically before lowering his bulky frame onto a stool by the door.

“IDs,” he ground out.

“Please,” said Lauren haughtily, tilting her perfect ski-slope nose. “Don’t you remember me from last weekend? I dance here, I’ve already been vetted by management. You know me.”

“I don’t care if you’re f*****g Mother Teresa,” said the big black guy. “IDs.”

Lauren gaped at him like she was genuinely surprised. But then he seemed to recognize her and with a sigh, pulled the velveteen curtain back. We stumbled in, Lauren with the air of a queen, and me like a mouse trying to find my bearings.

“Stand up straight!” she reprimanded me. “Arch your back! Look glamorous!”

I did as she asked, trying not to feel self-conscious and shy. But of course, that was impossible. The Donkey Club itself was not a vote of confidence. A dirty low-slung bar took up most of the space, with three poles in the center, and spotlights of gold highlighting dancers wriggling and twisting on stage. Peanut shells littered the floor and the clientele weren’t exactly the cream of the crop. I could see a couple missing teeth, some sunburns, steel-toed boots and cowboys hats all around.

“Where do these guys come from?” I asked with wonderment. “I thought we just got rid of the cowboys?”

After all, we were on the west side of Manhattan, in the middle of a concrete jungle, and surrounded by skyscrapers and guys in thousand-dollar suits. Where did they find these rednecks?

But Lauren just shrugged. “Listen, the customers pay and that’s what we’re here for right? We can’t dance at the bigger clubs because they want girls to work three or four nights a week and we’re not local. We can’t get up here that often. You know, school and all.” That was true. We’d taken the bus up from Virginia and it’d been a hellish five-hour ride, cramped and stuffy.

But Lauren was right again. I needed the money and was willing to do what it took, even if it meant dancing for rednecks. So long as the customers had the cash, then that was all the mattered. Hanging my head, I followed Lauren to the back room, where she knocked before opening the door with a proprietary air. A seedy looking dude in an ill-fitting suit looked up, his hand stilling suspiciously beneath his desk before hastily switching off his computer. No doubt he’d been stroking himself to some porn.

“Ralph,” said Lauren silkily. “This is my friend Melanie.”

“Hey Melanie,” he leered. “What can I do for you?”

Hopefully nothing, but Lauren soldiered on ahead. “You know how Renata quit last week?” she asked. “Well, I figured Mel could fill in on the ‘Dirty Co-eds’ video.”

What video? Lauren had explained that we’d be stripping, but not that we’d be filmed. What in the world? But the plot only thickened.

“You know that new video Jack Strike is filming?” continued Lauren. “Mel would be perfect for Girl 2, you know the one that gets taken for the first time.”

Now I definitely had to interrupt. This didn’t sound like stripping at all. It sounded more like porn. But Lauren glared at me and made a subtle gesture with her hand, rubbing her forefingers against her thumb. Oh right, I needed money and didn’t want to ruin my chances before we’d even begun. Grinding my teeth, I vowed to confront her about this unexpected development as soon as we got on the bus to go back home.

Meanwhile, Ralph leaned back in his chair, so far I thought he might fall over backwards. He shot us a sleazy smile and looked me up and down.

“Strike’s in LA, but he told me to collect audition videos from girls who came in,” he said. “You got one?” he nodded my way.

“Um,” I stuttered. Of course I didn’t have an audition tape. I was here to dance, and not offer myself as a potential performer in the adult entertainment industry.

“No, she doesn’t,” cut in Lauren quickly. “But let’s film one now. It’ll be easy,” she said.

“Sure,” replied Ralph, swiveling his laptop around to face us. “I got a camera embedded here. It’s high-def, so it’ll capture everything. Just start taking it off when you’re ready.”

I turned to Lauren, my mouth open and shocked eyes wide. What was I supposed to do? But she merely reached into her bag and then pressed a dildo into my hand before whispering out of the corner of her mouth, “Don’t worry, no one’s going to see except the producer.

What? What was I supposed to do with this rubber toy that she’d just passed onto me? Was I supposed to …? Oh my god, no. I couldn’t move for a moment, and merely stared down at the huge fake p***s in my hand. It was squishy yet soft at once, and I had half a mind to throw it on the floor and walk out.

But Lauren made that gesture with her thumb and forefingers again, reminding me that I needed money. My heart sank as I stood there motionless. Right. Tuition was due, and there was no way out except the here and now. So with rigid shoulders, I pivoted and turned back to the camera.

“What do I do?” came my low voice, barely audible.

Ralph leaned back in his chair, a red light on the laptop indicating that it was already recording.

“What do you think?” he leered. “Dance. Take your clothes off and let Jack Strike see what he needs to see. If he likes you, he’ll call,” he added casually. “But if all you do is stand there like some dumb llama, then you can be sure he won’t call,” Ralph added.

Shit, s**t! I didn’t want to do this, but what choice was there? I needed the tuition money badly, otherwise I was going to end up like Lauren’s mom working at the local Supermart for minimum wage. I needed to get myself a degree so that I could become a W-2 employee and not an hourly worker who was utterly disposable.

My face flushed and I looked at Lauren pleadingly for guidance, but she just nodded and gestured purposefully with her hands.

“Go!” she whispered. “Waggle your hips, and bounce your butt a little,” she said, miming the actions. “Dance, dance!”