She pointed to a chubby black man seated at the end of the bar talking on a cell phone. He had on an outdated suit with a wrinkled shirt and his tie was crooked.
“Shame on it all,” I said aloud. “You mean to tell me that crusty son of a bitch owns this place?”
The waitress laughed. “Yeah, Mr. Crusty runs the show.”
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.
She pointed to the back of the club. “Down that hall on your left.”
I made my way to the bathroom and did some self-improvement. While I had made it past the bouncer with ease, I needed to spruce up some before I approached the owner. I unbuttoned the top three buttons of my blouse and hiked up my skirt a few inches to show more leg. I let my hair down and shook it to give it more of an untamed appearance.
Interestingly enough, there was a basket on the counter with all kinds of makeup in it. I guess the girls wanted to make sure they always looked good so they could land major tips. Lucky me. I lined my eyes, darkened my eyebrows, threw on some rouge and put on the raunchiest shade of lipstick I could find: blood red.
I puckered up, took one last glimpse at myself in the mirror and then went back out into the club.
Skippy was still in the same spot at the bar, but he was off the phone and had some hoochie momma all up in his grille. It seemed like they were having a heated discussion but I didn’t give a shit. I approached them and pushed her to the side.
“Excuse me!” she said nastily.
“You’re excused. No problem,” I replied. I pushed up on Skippy and stood between his legs while he sat on the barstool. “I need to have a word or two with Skippy.”
The hoochie momma spewed “Bitch!” at me and then started walking away. She pointed at Skippy and said, “We’ll finish this later!”
“My, my, my,” he said, eyeing me from head to toe. “You sure are a feisty one.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I nodded my head toward the bartender. “Since you own this joint, how about a free drink?”
“Normally, I don’t give out free drinks but you can have one.” He glanced at the bartender. “Sheila, give this young lady whatever she wants.”
I told Sheila, “Hook me up with a blow job.”
She laughed and said, “A woman who knows her stuff.”
“A blow job?” Skippy inquired. “That’s a drink?”
“Yeah. You mean you own this place and nobody’s ever asked for a blow job?” I rubbed my hip against his thigh seductively. “I mean, a blow job drink. Not the real kind. I’m sure there are plenty of requests for those around here.”
He grinned at me and almost started drooling on himself. “You’ve got some height on you, girl. How tall are you?”
“Tall enough to wrap my ankles around a man’s neck and let him pummel his dick into me all night long.”
Skippy was about to say something when Sheila came back with my drink, which consisted of equal parts of Kahlua, Bailey’s, and vodka layered into a pony glass and topped with whipped cream.
Skippy practically came on himself when I put my hands behind my back, placed my mouth over the top of the glass, raised it, and took it all down the hatch in one swallow. I put the glass back down on the bar, using only my mouth and asked, “Don’t you just love a woman that swallows?”
Skippy cleared his throat. One of the strippers came up to him and before she could say a word, he told her, “Beat it!” She rolled her eyes and walked away. “This must be my lucky day but I have to ask. To what do I owe this honor?”
“Skippy, I’ve got a straightforward proposition. I’m interested in being a stripper. At least, I might be interested.”
“Can you dance?”
I gave him a fierce look. “Can you get your dick hard?”
“Hell, yeah,” he replied.
“Then there’s your answer to a stupid-ass question.”
He raised his hands in the air. “Hey, I had to ask. It’s obvious you have certain talents,” he commented, picking up the pony glass and staring at it. “But the men come here to see women shake that ass with some degree of expertise.”
I looked over at the dance floor. There was some bitch performing off “Back That Thang Up” by Juvenille. “You mean like her?”
Skippy glanced at the dancer. “Yeah, just like Kandi. She’s one of our headliners.”
I smirked. “Well, Kandi doesn’t look the least bit sweet to me and if she’s truly one of your headliners, then you’ve been seriously missing out.”
“You talk a lot of shit,” he said.
“But I can back it up.”
“Come by tomorrow and audition.”
“Fuck that. I want to dance tonight, right now.”
Skippy shook his head. “Naw, never that. All the dancers have to do a private audition first. I can’t just let you get up there without knowing that you can handle your own.”
“Private audition? Is that the same thing as a trial fuck?”
Skippy eyed me suspiciously. “You sure you’re not the poe-poe?”
“The poe-poe?”
“Yeah, the police. Five-O.”
The idiot was starting to rub me the wrong way.
“No, I’m not the fucking police but I fucked a couple of them once.” I couldn’t help but snicker as I remembered the time I’d been pulled over for speeding in Jon’s car. I couldn’t allow a ticket to come to the apartment if it wasn’t paid or even risk her finding out if I paid it so I did what I had to do and fucked both police officers in the back of their squad car to get off scot-free.
“You’re a trip, girl,” Skippy said.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“How old are you, Skippy?”
“Old enough to be your damn daddy, that’s for sure.”
“Then don’t you have enough confidence in yourself to believe you’d be able to spot a police officer if one came in here under-cover?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Then why are we wasting valuable time with asinine questions?”
Skippy chuckled. “You’ve got me making all kinds of exceptions up in this bitch tonight. First the free drink and now you’ve actually got me thinking about letting you get up on the stage without an audition. I live by rules. They are my rules, but they are rules just the same.”
I ran my fingertips over his chest. “Skippy, what’s the point of having rules if you never venture to break them?”
“What’s your name, Sugar?”
I hadn’t thought about a name until that point. I needed something that would land a bunch of bucks. “Just call me Mercy because that’s what men will have to beg me for when I start slaying their dicks with my pussy.”
Skippy almost fell off the barstool when he broke out in laughter. “Okay, Mercy. You have something to wear for your big performance?”
“No, just tell the audience the truth. That I wandered in off the street and asked for a public audition. Like I said, I’m not sure I want to be a stripper. I just want to try it out for one night and see if I’m feeling the profession and if the profession is feeling me.”
“Name your song, girl!” Skippy said anxiously.
Ten minutes later, I was taking the stage to Madonna’s “Secret” and the crowd was rowdy from the first second. Skippy had personally announced me and they were all excited about a freak coming in on a whim to shed it all.
I closed my eyes and got into the tempo as it started out slowly and then picked up the pace. The song was just fast enough and just seductive enough to dance erotically to and before I knew it, men were pitching dollar bills on the stage.
I swirled my hips and started undoing the rest of my blouse until it was completely undone. I turned my back to the audience and inched it off my shoulders until it was covering my hips. Then I swung back around and let it fall to the floor. I palmed my breasts and rubbed on my nipples through my bra. They immediately stood at attention.