Page 5 of Demon

“Thanks.”

Back out on the street, I glanced at my watch. Just enough time to get to my lecture.

*****

“You’re fucking kidding? You want me to wear these?”

I held the denim shorts up in front of me. Shorts? Try fucking knickers. There was no way they were going to cover my arse. The edges were frayed where they’d been hacked off to make them smaller.

The girl behind the bar nodded, totally unphased that she wanted me to wear next to nothing.

“Where’s Terry?”

“Not in yet,” she shrugged, looking disinterested as I continued to stare at the cut-off denim shorts and the fake leather waistcoat she’d handed me when I turned up.

I could just go. Turn around and not come back. But then I was at the mercy of sleazy Stu and there was no way I was giving him the excuse to offer me alternative ways to pay that rent. The shorts were degrading, but not as much as being made homeless or paying my rent in favours.

Fine.

“Where’s the changing rooms?”

“Back there,” the girl pointed, “the door behind the stage.”

And they were as delightful as the rest of the place. I pushed through the door into a dark corridor that ran along the back of the building, following the hallway to where light seeped under another door at the far end. The sign was written on a piece of paper in a thick black pen and stuck on the door at head height: ‘changing rooms’.

Inside was open plan, but better than I was expecting. Several mirrors were fixed to the walls, light bulbs surrounding them like the dressing rooms of a film set. One side of the room was lined with long thin lockers, places to leave clothes and belongings.

I wriggled into the shorts, forcing them up my legs and glancing at myself in the mirror. I might as well have been on that pole in the centre of the stage after all. I tucked the white shirt into the waistband and pulled the leather vest with the club wording on the back over the top. The thick-soled boots that came up past my ankles really set the whole outfit off. Could have been worse, they could have been handing me a set of heels to parade around in.

Stuffing my clothes safely into the lockers, I turned straight into the path of another woman. Tall and bleached blonde, her boobs already hung out of the vest top she was wearing, her make-up already on point and thick, long false lashes which fluttered over her cheeks.

“You new?”

I nodded.

“Dancer?”

“No, just the bar.”

“You’re not wearing that right then,” she answered, waving her hand in front of my outfit.

“Really? There’s a way to wear it?”

“Here. I’ll help.”

She stepped forward, pulling the shirt from the shorts and popping open the last four buttons, before rolling it up and tying it in a knot just under my chest. Then she nodded, as if pleased with her work, standing in front of me, waiting for something.

“You done?” I asked, much too abruptly, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Actually, no. One more thing.”

She plucked another couple of buttons undone, this time from the top, before patting me on the shoulder and stepping to the side.

Maybe this was worse? I would have swapped the exposed stomach and cleavage for the heels. Still, it was better than sleazy Stu.

The place was filling quickly when I got back out onto the floor. A buzz of excitement in the air, or maybe that was testosterone, the booths I passed already packing men of every conceivable shape and style. Suits, jeans, bikers. There didn’t seem to be a dress code. Just a come in and spend your money code. And they were certainly doing that. In the first hour, we’d gone through two bottles of vodka and a full barrel of beer.

The first set of girls had been up on stage and the crowd had gone wild. I recognised the blonde girl from all the way back here, watching as she tied herself in knots around the pole, an item of clothing coming off at each turn until eventually she was naked. And then the next one and the next one, routines similar and the outcome all the same.