Velvet Guillotine

The first thing you should know about me is that I'm good at my job. Not good the way a waitress is good, remembering your order, smiling through the bullshit. I mean good the way a surgeon is good. Precise. Intentional. Every move has a purpose and the purpose is to make you feel something you didn't walk in with.

Most girls hate lap dances. They'll tell you that in the dressing room, between sets, while they're gluing a pasty back on or bitching about the AC. It's too much work for too little money. The guy gets handsy. The guy gets weird. The guy falls in love with you and waits in the parking lot.

I get it. I do. But I love lap dances. I love them the way some people love running, that endorphin hit when your body knows exactly what it's doing and your mind goes quiet. When I'm dancing for someone, I'm not thinking about rent or my mother's voicemails or the fact that I haven't called my sister back in three weeks. I'm thinking about breath. His breath, specifically. The way it changes when I get close. The way it catches when I pull back. It's a conversation without words and I've always been better at that kind of talking.

The club is called Velvet. It's on the north side of the city, tucked between a tire shop and a Vietnamese place that's been "coming soon" for eight months. The sign outside is pink neon, a cursive V that flickers when it rains. Inside it's dark and cold and smells like cheap perfume and cheaper vodka. The carpet is the color of dried blood. I've been working here for two years and I still don't know if that's intentional.

Thursday nights are slow. That's why I take them. The girls who need money fight for Friday and Saturday, when the bachelor parties come in and the tech guys from the startups blow their stock options on bottle service. Thursday is for regulars. Thursday is for the men who come in alone and sit at the rail and nurse a single whiskey for two hours.

That's where I find him. Or he finds me. Hard to say.

I'm on stage when I notice him. Third song of my set, some slow Weeknd remix that makes the whole room feel like a fever dream. I'm down to my last piece of clothing, a black lace thong that cost me forty dollars and has held up better than most of my relationships. I'm on my knees at the edge of the stage, and there he is. Not at the rail. Not waving a twenty. Just sitting at a table in the back, still in his work clothes, a tie loosened at the collar, watching me like I'm a painting he's trying to understand.

He's not my type. My type is loud and careless and gone by morning. This guy looks like he folds his socks. He looks like he has a retirement plan. He looks like he's never been in a strip club before, which is probably true, because he's staring at me the way you stare at a deer on the highway. Like I might bolt. Like I might wreck him.

I finish the set. I collect my tips. I go back to the dressing room and I don't think about him. I don't.

Except I do. I think about him while I'm wiping off my stage makeup with a baby wipe that smells like aloe. I think about him while I'm pulling on a robe and checking my phone. Nothing from my sister. Nothing from anyone. I think about him while I'm walking back out to the floor, telling myself I'm just getting water.

He's still there. Same table. Same whiskey. He's not looking at the stage anymore. He's looking at his phone, scrolling through something, and he has this little crease between his eyebrows like whatever he's reading is making him tired. I've seen that crease before. I've seen it on every man who's ever worked too hard for too little and doesn't know how to stop.

I should walk past him. I should go to the bar, get my water, find a paying customer. That's the smart play. But I don't. I walk over to his table and I stand there until he looks up.

"You're new," I say.

He blinks. His eyes are brown. Not exciting brown. Not chocolate or whiskey or any of the words girls use in their Instagram captions. Just brown. Ordinary. Human.

"Is it that obvious?"

"The tie gives you away."

He touches the knot, like he forgot he was wearing it. "I came straight from work."

"On a Thursday night?"

"I didn't want to go home."

That's the most honest thing anyone's said to me in this building. I pull out the chair across from him and sit down. I don't ask permission. I don't do that.

"I'm Wren," I say.

"Wren," he repeats. Like he's testing it. "That's not your real name."

"No, it's not. But it's the only one you're getting."

He nods. He doesn't push. That's rare. Most guys push. Most guys want the real name, the real story, the real you, like they're entitled to it just because they paid a cover charge.

"I'm Daniel," he says.

"Daniel." I lean back in my chair. "What do you do, Daniel?"

"I'm an architect."

"Like buildings?"

"Like buildings."

I laugh. I don't mean to. It just comes out. "You design buildings and you came to a strip club on a Thursday night because you didn't want to go home. That's the saddest thing I've heard all week."

He smiles. It's a good smile. Not a performer's smile. Not a customer's smile. Just a tired man who knows he's been caught.

"Yeah," he says. "It is."

We sit there for a minute. The DJ puts on something with a heavy bass line. One of the other girls, Candy, is on stage now, working the pole like she's got a grudge against it. I watch her for a second, then I look back at Daniel.

"Do you want a dance?" I ask.

He hesitates. I watch him do the math. The cost, the implication, the line he's about to cross. I've seen this a hundred times. The hesitation is always there, even in the guys who pretend it isn't.

"I don't know," he says.

"That's not a no."

"It's not a yes either."

I stand up. I hold out my hand. "Come on. First one's on me."

He looks at my hand. Then at my face. Then back at my hand. And I know, in that moment, that I've got him. Not because I'm irresistible. Not because I'm the hottest girl in the room. But because he's lonely and I'm offering something that looks like connection, and lonely people will always take that deal.

He takes my hand. His palm is warm and dry and a little rough, like he's been doing something with his hands besides drawing on a computer. I lead him to the VIP section, a curtained-off corner with a leather couch that's seen better decades. I sit him down. I stand in front of him.

"Rules," I say. "No touching. No grabbing. No trying to kiss me. You keep your hands on the couch or you keep your hands to yourself. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good."

I turn around. I drop my robe. I hear his breath catch, that first little hitch, and something in my chest unclenches. This is the part I love. Not the money. Not the attention. This. The moment when a man stops pretending and starts feeling.

I back up toward him, slow, until I'm close enough that he could touch me if he wanted to. He doesn't. His hands stay on the couch. I can feel the heat coming off him, the smell of his cologne, something clean and woodsy and completely wrong for this place.

I start to move. Not the way I move on stage, all flash and spectacle. This is different. This is quieter. I roll my hips and I watch his face in the mirror on the wall, the way his jaw tightens, the way his eyes go dark and soft at the same time.

"You're good at this," he says. His voice is low. Rough.

"I know."

I turn around and straddle his lap, not sitting, just hovering, my knees on either side of his thighs. I'm close enough to count his eyelashes. Close enough to see the tiny scar above his eyebrow, the one he probably got as a kid and never thinks about anymore.

"What are you doing here, Daniel?"

"I told you. I didn't want to go home."

"That's not what I asked."

He looks at me. Really looks. And for a second, I feel like he can see through the makeup and the glitter and the stage name. Like he can see the girl underneath, the one who hasn't called her sister back, the one who's tired of being looked at without being seen.

"I don't know," he says. "I guess I was looking for something."

"Did you find it?"

"I don't know yet."

I lean in. My lips are an inch from his ear. I can feel his pulse through his neck, fast and steady, like a drum.

"You should probably keep looking," I whisper.

Then I pull back. I stand up. I put my robe back on. He's still sitting there, dazed, his hands gripping the couch like he's afraid he'll float away.

"That's it?" he asks.

"That's it."

I walk away. I don't look back. But I feel him watching me, and I know, the way you know things in your gut, that he'll be back next Thursday. And the Thursday after that. And the one after that.

I don't know what that means. I don't know if it means anything.

But I know I'll be here.