CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cleo
Four years later …
I miss my stepdad. I think about my old life sometimes, and it makes me sad. It’s like when you’re all grown up, and you realize that your childhood is gone now, the sweetness, the purity, the innocence. Okay maybe I’d been none of those things, but definitely the two weeks I’d had with Drake had been amazing. Not just the sex, but his reassuring presence in me, surrounding me all the time.
Because things have really changed. I’m a working girl now, on stage every night, serving customers right and left. I don’t know how I got here exactly.
When I first came to New York, Lorena helped me find a really nice apartment.
“Don’t worry, Daddy’s going to pay for it,” she reassured me. We’d signed a lease for five thousand a month. But after two months in the rental, Lorena canceled my lease and put me into a shared apartment with five other dancers. It was awful -- some of the girls were crackheads, smoking whenever they were off duty, stoned and dazed all the time. Not to mention that the place was a fucking sty, cockroaches and mice scrabbling at night.
But Lorena was adamant.
“You can’t live off Daddy’s money forever,” she admonished. “You’re eighteen now and Drake won’t support you forever. The rent here’s only $900, you can afford it by working hard at the Donkey Club.”
And it was true. I made about $500 a night dancing, all cash, so covering my rent wasn’t an issue. It was more the knowledge that Drake didn’t care anymore. I felt like a ghost now. He never called, he never visited, was too busy with his new girl … and the baby on the way. I was bitter, and the tang in my mouth sour and hurtful. It was so painful to think that our connection was completely forgotten, that I was a piece of trash, used and discarded already. The agony made me throw myself into work, trying to forget.
And so I danced with a frenzy. The customers at the Donkey Club had never seen a girl hustle so hard, baring everything, breaking down all walls. I held nothing back, pushing all the boundaries, working every night, showing everything, holding nothing back. I can’t say I’m proud of it, but I wanted to be the best, even if it was just being the best in a seedy strip club.
And my efforts paid off. Since I first set foot in the Donkey Club four years ago, I’ve seen my star rise. Okay, maybe I’m not a world famous model, but I am a world famous erotic actress and dancer. The Club uses my face in its advertisements so you can see my visage whiz by on the tops of taxi cabs, the sides of buses, and even a small billboard in Times Square, pointing the way to the Donkey Club.
Plus, I’ve been able to build an on-line empire. Men log-on to watch me do all sorts of things, and wow, the subscription service turns a pretty penny. Guys pay fifty bucks a month to chat on the computer, to watch me dance on camera, to live out their fantasies with a girl they’ll never meet in person. There are t-shirts, dolls, branded sex toys, and even a rubber mold of my pussy, can you believe it? The business is called “CleoWorld,” and other strippers are asking to join now, to be profiled on my site. Why not? I might as well keep the smut bucks rolling in.
And so I’ve become phenomenally wealthy from my business ventures, my empire sprawling and diverse, a stable of girls under the CleoWorld umbrella. It’s surreal. At age twenty-two, I’ve become a CEO. Sure, I started out as an exotic dancer and entertainer, but the peon climbed her way up the ladder to be the lady in charge, built on the back of a lot of hard work with a dash of luck. I’ve hired an assistant and a web guy to maintain my various websites, an accountant, a lawyer, a banker, a real team of professionals.
By the way, speaking about lawyers and bankers. The other day word on the street was that the girlie mag Hustler was filing for bankruptcy. My attorney called me, pitching the deal.
“Cleo,” said Stuart, “CleoWorld might be the right entity to pick up this asset. If it’s in Chapter Eleven, why not? It’s going to go at a fire-sale value, and you’re savvy enough, smart enough, with the deep pockets to turn it around.”
I sighed.
“Stuart, you know I can’t make decisions without any data or back-up. Get me some analyses and we’ll take a look at the deal. Hustler might be too far gone for any possibility of resuscitation. If their customer base has already scattered, we’d have to win them back and that would discount the purchase price.”
I could tell Stewie was impressed by my analysis. Who says you have to go to college to have real smarts? I’d been scrappy and worked my ass off and it had made me into a millionaire many times over.
“Alright, I’ll get Ben started on the valuation,” replied my attorney, referring to my investment banker. “But get ready for the auction to go hard and fast soon. This property isn’t going to stay on the block long.”
I paused for a moment. I wished Drake was here to help me do this analysis. As the CEO of News Enterprises, he’d know exactly how to guide me, how to evaluate a potential acquisition. But those days were gone now, and I scolded myself mentally. I hadn’t seen Daddy in four years! It was no use, and I clamped down internally, willing myself to shoulder on.
So it hasn’t all been rainbows and unicorns. I miss my Daddy … but I’ve become my own woman, with my own life.