Chapter Twenty
ROXANNE
I hated that I had to slap PJ, but I saw Stephano coming out of the corner of my eyes and I knew he had seen her talking to me. There was no time to think of anything else and I couldn’t risk that he thought I was working with PJ. If PJ got caught, I wasn’t going down with her. I was going to figure out a way to get Ana out of the situation.
“So, she speaks English?” Stephano said as he joined PJ and I.
“No, she was babbling some crazy shit and smarting off to me. I don’t know for sure what she said, but it looked like she was calling me names and she spit on me.”
PJ looked pissed that I had thrown her out like that. But there wouldn’t be a reason for Nate to be selling the girl if she was nice. He would have kept her. I really didn’t have a reason to slap PJ except to make it look real to Stephano. I had to hope that PJ would understand the situation and just go with it.
I noticed that PJ had glasses on and she had not been wearing them before. I wondered if they were some sort of video device so Jackson could see what was going on. It was a good idea, but I didn’t see any device for her to talk to him or for him to listen to what was going on.
The problem I had was that I didn’t know their whole plan. I had left the hotel after talking briefly with PJ. It was a mistake of me to just come and meet up with Stephano without at least talking with Jackson. I should have stood up for myself and insisted that I stayed involved.
Now, it was too late, I was involved and PJ had shown up as well. Now we were both in the mix with Ana. It was going to be up to the two of us to make sure that everything went off without a hitch. Getting Ana out of the club was going to be near impossible, so I really hoped they had not expected to break her out right away. My best bet was that we were all going to make it back to Stephano’s house and then try and plan an escape from there.
“I guess that’s why the kid is trying to sell her off. It’s all right, we can break her later. Did she take a pill?”
“Yes, I gave her one.”
“Here, take another,” he said as he shoved a methadone pill into PJ’s mouth and then poured water in there.
My stomach clenched as I held myself back from intervening. PJ looked up at me with fear in her eyes, and I couldn’t say or do anything at all. I had to pretend to be there to help Stephano, I couldn’t act out. If I had tried to stop Stephano, he would have made me take a pill and I couldn’t take something like methadone. My body reacted poorly to pain medication and I could stop breathing if I took one of them. Or at the very least, I wouldn’t be able to function, and I couldn’t have that happening.
Stephano held her nose and mouth shut until she swallowed the pill and then he let her go. PJ looked at me with a look that could have killed me. I knew she was pissed, but at that point, I didn’t really care. She wanted to be the girl who was sold to Stephano and that was how he treated girls like her. I couldn’t exactly step in and try and say anything or he would know something was up.
“You better get her to dance, I don’t want to keep her for long. I need a buyer to see her today,” Stephano said as he left us and walked around to look at all of the girls.
He admired Ana for an extra long time, and I saw that he forced another pill on her, too. She had already taken one from me and I knew she had taken one earlier in the day. I worried that she was very addicted to the methadone and it was going to be hard for her to get away from it once we got her out of his care.
“You can be mad at me if you want. But I’m going to help get Ana out. You need to go on stage and dance. Leave your glasses on the stage so Jackson can see the audience.”
I wasn’t sure her glasses were a camera, but PJ’s reply made me positive of what I had thought was going on.
“I know what the fuck I’m doing, I’ll leave the glasses wherever I want to,” PJ said as she stood up and followed the other girls out to the backstage area.
It sucked that she was so mad at me, but I couldn’t risk Stephano thinking I was on anyone’s side but his. I had to be a bitch so I could get everything done that needed to get done while we were at the club.
If Stephano trusted me, it would be possible he would leave the girls in my hands when we got back to his house. Instead of trying to find me a match, he might decide to keep me to help with the girls. Having me there to work with the girls could be exactly what we needed to get them to safety. I didn’t know what the security situation was like at his house at night, but with all the drugs these girls were taking, I didn’t think he would need that much security at all. Most of them would probably be passed out by the time it was dark outside.
But for the time being, I needed to dance first so that the rest of the girls saw what had to happen when they had their turn. I could still remember when Ana had come to the club and one of the other girls did the first dance to show Ana what to do. It seemed like a million years ago, but it had only been a few weeks.
So much had happened in the last few weeks. So much more than I could have imagined. Meeting Jackson and Chase that night in the club had changed the entire trajectory of my life.
“Okay, ladies, I’m going to do a dance, then it’s your turn,” I said to the girls as I made my way onto the stage.
I knew that Nate and Chase were going to be out there, but I couldn’t think about them. I had to concentrate on the job I was sent to do and that meant that I had to give a kick ass show for Stephano. He wanted me to show the girls that effort was important in their dance, not because the girls had to dance well, but the buyers wanted sexy women, and a woman who was willing to show off her stuff on the dance floor would be more willing to make her man happy when she got home with him.
I stood at the edge of the stage and waited for my music to start. I took a couple deep breaths as I walked out on stage and started to peal my clothing off in time with the music. I made sure to give Stephano my undivided attention, mostly because I didn’t want to look at Nate or Chase. I knew they were going to be surprised to see me up there and I also knew that if I looked at them, I was likely to break the character I was pretending to be.
Every time I danced, I pretended to be someone else. It was the only way I got through my shows. I would pretend to be a naughty school teacher or a hot businesswoman, and I would become the character on the stage. My fans loved that about me and that was why they continued to come back and see me over and over again.
My hips moved from side to side as I held onto the pole in the middle of the stage. I saw that one of the guards had brought the girls to the edge of the stage so they could all watch my dance. As I turned around, I caught a glimpse of Nate and Chase as they watched the stage, they were only a few seats away from Stephano, but I tried my best not to look at them again. Nate looked like he was about to jump out of his seat and join me, while Chase was half covering his eyes.
The first night when Chase and Jackson had come to the club to watch me dance, I remembered seeing them. The two of them were wide eyed and fascinated by me. They didn’t look away at all during my whole dance.
Having a handsome guy like Jackson ask for one on one time with me was something I liked. As a dancer, it made me feel special and like what I was doing was actually good. I didn’t even mind that he just had questions about Ana that night, I was happy to answer them as long as he paid for his private dance.
Now, only a few days away from that night, there I was dancing for Chase and Nate. It seemed like déjà vu because Nate reminded me so much of Jackson. But this time, I knew so much more about the world and about those two men. I knew I had to do a job and I couldn’t be embarrassed or Stephano would know that something was strange.
The longer I danced, the more I got into the character and soon I had stripped off my bra and threw it right at Nate. He grabbed it like a pro and held onto it while I finished my dance. It was only about two minutes on the stage, which was short for me, but it was going to seem like forever to the girls who had never been on the stage.
Stephano clapped when I was done dancing and that made the rest of the men in the lobby clap. I looked over at Nate and Chase as they smiled and clapped. Then I looked toward the back of the club and saw the same goon who had strangled me the other evening and he was clapping, as well.
That whole situation still bothered me. Why would one of his goons take it upon themselves to do that to me? My gut thought that Stephano probably told him to make me understand that I needed to listen to him or something like that and the goon just took things way too far.
As the music ended and the lights died down, I walked off the stage. I was proud of my dance and felt like I did a good job. It would hopefully be the last time I ever danced on a stage. At least, if I had any say in it. So, the dance was like a going away gift to myself – the last time I would be seducing a man from the brightly lit stage.
I hoped that in the future I would only be doing a dance for my man in the privacy of my own home. Someday, that would be the future I would have. Maybe it would be with Jackson, or maybe it would be with someone else entirely. All I knew was that I didn’t intend to ever go back to the life I used to have. There was so much more in my future, and I was going to go after it with everything I had. I wasn’t going to settle for a life I hated anymore.
Life was too short to live without following your dreams and I knew that. When this job was done, I was going after what I wanted in life.
I saw Ana first in line and gave her a hug. She certainly didn’t look like she was ready to take on the stage. But at least she had done it before and knew what to expect.
“Good luck,” I said.
“Thanks,” she slurred as she walked very unsteadily out to the stage.
It was clear she had taken way too many drugs and I was afraid what her dance was going to look like to Stephano. I just hoped that she could hold herself together.
I stayed close to the stage to watch as she did her dance for Stephano. He seemed particularly fond of her and his eyes intently latched onto her every move. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that Stephano really did want to keep Ana for himself.