Blade

 

After going back through the girls I had interviewed, I found a couple that had done all right. Well, they did well enough for me to convince myself to call them back in for a test run on the stage, to see how much work they needed to do before they were ready to go on. I looked back over my roster and plugged their names in where the others had been. I still needed one more girl. I glanced at the stack of girls’ names on my desk. There was no way in hell I was going to hire any of them. I really needed that last girl to fill things in, but I figured I’d be able to make it work without her. I had to, until I could find a replacement for that last slot.

 

My neck and shoulders were stiff from sitting and talking to these girls all evening. Normally, I loved my job, but lately it was starting to seem like we’d used up all the talent the city had to offer. That was pretty impressive, but it also sucked.

 

I grabbed my cigarettes and stood up from my desk. I fished one out and let it dangle from my lips as I walked out through the bar. There were absolutely no patrons. A couple of my girls – Ariel and Cinnamon – lazily twirled their bodies around two of the three poles on the stage. They almost looked like they were practicing, but I could see in their faces they were just killing time. Molly leaned her elbows on the bar, staring off in the direction of the stage. Knowing her, she probably didn’t even see the girls on the poles.

 

I sighed. “Chin up, ladies, it’s still early.” It was early, but some nights were just slow. I couldn’t help but feel like my recent string of bad luck had something to do with it. I was about to turn all of that around. Once I was able to give my ladies a bit of a break, I was sure we were going to start packing the house every night.

 

I stepped outside to the abandoned parking lot surrounding joint and lit my cigarette just outside the front door. The summer night air was heavy with the fumes of the city around me. It was the perfect night for a few smokes, a few drinks, and some bad decisions that hopefully led to good times with few incriminating memories.

 

I was in a bind. We were in a bind. My girls were getting tired, and many of my regulars didn’t seem pleased that I had to let some of their favorites go. If I hadn’t, they wouldn’t have had a place to go to watch girls strip and dance for them. What were they supposed to do, go home and let their wives do it? If their wives and girlfriends had done it in the first place, I never would have been in business.

 

I listened to the paper on my cigarette crackle slightly as I took another long drag. The air was that heavy and still. I could hear the small sounds close by, not only the noise of the city streets. All those sounds were far off in the distance, background noise.

 

I surveyed the scene around me, looking for someone to invite into the club, but there was no one out on the street. As my eyes passed over the parking lot, I saw someone hunched over on the curb.

 

I couldn’t tell who she was at first. I walked around to get a better look; I didn’t care if I was being obvious. She was on my property, and if she was someone who needed to move along, I probably needed to help facilitate that for her.

 

She didn’t look homeless. Her clothes were nice and mostly clean. Her strawberry blonde hair spilled over her knees. It was the young girl from the interviews. Lucy. I caught myself wondering what she was still doing there. The other girls had already left. They’d gone home or onto their next stop.

 

My stomach sank and my veins froze. I didn’t like the way she was sitting, practically curled into a ball with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. Something was wrong. Was she crying?

 

I hoped she wasn’t crying. I didn’t want to deal with a crying woman. That was my number one weakness. I knew I should have turned around and walked inside. If I answered the call to protect her or at least help her in her vulnerable state, I was going to allow myself to get pulled into whatever her situation was. It was inevitable.

 

I sighed. My ex-wife had used tears as a trap and a weapon against me. I knew better than to give in. This girl was a stranger. I didn’t know her story. No one would have thought less of me for walking back in. I shook my head. I could stand up to any man who walked through the door of my business, but I couldn’t stand up to a crying girl.

 

I flicked my cigarette into the darkness at the edge of the parking lot and blew out the last puff of smoke. I couldn’t have a girl sitting on the curb at the edge of my parking lot crying, especially after I rejected her for a dancing job.

 

I started to approach her. She looked up, seeing me at last, and wiped her face frantically. She had been crying. Her swollen, red eyes and runny makeup told the story. She pushed her hair back from her face as I approached and seemed to tighten the ball she was curled up into, like she was trying to make herself vanish so I wouldn’t talk to her, but it was too late. I had seen her, and I was closing in to find out what was wrong. I had been lured in by her tears. There was no turning back for me.

 

“Hey,” I said as casually as I could. I knelt down and put a hand on the denim fabric covering her knee.

 

“Hey,” she croaked, looking at me with what was either resentment or suspicion, or maybe a mix of both. I had certainly earned both reactions from her by rejecting her and then stalking her in my parking lot.

 

“Are you all right?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what to say. That was how it worked with crying. I wanted to snap my fingers and fix everything without having to dig into any of it.

 

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She sniffed and nodded hurriedly, obviously uncomfortable talking to me. I couldn’t blame her. I had dismissed her pretty coolly, but this was a different matter completely in my opinion.

 

“Are you sure?” I prodded. I wasn’t going to take a halfhearted I’m fine as an answer.

 

I sat down on the curb and put an arm around her cautiously. She was too young, too beautiful, and too clean to be sitting out on the street like she was. She didn’t look like the other girls who had come to me. They had all lived rough lives that brought them to me. She had obviously lived a fairly comfortable life— at least materialistically, if not emotionally.

 

She put her head on my shoulder, continuing to sniffle occasionally. She fidgeted with her young hands on her knees, keeping her beautiful blue eyes focused on whatever her fingers were doing. She was young and damaged. Something terrible must have happened for her to find herself like this. I wanted to take her in both of my arms and hold her until whatever it was had passed.

 

She kept looking intently at her hands, forcing herself not to look at the man who was offering her his shoulder. I was torn between asking her what was wrong again and just letting her sit there until she was ready to tell me on her own.

 

The latter seemed easier. It required less on everyone’s part, so I let her sit like that for a minute, until she let out a deep sigh and sat up straight again. She wiped her eyes with her hand and looked at me.

 

“Thank you,” she said, and I could see that she was fighting back tears again.

 

“What happened to you?” I asked. The words fell out of my mouth and landed between us.

 

Her devastated blue eyes searched my face. They seemed to be searching for the answer. Or maybe she was checking to see if it was safe to honestly answer me. I knew I could be intimidating, but I was trying to be comforting. I was going to try my best to help her.

 

Her lip quivered and the corners of her mouth turned downward. She was about to start crying again. It was definitely a trap, but it wasn’t one that she had set. It was one the universe itself had set for me, to make sure I didn’t leave her side and to make sure that she wasn’t alone on the street.

 

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just let it out.” I pulled her back to me and let her cry on my shoulder. She started sobbing. She still hadn’t told me what was going on, but it looked like I wasn’t going anywhere. I smoothed her hair down with one hand and put the other on her knee. I never stood a chance against her.

 

It went on like that for a while, with me whispering soothing things over her head and petting her gently. I was in full-on protective mode. Someone had hurt this poor young girl, and she had found her way to me as a result. It was my job to take care of her, whether I wanted another person around or not.

 

“Hey, do you want to come back in? I can get you a cup of coffee or something. A shot of something if you’re old enough,” I suggested. I sort of fumbled over my words. What was wrong with me? I was usually so big, strong, and confident, and I prided myself on those qualities. With Lucy, I was reduced to a bumbling idiot.

 

“No,” she sobbed. “I’ll stop bothering you.” She sat up again and wiped her face.

 

“No,” I said, suddenly regaining my confidence. “You’re coming in with me. Come on.” I didn’t want to sound mean, but I did want her to know I was taking charge of the situation. She was too upset for me to ignore whatever it was. She didn’t owe me anything, and I certainly didn’t owe her. But I wasn’t about to leave her outside in this shape. The street was no place for a girl like her, especially as vulnerable as she was.

 

I got up and took her hand, guiding her up with me. She looked at me again with suspicion in her eyes. It killed me.

 

“Look, just come in and tell me what’s going on. Let me fix you a cup of coffee or grab you something from the bar. But let’s get you sorted out so you can figure out what your next step is.” I may not have known what her exact story was, but it couldn’t have been too different from all the other stories I heard from girls who came to see me. Regardless of what it was, I wanted her to know this wasn’t the end of the line.

 

“Okay,” she said dryly, and her lip started quivering again, like she was about to start crying.

 

I put a hand on her lower back and guided her through the door. As we walked through the front room, I turned to Molly and asked her to get us some coffee. I took Lucy back to my office and offered her a seat on the couch, where she collapsed into a lump on the old black pleather.