Jennifer braced herself as she knocked on the door.
"Easy money," she kept saying to herself. "Go in. Do a little dance. Get paid and get out."
The woman at the talent agency had told her she would be a natural. She said to "just smile, shake that ass and rake in the dough." But now it was coming down to it. She needed to pay her rent and it was time to put her money where her mouth was - so to speak.
The music roared inside the hotel room making sure the rest of the floor's residents didn't get any sleep that night..
"What is that song?" she wondered. "I know I've heard it before."
Then it hit her. "Unskinny bop-bop-bop-bop, she just loves to play." They were listening to Poison?? What kind of bachelor party was this?
The last time she had heard that song was in the ninth grade, being felt up in the back of David Dixon's Mustang on Boyter Lane. She hadn't given it up that night, but Bobby had gotten his rocks off all the same, grinding against her and telling her how "fuckin' hot" she was.
And here she was, standing in a hotel room hallway dressed like a schoolgirl in knee-high boots, surely waiting to groped again - this time by complete strangers for money. She decided to screw the paycheck and get out of there.
But then the door opened.
"Hey sweetie," the mulleted man said, his beer-soaked breath sending her nostrils ablaze. "We been waitin' for you."
Then into the room he said "Get him ready. She's here."
He opened the door and waved his arm in what he probably thought was a galant gesture, but came off more as a drunken stumble.
She entered the half-dark hotel room with trepidation. Her first job and she had to get the 80s hard rock crowd and a dark room. Just great.
After the short entryway, the room opened into a plush and expansive suite. "At least they aren't cheap," she thought, then cursed herself when she saw the smashed Natural Light cans strewn across the coffee table.
But now she was committed and she picked up her courage and, in the most sultry voice she could muster under those conditions, asked "So, who's the lucky man?" Just as she thought they would, all of the men started hooting and hollering. "It's me." "No, it's me." "Forget all of them, I'll treat you right - all night long, baby."
Yep, she knew she was going to have her hands full. And chances were, they were going to take any handfuls they could get as well. She made a mental note not to lose control and not allow them to intimidate her.
"Awww boys, I'd be the lucky one with any of you guys," she said with the bat of her eyelashes. "But I meant the bachelor."
All eyes turned to the near-toothless man in an armless chair at the end of the coffee table. He seemed to be in his mid-forties with stringy blond hair combed over a shiny bald spot crowning a pockmarked face of poorly-healed acne scars. He sat there, slack-jawed and starry-eyed, waiting for her, the dress shirt she was sure he had worn to the rehearsal dinner unbuttoned to reveal an "I'm with stupid" T-shirt.
In this crowd that shirt could have been any of them, but she figured it was his little joke for his bride-to-be. She tried not to shudder when she thought about what the woman must look like to want to marry a guy like him.
"Well," she thought. "You didn't think he was going to look like Tom Cruise, did you? Let's get to work."
She locked eyes with him. His eyes were nice - a brown with green flecks that she had up till now only seen on eyeglass models in magazines.
They might have even seemed warm in some other circumstance. But this was his "last night as a free man" and his eyes betrayed something colder - the lust without love that she had seen so many times in singles bars. This was a man on the prowl and she was here to serve herself up just long enough to entice him without getting eaten.
Slowly, and as seductively as she could, she sauntered through the crowd of men gathered around her. She trailed her left finger across a chest or two as she passed, then stood to the right of the beer can-scattered table and leaned in until her face was only a few inches from the man's face.
"You ready for me big boy?" she asked.
He grinned and nodded. No stranger to the strip clubs, this one.
"OK, then let's get started," she cooed onto his face, her minty breath clashing with the hops-and-barley breath oozing out of his mouth.
Jennifer turned and placed the boombox she was carrying in her right hand on the ground behind her, bending at the hips so he could have a nice look at her ass, shapely beneath a blue and red plaid miniskirt that she new was sliding just higher than the curve of her cheeks. She looked back over her shoulder and gave the bachelor a wink and licked her lips before turning back to the crowd and telling them to shut off their music.
A skinny man with a dirty face promptly obeyed.
The soft sounds of a drum machine and a synthesized organ poured out of the stereo's speakers as Sophie B. Hawkins's "Damn, wish I was your lover." Jennifer bent her legs and began to move her hips with the beat of the music, the skirt swaying just below her most pert part.
She ran her hands up and down her body, sliding them along her hips, pulling the skirt with them, then up to her chest, making small circles around the nipple area of her tight, white, button-down dress shirt before moving them on to her hair. She ran her fingers through her hair, closing her eyes and softening her face into one recognizable to anyone who'd seen a woman in the throes of passion. Jennifer guessed most of these men had only seen that in movies.
She'd learned to move by watching strippers at clubs her boyfriends had taken her to. She was always happy to go along, and enjoyed flirting with the dancers who she knew mainly out for money. She had never ceased being surprised how much her boyfriends had liked seeing the dancers pull a dollar bill out of her mouth with their own. They raked in the money and ruled the customers.
But now that power was hers and she knew she was in control of everyone in the room. Soon some of the men took seats to help hide their growing erections.
Jennifer mouthed the words, "Damn, wish I was your lover. I'd fuck you till the daylight comes, make sure you were smiling and more." And the rhythm continued its bumping, grinding beat as she locking eyes with the honored guest.
She could see that look in his eyes again - the caged animal, just looking for an opportunity to come out. He leaned forward, like he was about to lunge and grab her, so she backed up a step. This show was supposed to be strictly hands-off.
Still, she continued. She began lifting her skirt, trailing her fingernails along her outer thighs and lifting it just high enough to reveal the black lace panties with a thong back beneath. She turned to one side, cocked her hip toward him and took hold of the zipper and pulled it down slowly. Then, turning another quarter away, she grabbed both sides of the skirt and pulled it down, over her tanned cheeks.
With the skirt on the floor, Jennifer felt as naked as if she had just stepped from the shower. But this was no time for shyness, and certainly no time to show weakness.
