Lacey sat idly in front of her vanity mirror. Her eyes were closed but she wasn't asleep, she was simply enjoying the silence. It wouldn't last very long. The other girls would only still be out working the floor and stage respectively for another song or two and then they'd be in the dressing room running their mouths about the guy at table six or seven. Maybe about the new pair of shoes they'd found that were super cute or maybe it would be about what they planned to do when they got finally found away out of here. They all knew that none of them were ever getting out of this place though, that wasn't how it worked. That Man always found away to make sure that never happened. Lacey didn't want to think about That Man or anything else at the moment though. She just wanted to enjoy the still calm around her for however long she was able to.
Her silence lased for almost two more minutes before it was interrupted by a knock at the door. She knew immediately who it was before she told him to come on in. She was only dressed in a pink robe she hadn't even bothered to wrap all the way around and a purple thong but he'd was the manager of 'The Captured Siren' so he'd seen her show which involved a lot less clothing than this most of the time. Not to mention he had an arrangement with all of the girls that involved not saying no to him if you wanted to see your next pay check. "You gotta customer."
"What?" Lacey asked without even opening her eyes. "What is everybody else up to?" The words hadn't even fully left her lips when she realized how little Mike liked to be questioned. Lacey braced herself for the blow that was going to knock her clear off the stool. If she was lucky she'd get away without any bruising but she wasn't really getting her hopes up.
"I ain't gonna hit'cha ya silly skank. Ain't got time for it even if I wanted to. Like I said you got a customer to service, he's at table thirteen and he paid generously in advance. Make sure he leaves happy." Gimli sneered slightly as he walked across the room. Gimli wasn't a big man. He was actually a little below average height and much shorter than Lacey. He made up for it though by being built out of solid cinder blocks. That was how he'd gotten the name Gimli; some of the girls had thought it up before Lacey's time. It came from some fantasy movie that was quite popular at the time but Lacey had never seen it. Gimli had liked it enough though that he'd accepted the name. "Oh and make sure you wear that jungle bunny outfit, he specifically asked for that one."
Lacey assured him that she would do that and she'd be right out and he left just in time to miss her annoyed grumble. She hated that outfit more than she could accurately put into words but even that apparently was something that just drove guys over the top with it. She hadn't bough the 'Jungle Bunny' outfit intentionally, well not really. She'd bought it for Halloween a few nights back when there was a prehistoric theme. It was made up of a leopard print bikini style top that didn't quite cover her fairly generous bust, a loincloth, a single anklet of animal claws, matching earrings and a big bone for her to wrap a pony tail around. It had been an enormous hit. So much so that she was asked to bring it back the next night. Lacey didn't know if it had been one of the girls one of the customers or even Gimli who's first called that her 'Jungle Bunny' outfit. What she knew was that by the end of the night that's what everybody was calling it, it was even on the official flyers for the club and she knew none of them meant any disrespect. Not anymore than they meant by wanting her dress up and act like an ignorant savage for a white man anyway.
Lacey slid off her stool shrugging the robe off on her way to the closet. She stepped out of the thong when she got there and quickly flipped through the dozens of outfits she and the other girls owned until she found the Jungle Bunny. She couldn't deny that the leopard print did look pretty good against her chocolate brown skin. Lacey personally preferred white gold or pearls but her first boyfriend had been right when he'd convinced her that anklets, especially with dangly bits made her slender ankles look dead sexy. Even the earrings did a good job of bringing out long slender neck. It was just that stupid bony-tail thing that made her feel stupid. Lacey considered leaving it behind butt the customer might know that it was missing and worse Gimli would notice. Just because he hadn't hit her while she was on the clock didn't mean he would have a problem knocking her into tomorrow -which just happened to be next week- once she off. There weren't a pair of shoes that went with the outfit and normally that wasn't an issue, the only things that ever touched the stage were the girls and the dollar bills thrown up at them. The idea of walking through the club and even in the VIP Room without any shoes made her shudder. "Hurry the fuck up!" Gimli bellowed from wherever he was backstage. Lacey didn't see any reason to dignify that with a response. She pulled her hair around the bone and through a loop in it, took one last look at herself in the mirror and walked out the dressing room.
The Captured Siren was having an extremely busy night. It was rare that that the bouncers were actually being used to keep people out of the bar but there were no empty tables and the bar was filled up. Lacey quickly spotted her customer sitting at table thirteen just like she'd been told. Lacey wasn't certain if he'd seen her yet, she usually tried her best to make sure that she was close to her customers before they saw her but it was difficult to blend in wearing her Jungle Bunny outfit. Any thought of trying to sneak up on him though was squashed when he suddenly turned his head directly towards her and smiled.
