Stripped (Stripped 1)

I don’t even want to know what Mama would say.

I’m going to do it, though. I won’t go crawling back to Macon, Georgia. I just won’t. I’m going to finish my degree.

I’ve been working my ass off to get an internship with Fourth Dimension Films, so I edited the piece on my mom and showed it to Mrs. Adams, my film program advisor. She saw real potential in my work, and Fourth Dimension is one of the biggest private production studios in L.A. Getting an internship there would be a huge foot in the door. But for that, I can’t be homeless. I have to stay in school and have somewhere to live. I need a professional wardrobe.

In short, I need a job, and this is the only opportunity I’ve found in months of looking.

Still, I cry myself to sleep. Lizzie doesn’t come back until after three, and she’s got a guy with her. They roll into her bunk, and I hear noises that keep me awake for hours—moans, grunts and giggles.

Chapter 6

I squeeze my eyes shut and pray, but then feel guilty about it; God wouldn’t approve of what I’m about to do, that’s for darn sure. I clench my hands into fists to stop them from trembling, but they shake like leaves in a Georgia thunderstorm.

“Gracie, you’re on in five.” Timothy pokes his head into the door of the dressing room, and I certainly don’t miss the way his beady little eyes rake over me.

My flesh crawls and I want to tell him off, but I can’t. After all, I’m about to get a whole heck of a lot more perused in about five minutes. I’m barely clothed, at least as far as I’m used to. I grew up wearing ankle-length dresses and skirts with loose T-shirts. Nothing low-cut, nothing above the knee. Nothing revealing or immodest. Nothing sexy or sensual. Nothing ungodly or irreverent.

Right now, I’ve got on a pair of cut-off jean shorts, the hems frayed into white threads. Back in Macon, they would’ve called these shorts Daisy Dukes, since they’re cut so short the bottom of my backside is hanging out. I mean that quite literally. My butt is actually hanging out the bottom of the shorts. They’re tight, too, squeezing my thick dancer’s thighs like spandex. I’m wearing a flannel shirt, but it ain’t—I mean, it isn’t—much better as far as modesty goes. It’s unbuttoned down to my cle**age, which isn’t contained by anything at all. There’s only four buttons done up, and my boobs strain those four buttons fit to burst. That’s the point, after all. The buttons are supposed to pop. There’s a whole row of shirts similar to this one in the corner of the dressing room, since part of the act is to pop the buttons as I rip the shirt open.

It’s supposed to be sexy, Timothy says. “It’ll drive ’em wild.” He’s the expert, I guess. The rest of the flannel shirt is tied up in the front just beneath my boobs, so most of my midriff is bare. The last bit of the outfit—the costume—is a thick leather belt with a big sparkly buckle, and a pair of knee-high boots. Hooker boots, I’ve heard them called. Seems appropriate, I guess, since Daddy would call what I’m about to do whoring myself out. They’re suede boots, the material loose and bunching, with a spindly three-inch stiletto heel that makes me stand a full six feet tall, since I’m five-nine in my stocking feet.

My blonde hair is brushed to a shine so glossy Candy asked me if I was wearing a wig. My face is caked with a garish amount of makeup. Whore paint, Granddaddy would call it. I never wore more than a bit of lip gloss and some eye shadow growing up, so all the foundation and the lipstick and the mascara and all that feels like a mask. Which helps, in a way, as if the mask of makeup could hide me.

I take a deep breath and force myself out of the chair, swaying on the unfamiliar heels. Timothy shoves the door open and holds it for me, but it isn’t for the sake of being a gentleman. He stands in the door so that I have to squeeze past him on my way out. I stifle the urge to deck him when he “accidentally” palms my backside.

“Don’t do that, Tim,” I say, proud of how steady and calm my voice is. It’s not the first time I’ve asked him not to touch me.

“Do what?”

I fix him with the glare I learned from Daddy, the one that makes most men quake in their boots. Or, in Tim’s case, pointy-toed snakeskin loafers. “Just ’cause I’m doing this doesn’t mean you can go touching me whenever you want, Timothy van Dutton. Keep your slimy little paws off of me.” I hate the twang, but I’m nervous and upset, and it’s part of my “Gracie” persona.

Tim leers at me. “Listen to you, Gracie. You sound like a southern belle. I love it. Keep that attitude, it’s good stuff. Now get out there and do what I’m paying you to do.”

“You don’t pay me, the customers do,” I retort.

His eyes harden and his voice goes low. “Don’t you ever talk to me that way again or I’ll fire you.” He smacks me on the backside so hard my eyes water, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of a response. It may be sexual harassment, but I need the job too much to argue.

He strolls past me, leaving me to gather my wits and my courage about me. When he’s out of sight, I rub my bottom where he smacked it, realizing with dismay that he can very well fire me if he wants. Then I’d be up a creek without a paddle.

I wend my way through the backstage area, ascend the three small steps to the stage, and stand behind the curtain. My heart is pounding like a jackhammer, my throat closed so tight I can barely breathe, and I’m on the verge of tears. I don’t want to do this.

My “training session” with Candy was awkward and horrible. Swinging around on the pole is a lot harder than it looks. I fell several times before I got the hang of wrapping my knee around the cold metal and spinning around it. There was no one watching but Candy, but I still cried when I took off my shirt for the first time. Candy saw my tears, but didn’t say anything. She just critiqued the way I strutted from the pole to the end of the stage.

I don’t have a choice, though. Not if I want to finish my degree and get my dream job as a film producer. I got the internship, and I start next week, but I need appropriate clothes.

The generic pop music fades from the house speakers, and the buzz of conversation quiets. Surely the crowd of men on the other side of the curtain can hear my heart, since it’s beating so loud.

“Gentlemen, are you ready?” Tim’s voice echoes over the PA system, reedy and breathy and dripping suggestion. “I have a very, very special treat for you tonight. A brand-new act. She’s fresh from Macon, Georgia, a real corn-fed southern girl, and boys…she…is…hot.”