Saturday 2nd June 2012

11.45pm

Dressing room of ‘Pure Sophistication’ Gentlemen’s Club

“Babe, have you got a pair of scissors? I need to cut this tampon string.” The girl holds aloft a tampon applicator, white thread hanging loose like a mouses’ tail.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I say, rifling in my duffle bag and pulling out a pink-handled pair. I’m the stripper who comes equipped; born Virgo, endlessly organised.

“Thanks,” she says, snapping a chewing gum bubble. She disappears into the toilet cubicle attached to the performers’ dressing room.

I turn back to the mirror, touch up my powder a little, reapply my lipliner. With my natural blonde hair, bronzed skin and apple-green eyes, I’m a good earner for the club. Strip club attendees are pretty classist on the whole, and inevitably tow-headed British-born girls do better than most. It doesn’t hurt that my figure is naturally good; I’m 5’7, but with the stature of a more statuesque woman. I have a flat brown stomach and long legs. My boobs are a little on the small side, but I rarely get complaints.

“Thank you, hon,” my fellow dancer says, reentering the room and chucking my scissors back in my duffel bag. She looks at me in the mirror; her eyes are ringed with eyelash extensions, her lips plumped full of filler, but somehow behind all the cosmetic tweaks there’s a naked vulnerability to her.

“My other tampon almost didn’t come out,” she says to me. “I was fishing around for fucking ages!”

I laugh sympathetically. I love strippers. The strip club is all the time filled with a ragtag bunch of artsy, middle-class students, drug-fuelled party girls, old-school glamazons, and those of us who come from what society would term a ‘disadvantaged background’ (as though those two words could accurately convey the chaos we were brought up in).

“I hate when that happens,” I reply, and then I close my clutch bag with a snap. “Right, I’m going back down.”

“Have fun,” the girl says, applying plumping lip gloss to her already full lips and pouting in the mirror.

“Thanks,” I reply over my shoulder, and I descend the dressing room stairs down to the main floor of the club. With every step the music gets louder, until the door spits me out and the noise engulfs me.

The bar is heaving. Customers clamour for the attention of the strippers who walk around in scanty clothing. Girls lead men by the hand to the back, where the VIP Rooms are. Men look up as I pass, do a double take, scan the length of my lithe body clad in red lingerie and stockings.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” I hear a man say approvingly as I walk past. I can not help but smile.

“Babe, will you do a stage show?” I hear a man’s voice say from behind me. I turn around and see it’s the DJ. I sigh.

“It’s not my turn,” I say to him. This is the exact reason that we have a show rota.

“I know, but Bunny’s in an hours’ VIP right now,” he says, his tone just the tiniest bit pleading.

I roll my eyes and walk to the pole stage. The DJs all the time do this to me, because they know I’m famous with punters and I put on a good show. As the first strains of Alex Clare’s ‘Too Close’ plays over the sound system, I climb to the top of the pole and tip backwards. Customers turn in their seats, willing to watch me.

I’m an acrobatic performer; I like tricks. I hear the crowd holler and wolf whistle as I throw myself around the pole. As the song builds to a tumult, I perform my piece de resistance; dropping from the top of the pole into the splits. The crowd is wild with cheers. It’s hard not to get a rush from this. As I jump up from the floor and give a cutesy little half-curtsey to the applause, though, I catch sight of one curious face in the crowd. It belongs to a man named Jason Welby, one of the most lucrative clients of Bichard Building Supplies, the business I work for by day. Shit.

I peer at him to see if he recognises me, and he gives me a knowing nod and a wink. My insides turn cold.

For the rest of the night, I go through the motions of making money, but I’m agitated, on edge. Jason left soon after my pole show, so I didn’t get to talk to him. I fret all night that he will talk to my boss, Piers, about the fact that I work here. I’m woefully under suitable for the role of Personal Assistant to the CEO as it is. Thanks to my chaotic upbringing, I only have a handful of GCSEs, but Piers must have seen some kind of potential in me at my interview a few months ago. If Jason talks to him about the fact I’m a stripper, Piers’ perception of me will be dashed. I can not afford to lose my job.

Sunday 3rd June 2012

7.36pm

The Stables (Bichard/Bell residence)

It had been a beautifully hot and languorous day… not that Aoife had enjoyed it, Piers wondered resentfully. He’d asked her to accompany him to the beach, but she’d insisted that she had too much work to do, so he’d gone alone. Whilst down there, he’d noted how women’s eyes still followed him, travelling the length of his tanned torso, the muscles still as defined as they had been twenty years ago. He’d turned 42 in March, but he knew he was still attractive to women. Every woman except his wife, that is.

He was in his office upstairs now, steadily making his way through emails. Having his own company was more work than he ever could have imagined.

“Well, I could have told you that,” he pictured Aoife saying. His wife had co-founded a fashion PR firm, Johansen Bell Communications, over a decade ago. It still stung slightly that she had started a company before him.

Piers’ phone began to ring, and he could see that it was Jason Welby, one of his top clients. Why was he ringing on a Sunday? Piers answered with some trepidation.

“Hello, Jason,” he said, attempting to keep his tone light and professional. “What can I do for you?”

“Alright, mate?” Jason said, and even that set Piers on edge. Piers wasn’t a ‘mate’ sort of man; other men didn’t generally strike a chummy tone with him. “Bit awkward… need to talk to you about that little secretary you’ve got, what’s-her-name…”

“Emilia?” Piers answered in confusion. What did his PA have to do with anything? “Has she done something wrong? I did remind her to send through your last invoice…”

“No, that came through fine,” Jason said. “It’s just… well, I was at a strip club last night, and she was working there.”

Piers hesitated for a moment.

“As a bartender?” he said eventually.

“No fella… as a stripper,” Jason replied, and Piers suddenly realised that Jason was actually enjoying telling him this. There was ill-disguised glee in his voice. What a prick.

“Right… well, thanks for alerting me to this,” Piers said, with as much dignity and self restraint as he could muster.

“No worries, I’d want to know if it was my sec…”

“Yep, thanks again,” Piers said shortly, closing the call down. Probably not the best way to end a call with a client, but he’d have to deal with the consequences later. In that moment, he was so furious that he couldn’t speak.

Emilia was the face of his business, the first person people saw when they walked into his office. He wondered he’d chosen well. At her interview, he’d noted that she was composed and capable, even if she did lack formal qualifications. It had helped that she was very good-looking, of course; in a male-dominated industry like his own it was useful to have a pretty young thing to keep the customers coming back in. But he’d wondered she was unaware of her own attractiveness, that the shy smiles she reserved for him were indicative of her own obliviousness. Now he realised that she had just been using her good looks to get what she wanted all along… and sullying the image of his newly-established company as she did so.

He brought up her smiling image on his business site and looked angrily at it. Emilia Hart, Personal Assistant. He felt the faint stirrings of his dick getting hard.

Monday 4th June 2012

7.08am

Flat B, Dean Court (home of Emilia Hart)

Early on Monday morning, I lay in bed after a restless night’s sleep. My stomach had been churning with anxiety all weekend, wondering if Jason Welby would have said anything to Piers. Something about the scheming glint in his eyes that night told me he would have. Biting my lip to qualm my nerves, I reach for my phone on the bedside table, and scroll through to my favourite Horoscope app. I click on the day’s reading for Virgo, and a cool, clear woman’s voice with an American accent began to read;

‘Today is a day to expect the unexpected. While events may transpire that feel uncomfortable in the moment, in the long run the consequences of those events may come to surprise you.’

“What a crock of shit,” I say aloud, talking to no one in particular. I need actual guidance, not this crap. I throw my phone back on my pillow in disgust.

Reluctantly, I get out of bed and into the shower. If I’m gonna face the firing squad today, I might as well look good doing it. I dress in a virtuous-looking white blouse and a grey form-fitting pencil skirt. I blow-dry my hair into gentle curves and put on just a touch of light makeup. I almost go to leave, then I double back. My crystal rune stones sit in a grapefruit-pink glass bowel on my dresser. I select the stone carved with the Algiz symbol, that of defence and protection, and slip it in my coat pocket. I have a premonition I’ll need it today.

When I get to work, I don’t see Piers initially, but I can hear him in his inner office. It’s all the time just the two of us in the office; our travelling salesmen come in to see him every so often, but other than that it’s a very quiet place to work. No water cooler chatter, no sociable tea breaks. Normally I don’t mind that, but today I wish I just had one other colleague to natter with, to soothe my anxiety.

I listen to the voicemails on the office phone, take down the messages. I’m just replying to emails when Piers emerges from the inner office. His jaw is tense, set.

“I’ll need to speak with you later,” he says, not making eye contact. “Come to my office at five.”

Of course, Mr Bichard,” I reply, trying to sound professional. My mouth feels like someone’s filled it with cotton wool.

I spent the rest of the day dutifully working. Keeping my hands busy, keeping my mind busy. Piers never comes out to speak to me again, which is unusual. On other days, he would regularly come and stand at my shoulder, dictate an email for me to write or tell me what to charge on an invoice. His absence and radio silence make me progressively more and more anxious.

At five to five I stand, tuck my hand into my coat pocket and rub my Algiz rune stone for good luck. Then I go to his office like a prisoner walking to the gallows.

When I knock on his door, he calls out ‘Come in’ in an inscrutable tone. I open the door, and he tells me to come and sit at his desk. When I start to walk towards him, he scolds me. ‘Close the door!’ he says, and I apologise dumbly and do as he says.

Sitting at his desk, I see that the wedding photo of him and his wife in its gilt frame is angled slightly towards me. Him, vulpine and handsome, smiling into the camera. His wife, raven-haired and stunning, looking incandescent in white ivory satin.

“Ms. Hart,” he says, tearing me from my reverie. “I’m afraid I’ve heard some upsetting accusations about you.”

I say nothing.

“One of my clients says he saw you on Saturday night,” he continues. “You were working in a club. As a stripper. Do you deny these claims?”

“No,” I reply, after a moment’s hesitation. I’d considered lying, but I couldn’t lie to him. Couldn’t bring myself to do it.

He leans back in his winged brown leather chair and studies me.

“This is a issue,” he says, lacing his fingers across his chest. I flush with shame, but I feel a frisson of injustice, too. I have no one. No family support, no partner. I support myself. I’m independent and self-sufficient, and stripping allows me to be so.

“Emilia, some of our clients are conservative people,” he continues. “You are the face of my company; you represent us. I can not afford for you to represent us in a negative manner.”

He leans forward, his fingers making a temple on the desk.

“You have to choose. Keep your job here, or continue working in that… club.”

Both my thoughts and my heart are racing. I can’t really afford to lose either job, but here I am. This one, at least, comes with some societal acceptability, paid holiday leave, a pension plan. My heart breaks a little, but I know what I have to say.

“I’ll quit the club,” I reply.

“Good girl,” he says to me, and his face breaks into that vulpine smile once more.

I tried to stay away from the club, I really did. I made it work for a while on my PA salary alone. I got my rent, bills and car paid for just fine; it was the little luxuries I missed out on. No makeup splurges, no takeaway coffees. I didn’t need those things, but it wasn’t much fun to live without them, either.

Growing up, I had nothing. My mum was young, artistic, alcoholic, and wholly unequipped to take care of a child. I knew she loved me in her own way, but love didn’t buy me proper school uniform or make my packed lunch. She didn’t know who my biological dad was, and she herself was estranged from her overbearing boomer parents, so there wasn’t much in the way of familial support. I was taken into Care at fifteen, then independent living at eighteen. That first apartment, in a building for disadvantaged teens, it meant everything to me. It was shit; the water ran hot and cold erratically and the fire alarms were going off constantly (kids ignored the rules and smoked inside all the time). But it was mine. When I closed the front door behind me on my first night, I experienced the pleasure of being alone and independent for the first time in my life. I could keep that flat as neat and orderly as I wanted, with no one else coming along and messing it up behind me.

I found stripping at nineteen. I was at college, trying to catch up on the GCSEs I’d missed out on due to my turbulent home life. For a girl of my background and social status, it was just about the most meritocratic yet high-paying job I could have done. Outside of a quick audition (which was more of an informal chat with the manager, which culminated with her asking ‘Ok, when can you start?’) I walked straight in without having to fulfil any sort of illogical interview criteria.

I never got into it for the lifestyle; I always approached it as a business. I started stacking money pretty quickly. As a Care-leaver, my accommodation and bills were subsidised by the government, so I saved all of my money, squirrelling it away for the future. Eventually, I saved enough to move out, into my own, first proper adult flat, and buy my beloved Mini. Stripping changed my life.

But Piers didn’t want me to do it alongside my PA gig, so I didn’t do it. That was until said beloved Mini needed urgent work doing, which would cost hundreds of pounds, and I didn’t have the cash to put towards it. I started to feel the club calling to me again, whispering to me to ‘Try it again, he doesn’t have to find out’.

So trying it was what I was doing. I was back at the club, and I was killing it. Thus far I’d done back-to-back dances. I left the VIP Room in my little turquoise bra and g-string and my perspex stripper heels, hugged my customer goodbye and let my face fall out of my saccharine ‘customer service’ smile as I turned away from him. I turned my head to scan the bar, to target my next victim, and that’s when I saw him. Piers. My blood ran cold.

He was stood at the bar, gently swirling a dark whiskey in his hand, looking at me with a fixed stare. My heart was pounding, fearful of what was to come next. He beckoned me over, so I went.

“Hi-,” I began, but he cut me off.

“How much to book you out ’til the end of the night?” he asked. I stared at him dumbly for a moment; this was the last thing I had expected to come out of his mouth.

I did a quick calculation in my head. “An hours’ VIP is two hundred and twenty pounds, so…” I started.

“I’ll pay it,” he interrupted, retrieving his brown leather wallet from his pocket and starting to count fifties into my hand. ‘Let’s go,” he told me, once he’d given me the right amount.

I walked him to the VIP Room, suddenly hyper-conscious of how much ass cheek my little thong exposed. I could feel his eyes on my body as he walked behind me. This was absolutely the most skin I had ever exposed in front of him.

When we got into the VIP Room, I pulled the curtain closed behind us.

“I don’t want you to talk to me,” he said. “Just dance.”

I began my usual routine, the one I had performed hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. Cheekily pull down my bra strap, whip my knickers into the corner of the room, rub my hands over my tits right in front of his face. Unlike every single over time I’d done it, though, this time felt completely different. It felt insanely intimate. Here I was, getting naked for a man who I had spent every weekday with for the past year. A man who had heretofore only ever seen me in a pencil skirt and blouse. A man who knew I ate an avocado salad every day for lunch, and that I took my tea with one sugar.

He watched me, his eyes dark, his expression unmoving. He drank me in, every inch of my skin, and something curious started to happen. Despite what I’m sure my customers would like to think, I never got turned on in private dances. Typically, my mind would be focused on not forgetting when my next stage show was, or whether or not to go through the drive-thru on my way home.

This time, though, I started to feel myself getting wet. At first, I feared I might be unexpectedly starting my period. I surreptitiously swiped my hand down there, and then I realised. It was not my time of the month. This situation was turning me on, and my pussy was soaking wet.

Piers’ eyes bore into me, and I just kept on dancing.

Monday 25th June 2012

8.55am

Bichard Building Supplies

On Monday morning I arrive to the office expecting to discover a notice of dismissal on my desk, but Piers is acting so bizarrely. It’s almost like he’s pretending nothing happened; he doesn’t allude to our time in the VIP Room at all. I feel strangely shy, finding it faintly unbelievable that my boss has seen me naked, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering him at all. He only emerges from his office a few times during the day to fire instructions off at me, but other than that I barely see him. At five to five, however, the phone rings. When I pick it up, it’s him.

“Emilia, I’d like you to come to my office before you leave for the day,” he says.

“Yes, Mr Bichard,” I reply, and obediently I walk down the corridor. When I arrive in his doorway, he looks up from the papers on his desk.

“Come in and close the door behind you,” he says, firmly. I do as he instructs, my heart racing.

“Sit down,” he says, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. I sit.

“As my employee, you have a duty to inform me of your diagnosis,” he says to me. This takes me aback; it’s not what I expected him to say.

“My di… I’m sorry?” I say, stumbling over my words.

“Your diagnosis of amnesia,” he replies shortly.

Realisation kicks in. “I don’t have amnesia,” I say, softly.

“Oh, so you do remember our conversation in which you agreed not to work in a strip club any more?” he says sardonically.

“Yes,” I reply, in a tiny voice.

“And yet you chose to continue working there, disregarding the wishes of your employer?”

“Yes,” I say again.

He leans back in his chair, examines me with an unreadable expression on his face.

“What is it that made you so disobedient?” he asks me. When I don’t answer, he speaks again. “I think I know…”

He quietly gets up from his seat, walks around to my side of the table, stands behind me. I’m tense, unsure of what will happen next.