Our Only Hope - S01 E17

Story 10 months ago

Our Only Hope - S01 E17

How Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 17

The cover charge was very reasonable. BYOB meant that there was no two-drink minimum to sit at one of the tables and watch the dancers on the three-tiered stage. The man behind the counter asked if I had been there before. When I said, “No,” he quickly rattled off the same menu that was printed on the wall behind him and added almost machine-like, “The restroom attendant expects a one-dollar tip each time you use the facility. The girls are dancers, not hookers, so do not bother asking for sex. Rough stuff or disrespecting the girls will get you kicked out.”

“Can I *********** which girl I want for a private dance?” I asked when he was finished with his litany.

“If she’s available,” he replied with a shrug, “sure.”

“I’m looking for a girl with dark brown eyes and light brown skin,” I answered. I tried to not sound creepy as I added, “I really like brown eyes and dark brown nipples.”

The doorman’s face remained expressionless as he replied, “Then you want Juanita.” He nodded toward a small counter that evidently served soft drinks and said, “Pay Fred over at the bar.”

I paid Fred $60.00 for a three-song full nude, two-way dance, resisting his push to get me to sign up for a VIP room. He gave me a ticket with Daisy Dooks printed on both sides of it and directed me to room 5.

The room was small and Spartan with a single faux-leather chair. There was a small table alongside it with a plastic tray that said, “Leave ticket and tips here.” Behind the chair, near the ceiling, there was a camera mounted in the corner. When Juanita entered the room, she was wearing a short white gown that barely covered her ass.

She was exactly as I had specified... and much more. She was in her late twenties and beautiful... really beautiful. Her dark brown eyes were framed by wavy brown-black hair that had a luster to it that you couldn’t get out of a bottle. Her breasts were full, but not sagging, and her nipples, which were a deep chocolate brown, stood up stiffly in the cool air of the back room. She had the long, well-shaped legs of a dancer and I had no trouble imagining her spinning effortlessly around a brass pole. The only negative was the dancer’s face with its plastic smile that she put on as soon as she entered the room.

When a private dancer is this beautiful, it means one of two things. Either she can’t dance for shit or she was in the country illegally. Her lithe movements as she entered the room told me she could probably dance.

She walked over to the small table, picked up the ticket, held it up to the camera, and then placed it in the pocket of the gown. She nodded to the camera and music began playing. Her fake smile widened as she looked down at me and started swaying with the tune. While she danced, she moved closer to me and let the robe drop completely open. “Are you interested in any extras?” she asked. Her voice had a heavy Hispanic overlay but somehow was convincingly sultry. That sexy overtone to her voice was most likely natural... or she could fake it very, very well.

I held up a fifty and said, “Only conversation.”

“The rules say I dance,” she answered.

“Then how about I talk to you while you dance?” I said.

She nodded toward the table and said, “In the tray.”

I placed the fifty in the tray. She picked it up, held it up for that camera, and slipped it part way into her pocket. Then she took off the robe and carefully dropped it on my lap such that the pocket, with the fifty sticking slightly out of it, was on top.

“Conversation can be expensive,” she said as she brushed her hips against my side.

I noticed that she waited until she was faced away from the camera to say that, and took the hint. The house must get a cut of everything that goes through the tray, but what the camera couldn’t see... I held two more fifties close to my body and slipped them into the pocket, making sure that she saw them as I pushed them– and the original fifty– all the way in.

Juanita danced over and began rubbing her tits against my shoulders. “What do you want to talk about?” she said as she danced.

“Wyatt Monty,” I began, “or whatever he calls himself here, is the owner of Colonel Boogie’s.” The name of the club caused a reaction from her. She lost a step and something flared in her eyes for just a moment before being covered by her dancer’s face and smile that now looked even more artificial. “He and his dirtbag brothers have kidnapped some very close friends of mine,” I continued, “and I am trying to get them back. I’m going over to the club tonight to... well... to talk to Mister Monty, and I don’t want to walk into something I’m not expecting. I was hoping that... as you dance... you could tell me something useful about Colonel Boogie’s and Wyatt Monty.”

As I spoke, I pushed two more fifties into the pocket on her robe. Juanita– or whatever her true name was– stopped dancing and made a hand signal at the camera in the corner. The signal was a long vertical motion followed by a shorter sideways motion. It almost looked like the motions a priest would use to bless a congregation. I smiled slightly as the image of her standing naked at the front of a church after one of her dances flashed through my mind. Sometimes a visual memory and visual mind can be very entertaining.

The music stopped and she stood in front of me. Her face was now totally blank and her body had lost the poise of a dancer on stage. “Mister Wyatt,” she began. I wasn’t totally sure if she said “Mister” or “Master.” In any case, she paused after saying the name and looked like she wanted to spit on the floor. “Mister Wyatt,” she repeated, “only comes to the closed show on Friday nights. You can’t get in there without an invitation. He does despicable things to women he has brought into the building inside the trucks. The men– and the ugly ones– he lets go... if they have paid him everything. If not, he sells them to the pendejos who provide illegal labor for the farms and factories.”

She stopped to swallow hard as if bile had come up into her throat. “But the pretty ones... like my sister... he keeps until he has used them up and then dumps them on the street.”

I pushed a final fifty into her robe and held it up to her. “Thank you, Juanita,” I said as I started to leave.

She stopped me in the doorway and stepped slightly in front of me so that she could look me in the eyes. “Por favor?” she said.

“Yes?” I replied. The dancer’s face and smile had now totally disappeared and there was a fire burning in the depths of her eyes.

“Kill him slowly,” she said. She drew out the word slowly, holding onto the ‘oh’ sound as if she were tasting the word as she said it. She then turned and walked down the hallway back to the main room. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. If Boris’ and Natasha’s plan worked there would be no bloodshed, but Boris’ warning about these being violent men still applied. Just because I didn’t want to go all Rambo on them didn’t mean that they wouldn’t pull out the heavy artillery when things got real.