Kimberly Dean - Private Dancer

In the distance, she heard somebody swear.

The frustration made her smile. Poor baby. She shrugged her left shoulder and the strap fell. She shrugged her right and the elastic snagged on the point of her shoulder.

The music reached a crescendo, and she couldn’t tease any more. She whipped off her bra and threw it away. The crowd went wild as her breasts were exposed. Her nipples pointed at her appreciative fans, pink and proud.

Not so shy anymore.

The act freed her, too. She spun around the pole, holding on to it tightly. Her breasts jiggled as she twisted and arched. She moaned aloud when her nipples bumped against the cool hardness. It felt so good. Her leg tightened, and the metal warmed from the heat of her skin. It pressed tight against her mound, smooth and insistent.

Arching back again, she spun and spun and spun –

***

‘Sinners repent!’

The words blasted next to Alicia’s ear. She jerked in surprise, and her surroundings changed in an instant. She was no longer in the cool confines of the Satin Club. She was outside, across the street, stuck in the crowd of protestors. An electronic squeal made her wince. Her head whipped around and she saw her father. He’d upgraded from a megaphone to a microphone with speakers. Loud, crackling speakers. She plugged her finger into her ear to stop the assault.

Confused, she tried to orient herself. She wasn’t on the Satin Club’s stage; the bright light shining on her was the sun. Her toes weren’t pinching because she was wearing stiletto heels; her feet were sore from standing too long on a concrete sidewalk. And the hard pole she’d wrapped herself around?

Oh, dear Lord.

Her face heated to the point where it had to be crimson. The hardness pressing against her mound and biting into the back of her knee was the yardstick they’d stapled to the back of her sign – the one that said ‘SATIN = SATAN’ She quickly pulled it from between her legs and set it a good foot away from her. She pressed her hand to her face and hoped that nobody had noticed.

If they had, they didn’t say anything. All around her, Sunlight Epiphany’s parishioners were intent on waving their signs at anyone who dared to even pass by the Satin Club on the street.

‘Deny these evil temptations! Cast out your demons and follow the one true light!’ The words boomed from the speakers that had been set up in the back of a pick-up truck. Her father was on a mission and, when he got like this, nothing could stop him.

Alicia winced. She understood their cause, but she wasn’t sure they should be harassing random pedestrians.

Besides, did they really know that the Satin Club was evil? None of them knew for sure what was going on behind that red door. That’s what she’d been trying to figure out when she’d slipped into that fantasy.

Daydream, she quickly amended. It had been a daydream, a flight of a bored mind.

Not a fantasy.

She shifted her weight, trying to bring some relief to her aching feet. She couldn’t help it. She had an affinity for dancers. She was just trying to understand.

What would it be like? she wondered.

She stared unblinkingly at the club across the street as those around her yelled at cars stopped at the light. What would it be like to work in such a place? To dance without clothes? To perform for the specific purpose of titillating those who looked at you?

Her body tingled, wrapped up in the idea, but her brain just couldn’t comprehend. It was just so foreign to her, so dirty . She’d danced nearly all her life. She understood what it was to portray emotion through dance, to tell a story. The stories they were telling at the Satin Club, though … those tales were suited for the deep of night, in the privacy of a bedroom. What were they thinking, putting them out there on display for everyone to see?

It was disturbing and shocking – and, admittedly, a bit intriguing.

‘Turn away from the devil!’

Alicia stepped further away from her father. The noise was just too loud. Instead of screaming at the club, shouldn’t they be trying to talk with the people inside? To explain the dangerous path they were on? Her church was protesting against this place for a reason. How did those women feel about what they did? Did they hate it? Were they yearning for a better life and holier pursuits?

Or did they do it because it felt good?

‘There they are!’ someone behind her gasped.

‘The devil rears its ugly head.’

Rapid-fire words started coming through the speakers. All around her, Alicia felt the energy of the crowd of protestors surge. She looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.

Her eyes widened when she realised that the door to the Satin Club had opened and two imposing men had walked out of it. Men in suits seemed to flock to this place, but these two were different. Their clothing might be expensive and impeccably cut, but it did nothing to civilise the men wearing it. The one on the left was shorter and leaner, with the body of a fighter. And the nose, she thought as he slipped on a pair of sunglasses. For all his ruggedness, he wore an air of gentility, a hard-won polish of money and power. The other did not. Big, muscled and intense, what you saw was what you got. And the big man was unhappy.

Sebastian Crowe and Remy Hunt, owner and operations manager of the Satin Club.

Her sore toes began tapping nervously against the sidewalk. She knew the two men on sight and she instinctively stepped further into the shade of an elm tree. As bad as it had been before, the conflict between her church and the Satin Club had just become more real.

And more dangerous.

Heaven help them.

***

Bas strode across the parking lot with Remy at his side, but his gaze was centred strictly on the crowd gathered across the street. Enough was enough. He’d been trying to turn the other cheek, but the assholes had upgraded from a megaphone to a speaker system. It was time to settle this.

‘I’m sick of these religious nuts.’ Remy cracked his knuckles, but his hands clenched right back into fists. ‘Do we stand outside their church yelling at them on Sunday mornings?’

‘They think they’re saving our souls.’

‘My soul is just fine. They’re the ones who need to “do unto others”.’

The corners of Bas’s mouth curled. ‘The Golden Rule? Really?’

‘Even my grandmother would want their heads. This isn’t spreading God’s word. This is harassment.’

It was, but there was also that tricky business about freedom of expression and the right to assemble.

It was mid-afternoon. The Satin Club opened their doors early for those white-collar good-ole-boys who still liked to conduct business the old-fashioned way – with booze flowing and skin flashing – but Remy was right. This irritant wasn’t just a nuisance anymore. It was beginning to affect business, not only for them but for their neighbours. Hetty from the 24-hour diner next door had already called to voice her complaints. It was time to do more than sit back and take the high road.

Besides, he and Remy had always been more comfortable on the back alleyways, anyway.

Bas’s eyes narrowed. They’d been watching the protestors from Sunlight Epiphany Church ever since they’d shown up a week ago. Reverend Harold Wheeler was the loud-mouthed leader of the bunch. From what they’d been able to gather, the rabble-rouser had moved to town from Birmingham a few years ago after his former congregation had found him elbow-deep in the collections plate. His new followers either had forgiven that little discretion or didn’t know about it.

The decibel level rose when the crowd saw them, and Bas’s jaw hardened. He had nothing against religion – until it was used against him. Then, he wasn’t afraid to fight back.