Page 9 of Watch Me

Because the truth is that I love giving lap dances. Moving suggestively while I have a man’s captivated attention, rocking my hips in a way that generates heat in my core. I’ve learned that being watched is a turn-on for me, that stripping down in front of a group of horny men doesn’t intimidate me or make me feel degraded—it makes me feel powerful.

I sit up and fan my hands across my waist, arching my back and lifting my chest. “Do you want me to strip for you?” I ask playfully.

Tate doesn’t answer, but a small smile pulls at one corner of his mouth—flirtatious and sexy.

I grind my crotch against him and feel the growing length of his erection through his sweatpants. Crossing my arms, I lift the bottom of my fishnet dress and pull it over my head, then reach back and unhook my bikini top, letting it fall away.

It takes every ounce of restraint I have not to rip Tate’s pants off and mount him immediately. We’ve had sex four times—Four! Times!—approximately once a month since we started dating, and for us to do it now would just seem like a good omen to start off this crazy idea of living together. It would show me that everything really is okay between us. That he does want me.

Flashes of dancing for Nick start splicing into my thoughts as I move seductively on Tate’s lap. The more I writhe and roll, the more turned on I get, the more memories of being in the booth with Nick overcome my senses. It’s wrong—it’s so wrong—but since I can’t stop it, I just let myself use it. I let myself drop back into the memory until suddenly I’m there in the booth again, and Tate is Nick, and this time, I’m going to go all the way, going to give myself over to him completely.

I lean down to kiss Tate again, only vaguely aware that all the passion is coming from me now, that his reserve is coming back, that when he kisses me, it’s not with the same heat he had a few seconds ago. I tease the fingers of my left hand across the bare skin of his chest, and with my right hand, I start undoing my jeans.

“Hold on,” he breathes against my mouth. His hand lifts to mine, circling my wrist. “Wait.”

I exhale like the wind has been knocked out of me.

“Hold on,” he says again and darts his eyes toward the door, listening. I let go of the button of my jeans with my free hand, feeling the temperature dropping between us. “I think my dad’s home,” he says.

“Okay.” I don’t know what to say. “Is he going to come downstairs?”

The idea of meeting Tate’s dad seems intimidating, partly because right now I feel like we’re teenagers fooling around in the basement, about to get caught. If I live here—when I live here—I’ll most certainly have to meet him. In fact, he’ll be a roommate of sorts.

But surely he’s not going to come downstairs? Tate is a grown-ass man, and he’s allowed to have sex. He’s entitled to privacy in his own part of the home.

“I don’t know,” he answers me. “I just don’t want him to hear anything.”

And there it is. We’re done. He lifts himself up onto his elbows, and I take the hint and roll off of him. I give a heavy sigh, disappointed and frustrated.

“Well, I should get to work anyway,” I say after a minute, and this time Tate seems relieved.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Gimme a minute, and I’ll drive you.”

I stand up and get dressed again, throwing on a hoodie and grabbing my work bag, filled with makeup, toiletries, and other essentials, before following Tate upstairs through the grand house.

Evidence of Tate’s dad is parked outside in the driveway. A sleek black Tesla is stationed beside Tate’s Lexus. It’s almost ominous, a dark signifier of the mysterious man inside. What will he think about me moving in? What will he think of me?

I can only imagine what a man who owns a house like this is like. I picture a frowning grey-haired version of Tate, arms crossed, Tate’s baby cheeks gone jowly. Someone who probably wouldn’t approve of their only son dating a stripper.

But then I shake it off. I decided a long time ago not to let people judge me. I open the car door, sink into the Lexus’s soft leather seat, and look up at the house’s second-floor windows, as if I might see a shadowy apparition there, but only the light from the street lamps reflects back at me from the blank panes.

NICK

IT’S BEEN A while since I drove downtown at night. The lights roll up over the windshield, like raindrops falling in reverse in bright splotches of pink, yellow, and orange, and the streets are noisy. A girl shrieks at her friends, loud music thumps out of a club door, horns honk, and streetcar bells ring. It’s nothing like my quiet neighborhood, only fifteen minutes away.

I’m driving aimlessly after a pointless business dinner, one I shouldn’t have bothered going to. I wasted everyone’s time. A new hotel is being built in Dubai, but the project would take me away from home for at least a year. It’s exactly the kind of work I made a commitment to give up when I bought the house six months ago, but I’m restless and bored. I couldn’t resist the urge to learn more about the project and kept telling myself that maybe we could find a way to make it work.

Yet sitting at dinner with the same old type-A executive asswipes, I realized that it isn’t just the time away in Dubai that makes the project unappealing.

For years, work was my life, and I felt blessed to be doing something I was so successful at while making so much money. But eventually, it wasn’t enough. I was making money hand over fist, but for what? I hooked up with women and never saw them again, made friendships that barely lasted the weekend, and day after day, I woke up alone.

The idea of creating another enormous luxury hotel doesn’t tempt me in the least. It would mean a year of hard work, but also money, parties, and women—yet it all just gives me that same old empty feeling again.

After a while, an unbridled, hedonistic lifestyle feels meaningless without human connection.

A few blocks down the road, I realize I’m around the corner from the strip club we went to on my birthday. Just a left turn here at the intersection. Parking lot at the back. It would be so easy to pop in, get my mind off the Dubai meeting. Get distracted…

It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve thought about that lap dance in the past two weeks. I don’t want to be that pathetic, middle-aged guy who feels like he had a connection with a stripper, but I can’t get Mata Hari out of my head. Impulsively, I signal a left-hand turn, wondering what the hell I am doing, and drive into the club parking lot.

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