Page 18 of A Love So Hard

“Want to go see where I work?”

“Sure,” I answered, though honestly I wasn’t sure that’s really what I wanted. We hopped in his car and drove about two blocks over from the restaurant and pulled up to a nicer looking gentleman’s club. My stomach flipped when I realized he was taking me to one of the strip clubs he did the books and the ordering for. I wondered what kind of ordering he had to do? Did he have to order the strippers’ outfits? I certainly hoped not.

“Come on, honey. I promise, it’s not that bad.”

CJ took my hand and tugged. Once again he was helping me out of his Camaro, and I followed him into the den of debauchery. “I’ve never been in a place like this before,” I admitted before we hit the door.

“Why would you?” He asked as he pulled the door open and walked in like he owned the place. I guess, in a way, he did. CJ tipped his chin up to a bouncer just inside the door.

“Double-D! Bringing in new entertainment?” The man asked causing CJ to stiffen and glare back over his shoulder.

“This is my woman, show some respect!” His words were a censure that wasn’t missed by the giant of a guy.

“Sorry, man. No offense, ma’am.”

“None taken,” I offered and CJ continued pulling us through the establishment at a quick pace. There was a woman up on the center stage twirling around the pole listlessly and a few men scattered about here and there talking, drinking, and barely paying attention to the dancer on stage. Of course, considering the woman’s lackadaisical attitude I didn’t blame them. “Are you in charge of hiring and firing dancers?” This pulled CJ up short and he turned to give me a questioning look before he noticed where my attention was focused.

He laughed then. “Wish I was some days. She should have been bounced about two days after she got here,” he stated which told me he spent a lot of time here, and that he wasn’t oblivious to the dancers when they worked. CJ being in a motorcycle club, I could handle. Him working at a place like this with naked women all over and in a highly sexually charged atmosphere, I honestly wasn’t so sure.

We were on the move again before I could contemplate more, taking a trip down a hallway toward the back of the club off to the far right of the long stage that appeared to wrap around somewhat on each end like little peninsulas. The hallway was dark, but there were discrete lights along the floor to guide the way like the ones in the movie theater after all the other lights go down just before a movie starts. I thought that was weird, but then again we were in a strip club. I had no clue what else might go on here, and probably didn’t want to see evidence of it.

I could hear girlish giggling as me moved further down the hall and just after we passed one of the doors a woman came out wearing only a little string of dental floss as a thong. I dare not even call it that because as I turned to look at her when she called out to Double-D I could see that the string went right up the front of her womanly parts two. I couldn’t even imagine something like that was comfortable to walk around in.

“Double-D, you finally gonna come take me for a ride after you try out that fresh meat?” The woman’s voice cooed over to him seductively. CJ halted in his tracks, and then moved me so that he was between the woman and me. I could almost feel the anger radiating off of him.

“I have never tried out any of the girls dancing here or at any of the other clubs, and you damn well know it. Since you want to go attempting to scare off what you think is competition you can get the fuck on out now. You’re fired.” He turned to walk me further down the hall. “Oh, and this woman isn’t dancing competition, she’s too good to work a place like this, which means you’d never be competition for her.”

“You can’t fire me!” The woman screeched at him.

“I just fuckin’ did. You have five minutes to pack your shit up and get out. I’ll let Drake know.” We continued down the hallway to the end and a door on the right. CJ went to put a key in the lock, but the handle jiggled and all he had to do was push the door open. What greeted us on the other side was nothing short of a sideshow attraction. There were two men in kuttes like what Double-D wore normally and neither of them had their pants on fully. Both had jeans that were sitting down around their ankles, obviously trapped there by the boots they wore. One of them had his naked ass seated on the edge of the desk while the woman that was between them was planted firmly on his cock, only she was facing away from him and the man in front of them was drilling her too. I knew what this meant, but for some reason I couldn’t reconcile what I was actually seeing.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell are you idiots doing in my fucking office?”

The one drilling the woman from the front just grinned at Double-D until he spotted me somewhat ducking behind his shoulder to hide my embarrassment. “Fuck,” I heard him grunt.

“Sorry man,” the other called out sounding a little breathless, but failing to turn and see who was in the doorway.

“There’s always room for Double-D,” the woman called out. “I have a mouth too,” she pointed out needlessly since she was running it. The man in front of her grabbed her hair and snatched her head back so her attention was on him as he finally stopped pumping his hips into her.

“You know damn well Double-D doesn’t partake,” he scolded her and I wondered if he had just been putting on a show until she spoke again.

“Yeah, but I keep hoping he’ll change his mind.”

If anger could be bottled and harvested for later use, I’d have been able to store up a ton of it based on the vibes shooting off of the man who had brought me here to witness this craziness. “We’ll be having a conversation in church about the use of my office,” he finally said through gritted teeth. The other two men both snapped their heads around to him.

“I brought my woman here to show her she wouldn’t have any worries about me working out of an office here, and she had to hear Jolene insinuate that I try out all the new dancers then I think maybe she understands the bitch was lying only to walk into my office and see this shit going on.”

I could see the men’s demeanor change instantly as they scooted the woman from between them. “I’ll go deal with Jo,” the one who had been in front of the woman said. I could now see his patch said his name was Drake.

“No need. I just fired her ass.”

“What the fuck, D? That’s my domain,” Drake fired back sounding a little miffed.

“Then do your fuckin’ job. The wrong person hears her talk like that and suddenly we got the cops stopping by to check on things, we got girls claiming shit that hasn’t happened, and lawsuits we don’t want to deal with. Use your head. This shit here ain’t right either. You want to take a dancer out of the club and do whatever the fuck you want with them, fine. This is work for them. The minute they stick a cock in one of their holes that brings up things about selling women for more than just dancing and then LEO comes rolling around. This is a clean business, maybe we need to take the reminder up in church, like I said earlier, yeah?”

“Nah, we don’t need that,” Drake argued. “I’ll go make sure Jolene got her shit out of here without a fit.” He tucked himself away and zipped his pants up before scooting past us into the hallway. The other man slapped the dancer’s ass and told her to go get ready for her shift before he tucked himself away too.

“Sorry about that, D.” The man wasn’t looking at CJ though. He was watching my reaction to everything I’d seen. “I hope you know, what you saw isn’t his scene. Never has been. We knew better than to use his office. Apologies, ma’am.” As he moved to leave the office I caught sight of his kutte and name as well. Tag was written on his chest. We locked eyes as he moved past me and I wasn’t sure why, but a shivery sensation crawled across my neck and down my spine as it happened. Double-D pulled me into the office and slammed the door shut, raking his hands through his once brown locks that had been bleached much lighter by time spent in the sun. It was cute that his hair was getting so long it started to a bit at the collar.

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