Page 2 of The Bloke

“Doesn’t fucking look like it. Lock it the fuck up.” He stepped back to the edge of the stage, crossing his arms over his chest in frustration, and it took every ounce of restraint in me not to push him over the edge. “Vex, play it again from the top.” He snapped his fingers several times so Vex in the audio booth could see him, and we got back to our starting line-up. “Let’s go boys.”

“Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin could be heard playing over the speakers in the showroom, and the seven of us started rehearsing part of the opening routine.

Eight blokes run the resident Heaven Down Under show at the Neon Sunset Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, with four others filling in when they weren’t swapping between tour locations. When it was a full house, and no tours were scheduled, upwards of twenty-five of us worked in one show.

Jaxon, the king asshole of the lot, hosted the Heaven Down Under show, dancing the lead on the finale set, and up until today, I was working as one of the background dancers.

Nick, one of our veterans, recently secured a spot on the international tour and left at the last minute, leaving me to pick up his set as a lead dancer starting tomorrow.

While I didn’t mind getting to work center stage with a full performance of my own, the problem was I knew it wouldn’t be permanent.

I had been here all of six months, and even though the work was hard as shit, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Was this the life I had imagined for myself as a kid? Fuck no. But it was the second-best decision I had made in the past year. The first was when I purchased a brand-new penthouse with askyline view of the Las Vegas Strip. Which, of course, I would have never been able to afford if it hadn't been for my decision to make a dramatic change in my life and career.

I grew up a country boy in Western Australia, and my parents were sorely disappointed in my sudden change in lifestyle. They expected their eldest son to take over the family farm and continue with tradition: find a local pretty girl, settle down, get married, and have kids. A wholesome happily ever after. Unfortunately for them, that wasn’t what I wanted for my life, and the moment I was able to drop everything and leave. I did—Oh, the fuck I did.

When my parents discovered that I had planned on packing my bags and moving across the world to be here on the Las Vegas Strip, they cut me off completely. This was a minor setback, but luckily, I got the job with the male revue show pretty quickly, a benefit of being an Australian Citizen, which was one of the main requirements for consideration.

As a man who spent his entire life working in manual labor, I already had the body; it just needed a little extra—refining. With the rigorous workout schedule Jaxon puts us through, it wasn’t hard to keep or maintain—

“For fuck sake, Colby.” Benji. Asshole number two chimed in.

He gritted out before swatting me over the back of my head as I turned to face him. “Three hours. We’ve been at this for three fucking hours, mate. I want to get the bloody hell out of here.”

“What do you have to run home to at two in the morning?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes before grabbing my towel to clean up the sweat dripping from my brow. I was ready to go home, too, but I just wanted to get a rise out of him for the fuck of it.

A few of the blokes here were married, Tate, Jacob, and Matt, to name a few, but not all of them. Most of us were single, though, and didn’t want it any other way. It wasn’t that we couldn’t date or marry in our line of work, but a man can becomepretty picky after spending hours every night around hungry and feral women.

Every once in a while, one of the blokes would take a woman home after a show for a little added fun—that's how the first two got married, come to think of it—but it wasn’t something that happened regularly. In fact, it was rare.

I have yet to find a single woman who piqued my interest enough to bring them back to my place, even for just a single night of fucking around. My particular tastes could have been the most logical reason for that—searching for a woman I could break instead of a girl who'd bark just because I told her to. I had always known that for me to serve one woman for the rest of my life, she would have to be worth every damn second of it. I wanted a woman I could serve, a woman who could bring me to my fucking knees if she wanted to. Unfortunately, that meant whoever that woman was—she had some pretty high heels to fill.

“Alright, wrap it up. Colby, finish rehearsing your solo set, and we can all call it a night.” Jaxon instructed, and I blew out a heavy sigh.

Fucking finally.I needed to get the hell out of here, take a long hot shower, and pass the fuck out. Some days, I wished I was nocturnal with all these late-night training sessions. But when one shift ends, another begins.

We weren’t just male revue dancers, models, performers, or whatever you want to call us. We were something more: a dark, secret society that resided in plain sight and one of Vegas’s many best-kept secrets.

We were theMen Under Revue,and we owned fucking everything.

Being employed by one of the revue shows didn’t give you automatic access and membership to the secret society. You had to be initiated into it; once you were in, you were a member for life. Fuck up, and that becomes a forfeit.

In all honesty, the initiation tests were asinine and overplayed. Yeah, they make it hard to pass because they didn’t want just anyone joining their ranks; with status comes power, and you couldn’t give that shit to just anyone, but it was easy if you had the right mentality and understood their business dealings.

The Strip could only function as well as it was operated, and the Men Under Revue were at the forefront of keeping it as lucrative as possible. If someone caused a problem that would impact the revenue stream coming in, we would ensure that they never left with their greedy lives intact.

Three primary groups ran and served their section of the Strip, and no, we didn’t always get along, but we cooperated the best we could.

Once initiated, you were given a ring to symbolize your loyalty to the secret society. The ring is made of tungsten carbide and inlaid with black obsidian stone. The letters MUR, signifying who you now belonged to, were engraved on the inside of the band. You were untouchable in the eyes of everyone and everything on the Las Vegas Strip if you were found wearing one of these rings—and I got mine three months ago.

At night, we were the most popular source of entertainment for hungry, thirsty women whose husbands were too busy thinking about themselves to give two shits about them.

By day, we were the owners and operators of the entire Strip. You could catch some of us working as hotel managers, restaurant and bar owners, casual bartenders; you name it, one of us is most likely doing it.

Most members of the Men Under Revue preferred to work ‘normal’ jobs during the day, as it was easier to keep an eye on things when everyone believed you were a nobody.

In contrast, others prefer a higher, more elevated status and notoriety. To each their own.

---