Page 7 of Thanatos' Craving

I leaned over and grabbed a pin and shoved it into her hair to keep it in place.

“Thanks,” she sniffled. Her glassy eyes looked at me with gratefulness.

I just wished there was more that I could do at this moment. A few words of encouragement. Let her know that this all would be over soon. That all she had to do was go inside her head, complete the dance I taught her to do, block out the noise, the chatter, the jeers, the catcalls, and just concentrate on the dance like I taught her.

It would be foolish to give her that encouragement now. Not when the guards swept the room and grabbed the girls while they threw them out the door. No one was to say anything, just grab their things and go.

All the words of encouragement danced on my lips until it sunk in deep into my skin. I tried to convey it through my eyes, but panic had already set in deep into Amanda’s soul.

A guard came by, slapped her on the ass, and grabbed her arm.

I hated the guards with a fiery passion. The predatory way they stared at her, the other women. Even with their reflective sunglasses they wore, you can see they took in the views.

And they craved Amanda. She was just so innocent and skittish; the guards fed off of her like a sweet dessert.They were nothing but giant meatheads loaded up on roids and beer.

Amanda was young and sweet, the guards were ready to devour her if she messed up. I wanted to be there with her on stage, but this was her first night and the newbies go first.

Amanda wore a platinum blonde wig and black panties. The guard smirked and took in the curve of her ass. His hand reared back and slapped her pale skin again. It flushed red quickly from the smack.

She whimpered, but dared not cry like I’d warned her and countless others.

The guard, like the rest of the goon crew, was in a black uniform, his sheer size and his dark eyes made them all look the same. Identical demons that feasted on the innocent.

All the guards wore the same attire: black pants, black-collared dress shirts. The black leather belts held a gun, a taser and a flashlight. A radio lay on their shoulders. They wore mirrored sunglasses that hid their eyes.

None of us knew their names. We were all instructed to call them, “Sir.” I joked with others that they were all really just the same person, just multiplied by however many guards they needed each night.

It was fun to come up with new ways to entertain myself, just making others laugh. The other women didn’t find my weird antics funny at all. But how were we all to survive if you couldn’t smile at least every once in a while?

“Finish up, Ginger. You’re due in five,” the guard grunted.

And how funny it was that these were supposed to be guards that should be here to protect the women in this type of line of work. Instead they did nothing but terrorize us.

The guard tugged on Amanda. She gazed back at me as if I was her hero. That I would lunge forward and take her from the beast of a man that was twice my size.

I wish I could, god; I wish I could.

But we both knew that would never happen.

It would mean hell to pay for the both of us. And yes, there was a more terrible place than this.

I rubbed my chest, feeling my heart beat wildly in my chest. Amanda wasn’t the first I’d helped, nor the last. I’d silently help as many as I could. The first night was always the hardest. She could do it, I knew she could. I trained her and stayed up with her until mid-morning, made certain she was ready. She would have a great chance if she stayed here and worked at the club at least for a while until —

They tugged Amanda away before I finished the thought. The guard that still stood on the other side glared at me to finish getting ready. I’d never given them a reason not to trust me, not yet anyway.

The bodyguard pulled her to the door, where the dark hallway lets the beams of light filter inside the dressing room. The frigid air ran across my skin, and I shivered, seeing the bumps ripple across my body.

My nipples bud into hardened points because of the cold. I gritted my teeth in anger, my eyes filling with tears. It wasn’t fair to Amanda, to the other women here, to me. How cruel can these monsters be?

I took in a deep breath and let it out shakily. I’m still here, I’m surviving.

Come on, Juni, another night, just another night.

Don’t think about the unwanted stares, what they think, what they want. You are doing this to survive.

My nails pricked my palms, and I closed my eyes and thought about what lay beyond these walls.

Freedom.

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