Page 10 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“The third tip is the most important. Never share any personal details with your clients, not your real name, not where you live, not even which side of the feckin river you live on because there will come a time when they will use that against you.”

“Absolute anonymity got it,” she says, pushing the eyelash wand back into the mascara and plonking it back into her bag

Tanya brushes past me, even though she has long red straight thick hair and a much longer body than me. She reminds me of myself. I was as cocky when I first started out. Thought I knew it all from a bunch of YouTube videos.

I pull my bag out, pull on my cop outfit, tousle my hair out of its bun, do my make-up and apply my fake eyelashes, wincing at the unmissed pain of the tugging on my real lashes.

“Danger Darcy to the stage. That’s Darcy to the stage.” Neeave, the DJ had obviously seen me come in.

I strap on my blue glittery platform sandals and do the belt up on my police playsuit, pulling my hat on over my curls. I chalk my hands and strut quickly out of the corridor and through the throngs of men who were taking their seats.

I was a regular here, well liked on the menu. They knew what they got from me and that’s why they filled the seats.

I’d long thought that most of the pole dancers hated men, and dancing was their coping mechanism. Here control was wrenched away from men. They even had to pay for it. Perhaps the lap dancing clubs were the only place where women truly yielded power. No one could deny me a promotion here because I didn’t want to go on a date with them. Here I didn’t compete with men. I used the exact thing they wanted to outrank them.

I smile widely, showcasing my recently whitened teeth as I confidently sashay up the ramp to the pole. The heavy bass of the music vibrates through my body as I tip my hat greeting my audience. I position my hands around the pole, twirling with abandon, like a child that hadn’t been to the playground for a while because they’ve been sick. I let my head fall back, elongating my neck and pushing out my breasts.

I scan the crowd for Liam, but he’s not visible. My heartbeat quickens as I move in and out of my signature moves, money fluttering onto the stage. A big perk of the job was the extra money. Not that I kept it. I didn’t want to profit from the men who came here. More than half of them went on to the brothels filled with trafficked girls I fought to free. I gave every cent I made at the club to a human trafficking charity in the city. Radius. My helpers high had turned me into the club’s top earner. And quickly solidified my role helping new girls increase their earnings.

I pull down the zip of my playsuit to roars of “Darcy, Darcy.” I’m wearing a ribbed red bra with red boy shorts.

Red lights hover over faces. And then I see him. The same pair of deep set, wide blue eyes that I’d followed down a drainpipe hours before. He doesn’t smile. Not a muscle in his face moves. He just studies me as I inch down my patent blue playsuit.

As Ithrow off my red bra, a muscle in his cheek twitches, and his lip curls into a sneer.

Moments after I finish my dance. I redress to hoots and hollers.

I walk to the bar with a line of men following me. I take a seat on one of the barstools to engage in mindless chatter with my old fella patrons: Ballymena had been grand. And yes, it was terrible seeing my granny waste away. But what kind of granddaughter would have been if I left up there all alone?

The men who came here wanted to talk about their deepest, most worrisome thoughts, and so perhaps it wasn’t strange that they wanted to share in the ones I’d constructed.

I tucked the tips into my pocket and set to walking around the club to find my first private dance. The old fellas rarely got dances. Their pensions didn’t stretch that far, but the slow private dances were my friend. As much as I loved the main stage, I recognised my need to move slower, especially in the late evening.

I felt him before I saw him. His eyes bore into mine as he emerged on the other side of the bar. He looks down at his drink and then up at me. A small smile tugs at the corners of my mouth as I give him my best come to bed eyes. Liam takes his drink, gets up from his seat and walks slowly around the bar. The men surrounding me part as if they are water and he is Moses. He takes up the stall next to mine.

He’s angry with me but not angry like he suspects I’m an undercover detective.

“I sent flowers for your dead granny, but there’s no Maria Connolly in Ballymena.” He says licking whiskey off his bottom lip.

“That’s because my grandma uses her maiden name. She is Maria Murphy.”

Fergus had set it up for me to be the granddaughter of a woman there who had actually died in Ballymena and this was useful because I was right. Liam checked.

Liam’s eyes cast to the door. Where three suited men who I recognise as belonging to the Albanian gang walk into the club.

“I’ll have the flowers sent to you to the club,” he says.

“I don’t need any flowers. Would you like a dance, or are you going to waste more of my time?”

Liam pushes his chin out at the bottom and sucks his teeth. “You really don’t like me, do you?” he looks at me like a wounded puppy. “Just answer me one question.”

“Anything,” I say, pushing my boobs out.

He leans in. I feel his breath on my neck and jawline. “Are you a lesbian?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You said you’d answer me anything.”

---