Page 15 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“Where do you want me to dance for you?”

“Let’s go to your place.”

“Why now?”

“Lap dancing is a bit like going to the dentist. It is the thought of doing it that is worse than actually doing it, so you can call me humanitarian. I want to put you out of your misery sooner rather than later.”

Liam rolls down the window between us and his two henchmen. “We’re going to the house,” he says and rolls it back up.

I watch the two men look at each other as the larger man in the passenger seat slips €100 to the man driving. Clearly, my destination was a bet.

Liam’s Rolls-Royce rolls crunches over the gravel pathway flanked by imposing Conifer trees. His stately mansion comes into view under thick clouds and striking lightning. I wonder if I am a lamb going to slaughter. No one knew I was here and worse, I had the phone with me that I rang Ferg on.

As the car came to a stop, panic shoots through me. I push my acrylic nails into my palms demanding myself to get a grip. This was my one chance to find out the truth.

“Have you thought about the song you want me to dance to?” Liam asks, breaking off the pain I was inflicting on my palm.

“I’ll let you choose,” I say, grabbing my shoulder bag and pulling it across myself as I exit the car as lighting forks down. The air is stiff and muggy, unmoved by the rain or lighting. Weirdly, it smells like earth, fresh with possibilities.

Liam sprints under the beating rain towards the stone lined door. I’d imagine this huge house to have an equally enormous doors, but the door he runs towards is small. I watch him unlock it. He has to dip his head to enter.

“Come on will you? It’s pissing down out there.”

I run towards the door, my heart hammering in my chest. Panic doing pole vaults in my ears. If Fergus found out about this, I’d be off the force.

Upon entering his house I see a sweeping staircase that rises up before me carved from marble, veined, grey and white, and on each side, a black cast iron railing with curling scrolls.

“I’m through here,” says Liam, ignoring the staircase and heading towards a well-lit corridor with a simple white door at the end.

He punches in a code to a lock pad and the door springs open. 0911 was the code. My birthday. I swallow hard, ignoring what I hoped was a coincidence. And praying I wasn’t able to become the stuffed centre piece of a shrine to me.

As the door opens, a vast, chrome-top island kitchen comes into view. On the other side of the room there are two white tufted leather sofas facing each other and between them a low glass table mounted on top of twisted polished oak wood. Everything is immaculately polished, not a speck of dust or smear insight. Liam kicks off his brown polished shoes.

“I like to keep things clean. Can you take your shoes off?”

I step out of my boots. The cold marble floor pierces through my foot and up my ankle like ice.

“What will you have to drink?” He calls over his shoulder as he walks towards the kitchen. He pulls out a crystal decanter field with amber coloured whiskey.

“I’m going to need a drink before I dance for you. Is that okay?”

“No one likes a drunk stripper, Liam.” I caution running my fingers along the cold edge of his chrome island top.

“I need it to settle my nerves,” he pushes his tongue into the cheek of his mouth and gives me a naughty smile.

It isn’t every day that a drug gang lord and prolific human trafficker was preparing to give me a lap dance; and though I didn’t want to enjoy it, the anticipation was making my skin tingle.

He throws back one large whiskey and says, “Take a seat,” motioning to the white sofa. He sets a whiskey down before me in a crystal glass.

He picks up the remote control, throws back his drink, pours himself another and comes to sit on the white sofa beside me. He loosens his tie and sets the drink down, picking up his phone. He scrolls, and the drumbeats of You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate start to flood the room.

I let out a snigger and shake my head.

“What?” he asks, driving his hand down his chest as if he’s about to spring into a 1970s badly choreographed Abba dance.

“Not this song. You can only dance to this like a feckin’ eejit, and what I want is a proper sensual, sexy lap dance, like the ones I give you.”

He puts his phone down and pushes his tongue behind his teeth.

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