The Right Price

I was only two hours into my shift at The Fourth Face, and I could tell that it was already going to be a busy Friday night. Glancing around the strip club, I wasn’t complaining though. Tips were the bread and butter of people like me that were barely scraping by, and so a busy night was a good thing.

When Nan had moved in with me, I had automatically gotten a third job with a janitorial service, and it had worked well for a long time before the janitorial service had gotten new management and they had refused to work with my other two jobs. So, with no choice, I’d been forced to look for another job to help make ends meet, and it’d been sheer luck that I’d stumbled upon an opening at Four, the nickname us girls had for the place.

I’d been working my waitressing job, and one of my customers had commented on my pleasant customer service and had mentioned that The Fourth Face was hiring cocktail waitresses. At first, I’d been hesitant about working in a strip club, but pride and embarrassment didn’t go a long way to paying the bills. After only a couple of days of thinking about it, I had applied and had gotten the job.

My interview had been with the owner, Carver Sullivan, and I’d been surprised by how decent he he’d been. Most strip clubs had reputations for sleezy management, but Carver wasn’t sleezy at all. In fact, he was rather hot if I was being honest. He was six-foot-two, had dark blonde hair and these bright aqua-colored eyes, and he was built like he should be playing professional sports. The dude was hot, and I knew that a lot of the girls hated his no-fraternizing work policy. Oh, he had no problem with his employees screwing each other, he just didn’t engage.

Ever.

Carver owned The Fourth Face and a dance club on the other side of town, and it was said that he’s never slept with any of his employees. He was all business, and a lot of the girls speculated that he might be secretly married or something. They couldn’t fathom that he was surrounded by hot ass all day and night, but still refused to give into temptation. It was also rumored that if an employee dared to shoot his or her shot with him, he fired them immediately.

At any rate, I’ve been here three months, and he’s been a great boss. During my interview, I had asked him for the reasoning behind the name of the club, and he’d said that everyone had four faces, no matter how hard they might try to deny it. There was the face that we showed at work, there was the face that we allowed our friends to see, there was the face that our families knew, and then there was that fourth face that we never showed anyone. That fourth face was the one that we struggled to look at in the mirror. It was the one that laughed at a joke that it shouldn’t have laughed at it. It was the one that watched that taboo porn that it shouldn’t have. It was the one that made you doubt your entrance into Heaven. Everyone had it, and Carver was very aware of it. It’s what made his clubs a success. That fourth face was what had people lined around the corner to get into his clubs.

Carver had also been willing to work around my other two jobs, which had been a huge plus. My first job was working as a cashier for a gas station on Sundays through Wednesdays, and I worked the day shift of eight to four-thirty. My second job was working for a local supermarket on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesday, and Thursdays from seven to ten at night, and I stocked shelves and things like that. I worked the club on Thursdays from eight in the morning until four-thirty, then worked the night shift on Fridays and Saturdays from four until two in the morning. With the club very rarely busy during the day, I spent my Thursday shifts getting the club ready for the weekend with re-stocking supplies and stuff like that. I didn’t waitress until noon when the club opened to the public.

“Looks like it’s going to be good bank tonight,” Star stated gleefully, and that wasn’t a stage name. Her father was super into astrology, and so he’d stuck her with that name at birth. Star had been my trainer when I’d gotten the job, and she was really a sweet person. Though she also danced, she preferred waitressing because she liked people and interacting with them. Her stage name was Peaches.

I looked over at the pretty blonde. “Yeah, it does.”

The other smart thing about the staff here? Carver didn’t hire only one type of femme fatale. He hired all looks, so that his patrons could find exactly what did it for them. Contrary to popular believe, not every guy was attracted to blonde hair, blue eyes, and big boobs. There was a good variety here for all tastes and attractions.

Now, while I wasn’t a dancer, the same could be said for the waiting staff as well. There was a wide variety of pretty girls, though I wouldn’t consider myself in their league. While I knew how to apply mascara as much as the next girl, all that perfect contouring and stuff was lost on me.

At five-foot-three, I had black hair and dark blue eyes, instead of those light blue eyes that usually made the color combination a startling one. My figure wasn’t anything special, though I was proud of it. I had a full B-cup, narrow waist, and a subtle flare to my hips. I was probably as close to being perfectly proportioned as a girl could get. The cocktail waitress uniforms showed the entire world exactly what I was working with, but I still didn’t feel overly exposed. Our uniforms were exactly our size unless we chose otherwise.

“By the way, Carver’s looking for you,” she added.

“Do you know why?”

Star shook her head. “I didn’t ask,” she answered. “But he did ask me to send you his way if I saw you first.”

I nodded. “Okay, let me see to my tables, then I’ll head on over to his office.”

Quickly making sure that my early tables were satisfied, I made my way upstairs to Carver’s office. The club was two stories, and it really was a nice setup. Even the outside of the building looked professional. You’d never know that it was a strip club by just looking at it as you drove by. If you didn’t live in the town of Wallace, you’d drive by thinking that it was just another office building with its mirrored exterior and cursive font of its name.

When you first walked into the building, you entered a lobby that also added to that office building effect. However, instead of a reception desk, there was a hostess podium in the left corner of the room right next to a security post. There was a long couch that was positioned on the right side of the lobby, and it even had a water dispenser immediately to the left of the room when you walked in.

However, it was when you got past the hostess podium that you saw the club for what it was. Walking into the club, the décor was a mixture of light blue, dark blue, and a heather grey, and there were even expensive paintings decorating the walls over the booths. You could see the bar immediately to the left, and it spanned the entire length of the wall, serving almost every liquor under the sun. The restrooms were located at the end of the bar, down the dark hallway that also led you to the backdoor of the club.

Like most strip clubs, there were random tables and chairs scattered throughout the floor, booths nestled against the east and south facing walls. The north wall was the backdrop for three pole stages, the middle one reserved for the main acts of the night. Our dressing room, locker room, and break room were located directly on the other side of the stage wall, making access onto the stage easy and convenient. Everything was state-of-the-art, sleek, and expensive. No torn seats, no dirty curtains, no crumbling brick…nothing like that.

As for the second floor, to the right of the landing were Carver’s office, the security room, and a conference room for business meetings and things like that. To the left of the landing were all the VIP rooms. There were only three in total, and the glass walls gave them a perfect view of all three stages. You could even tint the glass if you needed some privacy. However, before you got to the VIP rooms, you had to pass five closet-sized private dancing rooms, and they really were small enough to create a very intimate setting for the customer.

I knocked on Carver’s office door, and I only had to wait a few seconds before he was opening the door for me. Smiling at me, Carver stepped back to let me in, and shutting the door behind us, he said, “I called you up here because I need you to work the grey VIP room tonight.” The three VIP rooms matched the color scheme of the club; one room was grey, one was dark blue, and one was light blue.

I turned to look at him. “Uh…I’ve never worked any of the VIP rooms before.”

His gorgeous face softened a bit. “I know, Collins,” he replied. “Even though Lita does the scheduling, I still know who’s doing what.” Lita Rogers was the club manager of sorts, even though Carver was a hands-on kind of owner.

While working the VIP room was sure to bring me some extra cash tonight, I was still curious as to why he was sending me in there. “Can I ask why you’re changing my schedule?”

“Elizabeth called in sick,” he answered. Elizabeth Allen was one of the club’s veterans, and she went by the name Marigold.

“Okay, yeah,” I stammered a bit. “Now?”

He shook his head. “The group should be here in about an hour.” The twitch of his lips told me that he knew that I must be a bit nervous. “You’ll be working with Carol and Abby.” Carol Decan and Abby Clemens were also veterans of the club, and that told me that whoever had reserved the room must be important. “You’ll do fine, Collins.”

From Carver’s lips to God’s ears.