Random Acts of Trust (22 page)

The second time I’d gotten naked in so many hours.

The first time was so much better.

The music helped. I picked up the beat the second it started. I got my hips going, and then I decided to play it up to the crowd. In one fluid motion, I pulled my shirt off, imagining I was doing this for Amy. It felt pretty fucking weird though, because aren’t women supposed to strip for men? Maybe that was outdated. I focused on Liam, who had seen me be ridiculous before. We’d been friends through plenty of stupid displays, some of them sober. Most of them not.

And now, if he wanted to sit there with that smirk on his face, then I was going to give
him
a show. I flung my sweaty t-shirt right at him, and then pointed and winked. The guys all guffawed, and Liam rolled his eyes, but went along with the joke. I paraded, I pranced, I danced, I gyrated, I did whatever I remembered from the handful of shows I’d seen of guys stripping. By the end, I struck an Olympian pose, half-and twisted to the right, showing off my glutes and thighs, as the music faded out. Liam was covered in my jeans, socks, shirt, but not, thank God, my underwear. The guys all clapped—soft golf claps—and I couldn’t tell whether they were sarcastic or genuine.

Louise just shook her head. “If you can be that jaunty with the women, then you’ve got a job, but if you’re just playing it up to the men, then we might have an issue. There’s a whole separate division where we have male strippers for men.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” I interrupted her. “It’s all good, I’m happy to do it for women.” Then I paused. “Wait—does it pay more if you do it for men?” The room filled with laughter.

She reached out and I took her hand in mine, with two pumps, the deal was done. “You’re hired,” she said. “Can you work tomorrow night?”

“Do I walk away with cash on the spot?” I asked, hopeful.

Liam tossed my clothes at me. My pants hit me in the head and then fell down my shoulder, sliding to the floor. I was surprisingly unselfconscious standing there in my blue boxer briefs.

“You walk home with your tips after a gig; otherwise, you get a paycheck every two weeks like everybody else.”

Like everybody else
, I thought.
Finally, a steady job.
I was officially supporting myself without student loans, without living in my car, and I’d have my own bed. Was it worth rubbing up against a bunch of women a couple nights a week? My involuntary grin faded slightly when my mind went to Amy. What would she think?

Louise’s eyes hardened, she leaned back in her chair. “You having second thoughts?”

“No, ma’am. My thoughts are all focused and ready to work.”

“Let’s get you your first set of uniforms, then,” she said, walking around the desk, guiding me with an arm around my shoulder to a closet door. Aaron was pulling clothes out. “The guys will start to explain the routines. Welcome to the club.” She smiled at me again. ”You fuck up, you’re fired.” Her eyes said she meant every word.

“I won’t fuck this up,” I said, wishing I could find the right words to explain how much I needed this and how awed I was that it had fallen into my lap.

Liam grabbed my upper arm and led to the pile of clothes out the couch. Without asking or being asked, he just sorted until he found a cop costume that looked like it would fit me.

“Start with cop?” he asked Louise, who was back at her desk, rummaging in a drawer. She didn’t even look up; a grunt and a nod sufficed.

“Here,” Liam said, holding a uniform up to me. “You have to wash it on Friday nights—hand wash, hang dry.” He rifled through the pile and told Aaron, “We’re out of any more in his size.”

“Try it on, make sure it fits,” Louise said, jerking her head toward the open bathroom door. “And try these on.” From the drawer in her desk, she pulled a plastic package, and flung it at me.

I caught it with swift reflexes and examined it.

A sequined green silk g-string.

“Redheads look great in emerald green.” Her eyes danced over my body, and then the only real flicker of emotion came from her when she asked, “Does the carpet match the drapes?”

Liam guffawed as I blushed and stammered, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“A blusher.” She rolled her eyes. “How cute. You can really milk them for great tips with that one, Sam. Especially the aggressive cougars.”

“The what?”

“The women your mom’s age,” she said tersely. “The ones who want to fuck you.”
Your mom
and
want to fuck you
are two phrases that should never, ever be in the same sentence. Even Liam went somber and I pulled my new work uniform with me into the bathroom, nearly breaking the g-string when I accidentally put both legs into the same hole. And then—

Butt floss.

How do women wear these things? The silky thread stretched up my ass crack and the sequins sewn into the…pouch?... were so strained I wondered if maybe I had an oversized ball sac or something. The clients would be able to tell whether I was circumcised or not.

And that was now, when I was soft.

What if I—?

Oh.

Hadn’t thought about that part. I climbed into the police uniform and made the two pieces of velcro match along both sides of my body. Coordinating that was harder than you’d think.

By the time I came out of the bathroom, only Louise and Liam remained.

“Perfect fit,” Liam crooned. “See, Louise? Told you I sized him right.”

“We’ll order more uniforms next week,” she said. “If you work out.”

I nodded, then reached back to pluck my ass.

“Tight?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Liam was close enough for me to whisper as Louise went to the main door and started putting on her coat. “What if I get a hard on?”

“Then your tips rise, too!” Louise cackled, whipping out the door and disappearing.

Liam pulled a key from his pocket. “I’ll lock up.”

“She trusts you?”

He shrugged. “After a while, she’ll trust you, too. Just do a good job.”

My mind was still reeling. “You really do this. For real. For real?”

“It pays well,” he said blandly, matter-of-factly collecting his stuff so he could lock up. “The women have fun, and so what if I happen to get half naked to make a pile of money.”

“More like 95 percent naked,” I argued, picking at the string. Women wear these willingly? I felt like this was a form of torture.

$700 a week for two nights
, I reminded myself. I decided to learn to deal with the ass flossing.

I quickly changed back into my own clothes and we left, Liam obviously comfortable with the building and the neighborhood.

“Need a ride?” He pointed to his car, parked in a spot reserved for the building.

Never turn down a free ride at five in the morning. “Hell yes. Trevor and Joe’s.”

“I know where you live.” He rolled his eyes and started to say something, then finally did. “You and Amy...?”

“Me and Amy what?”

“You guys hook up?”

“Yep.”

A funny look, like nostalgia and regret mixed with happiness and relief, crossed his face. “Good.”

“Your approval means so much to me.”

“Fuck off. You were such a douche to her.”

“No shit.” Like I needed that thrown in my face after the night I’d just experienced.

“I know you know, but I don’t think you really understand what you did to her.” Liam’s voice was tight and his knuckles were white against the steering wheel. What the fuck was this about?

“Why are you butting in on this?” I asked. A simmer was starting in me and I didn’t like it.

“Because she has been my friend since, like, forever. Since we were little kids.”

And then I remembered. His dad lived next to Amy. Liam had gone to my school but spent a lot of time with his dad. My turn to get tense. “She talked about me with you?”

He cleared his throat. “Something like that.”

What did that mean?

The car came to a halt at the intersection near Joe and Trevor’s. Our friendliness had shifted into a guarded tension I didn’t like. I grabbed the costume and got out.

“Thanks,” I said, bending down and waving through the closed window.

“No prob,” he said without making eye contact. The twin red glowing eyes of his rear lights stayed in my eyesight like a visual echo, long after he was gone.

The walk to the apartment felt like I carried blocks of concrete in my knees.

Even though I scored the job, I still needed to make some money over the next few weeks before the first paycheck would come in. Tips would help, sure, but right now, I needed cash in hand. A few days earlier, before I’d imagined I’d be interviewed and hired like this, I’d found a labor gig on Craigslist. You could go on there and find just about anything that would pay you on the spot. I stayed away from the illegal and the illicit, although the irony that I’d just secured a stable job as a stripper wasn’t beyond me. If you had strong arms and weren’t afraid to take a few risks, you could go on Craigslist and find somebody who needed a couple of guys and a truck, and would pay you twenty, fifty, one-hundred bucks on the spot. Plus lunch, if I was lucky.

I didn’t have a truck, but I had strong arms. More importantly, I had a cell phone bill to pay, and this pesky little thing called hunger. The phone buzzed in my pocket and I patted it, pulled it out, hoping it was Amy. It was Darla, though, texting me,
You with Amy?

I texted back,
No, why?

Amy left her tablet at the bar last night. Can I give it to you to give to her?

I wouldn’t be done with this job for hours. A full day.
I can’t give it to her ‘til tomorrow
I replied.

K,
Darla sent back quickly.
What’s her number? I’ll call her.

I entered the number, but added
, It’s 6AM, too early, don’t call her.

K. I’ll drop it in her mailbox on my way to work. What’s the address?

I texted it back, and then added,
if you do see her, tell her I said hi
.

You tell her
, was all Darla wrote back, with a little smiley face.

I stuffed the phone back in my pocket and resumed my wait for the dude with the truck to show up, so I could spend the next eight hours helping someone move from the Back Bay out to Weston, one of the tonier suburbs of Boston. At the end of the day I’d walk home with about a hundred and twenty bucks, and that was the kind of security I needed. That and money for coffee. And food.

This $120 hauling boxes and furniture would save my ass until my first paycheck. I really needed stripping with Liam to work out, so I could hope this was the last Craigslist gig I’d ever need.

I didn’t want Amy to know just how on the edge I lived. It was shameful, a shame I
needed
to hide.

As a big, white box truck pulled up, and two guys named Jose and Paolo shook my hand and smiled, I climbed in, ready to go off and make my own security. To make myself worthy.

Amy

The first thin ribbon of ultra-bright morning sunshine had aimed itself straight for my left eye to torture me. Turning over helped, but then I found myself staring at the back of the door, remembering Sam leaving last night, how his jeans cupped his ass as he turned the corner, the way his hands had—

And there is was.

The female equivalent of a hard on.

Oh, we get them. It’s a gentle throbbing and wet warmth that tells us we’re ready for orgasm. Now, please.

And please, sir, may I have another?

You think blue balls are bad?

Try blue clit.

Wait. That sounds like some kind of STD. Nevermind.

The only surefire way to handle the throbbing is to rub one off. Masturbate. Self-pleasure. Pick your term, but it all boils down to taking arousal and translating it into an orgasm, followed by ice cream and a lengthy stretch of time choosing not to worry about the possible pathology of having seventeen sex toys to choose from.

Which collection was now in my closet, among the other still-packed boxes. The boxes were four across, three deep, and six high. A giant block of crap I’d probably never really need, but carried through life with me because it contained keys to my identity.

Except the small white file box labeled “Philosophy Papers” as camouflage. Anyone looking in there would think I was a professional tester for Adam and Eve. Which should definitely be a real job. Because maybe Library Science wasn’t going to cut it....

Opening the closet, I search the first layer of boxes. Nope.

Unloading every box seemed ridiculous, and would take too long, besides—She Who Rhymes With Delores was screaming for some attention and dreams about Sam’s tongue on her. That was the problem with real-life sex: it never sated her.