STRIP

1.

Clementine Adams

My mother once said to me, "always grab em by the balls," I think she was just trying to be a cool mom rather than giving real advice but the phrase has never come more in handy.

With my mother's voice in the back of my head and beautiful advice for this exact moment, I did just that. Pushing his arm off of me, the smirk still present on my face, I grabbed him directly by the balls.

"I said if I wanted to, I would, and unfortunately for you, I don't want to," I smirk, letting him go. "Oh, and don't call me baby."

*2 hours earlier*

I've been stiffed on tips the entire night, I've remained sober my entire shift, and someone called me a bitch because their food was taking too long to come out as if that was my fault.

Five more minutes until I get to leave and clock out. All my tables have been gone for over twenty minutes, but my manager doesn't allow us to clock out early on Saturdays, "just to be safe," so he says.

Safe about what? If I get a table within the next five minutes, I'll walkout.

"Hey, you just got sat," I hear the hostess say, pulling me from my thoughts.

I choose to not turn around, praying to whoever is out there, she isn't talking to me.

"Clementine?" I hear her again. Fuck. Me. I turn around and nod at her, fuck her. "Sorry they requested you specifically," she starts to laugh as if this is funny.

I look over the half wall, only to see Harlow and Talia trying to contain their laughter.

"You both suck, I thought I had to stay here for another hour," I sigh, walking over to them.

"Well, of course, just to be safe," Harlow starts cracking up, quoting our manager.

All three of us have been working here since we were freshmen. As much as I hate this place I'm very thankful to have met my two best friends here. If I were still stuck with my freshman year roommate, I'd probably have switched colleges by now. I'm also thankful for the hours, Eternity is considered a bar and grill, but only stays open until ten every night. No college student would come in and pay these prices for drinks. The owner is a rich dick also, so I don't think he's hurting for money enough to stay open during bar hours.

"We're here to save you, we brought you clothes, and we're going out!" Talia cheers, probably already tipsy.

"We're going to a strip club!" Harlow yells, drawing attention from the only table left in the restaurant. "I overheard people talking about it in class today, I guess it's like an underground type thing, not many people know about it, but the people that do know about it are regulars."

"We brought you a dress so we could leave right from here, we wanted to try to get there early but it opens at 10," Talia mentions, throwing a white dress at me and shooing me away before I can reply.

We've only been to a strip club one other time, my twenty-first birthday. Harlow and I weren't very interested in going back anytime soon. Talia on the other hand tried to get a job there. She has always made jokes to her parents about wanting to become a stripper instead of staying in college. Maybe the joke isn't a joke anymore. I tried making that same comment to my dad once, only to get an eye roll and lecture about how important education is.

"Are you ready yet?" I hear Harlow yell from outside of the stall, not even realizing they walked in.

Instead of replying, I walked out of the stall in the short white dress that was thrown at me, quickly tying a bow with the strings around my waist.