For Want of a Mask

Chapter Eight: The Club

Brimming with righteous fury, Angela stormed down the staircase, out of the building and halfway down the street, too mad to even pay attention to where she was going. There was no-one around, but even if there had been, she might not have noticed. The sun was setting and she had wasted her whole afternoon for a hair-tie.

Which was still around her hair. She had endured all that for something that actually made her feel more naked. Anger dissipated and was replaced with embarrassment, keen awareness that she was standing naked in the middle of a public sidewalk, and wasn't even covering herself with her arms. Angela undid the hair-tie, sliding it onto her wrist and let her hair fall back over her front.

Just then, someone stepped out of a nearby fire exit. It was a naked woman. No, almost naked—topless with a g-string and heels. Her hair was platinum blonde and her makeup was almost comically overdone. She was a good six inches taller than Angela, and her figure was a perfect hourglass.

"Got a light?" she asked Angela, a cigarette between her fingers.

"No, sorry," Angela replied.

The woman frowned, then said, "I'll go get one from the dressing room," and turned around to go back in. She glanced over her shoulder at Angela and looked her up and down. "You wearing a merkin?"

Angela blushed, too embarrassed to answer.

"Brave choice. Lots of guys, they don't like that. But some do, I hear."

Angela glanced down at her bush. She'd never shaved it. And after its heroic pussy-covering service today, she never would.

The stripper disappeared back through the fire exit. The phrase "dressing room" stuck in Angela's mind. A dressing room in a strip club. What better place for a naked girl to get something to wear? This was one place were no-one would bat an eye seeing a naked woman walk past them, where she could actually blend in. She just needed to find the dressing room, get a gown or something and then...

Then she would be lost in the middle of town, without a phone or any money. But she would be dressed. And then anything would be possible. She could probably borrow one of the stripper's phones and call... Rachel, maybe? If she'd just called her actual best friend in the first place, she could have gotten dressed in the strip mall bathroom, rather than running around town naked all day.

Go inside. Find the dressing room. Get dressed. Phone Rachel. A simple plan.

But if she was going to go into a strip club looking like one of the strippers, she would need to act the part. That meant no more crouching, no more covering and no more hiding behind things. She would need to walk casually, even slowly, and pretend to be completely comfortable in the nude. Around lots of horny men.

Angela straightened her back and put her hands at her sides. Now she was stiff, so she wiggled around a bit, shaking her arms and legs and body to get loose. Casual. At ease. Comfortable.

Taking a deep breath in and out, Angela stepped through the fire escape. A winding flight of metal stairs greeted her. The steps were cold against her bare feet.

At the top, she had to use her elbow to open the heavy fire door a crack and slip through. Now she was in the club. It was mercifully dark, but she could see strippers walking about, and men of all descriptions sitting around tables. She bit her lip, fighting the urge to pull her arms around herself.

Casual, easy, she told herself. Sensual, even. Gotta look the part. And so Angela, who cried the first time she wore a bikini at the beach, strutted naked through a strip club. Every sense screamed at her to run, or at least power-walk, but she forced herself to keep it slow, and even made a few feeble attempts to sway her hips.