The Strip - Max

21 / Switch

I cried in my own bed. Alone. Nothing had changed since I left Please! to find a new life in a new club. Other than the change of address and a better smelling lounge, I was the same girl doing the same things that had me crying into the same pillow at the end of so many shifts.

I glared up at the ceiling with my eyes burning under watery pools of tears. The morning sun snuck in through the blinds while my mind sorted through the painful thoughts that had robbed me of sleep far too often. The late-night crying and stupid risks at work started on the trip to Johnson beach, but I could find evidence of my affliction tracing back to that stupid crush on Reggie Mathews, the deal I made with Niles.

Reggie had no interest in me, and the attention Niles had shown was a ploy to get with someone else. Ryder was two people in the same body. His sweet, likeable persona that I loved was shed with his pants, revealing a stranger that joined me in my bed. Andrew Jackman, Nick, Alex and so many other clients stirred emotions within me, exciting my senses and making me feel and want more. But in the end, after their scent had been washed from my skin, I was still alone.

As much as I hated to admit it, the best I had slept in months was when I shared a bed with Daddy. I began to wonder if I had made a mistake in breaking off that arrangement. The scenario that played out in that suite and in his mind was horrible, but the way it made me feel, while I was oblivious to the truth, was exactly what I wanted. As the feeling of regret started to form, I combatted it with the knowledge that it wasn't me that he had wanted. I was a just proxy for another girl.

Throughout my time with Alex, I tried to change him; to turn him into someone else. I failed. I sabotaged the attempts by guiding him through pleasurable fisting and allowing the soft caresses while cuddling at the end of the night. At the time, I didn't understand my motivations, but I came to realize a dark truth within me. It was a flaw I first came to know on that first night with Ryder. And it was there every time I became a piece of meat for the nastiest of my clients. When my time with those men came to an end, I would sleep in peace and wake up to a new day, free of the want of a life I didn't think I could ever have. Free of the desire for love I didn't believe I deserved.

If I couldn't have real love in my life, there couldn't be any middle ground. I couldn't have clients like Alex or Daddy make it seem possible. I had a tendency to seek out men in the lounge that seemed pleasant and likable. The others, the less kind and desirable types that were pushed my way at the other clubs, the type that enjoyed fisting the way they had seen it in porn, those were the ones I needed to find and take to the private rooms. I needed to be nothing more than meat for the savages.

I managed to find a couple hours of sleep, then headed off to work with a stop in the pharmacy to get some emergency contraception. I popped the pill from the packaging then stood outside the staff entrance door, gazing at the handle as I swallowed it down. In my imagination, I could feel it dissolve inside of me. The little tablet worked to erase the feelings that had swept in when Alex released himself within my walls. It wasn't love I had felt surge into me. It was cum. The release of his sexual pleasure. Nothing more than sex that I was paid to give.

I walked into The Strip for my second night of work, determined to restart my new life.

*****

Three days into my fifth week at the club I was sleeping much better. I was picking up as many extra hours as I could to keep my mind and body occupied. Some of the girls that worked during the day shift would give up a couple hours here and there and I was all too happy to take them. A couple twelve-hour days at the club did wonders.

I finished a private with a couple guys and was just wasting the thirty minutes I had left before getting on stage for a set when Chantel tapped my shoulder and said, "Tyler wants to see you. He's in his office."