WORK IN PROGRESS: Three Witches #1: Magnus and Magnolia

Chapter 15 (Magnus): In Front Of My Face

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

I watched Lamia surreptitiously all night, trying to understand what was going on. How she had doubled the profits single handedly at a strip club? How was she doing it? Was something illegal happening?

After a couple of hours of observation, I waved over one of the waitresses, not liking the flare in her eyes and the way she threw back her shoulders a bit as she approached me.

"Where're your tables?" I asked her. Darcy, I thought her name was but wasn't sure so I didn't use it.

"The six in the back along the wall."

"Why is Lamia serving drinks there, then?" She was laughing with the eight men at one of the tables, her hand moving to the shoulder of the man closest to her after she set down the last drink. He was leaning into her, even more so than the other men at the table were leaning toward her. Strangely enough, even though her tits were right in his face, he was looking at her face.

Possibly-Darcy frowned, her eyes angry. "Because they asked for her, and Jayla said to send Lamia over if tables asked for her."

"Why the hell is Jayla telling you to do that?"

With a shrug, she sent a nasty glance toward Lamia. "Not just me. All of us. And the answer is because that's on Treat's orders since apparently no one else can sell like Lamia."

Looking around, I noticed several other waitresses getting waved off by customers, and then fingers pointing at Lamia. 

What was going on here?

It made no sense. All of the waitresses had been hired at the strip club because they were incredibly attractive, and yet in a crowd of beautiful women, Lamia was being singled out constantly.

Why?

"My take home has taken a huge hit," she told me. "I'm having trouble paying my bills since the Red rover, red rover, send Lamia over directive was handed down. And yet I still make more here than I would at the sleazy strip clubs. Plus you guys protect us and the strippers."

At the end of the night, I was seething with rage, having seen Lamia take over all of the sections to some extent. And when it became too much for her to handle, she used the waitresses to put in the orders at the bar and run them back to her so she could serve. The other waitresses were too afraid of losing their jobs to protest.

I called Jayla over and said I wanted a meeting of the waitresses at the end of the night. When the club closed, no one was allowed to go back to the lockers until we had met. I had the waitresses gather around and pointed to the table in front of me. 

"Everyone put your tips on the table."

"What?" Predictably, Lamia was the one to protest.

"You heard me. All of you put your tips on the table."

"Why?" she persisted.

"One, because I said so, and two, because we're pooling tips and dividing them evenly from now on."

"That's not fair!" she objected. "I'm not doing this."

"What's not fair is you taking other waitresses' tables, and then using them as your runners and not sharing the tips since they're doing the bulk of the work."

There was a lot of grumbling in agreement.

"You can't punish me because the customers want me to wait on them," she said. "It's not my fault that I get requested."

"I can fault you for not sharing the tips, especially when the other waitresses are doing ninety-eight percent of the work for you and you're reaping the benefits of their hard work and taking over their rightful sections."