Chapter 96: Chapter Ninety-Six
April
Gloria kept her hood up as she walked down the alley toward the club. The rain was already soaking through the cotton, making her shiver nearly as much as the anger. Nora was supposed to drive her to work. They always went to work together. It was Nora’s rule, yet she’d been the one to leave Gloria behind. She knocked on the backdoor and waited, switching her weight from one foot to the other. A few minutes went by without an answer. She knocked again.
“We’re closed!” a male voice called from inside.
“What? I work here…” Gloria answered back.
The sliding visor came open with a metallic clink. Dark eyes moved from her toes to her nose.
“Nurse,” Gloria said, raising her hoodie up enough to show the shirt she wore. She pulled her fake license from her pocket and held it up.
“Clubs closed tonight. Go home.”
The sliding viewer slammed shut. Gloria took a few steps back into the rain. She pulled the burner phone Nora loaned her from her back pocket and, though she’d tried and failed numerous times earlier in the night, she dialed her number.
“Oh my God, oh my God, I completely forgot to call you!” Nora apologized the second she answered Gloria’s call.
“I’m outside, what am I supposed to do?” Gloria asked.
“You’re outside? And Wayne didn’t let you in? That mother… Hold on.”
The line disconnected and Gloria glanced down at the blank screen of her phone. A moment later she could hear a commotion from the other side of the door. Then the door came open with a terrible scrape.
“Alright, alright, Nora, I didn’t know she was one of your girls, okay?” Wayne lamented with a growl.
“One of my girls or not doesn’t matter. She showed you her ID, didn’t she?” Nora asked, her hands on her hips, her foot tapping in irritation. Nora’s blue eyes cut to Gloria, still standing in the rain. “Get your ass in here.”
Gloria hurried inside.
“Donati said to not let anyone in,” Wayne said. “Too much going on in the organization.”
“I don’t care what Frankie tells you. My girl wants in, you let her the fuck in.”
The voices faded the further Gloria walked. She jogged down the stairs to the main lobby. The ring was empty. The floor was quiet. A few glasses clinked and Gloria followed the sound to the bar where the waitresses and bartenders were passing around glasses of liquor. The triplets noticed her first.
“Look who came to join the party!” Ruby yelled.
“Come on, girl, you got some catching up to do!” Betty agreed.
Gloria smiled. She’d never had friends before. She walked toward the bar and hopped up on the closest stool. Teresa laid down a glass for her and she picked it up with nervous fingers. As she raised it to her lips, Nora snatched it out of her grasp and threw it back.
“Nice try, kiddo,” Nora said with a shake of her head before placing the empty glass down.
“What? She can’t drink?” Ruby asked with a raised brow.
Nora’s mouth opened but no words came out.
“She thinks ‘cause I got a little loose at a club one night that I shouldn’t drink at all now,” Gloria lied with a roll of her eyes.
The other girls laughed. “That does sound like Nora,” Teresa said, with a shake of her head.
“If you like getting loose at clubs, you should come to Mirrors with us tonight,” Polly suggested.
Gloria’s fists clenched at the sound of the blonde bimbo’s voice coming from behind her.
“Mirrors?” Gloria asked, stifling the vomit that threatened to rise as Polly’s perfume invaded her nasal passages. Ugh, how could Frankie stomach the smell long enough to let her…
“Yeah, Mirrors,” Teresa said.
“Hot club nearby we like to go to on occasion to earn some extra money,” Betty said.
“Earn extra money? How?” she asked, liking the idea of being able to save more cash to get away from Nora’s helping hands all the sooner.
“No, she’s not allowed to come,” Nora said with a decisive shake of her head.
“Why not?”
“Cause…”
“Cause Nora doesn’t want to be shown up by a hot new body. The boys always prefer fresh meat,” Polly said with a mischievous wink.
“Please, I make more money there than you ever will,” Nora hissed.
“Wanna bet? I guarantee I’ll make more money off my guys than you’ve made in the last year,” Polly goaded.
Nora leaned over Gloria to get into Polly’s face and she decided right then that Nora was her favorite person on the planet. “The only reason you’d make more is cause I don’t go for dicks. You may get more tips cause your pussy flaps in the wind with every breeze blown your way, but we both know where the stench of aged cheddar covered in mold is coming from.”
Gloria barked out a laugh that she had to stifle with her palm. The other girls in the room did a much better job covering their laughter. Polly’s eyes went from Nora to Gloria and Gloria could see the calculations going on behind her gaze, deciding who was the weaker target. When they gleamed and sparked, Gloria knew she’d made the wrong decision.
“Well, Lilah, if you think she’s so funny, why don’t you accompany us and enter the betting pool?”
“Sure.”
“No.”
Gloria glared over at Nora.
Nora sighed. “You’re not allowed to.”
“Why isn’t she? She’s twenty-four, right?” Polly asked with a quirk of her head to the side.
Gloria and Nora exchanged a look.
“Yeah, Nora, I’m twenty-four.”
“Yeah, but…”
“I want to go,” Gloria said, jumping down from the stool.
“Let’s go!!” Ruby yelled, tired of the back and forth.
The group of women stumbled out one back door and only fifteen minutes later they were waltzing through another. Gloria glanced down the long, red-lit hallway. She followed the women down the hall, lagging behind as she soaked in the risque images hanging off the red walls. There were doors every ten feet or so. Some had green lights, while others were red. Each door had a name above it: Living Room, Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2, Kitchen, etc.
Nora gripped her upper arm, stealing her attention. “You need to leave,” Nora whispered.
“Whatever it is, I can handle it,” Gloria hissed, annoyed at being treated like such a child.
“You don’t even know what this place is,” Nora growled.
“Some kind of strip club?” Gloria guessed.
“Oh, it’s so much more than that!” Betty called as they all entered a room.
Gloria glanced around at the rows of mirrors and makeup stations. There were racks of clothes and a wall of masks. She stopped in the center of the room.
“What do you mean… more?” Gloria asked, ignoring Nora’s crossed arms and expression of ‘I told you so.’
Polly walked up to Gloria and let her dress fall to the floor. “Mirrors is a playroom, Kiddo.”
Gloria narrowed her eyes.
“You can strip if you want,” Teresa explained.
“Or dance,” Ruby added with a sway of her hips and a flip of her hair.
“Okay…” Gloria said, walking toward the racks of clothes… or strips of cloth.
“This one!” Betty exclaimed, walking toward Gloria with a red lingerie set.
“Uh…” It was always hard to make Gloria blush, but when she observed the thin lace fabric that would do little to cover any of her skin, she felt her face get as red as the clothing.
“Oh yeah, that’ll look great with your complexion,” Ruby agreed.
Gloria took the lingerie set, her eyes wide as she felt the fabric with her fingertips.
“Having second thoughts?” Nora asked, picking a black leather number for herself.
“No!” Gloria chirped a bit too quickly.
“Don’t worry, you can wear masks,” Ruby said, donning a gold lion mask that covered half her face.
“And obscure the mirror,” Betty confirmed.
“Mirror?” Gloria asked.
“Yeah, so the way it works,” Teresa started, completely naked at this point. “We have controls on our side of the mirror.”
“They’re two-way,” Nora added.
“You can choose to have your side obscured so they can see in but you can’t see out,” Teresa continued.
“Or if you’re feeling really kinky, you can make it so you can see them too.”
“Who’s on the other side?” Gloria asked, nerves starting to twist her insides.
“You don’t know,” Nora added with a sigh, finally giving in. She walked toward the wall of masks and pulled one down. She held it out to Gloria. It was a black lace mask with red gemstones. It would cover the upper half of her face, even her eyes.
Polly emerged from a changing room then wearing a dominatrix outfit. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a high, tight ponytail. She carried a whip and wore a leather cat mask. She strode toward Gloria, popped her hip and snapped the whip in her open palm.
“So what’s it going to be, Kiddo? Want to take a walk on the wild side, or should we call you a taxi to take you home to mommy and daddy?”
“Move out of my way,” Gloria said, shoving Polly away so she could head to the changing room.
When she walked back out, the girls in the room quieted.
“Damn,” Ruby said, cocking her hip in the starfish lingerie she was wearing. “You’re going to clean up.”
“Yeah, can we watch?” Ruby asked, looking at Nora.
Nora rolled her eyes. “You got the money to watch?”
Ruby pouted her lips.
Nora helped Gloria put the mask on while she stared at herself in the full-length mirror. She’d never thought of herself as being sexy. She was only nineteen and had been sheltered by her family for so long. Not even her guards were allowed to maintain eye contact. The only time she’d been allowed to wear anything revealing was on the rare occasions she would meet with her fiance.
The woman looking back at her now seemed foreign. Her chestnut hair flowed past her shoulders. Her lips popped with the red lipstick she was wearing, while the mask covering her eyes made her seem mysterious and seductive. The lingerie made her thin, skeletal figure seem alluring and curvy. It showed off the freckles along her collarbone and the heels Nora forced her to wear made it seem like she actually had an ass.
“Come on, I’ve signed you up for the chaise room,” Nora explained, helping Gloria walk in her heels.
They arrived at the door with a green light shining above it.
“Looks like you have an audience waiting,” Nora said, pointing at the light.
Gloria’s heart hammered in her chest. “What am I supposed to do?”
Nora shrugged. “You can do what you want: dance, strip, play on the pole.”
“What do you do?” Gloria asked.
Nora’s pale cheeks pinkened slightly. “I touch myself.”
“You…”
“Touch myself,” Nora repeated. “The men love it. It’s kinda hot too, and they leave big tips.”
“What if they want me to see them?”
Nora gripped her shoulders. “Look, I don’t agree with this, but maybe… maybe this is something you need to gain some confidence, some freedom. You have the command switch. It’s at the front of the room by the mirrors. They’ll be blacked out when you first walk in. You’re in control here, Gloria. You’re safe.”
Gloria nodded and Nora left her alone. Was she really going to do this? All because Polly made her feel slightly small? She squared her shoulders. No, she was going to do this for herself. She was going to take control by letting go. She turned the doorknob and entered the dimly lit room.