A Little Too Hot

Chapter Eight

“YOU HAVE TO remember that most guys are going to be stronger, and they’re going to outweigh you,” I tell the small group of women in the multipurpose room at the women’s shelter. The room is cold and smells like wet cardboard and something sour, but most of the women here have a reason to want to learn to defend themselves, so they don’t seem to mind. “You need to use every advantage you can find. When you’re defending yourself against an attack, anything is fair. There’s no such thing as ‘fighting dirty.’ My job is to teach you an attacker’s weaknesses and how to use them to your fullest advantage.”

Izzy smiles at me from the middle of the group. She’s actually gorgeous, I see now that she’s out from behind her stage makeup. Very Tyra Banks—all big black eyes and high cheekbones. Her eye-catching curves are covered, at the moment, not in her kinky witch costume from the club, but in a sports bra and yoga pants.

“The best approach is going to depend on the proximity of your attacker and where he is in relation to you. You should all consider carrying pepper spray, but if you’re caught without any other means of defending yourself, your hands, knees, elbows, feet, and head are your best weapons.” I wave Izzy over and she steps onto the mat next to me. “So, if Izzy is the attacker, and she’s in front of me, I have a few choices.” I step back from her. “If she’s more than an arm’s length away, I’ve got my feet. I can run. Running is always your best option. Never initiate contact unless you’re absolutely cornered. If you are, scream. Make as much noise as possible even if they warn you not to.” I grab a pad from against the wall behind me and hand it to Izzy. “But if you’re cornered, and you have no choice, you can kick your attacker. You always want to put your whole weight behind it and aim for their most vulnerable spot,” I say, grabbing my crotch.

There are a few snickers from some of the younger girls in the group as I position Izzy so she’s holding the pad in front of her privates.

“I’ll go easy,” I tell her as I step back. “Just hold the pad tight.”

She nods, her eyes bright with excitement.

“You might only get one shot, so you want to make it count. Step into your kick and come up hard from underneath.” I step forward and bring my foot up into the pad at about half speed.

Izzy holds tight.

“I’m coming harder this time,” I tell her. “You got it?”

“Give it your best shot, girlfriend,” she smirks.

I step back, and this time I kick full force, knocking her back a step. “Step into it. Hard, from underneath,” I repeat to the group. “That’s where you’ll do the most damage. All you’re trying to do is buy a split second to run for it.”

Cloistered in the corner at the back of the group, I spy Sabrina. Her long dark hair hangs in her face and she’s doing her best to hide from herself. She’s so petite, she almost could. But her haunted eyes tell me she can’t hide from the memories, no matter how hard she tries.

She came to the shelter a few months ago with bruises everywhere and two black eyes. Every time I look into her terrified eyes, I see her shattered soul, and it makes me want to hurt the person who did this to her.

I break the group into pairs by size and hand out pads to each pair, then go for Sabrina in the corner.

“You ready to try this?” I ask gently.

She peeks at me through her hair for a long moment, and I’m expecting the same shake of her head I always get, so when she nods, I feel my eyes widen.

“Great. That’s great, Sabrina.” What I really want to teach her is how to scream, but she’s yet to open her mouth since she’s been here, as far as I know. I hold my pad up. “Don’t worry about kicking hard for now. Placement is the key.”

She bites her lower lip and just looks at me, unsure.

“Go ahead,” I say with an encouraging nod.

I watch without moving as she takes a deep breath, then tucks her hair behind her ears. She’s pretty, with big brown eyes in a delicate, heart-shaped face, and even the fact that her nose isn’t quite straight anymore doesn’t detract from it.

“Right here,” I say, giving the pad a shake.

She lifts her foot and kicks. In actuality, she moves so slowly all she’d do is give her attacker a chance to grab her leg, but it’s a start.

“Good, Sabrina. Try it again.”

She steps back, and this time when her foot comes up, it makes a solid thud into the pad.

“Great. That’s better. Keep going.”

With each kick, she puts a little more of herself into it. Her face starts to change, becoming more determined as the fear melts way. She wipes away beads of sweat with the sleeve of her ratty sweatshirt, all her focus on the pad I’m holding, then lets loose again. This time, as she kicks, a growl rips out of her. She kicks again, and again, harder each time, her growls becoming louder and more agonized, until she’s wailing and pounding her fists against me, tears streaking down her pale face.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her to my shoulder. “Sabrina, it’s okay,” I say low in her ear as she struggles against me. Her shrieks turn to sobs and she buries her face in my neck. “It’s okay,” I say again, stroking her hair.

Her knees buckle and I lower us both to the floor, where I hold her as she cries. Everyone is watching, and Izzy moves toward us with wide eyes.

“Get Janice,” I tell her with a tip of my head at the door to the shelter. “She should be at the desk. White hair and glasses.”

She nods and jogs off in that direction.

“Keep practicing,” I tell the rest of the group.

They look at me warily, but then move back to their places.

A minute later Izzy is back with Janice, the women’s counselor. She helps me scoop Sabrina off the floor, whispering to her the whole time that she’s safe. She gives me a sad smile and a nod as she guides Sabrina back to the shelter.

I watch after them and wish there was more that I could do to help her.

Once the group has kicks down, I move on to the knee-to-the-balls maneuver, the ripping-off-of-the-pinky maneuver, and the thumb-in-the-eye maneuver.

After class, when I go to check on Sabrina, Janice tells me she’s with Dr. Harris and she’s finally talking.

“Thank God,” I say, blowing out a relieved breath. “What happened to her, anyway?”

“It’s a little sketchy,” she says. “She doesn’t have any known family, and so far she’s not really been talking, but the police found her and another girl chained up in the basement of a condemned building in Oakland, beaten and starving to death. They brought her here when she was released from the hospital. The other girl didn’t make it. The police are hoping she’ll be able to tell them what happened eventually.”

“Jesus,” I say, acid rising in my throat. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

Janice pushes her glasses up her nose and leans her elbows on the desk. “It’ll be a long road to recovery, but at least she’s on it now. With support, I hope she’ll be fine.”

My eyes flick to the closed door of the counseling room and I’m reminded how I got here in the first place. I took up karate when I was a kid because, even though they called the place Mom took me a “mix martial arts” studio, that’s all they taught. Kicking the crap out of all the big cocky football players in my class was how I kept all my teen angst in check.

When I first met Katie in seventh grade, she’d just moved to town. She was very overweight and painfully shy, and she relentlessly got picked on by class bitch Stacey McCarran and her group. I wish I could say I was brave enough to jump in and tell Stacey to leave her the hell alone. I wasn’t. But one day I waited until the bus pulled away from our stop, then grabbed Katie and brought her home with me. I spent the next month teaching her some basic karate moves. Thankfully, she never ended up needing to use any of them, but during that time we got to know each other, and I realized she was one of the coolest people I knew. When she finally got up the nerve to tell Stacey McCarran to go to hell, I decided I needed to be brave enough to be her friend.

That’s when I realized that helping people is a two-way street. You gain as much as you give. I took self-defense at the Y and started teaching my friends at school some of the stuff I’d learned. By high school it sort of grew into a club. So when this opportunity to help at the shelter came up, even though it was Mom’s suggestion, I jumped all over it. That was four years ago. I’ve met a lot of really scared women during that time, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

I want to walk into the counseling room and give Sabrina a hug. I want to tell her to keep fighting and she’ll be okay, even though I can’t imagine how that could ever happen. But more than that, I want to kill whoever did this to her. “When she’s done, tell her to call me if she needs anything—or if she just wants to, I don’t know, hang out or talk or whatever.”

“Will do,” Janice says, then smiles up at me. “Good work today.”

“Thanks,” I say. “See you next week.”

But as I go back to the multipurpose room to collect Izzy, I can’t help wishing there was something I could do to unbreak girls like Sabrina.

Izzy and I walk out of the shelter a few minutes later, sweaty and hungry. We stop at a diner near the BART station.

“That was pretty intense,” she says once we’re seated.

I nod. “A lot of those women have been through hell.”

“That girl . . . will she be okay?”

“I hope so.”

The waitress comes and takes our orders. I don’t let her escape until I have a steaming mug of coffee in my hand.

When she’s gone, Izzy looks at me. “So, what’s been going on with you?” she asks. “I know we don’t know each other that great, but the last week you’ve been . . .”

“Off,” I finish for her.

It’s true. Since that night with Harrison eleven days ago, I haven’t been feeling it like I was. I try to tell myself it’s not because of him, but I know in my gut it is. My tips this week have taken a hit, and Nora moved me off center stage. I’m sure she’d cut back my shifts, and maybe even fire me, if she had anyone else to cover. But it’s all made me realize maybe this job isn’t a long-term solution. Problem is, I don’t have another one, and even with my crappy tips, I don’t know where I’d find one that pays this well.

“So, feel free to tell me to shut up, but if there’s something you want to talk about . . .” She trails off with a lift of her perfect black eyebrows.

I sip my coffee. “There was this guy at the club. He was there my first two nights.”

“The guy that shook you up in the VIP room?” she asks.

Felt me up, is more like it. I look up at her and nod as I feel my cheeks warm at the memory.

“How bad did you break Ben’s rules?”

“I let him touch me.” I wince a little as I say it, but she doesn’t even react.

“That’s all?” she says.

I take a long swallow, feeling my face pull into a cringe. “I wanted more.”

“You wanted more? Or he did?”

“I did. But I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual,” I add, remembering the feel of him grinding himself against me.

She props her chin in her hand. “Are you seeing him again? Because you know, what happens outside of the club on your own time isn’t any of Ben or Nora’s business.”

Something jumps in my chest. I hadn’t thought of that. But it doesn’t matter. “He’s gone. He went back to L.A.”

She tips her head at me. “So, if he’s gone, what’s the problem?”

I plant my elbow on the table and rub my forehead. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I’ve spent a grand total of ninety minutes with him, but I can’t get him out of my head. And I’ll never see him again, so it’s just . . . so fucking stupid,” I finish, tugging on my hair.

She sighs. “Well, if it makes it any easier, most of the guys that come into Benny’s aren’t all that hot, so you’re probably safe from here on out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I blow out a sigh and let go of my hair, twisting it into a knot at the back of my neck. “You’re off tonight?”

She nods.

“Jonathan’s got a gig at Astray. I was planning on hanging out there with his girlfriend. You in?”

Her eyes widen, white saucers in the middle of her black-coffee face. “J has a girlfriend?”

“Yeah . . . though he seems to have trouble remembering it sometimes.”

“Damn, that boy is tasty.” A slow smile breaks over her face. “You two seem pretty tight. You ever done the deed?”

I smirk at her. “That’s pretty personal, don’t you think? Especially considering you just said you barely know me.”

“I’ve seen you naked, girlfriend. That makes us . . . something.”

I blow out a laugh and lean back in my seat. “How long have you danced at Benny’s?”

She lifts a shoulder in an almost shrug. “About two months. I just moved up here from L.A.”

“Where do you live?”

“I moved in with Stephanie and Jen from the club last month. It’s just a crappy three-bedroom in San Bruno, but it’s on the BART.”

I take a long swig of coffee and flag down the waitress for a refill. “What do you pay for rent?” I ask as she tops me off.

“Five hundred.”

“Five hundred?” I say, slapping my hand on the table and sloshing my coffee. The three old men sitting at the table across from us stop eating and scowl at me. I lower my voice. “Kevin’s charging me nine hundred a month to sleep on his sofa.”

She bursts out laughing. “And you paid it?”

I shrug. “I didn’t really have a choice unless I wanted to sleep in the park.”

She gets herself together as the waitress shows up with our food. The waitress plunks Izzy’s vegetarian scramble down in front of me and gives Izzy my blueberry pancakes. “Anything else you want?” she asks without looking at either of us.

Izzy switches our plates and smiles up at her. “World peace, affordable health care, and a thong that doesn’t chafe when I dance.”

The waitress spares Izzy an annoyed glance, then spins and walks away without another word.

I reach for the syrup. “If I could find an apartment for less than nine hundred a month, I could sock some serious cash away.” And look for a real job.

Izzy pulls her plate closer and pokes at her eggs with a fork. “I think Brittany was saying her roommate was moving out. You could ask.”

I just look at her.

She laughs again. “She’s not that bad.”

“For hell spawn, you mean? Because I swear every time she looks at me it’s like she’s trying to suck out my soul.”

She rolls her eyes. “The demon thing is a costume, Sam.”

“Then you move in with her,” I say, throwing a hand at her, “and I’ll take your room with Stephanie and Jen.”

She grins at me. “Nice try, but there ain’t no way I’m letting that demon bitch suck my soul.”

I roll my eyes. “So, you coming to Astray with us or what?”

She gives me a wily smile. “Yeah. I’m coming.”

“ALL I’M SAYING,” Ginger says, waving the bartender down from her stool, “is that dancing like you guys do objectifies women.”

The opener—some local band that seems to have only one rhythm, so all their songs just blend together into a monotonous drone—is tearing down after their set. The lead singer is a hot Asian chick, and I’m betting Jonathan’s nailed her already.

“It also pays the tuition,” Izzy says from my other side.

I give her a look as Ginger orders another cosmo. Who knew Jonathan’s girlfriend would turn out to be a raging feminist? And I can’t miss the irony here—that the biggest womanizer I know is dating Gloria Steinem. She hasn’t let up since we got here a half hour ago. Though she’s trying to be careful to not full-out diss Izzy and me, that’s tough to do when she seems to believe our current job is solely responsible for the oppression of women.

“You go to school?” I ask Izzy.

She nods. “Got accepted into biochemical engineering at UC Berkeley.”

“Wow. Is that why you moved up here?”

She swirls the thin red straw through her mojito. “Yeah. I’ve always wanted to go, but I couldn’t afford all four years there, so I started at JC and worked full-time to sock enough money away that I could apply as a junior transfer.”

“I’m impressed. Berkeley’s super hard to get into.”

She shrugs like it’s no big thing. “I guess.”

There’s no way I’m telling her I just flunked out of Santa Cruz. And it makes me think maybe Mom was right. Izzy had a goal and busted her ass to make it happen. I’ve never had to work for anything. Mom and Greg took care of everything, and I’ve always just expected they would. Maybe I have taken everything for granted.

“See!” Ginger bites the cherry from her drink off the stem. “That’s what I’m talking about. Here’s a girl with a serious brain,” she says, pointing the cherry stem at Izzy, “and she’s selling her body to a bunch of horny men who have no respect for her as a person to fuel their fantasies of superiority over women as a whole. They slip cash into your g-string to establish their ownership—to demonstrate that you’re an object to be bought and—”

“To finance my education,” Izzy cuts in. “And I don’t wear a g-string.”

Ginger looks past me at Izzy and throws her hands up, exasperated. “You should be interning at Lawrence Livermore and discovering the cure for cancer, or developing sustainable food sources for third world countries.”

“I looked into it,” Izzy tells her. “Couldn’t make the rent on what they pay interns, so the cure for cancer will just have to wait until they revamp their salary structure.”

“No offense here, Ginger,” I say, turning to watch Jonathan and the guys as they sound-check up on stage. “You know I love Jonathan like a brother, but I’m pretty sure you knew he was one of the biggest man-whores in the Bay Area before you started sleeping with him. I can’t speak for what goes on between you two, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a whole lot of ‘respect as a person’ for most of those girls,” I say, making air quotes. “He was just fucking them.”

“No offense taken,” she says, and I can tell from her expression she means it. “The difference is, sex is a basic instinct. It’s organic and necessary, and, when it’s consensual, both partners benefit. How do you benefit by dancing on stage?”

“Other than the money?”

“What’s the price of your self-respect, Red?” she asks, her eyes narrowing.

“Four hundred a night,” I say a little defensively, then add with a shrug, “and it makes me feel desirable and sexy.”

“You are sexy and desirable,” Ginger counters. She waves a hand across the crowded bar. “Any guy here would give his left nut to get into your pants.”

I give her the skeptic’s squint. “So, you’re saying sleeping with those guys would be less degrading than dancing for them?”

She points at me as her eyes brighten, thrilled that I’m finally getting it. “Exactly!”

I don’t even have a response.

Jonathan saves me from needing one when he leans into the mic and says, “This first song goes out to my all my favorite girls.” He grins and flicks a salute in our direction, and two girls at a table in front of us squeal and wave their arms in the air, bouncing in their seats. I’d bet tomorrow night’s tips that Jonathan’s slept with both of them.

As Jonathan and the guys launch into their first set, Ginger stands and drags Izzy and me off our bar stools. “C’mon, you guys,” she yells as she tows us to the dance floor. “Time to use your siren powers for good instead of evil.”

On stage, Topher whips his long blond hair in and out of his face, and his lead guitar is like an extension of his long lean body as he cranks out a riff that has everyone is the place moving. Three-quarters of everyone in the bar sings along as Jonathan wails about how girls are like pizza toppings, each one different but none of them bad. It’s one of the first songs he and Topher wrote together when they started the band two years ago, and it’s become their anthem. Any Astray regular knows it.

Ginger, Izzy, and I dance up front, near the stage, and while Jonathan seduces every woman in the room with his voice, I can’t help but notice where his eyes linger. Ginger moves her body to his urging, like a snake to her charmer, and his gaze stays locked on her.

Maybe there’s hope for that boy yet.