Play It Safe

Chapter Eighteen Fathoms Deep in Concrete

Two years, eleven months and one week later…

I looked in the mirror over my bathroom basin and saw it.

Hard behind my eyes, hard around my mouth.

I stared.

Then I pulled my hair away from my face and secured it in a ponytail.

It happened often. Still, after nearly three years, it happened. The memories coming back to me. Sometimes it was okay, I could deal. Sometimes it hurt like a mother.

But every year on that day, it killed.

Gray’s birthday.

I went back, when I got shot of Casey, I went back to Mustang.

I called beforehand, five times and each time, Grandma Miriam answered and put the phone down on me. I called his cell too but that number was no longer in service. I also called The Rambler, twice, and both times Janie put the phone down on me.

I didn’t get this.

So I went to Mustang.

And I drove right through.

Because while driving, on the sidewalk right on the square I saw Gray strolling with a pretty girl about my age, his arm locked around her neck, pulling her close, his face near hers, aiming his dimpled smile straight at her.

So I drove on through.

I’d been gone three months.

Three.

And I’d been replaced.

Really, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Before me there was Cecily and Connie, Donna, Debbie, Nancy all the way back to Emily.

For three months I’d had not one thing to smile about but not Gray. Strolling down the street with his arm around a pretty girl and giving her his dimple.

How could I ever have convinced myself that he would want me? A pool hustler. A virgin who, until him, had never been kissed.

I shouldn’t have been surprised.

But I was and that hurt like a mother too.

Devastation so complete, it left my heart in tatters.

It killed me to admit it but my stupid, stupid brother was right.

I should have played it safe.

Now I did. I learned my lesson. It took months just to breathe easy, scared my heart would shred with just a breath. But once I succeeded in that, as it healed, I went to work. Layer by layer, block by block, I built a cement wall around my heart. Then, right up next to it, another. Then up next to that another. And another. And another. Until my heart was fathoms deep in concrete.

Fathoms deep.

No one would get near it again.

My mother was a slut, a bitch and a loser. The men she brought into our house were dangerous and she didn’t care.

One in particular.

And she didn’t care about him either.

My brother saved me then used me to guard the fact he, too, was a loser.

And the first man I loved didn’t give a shit I was gone. His grandmother didn’t. His friends didn’t. I disappeared into the night, left a note about the trouble I was in and he just moved on.

Just moved on.

So I was done. I was through. No one else got to my heart.

And so yeah, some of that cement I used to protect my heart made it to the backs of my eyes, settled around my mouth. So be it.

Smart men took one look at me and they knew. Dumb ones got the point another way and this was usually me laying it out for them.

No one got close.

Ever.

I’d learned to play it safe and that was the only way I’d play it until I stopped breathing.

I heard the car honk and my head turned in the direction of the front of my house.

Then I moved out of my bathroom to my bedroom, grabbed my designer bag from my stylishly flowered down comforter cover and walked on my high-heeled, strappy designer sandals through my house to the front door, out of it and to the waiting car.

“How’s my girl tonight?”

My head turned to the dressing room door and I saw Lash coming through.

Lash was my boss. Lash owned the club. Lash had taken one look at me serving drinks in a skimpy outfit in a casino and hired me on the spot. Lash was a tall, built, handsome man who looked as macho alpha as they came but was a closeted gay.

Of all Lash’s girls, only I knew that.

All Lash’s girls thought he was doing me.

Lash and I let them.

Best boyfriend to have, being the beard to a handsome, rich gay guy, trust me. If I could share this secret without exposing Lash’s, I would. Every girl should know it. It would save a lot of heartbreak.

I knew he was gay because Lash was my one and only true friend in this world and I was the same to Lash.

He knew me. He knew everything about me.

And I knew the same about him.

And I knew he’d guard my secrets with his life as he knew I would his.

“Doing good,” I replied, looking back at the large mirror with its big, round lights, putting the makeup brush back to my eye and sweeping.

My makeup was already heavy, it was always heavy but that was show business.

“Got a big crowd?” I asked.

“Honey, this is Vegas and my headliner has the best tits, ass, legs and head of hair in this entire fuckin’ city and you’ve lived here almost three years, you know this and livin’ here for three years, you know this is sayin’ something. Men got dicks. And lotsa them roll in and outta this town daily. So yeah, even though it costs a hundred and fifty dollars to try real hard to see you then leave and spend the next year convincing yourself you caught a glimpse, the place is fuckin’ packed,” Lash answered.

By the way, I discovered I had two talents.

I could play pool.

And I could strip.

That was to say, strip like Lash’s girls stripped.

I was the headliner of Lash’s Burlesque Show. Front row seats cost three hundred dollars. The back seats one hundred and fifty.

Lash had twenty girls.

But they all came to see me.

I knew this. Lash knew this. The girls knew this (one of the reasons why my one and only true friend in this world was Lash because even though they pretended, they all hated me behind my back).

Three hundred dollars for a front row and I danced two times during the show. Both times for five minutes, two of those minutes in nothing but sequined panties and spike-heeled fuck-me shoes with two huge, feathered fans held around me and no one ever saw a thing.

I had long legs, great hair, a firm, round ass and a pretty face but it wasn’t that.

The way I danced could make a man who’d depended on Viagra for a decade get hard.

So, clearly, the talents God bestowed on me led me to the path of my life.

I’d learned the hard way to follow and not veer off to try and find some ridiculous dream that included imperfect town squares and handsome cowboys with cute dimples but just go where life led me.

Even if that was a burlesque show run by a closeted gay man.

I made serious cake. Lash paid me a mint. And he sent a driver to get me and take me home mainly because the losers in the audience often thought they could fuck with me in the parking lot or trail me home.

Brutus (not his name, what I nicknamed him, his real name was Freddie), my driver was two hundred, fifty pounds of black man on a six foot five inch frame.

The losers who trailed me home drove on by when Brutus got out to open my door.

I also got my own dressing room. This was because I was the headliner.

This was also because Lash knew his other girls secretly hated me.

It wasn’t a lavish dressing room with chaise lounges and silk screens.

But it was better than sitting with those bitches who were fake being nice to me.

Lash came up behind my chair and put his hands to my shoulders as I dropped the makeup brush and went for the sequins I’d stick around my eyes.

“Right, Ivey, I asked, you answered, you lied, I’ll ask again,” he said softly. “How’s my girl tonight?”

At his strange question and tone, my hands arrested and my eyes went to his in the mirror.

“I’m doing fine, Lash.”

He held my eyes in the mirror a beat.

Then he whispered, “It’s his birthday.”

My throat constricted.

That was Lash. Something like that, he wouldn’t forget.

Then again, the first one he lived through with me I got drunk, blathered out the whole story and ended the night sobbing in his arms.

So that kind of shit made you remember.

“I’m fine, honey,” I whispered back.

He continued to hold my gaze. Then he squeezed my shoulders. Then he dropped his handsome head and touched his beautiful lips to my shoulder.

Then he let me go and walking out, reminded me, “You’re on in ten minutes.”

“Right,” I said to his back.

He went through the door.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

God, seriously, I loved Lash.

Then I leaned forward and stuck sequins around my eyes.

I was three and half minutes into the dance.

I could hide the hard in my eyes and around my mouth with makeup and spotlights.

They weren’t looking anyway.

All they saw was hair and flesh and all they could take in was the way I moved.

I started in a bra, corset, panties and feathered fans. I had ten sets. Purple with hints of pink and pale pink fans. Emerald green with hints of peacock blue with baby blue fans. Shocking pink with hints of red and red fans.

It went on.

I loved my getups. They were the bomb. And they were the bomb because Lash laid out a wad to get me he best.

The corset went first. Then the bra went. That was when the fans came in handy.

It was all twirls, bends, deep squats, sticking out and swaying my ass slowly, fan flashes and come-hither looks that came with a come-hither smile and fake bedroom eyes that weren’t hard to affect mostly because the makeup did all the work.

The men ate it up.

Two dances, ten minutes, six nights a week and Lash paid me five hundred dollars a night.

The best gig ever.

I was whipping my fans back to front, torso bent slightly forward, head tipped back, lips parted, ends tipped up. I could feel my hair tumbling down my back, my ass pointed out and swinging slowly when my come-hither eyes moved through the tables at the side of the stage and I saw him.

Gray.

Gray.

My heart stopped beating and my eyes locked to his but I didn’t stop dancing.

Oh no.

The show must go on.

Even if the love of your life who crushed your heart who you hadn’t seen in three years was sitting by a stage while you were essentially doing a striptease on said stage.

He looked good. God, amazing. The same, a little older as he would look seeing as he was older, three years older.

Today.

He was sitting, lounged back, one arm out, forearm resting on the table, ankle resting on his opposite knee.

Yes, he looked amazing.

And he looked pissed.

I tore my eyes from him to see Shim and Roan with him.

Boys trip to Vegas.

Fuck me.

Gray’s friends didn’t look happy either.

My eyes left their vicinity; I worked the stage, the crowd, my body and my fans.

I knew how this happened.

I didn’t let Lash use me for any of his promotional materials and I explained to him why. If someone I hustled in the past happened into Lash’s club, they might not recognize me. If they did, they certainly couldn’t get through the bouncers or Brutus.

But if I was on pamphlets and billboards, that was a different story.

And they might try to find me.

It sucked for Lash at first but then he loved it when he found it worked in his favor. Pictures told a thousand words but mouths had a bunch more and if people talked about me, and if you couldn’t see me unless you paid to see me, you wanted to see me, you paid to see me. Not on a billboard, pamphlet, poster or magazine ad.

And I danced under the name “Rue”. Lash made it up, thought it was funny. His name was actually Lash, his parents gave him that name. He wanted me to call myself “Larue” but I convinced him that was too corny.

So Rue it was.

Only a select few people in the inner sanctum (namely, Lash and Brutus) knew my name was Ivey.

No one knew I danced here unless they saw me.

And not a lot of people would recognize me under all this makeup, big hair and sequins.

Not to mention, most men didn’t look at my face.

I finished the dance, took my applause like a professional, smile on my face. Then I got the fuck out of there, flashing one of my fans in a farewell wave per usual as I strutted offstage, back bare, ass covered in sequined emerald green panties, come-hither look thrown over my shoulder, other fan pressed to the front of me.

Once out of the spotlight and backstage, I ran to my dressing room.

I tossed down the fans, snatched up my robe and pulled it on, tugging the belt tightly.

Then I paced.

Gray was out there.

Gray was out there!

God.

God!

Could I go out there for the next dance?

I had to go out there for the next dance.

But Gray was out there.

And he looked amazing.

And pissed.

Why did he look pissed?

What did he have to be pissed about?

He certainly didn’t have anything to be pissed about.

Hell, he was lucky I didn’t jump off the stage and beat him with my feathered fan.

He was a dick like all men were dicks (except Lash but it was my experience gay men weren’t dicks except, according to Lash, to other gay men, primarily lovers turning dick before becoming ex-lovers, the way of the world no matter which way you swung).

I went to my dressing table, snatched up my phone and called Brutus.

“Yo!” he answered, the sounds of the club in the background seeing as when Brutus wasn’t picking me up and driving me home he was a bouncer.

“Brutus, baby, it’s Ivey.”

“Woman, got caller ID, you don’t have to identify yourself every time you call me.”

Brutus said this a lot.

He went on.

“And, my name is not fuckin’ Brutus.”

He said this a lot too.

As you can see, Brutus wasn’t a big fan of his nickname.

“Listen, can you pick me up out back tonight after the show?”

“Why?” he barked, alert at that. I only asked him that when I got a bad vibe or someone sent something to my dressing room who was in the audience and repeat with the bad vibe.

I’d learned.

“Just a feeling,” I told him.

“You got it, Ivey,” he told me.

“Thanks, honey,” I whispered.

“Shee-it, bitch, do anything, you whisper to me.”

Brutus was a tough guy, macho man, bodyguard-esque, driver, bouncer but he was also a big softie.

“Later,” I said.

“Later, babe,” he replied.

I flipped my phone shut.

Then I took in a deep breath.

Then I sat down at my dressing table and got down to the annoying twice nightly business of doing my makeup because different colored outfits meant different colored makeup.

And as I did this, I hoped that I didn’t get a message that Gray wanted to come back and see me.

I shouldn’t have worried.

I didn’t get a message.

And during my second number, Gray, Shim and Roan’s table was empty.