Free Random Acts of Hope by Julia Kent Page B

in the elevator, and one male student who systematically lit cigarettes and flicked them out of a twel f th-story window, sing e ing one woman’s butt-length hair.
    I looked outside. Full moon? It brought out the nutcases. Maybe even the werewolves at this rate. And, apparently, a six-foot snake.
    I grabbed my keys, ID, and phone and began the quiet march over to Boothman. That dorm was all men, all freshmen and sophomores, and tended to house the science majors. Pets other than fish were absolutely banned from campus halls, and every fall I’d always add a line in orientation sessions:
    “And just because it fits in an aquarium doesn’t mean it’s allowed.”
    Once word got out that a six-foot snake was loose in a dorm, my phone and all the RD phones in this cluster would be screaming. And then in the morning the parents could be screaming, too. Tomorrow would be one hell of a day.
    But tonight? This was just the cherry on top. What else could the night throw at me th a t would be harder to deal with than a six-foot snake?
    Liam
    I needed to take a bath in a giant bucket of varnish remover. So many hands on me, so many backsides rubbed up against my frontside. T o o many fingers copping an extra feel around my g-string. Long, fake fingernails trailing lines down my biceps, my thigh, my chest and abs…leaving trails of spine-tingling shudders.
    Most nights I was fine with being the flesh fun . I got into it, really. I’m young, hot, and this is what I do. I entertain. On a stage I do it with a guitar in hand, and here I do it with a g-string. The difference between the two is slim. When—not if—the band breaks out, I can jus t make women think I w a nt to fuck them by using my hands on a guitar and my voice at a mic.
    Here I use costumes and g-string. They eat it up, and knowing they want me makes it all the more fun.
    It had been a long night. Three bachelorette parties in a row. What was it about early September in New England and weddings? By the third party I felt like someone had drugged me. How much lipstick could my chin handle?
    My wallet was nice and fat, so I shouldn’t complain. But I would. You think stripping is easy cash, and who gives a shit about showing off your body for other people’s pleasure. It’s my body and I can do what I want with it. Dad cut me off and Mom can’t help, so I just did what seemed natural when a friend of a friend of a friend told me about the job.
    The owner of the company where we stripped, Louise, told me I was a natural, and bam—instant $300 a night most nights. Tonight I was packing $500. All three parties had been in Weston, at places with gates and butlers. You get an address in neighborhoods and towns like Weston or Wellesley or Beacon Hill and suddenly the ones become fives and tens.
    The demands go up, too. Tentative hands turn into entitled gropes. Wo m en with tight faces, elevated breasts, and shoes that cost more than my first car go indignant when you tell them you won’t do that for an extra $200. No, not for $500, either.
    Tempting as it might be.
    The rage comes out, then. But they have to keep it in check, because life among the suburban blue bloods is all about a careful balance between what you know is true on the inside, what you have to fake on the outside, and the screaming tension of the unpredictable.
    A bachelorette party with some beefcake (that’s me) is unpredictable enough to let these women feel like they’re being wild, but some of them think that because they’re letting loose and because they have husbands who own entire towns that means they can own me, too, for a half-hour or so.
    “Name your price,” they’ve told me, and while I don’t have one, my fellow stripper Jack does. He quotes now with a sly half-smile and gives me a wink as the well-coiffed women slip past all their friends who try to act like they don’t notice that the cougars are about to roar .
    And Jack has the fattest wallet of all.
    It’s when the women