Free Stripped by Jasinda Wilder

have a job. The relief is tempered by my nauseating horror at what the job is. I haven’t done anything yet, which means it’s not too late to back out. I can just not show up and hope something else comes up.  
    I button my shirt back up as soon as I’m out of the club and make my way back to the bus stop. Once I hit campus, I’m more aware than ever of guys checking me out as I head back to the dorm. I’m not a girl who won’t admit she’s pretty. I’m used to getting looks and glances wherever I go; I just tune them out. But now…after enduring Timothy’s lusty perusal and crotch adjusting, I don’t want men’s eyes on me yet every pair I pass seems to be looking at me. My jeans feel tighter than they did when I put them on this morning, and suddenly my blouse is more revealing than I’d imagined. I wish I had a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie on now.  
    I make it to my dorm room and into my bed on the top bunk before I let myself cry. The tears come in a hot flood along with embarrassment, guilt, horror, nausea, and doubt. Daddy was right. He said I’d fall into a sinful life, and I have. I just got a job as a stripper. I’m not going to glorify it by calling it “exotic dancer.”
    I don’t even want to know what Mama would say.  
    I’m going to do it, though. I won’t go crawling back to Macon, Georgia. I just won’t. I’m going to finish my degree.  
    I’ve been working my ass off to get an internship with Fourth Dimension Films, so I edited the piece on my mom and showed it to Mrs. Adams, my film program advisor. She saw real potential in my work, and Fourth Dimension is one of the biggest private production studios in L.A. Getting an internship there would be a huge foot in the door. But for that, I can’t be homeless. I have to stay in school and have somewhere to live. I need a professional wardrobe.
    In short, I need a job, and this is the only opportunity I’ve found in months of looking.  
    Still, I cry myself to sleep. Lizzie doesn’t come back until after three, and she’s got a guy with her. They roll into her bunk, and I hear noises that keep me awake for hours—moans, grunts and giggles.

Chapter 6

    I squeeze my eyes shut and pray, but then feel guilty about it; God wouldn’t approve of what I’m about to do, that’s for darn sure. I clench my hands into fists to stop them from trembling, but they shake like leaves in a Georgia thunderstorm.  
    “Gracie, you’re on in five.” Timothy pokes his head into the door of the dressing room, and I certainly don’t miss the way his beady little eyes rake over me.  
    My flesh crawls and I want to tell him off, but I can’t. After all, I’m about to get a whole heck of a lot more perused in about five minutes. I’m barely clothed, at least as far as I’m used to. I grew up wearing ankle-length dresses and skirts with loose T-shirts. Nothing low-cut, nothing above the knee. Nothing revealing or immodest. Nothing sexy or sensual. Nothing ungodly or irreverent.
    Right now, I’ve got on a pair of cut-off jean shorts, the hems frayed into white threads. Back in Macon, they would’ve called these shorts Daisy Dukes, since they’re cut so short the bottom of my backside is hanging out. I mean that quite literally. My butt is actually hanging out the bottom of the shorts. They’re tight, too, squeezing my thick dancer’s thighs like spandex. I’m wearing a flannel shirt, but it ain’t—I mean, it isn’t —much better as far as modesty goes. It’s unbuttoned down to my cleavage, which isn’t contained by anything at all. There’s only four buttons done up, and my boobs strain those four buttons fit to burst. That’s the point, after all. The buttons are supposed to pop. There’s a whole row of shirts similar to this one in the corner of the dressing room, since part of the act is to pop the buttons as I rip the shirt open.  
    It’s supposed to be sexy, Timothy says. “It’ll drive ’em wild.” He’s the expert,