Free Personal Protection by Tracey Shellito Page B

happily push their fingers into these with a donation, drool over the performer (or the girl
carrying it) imagining where they’d like to be sticking their cash. And quite frequently telling them all about it in fairly graphic terms. If I hadn’t known it was part of the job,
I’d have punched some of these creeps’ lights out. The girls put up with a hell of a lot. I couldn’t do it.
    I contrived to be in a position where I could keep an eye on the audience and watch the act at the same time. I don’t know how, over the stage lights, but Tori must have seen me. She
directed every lewd gesture and lascivious move in my direction. When she threw back her head, wet a finger and trailed it down the length of her body, I was just as unable to look away as every
man in the room.
    She has a presence on stage that grabs attention and hypnotises everyone. The applause when she finished and gathered up her clothes and an armful of these bulging pseudo-pussies was
tremendous.
    “What I wouldn’t give to fuck her brains out!” one ecstatic voyeur moaned.
    Never in my life have I taken such great pleasure in whistling jauntily and grinning ear to ear as I walked past someone. I think he got the picture.
    Tori had not long left the stage when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Star 2.”
    Obligingly I took myself off to the private booth on the right of the stage.
    An Asian girl met me there with her inebriated client. He paid a cashier outside, then the door was unlocked and we went in. It was a small plush room. There was a single sturdy recliner under
muted spotlights for the client, a micro stereo, a collection of CDs for the girl to dance to, and in the shadows behind the door, a tall bar stool for me.
    I made myself as comfortable as my damp underwear allowed, then watched as the girl cued up the CD in this soundproof booth and commenced gyrating. The music she chose wasn’t a million
miles from what Tori had stripped to. And whenever her back was to the client her eyes were on me. I ran a finger round a suddenly tight collar.
    When it was over, the client staggered out past me, while the girl clothed herself in the revealing dress they walk the club floor in when they’re not dancing. I made to leave, but she was
a fast mover. Her hand was on my shoulder. Breathy words tickled my ear. “Did you enjoy that?”
    “More than he did, I suspect.”
    Her other arm twined around my waist, fingers heading for my crotch. I clamped a hand about her wrist.
    “Tori’s a very lucky girl.”
    Her tongue traced the outer edge of my ear. I snatched my head away, ashamed to find that I didn’t want to. The mind may be true, but the body just wants what it wants. It doesn’t
care who’s doing the job. Names don’t matter to the libido.
    I opened the door and her hands fell from me. The sounds of the outside room washed over me. Her chuckle followed me even over the sound of the booming music as I fled to the bathroom.
    The slap rang out like a gunshot in the tiled facility.
    “I didn’t do anything!”
    Tori wiped off my earlobe and exhibited a lipstick-smeared finger. “Then what’s this?”
    Damning is what it was, but I couldn’t say that. She didn’t give me time to say anything. She slammed out of the bathroom leaving me with a smarting cheek, a dripping face, a towel
in my hands and an audience of other interested dancers. This gig was not turning out at all the way I’d planned.
    “Here, allow me.” The girl whose assistance I’d come to on the balcony claimed the towel from my hands and patted my face dry. One of the others took over cleaning the rest of
the lipstick off my ear.
    I was surrounded by an ocean of beauty, smothered by soft touches and softer hands. This would be a fantasy of several people of my acquaintance. I didn’t want any of them! I tried to push
through them gently, politely. That wasn’t easy when the ladies were determined and there was so much bare flesh on