Page 4 of Come As You Are
When he turned his attention toward me, I saw the momentary hesitation, the familiar startle, surprise, and then assessment so many people displayed when they met me. His expression turned gentle, and he dipped his head toward me as he murmured, “Ma’am.” I swear, if he’d worn a cowboy hat, he would have raised a hand to its brim in greeting.
In that moment, I knew I would do whatever Andrew asked in order to keep him in my club. But it wouldn’t do to acquiesce so easily.
“I wasn’t aware that we needed another dancer,” I said.
Andrew’s gaze turned foxlike. “I fired Colum last night,” he said without offering an explanation.
“Colum was one of our best dancers,” I said as my brain tried to calculate the potential loss of customers, many of whom had come in just to see Colum.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Andrew said. “He was giving me a lot of attitude and starting to come in late.”
Neither of those things had been brought to my attention, and I made a mental note to look at Colum’s personnel file to see if Andrew had made note of those issues. If he hadn’t, we could be hit with a wrongful termination lawsuit if Colum decided to retaliate.
“In any event, I found this guy here at just the right time,” Andrew continued.
“How did you find him?”
“Mal recommended him.”
That struck me as odd. “Since when does Mal have anything to do with the dancers?”
Andrew shrugged. “I don’t know. He just told me to give the kid a chance.”
I looked at the young man. “Have you danced in a club before?”
“No, ma’am.”
Barely restraining an eye roll, I turned back to Andrew. “I’m going to assume you know what you’re doing.”
“Look at him,” he said. “He’s so pretty, all he has to do is stand there in a thong and body glitter and the boys will eat him up and beg for more.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said and focused on the young man again. He was staring over my shoulder, and I realized he was looking at Sebastian, a delicate blush spreading across his cheeks.Good luck there, I thought. Plenty of men and women hit on Sebastian every week, and he flirted outrageously with all of them, but I’d never seen him hook up with anyone a second time. If this Vee wanted to have some fun, Sebastian would be all over him, but if he wanted more, Bast the Bastard would rear his head and send Vee on his way. Neither Antonio nor I had a policy against employees dating; the only thing either of us cared about was whether the fallout affected the club if it went south.
“Make sure he fills out the paperwork, and drop it in my office before the end of day,” I said as I headed back up the stairs. It was only when I was safely within those four walls and staring at the young man from the window that I realized I’d forgotten to ask his name.
Sebastian
Olivia returned to heroffice, and I admired the regal set of her head and shoulders, the slender lines of her torso, every sway of her hips, the swell of her perfect ass, the handsome shape of her long legs, and the delicate touch of her feet in those stiletto heels I dreamed about.
She was my queen, my goddess, my Valkyrie, and whatever name my feeble brain could call her. None of them came close to capturing how she moved through a room with incredible grace and owned everyone in it, especially me. I always knew when she entered, and her presence eclipsed all others in my vision. For me, there was no one comparable to her, and I had fallen under her spell as soon as I met her, mesmerized by her beauty, her keen mind, her gentle and generous soul.
Unfortunately, my reputation had proceeded me, and Olivia had made it very clear very quickly that she wasn’t interested inanything but a professional relationship with me. Nevertheless, before I fell asleep each night, I said my prayers to Olivia and wished her a peaceful slumber because I knew how heavy Illyria’s success rested on her magnificent head. I fervently wished to find a way to help her and did my best to supply her with a sympathetic ear on the rare occasions she confided her concerns and troubles, which she didn’t do as often as I would have liked.
Olivia was private, careful, guarded, though I’d learned to read her well since I came to work at Illyria. I believed she trusted me, and I would do nothing to betray that trust no matter how much I longed for our relationship to expand beyond work. I had never met anyone like her, and though I often felt tongue-tied and clumsy in her presence, in private, my thoughts turned poetic.
If I could, I would have composed sonnets that crowned her in the glory she so richly deserved. I would smooth away the deepening lines in which worry dressed her features, and clothe her in the colors of ecstasy and passion instead. I would lie at her feet just for the pleasure of waiting for her to need me. If I was invisible to her and my presence unable to offer her solace, then my service would remain the language with which I loved her.
Like a fool, I continued to gaze at the stairs long after she returned to the heavens above us, unaware of my co-workers’ mirth until Toby elbowed me in the side and brought my attention crashing back down to Earth and more mundane matters.
“Think the new kid can dance?” he asked as he picked up a glass and began polishing it.
I rolled my eyes and returned to my bottle count, taking note of what I needed to bring up from the storeroom. I’d been in the middle of that task when I noticed the counts were off and went to inform Olivia of the discrepancy.
Maria plunked herself onto one of the barstools and tapped her long, glitter-gold nails on the bar top. “Does it matter?” she asked. “The kid’s beautiful to look at. He can stand still as a statue, and the customers will shower him with money.” A heavy, dispirited sigh escaped from her bright red lips. “As opposed to yours truly who has to resort to illusions of contouring and Botox.” Another sigh. “Youth is so wasted on the young.”
Illyria’s performers were either go-go boys—the category in which Vee and his Adonis-like beauty fell—who danced on raised platforms around the club, or drag performers like Maria who appeared on specific nights and for drag queen brunches. Maria also acted as the club’s hostess, and modeled her persona after Sasha Velour’s edgier style that pushed the boundaries of gender and theatricality, often skirting the line between performance and art. Though as Maria said, “Sasha’s a Birkin bag, while I’m just a bargain-basement knock-off made out of pleather.”
“You’re beautiful in your own way, darling,” Toby said.
