Page 47 of Challenge Me

We descended to the ground floor, winding our way through the growing throng of dancing bodies. Here, on the edges of the dance floor, the music was almost too loud for conversation; that didn’t matter. Al knew his role.

I pushed up against him, dancing lazily as he dipped down a little to hear me over the thunderous beat.

“I need ten minutes,” I almost had to yell, even though I was only an inch from his ear.

“I can do that.” Al’s hands settled around my waist; the words were nearly lost beneath the music. “Just be careful, okay?”

“Don’t get hurt,” I demanded, holding a fistful of his shirt. “Create a distraction, that’s all. No heroics.”

“I’m not an amateur.” He laughed, rolling his eyes.

“You were arrested less than a month ago.”

“That was performance art.”

“That was a felony.”

Al laughed again, then took me by the shoulders and shoved me toward the private booths. I spared a glance backward; it was showtime, and Al knew how to put on a show.

I watched as his shoulders loosened and his steps became wider, less coordinated. His smile turned vacant and hungry as he stumbled into a passing waiter, apologized by taking the man’s entire tray of champagne, and wandered toward the stage with three glasses balanced between his fingers.

It was convincing; I had to admit that much; Al had plenty of practice as a rowdy drunk.

I moved with the music toward the edge of the room. The security posts outside the private booths were still occupied; Al hadn’t raised any real Hell yet, and I took a moment to watch the crowd.

Al began innocently enough. He intercepted another drink from the bar, lifted it in salute to a seven-foot-tall bouncer, and poured most of it over his own mouth. The bouncer laughed when Al leaned heavily against his chest and praised the size of his arms; Al flirted with him for nearly a minute, running one hand over the man’s shoulder and whispering something that made the enormous guard choke on his own breath. Nothing about Al’s behavior was unusual enough to justify intervention; this was not the kind of establishment where security interrupted a patron merely for getting drunk, pawing at the staff, or exposing an unreasonable amount of skin. Membership prices began in the high six figures. VIP packages cost millions. The club’s performers knew how to handle overeager guests.

Then Al drifted backward toward the main stage; the bouncer he’d been flirting with had already looked away, clearly not deeming Al anyone he needed to worry about, and Al took advantage of the lapse in judgment by climbing up onto the stage and grabbing a microphone from the bewildered DJ.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and those undecided or unbothered!” Al’s voice thundered through the room, playful and charming as he moved to the edge of the stage, wrapping one hand around one of the dancer’s poles and raising the other toward the balconies. The spotlight operator, amused or incapable of resisting chaos, swung a white beam directly onto him.

The crowd turned as one toward the man.

Al spun around the pole, allowing his footing to slip just enough to suggest he had lost his balance. He caught himself against the chest of a male dancer, gazed into the man’s face with exaggerated surprise, then, in one fluid motion, dipped him backward and kissed him. The dancer recovered from his initial shock immediately, wrapping a leg around Al’s waist and playing along.

The room erupted.

I covered my smile with one gloved hand.

The performers understood the assignment; they retreated from the center of the stage, but not because they feared a drunken patron, no. That was a daily occurrence. The dancers shared Lai’s keen sense of drama, recognizing a disaster unfolding in front of them and committing to the bit, knowing they wouldn’t be punished for what was, as far as they knew, a scripted dream for a spoiled patron.

“Tonight,” Al announced, dragging his hand down the pole. “You have been blessed with a special treat.”

His leather jacket was coming off as he spoke. He rolled one shoulder, allowed it to slide halfway down his arms, then let two dancers pull it from him like attendants undressing a condemned king. One of the performers tossed it into the crowd, and I sighed. I liked that jacket.

Encouraged, Al gripped the front of his black shirt with both hands and ripped it open. Buttons flew across the stage.

The response was immediate: the music became louder, the crowd surged closer. Money appeared in raised hands, the members of the club more than happy to burn some paper on satisfying a fantasy.

The crowd was growing, working the guests up into a low frenzy. It wasn’t enough yet, though; the guards hadn’t been lured away yet, not quite under Al’s spell. I didn’t mind waiting; I was enjoying the show as much as everyone else.

Al dropped the mic and shimmied effortlessly up the pole. He wrapped one thigh around the metal and lifted himself above the dancers, shirt hanging open, tattoos stretching across his chest and stomach. He spun slowly, head thrown back, allowing the spotlight to catch the silver in his piercings.

Then he dropped.

The crowd gasped.

Al stopped himself less than an inch from the stage floor and hung upside down, suspended by the strength of his legs. I was genuinely impressed. Doing all that in jeans was next to impossible; the lack of friction meant his thighs were working overtime to save his face from the floor. I was still admiring the tightness of his abs as the dancer he’d kissed approached and poured champagne down his bare chest.