Strip For Me

~SUNDANCE~

There were easier ways to make money than taking my clothes off in front of strangers, although most of them paid considerably less, which was why I was standing behind a black velvet curtain in four-inch heels and a scrap of red fabric someone with a questionable sense of humor had decided to call a costume.

I hooked one finger beneath the strap riding too high against my hip and tugged it into place, checking my reflection in the dressing room mirror while the bass from the main floor worked its way through the wall and settled somewhere beneath my ribs. The costume fit well enough, although I would have appreciated another inch or two of fabric in certain places, particularly since I was about to perform for three people whose entire purpose was to decide whether I belonged on their stage.

Three years of dancing, and I still hadn’t figured out why the minutes before stepping onstage always seemed to last twice as long as the performance itself. Once the music started, I could lose myself in the rhythm without giving much thought to anything beyond the next movement, but the waiting gave my brain entirely too much time to consider everything that could possibly go wrong.

It wasn’t the dancing that bothered me. I could do that in my sleep, although I’d probably prefer to keep the heels off if I ever decided to test that theory. Tonight, however, I had something considerably more important riding on those four inches of questionable footwear, and the longer I stood there staring at my reflection, the more determined my stomach seemed to be to remind me of it.

“You nervous?” Tasha asked, leaning against the dressing table beside me while she watched me adjust a strap that hadn’t moved since the last time I’d touched it.

I glanced at her reflection and rolled my shoulders, hoping the movement would loosen some of the tension gathering between them. “Not about the dancing,” I assured her, although my stomach apparently hadn’t received that announcement.

Her mouth curved as she folded her arms beneath her chest, looking entirely too amused by my attempts to appear relaxed. “First audition here?” she asked, giving my costume a quick, assessing glance before returning her attention to my face.

“First audition anywhere this fancy,” I admitted, smoothing my palms down my thighs before realizing what I was doing and dropping them to my sides.

Tasha laughed softly, her gaze following my hands. “You look like you’re about to either throw up or rob a bank,” she observed, which did absolutely nothing to improve my confidence.

“Good thing neither is part of the audition,” I replied, reaching behind me to check the clasp of my costume one final time.

She snorted and reached for the curtain when someone called her name through the headset clipped over one ear. “You’ll be fine,” she assured me, pausing before pulling it open. “Three songs maximum, although they’ll probably stop you before then. Don’t take it personally if they do. They’re looking at technique, transitions, crowd awareness, and whether you’re comfortable onstage. You’re not performing for customers tonight.”

“I figured that out when I noticed the distinct shortage of dollar bills,” I replied, glancing toward the curtain as a sliver of golden light spilled across the floor.

Tasha looked back at me, one eyebrow lifting as she studied my expression. “You sure you’re not nervous?” she pressed, apparently unconvinced by my earlier answer.

“I said I wasn’t nervous about dancing,” I reminded her, straightening my shoulders and resisting the urge to touch my costume again.

“Exactly,” she replied, tapping the clipboard tucked beneath her arm. “So what’s the other part?”

I looked past her toward the narrow hallway leading to the stage, where the music pulsed beneath the low murmur of voices, and considered giving her another sarcastic answer. Unfortunately, the question deserved a little more honesty than I was comfortable offering, especially when I’d spent almost a year waiting for an opportunity that might disappear before the evening was over.

The Velvet Room wasn’t just another gentlemen’s club looking for dancers. It was one of the most successful establishments in the city, and women in the industry talked about getting hired here the way people in other professions talked about finally landing a promotion they’d spent years working toward. The money was better, the security actually did its job, and management had a reputation for removing customers who couldn’t understand that paying for a woman’s attention didn’t mean purchasing the woman herself.

After three years of dealing with men who thought a handful of twenties entitled them to whatever they wanted, the idea of working somewhere that enforced its own rules sounded pretty damn appealing.

Openings were rare, though, and the dancers fortunate enough to land a position tended to stay, which meant I’d spent months checking for an opportunity while continuing to work shifts at a club that paid the bills but wasn’t doing much to help me get ahead. I’d been saving toward opening my own graphic design studio, taking freelance projects whenever I could find them, but progress had been painfully slow, and a position at The Velvet Room could change that considerably.

I wasn’t about to waste my chance because my nerves had suddenly decided to develop personalities of their own.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I finally answered, lifting my chin toward the curtain while making a conscious effort to keep my hands at my sides. “Let’s do this.”

Tasha studied me another moment before giving a knowing smile and stepping into the hallway. “That’s what I thought,” she murmured, motioning for me to follow her.

I fell into step behind her, and the music grew louder with every turn until I could feel the beat vibrating beneath my heels. The club was closed to customers, but nearly every light remained on inside the main room, giving me my first proper look at a place I’d only heard other dancers describe.

Gold lighting glowed beneath the bar and traced the edges of the stage, reflecting against polished black tables arranged around it. Deep burgundy booths curved along the walls, their high backs offering a little privacy without hiding anyone completely, while a second-floor balcony overlooked the entire room. The combination of dark wood, brass accents, and carefully positioned lighting gave the place an expensive atmosphere without making it look as though somebody had emptied an entire jewelry store into the decorating budget.

It didn’t look cheap, and it certainly didn’t smell cheap.

There was no stale beer soaked into the carpet, no sticky floor threatening to steal a heel, and no collection of battered chairs shoved against a stage that had clearly survived several generations of questionable entertainment. Everything looked clean and well maintained, and I found myself appreciating the attention to detail almost as much as the prospect of working somewhere that wouldn’t require me to inspect every surface before touching it.

Whoever had designed the place understood that a little restraint could be considerably more impressive than covering every available surface in gold. As someone who spent a ridiculous amount of her free time thinking about color, balance, and composition, I appreciated that more than I probably should have during a job audition.

I liked it immediately, which did absolutely nothing to settle the nervous fluttering in my stomach.

Tasha stopped near the bottom of the stage and glanced at her clipboard, running one finger down the page before looking up at me.

“Sundance Winter?” she called, despite the fact that I was standing close enough to touch her shoulder.

I lifted my hand slightly and offered a sympathetic smile. “Unfortunately, that’s really my name,” I confirmed, watching her expression change.

One of the men seated at the nearest table laughed, leaning back in his chair as though I’d just confirmed something he’d been wondering since reading my application.

Tasha looked from the clipboard to my face, her eyebrows climbing. “Seriously?” she asked, apparently hoping I’d admit to making the whole thing up.

“Seriously,” I assured her, pressing my lips together to keep from smiling.

“Your parents actually named you Sundance?” she questioned, staring at me as though she suspected I’d forged my birth certificate specifically to entertain strangers.

“My father claims my mother was responsible, and my mother claims my father was drunk,” I explained, spreading my hands before letting them fall against my thighs. “I’ve never gotten a straight answer from either of them.”

Another laugh came from the table, and some of the tension slipped out of my shoulders as I glanced toward the three people who would apparently be deciding whether I was worth hiring.

Two men and a woman sat around one of the polished black tables, all dressed like management rather than customers. The woman had a laptop open in front of her, one of the men had been studying something on his phone, and the other looked entirely comfortable leaning back in his chair with his arms folded. None of them appeared particularly intimidating, although I knew better than to mistake a friendly expression for an easy audition.

At least I’d managed to make them laugh before I’d taken a single step onto the stage. Whether that would help my chances remained to be seen, but it was considerably better than walking into a room full of people who looked as though they’d rather be having dental work done.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Tasha told me, gesturing toward the stage before heading toward the sound booth with her clipboard tucked against her side.

I climbed the three steps, crossed toward the center pole, and wrapped my fingers loosely around the cool metal while the room settled into silence. The lights shifted slightly, leaving the stage illuminated while the table beyond it faded into softer shadows, and I drew one slow breath as the last of the conversation died away.

That was the moment I loved most, those few seconds before the music started when the stage belonged entirely to me and nobody knew what I intended to do with it. It wasn’t the clothes coming off, the money, or even the attention that came with knowing every pair of eyes in a room had turned toward me. It was the freedom to decide how the performance would unfold, when to move, when to slow down, and how long to hold an audience’s attention before giving them something else to watch.

There was something delicious about having that much control over a room, especially when most of the people watching believed they were the ones making the decisions, then the first beat dropped, and I moved.