Bang

Cheryl

Breathe in through the nose.

Breathe out through the mouth.

My therapist back in Minnesota always told me to name five things you can see, three things you feel, two things you can hear, and one thing you can smell. To be fair, my therapist was an absolute nut who believed anxiety and depression from past trauma could be cured by Jesus and a good jog in the sunshine, but it’s worth a try at this point.

I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, only to open them because I kind of need them to do that whole thing about seeing something. My vision is hazy, it always is when the panic attacks come, but I focus on the stripper pole metal under my right hand. It’s extra shiny tonight.

I see pink neon lights. My bright blue nail polish shines up from my toes, and I even give them a wriggle. A minuscule tube of hand chalk leans against the mirror behind me. Women are in front of me on the other poles around the room. They aren’t men. I’m safe here. Safe from the grabbing or even the slaps to the face that were so common at the cheap club in Duluth. When I moved here to the Chicago suburbs after the twins started school, it was better, but I still had to do things I didn’t want to do.

Feel.

I wiggle my painted toes in my stripper shoes. The pole is cold under my hand. My new fake lashes that were on clearance at Walmart itch. I always forget I’m slightly allergic to the glue.

Hear.

The women chat excitedly and laugh at each other as they test the martini spins I’ve taught them. The music blares from the speakers Lucy just installed.

Smell.

Lucy’s a big fan of cleaning the poles and floor after every single class. Bleach still lingers in the air. The scent mixes with the tea tree oil diffuser in the corner. Lucy doesn’t like her pole workout club smelling too much like a hospital.

I’ve worked here since she opened. I still work at her cousin’s strip club on weekend nights and pull a random day shift while the kids are at school, but when Lucy opened the workout club teaching pole routines and chair dances to bored housewives, I jumped at the chance to teach classes a few days a week. Sure, I’m not getting tips from men in pit-stained suits, but she pays a decent enough wage to cut back my lap dance time.

My heart palpitations slow as I ground myself.

I’m safe here. Safe from the twins’ father who sexually assaulted me eleven years ago when I was only eighteen and has fought me for custody since, wanting the children my family pretty much forced me to have. I work for my ex-coworker, Lucy, whose fiancé is the local sheriff. He’s here all the time, bringing her lunch or disappearing into the cleaning closet with her in the middle of the afternoon for way longer than the time it takes for her to find a new roll of paper towels. The sheriff walking us to our cars most nights means safety for me. He’s a cop, and I’m normally distrustful of the police, but his love for my boss and his calm demeanor make being here the safest I’ve felt in a long time. Not much ruffles Sheriff Aaron Dwyer.

“When you’re done with the spin out and reach the floor, you can add a saucy backward somersault and sexy crawl. It drives them nuts,” I say, pasting a smile on my face.

If I’m good at anything, it’s pretending and faking my way through the panic. As long as I live, I’ll never get over that I now help middle-aged women do backward somersaults for the first time in thirty years and teach them doe eyes to entice their husbands before a well-timed blow job. Life is often surprising.

I check the clock on the wall just as the last song on the beginning pole class playlist wraps up. “That’s all for today, ladies! If you need a chalk stick or some gear, Lucy’s up front.”

The women file out, all clucking and smiling about wherever they’re going next. A bar for margaritas? Home to their husbands and children? It must be nice having friends you can go to the gym with. I wouldn’t know. After the shit storm that was my early adulthood, I never had the chance to make many friends. I work. I go home. I help my twin boys, who are going into fourth grade, with homework. I make some kind of dinner, which is usually waffles and yogurt with a banana, and then I crash out. That is, if I’m not on the pole that night.

The only friends I have are people like Lucy, but I’m hesitant to call her my friend since she’s technically my boss now, and I know she only hired me because we worked together at the club. I was hired because she trusts I know my way around a pole, not for my sparkling personality. We were never close, but she’s secure in my ability to teach climbs and spins. In my world, bosses aren’t our friends. A few girls at the club are friendly enough, especially after what we went through a few months ago with Murphy Beckett, a local drug dealer and trafficker, making us move his fentanyl for him. But he’s dead and gone, and my coworkers and I haven’t really talked about it since. The conversations in the back room at the club now center around who took someone’s lipstick and if anyone has double-sided tape to fix the Velcro on their rippable panties.

I gather my gear and head out to the lobby as fast as I can, knowing full well that Lucy’s anxious to get home to Aaron. She’ll clean the room and then head out.

“No Aaron tonight?” I ask, approaching the counter lit with pink neon lights and a few potted plants Lucy likes. I squint after being in the dim pole room.

She shakes her head, and a strand of her auburn hair falls out of her ponytail. “He had Ruby’s musical at school. It’s something that the class does every year.”

“You didn’t go?”

She looks down and bites her lip. “He invited me. Ruby did, too. I just feel like I don’t fit sometimes. That seems like a mom thing, right?”

I lean against the counter and frown. “Lucy, you’re marrying Ruby’s dad. You’ll be a stepmom. Stepmoms go places like that, even if the mom shows up. You don’t have that problem since Aaron’s wife died a couple years ago.”

“I know. I need to find my place. I’m just floundering since Aaron and I got engaged. It’s real, you know? I can hide behind work. After what my first husband put me through, I’m scared to fuck up or even blink wrong, even though Aaron would never hurt me. I’m also scared the girls will think I’m trying too hard at replacing their mom, and then Aaron will think I’m not trying hard enough.”

“I think you should talk to him. He may be a cop, but I don’t hold that against him.”

I tap the counter but don’t wait for her to respond. I need to get home to my boys, and I give Lucy a wave before heading out the door, the bell above the door tinkling in my wake.

It’s dark in the parking lot, and I miss Aaron. He usually walks us out. I grip my keys between my fingers like they taught us in high school health class. My heartbeat hasn’t really slowed to normal since the panic attack, but it speeds up even more as I look behind me and squint toward the dumpster. I don’t know what I think I’ll see. A bear? That’s not really a thing in the Chicago suburbs. A coyote? More likely. The wind blows, and the metal on the dumpster creaks like someone is lifting the lid.

“It’s just the fucking wind. Get a grip,” I mumble under my breath and walk faster to my car.

I should have taken my heels off so I can walk faster. I usually take them off right after class, but I just didn’t this time. I’m so used to eight-inch hooker heels that I often forget they aren’t sneakers. I know that sounds insane. It sounds crazy in my head as I look down at the bright red heels that practically match my hair color and give a small smile.

I’m suddenly jerked back by my hair, and I drop my keys nearby, noting the clattering sound in my panic. The sound of the metal is deafening in the silent parking lot. I scrabble to remove whatever is in my hair, and it takes me a few seconds for my brain to connect the dots that someone has a hunk of my hair wrapped around their fist.

“Hi, baby. Nice to see you,” a familiar voice coos into my ear, and I quickly jerk my head forward and then back, cracking my boys’ father square in the fucking teeth.

He lets go, and I quickly spin to face him, my hands out. I’m still in shock and don’t think to block the slap that soon stings my face. When Daniel hit me in the past, he was usually careful to make sure it was open-handed to not leave marks, and this time is no different. Stinging pain floods my face, and I almost fall at the force of it. Thankfully, I stay upright.

“What do you want?” I ask, my voice loud. If he thinks I’ll draw attention to him, maybe he’ll leave.

Lucy will come out.

Lucy will come out.

Daniel never hits in front of other people.

But Lucy doesn’t come, and Daniel’s hand grips my throat, lifting me off the ground just enough that I’m on my tiptoes as he forces me to look into his face. He smiles, and I wish I could knock his perfect teeth out.

He hasn’t changed much in the years since the date rape. His hair recedes, and he combs it back like a car salesman. I can smell the wax pomade or some other hair product as he holds me close, leering. His shoulders are broader, and he’s wider around the chest than when we were late teens. As I study his familiar face with his chiseled jaw and high cheekbones, I notice a new scar near his hairline and find myself hoping a girl got in a good shot with a beer bottle.

“I just want to say hello, Cheryl. Can’t I say hello to the mother of my children?”

“Your way of saying hello is fucked up. Why are you two states from home?”

“Why wouldn’t I be when your lawyer filed a brief to take me back to court for more child support? I think that’s something we should chat about.”

“Your chats are bullshit, Daniel.”

He laughs and rears back his head. At first, I flinch, thinking he’ll head butt me, but warm spit suddenly oozes down my face, sticking to my eyelashes. It’s not the first time he’s spit in my face. The first time was when I was in the maternity ward after giving birth and had the nurses take the babies to the nursery to keep them from Daniel taking them while I was still trying to walk right. From experience, I also know if I react negatively, I’ll just get more pain or humiliation.

Even with the threat of more violence, I swallow and take a deep breath. “You’ve paid the same amount since they were born. That was over ten years ago, Daniel. That’s not accounting for inflation and the fact you’ve been promoted twice in that time. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to give me a few extra bucks for your kids.”

He lets go of my throat, and I prepare for the slap I know is coming. When it comes, this time on the other cheek, my legs are braced to stay upright again. I’m getting good at being beat on.

He grips my hair again and pulls so hard that I’m forced into a back bend to not lose a hunk of it.

“Look at those trashy shoes on your feet. How much of my child support goes to that?”

“I paid for these out of my tips, asshole. I buy food and pay my rent with what you send. I think you’d be fine with the boys having a roof over their heads.” I don’t mention that I pay for most of the food in the house and most of the rent with my body. The shoes are a necessary business expense to earn rent.

He pulls harder, and I wince. I’m halfway to the ground, and he hovers over me, his eyes dark. I know that look.