I hated this, i hated this job and i hated my life, after my parents kicked me out for kissing a guy, I shit you not they kicked me out for kissing a guy

Everything went downhill, i was labeled the family’s slut

No one would take me to their house, not my friends, not my family, everything i’d had was gone

And i’d had to take this fuckass job

Exotic dancer

Disgusting

That’s how i felt

That word clung to me worse than the glitter ever did. No matter how long I scrubbed in the shower afterward, it stayed—under my nails, behind my eyes. The club lights were always too bright or too dim, never honest. Men didn’t look at my face unless they were trying to convince themselves I was a person. Most of the time, I was just a body with a price tag taped to my thigh, a performance they could pretend was intimacy because it made the emptiness quieter for three minutes at a time.

I told myself it was temporary. That this wasn’t me. That I was still the girl who read under the covers, who kissed a boy once because it felt soft and warm and right, not sinful, not dirty. Funny how one innocent moment could rot everything else. Funny how fast love turned into a charge sheet. Slut. Disappointment. Embarrassment. They said it like it explained everything—like it justified the locked doors and unanswered calls

I’d went from everything

To nothing

From going to school with celebrity kids

To living in a shitty apartment that barely had running water

The apartment smelled like damp carpet and old cigarettes no matter how many windows I cracked. The radiator clanged like it was coughing up a lung, and the neighbors fought through the walls in a language I didn’t understand but somehow felt anyway. I slept on a mattress on the floor because a bed frame felt like a luxury I hadn’t earned yet. Sometimes I’d lie there staring at the ceiling, tracing water damage like constellations, trying to remember what it felt like to be sure of anything.

The club paid in cash, which felt both like freedom and a threat. No paper trail, no proof I existed unless someone wanted something from me. I learned to smile without showing teeth, to laugh at jokes that weren’t funny, to let hands hover just close enough to make tips heavier but rules unbroken. Boundaries became math. Rent versus dignity. Groceries versus pride. You’d be surprised how flexible your morals get when hunger sharpens them.

That’s when it happened, well, he happened

He walked in with his group of asshole friends, all laughing and leering, all, but him.

He didn’t smile when his friends elbowed him, didn’t throw bills at the stage like confetti. If anything, he looked faintly irritated to be there at all.

He stood a half-step behind them, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the room like he was clocking exits instead of bodies. Dark jacket, plain. No neon grin, no hungry lean forward. When one of his friends shouted something crude toward the stage, he winced—not performatively, not to look better, but like the sound actually annoyed him.

That should’ve meant nothing. Plenty of men liked to pretend they were above it, liked the idea of being the reluctant participant. But this was different. He didn’t look at me like I was a fantasy or a transaction. When our eyes met—brief, accidental—he looked away first. Not embarrassed. Respectful. Like he’d caught himself intruding.

It threw me off my rhythm.

I missed a step, just barely, the pole cold under my palm. No one else noticed. But I noticed the way his gaze flicked back, not to my body, but to my face, like he was checking if I was okay. As if this place could bruise you visibly.

And when I was done? Removing the excessive makeup, he came, in the dressing rooms, each of us had an individual one, where some of the girls, earned a few extra cash if they were up to it

He knocked, gently and for a second I was scared, scared he was one of those greedy clients that didn’t take a no for an answer, that thought that this job meant that my body belonged to everyone

“Yeah?” My voice came out sharper than intended