and maybe she never would be.
It was the men’s faces—the hot, hungry eyes devouring her—that she couldn’t handle, the things they called out to her that she was thankful she couldn’t understand properly.
‘How do you bear it?’ she’d asked Jacinta, one of the pole dancers and the only girl working at Mama Rita’s to be even marginally friendly.
Jacinta had shrugged. ‘I don’t see,’ she’d replied brusquely. ‘I smile, but I don’t look at them. I look past—think my own thoughts. Is better that way.’
It seemed wise advice, and Chellie had followed it. Until tonight, that was, when, totally against her will, she’d found herself being drawn almost inexorably to a man’s gaze. True, he’d been sitting by himself at one of the rear tables, in itself unusual, as most of the male clientele liked to bunch at the front, baying like wolves for every inch of exposed flesh. But that wasn’t the only thing that had seemed to set him apart.
For one thing, he was clearly a European, and they didn’t get many at the club.
For another, he was strikingly—almost dangerously attractive, his surface good looks masking a toughness as potent as a clenched fist.
Even across the crowded club he’d made her aware of that.
She thought in bewilderment, Somehow he made me look at him …
So, what could have brought him to seek the tawdry erotic stimulus of a place like Mama Rita’s?
Chellie’s experience of men was frankly limited, but instinct told her that this was the last man on earth who would need to buy his pleasures.
Oh, God, she thought impatiently, things must be bad if you’re starting to fantasise about a customer.
And things were indeed about as bad as they could get. Her life had become a nightmare without end, she realised as she peeled off the loathsome blonde wig, and ran her fingers thankfully through the short feathery spikes of raven hair that it concealed.
Mama Rita had been adamant about that. Brunettes were no novelty in this part of the world. The men who came to her club wanted blondes, and pale-skinned blondes at that.
It had seemed such a small concession at the time, and she’d been so desperate—so grateful for a place to stay and the chance to earn some money—that she’d probably have agreed to anything. Especially as she was being given the chance to sing. She’d thought it was the end of the disasters that had befallen her. Instead, it had only been the beginning.
She wouldn’t need to stay at the club long, she’d told herself with supreme confidence. She’d soon save enough for an air ticket out of here.
Only it hadn’t worked out like that. The money she received had seemed reasonable when it was first offered, but once Mama Rita had exacted rent for that tiny cockroach-ridden room on the top floor of the club, money for the hire of the tacky dresses she insisted that Chellie wore, and payment for the services of Gomez the piano player—which she was convinced he never saw—Chellie barely had enough left to feed herself.
And, worst of all, Mama Rita had taken her passport, which was about all she had left in the world, and locked it away in her desk, making her a virtual prisoner.
The trap had opened and she’d walked straight into it, she realised bitterly.
There was always the option of earning more, of course, as Mama Rita had made clear from the start. Chellie could be friendly, and sit with the customers, encourage them to buy bogus and very expensive champagne. But even if the thought of it hadn’t made her flesh crawl she’d been warned off by Jacinta.
‘You earn more—she takes more,’ the other girl had said with a shrug.
‘You sit with a customer one day; you take your clothes off next. Because you don’t get out of here unless Mama Rita says so. And she chooses when and where you go. And you ain’t served your time yet.’
She’d paused, giving Chellie a level look. ‘There are worse places than this, believe it. And don’t try running away, because she always finds you, and then you will be sorrier than you ever dreamed.’
I think I’ve already reached that point, Chellie thought bleakly. And who ever said blondes had more fun?
She sighed, then got up and began to root along the dress rail in the corner. She performed two sets each evening and had to wear something different for every appearance, which presented its own problems. When she’d begun, she’d worn evening dresses, but these had gradually been taken away and replaced by the kind of revealing costumes the dancers and hostesses wore. Which severely restricted her choice.
She bit her lip hard when she came to the latest addition, a micro-skirt in shiny black leather topped by a bodice that was simply a network of small black beads. She might as well wear nothing at all, but she supposed that was the point Mama Rita was making.
But that’s never going to happen, she told herself with grim determination. I’m going to get away from here somehow, whatever the risk. And from now on I’m trusting no one. Especially men …
Her whole body winced as she thought of Ramon. She tried very hard not to think of him, but that wasn’t always possible, although the physical memory of him was mercifully fading with every day that passed. She could barely recall what he looked like, or the sound of his voice. One day she might forget his touch, she thought with a shiver, or even the painful delusion that she’d been in love with him.
In a way, she acknowledged, everything that had occurred between them seemed remote—as if it had happened to two other people in some separate lifetime.
Only it hadn’t, of course. And that was why she found herself here, duped, robbed and dumped, in this appalling mess.
It might be humiliating to retrace the steps that had brought her here, but it was also salutary.
After all, she’d needed to escape from her life in England and the future that was being so inexorably planned for her. In spite of everything, she still believed that. It was just unfortunate that, through Ramon, all she’d done was jump out of the frying pan into a fire like the flames of hell.
But somehow she was going to wrench her life back into her own control.
I’ll survive, she told herself with renewed determination.
As she hung the black dress back on the rail the flimsy curtain over the dressing room entrance was pushed aside and Lina, one of the lap dancers, came in.
‘Mama Rita wants to see you, girl, in her office—now.’
Chellie’s brows snapped together. It was the first time she’d been summoned like this. Usually a girl was called up because of some misdemeanour, she thought, tensing in spite of herself. She’d seen several of the girls with scratched faces and bruised and bleeding mouths after an encounter with Mama Rita’s plump ring-laden hands.
Aware that the dancers operated a grapevine second to none, she strove to keep her voice level. ‘Do you know why?’
Lina’s eyes glinted with malice. ‘Maybe you’re going to start working for your living, honey, like the rest of us.’
Chellie
