1
Tilly
The signof the strip club reads:
Now Hiring Class of 2022.
“Wow,” I mutter as I pull into the parking lot. At least I know the owner is shameless. But that’s not going to stop me. I’ve reached my destination, now all that’s left is to go through with the rest of my plan.
Taking a deep breath, I step out of my car—well, technically it’s my dad’s car, and I stole it, but if he wanted to keep it, maybe he should have kept his hands off me.
The place looks like a hellhole, but having grown up in a hellhole, and being desperate for money, right now I’m okay with that. So I head immediately for the front door.
I’m greeted by blaring country music and flashing lights. There’s a girl on stage in cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and not much else.
“Hold it,” a man the size of a Jeep says to me as soon as I step inside. “You are—?”
“I-I’m here for a job…”
He looks me up and down, then nods to his left. “Down the hall. Ask for Damien.”
“Thank you.” I smile. He doesn’t smile back. I make my way quickly down the hall, trying not to look completely out of place, until I reach a door with the wordOFFICEwritten on it. I knock, and a voice calls back from within.
“Yeah!?”
“Um…Damien?”
“Not now!” he calls back.
I almost turn away, but then I remember that I have nowhere else to go. “The…big guy at the door told me I should ask for you.”
“Jackson? All right, get in here.”
As I reach for the doorknob, my heart rate skyrockets, and my fingers begin shaking. It’s like my nerves are flushed with electricity.
I guess the decision I made could be considered rash, but I had no choice. My father’s only form of discipline came in the form of his hand or a bamboo rod he’d picked up somewhere years ago and kept in his bedroom. No matter my age, he still felt that because I was his daughter, I was supposed to obey everything he said—even if it meant marrying his friend.
Never even having dated in my life, one day my dad came to me and told me that he’d found a fiancé for me and that it was his best friend Josh, whose wife had left him for another man years ago. He said the wedding would take place two weeks after my eighteenth birthday, so the day I turned eighteen, I stole his car and a little bit of money and ran away.
This is it. If I screw this up, I don’t know what my next course of action will be.
Quickly, I turn the doorknob and step into his office.
Damien, a wide, muscled man wearing a blue striped collared shirt and pink suspenders, looks up from a tablet on an enormous and very gaudy wood desk.
When he sees me, he instantly smiles, but in the way a wolf might smile at an injured deer.
“You’re not with the IRS, are you?” he asks.
“I—IRS?...No. Um, my name’s Tilly?”
“Well, it looks like the Lord done blessed us with some fresh meat tonight. Nice face, nice tits. Turn around…”
I do as asked.
“You’re hired.”
Just like that? I’ve never been complimented so much in my life—even if those compliments were completely without tact.