His Virgin Stripper

Chapter One– The Scent

"All of this could’ve been avoided if your parents had just used a damn condom"

I said to the guy currently blocking my doorway. He was selling the same tired rizz lines I’d heard since I turned sixteen.

“Avery, come on,” Tyler wheedled, leaning one sweaty palm against the frame. “You’ve been single for months. I’m just saying I’d treat you right.”

“And I’m just saying your existence is the reason some women drink,” I replied, adjusting the strap of my bag. “Move.”

He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. They never did until you do something drastic to chase them away.

“You’ve got a very sassy mouth on you,” he said, eyes dropping—predictably—to my chest. “But I like that. Girls with bodies like yours usually—”

“Usually what? Have to carry pepper spray and a restraining order just to go out and buy cereal?” I stepped forward, forcing him to either move or get run over. He chose moving. Smartest decision he’d made all day. “Go home, Tyler. Or wherever it is guys like you go to practice sounding like a walking red flag.”

I shut the door in his face before he could answer. Then I locked it. Twice.

Behind me, a slow clap started.

“Ten out of ten,” Nyx , my best friend said from the couch, not even looking up from her phone. “I especially loved the condom line. Very ‘I hate men but I’ll still narrate their downfall with surgical precision.’”

I dropped my bag by the door and dragged both hands down my face. “Why do they always act like big boobs and an ass are a public invitation? I’m not a free sample. I’m not a limited-time offer. I’m a person who would like to walk to the convenience store without being seen as an invitation.”

“Because men are simple creatures,” Nyx said, finally glancing up. Her dark curls were piled into a messy bun that somehow still looked intentional, and she was already wearing her club uniform—black crop top, shorts that barely qualified as clothing, and enough attitude to power a small city. “You could wear a potato sack and they’d still stare. It’s a curse. A sexy, unfair, deeply annoying curse.”

I snorted and collapsed beside her on the sagging couch. The cushion made a sad little wheeze under my weight. Everything in our apartment wheezed. The fridge, the pipes, the window that never quite shut all the way. We were a matching set of tired things trying to survive.

“I don’t want to be sexy tonight,” I muttered, staring at the ceiling crack that looked like a question mark. “I want to be invisible. Or rich. Rich would be better. I’d take anything at this point.”

Nyx’s expression softened. She knew exactly why I was doing this.

My little sister, Maya, needed surgery. Not the optional kind. Not the “we can wait and see” kind. The kind that came with words like "urgent" and "progressive" and "critical". The hospital bills had started arriving on pastel paper, as if soft colors would make the numbers less violent. Six million dollars. That number lived in my head rent-free, pacing circles and knocking things over.

Dancing at Neon Blood paid better than the diner. Pole work paid even better. And tonight was my first time on the main stage.

I was going to throw up. Possibly on someone. Possibly on purpose.

“You’re overthinking it,” Nyx said, bumping her shoulder into mine. “You’re just dancing. Clothes stay on. You’re not stripping. You’re a dancer. Say it.”

“I’m a dancer.”

“Louder. With your chest.”

“I’m a dancer who is probably going to fall off the pole and die in front of strangers while wearing shorts that cost more than my dignity.”

Nyx grinned. “That’s the spirit. Channel that chaotic energy. Men pay extra for girls who look like they violent and sexy at the same time. It’s a whole niche.”

I turned my head to look at her. “I hate that you know that.”

“I know many things. For example: you need to eat something before we leave. Your stomach is louder than the neighbor’s dog.”

“I’m too nervous to eat.”

“Eat anyway. If you pass out mid-spin, I’m not carrying your dramatic ass offstage.”

I groaned but let her shove a granola bar into my hand. It tasted like cardboard and poor life choices. I ate it anyway.

An hour later, I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to recognize myself. The crop top made my chest look like it was trying to escape. The shorts hugged every curve I usually tried to downplay.

My body had always felt like something that happened to me instead of something that belonged to me. Too much attention. Too many comments. Too many weird guys staring at me like I was their property.

No one ever says this, but sometimes having an attractive body is very stressful.It brings a lot of attention.

I leaned closer to the mirror and pointed at my reflection. “You are doing this for Maya. Not for male validation. Not for tips. For Maya. If you fall, fall with purpose.”

Nyx appeared in the doorway, already holding my bag. “You talking to yourself again?”

“She’s the only one who listens.”

“Rude. I listen. I just also judge.”

The ride to Neon Blood was a blur of streetlights and my own heartbeat. Nyx drove with one hand and used the other to blast music loud enough to drown out my spiraling thoughts. It didn’t fully work. By the time we parked behind the club, my palms were slick and my mouth tasted like panic.

Neon Blood lived up to its name. Red lights bled across brick and pavement. The bass from inside was strong enough to feel in my teeth. A line of people stretched down the block, laughing too loudly, dressed like they were trying to forget their day jobs.

I wanted to turn around and go home.

Instead, I followed Nyx through the back entrance.

Backstage smelled like perfume, hairspray, body lotion, and the particular brand of desperation that came with trying to look expensive on a budget. Girls moved past us in various states of glitter and bravado. Someone was laughing. Someone else was arguing with a stage manager about song choice. The whole place pulsed like a living thing.

Nyx fixed the back of my top for the third time. “Stop fidgeting. You look hot.”

“I look like I’m about to be sacrificed to a neon god.”

“Hotly sacrificed. There’s a difference.”

I peeked through the side curtain at the main floor. Tables packed with bodies. Drinks glowing under blacklight. The stage itself was a polished platform with a single pole under a wash of crimson light. It looked bigger than it had during rehearsal. More final.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered.

Nyx grabbed my face with both hands. “Hey. Look at me. You can. You’ve been practicing in the garage on that rusty pipe like a woman possessed. You’ve got the strength. You’ve got the control. And you’ve got me literally standing six feet away ready to throw a heel at anyone who says anything nasty.”

I managed a weak smile. “You’d break your ankle.”

“Worth it.”

The stage manager—a tired man with a headset and the energy of someone who had seen too much—waved me forward. “Avery, you’re up. Three-minute set. Keep it clean. Crowd’s already warm.”

My stomach dropped through the floor.

First time on the pole. First time under those lights. First time letting a room full of strangers look at me like I was something they could price out.

I stepped onto the stage.

The music changed. A low, heavy beat rolled through the speakers. The lights hit me full force, hot and blinding for a second. I wrapped one hand around the pole, felt the cool metal under my palm, and forced my body to move the way I’d practiced in the garage until my arms shook.

Slow. Controlled. No sudden heroics.

I wasn’t here to be sexy. I was here to survive. Every spin, every arch of my back, every time I let my body curve around the pole was another dollar toward Maya’s surgery. I focused on counting. On breathing. On the burn in my shoulders as I inverted, held, and slid down with as much grace as I could fake.

I could feel eyes on me. Heavy. Hungry. The usual disgust curled in my stomach like spoiled milk. I hated this part—the attention. The way men looked at my chest, my hips, the thick curve of my thighs like they were entitled to the view. Like my body was a conversation they were allowed to have without me.

Keep moving, I told myself. Don’t look at them. Look at the back wall. Look at nothing.

Then the air changed.

It was subtle at first. A shift in pressure, like the moment before a storm breaks. The noise of the club seemed to dull, as if someone had cupped a hand over the world and muffled it. My skin prickled. I turned through another move, gripping the pole tighter, and let my gaze sweep the crowd for half a second.

That was when I saw him.

He stood near the back, taller than everyone around him, dressed in black like he’d been carved out of the shadows themselves. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. A face that looked like it had never learned how to smile and didn’t care to try. And his eyes—God, his eyes were locked on me like I was the only thing in the room that had ever mattered.

My step faltered. Just slightly. Just enough for me to feel it.

He didn’t look at me the way the others did. There was hunger there, yes, but it was darker. Sharper. Older. Like he’d already decided something irreversible and the rest of us were just living in the consequence.

Nyx’s voice hissed from the side of the stage. “Avery. Pole. Focus.”

I dragged my attention back to the routine, but my body felt different now—too aware, too warm. Every move I made felt like it was being watched in high definition. When I arched my back, I felt his stare on the line of my throat. When I let my body slide down the pole, thighs gripping metal, I felt it like a physical touch. My pulse thudded in places it had no business thudding mid-performance.

" Finish the set " I ordered myself in my mind. "Get off the stage. Get paid. Go home."

By the time the song ended, my heart was pounding for an entirely different reason than nerves.

I stepped off the stage on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. Nyx grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the relative privacy of the hallway, eyes wide.

“You did great,” she said quickly. “A little stiff at the start, but you recovered. And also—what the hell was that stare-down? Do you know him?”

“No.”

“Well, he looks like he knows you. Or wants to.”

“ That's so comforting. Thank you.” I said sarcastically.

Before I could fully catch my breath, the stage manager appeared, looking slightly pale around the edges.

“Avery,” he said. “Your dances for the rest of the night have been bought out.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Private. All of them. Guy up front paid in advance. Cash. Said he doesn’t want anyone else near you tonight.”

Nyx’s eyebrows shot up so hard I was surprised they didn’t leave her forehead. “That’s either very romantic or very serial-killer. There’s no in-between.”

My stomach twisted into a knot. I already knew who it was without asking. The man with the eyes that felt like a claim.

I forced my voice to stay light, because if I let it shake, Nyx would notice and then I’d have to admit that something about him had crawled under my skin and stayed there. “Tell him I’m flattered. And that if he thinks buying my time means he gets to touch me, he’s going to be wildly disappointed. I bite.”

The manager winced, as if already imagining having to deliver that message. “I’ll… pass that along.”

As he walked away, Nyx leaned in, lowering her voice. “You’re going to do it, right?”

“I need the money"

“That’s not what I asked.”

I looked back toward the main floor. Through the gap in the curtain, I could still see him. He hadn’t moved. He was still watching the space where I’d been, like the stage itself was temporary and I was the permanent thing.

Something about him felt dangerous in a way I couldn’t explain. Not just rich-dangerous. Not just hot-dangerous. Something older. Hungrier. Like the dark itself had put on a shirt and decided to come collect something it was owed.

I exhaled slowly, squared my shoulders, and ignored the way my pulse spiked.

“I’ll do the dances,” I said. “But if he tries anything, I’m kneeing him in the balls and using the extra tip to buy Maya flowers. Nice ones. The kind that say ‘sorry your sister committed a felony for your medical bills.’”

Nyx grinned, quick and fierce. “There’s my girl.”

I didn’t feel brave.

I felt like I had just stepped into the mouth of something much larger than a club, larger than a debt, larger than one night of bad decisions.

And somewhere in the back of the room, he watched the curtain like he already knew my name.

Tonight, I knew something I had changed. I just didn't know what it was.