บททั้งหมดของ Married to a Stripper: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

Hours later I was in the service corridor of the club. Bleach and whiskey lived in the concrete walls. The bass pressed through the wall like a heartbeat pretending to be a god. Lights strobed under the door and cut out. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t here for the stage. Silas blended into shadow at the turn. Jacket closed. Hands still. Nothing wasted. “Two minutes,” he said. “Between songs.” “Alone?” “Alone.” Good. I stood with my back to a steel door that had never been cleaned properly. Cold bled through my shirt. A wet mop leaned in the corner like a tired weapon. The corridor ran thirty feet and ended in a fire door with a crash bar. A red EXIT sign hummed, sick and steady. Heater vents breathed stale air. The whole place felt built to hide things. I liked that. Places that didn’t ask questions. Places that kept secrets even when you didn’t. A latch released. Laughter spilled and died. Fabric whispered. Heels hit concrete, sharp, confident, not hurrying for anyone. The air shi

The mirror over my station had a crack like a fault line. It split my face in two: left side hard and mean enough to survive; right side blurred like it was still deciding. That was the truth of me. Half armor, half fracture. Bright eyes got me hurt. I yanked the corset laces until my ribs complained. Breath went shallow, smile went on. Survival didn’t sparkle. It suffocated in sequins and pretended it liked it. My grandma used to call me bright-eyed back in Nebraska—feeding chickens, dust on my knees, sunburn on my nose. I can still hear her voice sometimes, soft and steady, telling me that bright eyes meant hope. Hope doesn’t pay rent or buy groceries. After she died, Nebraska turned from home into a place I had to run from. And when I ran, I learned fast that the world doesn’t wait for girls who read slow and stumble over words. Men don’t wait. They see weakness and call it opportunity. That’s how I ended up here. The mirror didn’t lie. It just didn’t help. Bright eyes make yo

The contract sat in the dead center of the desk. Square. Sharp-edged. Smug. I leaned back in the leather chair, suit cut clean, black fabric sharp against the pale light of morning. The city stretched behind me, skyline hazed with dawn, lake water dull instead of blazing. Low clouds flattened the horizon. Chicago didn’t roar at eight a.m.—it cleared its throat. A siren far away. An early bus sighing three blocks down. The HVAC hummed through the vents like a controlled heartbeat. The coffee on my desk had gone cold. I hadn’t touched it. Morning wasn’t for haze. It was for precision. “You look like hell,” Tom said, sprawled in the visitor’s chair like it was his living room. Blazer tossed over the arm. Shirt open at the collar. Hair styled in deliberate chaos designed to look like he hadn’t tried. He always tried. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked. Tom smirked. “Not when you’re about to marry a stripper for stock options. This is better than N*****x.” I pressed a pal

The Velvet steamed with sweat and whiskey. Perfume clung thick to the air, and the floor gripped at my heels with every step. I’d walked this hallway a thousand times, but tonight it felt different — like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole. I tugged my jacket tighter, the cheap red dress beneath catching at my thighs. I didn’t want to be here. Not after signing Carter’s damn contract. Not after handing my name — and my future — to a man who looked at me like paperwork instead of flesh. But pride whispered. Fear screamed louder. Fear he’d come for me. Fear he wouldn’t. In the dressing room, Megan was fixing her lipstick, silver bikini glittering under the harsh lights. “You sure about this?” she asked softly, eyes catching mine in the cracked mirror. I forced a smirk, tugging at my corset laces. “What’s another night?” My hands trembled as I pulled tighter. The ribs pinched, air thinned. Pain anchored me. But suffocating behind armor was easier than choking on fear. The m

I woke tangled in sheets too soft, too clean. For a suspended second I thought I’d dreamed it all, the Velvet, the contract, Carter’s shadow cutting through my life. But the stillness pressed too heavy. No upstairs neighbor dragging chairs. No TV screaming through cracked walls. No frying pans above. Just muffled stillness, sterile and hollow, swallowing breath before it could rise. I turned my face into the pillow, breathing in cotton that smelled faintly of detergent and money, like the kind of store I’d never dared to step into. No cigarettes, no body spray, no cheap perfume. The absence was almost louder than the noise I’d grown up with. It scraped something raw inside me. My skin prickled against cotton smooth enough to make me uneasy. I’d fallen asleep naked, too drained to climb back into the dress abandoned on the floor. Sequins twisted, smoke and sweat still clinging like fingerprints from the Velvet. For a moment, I thought about leaving it there. Letting it rot on the pr