Plan B

By Katie de Long

The exotic dancers and employees of the Queen of Clubs walk a fine line, with only wits, beauty, and market savvy to keep them from toppling into the shark pit. Ride shotgun through lapdances, romance, and sexual awakenings. Don't worry, these girls won't ask what your hands are doing under the tip rail.
As she prepares for her son's graduation, Lia's life is turbulent enough. But when an injury sidelines her, she'll have to reevaluate her choice of career. A decade and a half on stage is isolating, and her new friend Jackson could be just the ticket to rediscovering herself.
Plan B contains mature language and content. It is a novella-length work that can be read standalone, or with the rest of the Love and Lapdances series. It was first published as Queen of Clubs: Lia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katie de Long
• Release date: Jul 13, 2015

Katie de Long

USA Today bestseller Katie de Long lives in the Pacific northwest, realizing her dream of being a crazy cat-lady. As a kid, Katie flagged the fade-to-blacks in every adult book she encountered, and when she began writing, she vowed to use cutaways sparingly. After all, that's when the good stuff happens. And on a kindle, no one asks why there's so many bookmarks in her library. For more information on Katie's work, visit delongkatie.com.

Book preview

Plan B

Love and Lapdances #9

The exotic dancers and employees of the Queen of Clubs walk a fine line, with only wits, beauty, and market savvy to keep them from toppling into the shark pit. Ride shotgun through lapdances, romance, and sexual awakenings. Don't worry, these girls won't ask what your hands are doing under the tip rail.

As she prepares for her son's graduation, Lia's life is turbulent enough. But when an injury sidelines her, she'll have to reevaluate her choice of career. A decade and a half on stage is isolating, and her new friend Jackson could be just the ticket to rediscovering herself.

Dedication

For all the whores, sluts, and bad girls I've known who turned those names into compliments.

This story has a glossary in the back, for some strip club terms.

Plan B

Love and Lapdances #9

I still remember the first time I saw actual pink in a strip club. Back in the day, girls got naked, but didn't really do anything once the clothes were off. That time, the dancer squatted down to pick up her money, her knees apart, and every man in the room turned to look at the flash of labia. When they didn't fire her for it, I knew then that the industry was going to hell, and was going to take me with it.

After fifteen years as an exotic dancer, you develop a sort of autopilot. Jiggle your tits here, bend over there. Men honestly aren't all that difficult to turn on. I didn't really want to take my turn onstage just then; I had a regular waiting to buy my time. But it was a slow enough evening that it would cost too much to get out of the set.

Derek was setting up for the night, and he called me to the stage. There were several men at the rail waiting, and I made my way up there, stopping to touch the back of their necks, introduce myself. It's a little personal touch that helped me stand out, made me something other than a fish in a bowl, swimming for their amusement. And when you get to be my age, you have to have something other than just your looks pulling them in.

I picked up the bottle of alcohol by the stage, and sprayed some into the rag to wipe it down. Well, I tried; it must have been a busy night closing, because no one had bothered to refill it. I shook it at Kitty behind the bar, and she nodded. She was plainly too busy with customers for the moment to bring me a replacement. So I ran the bare cloth up and down the pole, doing my best to make it look sensual, like an eerily metallic handjob.

A man came in and waved at me. I couldn't remember the last time he was here, but it must have been two years ago, at least. You stick around here long enough, and you learn people's rotation. Hardly anyone is only here once, even if they aren't one of the permanent fixtures.

Two of the younger dancers, Lee and Petaline, slid up to him immediately. I gritted my teeth. After Lee was through with him, no clean fun I could offer would be enough. Girls like her training guys like him were the reason why most of the girls made a quarter as much as the dancer generation before them. And two on one wasn't going to be profitable for either of them, and was likely to put him off buying anything at all. I tried not to roll my eyes.

I danced around for my immediate audience, focusing on the up close and personal floorwork, so long as they were paying for it. I'd stripped down to the tiniest of thongs before the tips dried up, and I backed away to dance for the more general club.

I gripped the pole and locked my legs around it to spin. The room spun, something I'd enjoyed in my younger years, but that now just left me feeling a little woozy. I released my legs, then after my feet were under me again, my hands, and let the rotation carry my body weight into another spin. Anyone could look effortless if you just practiced a few transitions. I leaned my weight into the next spin, and my hands slid, skidded off the pole along a streak of oil. I tried to clench my legs around it to grab a different part of the pole, but gravity was working against me. The last thought I had as the spin's force pulled me away and my head hit the ground was Damnit, I told them not to use lotion anywhere near the club. Someone's gonna hurt themselves.

After a point, stripping, there's not really a social humiliation that can pull you down. You've run into regulars' wives, been recognized while out with your own family, been shamed, harassed, humiliated, ostracized. But the more of it you go through, the less it fazes you. At least, that's what I thought before I woke up on a gurney in nothing but a thong and nine-inch heels, with a snickering nurse doing her best to fill out the paperwork, although no one knew my name. I never carried my ID to work—too risky. Not when a regular could bribe one of the other girls to sneak a look at it to get information I wouldn't give him. And at a strip club, real names are almost irrelevant, unless you mean someone harm. I didn't understand why the nurse never looked down to realize I was awake, until my senses returned enough that I became aware of a torrent of words spewing from a terrified face on my other side.

"She just went flying. Hit her head here, and her arm was like this, at that awful angle—" I tried to focus on the speaker, and realized it was Lee. I wanted to be hostile; I didn't like her in the club, why would I want her acting as my medical proxy while I was out? Her concern was touching, though. I wouldn't have expected to wake up next