Love Grind

By Shelly Ellis

She’s used to baring it all . . . but baring her heart is a whole different story.

Down on her luck and broke, Jennifer Dudley long ago traded dancing in the chorus line for swinging from a stripper pole to make ends meet. She’s hoping an offer to come back home and teach dance at her old performance academy will be the opportunity she needs to fix her life. When she moves in with—and falls for—a fine software developer with brains and a boyish smile, she decides she might be well on her way to a second chance at success—and love. But her X-rated past may come back to haunt her, compromising her newfound happiness and hurting the ones she loves the most.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: May 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094418513

Shelly Ellis

Shelly Ellis is an award-winning journalist who earned her journalism degree at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her novel, Another Woman’s Man, was nominated for a 2014 NAACP Image Award. The romance and women’s fiction author is also a film buff and amateur painter. She lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, not far from Washington, D.C., with her husband. Visit her online at www.shellyellisbooks.com.

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Chapter 1

OK! Let’s do this, Jennifer Dudley a.k.a. Black Cherry thought as she settled her face into a sultry smile and strutted into the spotlight.

She did a pirouette, a high kick, and landed into a split. She pushed herself back to her feet then spun around the pole once, twice, three times. She was a beautiful gyroscope of flying limbs and purple hair. She raised her legs and hooked them around the pole, hoping to the Lord up above that the previous girl hadn’t made the pole slippery with hand lotion, makeup, or worse—baby oil.

Lisa is always wearing that damn glitter body oil, even though she’s not supposed to, Jennifer thought. She would set me up like that.

Not only would a fall be embarrassing, but Jennifer could easily twist her ankle up here. Just three weeks ago, one of the other dancers had taken a tumble in her platform stilettos on stage. Since then, the poor girl had been laid up at home in bed with her leg in a cast, watching lots of daytime TV while her bills piled up because she couldn’t make any money stripping.

Jennifer’s bank account was already looking slimmer than her four-inch heels; financially, she couldn’t stand to suffer a similar fate.

But luckily, the stripper gods were in her favor tonight. Jennifer’s thighs and knees held fast, and she spun around the pole again, then glided to a stop, staying suspended 20 feet off the ground if you counted the stage itself. She was lost in the music, lost in the high of performing that she’d felt since she was a little girl tapping her way across the stage at the MacLaine Academy of the Performing Arts.

Like on the pole, Jennifer remained suspended in her own little world, oblivious to everything around her—the lecherous men who huddled around the stage waving bills at her, the heavy smoke that filled the air, or the guy at the bar who couldn’t hold his drink, turned to the side, and hurled his seafood dinner on the strip club’s grimy tiled floor.

It was like she was back to that brief time when she performed Chicago on Broadway. She wasn’t grinding topless, but doing the cell block tango in front of a riveted New York audience. It was like when she landed that gig 10 years ago at the Kennedy Center in the chorus line for Cinderella. She wasn’t rolling to the side of the stage so a guy could tuck a 20-dollar bill in her a G-string, but gliding in her taffeta ball gown.

But when the music for her set stopped, the spell ended. Jennifer returned to reality. She realized she wasn’t on Broadway or at the Kennedy Center, but at a gentlemen’s club sandwiched between a hookah lounge and a burger joint in a Las Vegas shopping center.

All right, guys. Give it up for Black Cherry! Show her some love! the DJ said as she walked to the edge of the stage.

Jennifer heard a few half-hearted claps. One man let out a loud, ear-piercing whistle. She rose back to her feet with her balled up bills cradled between her arms and bare chest, and headed toward the velvet curtain where the next stripper stood, adjusting her neon pink G-string, waiting for cue to come on stage.

As Jennifer walked down a hall, rounded the corner, and neared the dressing rooms, she saw Sapphire in a red-sequined bikini, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Jennifer paused when their eyes met.

Sapphire had been stripping much longer than Jennifer though she was four years younger. The 27-year-old was covered in more tattoos than a Hells Angels biker, and had just as much attitude. She seemed to have taken an instant dislike to Jennifer. Sapphire hadn’t said one nice word to her since she started working at Sweet Escape more than a year ago. Today seemed to be no exception.

As Jennifer started walking again and passed her, Sapphire sucked her teeth.

Did all those flips and spins for that little bit of tips, Sapphire said, glancing down at the bills Jennifer held. She blew a puff of smoke out the side of her mouth. Poor thing.

Jennifer inclined her head. Aww, that’s so sweet that you’re concerned about my tips, girl, but maybe you should worry more about yourself and upping your game than how much I’m makin’.

"Upping my game?" Sapphire curled her lip and flicked ashes from her cigarette onto the floor. Excuse me? I turn it out, bitch!

By ‘turn it out’ you mean twerking for four straight minutes?

Well, not all of us think we’re in Cirque du Soleil. We know where we are. Besides, the men out there don’t care about all those tricks you do. They’re here to see tits and ass! Sapphire pointed at her surgically-enhanced double Ds. That’s it! And that’s what I give them, sis. She tucked her cigarette back into her mouth. And if they really want me to go that extra mile, I make ‘em pay for it. You can believe that! I make them pay big.

Jennifer pursed her lips.

That extra mile . . .

She knew what that meant.

Like Jennifer, most of the exotic dancers at Sweet Escape were just that—dancers, regardless of what the rest of world might think of them. But some girls like Sapphire didn’t mind blurring the lines between stripping and tricking. If a man paid her enough money, Sapphire was willing to do a lot more than a lap dance. But even if Jennifer needed the extra cash, she couldn’t do it. She had made plenty of comprises in the last couple of years, but she still had her limits.

 Jennifer rolled her eyes, deciding it would be a waste of time to keep arguing with this woman. She continued down the hall and stepped into the dressing room where some of the girls sat in front of their makeup tables while others were rummaging through their lockers.

Hey, Jennifer said when she neared her locker, spotting Bianca, one of the other dancers sitting on one of the benches.

She and Bianca had become fast buddies at the club. Sometimes, they even shopped together for costumes and wigs.

Bianca raised the zipper of one of her red vinyl boots. Oh, hey, girl! What’s up?

Not much. Just finished my set, Jennifer murmured.

Oh yeah? How’d you do?

Jennifer opened her locker to retrieve her money bag to stuff her bills in there and count them later, though she could tell from all the one-dollar bills she was seeing, her haul tonight probably wasn’t a good one. Not great.

Damn! Same for me last night. I don’t know why these dudes are getting so stingy! Don’t they know we have rent to pay?

Jennifer gave a sad laugh as she finished stuffing her bag and zipped it closed. She tossed it back onto the top shelf. I don’t think they care.

Jennifer always felt bad for the new girls who came into the club, eager as beavers, ready to make six-figures within a year. The truth was some strippers could make a good living, but most patrons didn’t make it rain. This life wasn’t a rap video.

On the rare night, Jennifer could pull in $800—maybe even a grand—but some nights she was struggling just to break even so she didn’t owe money in house fees or the tip out she had to pay to the DJ, bartenders, and waitresses. And none of the dancers could forget the cut they owed Uncle Sam. He wanted his money, too.

Bianca flicked her fire-engine red wig over her shoulder. I need to get a sugar daddy. Or maybe I should finally do one of those private parties Sapphire keeps trying to get me to come to.

Jennifer shook her head. Don’t even joke about that, girl.

"What? I’m not joking! She said you can make as much as five bands a night at those parties."

"Yeah, but what do you have to do to make five bands?"

Bianca rolled her eyes. Nothing that you don’t wanna do! Sapphire said it’s up to you.

And you believe her? Jennifer asked doubtfully.

Hell, I don’t know! Bianca shrugged. But I know one thing: the money I’m making here and at other clubs around town isn’t cutting it anymore. I have three mouths to feed, and a baby daddy who can’t pay more than a $100 a month in child support. If Sapphire has a line on more work . . . I mean, why the hell not consider it? She cocked a finely arched eyebrow. Don’t act like you don’t need the money either. Didn’t your roommate skip out on you?

Jennifer grudgingly nodded.

Her roommate had posted a farewell note on their fridge last week while Jennifer had been at working at the club. It’d said that she was leaving Las Vegas and moving with her boyfriend back to Oakland.

I tried to make it work, but Sin City just ain’t for me, she’d written. Love you though!

Jennifer appreciated the goodbye, but she would have much rather the note had been attached to a check covering the previous month’s rent that her roommate owed her. Or maybe she could’ve left a check for rent that was due at the end of the month.

Damn! Help a sister out, Jennifer had thought with exasperation as she balled up her ex-roommate’s goodbye letter and tossed it into her kitchen waste bin.

 Now Jennifer had to come up with almost two grand in less than a week to cover the shortfall, as well as figure out how she was going to pay rent on her own until she found a dependable roommate to replace her old fickle one.

See what I mean, Bianca now said. Maybe if we go to a couple of her private parties together, you and I can watch each other’s backs!

No! Stripping is one thing, but even being associated with the kind of stuff Sapphire does is not a good look. What if I audition for a show, and one of the producers recognizes me from one of her parties?

Girl, you’re being serious, right? Bianca deadpanned. "You’re a stripper! What if they recognize you at all? You really think they’re gonna see much of a difference between strippin’ and trickin’ anyway? Most folks don’t! Besides, why are we even talking about this? When’s the last time you’ve even got an audition? When’s the last time you did a show?"

Jennifer grimaced. Bianca was right; Jennifer hadn’t landed a Las Vegas show at one of the casinos in more than a year. She was no longer a chorus line dancer trying to make ends meet between gigs; Jennifer was solidly an exotic dancer now.

An exotic dancer, but I still don’t do sex work, she silently corrected. And if she agreed to do parties with Sapphire, she knew she’d be headed in that direction.

Either way, it’s a no for me, she insisted.

Well, it’s a maybe for me. And if things keep going the way they’re going, it could be a ‘yes’ by the end of next month. Bianca loudly exhaled. Just think about it. Okay? Maybe you’ll change your mind when that bank account starts getting low.

It already is, Jennifer muttered as she reached inside her locker to get her costume for her next set.

***

Jennifer adjusted the tote bag on her shoulder as she climbed out of her rusted Ford Taurus. She slammed the car door behind her and slowly made her way across the parking lot.

It was