Twerk

By Isobel Blackthorn

Desire, a spark, and a decision made too fast. A Las Vegas stripper is plunged into the depraved world of a psychopath. But is she the only target of his twisted desires?

A regular Sunday night in a Las Vegas strip club is rocked when a local oddball dies mysteriously during a private dance.

Amber falls immediately in lust with the hot paramedic who arrives, and follows him outside. But her casual encounter quickly descends into a terrifying, twisted nightmare from which she is unable to escape.

Five days later, it’s Lana’s next shift at the club. She’s a fly-in-fly-out dancer paying her way through law school – and she’s Amber’s best friend. But where is Amber, and what about the dead client? Was it an accident, suicide, or murder?

Finding neither the police nor the club are taking much interest, Lana conducts her own inquiries. Thrust into a web of lies and deceptions she is determined to unravel, she's desperate to uncover the truth about the death, but the person she most needs to speak to is Amber.

An addictively dark, psychological thriller, Isobel Blackthorn's 'Twerk' exposes the working lives of strippers beyond the glamor - the challenges, the rewards, and the risks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Mar 23, 2023

Isobel Blackthorn

Isobel Blackthorn holds a PhD for her ground breaking study of the texts of Theosophist Alice Bailey. She is the author of Alice a. Bailey: Life and Legacy and The Unlikely Occultist: a biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey. Isobel is also an award-winning novelist.

Book preview

1

HOT FOXIES

Paco Rabanne ?

She leans back against the pole, hard metal cold on her skin.

Yeah, Paco Rabanne.

She poses, pirouette style, in her high, high heels and skimpy lingerie.

Or Armani maybe.

She isn’t sure.

Whatever it is the douche in the Tom Ford suit must have taken a bath in it.

She slides her butt down, nice and slow for him, pictures his face. Holding the squat, legs splayed, she marks time with the music – one, two, three – and pushes upright. Warrant’s Jani Lane whoops to a backbeat; Cherry Pie – sweet. It’s like muzak in a shopping mall, she’s sure she heard it in Wal-Mart the other week.

She tilts her hips, eyes the guy in the chair, now with a noticeable bulge in his Tom Ford suit. She arches her back, rolls her pelvis forward, undulates her belly, and lets the movement flow up her lithe body.

The guy with the suit bulge stares. It’s a Zombie stare.

Not a talker then.

A steady bass throbs through the space, making the air swell and contract.

She sways effortlessly to the beat, snaps off her bra and gives the slow reveal, putting on her best lip-parted pout.

His hands grip the armrests exactly where she’d left them. ‘No touching,’ she’d told him.

He would obey.

His whisky glass, cellphone, billfold and keys are on a small table beside him.

He’s boosted.

They are almost always boosted.

Yet he’s nervous, and guilty with it too. Wears his guilt in a fat band of gold wrapped around his ring finger.

There’s gold all about him; fingers, wrists, neck.

Probably in his teeth, she’d hazard a guess.

What’s his name?

Could be a Gary.

Or a Larry.

Or a Harry.

But it’s Frank.

Yeah, Frank. Good ‘ole Frank.

She takes a step forward. Slips off her G-string, lets it fall.

He ogles her flesh.

She really doesn’t care.

She really doesn’t care about Zombie Frank, all fancied up in his expensive Tom Ford suit.

She’s indifferent.

To his heat.

To his stink.

To his gold-ringed fingers.

To his vulgar and obvious crotch bulge.

The song ends, the next beginning on its tail: Bruno Mars, That’s What I Like, as if Swanky Frankie was ever gonna get it.

She wonders what Amy in the next booth is up to with her douchebag, Billy.

Another forward step in her high, high heels and she kneels on the chair, hooking her feet on the insides of Frank’s thighs, to press them open.

No closure. No contact.

As she gyrates her pelvis.

As she teases.

As she strokes at the air down there between her thighs and his.

She goes in close, breathes in his ear.

And takes a peek at her watch, its huge silvery face as large as her wrist, its distinct numbering illuminated in the dim light of the booth.

Three.

She leans away from Frank-en-bulge, arches her back, grasps her sweat-dampened breasts, and rubs them against his cheeks.

She thinks she still has half a protein bar out the back.

Maybe some of last night’s stir-fry.

Or did she finish that earlier?

The song pushes on.

Her pelvis grinds to the rhythm.

She leans forward, rests her arm against the cold brick wall behind him, sinks her flesh into his face, ignoring the hungry lips, the scratch of stubble.

Swanky Frankie lets out a slow, throaty moan.

She parts the velvet curtain and peeks into the next booth.

Amy’s on her guy.

They exchange eye rolls and a grin.

She lets the curtain fall.

Lets her mind drift.

The song seems far too long.

Her butt, locked in the stomping groove, starts complaining. The instep of her left foot cramps.

She eases herself off Frank.

He grabs her waist with his hot damp hands and pulls her down.

She swings round.

Backhands his face.

He’s stung.

She steps forward, grabs the pole, twirls round slowly.

Twirls round slowly again.

As Bruno Mars approaches his sudden end, she turns away from the guy – swanky Frank-en-bulge – and sits down in his lap.

She leans against him, feels his breath hot on her bare shoulder.

She throws her head back, grabs hold of her breasts and puts on a show of faked self-pleasure.

He releases a slow rumbling groan.

She thinks he sounds like a bloated frog.

Feels her laughter rise.

He’s satisfied.

She slides off him. Peeks into the other booth.

Amy’s still on hers.

She’s grinding the air above his crotch.

Her head’s thrown back in fake ecstasy.

He should be in ecstasy, too, but his body jerks in short, twitchy spasms.

That doesn’t look right.

He’s convulsing.

Does Amy even know?

Does she know there’s white foam leaking from the corners of his mouth?

His eyes stare straight ahead, bulging like they’re being squeezed out of him from the inside.

Amy tilts her head forward for effect and locks her gaze with his.

First there’s disbelief.

Then her mouth falls open.

She emits a curdling scream.

She’s off him, like the Devil himself is on her ass.

2

AMBER

Ididn’t expect to fall in lust.

He’s gorgeous, that is all I know. He wears a uniform and the guy is quite simply drop-dead, freakin’ gorgeous.

I’m leaning, back to the wall, arms folded beneath my skimpy black bra. Ahead of me, Billy sits dead as the proverbial in his seat in a lap-dance booth. In my side vision, Amy stands in the corridor a few booths down. She’s, blubbering loudly, her barely-dressed body shuddering like she’s freezing or something. Trey, the most rule-bound security guy in Las Vegas, tries to comfort her in that clumsy, inept way of his. At times he can be endearing, but tonight he comes off as just plain creepy.

The lighting is low, the air – warm and stuffy – reeks of cheap perfume, expensive aftershave and a rank undertow of stale male sweat. The other dancers and their guys have exited in favor of the bar. The DJ chooses this moment to play a little Nicki Minaj, as if to put a seal on the fire coursing through my veins.

Barbie Tingz thuds out through the cheap speaker system; that’s me, that’s us, that’s what they all think of us as we stand tall and shake our bare asses in gossamer-thin G-strings and stripper heels, wasp-waisted like plastic dolls.

The paramedic is not about to give up on poor, dead Billy, yet even I can see there’s no breath and could hazard a good guess at no accompanying heartbeat, either. Billy-boy is just a limp body and a drool-smeared face. The eyes are a sure giveaway, they always are, wide open and blank like that, fixed on something unseen in the middle distance. There will be no reviving him.

The paramedic grabs Billy’s shoulders, then pulls back, changing his mind. He glances around. A little help would be nice.

Trey frees himself from Amy. Allow me.

Together they ease poor ol’ dead Billy off his seat and lay him out on the floor on his back. His head flops limply to the side, as if he were inspecting the sticky carpet.

Management, in the form of Jane, storms through the heavy black door to hurry things along. She wants Billy gone. She wants the pathetic, blubbering Amy gone. There are fifty dancers on the floor needing to use these booths to service paying clientele. A cadaver is never going to be good for business.

Hot Foxies is caring like that.

I quickly lose interest in Amy, Billy, the hustle, the lost income, in fact, in the club altogether. My gaze is fixed on the shape of the paramedic’s back and that cute butt that is fortuitously angled straight at me, those taut glutes contracting and releasing as he pumps Billy’s chest.

Trey hovers, watching.

Can’t you get a move on, Jane snaps, addressing the paramedic with her usual lack of finesse.

I’m going as fast as I can, ma’am, he says, without pausing his chest compressions. But, as you can see, I’m on my own here.

Jane huffs in annoyance and rushes back out to the floor. She returns in seconds. Who else was in here? she demands, adding, – for the police. An obvious afterthought.

Frank, Amy says, before calling over to me. Amber, you were on Frank, right?

The paramedic looks up at me, then at Amy.

Moments later, a guy in a double-breasted suit and pencil tie marches in, offering his assistance.

The paramedic pauses and gives him a cool look. And you are?

A doctor. The guy kneels down on the other side of the body and checks the vitals. How long has he been like this?

I step forward. Ten minutes, I’d say.

The doctor and paramedic both look up in unison. There’s an uncertain pause as those two pairs of eyes drink in my exposed flesh, before they both turn back to attend to the body, the doctor on wrist and eyes, the paramedic maintaining a rhythm on Billy’s chest.

After a short while, the doctor says, Stop.

The paramedic ignores him.

"I said stop. He’s gone."

Wearing a look of cool obedience, the paramedic withdraws his hands from Billy, and sits up on his haunches.

The doctor stands, reaches into an inside pocket of his thousand-dollar suit. Deftly, he extracts a business card and tosses it at the paramedic. I’ll sign the paperwork later. Then, without another word, he walks away.

The paramedic pockets the card and begins packing up his equipment. Jane, Amy, Trey, me – we all look on. The paramedic takes his equipment out to his truck and returns with a stretcher.

Hey, you, he says to Trey and points down at the body. Not yet cold but I can no longer think of it as Billy.

Trey takes the shoulders, the paramedic the butt, and the two men roll the corpse onto the stretcher’s rubber base.

The paramedic looks across at me, his eyes locking with mine. There’s a slow, intoxicating pause. A current of something arcs between us and I’m filled with white heat in an instant. As if he knows, a small smile raises the corners of his mouth, before our gazes part ways and he returns to the task of shifting the ever so lifeless Billy.

I let my hands fall, shift my weight on my vertiginous heels, and relish the delicious tingle rippling deep inside my belly.

Trey takes the other end of the stretcher, and the two men carry Billy away.

Seeing Billy finally leaving the area, Jane disappears. Amy goes with her, still blubbering. Any moment now, dancers will be leading in their men.

I should follow Jane, go to the bar, mingle, hustle. But, I’ve already made two grand tonight, all thanks to a couple of early VIPs, a buck’s party, and swanky Frankie the high roller – and I’m so over more of the same. It’s Sunday, the third night of my weekend, and my feet are aching like bastards. The energy I started out with on Friday night is long gone. My mind is hazy, fogged, my usual mental sharpness blunted by absolute fatigue.

Me, sensible Amber, born on a sheep ranch under a lucky star, a good judge of character, not one easily fooled, decides to call it a night in favor of welcoming sleep.

But, it’s the other Amber, the one who comes out to play sometimes, the one with Barbie Tingz on replay inside her head, she’s the one who follows the paramedic outside.

Mr. Sexy Paramedic and Trey soon have Billy in the back of the ambulance.

You’ll catch your death of something standing out here like that, you should come back in, Trey says, ogling my scantily clad torso as he makes his way back inside.

He’s surrounded by bare female flesh pretty much seven days a week, does the man not ever get tired of it?

He’s right about me catching something, though. I’m certainly hoping to.

I can’t stand out here for long, not dressed in nothing but skimpy black lingerie and a wristband stuffed with cash. I glance around. There’s no one in the parking lot. It’s an area used for deliveries, mostly. Poorly lit, the parking lot is rendered invisible from the main parking area out front by the rear wall of the club. Across the empty tarmac is the freeway, brightly lit and glowing sodium yellow. To one side, in darkness, an auto-repair shop. A sudden waft of tepid night air, and the acrid stink of urine assaults my nose. Against the club wall two large trash cans sit side-by-side surrounded by the empty beer bottles, fast-food packaging, cigarette ends and used condoms that haven’t made it all the way into the garbage. Without doubt, the back of the club is a lonely place, unsafe, and certainly nowhere for an almost-naked dancer to be standing.

Is there something you want? the paramedic asks me as he closes the back door of his meat wagon.

Apprehension stirs in me, cold, stark reason slicing into my mind a shaft of brilliant light.

I better be going, I say, backing away.

You came out here for a purpose.

His gaze settles on me. He has lady-killer eyes. I succumb to an uncoiling deep within, and the light in my head goes out with an almost audible pop.

I wanted… I trail off.

He is still looking at me.

What’s your name?

Amber.

Amber. Pretty name. He extracts his keys from a front pocket, tosses them in the air and catches them with one hand. Amber, he says, his voice oozing suggestion, you have a choice. You can do what that security guy says and go back inside. Or you can get in my truck and tell me what it is that you want from me.

Framing it like that puts me in control. I run through my options. I’m almost naked – my clothes are in my locker in the changing room. As is my cellphone. All I have on is a plunging bra and a G-string that hardly even covers the most private parts of my anatomy. Plus my heels and cash, of course.

I pause.

Look, Amber. It’s the end of my shift. I need to get this guy to the morgue, and then I’m off home for a cup of cocoa and a movie followed by a big, long sleep. You’re welcome to join me. Or I can drive you home.

I need to fetch my keys and phone.

No time for that, baby. I need to get going. Your choice.

The back door to the club opens a crack and Post Malone’s Rockstar spills out, its sultry lyrics helping make up my mind. No one comes out and the door closes.

I walk over to the passenger side of the truck, thinking maybe I can buy something to wear later.

And that is the last sensible thought I have.

3

LANA

Y ou’re kidding me?

I meet the gaze of two pairs of painted eyes. Amy’s are hazy, the lids heavy, Jasmine’s sharp and wide. My own shift back and forth, my mind not quite believing what my friends have just told me.

He did. Amy sounds insistent. Ask Amber. She was in the next booth and pretty much saw the whole thing.

I plan to.

Heading for the shower room, I squeeze past a tight knot of dancers, picking my way over the array of shoes and bags tossed on the floor. My friends follow on behind.

The changing room is really just a long and wide corridor, strip-lit, with lockers lined up on one side. Beyond the lockers is a makeshift kitchenette. A long and low laminate bench stretches along the other wall, capped at the far end by Jane’s desk. She is currently our House Mom. The mirror above the bench is lit by bright, white globes, evenly spaced in clusters of three. The room reeks as it always does of fake tan, hair spray and cheap perfume, odors that never seem to obliterate the rank smell of stinky fridge or whatever some dancer has just heated up in the microwave.

I enter the shower room through the always-open door, my entourage of two shuffling in behind.

"Where is Amber?"

Dunno, Amy says. Haven’t seen her since.

Yeah, like one minute she’s dancing with some high roller in the booth next to Amy’s, the next she’s taken off with the paramedic. What a slut.

We all laugh, but I detect the barb in Jasmine’s quip. Amber’s lustful appetite is legendary, and only a few of us dancers in the club are willing to accommodate it.

Besides, even if she did go on an escapade last Sunday, Amber would never miss a Friday night. She’ll turn up. I’m sure of it.

The pair huddle in the cubicle, Jasmine in the doorway, Amy leaning against the partition wall. Amy’s too close. She seems drunk. No, not drunk, shit-faced. Already? It’s only nine. She’ll never go the distance in that state. There’ll be no sense coming out of her mouth for the foreseeable.

Neither Jasmine nor Amy look capable of telling me anything more. Why bother persisting? Call it compulsion, for I can no more stop my inquiring mind than Amy can her insatiable thirst for alcohol.

Tell me about Billy again.

He looked pretty fucked up when you took him for that dance, Jasmine says, ever the mouthpiece. "What was it they were playing? Minaj? Nah that came later. Billy was already dead by then. Must have been Iggy and that god-awful Problem. Guillermo needs to get his fuckin’ playlist sorted. Anyways, I remember, cos I was about to take a high roller in for a dance and Jane told us to go away and wait. Fucking hip-hop night. She pauses. Maybe it was Lil’ Kim…"

For music she hates, she sure knows a hell of a lot about it.

Knowing the two of them are going nowhere, I adjust my position on the cold, plastic seat, spread my legs and release my pee.

So, did you take him for a dance as soon as he came out of the toilets?

Amy shifts her weight. What do you mean?

I thought maybe he’d taken something. Foaming at the mouth like that. Flashing into my mind is my lecturer in criminal law, Mrs. Grisham, who relishes in delighting her students with details of the most gruesome deaths. Then again, Billy could have had an epileptic fit. Can you actually die of those? I’m just trying to get a better sense of what was going on before.

Amy shrugs. You know Billy. He was hanging off me all night, as per. Only he’d won big at the casino, and he wanted to take me for a dance to celebrate. A faraway look comes into Amy’s eyes. It was weird seeing him with all that cash, though.

I hold out my hand.

Not as weird as it will be not seeing him lurking at that end of the bar anymore, Jasmine says, handing me a baby wipe.

Guys, he’s fucking dead, okay? I can’t believe I’m even at work right now.

Chill, babe.

I stand, flush and leave the cubicle, pushing past Laurel and Hardy. A private place for a private conversation? Not a chance. There are over thirty dancers in the changing room, and besides, the toilet is never private. No one closes the toilet door, or the shower room door, for that matter. Not ever.

With my friends trailing behind me, I wend my way back down the changing room, returning to my chair over by the thick, black curtain that separates us from the club’s floor. Almost as a reflex, I position the chair at right angles to the mirrored wall, all the better to survey the room. Dancers chattering, gossiping, laughing, applying makeup, fixing their hair. Just a normal Friday night at the club. Yet Billy’s dead and Amber has not been seen all week. I can scarcely take in what I’ve just heard. I go Internet-free for a week and return to this? Poor Amy. How can a guy die while having a dance? It’s appalling and selfish, not to mention inconsiderate. Although it’s no more selfish and inconsiderate than all of the guys who get off on treating us dancers like shit.

Amy and Jasmine hover in front of me, Amy propping herself up against a chair back like a floppy doll determined to remain upright. Her movements are syrupy, head bobbing, hair cascading across her face in thick, black ribbons. She can’t be taken seriously at all when she is seriously pissed. Although, it is a good way of dealing with the drama. A way, one way, but far from the best way. Besides, she’s on a drinking ban at the moment, and if Jane catches her like this she’ll get her sorry ass fired.

The bass line of Baby D’s Let Me Be Your Fantasy pulses through my head, my chest, through my whole body, and through everyone and everything in the room. Is Guillermo the DJ or did they hire someone else? He usually works weekends but it could be anyone tonight. No one else appears affected by sound. Every dancer here is preoccupied with her ritual transformation from woman to men’s fantasy.

Jasmine adjusts her bra and matching hi-leg booty panties. They’re made of purple lace and suit her trim figure and firm thighs. I’m gone, she says, bending to observe herself in the mirror and plump her hair. She gives my reflection a sideways stare. You coming?

I eye the wad of cash on Jasmine’s wristband. I dunno. I know I really ought to, but hustling with Jasmine is never the best idea.

Jasmine shrugs and turns away. She’s having a good night. Her wristband is bulging with fifty-dollar bills after one of her regulars arranged an early booking. Pretty soon her wad will have gotten even fatter.

Jasmine, aka Valeria, is a single mum of about thirty years old. She has a two and a four-year old, and she’s been working on and off for seven years. The dad has the kids at weekends. The younger dancers are jealous of her. Little wonder. She’s a size eight, super fit and absolutely stunning. And despite the two pregnancies, the only plastic surgery she’s had so far is a boob job.

She pushes through the heavy velvet curtain and disappears into the glamour beyond. Sharp lights glint here and there, only to be absorbed into the black when the curtain falls back into place with a soft swoosh.

I curl my thumb and forefinger around my own wrist. One solitary hundred after I got lucky hustling a couple of steelworkers from Chicago hell-bent on gambling away their year’s savings in Vegas. There’s my board, my share of my parent’s huge winter power bill, and my personal trainer to pay. I have to cover the flights back to New Mexico, never mind the course fees and the textbooks. Why the hell did I have to go and pick criminal law? I have to buy Practical Guide to Evidence by Tuesday. To top it all, I’m almost out of protein powder. I squeeze my wrist again. I’ll need to work the whole night to cover it, and then some.

A loud squeal at the other end of the room, and I glance in the mirror as a dancer I’ve not seen before opens the fridge door and bends to peer inside.

Ew! Shut that freaking door! Sarah shrieks, holding her nose.

The new dancer pulls her head out of the fridge and yells, Shut your freaking mouth, babe! I’m getting a sushi roll!

"I thought you people only ate tacos," Sarah rips on her.

A snigger ripples around the room, but the atmosphere is charged, everyone waiting for the response.

At Pablo’s, ya mean? the new dancer retorts. "You got that all wrong, babe. Like, totally. We only eat pussy – just like you."

The room breaks out in laughter, none of it real.

Pablo’s? Then the new dancer in our midst is a high-profile showgirl from Miami, a guest at our club, and no doubt here with a list of guys already pre-booked. She’s the stripper equivalent of a high roller.

There was totally no need for that taco barb, and it wasn’t even funny. In fact, Sarah has put herself on dangerous ground. Half the dancers at Hot Foxies are Latina and she knows better than to stir trouble with them. By the look of her, though, standing there all flustered, she knows she’s let her tongue run away with her and clearly regrets it. Lucky for her, aside from the dancer from Pablo’s and her hangers-on, there are few Latina dancers in the changing room, and none seem poised to take issue. Jasmine would have flared at her for sure.

The trouble with Sarah is she can’t abide outside competition.

Competition?

The word pulses through my mind, sending off waves of conjecture. Is that what someone thought of Billy? A guy at the bar stealing Amy’s affection?

I picture him there on Sunday night, in his favorite spot in the corner of the bar, propped on a stall, a fixture. Almost a week has passed now. What are the cops doing? Probably nothing. Would they even bother investigating the death of a bum like Billy? Probably not. He was a waste of space, a down-and-out no hoper, a lonely heart who smelled kinda off and had a missing tooth. I could never figure out what