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It’s not exactly a slow night on Victoria Javadi’s first ever night at the Iron Rose, but it isn’t exactly bustling, either.
She isn’t up on stage, not yet. She’s sitting at a table nursing a drink and a basket of fries, hiding a blush. She’s never been to a strip club before; this was the kind of place girls like her were warned against going to. Which is exactly why it drew her in like a siren’s call.
“Can I get another Dirty Shirley?” she asks the waitress, a small Phillipina lady with kind eyes.
“Coming right up, hon. Are you here alone?”
Victoria nods. “Yeah. I’m a med student at UPitt, I just needed to be somewhere that wasn’t my bedroom or a hospital.”
“Med student, huh?” a nearby voice drawls. In her satin, plum-coloured robe with her legs crossed, The woman sits nearby. She’s nursing a drink, too, but Victoria can’t tell it’s virgin. Victoria thinks she looks elegant, almost, with her long legs and high heels, dramatic makeup and long nails that matched the colour of her robe.
She didn’t know the word for it yet, but she thinks this woman looks sexy. Victoria wants to be sexy, too. But she’d never have the confidence to do what that woman does. (Not to mention it would make her mother have an absolute heart attack.)
“Y-yeah,” she stammers. “Third year.”
The woman raises her drink in cheers before taking a sip, “All the power to you. Could never be me.”
“And I could never be you,” Victoria says.
“Yeah you could. Anyone could.”
“I haven’t even seen you on stage yet and I know that I couldn’t do it.”
The woman shakes her head, shooting her a disapproving look. Her auburn bangs cover her forehead and the way she smiles sends a shiver down Victoria’s spine. She’s not quite sure what to make of that, but the feeling excites her.
“Cassie!” An older blonde calls from the bar. “Five minute call!”
Cassie swigs the last of her drink, “At least stick around for the show, babe.” She flashes a smile as she puts a hand on the young girl’s shoulder in passing. She knows exactly what she’s doing to her.
Victoria doesn’t know if she wants her, or wants to be her.
On stage, Cassie is joined by two other women, both just as gorgeous and mesmerizing. One has tantalizing, warm caramel skin, her body moving like it knew the music inherently. The other woman, her dark hair was half pinned up with a matching bow. Her left arm peppered with miscellaneous tattoos that Victoria was intrigued to know the stories to. All three of them are draped in the same purple satin she had seen Cassie in earlier. They look ethereal, unreal almost, and she knows she’s staring, but she can’t help it. And isn’t that the point, anyway? Don’t they want people to stare?
“First time?” a thick-Pittsburgh-accented voice behind her asks, still loud over the music.
“Yeah,” Victoria answers, her cheeks heating with embarrassment.
“You got stars in your eyes.” The blonde reaches a hand out for a handshake. “I’m Dana, I run the place.”
Victoria shakes her hand firmly, the way she's always been taught to. “Victoria.” Her eyes return to the stage. “Hey Dana, what would it take for me to work here?”
Dana looks her up and down. “How old are ya, kid?”
Victoria looks down at her shoes, her cheeks heating.
“Come back when you’re old enough.”
“I-I’m over eighteen!”
“That’s not enough, hon.”
“I’ll be twenty-one next week.”
“Okay, come back next week, then. I can’t have liabilities in my establishment. You’re a cute liability, customers will love ya, but still.”
“But I’ll be–”
“Nope. No exceptions.” Dana interjects.
There’s a brief pause, then Victoria smiles. “You think customers will love me?” she asks. It wasn’t something she knew she wanted, until it was.
“How could they not?” Dana cocks a grin. “Alright, when’s your birthday?”
“Tuesday.”
“You got plans?”
Victoria shakes her head. “I don’t, uh, I don’t really have friends–”
“Well, you do now,” Dana cuts her off. “You got plans and friends. 3pm? For an audition?”
“I’m in class until 4.” Vic swallows hard.
“Jesus Christ,” Dana mumbles under her breath. Here she was trying to frame this as a positive– she wasn’t letting this poor kid spend her birthday alone– meanwhile, she was actually poaching a future scholar. “Alright, come by after class. But not after 8.”
“Yes ma’am,” Vic answers. “C-Can I call you ma’am?”
“Only when my greys are showing,” Dana mutters. She rubs Vic’s shoulder before disappearing back into the club. “I’ll see you Tuesday, kid. Happy early birthday.”
Cassie’s eyes catch her from the stage, her entire chest spilling from the top of her bustier.
Oh boy.
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“Javadi.” A woman with caramel-golden curls pronounces her name the way her parents do, the right way. And then she says something that is surely not in English.
Victoria stares at her blankly, and the woman laughs, leaning forward with her elbows on the bar. “So no, I’m guessing your family doesn’t speak Farsi?”
“Oh,” Victoria laughs nervously. “No, uh, my parents speak Arabic. We’re Hindu, though, they were born and raised in India.”
“Baran.” She introduces herself quickly, with a smile before continuing their conversation. “Sounds like a rich family story. Are you a close family?”
“They’re doctors,” Vic explains, “The expectations are high for me to follow in their footsteps. It’s never felt like there’s been any other choice.”
Baran nods. “My parents are university professors, I understand.”
Victoria’s gaze flickers, but then steadies with bravery. “Can I ask– does this drive a rift, between you and them?”
“Does what?”
“You work at a strip club.”
Baran’s smile doesn’t waiver. “You say that like it is a bad thing.”
“It’s not exactly a conventional career. You know the only conventional careers in Eastern parents’ minds are doctors or lawyers, maybe bankers, maybe real estate…”
“They tell their friends– they tell themselves– that I am an entrepreneur,” Baran says. “They also live in California, so the distance helps. I have made… a few life choices over the years that have not gotten their stamp of approval… but sometimes you have to be okay with making choices that are different from the ones your parents would make for you. It is just part of growing up.”
Victoria smiles. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to hear that. She’d spent the last almost twenty one years always looking for somebody’s approval; old habits die hard. Maybe this next chapter would be the start of loosening that habit.
There was still one more person’s approval she needed, though.
Dana joins them at the bar as the heavy door behind her closes with a thud. She’s smoking a cigarette. Vic’s going to have to acclimate herself with the smell.
“Let’s get this show on the road, birthday girl! Shall we?”
Victoria nods, wide-eyed. She plugs her phone into the stereo system in the wings, and the sounds of a pre-breakdown Britney tune that’s older than her thump through the speakers.
“Oh, Jesus, not this song,” Dana mumbles, leaning against the bar with Baran.
Baran’s grinning, clearly having taken a shine to this girl. “Men are going to love her.”
Dana knows she’s right, doesn’t mean she has to like it.
Men are gross. Men keep the doors open, gas in the tank, and the grandchildren spoiled.
When Victoria’s finished with her set, it isn’t only Dana and Baran clapping. Dana looks behind her to see Cassie and Trinity on the stairs along with one of her daytime girls, Emery, clapping along with them. Emery whistles just like a guy would.
Victoria blushes so hard at the girls’ attention. “What do you think?” Baran asks, over her shoulder. “You girls think we should hire her?”
“You would be fools not to!” Emery says. “I know you are fools, but you’ve kept the doors open for this long, so…”
“I know this is, like, an anti-feminist question,” Victoria starts– and Dana can’t wait to hear what’s about to come out of her pretty little mouth next– “but like, are there men that run this place? Do they have to sign off on hiring me?”
Baran scrunches her nose in half-hearted disgust. Dana just chuckles. “We’ve got Robby, the building’s in his name. But I'm your daddy, new girl.”
“The testosterone generally stays in the basement,” Trinity chimes in from the stairwell.
“What’s in the basement?” Victoria asks.
Trinity laughs loudly. “Oh you haven’t introduced her to Jack Rabbit yet?”
Victoria’s brow raises slightly before the group of women all start heading towards a darkened hallway, a stairwell leading down to a half-lit concrete lined basement, before ushering her to follow them. Dana flicks on the light at the bottom of the stairwell and they crackle alive, illuminating the metal of the cages in front of her. No one is down here right now, they have it all to themselves.
Victoria gasps. “What kind of kinky shit goes on down here?!"
Trinity, for one, can’t help but laugh. “Oh my god, no.”
Emery is quick to cut in. “Well–”
“The Iron Rose is two things,” Dana says. “It is a night club–”
“–and a fight club,” the girls finish off in unison.
Dana nods, looking at Victoria. “Dealbreaker?” she asks. “You can learn to fight, too, if you want. Jack has taught most of the girls, he’d love to teach you, too.”
Victoria nods. “Maybe I’d like that,” she says. “But, let me learn the dancing first?”
“We can teach you that, too,” Trinity says. “Welcome to the Iron Rose, baby!”