The Fugitive Luna

Chapter 3: Isabella

*** CONTENT WARNING!!!*** Depictions and descriptions of s****l assault are alluded to in this chapter. Reader discretion is advised.

“Isabella! ¿Dónde demonios estás?” [Isabella! Where the hell are you?]

I rise slowly from my resting spot in the back corner of the dressing room. The girls are already here getting ready for the night and the house mother is in a particular mood as she sweeps into the back of the house.

“Estoy aquí, Rosa. No hay necesidad de gritar.” [I’m right here, Rosa. No need to shout.]

I move through the crowded dressing room to stand in front of her. She seems pretty happy tonight, but she always has a ‘special assignment’ for me. It typically is never the best situation. Most of the time it is entertaining groups of men who get slobbering drunk. I am one of the few dancers who is good with the drunks and she takes advantage of that. She will do whatever it takes to make that pretty penny, even if it means throwing me into unsafe situations during the operating hours.

“Isabella, serás la bailarina principal esta noche. Descubrí que un grupo grande de hombres vino a la ciudad desde México esta semana.” [Isabella, you will be the main dancer tonight. I found out a large group of men are in town from Mexico this week.]

I gulp. I know what will happen if I refuse. It won’t be pretty.

“¿Estás seguro de que estarán aquí esta noche?” [Are you sure they are going to be here tonight?] I swallow hard as she nods her head enthusiastically. I sigh and start getting ready for the night. I know it is going to be a long one.

I have been living under her roof, well under the club roof, since I got here about two years ago. It took several months, but I was able to make it to the Gulf and then swam across the border into the United States. After I made it, I didn’t feel safe living in Texas, so I asked around and most everybody pointed me to Alabama. It was far enough away from Mexico to be safe without diving into the Cuba range.

As an omega she-wolf, I can blend in better with the humans than most. It was even easier since I didn’t actually have my wolf yet. I know the night of my first shift is going to be rough, but once that happens I hope that I will be able to get more clients or find a better life for myself somewhere else.

I lied to her when she found me curled up on the streets and told her I was seventeen. She never bothered to look into it, and I never bothered to try and tell her the truth. She took me in, clothed me and did something I never dreamed would happen. She gave me a job right from the start. Since I wasn’t ‘eighteen’ yet, I started off just cleaning the club during the day and playing house keeper. She paid me very little, but it was enough to buy food when the club opened and enough to be allowed to stay here when the doors were closed.

I would always watch the girls practice during the day and some of them started trying to teach me how to dance. One of the girls, Sapphire, really liked me and started to truly look after me. She taught me how to do all of the complicated dance moves and even showed me some of the better floor moves. It made my life so much more fun while I was just hanging out in the club all hours of the day, that was until Rosa caught them teaching me.

At first, all she did was scold me for wasting their valuable practice time, then it turned into criticizing me for doing everything wrong. From that point on, she turned into a drill sergeant training me to be the ‘best dance’ she would ever have. If I did things right, I was able to go about my normal day and do whatever I wanted to do. If I did things wrong, she would force me to find other ways to make up the money she lost from my poor performance.

In some ways, it was better in the long run, but it was still humiliating, degrading, and worst of all, emotionally deteriorating. The quickest way for a girl to make money in this town is to either strip or sell her body on the streets. When the stripping is hard, my body has to be utilized.

The club always gets a dancer fee and then ten percent of the earnings from the strippers. It is written into their contracts that they sign prior to their first night on stage. Mine is a bit higher because Rosa cheated me and I was too stupid and too young to understand what was going on. I have to give her twenty percent of my nightly tips. The contract is good for only three years. If they decide to keep you on after three years, you can negotiate a lower tip out amount, but if they don’t want you around, they will kick you to the curb and blacklist you from ever working here again.

I have seen her do it too many times over the last two years to girls I never thought would have any issues. They were better than me in every way as far as dancing goes, I just don’t understand why she would give them up.

I sit at the vanity and look in the mirror at the blank slate of my face. I see dark circles under my eyes and notice that my face is starting to break out from all the harsh chemicals I have to use every night. I know that I will be able to quit one day, I just know today is not the day.

I apply a face moisturizer and then add some primer. I allow it to sit for a couple of minutes while I shape my eyebrows for the night. Once I have them as shaped as I can get them, I apply my base and start the color correcting process. It takes me about thirty minutes to do my full face of makeup and then I set it with hair spray. The stuff lasts longer and works better than anything else I could buy on the market.

Once I have set my makeup, I move on to my hair. I opted for a simple but cute high ponytail. I curled the ends of my hair and set it with hair spray and then bobby pinned all of the baby hairs down.

As I finish doing my hair and makeup, our house DJ, Al, comes walking into the room. He is Rosa’s oldest son who just so happens to be really into strippers. His name is short for Alejandro, but since he was born and raised in America, he opts to use the Americanized nickname.

“Isabella que pasa mi mamita?” [Isabella, what’s going on my little mama?]

I sigh and shake my head. “Cut the s**t, Al. What do you want?”

He snickers and then comes right behind me while I am sitting at the vanity trying to fix my false eyelashes to my eye line. “You know you are really cute when you don’t run your mouth.” He wraps his hand around to the front of my face and squeezes my cheeks really hard. He bends down and whispers softly in my ear. “Just remember who you belong to at the end of the night.”

I quickly turn around on the chair and nail him straight in the nuts. He doubles over in pain as he grunts out a solid line of curses in spanish. “¡Maldita y estúpida perra! ¡Maldita sea, eso duele! ¡Vas a pagar por eso, estúpido cabrón!” [You stupid f*****g b***h! Damn, that hurts! You're going to pay for that, you stupid cunt!]

“Alejandro Mario Manuel López! ¡Qué boca tienes!” [Watch your mouth!] Rosa shouts at him from across the room. “¡Y deja en paz a Isabel! Ella ya te ha dicho una y otra vez que no está interesada en ti. ¡Ahora vence!” [And leave Isabella alone! She has already told you time and time again she isn't interested in you. Now beat it! ]

I smirk as he drags his dead beat ass off the floor and limps out of the dressing room. I know he is going to f**k with my song choices for the night, but what he doesn’t understand is that I can dance to pretty much any song he throws at me. Unless the fucker plays Baby Shark again. I swear I will kill him in cold blood if he does that s**t to me ever again.

I lost so many potential clients that night because they all saw me as a literal child and were afraid I was underage and the f*****g bastard gave them a ‘warning’ that it was ‘shark week’. I seriously did try and kill him that night, but Rosa and some of our regulars pulled me off of his stupid ass before I could beat him to death.

I take one more look at myself in the mirror before I head out to start working the floor. We are supposed to get two drinks under our name by the end of the night and we have to get at least one lap dance as well. Lucky for us, the bar has a two drink minimum per tab so all I have to do is get two guys to say their drinks are for me or get one guy to buy both his drinks under my name.

I decided on my hot pink thong set with black fishnet leggings and my fishnet cover up. We aren’t allowed to walk around in straight lingerie unless we have already done our first set of dances. Once our first set is over with, then Rosa doesn’t care about it from that point on. I slide on my six inch pink butterfly platform shoes and head over to the bar to try and sell my drinks before my first set.