your head down and your ears open. Mr. Santucci doesn’t like people appearing too interested in his business. He needs another runner. I already told him about you,” Jimmy cautioned.
“Are you sure this is legal?” Lucien knew it wasn’t, but he couldn’t help asking anyway.
“Legal enough. Look, all you have to do is take the purse from one place to the other. Don’t ask questions; just do as you’re told. You get paid when you deliver the purse.”
“Why would he trust me?”
“Because I’ve vouched for you, so don’t fuck up, Lucien. It ain’t every day an eighteen-year-old gets five Benjamins for a simple walk. You do it good and he’ll assign you four or five runs a week.”
It seemed to Lucien a bad business practice to trust some unknown kid to carry a night’s worth of profits. Five hundred bucks was probably a fraction of what the purse held. What was keeping Lucien from taking off with the purse besides the sheer fear of getting caught? Santucci had the reputation of being very smart, but this didn’t seem smart unless there was more to the story. Either way, Lucien was greedy for the money because he was tired of living hand to mouth. He had only left St. Agnes two months before and he was coming to learn that making it on your own was hard.
They walked into the club where they were meeting Mr. Santucci, and Lucien’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He had never been in a gentlemen’s club before. There were women everywhere—bare tits, G-strings—women shaking their wares for all to see. A large stage with two poles occupied the front of the place. The music played softly as the two women on stage worked the poles. A section of the stage jutted out into the middle of the room with rows of chairs flanking it. In the middle of that was another woman, on her back, her legs spread, but she looked zoned out: probably doped up on something. Far in the back, where he could only assume the customer lap dances were done, were a few more girls, but they were doing an entirely different kind of lap dance. Despite his disgust, he felt himself growing hard.
He heard Jimmy laugh, which pulled his attention.
“You gonna wanna take care of that, boy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take one and do her. It’s one of the perks of the job.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No man. Pay them and they’ll do anything you want.” As if to prove his point, Jimmy reached for the first girl who’d made her way over to him. He disappeared with her behind the red velvet curtain.
Lucien should take one; maybe by fucking her he’d forget the softness of Darcy’s skin, the silkiness of her hair, the way she made small love noises when he sank into her the countless times they’d made love in those few incredible weeks before she’d ripped out his fucking heart. Maybe he’d forget how he had given her everything he had to give and it wasn’t enough. The fact that he still thought of her disgusted him and it was that more than anything that made him walk behind the curtain to find Jimmy with the girl kneeling in front of him, his hands fisted in her hair. Lucien watched them with a detached callousness.
When Jimmy came, he grunted as he continued to push into her mouth, and then he pulled from her, wiped himself on her shoulder, and zipped up. He reached into his pocket and flicked a few twenties from his pile at the girl. Without a word to either of them, he turned and walked away. The girl didn’t seem to care as she stuffed the cash into her G-string before she stood up.
She moved her hands up her body and squeezed her own tits before lifting one to her mouth and wrapping her lips around the nipple. Her eyes stayed on Lucien as she started sucking, then she purred, “Want a turn?”
Darcy’s face filled his mind, and, wanting to rid himself of her, he took the two steps to the girl. His hand slipped between her legs where he pushed one finger roughly inside her. When he added a second finger to the first, she moaned and bit her lip. He worked her with his fingers as his mouth closed over her other tit, sucking that peak deep as he fought to exorcise the one who haunted him.