The dance

Mary stood in the middle of the strip club, trembling, both hands on the inadequate skirt to try and keep it down. She tried to ignore the music that blared.

A sea of faces stared back at her, indistinct beyond the staring eyes, and the look in them that left no doubt as to what they wanted her to do. This couldn’t be happening.

A holler went up; Mary started moving. They wanted her to dance, right? She wasn’t much of a dancer, but if it delayed the rest of what they wanted she’d happily learn.

Just so long as she kept her dress on.

She looked around, increasingly panicked. Was there any way out of this place?! Short of going backstage where the manager waited, there didn’t seem to be any semblance of privacy where she might transform, or any route to run that didn’t take her past a dozen men blocking her way.

She turned around a full three-sixty degrees, surveying the place and trying to disguise it as dancing, feeling an awful, awful sinking feeling.

There wasn’t any way out.

She turned again, and almost stumbled over her own feet to the back of the stage, where unsurprisingly she ran into the man who’d left her in this whole mess.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed. “Get back out there, and don’t come back here without a few tips and without that dress.”

He shoved her roughly back on-stage, making sure to slip one of the dress straps down to reveal her shoulder. Several people in the crowd gave a cheer.

This couldn’t be happening to her. Mary swallowed, feeling all the eyes on her.

She’d had the chance to go to college. She was a superhero! And now she was expected to get naked for the entertainment of all those men.

Trembling, she reached up to the other strap of her dress.

There had to be another way out of this, she told herself, looking around frantically. She nervously approached the edge of the stage, ****.

If she just made a break for it… who even knew? It didn’t look remotely possible, and she wanted to avoid as many grasping hands as she could. Which left the stage.

She had to get this over with then. Her inexperienced, shaking hands managed to slip the other strap down, and her body only had to sway for a few seconds before the lightning-bolt emblazoned red dress slipped off her body.

She tried vainly to cover herself with her arms, not even pretending the sorry excuse for panties offered her any modesty, shaking all the more while naked in front of all those people. Sobbing, she whirled around, too humiliated to even think about the unobstructed view she was giving of her ass.

There, she’d gotten naked! Now could it please be over?!

The man standing backstage glowered at her, shaking his head.

What?! She whimpered. Why couldn’t she leave?! Did he really want her to spend longer out here?

She stopped, staring in blind panic back at him, as good as naked in the middle of the stage. She couldn’t focus on anything more than the hopelessness she felt.

At least until she felt a hand. She squealed, stumbling away, but not before a patron left a dollar bill neatly folded over the string she had for panties.

Oh god. Tips. He’d said tips. She was vaguely aware of how that worked from a few TV shows, and the prospect of so many strangers having their hands so close to her…

Mary turned back around, tearful, naked, shaking, facing the club with nothing beyond her arms offering her body any cover, futilely crossing one over her boobs and one over her pussy and suddenly realising that she’d been showing off her butt.

And there was still no way off stage.