Priorities

It wasn't like she wanted to go along with what Jessica wanted, Niki thought. It was a question of, well, priorities. Micah needed food. Niki needed rent money. The state would only give her so much financial assistance per month so naturally she had to make up the shortfall somewhere -- hopefully with a job that paid cash.

Fortunately, Jessica was very good at finding jobs that did just that -- though they did tend to be a bit embarrassing. Not quite as embarrassing as having a husband whom everyone assumed to be a felon but embarrassing enough.

Like that life model gig Jessica made her take a few months ago. It didn't pay much but it paid better than nothing. For some strange reason, Jessica seemed to prefer having Niki work for art teachers who were into having their models do what she called Gessas Aesthetik poses. In English, that meant "Backside Aesthetics" but in the real world, it basically meant Niki having to stand up and face away from a whole crowd of art students while wearing nothing more than a smile. Not the most uncomfortable type of pose in a physical sense but since Niki could never quite tell what reaction the art students were having to an uninterrupted view of her naked butt -- and of course, Jessica never told her -- she quickly learned to prefer a more full-frontal type of pose. After all, if a whole crowd of people were going to draw pictures of her naked body, it somehow made Niki feel more comfortable if she could see the expressions on their faces.

Anyway, here she was again, preparing to strip naked in front of a crowd of strangers and this time it seemed unlikely that any of them would prove to be as polite as the average art student. True, there didn't seem to be any rough customers out in the audience, but you never can tell. Indeed, as Niki climbed up the stairs to her stage and prepared to go into her act, she could not help wondering what type of person she was going to run into.

Would her first lap dance customer be that odd man with dark brown hair who kept arguing with his waitress about something that looked like a tuna fish sandwich?

Or would it be the shy guy with the glasses and a trench coat who looked like one of those mild-mannered reporters? After all, the way he kept looking at her, you'd think he had X-Ray vision.

Or maybe her first customer would be one of those two sailors on the other side of the room. The ones who were fighting over some skinny brunette who, for some reason, chose to come here as a customer, not a dancer. Not that brunette quite had the type of figure Niki would associate with a potential dancer but still. And anyway, with her luck, Niki would probably have to give a lap dance to the big muscle-bound sailor because the small, skinny one seemed to be interested in doing nothing more than eating cans of spinach.

Niki was just beginning to warm up to her first song -- for some odd reason, Jessica chose to have the D.J. play an old Cure song called "Why Can't I Be You?" -- when she noticed yet another would-be customer staring up at her from the edge of the stage.

She bent down to show him a glimpse of her cleavage and said, "Hi, there! I'm Niki. What's your name?"

The man just grinned and replied, "Ben Wilkinson."

Ben Wilkinson? Niki thought. Oh, well. Not the most interesting name she ever heard but at least with a name like that, he wasn't likely to be associated with the Russian Mafia or some Latin American **** cartel. Which was a good thing because with everything else going on tonight, she really did not need that type of trouble.