(no subject)

[takecourage]

Alex is mostly running the Club on Paper these days. She spends most of her time in the office, doing paper work, pay-packets, one eye on the monitors showing the security feed. She does the rotas and, when needs be, she does a shift behind the bar. Sometimes, she does a set up on the stage or works the floor for a while. She doesn't need the money these days, but, as ever, she likes the way that it makes her feel.

Like tonight. Tonight, she's left Danny at home and she's working, sometimes behind the bar, sometimes on the floor. She's put weight on in Darrow, and the dress that she's wearing exploits that fact to its full advantage, hugging from tits to mid thigh, leaving the tattoos on her arms on show but hiding the ones on her hips, for now.

When she sees Eddie, she grins, making a beeline for him.

"Having fun?" she asks, leaning over the back of his chair.

Comments

[didntrun]

"Being a nineteen-year-old male can explain a lot of behaviour," he answers. "It's when we hit mid-twenties that we have to get our shit together."

At least, that's what Eddie thinks. Until twenty-two, he thinks he can be a little bit of an idiot when it comes to pretty girls. He's had a couple of girlfriends, but nothing serious, and he doesn't even know if that's something he wants right now. Maybe not ever.

"A discount?" he asks, grinning. "You must really like me."

[takecourage]

"Yeah, you're okay," says Alex, smirking against the rim of her bottle for a moment before she sets it down again. "You remind me of someone I would have really liked to know as a teenager." Eddie looks like the kind of person Len might have been if he wasnt also a complete fucking asshole. Eddie looks like the kind of guy girls like Alex are supposed to end up wtih, if they don't end up with Daniel Tabor Arlington the fucking Fifth.

[didntrun]

"You'd have been in the minority," he answers with a laugh. It's a real laugh, indicating that it had never really bothered him much, the way the people of Hawkins decided to look at him. He wasn't going to let their uptight panties in a twist personalities ruin his good time.

[takecourage]

"No accounting for taste, I guess," says Alex, ruffling one hand through her straight hair and taking another swallow of her beer. "You need a run down on the rules, Munsen?" She sets down the bottle and stands up, smoothing her dress over her thighs.

[didntrun]

She's really hot and Eddie's eyes go over Alex before his gaze drops back to his beer, as if he shouldn't look at her like that, since they're kind of friends. But also he's here and she'd asked him to come and he's going to pay her.

Plus, Eddie has learned, stuff like this is looked at as legitimate work now, which is cool.

"Let's hear the rules," he says as he looks up again.

[takecourage]

The look combined with the way he's clearly embarrassed by wanting to look is kind of wildly endearing, and Alex grins.

"Okay. Flat rate for a dance is usually fifty, but for you, it's twenty," she says. "G-string stays on. You can't touch me, but I can touch you, unless you definitely don't want that." She tucks her hair behind one ear. "Tipping is encouraged."

[didntrun]

"Are there guys who don't want touching?" Eddie asks, genuinely curious. The rules are easy, he can be respectful and keep his hands to himself. Alex has to be the one in charge, that makes complete sense, and he's more than okay with that.

"Otherwise, aye aye, captain," he says, saluting her. "I'm a good boy, I can follow the rules."

Well, he can follow these rules.

[takecourage]

"Yeah," says Alex, nodding, reaching for her beer again because there's a song halfway through. "And consent is important, dude." She takes a long swallow of her beer. "Also, there's the option of the VIP room. Pricy but I'll do you a deal if you want to be able to make yourself comfortable."

Honestly, she'll refund him a chunk, if that's what he wants. She mostly just wants to see what he'll say.

[didntrun]

"Hey, I saved up for this," Eddie answers. "Gotta properly compensate a woman for a job well done. Especially if she's a friend?"

They're not best friends, they don't know each other that well, but well enough that Eddie thinks they're friends. He's here not only because she's hot, but because he actually likes hanging around her.

"Is that better?" he asks. "For you?"

[takecourage]

"The VIP room?" She shrugs, picking up her beer again. "Means I can take my time and we can talk easier. Suppose it depends." She's danced for friends before, friends who thought they'd be way more into it but freaked out the moment she went to take her bra off. "Whether it's going to be worth spending the money."

[didntrun]

"Then it seems like an obvious yes," Eddie answers. Maybe it'll be a bit more expensive, but like he said, he'd saved for this. That might seem a little stupid to come, but Eddie, knowing it's sort of shitty, really wants to see her boobs, but also really wants to stay friends.

So if he's going to get to see her tits, he thinks, as a friend, he needs to pay her well for it.

[takecourage]

"Let's do it," says Alex, holding out her hand to him and wiggling her fingers. She's been threatening to get her knuckles tattooed lately, mostly just to see how pissed off she can make Danny. "Do you want the champagne, or would you prefer beer?" She grins. "We cater to all tastes, and I'm the one in charge, so..."

She's practialy married (as married as girls like her get to boys like Daniel Arlington, says that little voice in the back of her head) and Eddie is a friend, she thinks, but, still. It feels kind of good to feel free enough to flirt a little.

[didntrun]

"Oh, man, I will stick with beer," Eddie answers as he picks up his drink in one hand and takes Alex's outstretched and wiggling fingers with the other. She's so hot. So, so hot. He's probably going to die.

"Trailer trash, remember?" he asks, then grins brightly to show the words don't bother him. "I'm not exactly the champagne sort."

[takecourage]

Alex tips the bartender the nod for more beers as she leads Eddie across the floor of the club towards one of the curtained off VIP boothes. "I didn't grow up in a trailer, but it wasn't much better," says Alex (and, in the case of Ground Zero, she's pretty sure it was much, much worse). "You can acquire a taste for that kind of thing." She leads him into the room and nods towards the couch - there's a pair of them, as well as a low platform in the middle of the space. "Make yourself comfortable. It's normally a couple of hundred, but I'll do it for fifty down?"

[didntrun]

A couple hundred is a lot of money, but Eddie had been prepared for that. He knows she's offering him a deal, so he digs his wallet out and then looks at her.

"So I pay right now? I don't... I've never actually done this."

He almost feels embarrassed. Almost, but not quite, because he's going to pay her more than the fifty she's just said and he wants to make sure he does it all right.

[takecourage]

"You pay for the room right now," says Alex, nodding to the side table where another couple of beers has appeared. "And then tips are at your discretion." She sits down on the couch opposite him, crossing her legs and tilting her head, her dark eyes narrowing slightly as she studies him. "How seriously do you want me to do this, Eddie? Like, I can take my clothes off and fuck around and treat you like my friend, or..." She stretches the syllable out a little. "I can take it seriously."

[didntrun]

He's not sure what the real difference would be, but Eddie puts a hundred down on the table, because even though she'd said fifty, he can do better than that at least.

"Seriously," he says. "Yeah, I think so. It'd be good."

[takecourage]

Alex's dark eyes flick to the note that Eddie puts down, and the corner of her mouth flickers into a slight smirk. She leans forward, pushing up to her feet and walking over to slip her phone into the dock, selecting something with a solid beat.

"Seriously," she says, letting her voice slip a little lower, a little huskier. "Right." Her hips pick up the rhythm as she walks back towards him, the fabric of her dress riding up against her thighs. "I can work with that."

[didntrun]

She's definitely a professional, that's all Eddie can think as Alex walks toward him. The music is right, her voice has changed, and his eyes are drawn to where her dress slips up her thighs bit by bit.

Of course she's a professional. He's just never been in this situation before.

"Okay," he says, keeping his hands in his lap. "Good. Great."

[takecourage]

"Hands at your sides," she says, a suggestion, but with an edge, mostly to see how he reacts to it. "You want me to be able to sit in your lap, don't you?" Her hands skim up over the line of her body, from her hips to her tits, cupping lightly, her dark hair framing her face. "Why don't you tell me what you're into, Eddie? So I can make this really, really good for you."

[didntrun]

Eddie drops his hands like she's told him. She's the boss, he figures, she knows how this goes better than he does.

He watches as her hands move, his gaze following as she touches herself and he swallows hard, wetting his lips before he shakes his head, already a little amazed. "Uh, I don't know," he says. "Girls."

[takecourage]

"That's deeply fucking cute," says Alex, one eyebrow lifting. Her hands still on her tits, she squeezes, the fabric of her dress shiny between her fingers. "But that's not quite what I meant. What I mean, Eddie, is are you a tits..." She tugs at the neckline of her dress, revealling more smooth, olive skin and then she turns, bending from the waist and knowing exactly how she'll look when the fabric of her dress pulls tight. "Or an ass man?"

[didntrun]

"Holy shit," Eddie replies, as if that's an answer. It isn't and it is at the same time, because both, holy shit, both. She's so hot and Eddie likes her beyond that, which adds a whole other really cool dimension to all this.

"Ass, I guess," he finally says, laughing a little. "But both."

Because, as he's mentioned and isn't going to say again, he's nineteen. Everything is amazing.

[takecourage]

Curtained by her hair, her back to him, Alex bites her lip over a grin at his reaction. She stays bent over for a long moment, before she reaches back and runs her hands up the backs of her thighs.

"I can work with that," she says, shifting so that she can look back at him and wink.

[didntrun]

He's going to have to focus really goddamn hard if he doesn't want to end up making a total idiot of himself. With his hands down by his sides, Eddie clenches them into fists, resisting the urge to ball them in his lap to cover the fact that he's already kind of getting a boner. And she's barely done anything.

"You're good at this," he says.