Chapter Text
This was, conceivably, the worst idea Rumi had ever had.
Celine would kill her if she found out. She could hear her step-mother ranting already about appearances and bad influences and the thought nearly made her turn around.
Nearly.
Because she was already here. Because it would piss Celine off. Because she was an adult and she could do what she wanted when she had that rare night off. Because she'd never done anything like this before in her entire life and she'd never done anything like this in her entire life.
"Jinu, I can't do this."
Her friend rubbed the bridge of his nose, "This was your idea, Rumi."
She looked at him, at the long suffering smile on his face, and then out the car window at the flashing neon signs, "Yes, it was an idea, and now we're here and it's real."
"Jinu, my dearest friend and occasional PR date," Jinu said, pressing his hand to his chest, "I want to see breasts, help. Also I need a ride in a car that people won't know is mine."
Her face turned beet red, "That is not what I said!"
"It is basically what you said."
"I hate you." She pushed the car door open, pausing to stare at herself in the mirror. Hair down and wavey, hanging down to her middle back instead of in the french braid she was known for.
"So we're doing this to spite me now?" He laughed, getting out of the car and tossing her her jacket and hat, "Trust me, you'll like this place. The girls are very pretty."
"I'm … going to need a drink." She pulled her hat on and flung her jacket over her shoulder.
"I'm afraid you'll have to power through this on your own," Jinu said, wincing. "This is full nude and they can't serve alcohol."
Rumi stared at him over the roof of the car, "…well fuck me…"
"They can't do that either." Jinu's voice was far to cheery, "I mean they probably could but I don't think this is that kind of place and I never pegged you for the kind of person to take a stranger home for sex. Have you ever even had sex with a woman?"
"Oh my god just shut up!" Rumi sped past him for the door before she could chicken out, "Why are we still friends?"
He grabbed the door and pulled it open for her, "Because we don't bullshit each other and it means the PR dating actually sells because we like each other."
Rumi paused in the door, then let out a sigh, "Thank you for coming, and I don't mean that as an emergency excuse in case I get found out."
"Just try not to fall in love, they're paid to make you fall in love."
"I don't fall in love that easily," She retorted.
"Liar," Jinu's smile both warmed her and made her a little nervous. It was the smile he reserved for when he was planning something. Rumi squinted at him, then stepped inside.
Inside she found a little room with a short hallway leading to another door. Along a wall was a window with reinforced glass and iron bars. A woman was inside, leaning back in a chair and writing in a notebook with her right hand while she played with a butterfly knife in the other. She had black hair pulled into a pair of space buns, and when she looked up and saw them she was so beautiful it stole Rumi's breath. It was like her fair was dusted with stars.
A nudge from Jinu made her approach the window, "Uhm. Hi."
"Heya! It's thirty bucks cover but tonight ladies are half off." Even the girl's voice was cute.
"Okay," Rumi squeaked, reaching into her purse and pulling out some cash. The woman was fully dressed in cargo pants and a t-shirt and she was already monosyllabic how was she going to survive a stripper?
This apparently made the girl smile wider, her eyes flicking across Rumi's face as if she thought she looked familiar, "First time?"
Shit shit shit.
"… pretty obvious isn't it." Rumi's face felt like it was on fire. On the plus side blushing like a virgin probably made her harder to recognize. Probably?
"Relax, you'll be fine."
The girl was really cute and her smile both made the flutters in Rumi go crazy and calm down, she wasn't sure how that actually worked and Rumi stalled in part because she was nervous and in part because this girl was cute.
"Do you uhm, have any advice? I have no idea what I'm doing."
"Relax, have fun, don't touch," the girl said. "That's part of the torture, honestly. Because you're going to want to touch." She leaned forward, chin on her hands, "But I'm going to need to card you both first."
"Nice," Jinu said.
Rumi blinked, pulling out her ID, "There's no way I look under eighteen."
"Company policy!" She gave both IDs an elaborate, over-exaggerated inspection, hmming as she did so.
Unexpectedly, Rumi felt herself start to relax. Something about this woman just made her feel safe and welcome.
"You don't look a day over twenty." Winking, the girl handing Rumi's ID back to her.
Rumi fumbled it, "Thank you pretty."
Oh god. Without another word she pushed Jinu towards the door to the club proper. The girl's laugh behind her was so beautiful she almost turned back to go talk to her more, but pushed onwards.
The song playing over the speakers was familiar to Rumi, a leggy brown skinned woman with eyes almost like silver was on stage moving in time to it in a way that was hypnotizing. Jinu had to guide Rumi to a seat and push her down because she couldn't tear her eyes away. The hiproll she did during 'Pretty girls don't do drama 'less we wanna, it'll be depending on the day' was criminal.
The dancer noticed her as her routine ended. She winked before turning with a toss of black hair and strutting off the stage. If Rumi had had any doubts about liking women, they had just been obliterated. Completely destroyed, her eyes locked on the woman's butt like she had no choice in the matter.
Girls hot.
"You okay?" Jinu asked, chin on his hand.
"Girls hot." Her cheeks warmed up when he laughed.
Like the beating of a heart, the opening notes to one of her songs started playing and she sunk down in her chair a little bit, "You've got to be kidding me."
Jinu's grin made her want to smack him, "You know, if I was going to pick any of your songs to strip to, it would be this one."
The woman who came out next had long, dancer's legs like the first—which gave Rumi an epiphany—but she was pale, with long pink hair that swished behind her like a cape. Her face was severe in a way that left Rumi breathless and her fingers twitched as she imagined caressing her jawline which was somehow even less of a safe thought as caressing those legs was.
She wanted to cut herself on this woman.
Rumi knew dance training when she saw it and that only made her intrigued. There was art here, which she genuinely hadn't expected and it only made it more beautiful. Every movement was precise and practiced but with a hint of fire behind it despite an expression that barely shifted. But it did shift; the corner of lips curling when she felt eyes upon her, a quirk of her eyebrow when she looked in Rumi's direction, eyes sharpening like Rumi was prey.
She was fit, toned in a similar way to Rumi, but all of her everything was exposed to her eyes and Rumi swallowed as she got close—
Why was she getting closer???
Jinu laughed and said something but Rumi didn't hear it as the stripper dropped to her knees and rolled her hips in Rumi's direction. Her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest.
He said something again and this time Rumi caught the word 'money' and she just kind of dropped the first bills she could grab onto the stage.
"Hey gorgeous." The thick husky voice did something to Rumi's brain chemistry that she was never going to recover from. Then she was moving away and the tiniest of whines escaped Rumi's throat. Far too soon, it was over.
Patting her shoulder, Jinu smiled and said, "I'll get you some water."
"Thank." She thought she was done now, cooked, she'd seen enough to fuel her for a thousand years. She could go home and die in peace but she wanted to know that woman's name, the taste of her thighs, her phone number, her favorite—
Then a hand brushed her shoulder and she jumped a full three feet as that husky voice breathed in her ear, "Want a private dance?"
Rumi made the mistake of looking at the woman, whose face was too close, too gorgeous. It was her eyes that really did her in. A dark brown that looked at Rumi like she had already planned on exactly how she wanted to make her scream.
So yes she wanted a dance and no she shouldn't do it because of reasons that presently eluded her. Rumi managed an affirmative sounding noise, which only made the woman's smirk bigger.
Then, she hooked her finger under Rumi's chin and curved it in a way that had Rumi on her feet before she knew what was happening.
Heart hammering in her chest, Rumi let herself be guided along and into a small private room.
Wordlessly, the woman handed Rumi a glass of water and she gratefully took a sip before the water was snatched away and set down on a little side table next to a couch and a couple of chairs. Then she was pushed towards a chair, "Sit for me, pretty girl."
A thousand articles had been written about Rumi's looks. About how beautiful she was, how hot she was, about the looks she'd inherited from her mother.
And it was a 'pretty girl' from this woman that lodged itself in her chest and refused to leave.
Making a sound she couldn't quite swallow, Rumi sat. Which was fortunate because her legs had immediately stopped working anyway and that was before the woman's hand wrapped around the pole in front of her and she lazily spun around it.
The lighting cast the woman in stark relief, her muscles like shadows on her skin. A song that wasn't one of hers—thank god—started to play and the woman danced, moving around the pole, effortlessly sliding up it, the show she was putting on for Rumi slower but more erotic and sensual than the way she'd danced on the stage.
It was if she somehow understood exactly what she needed to do to tease and taunt Rumi in particular. Rumi's breath quickened every time one of the woman's muscles tensed and she forgot her own name for a few seconds when the woman spun around the pole using only her thighs for support.
What would that feel like around my—
Then she straddled Rumi's lap, rolling her hips in time to the music, arms loosely wrapped around her shoulders, breasts so close to Rumi's face that she stopped breathing. The heat between them felt like a firestorm rapidly building with no hope of release.
The woman took Rumi's hat and tossed it aside before sliding her fingers into her hair in a way that felt—a yank of her hair had her staring up into those eyes again, their breath mingling. Rumi was sure her knuckles were white from gripping the seat of the chair beneath her and the sound she made was illegal.
"You're like a painting come to life," Rumi breathed, and the woman's cheeks darkened.
Her head was pulled back further—why did that feel so good— and she felt the woman's breath on her throat just before her hair was let go and the dancer leaned back, long legs wrapping around Rumi's waist as she arched back and grabbed Rumi's ankles as if showing off how flexible she was.
This was it. This was how she died.
Celine would be scandalized which made it worth it. It would be worth it in any event if this was the last thing she ever saw.
She watched as the woman straightened, then leaned forward over her, hair falling around Rumi's head like a pink curtain as she burned in smoldering eyes. God, she wanted to touch her and understood why it was torture now.
"Want to touch me, pretty girl?"
Keep calling me that keep calling me that keep calling me—
Her lips turned up, "It's okay to admit that you want it."
Rumi finally just nodded, gasping when she felt the woman take her hands and place them on her legs. Her fingers twitched and she dared to rub her thumb against smooth, warm skin.
"I don't usually do this, but anywhere else you'd like to touch? One place," The woman smirked, "Above the waist."
Immediately, Rumi lifted her right hand and trailed her fingers down the woman's cheek and jaw, her thumb moving just underneath her chin as she stared into her eyes.
That blush on the dancer's cheeks returned and her eyes softened just so, "Huh…"
Not trusting her own voice, Rumi just smiled at her. If this was a story or a love song she thought they might have kissed, but she shoved that thought down and buried it deep for the sake of her own sanity (and so she didn't get banned from this place).
The moment lasted a little while longer before the woman moved off of her lap, stretching languidly. Rumi watched, enraptured, before she remembered she actually had to pay for this.
But when she reached for her purse, the woman laughed, "Your boyfriend already paid."
"Ex boyfriend. Just friend, I'm single," Rumi replied, desperate to clarify that even though she'd probably regrettably never see this woman again. The thought felt like agony.
"Noted…" The woman's expression was that mask again but Rumi swore she saw interest there. Probably her mind playing tricks but she'd worry about that later.
She pulled out some money anyway, and put it in the woman's hand, closing her fingers around the bills, "And I like to pay for myself and you were amazing so please take this."
Let me pay for your car your house your entire everything I would do it in a heartbeat just to see you smile.
Somehow, just touching her hand did to her what the entire dance had done and she waved awkwardly before turning and sort of run-stumbling out of the room.
"Hey pretty girl, wait! This is way too much—" But Rumi kept moving, trying to walk like a normal person out of the club and past the stupidly pretty girl at the window who giggled at her in a way that made her stumble again—what I wouldn't give to hear that again—and then to the car where she put the AC on full blast and lifted her shirt up over the vent and groaned.
A few minutes later, the driver side door opened, the car rocking slightly as Jinu got in, "You okay? You look completely wrecked."
Face in her hands, Rumi nodded rapidly.
"Ready to go home?"
Again, she nodded, "Thank you… That was … I feel like I'm on fire."
She and Jinu hadn't worked out as lovers when they'd tried but dear God was this a night where she kind of wished they'd had because a cold shower was not going to be enough.
But she knew better and bit her lip before suggesting anything that would definitely be a mistake, "That woman, God…She could stab me and I'd thank her."
"Yeah, I get that. So you had fun?"
Rumi whined, her life now divided into 'before' and 'after' the pretty stripper.
Her dreams that night didn't involve any stabbing, but when she woke she felt as molten as she had in the club, the memory of pink hair and stardust clinging to her.