Letting Love In

Chapter One

The stale smell of smoke invades my senses as I step into the dingy bar. Manny, the barista looks to me as the small bell jingles, signaling a customer has just walked in. Realizing that it was just me he smiles, showing off his yellowing crooked teeth, his gaze travels down to black leather mini skirt and my too tight top that has the 'Best Bar in Town' scrawled across it in sloppy cursive writing to advertise the bar.

Being seventeen and working at a bar with a conjoined strip club can be difficult. Everyone here thinks I'm at least twenty one, my ID says I'm thirty six, but I barely look seventeen let alone in my late thirties. If you have boobs and a nice body, you can work at pretty much any club in Virginia. Living in a small town really helps though because no one gets suspicious when I walk in all dolled up in dark makeup and tight leather, as long as I'm dressed to impress or in my case dressed to the club standards best I have free rein to do as I please.

As far as working night shifts and then having school the next day goes, I'd say I keep up fairly well. I have a 4.0 GPA and I manage to get my work done every day. School is my main priority now that my mom has been off her rocket more than usual, she can't seem to stick to one guy or keep a job at some dingy place like me. I'm worried about her, we don't have a very close relationship, but she's all I have, she's all I've ever had. My father was a snatch it and pass it type of man, he slept with my mom and then left her the next morning and nine months later she had me. He doesn't even know I exist, my mom said she tried to find him, but without his phone number or even a last name she had no luck.

"Get your perky ass to work Mini!" Manny shouted at me as I was zoning out. My mom has called me Mini for as long as I can remember because of my short five foot height, so I chose that as my bar name. I think the main reason I was hired here is because of how I look so innocent. Men like innocence because they feel as if they can corrupt it or use it to their advantage somehow. I have the waist length blond hair the big crystal clear doe blue eyes that still have the innocent look to them even though I'm far from it. I know the real world and what it's like to try to bring in a steady income every month. I know struggle and I sure as in hell know survival.

My shift tonight is better than usual, I've only my been grabbed a few times and I've made one hundred and fifty dollars in tips which is extremely good considering how cheap people like to be around here. I think most of my money came from a burly man dressed in a large black hoodie and black slacks that I have never seen anyone in the bar wear before. With how much money in tips he gave me makes me assume he's not from around here and that he must be loaded, he gave me a fifty dollar tip for a drink that cost about five dollars. I refused the most eyes at first, but he only pushed it further away from him ever time I I tied giving it back to him. The only time he spoke to me was to get his order, he didn't even look at me or let me see his face, but keep went with it and didn't bug him because of it.

At closing time my feet ached because of my six inch heels that are mandatory and my wrists hurt from the position I hold the shot trays by. My clothes reek of alcohol and sex, the strippers do lap dances after eleven and most of them are practically having sex in their chairs by twelve. Carl, the bar owner had wanted me as a stripper, but I could never bring myself to have my body out in the open for prying eyes to see. Showing off my body is too intimate and open for me and letting a whole bunch of strangers judge it and oggle over it doesn't sit right with me.

Since I'm not closing up tonight I decide to start heading home. The walk to the run down apartment only takes five minutes at a brisk pace. I don't trust this part of town in the middle of the night when I'm dressed like a hooker, actually I don't trust being in this part of town in broad daylight dressed in a nuns outfit.

As I see the apartment up ahead I take in the dark brick that is turning a nasty black color and how it somewhat tilts to the side. The complex is only big enough to fit four separate people. My mom and I make living in a one bedroom work with our handy dandy pull out coach and the lone mattress she sleeps on in the box sized bedroom. The living room connects to the miniscule kitchen and the closet space bathroom is beside my mom's room with a small step in shower and toilet. The bathroom sink is broken so we have to use the one in the kitchen to brush out teeth and to wash our hands off.