Page 24 of White Lights
The music changes—“No Ordinary Love” by Sade—and the woman begins a slow and mesmerizing dance on the table. Diamond nipple rings glint on her spectacular breasts as her body rolls. She eye-fucks everyone who happens into her gaze.
And suddenly, she’s eye-fucking Dez.
Dez stills as the stripper walks across the table toward her, bends down, and takes hold of her Dairy Barn lapels.
“Wanna dance?” the woman purrs as all around Dez people pound on the table and cheer.
Dez clears her throat. “I’m good.”
“I don’t think you are, though,” she says in Dez’s ear, sending shivers down her spine. “Don’t be shy. I can show you how.” Up close, the diamonds in her nipples remind Dez of that snow in her hand.
She gulps a breath, glancing at Rafe, who’s watching her with one eyebrow raised.
“No thanks,” Dez tells her, lifting the woman’s long, pointed, purple nails one at a time off her shirt. She steps away, a little dazed. Shedoesn’t have the money to pay this woman nor the desire to make a first impression on her fellow students by getting a lap dance in her Dairy Barn uniform.
Dez has partied plenty of times but has never really gone wild. Not like this. Not like Mo could do so easily. Life has always seemed too precarious for Dez to fully let loose. It’s not that she doesn’t want to throw back like everyone else in this bar. It’s that she’s never felt she could afford the luxury. And she can’t afford it tonight. Not eight hours before her first day of classes at the best opportunity for her future that she has ever been given.
She finds Rafe in line at the bar. He’s laughing. At her expense, obviously.
“Acheron hired a stripper for back-to-school night?” she asks him. “Really sparing no expense.”
Rafe tips his head toward the woman on the table, now gripping the chandelier and casting spells with her hips on someone cooler than Dez.
“No one hired her,” Rafe says. “Esmeralda’s a filmmaker. She does what she wants.” He studies Dez. “Most of us here do.”
“And she wants to … strip?” Dez asks. “In front of her peers?”
“Does it bother you?”
“I don’t—” Dez can’t find the words. She doesn’t know if she’s impressed or disturbed by this woman, but as Rafe holds her gaze and Esmeralda writhes in her periphery, Dez can’t deny that she’s turned on. But her arousal isn’t clean and simple—it rarely is. There’s something shameful to the feeling, like she shouldn’t be having it, not here, not tonight. And it turns her on a little more.
“And to think,” Rafe speaks when she doesn’t, “you were in the bathroom on the jet worrying about other people judging you.”
“I’m not judging,” Dez tries to insist. But is she?
“Sure, but you’d never be able to get up there and do that,” Rafesays, nodding in Esmeralda’s direction, her legs now locked around a laughing man’s waist. “Or will you prove me entirely wrong?”
Dez narrows her eyes at him. He’s so patronizing, so stupidly handsome. The way he’s talking to her, and the way Esmeralda singled her out in front of the whole bar, it’s humiliating. She doesn’t want to be here anymore. In fact, she never did.
“How do I get to the dorms?”
“You promised you’d stay for a drink.”
“I overestimated how much time I could spend with you before wanting to break something.”
His eyes widen, sparkle a little. “Your residence hall, the Towers, are just down the mountain.” He points toward the bar’s front door. “Can’t miss ’em.”
“And I’m …”
“Room 321. Hate to see you go. Probably won’t watch you leave in those pants.”
“Whatever. Thanks for the ride.” She pushes past Rafe, past Esmeralda’s table, out through the front door onto a frozen, empty porch. She hisses at the cold, but at least her cheeks are hot from mortification. She looks for a path, a trail, or at least a sign that will point her down to the heart of campus.
Room 321. A bed where she can close her eyes and try to become okay before tomorrow.
But there is no path, only a broad blanket of snow. Dez doesn’t even see any footprints leading up to the bar. She stares bewildered, into darkened whiteness, until a creaking sound draws her attention to the far side of the porch. She walks over and soon makes out an old decrepit ski lift.
It’s running. Whining and groaning as bare metal benches whip around the metal tower at a frightening speed. The lift seems to lead down the mountain, which must be where the Towers are. But Dezhas never been on a ski lift, has no idea how to board. And when she approaches the ledge she thinks one would have to stand on to catch a ride, just beyond it is the sheerest drop off a cliff whose bottom she can’t see.
