Merry Random Christmas Read Free Page A

mammal.
    Genus: cougarious fornicatious .
    “ But,” I said again, staring at Joe’s ass on my phone and realizing I wasn’t stuttering, I was just naming what I saw. “I, for one, am going to find my goddamned boyfriends and make them explain what in the hell they’re up to.”  

Chapter Two
    Joe
    “Oh, baby, you got one hell of a nice candy cane for me to lick,” the woman said, rubbing up against my oiled thighs, her hand searching for my sweet stick. She slipped a twenty in with the other bills that hung from that tiny piece of ropy fabric like palm leaf fronds. My g-string was an X-rated wallet. I was wearing more cash than I made from a single band performance most nights, and I’d only been stripping for fifteen minutes.  
    T hat’s right.
    Stripping.
    Trevor caught my eye and gave me a look like a character in a Saw movie right before he was about to be eviscerated by set of electric hedge trimmers. Three women rubbed their hands over him like they were buffing a car hood.  
    Fives and tens hung off his g-string, one twenty dollar bill plastered flat against his right buttock, curving to the concavity of his glutes as he moved and bent, legs muscles following the gyration of his hips as he danced.
    Or, at least, tried to dance.
    He really sucked.
    None of the women cared. At the end of the night, we’d count up our tips and if he made more money than me, I’d be ripshit pissed. I’m way hotter.  
    W hat the fuck? Why was I even thinking about that? I was a Penn law student on sabbatical between my second and third year of law school as my band made its big national tour breakthrough, and here I was worrying about whether I made more money as a stripper than my best friend?  
    Y eah. That pretty much summed up my Christmas Eve.
    “I’m going to kill Sam and Liam,” he called out to me. I gave him a th u mbs’ up. A woman’s well-lipsticked mouth covered my thumb instantly, her teeth grazing the pad, her tongue sucking like she was twirling a candy cane.  
    The sensation went straight to the root of my shaft, making it twitch.
    No.
    Cardinal rule of stripping, groaned at me and Trevor by a very sick Sam and Liam right before we agreed to this stupid, obscene, fucked-up job: never get a hard on. T he women think it’s an engraved invitation.
    I had to think to shrink.
    Think. Imagine...my mom walking Mavis on a leash.
    Ah. Sweet flaccidity. Limp as an overcooked Ramen noodle.  
    “Why would you blame Sam and Liam for this?” I asked Trevor as I danced closer to him. The throng of ten or so women clinging to me moved like we were a pillar holding up the world. “It’s your fault they got food poisoning this afternoon ,” I said through gritted teeth.
    “How the fuck was I supposed to know the eel at that sushi place was bad? I don’t eat eel,” T revor growled back. His growl turned upward two octaves as someone decided to reach down and give his jingle bells a little squeeze.
    “You convinced us to try that place,” I said with a wince at the memory. “We warned you a restaurant called ‘Sushi Salvage’ was nothing but trouble.”
    “It’s cheap. Sam and Liam are on a budget and we haven’t gotten our advance yet for— ” His tone was defensive. We were both talking through fake smiles plastered on our faces. Most of the women were so drunk we could have recited the Gettysburg Address and they’d have cheered for us.
    “The Yelp reviews were horrible.”
    “Yelp is biased and you never can trust those reviews— ” H e yelped as someone added a stroke of his candy cane to the light bounce of his jingle bells .
    W e were dancing to some ‘80s song by Billy Idol. It wound down, followed by Nine Inch Nails’ Closer .  
    Oh, shit.
    Trevor and I shared a look of twinned horror as a hundred women at this party all screamed out the main line from the song. You know. Of course you know it. You’ve seen “Magic Mike XXL,” right?
    Every fucking woman at this party looked at us