Taken By the Force Read online

  “Already tried that. Tony went an hour ago. Couldn’t find her.” He paced toward the window and paused with his hand on the bookshelf. Suddenly, he picked up a small framed picture I hadn’t noticed. “Wait. You’re Kenny’s sister.”

  “Uh-huh.” I thought we’d already established that…hours ago. Was he having a break down?

  “This sister?” He strode toward me, flipping the picture around so I could see it.

  Double shit. It was the one from a vacation we took last year with my aunt and uncle. Because they’d rented a place with a private beach, I’d actually worn a bikini, thinking the newly tanned Andrea would be more confident than the old pasty one. Obviously, it hadn’t worked.

  “I didn’t know he framed that,” I said. I looked at the smiling faces of my brother, aunt, and uncle…standing next to my massive cleavage.

  “Damn…do you still look like this?”

  This was getting a little personal and I wasn’t the least bit into Joe. Besides I always went out of my way not to attract attention to my chest.

  “Uh-huh,” I answered guardedly.

  “You could do it! You’ve got Nasty’s body type. And with the makeup and costume—”

  “You are not serious,” I said firmly. His expression told me he was. “I’m a freaking CPA, Joe! I can’t possibly go out half naked in a strip club and dance around in front of horny men.”

  Joe turned and strode to the shelf, grabbing several more pictures. He returned and piled them on my desk. There was one of my parents with me, in my cap, gown and honor cord, at my high school graduation. I remembered Kenny taking it.

  Next in the pile, was a similar one from college graduation, except I had my diploma and Kenny was in the picture with me, holding rabbit ears over my head. The last photo was also of me, posing in my new professional CPA clothes, holding my certificate.

  I felt like a louse. I’d obviously never noticed how proud my brother was of me…or how supportive. I’d bought into the family dialogue of how Kenny would never amount to anything. Meanwhile, he was framing pictures of me and proudly displaying them in his office.

  For the first time, I wondered if he really needed me here when he offered me the job or if he was trying to save me the humiliation of going back to live with the folks.

  Oh, geez.

  “What do you think?” Joe asked.

  I was torn between loyalty to my brother and, well, common decency.

  “I can’t go topless!” I practically wailed.

  “Don’t be crazy. I’d never ask Kenny’s sister to go topless.” He said it like I should have learned that from the non-existent strip club etiquette book. “The costume shows a ton of cleave, but the nips are covered. You don’t have to be topless.”

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! “What would I have to do?” I sighed.

  *

  Okay, my brother was a freak.

  As the costume lady, Mimi, made a few last minute adjustments, I stared at myself in the full-length mirror. My blonde hair was gone, hidden in a bald-cap so real, even I wondered whether I still had hair under there. The prosthetics on my cheekbones changed the shape of my face, making my cheeks higher, and my chin appear pointier. However, my eyes were by far the most bizarre of all because instead of being blue “windows to my soul,” they were now the bright green eyes of a snake…or an alien, I supposed.

  My costume was spandex on top—a black turtleneck with covered shoulders that stopped mid-chest exposing nearly all my massive cleavage. My breasts were held up by a spandex band that ran underneath and over them enough to barely cover my nipples.

  It would have been a disaster for someone with large boobs, except that Mimi had placed invisible support cups and underwire inside and stitched the garment’s bra and shoulder pieces masterfully to keep my breasts “loud and proud” as she called it.

  The band stopped beneath my rib cage, then there was nothing but skin down to the G-string, except for the half-skirt—only the back half—that fastened at my waist and flowed out behind me. But it was a peekaboo skirt, designed with slits that parted to show my ass as I moved.

  The costume was finished off by a pair of platform, thigh-high black boots, a Light Saber, and a whip—which I would have thought was an odd combination if I hadn’t watched a video of the usual Mistress doing her show. It was obvious that her fans mostly wanted her to look like a sexy freak while pretending to abuse them. There wasn’t really even any dancing involved.

  The whole thing was ridiculous, yet I’d never felt so sexually powerful. In this costume I had nothing to hide, partly because there was no place to hide it, but also because it was liberating to be someone else for a while. In the mistress’s skin, I didn’t need to feel self-conscious like that mousy Andrea Pearson always did.

  Joe had told me that Nasty changed up the routine, so there was no need to be precise about the order, but when Mimi finally left me alone, I ran through it to see if I could be a passable Asaj Mistress.

  I was sexy. I had no fear. I was a badass alien bitch. Andrea the accountant was a vague memory—someone else completely, in fact.

  “Andre—“ Joe began as he walked into the room.

  I whacked the floor in front of him with my whip and he stopped short. “Call me ‘Mistress’,” I said.

  *

  Rick

  Nowadays, everything reminded me of Danny, even driving up to a strip club. As I headed for the entrance, I remembered how he always called them “titty bars,” since he’d grown up in a small town in Texas. It was ironic that he would have gotten such a kick out of a case like this that required us to go to a strip club, just like the detectives did in nearly every cop movie.

  The place turned out to be like no other strip club I’d ever seen. I was greeted at the door by what looked like the Starship Enterprise crew and paid them a cover charge that was definitely out of this world.

  As I walked through the place, I noticed there was something for everyone, from the girls in tiny Trekky bikinis—more my style—to some convincing looking Romulan chicks that would have scared the shit out of me if I’d met them in an ally.

  Several areas were partitioned off throughout the club with slide-in placard signs promoting the character who was performing on that stage at the time. “Princess Lay” was pretty much what you’d expect, with the double cinnamon bun hairdo in a white G-string and open robe that exposed her full breasts.

  Next was “Lieutenant Ooooh-hooo-rah!” followed by “Darth Vadress,” who was wearing the mask with her black cape and G-string—obviously for the guy who liked a little mystery in his woman. “Hands So Low” seemed to spend most of her time bent over, showing off her well-endowed back end.

  I glanced at the next sign, “Jabba the Slut,” then shielded my eyes, pretty sure I didn’t want to know what was happening in there.

  Finally, I made it to the main stage in the back, where Anastasya Petrova—also known as the Asaj Mistress—was scheduled to perform shortly.

  Most of the ringside seats were taken, along with the tables behind them. I made for the one empty chair facing the stage next to the wall.

  When I got there and scoped out the crowd, I realized I stuck out like a sore thumb. There was a group across the stage in MIT tshirts, as if they were on some kind of school field trip, others who looked like they might have come straight from work, in button down shirts with the sleeves rolled up and khakis or jeans. I took off my suit jacket and rolled up my sleeves, still feeling like a duck out of water.

  “…jail break…”

  My ears perked up at that phrase until I figured out the guys next to me were just telling each other how they’d hacked into their smart phones.

  A clap of thunder sounded and smoke—at least the dry ice kind—flowed out onto the stage. Long skinny lights crisscrossed the stage, then everything stopped—the noise, the lights—even the crowd was dead silent.

  “Bow to your mistress!” a female techno voice commanded.

&nbs
p; I watched as the guys in the front row put their hands on the stage and bowed their heads.

  What the fuck?

  Then she stepped through the fog to center stage. I would have described her as a bald alien freak in black, except I couldn’t get over that body. Danny would have said she had “tits that could put your eye out from across the room.” And from my vantage point at the back corner of the stage, I could see her ass wasn’t half bad either.

  The music started again—like the soundtrack from an outer space movie. She lunged forward and cut at the air with a Light Saber as the audience members peeked up at her. She marched over to the front of the stage and stood over the drunk guy who was openly ogling her. The shiny cardboard hat he was wearing said, “Birthday Boy.”

  The Mistress wedged her weapon between the hat and his head, lifted the hat, then released it, letting the rubber band that was holding it pull it back down with a “pop.”

  “Woo-hoo!” the birthday boy yelled.

  The Mistress looked furious and held her hand out behind her. A “slave girl” I hadn’t noticed until then, ran up and gave her a whip, taking the Light Saber away. The birthday boy’s friends put his hands on the stage for him, then pushed down on his back until he was bent forward in his chair. The Mistress placed both booted feet on his fingers, then snapped the multi-tentacled whip, causing it to make contact with his back and rear end.

  His friends went nuts, and I noticed a couple of other guys looking up at her, apparently trying to get the same treatment. Those who got stepped on were bizarrely happy about it. And, the ones who got the whip were as thrilled as the ones who got caressed in the crotch by the saber. Go figure.

  I felt pretty uncomfortable watching this stuff, like I was witnessing something I was never meant to see—just like these guys didn’t need to show up in a cop bar and hear us blowing off steam by making inappropriate jokes about some crime we were investigating.

  Since I was in the corner, next to the wall, the Mistress didn’t notice me until she was about to leave the stage. As she walked slowly toward her slave girl, her weird green eyes met mine. She paused.

  She glanced down and saw that my hands were not on the stage. I made sure to stay upright. I wasn’t interested in a dominatrix. The thought passed through my head that I wouldn’t mind trying to tame this hot little number, though.

  I let my eyes wander down her body, then up again, stopping for another look at those breasts.

  She turned away from me haughtily and left the stage, pulling the slave girl behind her by a chain.

  The crowd hooted and chattered excitedly as I slipped from my seat up onto the stage and behind the curtain in one smooth move.

  Chapter Three

  Andrea

  As soon as we got back stage, Misty—my slave girl—ran off, mumbling something about being late for the next Jabba the Slut show. I hesitated a moment before walking back to the dressing room, trying to decide whether I wanted to take my platform boots off now or after I got there.

  I jumped when I noticed a man had materialized behind me.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. He was the guy from the audience. The handsome one who stared me down right before I left the stage. But at this angle, he was much taller, with broad shoulders, dark hair and brown eyes. He was the kind of guy I’d have to get a second look at if he passed me on the street. The kind that makes you suck in one of those quick little breaths when you get near him and feel his manly man-ness up close.

  I realized he could look straight into my cavernous cleavage from his vantage point. I wished I had a shirt to pull over me, but then I remembered there was no need to be self-conscious. I didn’t look like myself at all. I was still the Asaj Mistress.

  “No, you didn’t scare me,” I lied as I straightened my shoulders and took a step back. “I think you’ve wandered into the wrong area. This is for employees only.”

  “I wanted a few minutes of your time,” he said. “I’d like to take you up to one of the VIP rooms.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. The VIP rooms were private. I assumed things went on in there beyond the usual lap-dances. And this totally smokin’ hunk wanted to be alone with me there. My tongue snuck out and wet my lips in anticipation. Wait, what was I thinking?

  “No. I’m not…” I began. But I couldn’t tell him the truth about who I was. I wondered if “Nasty” went to the VIP rooms. “I don’t…um—”

  “Just a few minutes,” he said. “Can we have a little talk?” He pulled a couple of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and tucked them into my G-string. Everything underneath it flexed for a moment, then relaxed. My blood heated at his warm touch.

  No one knew who I was except Joe and Mimi, and they weren’t anywhere near the VIP room. Would it be so bad to take a walk on the wild side this once and pretend?

  “Sure,” I murmured, but I couldn’t believe the word had slipped out of my mouth.

  He waited expectantly.

  I tilted my head toward the back stairs and we walked up them together. At the top, Tony, one of the bouncers, greeted us and showed us to a private room. I stepped inside and tried to pretend this wasn’t the first time I’d seen the sectional couch or the armless leather chairs.

  He shut the door behind him. I looked for something to do with my hands because they were shaking, but I didn’t know what. Was I supposed to have them on him already? Or was I supposed to find out what he wanted to do? Or did he really only want to talk?

  “That’s quite a show you put on,” he said. “Got the crowd pretty riled up.”

  “Not you, though,” I replied. Strange that he’d asked me in here when he’d seemed the least impressed of all the audience members.

  “My taste runs a little different in entertainment.”

  Did he mean different than the show itself or different than me? But he asked me up here so…

  “What does your boyfriend think of your act?” he asked suddenly.

  My boyfriend? What would make him ask a question like that in this situation? “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I replied, feeling like a loser. I might as well be in my regular clothes if this was how it was going to go.

  “C’mon. A hottie like you? There must be somebody.”

  No, there wasn’t somebody, which was probably why I was so horny that I pretended to be a stripper, or a hooker, or whatever I was now. This was a stupid mistake. I had no idea what to do in here or what this guy was after. Maybe he was trying to play some “my boyfriend’s out of town” stripper scenario, but I didn’t know the script.

  “I have another show to do,” I said. I handed him his two hundred dollars and headed out.

  As I stepped through the doorway, he grabbed me by the arm. The heat from his hand sizzled on my bare skin and warmed my whole body.

  “Wait,” he said, but Tony was all over it. He insisted the guy take his hand off me, and I made for my dressing room as fast as my clunky boots would take me.

  When I got there, I shut the door and locked it behind me. What the hell was I thinking? It was one thing to go onstage in costume to save my brother’s business, but to go to a private room with a complete stranger was just plain crazy.

  I picked up my walkie-talkie and called Joe. “Send out a search party first thing tomorrow for this ‘Nasty’ girl,” I said firmly.

  “Why? You did awesome!” he replied.

  “You were watching?”

  “Of course I was…on the screens. I had to make sure Kenny’s sister was safe. You were totally smokin’ up there, by the way.”

  “Joe!”

  “I know. It’s just between us. No one else ever has to know. Oh, and I’ll get that posse together tomorrow and bring Nasty back, dead or alive.”

  “Alive, please. Dead will do me no good whatsoever.”

  I put the walkie-talkie down and went looking for Mimi, so she could make sure I was good for the second show.

  *

  The next afternoon, I wa
s looking at the spreadsheets on Kenny’s computer, ignoring Joe as best I could. He’d been pacing around with his cell phone all day, attempting to track down Nasty and trying to convince me to go on again if he couldn’t find her.

  “Come on, Andrea!” He paced back toward me. “I’ve got another girl who says she can start tomorrow. It’s only one more night.”

  I glanced up at him, but one of the security monitors caught my eye. “Somebody’s here.”

  Joe came around behind me and checked it out. “Shit. He looks like a cop.”

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  “Cops are always problems.” His pacing got much faster. “Okay, here’s the story. You’re the accountant and you just started.”

  “Joe, I am the accountant who just started.”

  “Okay, good. It’s easier for you to say it then. No, wait. Don’t say anything. I’ll do the talking.”

  “Is there something illegal going on here?”

  “What? No. Not that I know of, but this is a strip club in Vegas. You never know what people could be involved in and we don’t want it to come back and bite us—or the club, or Kenny—in the ass. Right?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe I should go to the back.”

  I stood, but it was too late. The office door opened and Carl ushered in the cop…and he was the guy from the VIP room. Was that a sting operation last night? But, prostitution was legal in Vegas anyway, wasn’t it? And nothing happened, so there was no reason for him to come back today. It had to be something else. I relaxed a little and let myself enjoy looking at him.

  He seemed even better looking today, in his chocolate brown dress shirt under a black suit. I was definitely sexually deprived because I had the sudden urge to dash over to him and run my hands up his strong, smooth jaw and press my body against his big hard…

  I looked down at my giant white “Vikings” sweatshirt and realized I probably resembled a marshmallow. I wished I could at least pull the plastic claw out of my hair and fluff it out a little, but that would be too obvious.

  “Joe,” Carl said. “This is Detective Webb. He has some questions. I explained to him I’m only here when the club is closed.”