"CRY" by Sarah Ryniker

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 20/12/2002

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This story has a high sexual content.

Cry Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Epilogue

CHAPTER TWO: ANYTHING, ANYWHERE

I suppose when you're young, child or a young adult you feel this need within you to protect the things that are yours. I know it's not just an instinct that the young have, yet the older you are the easier it is to let go of the silly things, such as grudges and hatred. My mother was somewhere in a daze, unable to truly hate my father for what he had done to us.
    I was the exact opposite. I hated him for it. I hated him for the things he had said about me, and about her. I wanted to prove to him that Mother and I were not weak and that we could, and would, do just fine without him. I might not have been able to make so much money that lived in a house as big as ours had been, but I would get us out of the hellhole we were living in. That was a promise I swore to keep to my mother and myself. Though I never did tell Mother why I was so adamant on keeping it.
    We were living in a very run-down part of our small Washington town. Shelton wasn't very big at all, and it didn't have a very high poverty level, which was why living in it was even worse than living in the run-down part of a big city, such as Seattle, which was two hours away.
    The apartment complex we were living in only had four apartments in it. The outside of it was peach-coloured stucco, which was peeling off to show off the rusting metal beneath it. There were two upstairs apartments and two downstairs. We had a downstairs apartment and it often sounded, and felt like, the neighbours above were going to come crashing through our thin ceiling, which was much like cardboard.
    The apartment wasn't very large. It only had one bedroom, which my mother had given to me. We had managed to get a broken recliner, the stuffing half coming out of it. I had tried to sew it, but it hadn't helped at all. And the couch we had got was more like a wooden bench; the cushions hardly had any padding in them. How Mother slept on it was beyond me.
    We didn't have much to amuse ourselves with. We had the romance novels that my mother had read twenty times over. Within a month I had read half of them. After that many they were so repetitive they hardly held my interest. It made me wonder how Mother had read so many!
    Not that she did much reading anymore. She was in such a deep depression that she hardly even moved from her spot on the sofa. I tried to get her to move around and smile again; I'd crack jokes and do everything possible. Yet she just ignored me. It was hard enough to get her to shower.
    The only time she became active was when I announced that I would be getting a job. Her eyes seemed to finally come back alive with some kind of emotion. That emotion was anger and fear. "No! The money we get for you pays the rent here! We'll lose it if you get a job!" she exclaimed, jumping from her lying position on the couch.
    "Mother, we hardly make enough from that and welfare to eat. I can't allow this to go on much longer. I am sure I can find a job that will pay enough to get us at least food and better furniture, if not out of here," I reasoned with her. I wanted to keep her calm.
    "Oh, Cry, you have no idea what it's like out there. It is so difficult," she moaned.
    "It's better than doing nothing," I insisted, ending the whole thing there. I could hear her keep trying to argue me out of the idea, but I blocked out the words and circled job after job.
    A month later, I still had no job. It was so difficult to find anybody to hire someone without any experience whatsoever. I was turned down time after time. Yet the childhood optimism in me kept me going. I refused to give up. I would do anything. It had come to the point where I didn't care what. We had been living in misery for six months! I couldn't handle seeing my mother in such deep depression.
    I would often take a walk, against Mother's wishes, when I would begin to get stressed out about it. She always told me not to walk around in this neighbourhood because it was so filthy, and I would probably get mugged, raped or "God knows what else!" So I left the house, though she gave me a look that told me not to go. I grabbed my coat and left. It was a horribly cold March, with snow still covering the ground.
    I walked down the street with my head down. It had been sunny enough to begin melting some of the snow on the ground, but today was full of clouds and wind. I could tell a storm was coming. Whether it would be rain or snow or hail I couldn't tell, but there was definitely one brewing in the ominous clouds above me.
    Just as I crossed the street toward the park I spent most of my thinking time at, a car came barrelling around the corner, making me look up and finish running my way across. When I got there, I stopped and turned around to spot the car driving off. I was so angry that they had tried to hit me. Little did I know that they were a Godsend.
    I turned to pound my fist into the wooden telephone pole that was standing behind me, and when I did my hand crushed into a piece of paper that read "Amateur Dancers Needed!" I knew that meant strippers. Yet the bottom read that I could make up to three hundred dollars a night. I was a good enough dancer to do it, and my mother was always telling me I looked exotic and had a nice body. It was my last resort. I yanked the paper from the post and began my way home.
    We had no telephone so I couldn't call them. I had been using my neighbour's phone for interviews and callbacks, but I wasn't about to use it for this. I didn't want that kind of ridicule. So I waited until night rolled around before dressing into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and leaving the apartment. Fortunately, Mother had fallen asleep so I didn't have to answer any questions. I did leave a quick note telling her I had gone to an interview. It wasn't a lie, though I didn't say where this job would be.
    I had quite a walk ahead of me. I only had five dollars on me and the club was on the outskirts of town. I would walk as far as possible and then call a cab. I walked for about an hour and then called. The total came up to six dollars but the cab driver had his eyes set on me and seemed to know what I was going to the strip club for. He told me that I could pay him back, with a sly grin on his face. I breathed a sigh of relief when I exited the car.
    But relief was short lived. I turned to the strip club and my heart began to pound. It would be the most adult thing I had ever done in my life. Yet that was exactly what I had to do. I had no choice but to grow up and be an adult now.
    The club wasn't what I expected. On the outside it resembled more of a log cabin, only the music was rather loud coming from within. I walked up the short walkway and into the large room. I knew I was supposed to be twenty-one to be there, but I could easily lie about my age, which I planned to do.
    The inside was large and full of neon lights. Tables surrounded a giant stage where a couple of women were pole dancing. There were a couple of cages where strippers were dancing off to the side. The men sitting at the tables weren't, shockingly to me, grabbing at and being lewd to the women. It calmed my nerves to see them just sitting back and watching.
    "Can I help you?" I heard a man say, and I turned to a handsome young man standing next to me. His hair was a bright red, which brought out the startling brown-green in his eyes, and his face was covered in a well-kept goatee and a moustache that covered very full lips. He wasn't much taller than my five feet nine inches, leaving him no more than six feet at the most. He was sort of on the skinny side, but not so incredibly that he looked bad. I wasn't one to be easily attracted, but I found myself attracted to him.
    "Well," I began, swallowing a nervous lump in my throat, "I do have a few questions."
    "Go ahead and ask them," he said. When I didn't begin right away, he smiled and held his hand out. "I'm Landon Jennison, the owner of the club," he introduced himself politely.
    I took his long-fingered hand into mine and shook it. "I'm Cry Fawrling," I introduced myself, hating the sound of my strange name, first and last.
    He raised his eyebrows as if sceptical to my name. "Is that your real name or a nickname?"
    "Cry is my real name. I am convinced my mother was depressed the day she named me." I didn't like my depressing name, yet I was offended that he didn't believe me.
    "It's not that bad. It's different and kind of pretty," he complimented, making me blush slightly. No man had ever complimented me before. "So, what can I help you with, Ms Fawrling?"
    "Well, first off, is it always this calm here?" I was truly shocked by the fact that there was just a murmur of people talking above the loud music.
    He shrugged. "Sometimes it is. Other times we get a louder, more verbal crowd. I only put up with so much before kicking them out, though. I don't allow the girls to be treated badly."
    I nodded. "Are there many girls working here?"
    "Nope. I only choose a select few when I have my amateur nights. It's not exactly about them being good, it's about the dancers being classy." His answer made me ease up a little more, yet it also made me nervous. Could this place be too classy for me to get a job at?
    "When does your contest start?" I asked.
    "Are you entering?" He seemed only slightly shocked when I nodded.
    "I have to. It's sort of a last resort, but you don't need to hear any pity stories. I would like to sign up." I suddenly realised how assertive I truly was. But there were many things I was about to realise about myself that I'd never known before.
    "Well then, let's go. I'll let you meet the girls that work here, but not the contestants. I don't like the amateurs to be too nervous to do their best." He led me to a small room that was past the stage. The men were all ordering something to drink or eat, and the girls that had been dancing were taking a break.
    I could tell the contest was about to begin soon. That realisation made me feel sick to my stomach. Could I really take off my clothes and dance for these strange men? It wasn't about being able to. I absolutely had to if I wanted to keep Mother and myself alive.
    When we walked into the small backroom, I noticed that it was filled with all kinds of costumes, and a number of music CDs lined the shelf that was against the far wall. There were six women lounging in there, all chatting about nothing in particular. When we entered, they all seemed shocked to see me there.
    One blonde-haired girl, who didn't look much older than me, raised her eyebrows slightly. "Who is this, Landon?" Her wide grey eyes were full of question, and what I thought may be a touch of jealousy as well.
    "This is one of our contestants. Girls, I'd like you to meet Cry Fawrling," he introduced.
    "Well, that's an interesting name you came up with there," the blonde girl said, her full lips pulled up in a smirk of half-disgust and half-amusement.
    "It's not a fake name," I told her quietly. "It's my real name."
    "And my name really is Erotica," she mumbled sarcastically. Some of the others laughed.
    "Now, that's enough of that." Landon came in quickly. "Cry, this is Laura." He began to introduce me to the girls, starting with the blonde sitting on the couch, looking annoyed by my presence. "That is Missy." He motioned towards a very tall strawberry-blonde with big brown eyes standing behind the couch Laura was sitting on. Missy waved a quick hi, as did the other girls as he introduced them one by one to me.
    Jasmine was a young African-American with eyes as black as coal. She was exotically beautiful, with a perfect smile.
    Francine was a rather small brunette with eyes a beautiful shade of green-gold. She looked entirely too innocent to be a stripper, but I would find out that she was truly one of the best in the room.
    Carly looked more like a classical beauty that maybe could have come straight from Hugh Hefner's mansion. Her dark brown eyes were almond-shaped, and her hair was a thick mass of platinum curls that she had piled high on her head coming to drop down in ringlets about her face.
    Tamara was Jasmine's older sister, who had been working there for quite awhile. Evidently, she was twelve years older than Jasmine and had worked here when Landon's father had owned the place. She and Jasmine looked an intense amount alike.
    All of these women had their own personalities and sexiness about them. I felt very odd in their company, considering that they were all dancers for long enough to forget that modesty even existed. They dressed and ran around naked within this room right in front of each other. I couldn't imagine being comfortable enough to do that, ever.
    "So," Laura began after the introductions were finished, "why did you bring her back here? We normally don't get to meet the contestants. We just meet the winners."
    "Yes, that's right," Francine piped up. "And none of the winners ever seem to stick around."
    "Well, I thought maybe if I introduced one of them to you, maybe they'd eventually stick around," Landon explained quickly.
    Laura's lips turned into a wicked smile, and her grey eyes held a strange light in them. "Seems Landon has a crush. What do you think, ladies?" She turned to the other girls in the room.
    "Oh, leave him alone, Laura," Tamara snapped. She was obviously annoyed with her.
    Laura pouted, but listened to Tamara. I was glad that she had been able to shut her up. I already did not like her at all.

Cry Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Epilogue

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