Queen of Spades (House of Car...

I'm not sure if I am going to write this 온라인카지노게임 out. I have 4 in the works that I need to finish but I've got so many more ideas kicking around in my head. So I'll let you guys decide. I'm going to write the first chapter or so, and if I get 10 whole votes, I'll write the next bit. If you leave comments, that'll motivate me even more.

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Suede's was not the sort of strip club you go to expecting high quality entertainment.

The facade of the building is tired gray/brown wood, dingy and boring while the neon lights proclaiming the establishment's name and attractions flickered and ticked in the dark. It was away from the main downtown core where there would be larger crowds, brighter lights and raucous laughter, and the only people that normally came here were those that couldn't be bothered looking for a better place. The women who danced there were mostly indifferently attractive, except for one or two who held the extremes. Alice 'Ace' Spade, was the youngest dancer there, and she was even younger than anyone suspected. They all thought she was a legal adult, if just and no one but her knew she wasn't allowed to vote yet, let alone take off her clothes for money. It wasn't that she wanted to be doing this, but in her world there were limited options and this was still a hell of a lot better than being a prostitute. Not that her boss didn't try to string her up and turn her out like he had a few of the others, but she always refused and reminded him that if he pushed it too hard, she had enough blackmail on him to land him in jail for a very long time.

At Suede's most of the regulars didn't care as much about the women as they did about the under the table dealings that went down almost nightly. Ace danced on stage, dark eyes slitted in imitation seduction while no less than three drug deals were going on. She shimmed and twirled, bored already and her night had only just begun. There were several girls on stage, doing opening group gyrations while bikers discussed the cut of heroin, businessmen pocketed roofies and low level mafia men scurried after the flavour of the week. The lighting was dim everywhere except for the stage. Pete said it was to encourage all eyes to be on the girls, but mostly Ace figured it was so no one saw how disgusting this place really was. The booths were all plastic, easily wiped clean and the table tops sticky and scarred.

Ace dove backstage as soon as the song ended and started to pull on her costume. She tried not to think of how much she would rather be sitting in class discussing Socrates or even cliched Shakespeare than rubbing body glitter into her skin. But for that to ever happen would mean she'd have to go back to them. And even prostituting herself would be better than that. Metallic glitter smoothed over her skin, catching at the rough edges of old scars and accentuating the details of her extensive tattoos. It cost money to put so much ink on her body, but the art covered the worst of the scars and let her strip without everyone knowing what had once been done to her.

As always her mind sought the safety of happier times, turning back to those few, brief and half remembered years where she was happy and safe. Strong hands pulled the layers of scintillating costume on while her mind fled back to smell of chili, the sounds of dad snoring and the dog harrumphing as he lay down. The overwhelming beat of the tin can music pounded around her, drowning out her pleasant memories and she looked at herself in the mirror and tried not to hate what she saw. She'd pulled on the angel/devil costume and it looked good on her, which she detested.

Her hair was long and wavy, a light brown with darker strands shooting throughout. Her skin was darker than her Caucasian father's and instead she was blessed with a natural tan to her skin that screamed Native. Alice didn't know what kind though, and neither had her father. A smile found it's way onto Ace's high cheek boned face and made her dark eyes flash briefly. Her favourite bedtime 온라인카지노게임 growing up was her dad telling her how he met her mother. They'd both been young, still teenagers when they met and it'd been love at first sight. Not very long later and they were expecting a baby. They had run away together when their parents found out and tried to force them apart. Tried to force them to abort the pregnancy or give up the child. But they hadn't. Instead they'd put their faith in true love and Alice's mother had died in childbirth, leaving a very young, heart broken man ill prepared to raise his daughter alone. But he loved his daughter in a way that made the sky and moon jealous and the sun and stars sigh in envy because she was a special little girl who was the living evidence of true love. It was a sad 온라인카지노게임, for bedtime tales to a child not yet nine, but Alice had asked for it every night, and could repeat it herself verbatim. He'd been dead before she hit ten. Aneurysm burst inside his brain and he died instantly.

Hearing the familiar chords of her song start, Alice pulled herself out of her memories and put a smile on her face. It never reached her eyes so she hooded them, looking demurely through her eyelashes so no one could see the loathing boiling inside. She waited while Paolo, the DJ gave a brief announcement to draw the crowds money onto her, then strode out onto the stage. She was a tall girl, nearly 5'10, and sleekly muscled. Dancing was demeaning but a hell of a good workout, and her body was young and supple compared to the loose sag of the other women. They hated her for her youth and good looks because that meant Alice always had the best tips. She would have been just another pretty face in a higher class establishment, but those places wanted ID and a social insurance number. This dump paid her under the table and she kept all her own tips. Rob Dougan's Clubbed to Death pounded in the background as she swayed her hips and pranced around in her devil costume. Cheap pointy horns tucked into her hair, sky scraper clear heels binding her feet, black fishnets climbing to her thighs and a pleather candy apple red dress with attached tail.

One group had come in while she'd been in the back getting ready and she couldn't help but study them as they stared up at her in amazement. And they hadn't seen the real part of her show yet. For most other women, a series of large tattoos would be a career killer, but Alice's were somehow beautiful. She'd gotten an Chinese dragon down her left back, from shoulder to buttock and it covered the paler flesh where boiling water had been poured. Her left arm had a sleeve tattoo down it, Asian inspired as well and that concealed the burn marks that trailed down to her fingertips. You could still see the scars if you could look past the colours and shapes on her skin, but most people never looked close enough. Except there was one guy at the end of the stage that seemed to be looking at her like he could see right through her disguise. It unnerved her how his dark eyes were watching her, seeing things he shouldn't have been able to notice. She slid into a crouch with the pole at her back, knees splayed out to the flash the thigh highs and thong, cheap tail pooling behind her heels.

She brought her knees together and slithered her way back up she undid the devil dress and exposed the angel underneath. God this made her so sick. The rutting lust in the eyes of the men who watched her, the glassy stares of those that were too drunk or drugged to care. Every night after work she'd go home and scrub until her skin was red and the tears made her eyes puffy. But it was still better than going back to the foster family that owned her.

The table that had come in was rowdy and the bartender Nathan was excited to see them spending so much money on drinks. He was signalling her to play for them, make them tip her more and buy more drinks. If she got them worked up enough they'd buy more and probably want lap dances or even rent one of the girls that negotiated her virtue. Her devil dress fell to the floor with a splat only she could hear. The roof was leaking again, god it must be pouring buckets outside. But the party table seemed to jovial and drunk to notice and she expertly slid through the puddles to angle closer to their table. His eyes were glued to her and if she'd still been able to, her cheeks would have flamed red. But after almost a year of this, not much had the power to fluster her anymore. She'd seen bar fights here that ended in good men getting stabbed to death, and found the OD'd corpse of a fellow dancer last month. The nights were all a blur of bright sequins and loud bass, while her days were her own, time stolen to read at the library. He looked intelligent, which made Ace wonder why he was here at all. Most of the men in this dump were the strong like bull, dumb like fence post types, too rough and cheap for the better places.

She locked eyes with him and for a moment froze, her brain loosing the choreography she normally could do in her sleep. Then she tore her gaze away and kept dancing, acting like nothing had happened. But his smile! Oh if she could for a moment fantasize, it would include that smile. His eyes lit up like Christmas tree lights, full of warmth and mirth and his lips stretched into a wide, easy smile. There was no cruelty in his face, no sick twistedness so many carried. One of the other men at the table was trying to get her attention, waving bills around and making noise. She spotted a twenty mixed into the fives and went over, smiling while she danced. She playfully leaned over, shaking her legs with her butt in the air so everyone got a real good look at her straps of a costume.

"It's my buddy's birthday, can you give him a little treat?" he asked, jerking a thumb in dark eyes direction. She nodded even though it wasn't her normal thing and he stuffed the money into her bra. She tried not to grimace and it scratched the soft skin and instead, stood upright with a practiced arch of the back and flick of the hair. She slinked over to him, knowing her set was almost done by the song winding up. Gracefully she managed to get onto her hands and knees and crawl the last distance to him, curling a finger under his surprised jaw and darting her tongue out to flick against his bottom lip before she pulled away as the song ended. She stood back up, ignoring the dizzy rush in her head as a weird feeling tumbled in her gut. He looked absolutely stunned and that was a greater compliment than the applause and catcalls of his friends.

Alice grabbed her damp costume off the floor and went backstage, sweat making the hair stick to her neck and body. The glitter itched and irritated and she wanted to kick the killer shoes off and be barefoot again. One of the other dancers brushed roughly past her, rudely slamming her out of the way to get to the stage. Ace shrugged, knowing they were pissed about that little lick. It was their thing to tease that much, their job to get the men so hard they had to burn it off by renting a girl. And they were the ones that were for rent. Her actions tonight showed them that if she wanted to, Ace could easily steal that from them too. It was going to be hell for the next while. But as she locked away the first round of tips, she knew it was worth it. She could still taste his breath on her tongue, a peppery spice that suited his Hispanic handsomeness. She rolled the taste around in her mouth as she got into her server's costume. Each girl did the group dance, a stage solo and served the clients in drinks or private matters. Going with the theme from her dance, Alice pulled on a white body suit that had patches cut out to show the flesh underneath. The pants were chaps, the sides of her abdomen exposed and a large V from collar bone to low on her hips, all showed kisses of her skin.

Ace sauntered back out and immediately noticed the other dancers swarming those party boys, wanting the big tips they offered. She gave a mental shrug and let them mob the poor bastards, she was content to handle the easier clients. She was clearing away empty glasses from a table of boys that couldn't have been older than she was, when she heard someone clearing their throat. Alice tried not to frown as she turned around, but standing close enough that she could feel his body heat was Mr. Dark Eyes himself. And he was even more gorgeous up close. It surprised her to note that he was still a couple of inches taller than she was, even with her death trap high heels on.

"You dropped this." he held her horns out to her, dangling off one of his long fingers. She raised an eyebrow at him, a little amused he was trying to return it to her.

"It's a souvenir. You're supposed to keep it and think of me always." she flirted automatically. Her forwardness seemed to flounder him for a moment so she started to move past him to get back to work.

"You're really good. You could be a professional dancer." he stated, walking with her.

"I am a professional. This is a strip club sweety, not amateur night." she taunted, not understanding where this urge to flirt was coming from. She wasn't like this normally, the very thought of being a tease like this repelled her. But here she was, wanting to keep their conversation going so she'd have an excuse to look at him, memorize his darkest black eyes and delicious smile.

"That's not what I meant." he admitted with a laugh. "I meant a real dancer, as in Cats or something like that." Ah, sense is made.

"Thank you sweety, I appreciate the compliment." she said graciously, a warm little thrill zapping through her.

"My name is Malcolm. You can call me Mal." he greeting with another cheeky grin.

"Ace." she offered, not knowing why she gave her nic name and not her stage name. And just to completely shock the hell out of her brain, her mouth opened and she said, "Alice Spade. But my friends call me Ace." the urge to kick herself was overwhelming. Before he could reply she hurried away, setting the empty bottles down and bringing new drinks out for the highschool boys that fake ID'd their way in.

They laughed and tried to pull her down onto their laps, slapping her ass and trying to cop a feel higher up. She dodged it all easily, annoyed at them and herself. She knew how risky it was telling a customer her real name. She went by the stage name Chalice just because it was so close to hers she would respond to it. But nooo, she gave him her real name. God she felt like such an idiot!

"Hey, they want a lap dance and they're asking for you." Nathan called out to her, indicating Malcolm's table. He looked apologetic at her as his friends all eagerly beckoned her their way. With a sigh and a mental steeling of her heart, she stalked over to them, knowing that it would be easier to just get this over with as fast as possible.

"A lap dance for the birthday boy!" one of Malcolm's friends cheered, thrusting the money at Alice. It was only thirty bucks for a lap-dance, but the amount they stuffed into her costume was nearly a hundred. Oh the snake eyes the other women shot her way would have fouled a weaker woman. But a little animosity was gnats to Alice compared to her past.

"Ah... is there some place a little more private?" Malcolm asked, looking a little panicked. It amused Alice to realize that he was feeling shy around her.

"Sure, come with me." she curled a finger, gesturing for him to follow. The cheers of his friends followed as she led him through the obligatory beaded curtain to the semi private and private rooms. She picked a privacy booth farther back and they walked past other lap dances and a few closed doors with the sounds of lust and flesh sounding out.

She pushed him down onto the booth and flicked the speaker on, letting the music fill their space up. She looked down into his dark eyes and saw he was a little stunned as she carefully leaned into him and rubbed against him. Lap dances were not her thing, she avoided them as much as possible normally. But a part of her was intrigued by the way his eyes showed everything he was thinking. He didn't try and hide it or lie, and it didn't seem to bother him that he was easier to read than a book. Even knowing nothing about him at all, her instincts told her that here was a man that would never hurt a woman.

She moved around and straddled his knees, dancing against him as she noticed that he didn't look like he was enjoying himself. So she stopped dancing and stepped off of him. "You look like someone pissed in your corn flakes Mal." she stated bluntly. He blinked at her, surprised.

"Well... truth be told I didn't want the lap dance." he admitted after a brief pause. "I didn't want to come out here at all. It was my best friend's idea as a birthday gift." he smiled at her and patted the booth next to him. "They wouldn't leave off so I gave in to make them happy, same as the lap dance. But really, I'd rather talk if you don't mind?" he asked her.

Chewing the inside of her lip, the logical part warred with the impulsive part. Impulse won and she clicked off the speaker, incidentally brushing against Malcolm. Little jitters started as she felt his heat sink into her body. She looked up at him and smiled, a real smile. "Alright Mal. What would you like to talk about?" she asked as she sat down.

His face was smiling and relaxed again now that he wasn't uncomfortable. HE paused, obviously trying to come up with a safe topic of conversation. So... what's your favourite sport?" he asked, shifting in his seat to face her.

Ace smiled as she felt herself relaxing a little. He really was just a sweet guy. "MMA. GSP is my hero." she stated, catching him off guard.

"You like MMA?" he asked, surprised. Alice frowned at him and he quickly tried to recover. "Not that I don't think beautiful women can like watching men beat on each other. I think that's just the first time I've heard a woman say it was her favourite sport." Mal explained.

"So how's that foot of yours taste?" Ace teased playfully. "Nah it's ok, I know it'd odd. It's just most modern sports are fluff anymore. Psychologically our sports offer us a relief valve we generally lack elsewhere in our lives. But they're trying to take the fights out of hockey for Christ's sake. It doens't make sense. As a species humanity has an inherent pre-existing violence threshold. We've needed it to survive. It fuels our wills to persevere through hardship and helps propel us into evolutionary tracts that have thus far proven quite successful. So why are we now trying to act like we're completely aggression free animals?" Ace argued, loving to have the chance to explain herself on the matter. It wasn't that she liked bloodshed, but instead she appreciated the violence by proxy it provided to a general populace that had no other outlet. Modern man was not designed to handle their own aggressions well.

"That makes sense. It would explain a little why the more we try to censor our group violence the more personal violence increases. Extreme sports are on the rise, things like base jumping, hang gliding and street racing are all overwhelmingly popular with a certain personality type." Mal agreed. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way but I'm a little surprised to find a well thought out argument on behavioural psychology, here of all places."

Ace smiled, showing him that he wasn't offended. " It's alright. Most men don't even realize a stripper has a brain, let alone a real IQ. I'm an autodidact, so whenever I get interested in something, I learn as much as I can about it." Alice admitted without embarrassment. She personally detested how the media was trying to tell girls that being smart wasn't sexy. It was encouraging a generation of young women that it's better to be dumb and cute than anything else. It was disappointing after all the work women in hi온라인카지노게임 had done to gain some form of equality. "Alright, you're turn. What's your favourite sport?" she asked, crossing her legs and leaning back a little. His eyes instinctively flickered down, as she was still in a painted on looking body suit, but she didn't hold it against him. Biological imperative and all.

"Well actually I love to kayak." he admitted. "It's not really a sport per se though so I guess I'll have to claim my second favourite and say rugby. It's harder than football and more intense than soccer." he explained with a smile. "What do you do for fun?" he asked then.

Alice raised her eyebrows at Mal and smiled. "As opposed to taking off my clothes for money? Wow how do I ever top that?" she asked sarcastically. "I read. And write." she admitted with a shrug of her shoulder. "You?"

"In college I was a volunteer firefighter. I wish I could still do that now but work is too demanding. Instead I use my limited free time to help at the animal shelter." Malcolm confessed. Alice raised her eyebrows again.

"Wow, what's a boy scout like you doing in a place like this?" she asked, only half jokingly.

He looked flustered at her comment and broke their intense eye contact. "I could ask the same of the intelligent autodidact." he laughed. "I'm a teacher not a boyscout. And I'm only here because my friends apparently felt it was appropriate to celebrate my 24th birthday by dragging me into the sleaziest strip club they could find." he realized how rude that sounded and said, "not that you're sleazy!" he covered.

Ace laughed, not in the least bit offended. "It's alright Malcolm, I'm not offended. This place is sleazy. It's a strip club called Suede's, you get what you'd expect." she offered and he relaxed again. "You said you were a teacher, so tell me Mr. Professor, what do you teach?" she asked, actually interested.

"I teach highschool kids either in Phys. Ed or in English. Right now I have classes in each grade, though I find certain age groups to be less than ideal." Malcolm explained. Ace looked at him intensly, imagining for a moment what it would be like to have him as a teacher.

"I bet all the girls in class sigh after you like Robert Patterson." Ace said honestly. She wouldn't blame them, he was delicious looking.

Malcolm grimaced. "I could do without that for sure. Not only would it be morally wrong to take advantage of a young girl's infatuation, but could you imagine me trying to have an intelligent conversation with any of them?" he scoffed, unaware of the hurt his comment caused in Alice.

"No more so than expecting a smart response from a stripper. Your time is up." Alice said cooly, getting to her feet. This was why she knew better than to talk. He couldn't know that she was only seventeen herself, the same age as these girls he casually dismissed.

Malcolm's fingers wrapped around her wrist, stopping her. "I've offended you. I'm sorry." he looked up at her. "I guess it's no different for you than it is for them. People assuming that what you do limits you as much as how young they are limits them." he astutely guessed. "Please, sit back down?" he asked.

Ace looked down at him, not sure why he wanted her good opinion of him. She was just a stripper. Someone he would never see again. Without thinking about it, she bent over and kissed him on the lips. It was a brief kiss, mostly chaste but it still made her body tingle. "Your time really is up Mal. If I don't take you back out there the boss is going to think we're having sex and that'll cost more." she explained.

He blinked up at her, caught off guard by the kiss and the explanation. "I don't care." he stated. "I'll pay it. I'm having more fun in here talking to you than I am out there while my friends drink and oogle women. This kind of place really isn't my thing." he shrugged, probably embarassed at coming across as a goody two shoes.

Ace hesitated for a moment but then sat down. She admitted to herself that she was having fun too. "Alright then lover boy. What's your most embarrassing 온라인카지노게임?" she asked like she'd never kissed him.

Malcolm watched her for a second, eyes shining in happiness that she'd stayed. "It would have to be the night of my graduation. I was going to become a teacher, had already lined up a job replacing a pregnant gym teacher and so I was a little cocky. The guys and I went out drinking and carousing and I ended up more than a little drunk. Where I then apparently decided that it was a perfectly good idea to urinate outside on the street so I wouldn't miss out on the fresh night air. To make matters even more entertaining, I was singing at the top of my lungs either the show must go on or another one bites the dust, stories vary on that account. Oh, and there was a parked police cruiser with two cops watching the entire thing. I woke up in their holding cell with a massive hangover and a fine for public drunkeness. They waived the public indecency charge because they realized I wasn't trouble, just stupid." Ace tried not to laugh but a chortle snuck out, then she started to really laugh. She could picture it and that made it worse. Soon enough she was trying to muffle her laughter and holding her stomach. Malcolm didn't take it the wrong way, he was laughing too.

"I...just have...to ask..... can you sing?" Alice asked between giggles.

Malcolm grinned at her. "If this place had karaoke I'd show you. Though you can always assume I can't hold a note a gunpoint, it makes the 온라인카지노게임 more fun." he offered. Ace cracked right up again and he laughed with her. After nearly five minutes they both calmed down again.

"What is someone as smart as you doing here?" he asked, killing the good mood instantly. Alice sat up from her relaxed slumped and looked down at the floor. He picked up on her tension immediately and frowned. "I'm sorry, was that too personal?" he asked softly.

Alice opened her mouth when suddenly she heard a loud commotion from the main room. Several men in vests proclaiming them to be police burst through the beaded curtain and started to sweep the privacy booths, startled curses coming from the sex rooms. Both Malcolm and Alice raised their hands to the sky as the police found them in the back area and the only thing Alice could think of was 'oh shit'.