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  Live Fantasies

  Tool Shed Book 4

  A.R. Steele

  Live Fantasies

  Tool Shed Book 4

  Published by A.R. Steele

  Copyright © 2020 A.R. Steele

  All Rights Reserved

  May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

  The Tool Shed Series:

  Hard Wood

  Full Frontal

  VIP Room

  Live Fantasies

  Exposed

  Final Act

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  One

  Somewhere ahead of Jesse, a stripper groaned. As he dragged his feet forward, another sound of discontent joined the first. By the time he passed the change room doorway, the guys were performing a veritable chorus of “awws” and “fucks.” When Jesse saw Brentley standing on the main stage, he joined in the refrain.

  “People, I told you at the start of the night that we were going to be meeting after the shift,” Brentley said. “We agreed that we would talk about the direction of the club. I know you’re all tired, but come on.”

  Rolling his eyes, Jesse took a tentative step toward the front door. If he was lucky, he could pass by without the new manager seeing him. He’d go home, smoke a joint, and get in bed. Did Brentley not realize how late it was? At this time of night, pretty much anything would have been preferable to some bullshit meeting.

  “Hey, Jesse, where are you going?” Brentley called. “I need every single one of you here.”

  Dammit. “Coming, B.”

  Still grumbling silently, Jesse rejoined the group as they cleared aside the tables and pushed the chairs into a semicircle. Once everything was in place, Jesse sat down and drummed his fingers on his thigh. It was always odd to see the main room with the lights on. The atmosphere was entirely different.

  “This should only take half an hour,” Trenton said gruffly, seated at the open end of the semicircle. “And you’ll be paid for that time.”

  That placated the guys to some extent. They were quiet as Brentley jumped down from the stage and came to sit beside Trenton.

  Jesse had to admit this was good in a way. Trenton had never asked for the strippers’ opinions before. He had always done what he wanted without looking for any input from the other people who worked at the club. Asking the strippers for input already put Brentley ahead in Jesse’s view.

  Still, he wanted to get home. He glanced around the group, taking in each of the faces. Cooper and Owen were side-by-side, as were Ace and Gabriel. The first two couples that had formed at the club were always inseparable. Lucas was alone in the semicircle. He and Elijah were dating now, although Elijah had left to go back to school. Next to Lucas was Jesse’s buddy Lev… and then the newest guy, Shade.

  Jesse’s heart beat a little harder when his gaze fell on Shade. He had his elbows on his knees and was leaning in with eager eyes, his sharp features attentive. His chin rested in his hand, and he stroked his neatly trimmed goatee. Light brown hair peeked out from under the black bandana he always wore.

  Shade had been here for a couple months, and Jesse still had a bit of a thing for him. How could he not? Jesse’s breath hitched as he looked up and down Shade’s wiry body. Realizing that he was openly staring, he turned – but kept looking out of the corner of his eye. He wanted to trail his fingers along that nicely tanned skin of Shade’s. No, fuck fingers. He wanted to lick it.

  Shade had a boyfriend, though – one he’d been with since before he’d arrived at the Tool Shed. Jesse didn’t know any details about the relationship, but he tried to keep his feelings platonic since Shade was taken.

  “We need everyone,” Brentley said to Trenton. “The bartender, the DJ, even the bouncer.”

  “If you think it’s necessary, I’ll get them.”

  Jesse tipped his chair back as Trenton called out to those people. All three of them looked out of place as they pulled up more seats. They hardly interacted with the group. But Brentley was right. They were part of this place too, and they might have something to contribute.

  With his eyes on the ground, Trenton rubbed his hands together. “I opened this club on a dare,” he said, glancing over to Austin. “It’s been more than a year since I opened it. You’ve all seen us try a variety of experiments. None of them worked as much as we hoped.”

  That was an understatement.

  “If this club’s going to succeed, I need each and every one of you putting in a hundred percent of your effort.”

  Jesse didn’t know about that. He didn’t give a hundred percent effort to just about anything. He probably gave fifty percent at best. There was very little that he cared about. He tended to float through life in a haze of pot smoke and casual sex.

  He cared for his family, he guessed. He was closer with his grandparents than his parents, although they were all in the same house. His parents worked odd hours and he hardly saw them. Maybe he’d give a hundred percent if his family ever needed anything. As he fiddled with the collar of his leather jacket, he wrinkled his nose at the thought of offering that much effort to anything else.

  “So, we want to hear your thoughts,” Brentley said. “There’s no such thing as a bad idea. We’re just throwing stuff out there. What is the club doing right, and what is it doing wrong?”

  “We’ve hired the sexiest fuckers in Bridgehaven,” Lev said.

  The other guys vocally agreed. They were all good-looking, or they wouldn’t be here in the first place. Still, some of them appealed to each other more than the rest. For example, none of them set Jesse off quite like Shade.

  “Okay, hot guys and what else?” Brentley said. “How are we utilizing the guys? Is it effective?”

  “I think we could definitely do better,” Cooper put in. “As much as we all love the Tool Shed, we do pretty basic routines. One guy performs at a time, not counting the two side stages. And all of the dances are pretty similar. Everyone has different moves, but they’re the same idea. We don’t even have different routines for different music.”

  The DJ crossed his ankle over his knee. “I can play whatever music you want. Just let me know.”

  “Great, we can think about that,” Brentley said. “Let’s keep brainstorming.”

  “What about the main goal for this club?” Trenton said. “Do you agree that it’s all about sex? Or is it more for entertainment?”

  “I know a lot of girls who come here want sex,” Ace said. “Actual sex, I mean. With a stripper.”

  Gabriel swatted his arm. “Not many of them are getting it anymore.”

  The guys looked at Jesse and laughed. Jesse raised his hands in an unabashed shrug. He was the only single one left who was into women. He had taken advantage of that on many occasions. A lot of the girls who came here were intrigued by sleeping with a black guy for the first time, and he didn’t mind being an experiment for them. If being an exotic experience meant getting laid, he was all for it.

  “Wright, you see everything that happens in here,” Trenton said to the bartender. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m down to help however I can. I don’t know if you remember from my interview, but I can juggle bottles and set drinks on fire and shit. The customers might be into that.”

  “You should absolutely be doing that.” Brentley shot a glare at Trenton as if demanding why he didn’t already have Wright doing it.

  Jesse looked over at Shade, wondering what he thought. He hadn’t said a word this whole time. He was listening intently and laughing at all the right times, but he offered none of his own ideas. He tended to not say much in general. He talked, yeah, but only about other people or the club or whatever. It was always a struggle to g
et him to say more than the basics about himself. Jesse had picked up on that a while ago. He was especially secretive about his boyfriend.

  “This is my first time working at a male strip club, as you know,” Brentley said. “I used to manage a nightclub. But I’ve been to one or two of these places on my own time.” The guys guffawed. “One place I went to was exclusively for men. I suppose you’ve never considered opening the doors to male customers?”

  “No,” Trenton said. “That would ruin the entire experience for the female customers. Besides, this has been a strip club for women from day one. We’d have to rebrand entirely if we were to open the doors to men.”

  “Just an idea,” Brentley said. “One thing that other clubs do is have different kinds of acts.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Gabriel said.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen that too.” Jesse tilted his chair back and balanced. Although he still wanted to leave, this conversation had somewhat piqued his interest. “It’d be easy. All we’d need is some costumes.”

  “We should ask our current customers what they want,” Brentley said. “Find out what they like and dislike, and what would make them bring more of their friends. They’re our target. Let’s ask them where to find more people like them.”

  Shade’s face was suddenly eager as he piped up. “So how are we going to do that? Should we give them a survey?”

  “No, I don’t think we need anything that official. If you guys want to ask them some questions, you can do that tomorrow night. Try to figure out more about what they want. You have an excellent resource in the women who walk through that door. They have the exact information that you want, you just need to get it out of them.”

  “That’s true,” Trenton said. “I never thought of asking them. Must’ve thought I could guess what they wanted.”

  “We’d all like to be able to do that, but sometimes you need to set aside your pride and ask.”

  “I think it’s a great idea.” Shade scooched his chair closer to the table and leaned in, his light brown eyes sparkling. “You need to be subtle about how you ask. You don’t want to be too obvious if you don’t want them to know what you’re doing. There’s ways to get information out of people without them even knowing they’re giving it to you.”

  Jesse had to grin at Shade’s enthusiasm. “What do you suggest?” he asked.

  Inexplicably, Shade’s eyes lit up even more. “The first thing is not to ask any closed questions,” he said. “That means absolutely no yes or no questions. Anything you ask should be open-ended. Get them to say more than one word in response.”

  The guys nodded. “Makes sense,” Brentley said.

  “One technique is called funneling questions,” Shade went on. “That means you start with a broad question, then narrow it down as you go along. You can get some detailed information if you talk to them more. For example, you could ask, ‘how’s your night going?’ Then, ‘what did you think about the strippers?’ Then ask what they think about the clothes, and then specifically about the shoes.”

  It made sense to Jesse. He just wondered where Shade had picked this up. In fact, he recalled Shade using a similar line of questioning when he asked Trenton about the champagne lounge a few months ago. Then again, Shade was always full of questions. He had to be the most curious person Jesse had ever met.

  “Well, I think that’s enough for tonight,” Brentley said. “We have some ideas for things to ask the customers tomorrow. Let’s reconvene after tomorrow night’s shift.” The guys looked unhappy, and he hastily added, “Yes, you’ll get paid for that time as well.”

  The extra income kept them from complaining. They picked up and left, all of them seeming tired. Jesse still had his mind on Shade as he headed for his red Jeep Wrangler in the parking lot.

  His little speech on question-asking technique wasn’t the first sign that he was a little off. Something about Shade was definitely different. Always had been.

  And the minute Shade and his boyfriend split up, Jesse intended to find out what it was.

  Two

  The main room was about as crowded as usual, which was to say not overly crowded. Shade circulated, making eye contact with women at different tables as he decided which one to approach. There were the ones who barely looked legal at the corner table, or the two middle-aged women sitting next to them. The way both groups looked at him still shocked him.

  He had come to enjoy this work, even if he had initially been hesitant. Over the past three months, he’d gained all sorts of confidence that he hadn’t had before. He was becoming a new person. Even his body had gotten better since he’d picked up the habit of lifting weights like the other strippers.

  His looks had never been a source of pride for him. He was slowly getting used to the customers’ appreciation – not that he could engage in any sort of relationship right now.

  He sat down with a table without asking for permission. The move would have seemed outrageously daring before he came here. Women expected that of strippers, even demanded it. So his heartbeat stayed steady as he said, “Hello, ladies. How is your night going?”

  “It’s great! How are you?”

  “I’m wonderful,” he said, draping one arm around each of them. “What are your plans for tonight?”

  They both giggled. “We’re just having a girls’ night,” one said. “We just thought we would come out and have some fun.”

  “What kind of fun were you looking for?” Shade asked, using the funneling technique he’d learned at school.

  He probably shouldn’t have told the other strippers about this last night. It might have given too much away about what he was doing here. He just got so excited about getting information out of people.

  “Just normal, sexy fun,” the brunette said. “We came to meet some hot guys and live a little.”

  “So, you’re not looking for anything wild and crazy?”

  The blonde gave him a mischievous grin. “That depends on what you had in mind.”

  Seeing his mistake, Shade pulled away. He didn’t want these women to think he actually wanted to sleep with them. His eyes drifted across the room and found the one stripper who might do such a thing. Jesse was in jeans that hung low on his hips, showing the brand name at the waistband of his boxers. He always had a more revealing pair of underwear underneath to strip down to. As always, his close-cropped curls were covered by a do-rag.

  Shade licked his lips as he watched Jesse. Light glinted off his oiled-up dark skin. His gold nipple rings glittered even more. Shade wondered what would happen if he put one of those piercings in his mouth. He could imagine pressing it between his lips. Flicking it with his tongue…

  Clearing his throat, he pulled away from the table. “It was wonderful to meet you ladies. I hope you have an amazing night.”

  He approached the four younger women next. All of them were dressed to the nines, and some of the most elaborate drinks the bar served were scattered across the table.

  “How are you doing tonight?” he asked, helping himself to a sip of one’s drink.

  “We’re good,” two said simultaneously.

  “What do you think of the club so far? Is it your first time here?”

  “It sure is, and we love it.” The girl ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “We should have come here earlier.”

  “You can always come again. Did you come for some kind of occasion?”

  “Yes, it’s my friend’s birthday.”

  Shade smiled at the woman, who was practically drooling as she looked at him. “Happy birthday. I’d love to give you a lap dance on the house.”

  Her jaw dropped slightly open, and she nodded with wide eyes. As Shade went into his dance, he thought about how he never would have seen himself doing this. He definitely hadn’t trained for this kind of work. Every night he came here, he wondered if this was truly happening.

  When he stopped to think about it, this whole thing was just crazy. Him, a male stripper. And then there
was… well, everything about this place! The dating, the drugs, the club’s struggling and the way they were trying to solve it. There was so much information to collect.

  The song finished, and Shade stroked the girl’s shoulder. She blinked as if coming out of a trance. He’d noticed immediately how the customers always looked hypnotized by the other strippers’ swaying hips or rippling abs. It was flattering that it happened with him as well.

  At this point, he pretty much was one of the group. He was a real stripper. The others just didn’t know everything about him.

  As he said goodbye and made his way to another group, he looked around at the different men working the crowd. Ace sat with one table and Gabriel with another, and Shade had to smile at the way they kept glancing at each other. He could feel the connection between them, even if the customers would never have noticed that they were intimate.

  He walked further, passing by Jesse’s table. His eyes rested on those brawny muscles for a millisecond. He made sure not to look for longer than that. Jesse would distract him from his work.

  “What do you like about the Tool Shed?” Jesse asked abruptly. “And what don’t you like? We’re trying to improve this place.”

  Shade shook his head, seeing the way the customers stiffened and blinked at him. Jesse had started asking these questions out of nowhere, the exact way Shade had warned against. He had no subtlety.

  Since Shade didn’t belong here, he probably shouldn’t influence the results of the survey. It would be best if he just agreed with the others’ feedback. He would keep quiet about anything he found beyond that. His role here was to observe, not to change anything. He had kept quiet and watched and listened through everything he had seen before, and he was still working on his report about it.

  As he walked by Jesse, he caught the eye of a girl and another group. When he reached the table, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick neck rub. She gazed up at him as he sat down. “I haven’t even met you, and I already like you.”

  There were three other girls at the table, and Shade hoped to win the rest of them over as well. “How is your night going so far? Are you enjoying what you’ve seen?”