Babes Stripping For Love

The sun was shining through the heavy curtains when Charlotte woke up. She was tired from working at Babes last night. At the age of twenty-three, she was feeling like an old woman with creaky joints. She was too pale and too skinny, she lost weight easily after her future was ripped apart from her grasp.

Charlotte was once the prima ballerina at one of the country’s prestigious ballet houses until her dad’s embezzlement case came to surface. Not long after that, her mom passed away from a heart attack after months of struggling for her life in a hospital bed. All while her dad’s trial was going on, until the day he was sentenced and imprisoned for the biggest financial fraud the country had witnessed in the last decade.

She was humiliated, her friends abandoned her, and she was burdened with the huge debt of her mom’s medical bills. Homeless and jobless, Charlotte was entangled with a stranger, a man who took her into his mansion of a house where he let her stay to pay off her mom’s hospital debt.

Her dad’s lawyer had arranged for her to do so, telling her that Seamus Braddock is an old family friend. Her dad confirmed so when she visited him in prison, a week after she moved into Braddock’s house.

Though she tried to stay positive and be strong for her dad, Charlotte was not convinced how she was going to clear her debt any time soon. It’ll probably take her years seeing the staggering amount of the hospital bill.

It has been almost a month since she stayed there and the homeowner, Seamus Braddock, had been giving her the hot and cold treatment. He did not agree when she told him that she was going to be a stripper at Babes. But she insisted since it was the only place where she could dance and make decent money to pay off her debt to him. When she started working at Babes, one of the only establishments in town that would employ her since her family news went viral, Braddock had treated her with such disgust. But she ignored him, she had one goal on her mind, which was to pay her debt.

It was not like she wanted to dance in the club, but that was all she could do, dancing was all she knew growing up. She had reached her goal of being the prima ballerina, as short as her career was, Charlotte was happy on stage.

Everything was going as planned, until last week when Rockford kissed her. Charlotte had watched as Seamus gave her the coldest stare, basically telling her to stop being a slut.

She almost laughed at the thought of it, his words couldn’t hurt any worse than that. She had never let a man near, not after the sexual assault that made her lose her virginity back when she was starting as a prima ballerina.

But Rockford had been nothing but sweet to her since she started working at Babes. Charlotte was finally letting her walls down and letting him kiss her. He was the second man she ever kiss, the first man that she ever let kiss her lips willingly.

Tears ran down her cheeks just like every other morning since the assault. No one knew about it but her parents, now only her dad. As bad as her dad was in the eyes of the public, she believed him when he said that he was innocent in the case. He had told her that he was framed and that Charlotte needs to stay at Braddock’s until he got out. Charlotte obeyed her dad, just like the good daughter that she was. She wanted her dad to survive in prison, she didn’t want him to worry about her, though on the inside she was falling apart and she was tired of crying every morning.

“Good morning, Ms. Sullivan,” The maid greeted her when she entered her room to tend to her almost-healed sprained ankle. She had twisted her ankle coming down from the stage when she saw Braddock at the club. He had never seen her dance and Charlotte was so shocked seeing him there, that she didn’t see the end of the step and fall. Since then she was on a break from dancing, Charlotte had been coming to the club to help out Jojo doing administrative work at the back office to make sure that Gage, the club owner, didn’t fire her.

A breakfast tray was laid on her king-size bed and she thanked Marjorie, the young beautiful maid for her assistance.

This was one of the kindnesses that puzzled Charlotte from the first day she arrived at Braddock’s mansion. The huge house was guarded with actual armed guards and the man had assigned Marjorie to provide Charlotte with anything she needs, he even provided her with a driver. He was providing for her needs when Charlotte had been nothing but an unwanted burden for him.

“Marjorie, thank you, but I think I’m better today,” she wiped her cheeks dry while the rest of her words caught up in her throat. She wanted to dismiss her, she wanted more time alone to ponder on her life. She missed her mom, and she worry for her dad.

“You’re going to visit your dad today, Mr. Braddock reminded me to help you get ready and make sure you eat your breakfast. Burke will be waiting for you to take you there.”This belongs to NôvelDrama.Org - ©.

Small little details informing her that Seamus was looking out for her were screwing up her feelings. But the mention of her dad made her eyes teary all over again.

“Oh, Ms. Sullivan, I didn’t mean to upset you,”

“Marjorie, it’s been weeks, I told you to call me Charlotte when we’re alone.” She reminded the young maid again, Marjorie was three years younger than Charlotte and her family had been working for Braddock since forever according to the young woman.

“Charlotte, please, you have to eat. You don’t want your dad to worry, right?”

She smiled at her and nodded. An hour later Charlotte was dressed and her ankle was wrapped with the elastic bandage.

That early afternoon Charlotte watched as Seamus Braddock escorted a woman out of his room, a beautiful voluptuous woman still wearing her club wear attire while he was looking perfectly handsome in his designer pajama pants with matching robe revealing his fine hairy chest and very defined masculine torso. And no Charlotte didn’t want to stare but he was like a magnet for her since the first day she arrived and he welcomed her into his house.

He was her forbidden fruit, it doesn’t matter how much she wanted him, the man was off limit since he hated her. She knows this from when she accidentally heard him talking on the phone telling the person on the other line exactly that. Charlotte heard him explain to the other person that had to take Charlotte in, that she was a burden, and that she needs to pay off her mom’s hospital bills.

And with the kind of money she was making at Babes, Charlotte knows that she’d be staying there for years. Now, after a month of living there, she was ready to move out and she was going to tell her dad exactly that, the moment she sees him.

“Dad, oh my god, what happened?” Charlotte gasped when she saw the bruise on her dad’s face, his right eye was swollen shut and his nose was a bit crooked under the purplish bruise.

“A fight broke out and I was caught in the middle. I’ll be okay, kiddo. Things like this happen and one of Seamus’s men was there to help me out of the chaos.” This was also the thing that made her need to stay at Braddock’s, the gratitude and guilt. Her dad had told her to stay with the arrogant playboy who had different women in his bed every week. The man who judged her as a slut for dancing at a strip club and kissing the security guy, while he paraded his female companion in front of her.

“So, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something?” Her dad asked smiling like her presence was the highlight of his week there at the maximum security prison. Her heart broke for her dad, she wanted him safe, and seeing him hurt and in prison for a crime that he was framed for, made her teary instantly.

“Oh… Charlotte, my little ballerina. It’ll all be okay in the end. We’ll get through this, mom is watching us, she won’t let anything bad happen to us, okay?”

“I love you, dad,” she sniffled, quickly wiping her tears away.

“I love you too, kiddo,”

Charlotte didn’t tell him about her intention to move out, not when Braddock had his men guarding her dad from the inside of the prison. They talked about everything but her work and her current situation with Rockford. She lied and told him that she was still unemployed and looking for jobs. Charlotte didn’t have the heart to tell her dad that she was working at a strip club and he told her that Braddock will wait and that he had assured her dad that paying him back was not an urgent matter.

A family friend her dad had told her, though she felt nothing but hostility whenever Seamus was near.