As Bailey pulled into the employee parking lot of The Jade, he thought, 'Wow, must be busy already,' looking at the line to enter the bar that spilled into the nearby lot. 'Perks to working here,' he decided as he walked into the bar to the sounds of complaints from the people who were new and cheers from the people that knew him. Shooting them a sassy smile and a wink, he continued on his way to the backstage entrance near the bar. Opening the door, he heard exclamations of "Diablo!" from the other dancers getting ready at their vanities. Smiling, he put his bag down at his dressing table and walked closer to greet his fellow dancers.
"We haven't seen you in a while!" claimed the big, blonde woman to his right. She laughed and gave him a hug, happy to see that he was working that night.
"It's only been a couple of days, Trisa! I am allowed to have free time," he laughed as she squeezed him.
"No! I need my devil every night or the big meanies in the crowd will come crawling out," she pouted down at him. At 6'9, Trisa was the biggest dancer in the club, no one would be messing with her anytime soon.
"Like that would ever happen," Bailey laughed, giving her a final squeeze as she let go. "And how is everyone else doing?," he questioned looking at the other dancers in the room.
"You know how it is D," a blue haired dancer remarked tiredly, "Just waiting for her highness to show up, late as always, so I can end my shift and head home."
"Yeah, I know how it is Derek," Bailey sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, "She doesn't know I'm working today right? Otherwise she would have attempted to 'greet me' at the door."
"We made sure she wouldn't know," A heavily accented voice spoke out, " She is annoying whenever you are mentioned nowadays, acts like a fly, won't stop buzzing around trying to be the boss."
Bailey turned to look at the speaker, a brunette woman standing in the corner with her arms crossed and eyes closed. Annette Adler was the head dancer at The Jade. She, along with Andrea, the main choreographer, really made the shows at The Jade one of a kind. They were always popular to the crowd. He didn't really know how it happened, but Annette was very protective toward him, to the point that she was willing to go against the manager on the Lacey issue.
Lacey was very popular at the club because she fit a certain appeal, mostly for the married men in the club, of being a young and skinny woman. It did not help that she was also beautiful in the eyes of the crowd. Because of that, Lacey had many privileges, such as, before the incident, being able to choose who she worked with out on the stage and the floor, as well as any problems the other dancers had with her were generally ignored. That Annette was more popular with the crowd than Lacey allowed her to force the managers into banning Lacey from dancing with Bailey.
Before the incident, Lacey had the managers believing that Bailey liked her back and that them working together would be best for business because of their sexual tension between them; however that idea blew up in their faces when Lacey attempted to dance sexily on him for a shift and Bailey puked on her. When she tried to continue dancing on him, and he continued to puke more, Lacey had tried to play it off as him being drunk, which was forbidden before and during shifts, but when they forced him to take a breathalyzer test, there were no signs of alcohol in his system. Annette really came through for him by forcing the managers to open their eyes and realize that Lacey was lying and that if they did not press the issue, she would quit and help Bailey sue the club, and Lacey, for damages to his person as well as sexual harassment.
"I'll make sure I'm already out there before she arrives then," Bailey remarked as he put his bag in his locker and his small makeup bag on his assigned vanity.
Making sure his locker was securely locked so that Lacey could not tamper with his possessions, he glided out toward the pulsing beat of the club's main floor. Many eyes travelled over his body as he walked out toward the main dance floor in the middle of the room. Moving his hips and body in time with the music, he seamlessly became part of the pulsing, grinding mob on the dance floor.