#stripper!matt

They get to the door. Ivan looks up from the concrete; oh, good, he’s taller than the bouncer. He gives a small smile, and the bouncer raises his eyebrows. Amy clings to Ivan’s side and pats his chest.

“It’s okay, he’s with me.” He nods and steps aside to let them pass.

Ivan bends down a little to ask her quietly, “Did I know that you’ve been here before?” She waves him off.

“Minor details.” They’re through the short entrance hallway now and in the main room, a spotlit, sunken affair with bright stages and dim, screeching audiences. She leads him around the edge of the room with a purpose and sits him down in an armchair next to a small coffee table, curling up in the one next to him. He curls his fists on his knees and stares at the rings on the table. Amy laughs at him and pokes his cheek.

“C’mon, babe, that’s no way to be! Look around, enjoy yourself.” He glares at her, and she grins ferociously at him. “Okay, okay, I get it.” She turns in her chair, looks behind her and waves over a waiter. He’s shirtless; Ivan looks away. She snorts and rolls her eyes before glancing up at the waiter with a smile. “Tequila Sunrise for me, and-”

“Vodka, straight, please,” Ivan says, rubbing his temple to shield his eyes. The waiter smiles politely.

“Sure thing.”

When he comes back, he sets the whole bottle down next to Ivan’s glass with a wink. “You look like you’ll need it.”

“Oh, thank you.” He smiles again before giving Amy her Sunrise, and Amy watches his back as he leaves.

“Dude, he was so into you,” she says, leaning over so she can be heard over the thump of the music. He blinks.

“What?” She smiles and rolls her eyes as the lighting in the club changes, dimming at the side stages and focusing on the main.

“Oh, great, the show’s starting!” Amy leans forward, watching the curtain avidly as the other patrons whistle and scream in advance.

Ivan burrows down into his chair and his turtleneck and grabs his bottle blindly.

He tries not to look at the stage as the performers, the strippers, slide out from behind the curtain, and, oh Lord, they’re all in police uniforms – or torn-up scraps of them, all bare arms and hotpants and open jackets. The last one out is in bright red instead of navy, and – fuck, he’s a Mountie.

Ivan pulls his hair down as far as it’ll go in front of his eyes and tugs his collar all the way up, cursing Amy in his head as she shrieks along with the rest of them and ignore her incredibly uncomfortable boyfriend. A song starts up.

The show is everything he’d feared it would be; the jacket-vests barely last through the first chorus, and the women around the stage make hysterical grabs when they get close, their cheers almost as loud as the music. The Mountie keeps his coat, though – probably to keep him at the center, this seems to be his spotlight routine. The red is highlighting.

They most likely can’t see off the stage, especially to Amy and Ivan’s back table, but occasionally one of them glances his way, and he stiffens and takes another swig of blessed grain alcohol.

The show doesn’t end, it elongates as the five strippers split to the side stages, pulling their audience with them. The platform in front of Ivan, previously deserted, now gets the main attraction at the Mountie stripper struts over to it, bringing several of the crowd with him. Ivan freezes, and Amy catcalls.

He twists his way up onto the platform, and Ivan finally notices the pole connecting it up to the ceiling. Shit.

The Mountie stripper grips the pole with both hands, glances down at his watchers and sees Ivan for the first time. He winks, and Ivan’s eyes widen; he tries to shake his head, no, it’s not what it looks like, but he’s already lost attention.

With one smooth motion, the Mountie stripper lifts himself up, and Ivan lifts his eyebrows as he’s sideways in the air before flipping upside down to wrap his legs around the pole, worm his way up.

Now that’s a workout.

He spends another song flipping and spinning in the air in mild synchrony with his fellows around the club, coming to ground occasionally to smile at his crowd, duck his head in a nod (his hat’s still back on the main stage), collect a few bills in his khaki waistband. Amy’s at least gracious enough not to desert Ivan, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the Mountie stripper and his necessary core strength.

The more vodka he drinks, though, the more Ivan finds he can’t look away, either.

Eventually, though, he winds down, spinning around the pole on one hand and hooked ankle as he says goodnight in an outrageous Canadian accent. Two security guards step forward from the shadows to clear his path back to the main stage; Amy surges forward, pushing through the layer of women to tug on his jacket hem. The Mountie stripper looks down and grins, kneeling out of Ivan’s sight behind the ring of onlookers.

Ivan’s definitely going to need to ask Amy more about this later.

 He pops back up in a moment, though, and heads on backstage, his coworkers already bowing their way out as the next wave of entertainment emerges. Amy comes back and settles down with her now second Tequila Sunrise, smug and smiling. Ivan gives her a look, and she smiles wider. It’s her evil predator grin.

“You’ll see.”

`````````````

He does, soon enough.

The drawn crowds have petered away from the empty stage, so they’re mostly alone once more when the Mountie stripper, no longer glistening and with his hat and jacket back, slides up to Amy’s side a few songs later. “You said something about fifty bucks?”

Amy winks up at him from her chair. “That I did, sugar cake.” She grabs his belt and pulls him down to her level so she can whisper in his ear.

Ivan finishes off his vodka and slams the bottle on the table. Amy and Mountie stripper look up, exchange a few more words Ivan can’t hear before Mountie stripper straightens and Amy leans over, lays a hand on his arm.

“Ivan, babe, this is Matt, and he’s gonna take care of you.” Mountie stripper – Matt – steps around her chair as Ivan scrambles for words.

“What- wait, I don’t-” Matt swings over his chair arm and lands in a straddle across his lap, cutting off his stuttering and his breath.

“Your girl’s promised me fifty bucks to make you blush,” he says, the hair not caught back in his low ponytail swinging into Ivan’s face, hat shading both of them. Ivan presses back into his chair as far as he can, but he can’t run away from this creation of ripped muscle and deep blue eyes. He’s close enough to see the watery ring of contacts around his irises, the hollows in his cheeks. He may be able to suspend himself sideways by one hand, but he’s missed a few meals recently.

Matt takes off his hat and flops it on Ivan’s head, breaking his vodka trance. “So let’s have some fun, hmm?”

“Uh-” But Matt’s already dragging his hands down over his chest, tugging at the cables of his sweater with short nails, knees pressing against the side of Ivan’s hips, keeping him in place as he rolls, not quite close enough to touch, arching down to see Ivan’s eyes under the hat brim. He comes back up, lays one arm over his shoulder and flicking his hat back with the other, making Ivan look up from where he’d been fascinated with the pull and ripple over his stomach.

Matt’s hands are on his sides, rubbing. “You’re a big boy, aren’t ya?” Ivan’s mouth opens, closes; his hands hover, caught between chair arm and Matt’s twisting torso. He bumps into them when he sits back, looks at them with a smile. “You know, you can touch if you want,” he leans in to whisper, hair glossing over his cheek. It’s coarser than Amy’s. “I won’t mind.” He arches back into them; Ivan breathes, he can’t breathe, grips his waist tight, rolls his thumbs over his abs. Matt chuckles.

“Loosen up, boy, and watch your head.” Ivan blinks, obeys, and Matt bends back, jacket-vest falling away as he plants his hands on the floor by Ivan’s feet, kicks back. Ivan pushes him with it automatically, not noticing how he’s almost hit in the face as he watches Matt bend and flip, land on his feet. He straightens in front of him and puts his hands on his lips, staring at him closely. “What’d you think, is that a fifty dollar blush?”

Ivan shakes his head to clear the haze as Amy stands. “Oh, definitely.” She comes up to Matt and slides a folded bill into a pocket on his jacket-vest, pats it twice. “You did good, dear.”

He leans over and takes his hat back from a still dazed Ivan and puts it back on his head with a swipe of the brim. “Have a nice night, ma’am.” He gives Ivan another wink, and then he’s gone, headed back to the shadows of backstage. Ivan watches him go, then blinks up at Amy, who’s biting her lip to keep from laughing.

“What just happened.” She gives in and giggles, settling down on his lap this time, much more snugly than Matt had.

“You’re just so cute like that.”

He wraps an arm around her waist even as he slurs into her hair, “You know, you’re not really helping me, doing that.”

She shifts in his lap, purposely nudging his crotch with her hip. “Shush, you liked it.”

He thinks about it. “Don’t tell anyone.”