Where can two strippers get a bite to eat on Christmas Eve?

By  MelissaBaby. (abridged) Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

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“Fuck Christmas,” Clover shouted, “and fuck you, Tony. Fuck Santa Claus, fuck his elves and fuck all ten goddamn reindeers.”

“Eight,” Roxanne said, filing her nails and looking at her over the top of her glasses.

“Shut up, Roxy, I’m talking about reindeers, not how many cocks you sucked over the weekend.”

“Clover, calm down,” Tony said, “It was worth taking a shot.”

“Bullshit, I told you nobody goes to a strip club on Christmas Eve.”

“She did tell you,” Roxanne said, “Even louder that she’s telling you now.”

“Look,” he said, shrugging, “I’m sorry, but it wasn’t nobody…”

“We’ve had five customers,” Clover said.

“And the last one was two hours ago,” Roxanne chimed in, “It’s almost ten thirty.”

Clover jerked her thumb at Roxanne. “She might look like a doofus wearing that stupid Santa hat, but she’s right.”

Tony held up his hands, “Okay, it turned out to not be a great idea. You guys are always saying that more customers come in because they are lonely than because they are horny. I figured it would be a lonely night for a lot of guys…”

“It might be a great night to be a hooker,” Clover said, “but not a dancer.”

He looked at his watch, then over his shoulder at LeAnn, the bartender. “Tell you what,” he told her, “If nobody else comes in before eleven, go ahead and close up.”

He started to walk away, but Roxanne called him back. “We paid our club fees, Tony, that isn’t right.”

He looked up toward the ceiling, as if he were looking for a script to read from. “You want to close and go home early, but you want your club fees refunded because I said we would close and you could go home early?”

“No,” Clover said, “We want our club fees refunded because we paid you fifty dollars to dance on a night when you dragged us in here to dance, even though we told you nobody was coming the fuck in.”

“Fine,” he said, throwing his hands in the air, “LeAnn, give them back their club fees.”

The door opened, and they both groaned, but it was not a customer. Sporty, the Gold Dollar’s bouncer, came in.

“Speaking of guys you’ll fuck,” Clover muttered.

When he approached the bar, she said, “Hey Sporty, how come you go out with Roxy? I always heard black guys like girls with nice big asses.”

“I always heard strippers were friendly,” he shot back.

He sat down next to Roxanne.

“Where have you been?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” Clover said, “There could have been a brawl in here, between the rats and the cockroaches.”

“I was sitting out in my car, listening to some jams.”

Clover tipped out and gave LeAnn a big hug, then she and Roxanne walked out to their cars in a light cold rain.

“You ain’t waiting for Sporty?” Clover asked.

“Nope, don’t want to talk to him right now. Meet you at the diner.”

They each got in their cars. A light coating of slush covered Roxanne’s windshield, but the wipers easily pushed it to the side. She pulled out of the parking lot on to the slippery street and drove the mile and a half to their usual after work spot, the Finest Kind Diner, while Clover followed close behind.

When she turned into the diner’s parking lot she noticed immediately that the lights were turned off, except for a string of colored Christmas bulbs blinking around the front door.

Clover thought for a minute. “We could go to Denny’s.”

“Are they open?”

“How the fuck would I know? Call ‘em up.”

“Oh, so I have to look up the number?”

“I figured it has a man’s name, so you would know it.”

Roxanne sat back in her seat. “I don’t want to drive all the way across town, just to go to Denny’s. What else would be open?”

“Just White Castle.”

Roxanne thought for a minute. “Yeah, what the fuck, let’s go to White Castle.”

“We ought to just go in one car,” Clover suggested.

“Fine. Yours or mine?”

“Yours,” Clover said, “Mine is more full of trash than a westside trailer park.” She pulled her car into a parking space, shut it off and got out.

“I hate this drizzly shit,” she said as she got into Roxanne’s passenger seat.

“Hey, don’t you live in a westside trailer park?” Roxanne asked.

“Yeah, that’s why I know what I am talking about.”

“Speaking of knowing what you’re talking about,” Roxanne said, “Santa Claus has eight reindeer.”

“Are you counting Rudolph?”

“Nope. Rudolph doesn’t count.”

“Who decided that?”

“Clement Moore.”

“Who the fuck is he? Sounds like a baseball player.”

“He wrote The Night Before Christmas.”

“Twas the night before Christmas,” Clover recited in a sing song voice, “And all through the place, Roxanne was sitting on every guy’s face.”

“And up from the lawn there arose such a clatter,” Roxanne returned, “As Clover devoured the whole turkey platter.”

Clover nodded her head. “That was pretty good,” she admitted.

Roxanne was quiet for a moment, then asked, “You wonder though, who the fuck would name a reindeer Blitzen? What is he, a Nazi reindeer?”

“I bet Rudolph was originally Adolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and they changed it during the war or something. Hey, what’s going on with you and Sporty?”

“He wants me to go to his mom’s house for Christmas dinner.”

“And you don’t want to go?”

“Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend from the strip club?”

“Oh yeah, I get it. But still, you guys been going out for a while now. You are going to meet them sooner or later.”

“It doesn’t have to be on Christmas with all the relatives there.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

There were three cars parked outside the White Castle when they arrived. The restaurant’s windows were so wet with condensation that they could not see through them. But when they dashed inside, they were nearly blinded by the garish light.

“This is like sensory overload,” Roxanne said, as Jingle Bell Rock squalled from a tinny sound system.

They walked over to the counter. There was no one behind it. Roxanne leaned forward, craning her neck to look back into the kitchen. She saw a young man in a white uniform and a hairnet dumping french fries out of a fryer basket.

“Excuse us,” she called.

He looked over his shoulder. “Be with you in a minute, ma'am,” he said.

Clover cackled and nudged Roxanne with her elbow. “Ma'am. He thinks you’re an old fucking lady.”

“Yeah, and he thinks I’m taking my mom out for Christmas Eve.”

The man came to the counter. His name badge identified him as Julio, assistant manager. “What can I get you ladies?” he asked.

“I’d like four hamburgers, an order of medium fries and a large coffee, regular,” Roxanne said.

“Give me six whiteys and a large Mountain Dew,” Clover added.

“Would you like fries with that?”

“Fuck no, I’m gonna eat most of hers.”

Julio rang up their orders and Roxanne paid for both. Clover looked around the room.

There were three occupied booths. In one a pair of middle aged men, wearing the uniforms of parking attendants, sat sipping coffee. At another, an older woman in a ragged green coat had only a cup of water and a single empty burger box on the table in front of her. A couple of booths down, three young, black clad goths were sitting together. They looked to be in their early twenties; two boys, one very large, the other thin and jittery, and a purple haired girl sitting across from them, loudly chewing gum. They all looked like they were coming down off a much better time than they were having now.

“It’s kind of a sad looking bunch of people in here,” Clover said.

“Yeah,” Roxanne said, “It’s Christmas Eve and they’ve got no place to go.”

“That sounds familiar. I mean, what the fuck is the difference between them and us?”

“We’ve got money in our pockets.”

“Yeah, money we took from other lonely people,” Clover said. She looked lost in thought for a moment, then asked Roxanne, “How much money you think you’ve got in your pocket?”

“I don’t know, a hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty dollars.”

Clover looked around the room, her lips tight and her brow knotted.

“I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking,” Roxanne said.

“It’s fucking Christmas,” Clover said, shrugging.

Roxanne called Julio back to the counter.

“How much are those sacks of thirty sliders?” she asked him.

“Thirty two dollars and fifty two cents.”

She looked over her shoulder at the woman with her single burger. “Give me two sacks,” she said, fishing her cash out of her pocket.

“You still want the other order?”

“Yeah,” Clover said, “And I want you to give anybody whatever they want to drink. Keep a tab and I’ll pay for them later.”

Julio hesitated a moment, then said, “Okay, it will take a little bit of time. Your other order will be up in a minute.”

When