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"Edge Walking"

By: Cauldron O Boyfur

Notes n' Warnings: This story contains an establishment known as the "Cha-Ching" which includes male strippers and prostitution. The "Cha-Ching" is not based on any business establishment or club in reality. This story also contains the song "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by the music group "Def Leppard". This song is Copyright 1987, by Def Leppard, on the album Hysteria, released by Universal Records. If Def Leppard happens to be reading, please realize I'm trying to raise awareness of your music, so please don't sue me.

Chapter 3: Applicant

No wonder he'd missed it before when copping amphetamines just across the street in years past. It didn't look much different from just another row-home. Jamie felt like quite the dunce at that moment. He'd been expecting big neon signs: BOOZE, DANCING, COCKTAILS, COCKS, TAILS, ... Just a small handpainted sign, no bigger than a stop sign would be:

"Cha-Ching" Gentleman's Club and Cocktail Lounge.

A wooden, hand-painted and varnished sign bolted on the door. Why Jamie was thinking gaudy neon during his day-long walk from Hartranft to this Oxford Circle location, he didn't know, but he sure felt foolish now that he thought about it. The place was essentially a modern-day speakeasy, it's drawing of customers needing to come from the grapevine. From friends telling friends. From word of mouth. Neon advertising may as well have rambunctiously been scrawled with a self-incriminating statement, like "Over here, copper!"

Feelings of foolishness lingered for but mere seconds, vetoed by fear. Again, his brain was screaming, "What the fock are you doing here? Turn around and leave." And again, something inexplicable prevented him from diverting from applying for such a bizarre job.

It wasn't getting late, oh no, it was already far past being late. Like pretty much every bar in Pennsealvania, 2:00am was closing time. He had adequate time for rolling and smoking a cigarette, though even if it was 1:59, he'd still have time for a cigarette. Fear needed quelling, even if the affect of nicotine was like using a plastic toy store sword to slay the mythril-scaled dragon of fear. As long as it was something, anything.

He smoked it slowly, delaying the unknown. He was so scared to go in, he'd do anything to arrest the cigarette from disintegrating. Jamie never enjoyed marijuana, but he smoked this cigarette like a pothead desperate to have lung alveoli fondled by every bit of the rolled plant's vapor. His small bunny claws held the butt end, less than a half a centimeter, the ember of cherry even putting a burn on the fur between fingers on his left paw (though he was right pawed, Jamie always smoked with his left. Why, he'd never know).

The time had arrived. Dropping his excuse for delay, Jamie's paw, shaking with apprehension, reached out to snatch the door's handle. Before contact, like it had motion censoring, the dark-wooded, small glass-windowed door flung open, nearly missing his pink nose. A bear stumbled out, tequila riding his bloodstream like a demolition mobile, gaily laughing in drunken glory. He didn't hold the door open for Jamie, who squeezed his petit white body through the door and it's frame.

It was actually lit a lot better than he'd expected this, or any club/bar to be. The room was very long, but not all that wide. Forward and to the right of where Jamie was standing was the bar, with a female cat (a calico, in fact) wiping down mugs behind its counter. There were a few customers on high stools, their backs to her and the booze shelf, instead looking to the other end, where a thin male fox was dancing to the most cliche of all stripclub songs: Deaf Leopard's "Pour Some Sugar". Jamie froze in the doorway, staring at this seductive orange young man, his paws in cut off black gloves, black fishnet shirt on his upper half, and no more than glossy black boots and a black satin thong below the belly button. Twirling and practically raping one of the stages two poles, the fox moved slicker than a newborn seal dipped in petroleum jelly, contorting his seemingly boneless body in ways that would make octopuses jealous.

Laying on his back, the fox grabbed two small straps sewn into his low-rise boots, and used them to pull his legs back so far, his shoeheels could whisper secrets into his pointed ears. From the vantage point of the onlookers, all that could be seen was a pair of buns bisected by a black line of thong fabric, which bulged up and the top. This prompted testosterone-laden whistling, with one appreciative patron even going up to the stage, dollars in paw.

If he wasn't so inebriated with lingering fear, Jamie's boner would've been so hard it could smash cinder blocks like a karate master. As it was, Jamie was on the cusp of letting off some bunny batter in blue bikini briefs, this especially due to the fact that he wasn't able to masturbate since running from home.

Fantasy ended with a shoulder bump into the bar. Jamie wasn't looking where he was walking, but then again, he wasn't even aware that he was shuffling forth while he watched. "Ouch," he softly said, rubbing his bony right arm.

He'd succeeded in gaining the attention of the bartender, who didn't help Jamie feel anymore comfortable, bluntly saying, "Kid, you gotta be 18 to even be here."

Busted before he could so much as say a word. This really had been a bad idea. Jamie was so paralyzed with shame, embarrassment, and regret that all his reply entailed was a shaky, "OK."

He didn't move, as if he'd disappear if he didn't make a noise. He was too embarrassed to leave his post at the bar's end. No longer was his small penis hard. No longer was he looking at the fox, who was ensnaring money in his waistband with a smile of avarice. This time, Jamie was looking to the stage's side, where a butch bear sat, arms crossed, the white word "STAFF" written on his plain black shirt. "He's gotta be the bouncer," Jamie thought to himself. "I'm literally gotta get tossed out of here, back onto the street. This whole walk was for nothing. Why the hell did I come here?"

"Excuse me, kid," the cat said, tapping him on the shoulder he'd just bumped. "I need to see some ID."

Before he could think of anything, he just blurted out his reason for being where he was. "I'm here for a job." The two looked at each other, before Jamie delicately added, "If, aaaa, that's, you know, OK with you, and all?"

"A job? All right. Just sit tight. It's ten minutes to close."

Since she said, "sit tight," Jamie pulled up a mammoth barstool, and sat, just as the song was ending. As if that was a cue, the woman pouring drinks yelled, "Last Call!" A few put in orders, the rest just left. The fox seemed to be leaving as well, heading in the opposite direction, past a solitary billiard table, and through a back door of sorts. Closing the door behind, Jamie realized that there was something scrolled on it. Though still nervous, curiosity had overrun his thoughts again. He got down from the stool (so big by bunny standards, it felt like he climbed down from it), and walked towards the back, just far enough to read what it said:

Appetizer with Lid: $50

Special Appetizer with Lid: $70

Appetizer w/o Lid: $70

Special Appetizer w/o Lid: $90

Entree with Lid: $90

Special Entree with Lid: $110

All Entrees MUST be served with a lid. NO Exceptions!

No Walk-ins will be taken, unless we say so

Meet with Manager to make All Reservations

"Man, high prices for whatever," Jamie said to himself. "Wonder what that 'whatever' is."

He didn't have time to ponder before the calico announced, "Time! Everyone go home, we're closed!"

No sooner than she said it, did the bouncer bear stand up, saying in a gruff and threatening voice, "You heard her. Get out. Come, let's go!"

Jamie was extremely confused as he unaccustomly slung his backpack over the left shoulder (his right still in a minor amount of pain) and began making his way to the door. The bartender, stacking glasses in a crate, looked up to see the boy's cotton-tailed hindside making towards the outside.

"Yo kid!," she yelled. Jamie turned around and pointed to himself, questioningly. "Yeah, you. I told you to hold tight. Where ya going?"

"Oh," Jamie said, shaking. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Walking back to his spot, the bartender gave off a strained groan, picking up the glasses. The bouncer, finished locking the front door, trotted to the girl. Trying to be a gentleman, he asked, "Need help?"

She laughed, "No Craig, for the millionth time, I got it. Just get the door for us." She then directed her eyes towards Jamie, who was standing with a dumbfounded expression. "Come on, this way," she told him, her head motioning the direction of the door in the back. Her ping-ponged attention then went back to the bear, "He's with me Craig. Maybe a newbie."

"Ah," the bear said with understanding. "Well, good luck kiddo. You're a bunny, so ya got that working for ya."

"Damn right he does, and God knows how much Nik is lookin for one of those" the female feline said as they went through the door. "Good night Craig, see you in a couple days."

"Good night to you too, Sheila," he told her, closing the door as Jamie made his way through.

The cat girl, apparently named Sheila, dropped her crate in the small hallway. Jamie took a quick look around him. There was the door directly behind him, which lead to the bar he'd come from. Another wooden door lay directly to his left. Straight ahead was yet another wooden door, this one with a glass window, and a sign reading: "KITCHEN. Beware of food and glass coming in and out." The hall opened a little more on the left, where it seemed a staircase looped around, heading upwards in a retrograde direction (though Jamie couldn't tell for certain, unless he walked there, which he wasn't going to).

Sheila gave a knock on the door which lay just left of them. There was a voice from inside that said, "Yo!"

"Hey, it's me," she said to the whomever the wood was segregating. "Open, it's important."

The door creaked open, with a fox in the doorway. It was the same fox who was performing not even fifteen minutes earlier, still wearing the fishnet shirt, his legs unfortunately covered this time by a pair of loose black jeans (though the thong's strap could still be seen peering out from the waist's top). Although he was skinny, since the fox didn't have the door opened very much, it was difficult to see around his gently curving, furry contours. There was something, or more likely, someone else behind him.

"Yo, Carwyn, we gotta see Nikodim," the cat continued. "This lil' guy's lookin for a job."

Jamie, whose eyes were magnetized to the ground, gave a meager look up as if saying, "Please?" before collapsing downward again. Carwyn, the fox, displayed the opposite optical action, his eyes widening in pleased surprise from the long-eared boy quivering before him. "Well, who do we have here?," he asked in a gregarious tone. Jamie didn't give his name, as the fox started waving him in, "C'min, c'min."

"I'll go get these washed," cat said. She then gave some friendly advice, "Don't be so scared, boy. These two aren't gonna bit your head off." She smiled before saying like an aunt, "though you're so cute, I'd like to eat you all up myself." This coaxed a timid smile from the lips of the bunny, as he made his way into the office.