Operation Date Escape

latest matchmaking attempt at. The place, once a steak house, had just re-opened a week or so before and had been renamed A LITTLE SPICE. She hoped that meant they served Italian – her favorite. It would make up for her having to sit there alone waiting for a date she really didn’t want to be on.
    She and her blind date, a jeweler her mother had crossed paths with, were originally supposed to meet at Fridays, but he had called an hour before to tell her he was running late and suggested they meet at A LITTLE SPICE since it was more centrally located. That worked for her. It had been years since she’d been there and she was looking forward to seeing if the food at the new place would be as good as it had been under the previous owners.
    Another glance at her watch had her wondering if her blind date had changed his mind about going out with her. Could she be so lucky? Either way, she was giving him five more minutes before she walked out and made her way over to Nanci’s to watch chick flicks and drink cheap wine.
    So caught up in watching the door, it wasn’t until that moment that she noticed the scantily clad women moving about the candlelit room, serving drinks to the customers. Most of whom she realized were men.
    The men had their eyes trained on a long wooden stage behind the bar. No doubt waiting for the entertainment her ‘date’ had made mention of on the phone when he’d called to switch meeting places. She’d assumed it was a band, but there was no equipment set up on the stage.
    Her growing unease intensified the second she caught sight of the shiny brass pole that ran from one of the wooden beams on the ceiling to the center of the stage below.
    A stripper pole? The thought had no sooner formed in her mind when music began to play from the speakers above. A second later, the thick black curtains above the stage parted and a woman dressed in a red and gold harem outfit belly danced her way out onto the stage.
    P anic set in. “Oh, shit.”
    How had she been so oblivious to her surroundings? No doubt about it, she was seated in some sort of fancy strip club. One the citizens of Worthington would have shut down in no time as soon as word got out about the place being there. The community frowned on these kinds of places big time.
    Her panic turned to anger. What kind of a man would invite a woman to a strip club on their first date? On any date for that matter!
    Kelsie shot to her feet. This was not the kind of show she’d been expecting to see. She grabbed for her purse which was slung over the back of her chair. But before she could make her escape, the front door of the lounge swung open and a short, balding man draped in gold chains walked in.
    He scanned the room, stopping the second he spotted her in the corner by the stairs. A slow smile spread across his rounded face.
    Her mother wouldn’t have. A sick feeling came over her, getting worse with every step the ‘blinged-out’ man made in her direction. He moved with an exaggerated swagger that was as far from sexy as a walk could get.
    “Kelsie, right?”
    Say no.
    Before she could answer, the man gave her a once over and then added with a wolf like whistle, “Your mother’s description didn’t do you justice at all.”
    “ Y...you must be Jack.” The jewelry salesman. Her mother failed to mention he walked around with the entire store draped about his thick neck.
    “The one and only.” He circled the table to stand beside the empty chair next to the one she’d just vacated. “I’ve never dated a redhead before, but I hear they’re pretty hot.”
    “Not all redheads,” she countered, having no desire to be considered hot by this strip club gigolo. “I’m really pretty boring.”
    He settled into the empty chair and slung a beefy arm over the back of hers. “I beg to differ. Boring women don’t venture into strip clubs.”
    Unless they didn’t know what the place was until they were already inside. She thought the restaurant’s name, A Little Spice, referred to the food it served there, not the women.
    “I’ll bet you’re a real wildcat in bed,” her date surmised with what she could only assume was suppose to be a sexy wriggle of his uni-brow.
    She wasn’t even going to go there. If it weren’t for her determination to finish her dating survival guide and her love for her mother, she would have stopped going on these disaster dates her mother and Nanci were constantly setting her up on. This had to be her