Pretty X-Woman (Patreon)

Santo picked his way along the sidewalk with the exaggerated care of a drunkard, knowing one wrong step could sheer the edge off the curb. Anole kept shoving him, making him take even more care not to knock over a parking meter or something. David had his arm around Chris, who was just trying to keep his eyes open. It'd been a long night, celebrating graduation, even if that just meant they were going into some junior X-Men program that would no doubt result in exactly the same amount of deadly jeopardy as ever.

"We're here," Santo said, heaving himself into the doorway, bracing himself against either side of it to catch his breath. It actually blocked the entrance. "Hey-o! We're here!"

"Maybe we should just call it a night," Chris said. "Place'll still be here tomorrow. And it's not like we need any more drinks…"

"Look who's talking," David said. "You still have most of your senses. C'mon. Nightcap. It'll be worth it."

"Said all the straight people," Anole put in, giving Santo a by-now rote shove. Sobering a little, Santo managed to duck through the door without incident. Then, they were in the Witch Hunt.

A large bouncer—Chris thought maybe a flunked student from all the muscles—asked for their cards. They handed them over with confidence, still proud of their adulthood. He eyed them, judging whether they'd be problems, and Santo smiled innocently for all of them. He waved them inside.

They went through the building's brightly lit foyer—it seemed almost like a real estate office—to a small table where a pretty young woman of tattoos and piercings wore a concert T-shirt and jeans. She hid her Proust as they came over.

"Membership cards?"

Santo took out his wallet, took a card from his wallet. "Ay, ay, they're with me."

The woman nodded, handing his card back. "No problem. Guys, if you'd all sign here." She handed the other three a trio of cards, torn off a perforated roll. The only lines to be signed were for name and date of birth. All three signed them. "There's a twenty dollar membership fee, but since it's your first night here, your first drink is on the club."

Anole huffed. "Cover charge…" He and his friends forked over the money.

The hostess pressed a buzzer and a door tore open, letting them into a large, dark barroom. Opposite the bar was a stage, with a section extending onto the floor. For bands, Chris guessed.

Another woman of the same Suicide Girls type—cami top, leather miniskirt, plug earrings and a prominent neck tattoo—met them once they'd taken in the room. She greeted Santo by name, introducing herself as Margo, then led them to an appropriately roomy booth near the stage. As they went to it, Chris noticed several other girls with the same aesthetic, some with drink trays. A dress code for the waitresses. None of them seemed much older than thirty.

"Now, what can I get you?" Margo asked as she seated them, bending over the table to light a pair of candles in its center. Chris got a somewhat embarrassing look at her cleavage. He thought she couldn't drown if she was swimming above the Mariana Trench.

David ordered their drinks for them, the boys having long ago realized that with a bar full of drinkers to sample, David could pick out the right drink for them far better than any of their inexperience could. Margo smiled, promising to be back in a jiffy, then dropped four little squares on the tabletop. Chris picked one up as she vanished.

Condom.

"What kind of place is this?" Chris asked, as the others somewhat bemusedly picked up theirs. One a piece.

"A charity!" Santo replied. "It provides gainful employment for young women who are lacking in job skills, but overflowing in tits."

"Why am I paying twenty dollars for one drink at a crappy nightclub?" Anole asked. "I'm not even bi. Jean Grey told me…"

"It'll be worth it," Santo promised.

On stage, an emcee was doing a monologue on the usual subjects—how Hawkeye had gotten into the Avengers, why anyone would work for the Red Skull, the last scandal the President had gotten into. It was hacky stuff, but he delivered it with enthusiasm. By the time he finished, their drinks had come and they'd all absently sipped theirs to the bottom. The shot of tequila that Chris had been delivered woke him right up.

"I don't think I like going to strip clubs," David said. "Especially when there aren't any strippers."

"This isn't a strip club," Chris said. "Right?"

"No!" Santo replied, as if horrified. "This is a private club for law-abiding citizens to congregate and share in their mutual, common interests…"

"Which is how they get around the blue laws," Anole finished. One of the town's bylaws that seemingly had no point other than the government trying to make the X-Men uncomfortable. The county was almost dry, as well. Not that many places could turn a profit with Wolverine going to them…

"And now, gentlemen," the emcee said in his rich baritone voice, stagehands carrying away his stool and microphone stand, a band starting up with soft stirrings. "An enthusiast for the dancing arts I'm sure you've all been dying to see…"

Chris stopped paying attention to the emcee pretty fast. A woman was coming out, her slinking body totally bare, a shawl wrapped around her head to cover all but her eyes, then trailing down her back, forming a cape that almost covered her as she took the stage. It was Laura Kinney. X-23 herself. Chris recognized the body, the way she moved, the level gaze she faced the room with. He'd just never seen her—on display like this.

"Alright," Anole said, reading the look on Chris's face. "This was worth it."

The band kicked into gear, their slow song becoming a raucous guitar solo, drums joining in, bass and harmonica quick behind, a rollicking beat as Laura strutted across the stage like a panther patrolling her turf, her shawl flicking out of the way with her movements, switch-blade fast, to expose her taut body, her neatly shorn pussy, her adrenaline-erect nipples.

She wasn't a pitbull bristling with muscle like Logan, but a panther, long and lean, supple muscles played like piano strings under skin clear as alabaster because any imperfections were instantly healed. Absently, Chris wondered how a woman could be so different from the man she'd been cloned from. He guessed the female of the species was more deadly than the male.

A stripper pole ascended from the stage. Laura grabbed hold of it, let its rise pull her arms and body up taut, exposing herself as her shawl fell behind her. Then she shimmied down the pole, ass swaying beneath the thin material of the shawl, its curve unmistakable. She thrust herself against the erect pole, attacking it, dominating it, grunting ferociously as she forced her body onto its cold, hard length.

Finally, her right leg locked around the pole in a chokehold and she stabbed herself against its length, grinding her pussy into the pole in a final, coital plunge. Both hands squeezing the life out of the pole, she pulled herself up it in an orgasmic haze, then lowered herself, fading to her back with a series of grasping moans, her legs bent under her, her dexterity amazing as now she returned to life, hips pumping upward, moist cunt catching the light of the stage. She rolled over, partially tangling in her shawl, now humping the stage, ass bare and glistening with sweat.

Chris could see her eyes roam the audience, not a come-on, but a beast's aggressive eye contact. Staring down everyone in a display of dominance. His nerves jangled. He felt sweat upon his palms, under his arms. When Laura's eyes met his, she knew it was him, he knew it was her, both realized the other knew.

Laura splayed herself upon the floor, arms steepled, legs parted, drawing herself forward on her hands with an animalistic growl. She pulled herself to the edge of the stage, facing him, sniffed hard enough for it to be audible, then shimmied in a slow grind of her tight abdominal muscles—pushing her torso up to display her long nipples, her heaving breasts small but achingly perky, blurring at the edges as she came upright on her knees, arms held above her head, and shook herself like—Chris couldn't help but think of it—she was being fucked hard.

Then she stopped, dead still, breasts jiggling for a moment before they too stilled. She brought her hands down, curling her fingers and drawing her short, blunt fingernails over her body. Red lines shot through her pale skin as she clawed herself down to her cunt, Laura moaning as her healing factor took over and buried the scratches under the pale creaminess of her skin tone. She groped herself, heel of her hand in her cunt, the other pulling at her asscheek to expose her hole—her torso coming down low, laying supine on the ground as her ass came up, like a bitch presenting itself for a male.

Chris could see her anus where her buttocks was drawn aside. Then her hand was off her pussy, trailing up her body until it came to caress her face. She circled her lips with her fingertips as her ass wagged in the air. Chris imagined someone rushing the stage, taking her up on an offer that was all but a demand. He imagined it was him.

Laura clawed at her lips once more, fingernails cutting into her chin, then her hand slipped off her jaw and pounded the stage in a fist. In one final display of agility, she launched herself into a stand, her kinky little body on display for one last time before the shawl settled around it. Then, curtly, Laura turned and walked off the stage.

Chris was very glad there was a table between the room and his nether regions.

"Well," Santo said. "Guess she's the best she is at what she does too."

"And I am definitely not bisexual," Anole added. "But I kinda wish I was."

"You think the headmistress knows she does this? She does put the bare in barely legal…" David said.

"She has to, right? It's Emma Frost! She probably suggested it!"

"Hey, loverboy." Santo waved his hand in front of Chris's face. "This your way of asking for an encore?"

Chris snapped out of it. "I'm fine. Just… what do you think she's doing this for? It's like finding out Anole's a rentboy."

"Oh, yeah, use the gay guy in this example…"

"Who cares why she's doing it?" Santo fairly roared. "Your fucking crush just went NC-17 on a stripper pole." He jabbed David with his elbow. "Tricorder readings detect no shame, right nerd?"

"I do not have a crush on her," Chris said, crossing his legs just in case his fledging erection wanted to argue. "But that's—I mean, it's not that weird. It's a living."

"Pretty sure she just masturbated and people applauded. That's not a living unless you're in Thailand. Hey, you hear that—"

Chris followed Santo's gaze to the emcee, who was doing a brief routine as the next dancer waited in the wings. He hadn't been paying attention. "What?"

"'The savage Shanna' is available for private dances. Two hundred bucks."

"I've got fifty," David said.

"Two twenties," Anole said.

"I've got a Franklin and it's burning a hole in my pocket. Chris, you?"

"Wait, you wanna buy a private dance? For you?"

"You, dingus." Santo threw his hundred dollar bill down in the center of the table, the others adding their share as well. "I mean, you've been in love with this girl since they hosed the mud off her, and now we can pay her to give you a slow grind in the champagne room? This is fucking epic!"

"He'd better pay more than me," Anole said. "C'mon, cough it up, Chris, I am not paying that much for a straight guy to get some. They have it easy enough."

"And you don't, gaymo?" Santo asked. "You take your dick out in a public restroom, you get it blown. The only people who have it easier are lesbians."

"Pretty sure they don't," David said.

"Pretty sure 'sleepovers' are code for let's all eat at the Y, no questions asked."

"I have fifty bucks," Chris said, rifling through his wallet. "And an emergency twenty, but that's for emergencies—"

Anole seized both bills from him. "This is an emergency. She could be giving Mr. Sinister a lapdance if you don't hire her. Yo, Margo!" he called, waving the kitty in the air. She came over quickly, helping herself to the bills. "Private dance for our friend here. With 'Shanna'."

Margo looked him over with one eye on counting the bills. "You sure you're old enough for this, sweetie? She can get pretty intense."

"He'll sign a release form, let's go!" Santo cried, popping his palm on the table.

Margo fixed Chris with the full force of her suffers-no-fools glare. "You gonna be an asshole? Because we have a rule against being an asshole."

"I watched Showgirls. She can touch, I can't," Chris said defensively.

"She can at that." Margo folded up the bills and tucked them into her cleavage. "Alright, pilgrim, let's get you settled. Right this way."