tough

Erica wore her beauty aggressively and her aggression beautifully. She performed an impromptu tap dance as the Sinatra song ended, but even this ironic gesture revealed skill and training. In the silence between one music beginning and another ending, kept her hips in motion. Ed—Mr.Ed! she thought half hysterically to herself—shuffled across the carpet. He bore two drinks, one to serve as an apology.
She smiled, but turned to hide her teeth in the pole. Head Like a Hole began in all it's murky subdued glory, and she couldn't help smiling wider, shaking her ass at the little man enticingly. She hadn't really been offended when, half and hour before, she had stopped giggling and risen abruptly. But the moment, his comment, had been too good not to use for her own purpose, and so she narrowed her eyes, muttered the one racial epitaph which hurt him, and stalked off haughtily. She let him see her sit with Rose, her back to him. Once, and only once, had she brought her chin to her to her shoulder, glancing with slitted eyes at his ridiculous figure. Even without turning completely she could tell his lip was trembling and his ever-damp palm greased the side of the glass.
Now she turned from the poll to face him fully, allowing the eye contact which he had become so greedy for. The music shifted, Trent Reznor assaulting the handful of bar patrons with steel-voice nerves. Erica reflected that even the crummy jukebox, frequently broke and with a depressingly large selection of country music, couldn't repress some music. Just like you, stupid. She threw herself down with abandon, tossing her long, fantastically blond hair over the edge of the stage, before raising her face a quarter of an inch from Ed's.
He sucked in his breath, and she hid her satisfaction in another convulsion, this time allowing her hair to trail over into his lap. Pathetic, she thought. Like he might start whimpering at any minute.
But that was exactly how she had planned it. The morning, with offensive daylight pouring through her sheer curtains, had brought that abrupt realization of the necessary money. Erica had weathered this, and her roommate's complaints, with a certitude born out of years of strife. Clara had threateningly waived bills while the two sat in the kitchen, and Erica had gazed, expressionless, back thinking at the college girl, worried about her little college girl troubles. Her silence silenced the other girl petulant complaints, and the two had sat, Clara feeling righteous but becoming disconcerted.
After her cigarette and coffee breakfast, she had gone back to the futon which served as her bed, and lain thinking about who would be a juicy squeeze. When her mind had settled on Ed, she allowed Clara to turn the TV on and accepted the jay, which the other girl had anxiously offered as amends. In the happy haze, and Clara's growing relaxation, she had picked through the stories he had told her, his sick wife and distant son. She had let his words drift through her head, and stretched out, finally happy for the sun, when she fell upon her strategy.