Authors Note: So this is something I've been thinking about for a while, I've got a few chapters written for it so far but I don't know how often this will be updated since Undying Love will be the priority but assuming I have the time I'll be aiming for a once a week update for this story too. I'm not sure how long this one's going to be as I only have a plan for maybe half the story right now, so I guess we'll find out together.

Please do let me know what you think, you can review or private message me here or contact me via tumblr, see my profile for my tumblr link.

The music for the previous performer fades away and leaves Rachel standing in near silence behind the stage curtain waiting for her cue to go on. A familiar wave of nausea washes over the diva and she swallows the feeling down as she unconsciously runs her hands over her body smoothing down the material of her costume. She'd been performing here for nearly two years now and still it made her feel sick every time she had to step through that curtain, she thought she should have been past that by now.

She swallows thickly as her music starts, then positions her hands on the edge of the slightly frayed curtain preparing herself for what must come next. She takes a deep breath as the music reaches her cue and flips the curtain, stepping through exactly on time to be speared against the curtains by a large, very bright spotlight. One more deep breath and she opens her mouth…

And doesn't sing.

No one sings here, people don't come here to hear anyone sing. She supposes she could if she wanted to but without a microphone she would be lucky if her voice was audible to herself over the thumping of the sound system, even the people sitting right next to the stage wouldn't be able to hear her. No, instead she's expected to mime with the music track like all of the other performers, even if she could probably blow the bitch on the cd out of the water with her voice.

The nerves have gone, that's one good thing at least. When she's actually on the stage she usually doesn't feel anything except numbness and occasionally disgust, the only thing she's thinking about is getting the performance over and getting off the stage again. Feelings won't come back till later, hopefully when she's safely at home and alone where no one can see her weakness and where she can drown them in cheap booze.

Her eyes involuntarily land on the pole at the end of the stage and she starts the first section of her performance, the stalk towards the pole, her hips swaying in an exaggerated manner that's supposed to be attractive but Rachel thinks just looks stupid. She will spend the next fifteen minutes of her life dancing and slowly taking off her clothes for the entertainment of what is, in her opinion, the lowest form of life on the planet.

It doesn't escape her that this is exactly where she told a certain Latina that she would end up. God must have one hell of a sense of irony.

But the Latina didn't end up here, hidden in obscurity and on pretty much the lowest level of the social and employment ladders. Santana had been discovered after about six months in New York and a year later her first album pretty much went platinum as soon as it was released. Three and a half years and two more albums later and everyone knew who Santana Lopez was and what she looked like.

No one knows Rachel's name or her face. The performers here are all required to wear ornamental masks and to be honest the diva is a little thankful for that. She really does not want to be recognized for doing this particular job, which was is the reason she went to the effort of persuaded the owner to allow her to add a red wig to her mask. Technically they weren't supposed to wear wigs, a weird rule the owner had come up with, but when he'd liked the look on Rachel and gave her special permission.

Rachel hadn't kept in touch with Santana or many of the other Glee club members. She only really talked to Kurt and occasionally Quinn these days and she would never tell them the truth about what she was doing for her meager living, as far as they knew she was on an off-off-broadway play, still scraping a living but at least doing what she loved.

She hadn't done what she loved for a very long time.

Hell she hadn't done anything she vaguely liked in a very long time.

Tonight was ladies night at the club, a concept that Rachel had found rather odd in the beginning for a strip club. Why would women want to come and see another women strip? But then she thought of Santana and figured the Latina was the textbook answer to that question. The thought of a room full of people like her scared the diva just a little.

But ladies night had its advantages. For a start and for some reason she didn't understand, no women ever sat on the stools around the edge of the stage and with the spotlight blinding her to the rest of the club she could pretend she was alone in the room for a while instead of having to avoid the lustful stares and grabby hands of drooling imbeciles.

It also meant that she didn't have to perform any lap dances tonight; just her two stage performances and then she could escape this hellhole. Not that lap dances didn't happen on ladies night, it was just that she wasn't scheduled to do them. Sometimes she wondered if the woman would be any easier to dance for than some of the men, she'd heard they tend to tip more at least and they'd probably be less handsy. There is actually competition to be on lap dancing duty for ladies night.

And best of all she actually got to keep her thong on when she performed, though again this was something she didn't understand. She guessed that women preferred to leave something to the imagination, or at least her boss thought that women preferred that, not that he'd actually have a clue. But at least that meant she didn't spend the last few minutes of the show wearing only white knee-highs, penny loafers, her mask and a very, very fake smile.

Ah yes, her costume. One of the very first things she'd be told when she got this "job" was that she'd need to come up with a costume that the clientele liked. After a few abortive attempts she had been sitting at one of the makeup tables looking at a Glee club photo and wondering where her life had gone so wrong that she couldn't even get this right. The boss had looked over her shoulder curious to see what was holding the little diva's attention and suggested she should try the outfit she was wearing in the photo.

So her costume consists of an animal knit sweater, short argyle skirt and white knee high socks with penny loafers and, probably the worst part as far as Rachel is concerned, a lollipop to suck on when she wasn't syncing to song lyrics. The only difference between then and now was what she wore underneath, white cotton panties and a plain bra wouldn't go down very well around here. Sadly the costume had been a surprising success which had just made Rachel feel faintly sick and reminded her of Santana's comments about how she dressed so many years ago.

The sweater came off first followed a few minutes later by the skirt, both receiving whoops from the crowed. Her routine had her spending some time on the pole now and while it was difficult to play to a crowed she couldn't see and really didn't give a damn about, she does her best because her boss will dock her pay if he thinks she's not enthusiastic enough.

Like she's ever enthusiastic.

Her bra comes off about half way through her performance and that receives some cheers and a few whistles and then she's counting the seconds until she can collect her clothes and get off the damn stage. She's at the hardest part of her performance now, the part that makes her feel the dirtiest, but if she wants to keep this job she has no choice. She has to touch herself, play with her breasts and nipples until they are hard, even slide her hand between her legs a few times, though thankfully she doesn't have to go inside. But at least she still has the thong on covering her hand, unlike other nights where the men sit around the stage with their mouths open and drool literally running down their chins.

She doesn't particularly want to keep this job, but in her head there are just two choices if she manages to get herself fired from a place like this, starvation or prostitution and she's much rather touch herself than let others touch her or do worse. So she dances on the poll, takes off her clothes, touches herself for other people's pleasure while trying to avoid throwing up over everyone and fantasizes about taking a ten pound sledge hammer to the testicles of every man sitting around the stage.

Her performance ends with a round of applause and some wolf whistles and she's already pulling the sweater over her head before she's even back through the curtains. She feels the nausea returning already and she would really prefer to get home before she had to throw up, or at least get out of the building. So she changes as quickly as she can, hanging her costume on its hangers before making a break for the side exit. She pauses once she's outside, taking a deep breath of glorious fresh(ish) New York air and letting her stomach settle a little before she turns to start her walk to the subway.

"I thought that was you Hobbit."

That was all it took to cause Rachel to bend over and empty what little there was in her stomach against the side if the building. She had dreaded this moment, hoped it would never happen and actually had nightmares about it, night after night waking up in a cold sweat with dread and foreboding clawing at her heart. She had been betting that in a city of over eight million people, the chances of it actually happening was non-existent.

It looks like she lost that bet.

In her dream it was Santana, Quinn, Mercedes or sometimes Kurt. On one crushing occasion that left her curled up in bed weeping for days it was her fathers. But someone from her past would see her and recognize her and then everyone would know what she had been reduced to.

"Rachel? You okay?"

She hears Santana's steps as the Latina cautiously walks over to her and there's no way in hell Rachel wants to talk to the Latina, so she does the only thing she can do, she runs. The sidewalk is only a few yards away and a cab happens to be passing and stops when Rachel throws out her hand. The diva dives in to the back seat and shouts her address to the driver who thankfully pulls away before Santana can catch up in, Rachel is sure, her expensive heels.

She can't really afford a taxi all the way home, not if she wants to eat for the rest of the week, but she's too thrown by the encounter with Santana to be able to make it home on the subway and so she slumps in the back of the cab watching New York pass by and doesn't even realise she has been silently crying until her view of the city blurs behind the tears.

At one point she catches a glimpse of Broadway which just makes her want to throw up again.

They eventually reach her building and the fare manages to pretty much clean her out as she expected, she's got basically five bucks to do her to the end of the week when she'll get paid again. At least she has a card for the subway.

She climbs the five flights of stairs to her efficiency apartment, the elevator is once again broken, rips off the overdue rent notice pinned to her door and sighs in relief as she closes and locks the door behind her before slumping against it for a moment. After a few minutes she manages to push herself up and strips out of her clothes before heading in to her shower to spend about twenty minutes under the weak and lukewarm stream of water trying in vain to scrub her body clean of the dirty and disgusting feeling she always had after work. It doesn't work of course, it never works and in the end she dries herself off and collapses naked into bed.

The tears haven't stopped, but now she's at home where she can't be seen it doesn't matter anymore. There are only two ways she spends her evenings after work these days anyway, either crying herself to sleep or drinking enough cheap whiskey or vodka until she blacks out. She reaches out for the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels Old No 7 she had bought when she decided to get something decent for a change and twisted off the top of the bottle.

Tonight was definitely a drinking night.