staying in at recess

 

i’m not a stripper right now. i’m a teacher.

basically, i’m a total prude.

when a friend asks if i miss dancing, i tell them i don’t. mostly because there’s no time in a day of teaching young minds to wax nostalgic. also, i think i got bored having those same conversations with those same guys over and over and over, even if i was naked while having them. i don’t miss the coffee shop job either or writing grants or lifeguarding but i’m glad i did them all and maybe sometime stripping with be good for me again.

right now i’m not bored a bit. wrestling young minds stretches me so thin the light shines through.

it’s the bravest adventure right now.

even though i work harder and earn less. 

 

 

fmsl = fuck my stripper life

i’m working in a club that’s far enough away from my hometown that when i visit here, i get a hotel room. i worked a 12 hour shift on monday. one guy was smoking a cigar and had recently eaten doritos. the combination made me gag. another guy had been hiking for two months. he had gotten high off of a spinach salad just from the nutrients and then come to the club. he was more hungry for women than vegetables. there was the nerdy guy who looked cute until he talked about what a loser he was. and then there was the fat sweaty guy who held my hand and we talked about sex until he bought a dance. he worked as a librarian. then there was another fat guy who was a retired firefighter driving around the country trying to find the place he’ll actually retire. he groped my breasts in the VIP and bit my ear. i disassociated. he wasn’t bad. he didn’t stink. i’m just struggling with some ethical squeamishness after working over a year in a club where touching is truly not allowed and finding myself in a place where behind the red curtains of VIP, anything goes. i felt bad for the fat old firefighter, even though he unbuttoned his shirt which i find poor etiquette and slightly gross no matter if he asks permission or not – which he didn’t. but i did feel sorry for this guy because he was actually trying to make me feel good. he even rubbed my back and stopped groping my breasts for awhile. i crashed here last night at 3:40 am, ate a granola bar in the morning and wrote. then i went to my car in my stained sweater and flapping sandals. there are four different towers in this hotel and i’m always confused about which elevator to access for which tower. i finally find the one i need and a woman with a walker is waiting nearby. two elevators open at the same time. she takes the one on the left and i, the right. i push my floor number and a man walks in quickly asking, “is this going up?”
“yep” i respond.
as the doors close i look up. it’s the fat librarian.
“hey i know you!” he says, and then “can you push 4?”
simultaneously my gut flips, i say “you do” while smiling, and i push number 4. the button lights up along with my floor number seven which i look at with dismay.
the elevator rises. “well, this has never happened to me.” i say.
“story, right?”
“yep. so did you have a good time last night?”
“oh yeah. i spent way too much money at the club but i had a great night. you must’ve followed me over here.” he’s sweating.
“i guess so”
we’re at number four. “well seeya”
“yeah, have a good one”

How To Strip Your Way Across The Country

i’ve gotten some requests asking me to outline exactly how i stripped my way cross country. today i received a very compelling email asking for some tips and tricks. though all my techniques are buried in the depths of the last several years of this blog i will outline them as simply as i can now. this post will not detail HOW TO BE A STRIPPER, there is plenty of material and opinions floating around the ether webs about how to shave your pussy, point your toes and move slowly as well as conversation techniques to sell lapdances. this post is about the finer details of travel stripping.

1. pick your town – probably it’ll be the one you end up in.

2. call all the local strip clubs and try to find out if they will accept a travel girl, when you can audition and any local rules. some states require that you register with local government agencies. i never worked at those clubs. understand if you need to have a specific type of underwear (some clubs don’t allow g strings, etc).

2a. literally i called and this is what i said, “hi i’m a traveling dancer and i’m coming through town for several days and hoping to audition for your club. do you accept traveling girls?” besides no-answer calls, i never got turned down though i’m sure had i tried in certain stripper-saturated cities i might have been turned down more. if possible call a week ahead of time. due to the way i travel this was rarely possible and i often called the night before and/or the day of and was still able to work.

2a. if you can’t get a hold of any managers through phonecalls, go to the club and ask during their open hours. i only did this once.  i was able to reach the club by phone every other time.

2b. you can track down the numbers for local strip clubs using yelp or stripclublist.com. i often will use a large mile radius variable to see where in the state i can find clubs.

note: i usually chose to dance in smaller towns because there was usually a more relaxed and free flow hiring process. be prepared to show your driver’s license and/or tits and/or on-stage dancing techniques. if a manager asks for you to show him your lapdancing skills, feel free to say no and/or leave.

3. be quiet, be respectful, be prepared. every stripper knows that walking into a dressing room situation cold, is not the most comfortable experience. introduce yourself. smile. come prepared with all sorts of stripper things so that when a girl asks if anyone has scissors to cut off her tag you can help out. don’t ask for their help. the first night can be a little rough as you feel out the personalities in the room – when in doubt mind your own business, don’t get involved in local drama, don’t get drunk, defer to local girls even if they’re being slightly outrageous. you’re on their turf.

3a. being prepared includes bringing an ipod and/or cd’s with the music you like, if at all possible. some of the smaller clubs i worked at didn’t provide music for afternoon shifts.

4. remind the manager/house mom/dj etc that you have never worked in this state and all states do things differently. ask for an explanation of rates, dance areas, local rules, club customs, tip-out expectations, etc. asking smart questions will gain you respect.

5. i always made enough to pay my stage fee but had i not, i would have told the manager that i didn’t have cash on me and bailed. fuck a club where you can’t make stage fee and try another.

6. i showered in truck stops and campgrounds (which i sometimes paid for and sometimes snuck into). i often slept in my truck though several times i bought a hotel room when i was really feeling road worn. always always, watch your back when you leave the club, drive around, make sure no one is following you. you have no friends to call in whatever anonymous city you’re in if things go whack.

7. every night i worked i texted my mom what club i was working at and sent her a text before i went to bed saying “safe”. if you have a friend or family member you trust, it’s good to have someone who knows where you’re at.

8. i wrote about the variety of club rules a traveling stripper runs into on the road here and i maintain that it’s important to know the on-paper rules, the actual rules of the club, and your own rules. know the difference between the three and never ever break the third set, be prepared to be kicked out by the manager or screamed at by the girls if you break the second set, and break the first set as much as you like. you determine the difference between actual rules and on-paper rules by watching the other girls.

there you have it. further questions can be asked in the comments section. i will answer them all and update this post if any seem particularly important to include. other travel strippers, please chime in.

prodigal stripper – part dos

and if i need to be reminded of the laws of stripperland let it be on the second night of returning. i arrive early again and caffeinated and i stop by walmart again for silicone ear plugs which can be worn invisibly while working.

from eight pm to three am i don’t stop moving or making money. there are so many men and they all say yes no matter how clumsy my sales pitch.

the first guy has dark rimmed glasses and reminds me of my childhood friend who still hasn’t french kissed a girl he’s so awkward. he’s a twenty five year old first timer which means he’s about to fall in love and spend too much money. i let him and with his new empowered sense of freedom from the fawning naked women surrounding him, he starts saying things like, “thanks for the dance, beautiful” and i know he’s been wanting to call a girl by the name of beautiful for a long time.

then there’s the drug dealer with hazel eyes who has the charming smell of chronic and cologne. he drops fistfuls of ones on my stage and buys a string of dances. i love drug dealers (the opioid-hallucinogenic-thc kind not the speed-powders-and-meth kind). they are always laid back to be with and loose with their money.

there’s no time to eat so i swig on my klean kanteen of cabernet sauvignon in back. i dance again for the newbie who finally leaves me for a girl with hard round tits and a hard flat stomach. i feel a sense of pride that my little freshy is growing up and seeking new flesh. they don’t stay wet behind the ears long in a strip club.

on stage i see a group of men come in the door. they wheel their friend to the stage in a wheel chair with a plushy back rest.  the man in the wheel chair can’t talk and his fingers are twisted over on themselves and his mouth is open all the time. but he can see my tits and he can see me clap my ass and his eyes get big and he yelps and the corners of his open mouth twist open. his friends keep throwing ones at me to stay my attention on the man in the wheelchair.

i go sit with my drug dealer and by this point i’m telling him in a boozy sort of free association style of speaking that his money is funding my greenhouse and my tomatoes and peppers are getting leggy from lack of sunlight and can he imagine what i look like without makeup in overalls and boots shoveling shit?. then i tell him i need to go sell myself unless he’s interested in buying me. “actually i was just going to go smoke a cigarette but come find me when i come back and i’ll definitely purchase you.”

“great. that sounds great.”

i look across the room and the man in the wheelchair’s teeth are glowing in a crescent as he gapes at the girl on stage. i find someone to buy me who hasn’t had a lapdance in ten years and remind him what he’s missed.

then i’m on stage again and my drug dealer comes and throws several fistfuls of money on stage and says, “that’s for your greenhouse,” and my coworker comes on stage for a dj-approved-pseudo-lesbian-titty-suck and more money is thrown on stage and i can only barely pick it all up at the end of my two songs. it’s crumpled and falling out of my hands like water. i love this. i love being naked on my knees surrounded by money. this is, on the spectrum of life’s little moments, probably in the top ten of most awesome.  from that stage – two songs long – i count out ninety six dollars of awesomeness in the dressing room and shove it in my locker and go back out for more.

the drug dealer’s friend gets a couple dances.

then the drug dealer has some more dances and we both lose count. i admit i like watching his eyes watch me and the warm column of his torso that i rub my hands up down while he breathes me in, “thank you for reaffirming my love of lapdances,” i say. i tell him about my creepy stalker customer who gave me another reason for leaving the club. my drugdealer is really good at nodding. i keep dancing.

the walls, like most strip clubs, have mirrors. they hang above the couches so as i straddle him and lean forward into him and rise up-down over his lap i see myself appearing and reappearing in the mirror in front of me. i am a warm shade of red which means my skin is flawless, my eyes are large and dark and shimmer and all the creases and smudges and caked on lipstick is smooth and my lips are wantable and my hair is tousled and i look absolutely magnificent to me. it’s like meeting myself again after a long absence and remembering all the good times. and then i dip down again into the drug dealer’s lap. then up to the mirror i rise and while he nuzzles my breasts i say hello again. back to lap, i breath on his ear. up again, hello happy stripper. down onto his boner and he breathes on my ear. up and there i am again – existing in warm ambiance, reflected a trillion times back into the mirror, rising and falling with beat of breath, desire, crappy hip hop.

prodigal stripper – part uno

coming back means sweaty palms. i drink coffee late to stay up later and my heart is fluttering. i arrive too early so i go to walmart to pick up razors since all my blades have rusted from lack of use. the moon is a big yellow circle in the parking lot, low and socializing with the brighter whiter street lights. i am in pajamas and fake eyelashes but i don’t care because i don’t live here. in this town i am more story than me.

the dj sees me first and before i’ve made it to the dressing room the cellphone is out with photos of his six week old baby. the mother is my coworker, a nice-enough girl who mostly hangs out in the dj booth. she was beginning to show when i left and her tits were pneumatic protrusions of impossible proportions. now, still impressive, they are licked by stretch marks. their baby has an adorable shaped mouth and she is just beginning to smile.

all the girls say they have missed me and they introduce me to the new girls with kind remarks, “she’s hella cool and minds her own business.” i didn’t know anyone missed me and i’ve forgotten half their names – i am surprised at the warmth i feel at being known here. i walk to my locker and without thinking start twisting the lock and it opens and what i left behind is still here. two pairs of my least favorite shoes, some really shitty vanilla spray that the christian ladies brought us one night, cheap eyeshadow in four colors that i bought nearby when i forgot my makeup, a hair clip with a fake pink rose.

getting back on 8 inch stilettos turns out to be like riding a bike. i move with more grace than i expected. i am stronger now, too, from working outside so much, and i can climb the pole with ease.

besides the new baby in the club, Manbo has grown out his hair, the other dj has fallen in love with nina who used to wear a shifty blond wig and outfits with too many straps. she’s now a brunette with a secure fit and victoria’s secret style bodices who has learned to move much slower.

other than that, things are the same. orange juice, red bull and o’douls. dried slurpee on the dressing room counter. same songs. same dance prices. same sunken, dying tired couches. i’m watching the girl with the bunny tattoo on her thigh which looks like a large dark birthmark and it’s still trying to jump into her rabbit hole. the other girl with the matching tattoo got fired so that’s another thing that’s not the same. so did the bouncer who was screwing tania when i left, “he was always feuding with one girl or another,” explains Manbo.

Manbo asks about his hair, “Keep it or shave it?”

“keep it,” i say. “actually, go back and forth then people will look at you and say ‘oh you shaved your head’ or ‘your hair is growing out’. change it up so people keep being surprised. that’s what i do with my pubic hair.”

“yeah, is it pushing out of your panties?”

“no i shaved before i came. but it was the first time since i left”

“jesus. what does your boyfriend think about that?”

“he doesn’t care. i don’t shave my legs either or my armpits. well, i do shave my armpits occasionally because the hair there has a way of soaking up smell, you know?”

“you guys really keep it natural up there don’t you,” he responds with a grimace referring to the mountains up where i live.

later i pat his head and it’s stiff with gel, “oh but don’t use gel on your hair!”

“why?”

“it’s just so nineties.”

“you’re going to talk to me about the nineties? i haven’t even seen pubic hair since the nineties”

the late coffee keeps me happy until about midnight when i still haven’t made money and i’m standing on the stage and there are two customers and they are staring at me but haven’t tipped all night. i have talked to them both already and one was disappointed by my offer of a lap dance because he wanted “todo” and just to be clear i understood he looked me up and down and said “todo, todo, todo!”. everyone’s blaming slow business on tax season because there always has to be a reason besides a shitty club in a shitty town in a shitty economy.

tax season for strippas

Schedule C for Strippas

so guess what i did yesterday?

i walked into my tax lady’s office and told her i made money stripping this last year. well first i hemmed and hawed and stuttered and used my hands to diagram the fact that i was hoping this piece of information could stay within the walls of her office.

she laughed and said her office assistant went to the strip club just last night.

i told her i had done a shitty job this year writing down my expenses and she told me how it worked. “but what expenses do you have?” she asked. “clothes,” i said. “or lack thereof” she responded in good humor. “and makeup” i said. “and what about commuting, can i claim that?”

she explained to me that i could not get commuting miles for home-to-work driving BUT if i stopped somewhere work related before going to work (say to pick up some eyelashes, drop money in the bank, or buy a new pair of shoes) THEN the miles from the that stop to work could be counted. “just keep a mileage log of date and miles – the IRS loves those if you do happen to get audited” and then you can get paid per mile.

“and i don’t want to be called a stripper” i said. “no problem,” she said. “we can say entertainer or something.”

furthermore, i a percentage of my personal health insurance  counts as an expense which i love because i hate paying for personal insurance. also, it’s probably worth asking about getting a “home office” in which case a percentage of rent/mortgage payments can be tallied as an expense.

so, i’m posting this because tax accountants have a job, just like we do – they help people pay taxes. it’s not scary. just go say hello. you’ll get to fill out a Schedule C which has a whole list of expenses and you can make up your own also. there’s enough fear of getting busted, getting outted by a friend and not making rent that getting caught by the IRS for tax evasion is just so not worth it. plus, even though the government is really becoming a shit show these days, we still drive tax funded roads and enjoy other assorted state-paid goodies.

plant my garden, baby

i work three jobs now that pay me nothing but they’re flexible time-wise which was one of my major reasons for loving stripping. i think february is the month to start dabbling back into the good ol t&A income stream. meanwhile i’ve got a little chunk of land that i’m loving. it owns me more than i own it. i drive around in my old farm truck – i sold the traveling truck and traded it in for an 86 toyota pickup with 225,000 miles of hard driving – and pick up loads of horse shit and bring it back and put it on my dirt to grow worms and food when spring comes. i still need about five more loads of the stuff farmers call black gold.

now i’m picking out fruit trees and berries to grow because it’s bare root buying season. even though i thought i knew all about growing food, it turns out i need help pruning the existing trees and figuring out the proper amendments for the new guys. plus i have to order seeds and make a planting plan. all while doing regular things like laundry, traffic court, kitty litter scooping, birthday parties and potlucks. it’s wild. oh yes, and writing! i’m writing a lot in secret these days but i want to write more but where’s the time when you’re designing a greenhouse and running all over in the little farm truck to pick up recycled glass doors?

no wonder i’m tired. it’s the wee a.m. hours and i’ve come back to the nets with a new twist on my entrepreneurial habits.

i’ve never suggested an exchange of services before but for all of you who want to keep story dirty (e.g. in the dirt), i’m going to go ahead and give you the chance in exchange for prose delivered to your doorstep. now don’t worry your pretty head if you wish you could but times are hard and…it’s really okay. don’t worry about it at all. and if you find this request unappealing for various reasons, then just stop reading and wait for the next installment of very infrequent but free naked stories.

here’s how it goes:

seed giver level: $5-$25

exchange: i will write you a personal email about a tremendously beautiful moment rooted in the mountain i call home now. plus photos of lovely land and plants when spring comes (with awesome captions!)

tree giver level: $35-$75

exchange: i will write you 2 love letter emails (one winter, one spring) per your preferences – friendship style or sexy style (will someone give me a chance to write some erotica, puh-leeeeezzzzzz). plus photos of lovely land and plants and river when spring comes (with awesome captions!)

fence builder level: $100 plus exchange: i will handwrite or email you 3 love letters (winter, spring, summer) per your preferences. plus photos of lovely land and plants and river  when spring comes (with awesome captions!)

water pumper level: for sums larger than $100, ummmm, talk to me – we’ll figure it out

if you’re up for it you gotsta make yourself a paypal account – it’s really easy – and send me invisible ether cash at thestoryofstory@gmail.com

and now i lay me down to sleep…

dean didn’t make me quit. he’s an easy scapegoat. it wasn’t the crappy money either or the commute. and i didn’t even quit.

hickville just made me unendingly tired. i’m not tired of stripping, i’m tired of stripping in hickville and the go-get-em to find another club farther away feels awful impossible to muster.

so i’m taking a break and it’ll probably never be the same when i come back.

this blog has lived for over two years and let’s all be honest, it’s got the death rattle, don’t you think?

so.

why don’t you click that little button on the right side to sign up onto email subscription for new posts and maybe i’ll come back as a ghost for visits but mostly we’ll just let thestoryofstory.wordpress.com rest in peace.

and now the sappy part: you know i love the shit out of you readers, right? you were my gaggle of closest friends when i had no one else to talk to and you went everywhere with me. you sat backseat on dark nights and darker parking lots and through big handfuls of states. you joined me for coffee at countless cafes with free wifi. my gratitude to your IP addresses, pseudonyms, real name confessions and upticks on my stats graph is true and deep.

my big heart beats for your big heart.

regular love

i started dancing to make people fall in love with me.

i’m trying to think now, looking back, why.

saying because i’m in love with love is far too trite though possibly part of the truth.

maybe because in my epic quest to save the world i thought if i made some men fall in love with me they’d do crazy things like be more kind and caring. i imagined them all with a big glowing smile the day after a night in the club with me, donating all their ill-gotten salaries on charity and opening doors for old ladies and giving me lots of money to do my epic-quest driven volunteer work.

maybe because, you know, love makes the world go round and if i could just jump from one love nut to the next, i’d be the happiest girl in the whole world.

maybe because i was lonely and not in a romantic way but in a middle class suburban way.

anyways a customer fell in love with me. i guess.

it was desperate though. and misguided. and didn’t inspire acts of creativity, kindness, or change in either of us. nor did it really have anything to do with me as much as with the aiding and abetting of misery that my customer already abounded in.

in short it wasn’t really love at all. though he said that’s what it was.

he paid me gargantuan sums to listen to him for hours and dance on him for hours and pulled the money back when i didn’t listen, respond, move, dress, think or act as he expected me too.

like the lovelorn who finally gets their prize only to find it wan and undesirable, i would arrive at the club, teeth gritted and smile pasted on to wait for him. greedy folks know it’s the wanting not the getting that’s fun. really i’m as culpable as all the customers who have come in hoping a lapdance would lead to fucking. i was hoping it would lead to loving. had the customers got laid it would never be near their fantasies. as for me, the fire under my ass to make people fall in love with me while getting grips of money at the same time was realized and extinguished within a few months.

there are too many details to recount. random number. four:

1. dean was married to a woman who allegedly hated him. fucked him every day until her debt was paid off and then they moved into separate rooms. he ate fast food or microwave dishes every meal. dean didn’t know how to cook an egg.

2. dean came in drunk every night that i worked and figured out what car i drove and would circle the parking lot looking for me when i wasn’t there. i took to driving my boyfriend’s truck. one time i met some of the girls at the gas station next to the club to stash my car in their lot and hitch a ride with my fellow dancers. while i was waiting in the parking lot a biker drove up to my window and offered me meth. the gas station is right next to the club.

3. dean was pretty sure he was going to die from some mysterious medical condition he was having. the night before the results of one of his tests he came into the club. like normal he spent a lot of cash and like normal i could feel his boner under me when i was giving him a lap dance. then he began crying while i danced for him. his dick stayed hard.

4. dean stormed out of the club one night when i came out dressed in a red fish net dress and danced for another customer. he was sure that i had worn my in-his-words “frumpy” evening gown earlier in the evening because i didn’t like him and saved my sexy outfit for a random gentlemen. he didn’t say goodbye. i knew, from a pure financial standpoint, i should have only danced for dean when he was there. he left angry at me more nights than one. nonetheless, no matter how hard i searched for it, i couldn’t find my strip club monogamy.

all this happened and much more. his dick would dribble. i would use hand sanitizer on my thighs.

finally i went away for a week and visited a friend.

i recognized i was caught in a sugar daddy relationship in the club, more required to fulfill the necessities of his girlfriend experience then be a plain old stripper. a fly by night, love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda gal. i broke up with him. he was sad then bitter then angry. he was too immature to ever arrive at the final stage of “over it”. meanwhile i didn’t make money so i dropped off the face of the stripping planet.

which is why i’ve been so quiet.

 

 

tits and sass update

go check out my conversation with charlotte on tits and sass about a douchebag judge and the ever sought after whore with a heart of gold. 

 

i promise more posts soon.

bitches can’t be bought

i spent the night at jeb’s unexpectedly so i didn’t have my magical stripper bag for work tonight. i went to walmart and bought cheap foundation, cheap mascara, cheap eyeshadow, cheap jewelry and cheap body spray. brown sugar and vanilla cheap.

i took the lap dance virginity from a 19 year old boy who i would bet my night’s wages is a sex virgin also. he looked stonily ahead.

one customer said, “i don’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend, what with this you’re wearing…” as he fingered my walmart-fake rhinestone necklace i got for ten dollars and eighty-eight cents before tax. i tell him, like it’s a secret, that it’s fake. he says “yeah, but it’s special, someone gave it to you.” i give him a dance and he bucks and moans under me. he’d be a very bad lay, i think. like a fast selfish rabbit.

at the bar i ask  the guy who serves juice and redbull and soda for a glass of water. “anything you want, heartbreaker,” he says. “ah yeah, who’s heart am i breaking?” i say and look around, look back at him and answer myself, “nobody, that’s who.” “well, dean’s been in, making a fool of himself”. i know dean’s still been coming in even though i officially broke up with him. and by “break up” i mean i ended our in-club pseudo-relationship otherwise known as a regular customer fawning over a stripper. after i said i didn’t want to see him, dean told me i had made the worst decision of my life since he was the best friend i would ever have and wanted nothing in return. i pointed out that he never gave me anything without an expectation of something in return and then i said he wasn’t my best friend. he was my customer and this whole time we’d been exchanging resources not friendship. it’s been weeks and i’ve heard through the rumor mill he’s been getting dances from allison who’s my doppelganger in the club. and by doppelganger i mean she looks the most like me out of anyone in the club even though she doesn’t look like me at all.

anyways, dean came in when i was in the dressing room, before i came out begging a glass of water. he yelled at allison because i was there and then he asked for Manbo and yelled at Manbo because i was there. something about he wont come in if i keep working here. he knows what kind of car i drive. Manbo wont talk to me about it. all he says is “he was irate. i just dealt with an irate guy.” and i am angered because this is my life, my weird ex-customer, my job and i should know what flavor of crazy dean’s spewing. but Manbo’s all quiet.

there’s nothing to be done so i go talk to the young hippy couple. the girl’s teeth are all lined up nice and straight but they all point out at a slight angle so that her smile looks really big. they agree to a couple’s dance. i say i love giving couple’s dances and she says “why?” and i say “because i know you guys are going to go home and fuck tonight and it’s going to be hot and if i’m a little part of that, well, that’s great.” she’s not wearing a bra and i finger her nipples through her shirt.

i shoot the shit with her later and she asks how much i work here. “used to be three or four days a week but now it’s more like two, or one, or none. i’ve been getting burnt out.”she says that’s how it is with all jobs.  i don’t tell her about dean and how, for a couple months, i was less a stripper and more a walmart-fake girlfriend or a sugar baby without the penetrative sex or blow jobs or delicious dinners or shopping sprees. just strings of lap dances that were so mindnumbing i would invite other girls to do doubles with me for the a blink in the long monotony of dean staring up at me. i’m still living off the money from those months. i do tell the little hippie chick with the tilted out smile that regulars happen which she thinks is very funny and strange human behavior. i  explain briefly while pointing at allison, “see my ex-regular is switching over to her.” i don’t know allison but we smile kindly at each other and i tell her “i know you’re having drama with dean. i’m approachable.” she says he can have his hissy fit, neither of us need to leave the club. she just wants his money, she doesn’t know me but she knows herself and she’s not about to fuck another girl over.

i sit by rodney, a guy with a grey handlebar mustache and a tatted chest under his grey tank top. tall jeans. he tells me his excuse for being here right away – his brain wont quit. i tell him we’re snake charmers and that i’m a cherry on top of his night if he’ll take me as dessert. he finally agrees and i dance for him once, he asks for a second, and i like rodney because he’s the guy i started dancing for. the guy who only needs two tablespoons of my lovin’ and says please and thank you.

i want to tell this to rodney but he wouldn’t understand because he doesn’t know dean and he doesn’t know me.

dean really thought of himself as the biggest piece of shit in the universe. but he was the shit that the whole universe revolved around and his money made the planets spin. he picked this shithole of a club to spend his money at because it made him a big deal. he didn’t think he would be a big enough deal in the big city so he stuck to our club. he told me that. and when i didn’t bow and bend proper he’d tell me he gave me more money than any other customer i had and i should do this or that or another thing.

i apologized for things i wasn’t sorry for. for dean’s money.

it’s all over now and in the dressing room, at the end of the night, i ask allison if she wants advice to get money from dean. she sighs and says yes. i tell her he’s jealous, don’t dance for anyone else. and he likes a good sob story. “i’m not that type, you know, i just do my thing and ask for what i’m worth. but he wants you to be a victim so he can save you. you know, have a bill that needs to be paid or some rough life circumstance. i don’t know, i was never really good at it. but if you can do it, make your money, you’ve got my blessings.” “i’m not that way either. i’m really independent. i make my money and leave. there’s enough bigspenders running around who don’t act like children that i don’t take much shit. there’s money elsewhere. i don’t think this will last long with him.” she looks at me,  ”i think we’re a lot alike.”

 

conversation in the club

the night is winding down. i’m sitting alone, staring into space when a youngish man asks to sit by me.

me: of course. how are you?

him: i’m great. i’ve watched you on the stage and you’re really good.

me: thank you. i saw you watching.

indeed i did. he was sitting with three other friends all night long along the back wall. they never tipped me and refused dances but watched hungrily. some basic, short small chat ensues between me and the youngster, then:

him: just coming out here to kick it with girls like yourself.

me: cool. do you buy lapdances from girls such as myself.

him: i just spent all my money on her. i was hoping you would give me a free one.

me: why would i do that, this is my work?

i ask him this without  incredulous hostility, or a shred of annoyance in my voice. just a really curious wondering.

him: because it would be fun.

me: what do you do for work?

him: i landscape. i push lawnmowers for a living.

me: do you ever push lawnmowers for free?

him: i did twice, by accident when i did the wrong yards.

me: well why would i purposefully give my work away for free?

him: well this is my first time in the strip club. come on my boys tell me this is the spot.

me: yeah, it’s a really great place and welcome to your first strip club – i’ll tell you this. we all are working here. we pay rent and bills with the money we earn.

him: me too.

me: yeah, so why would i give my work away for free.

him: well you could out of the kindness of your heart.

me: and out of the kindness of your heart you could pay me.

him: but i don’t have any money.

me: well, it sounds like you spent it on a lovely lady and had a good time. you paid for a fun experience and now i’m going to go give my time and my work to someone who will pay me.

i pat him lightly on the knee and stalk off.

research proves men go to the strip club to relax

i reviewed an article on tits and sass, go check it out!

april, may, june, july income

the scrilla gods have been smiling and so have i and so have my regulars. my regulars have upped my average a lot.

in april i worked eleven days and earned $1,540. average nightly take home: 140

in may i worked seventeen days and earned $4,071. average nightly take home: 239.47

in june i worked twelve days and earned $4,868. average nightly take home: 405.66

in july i worked seven days and earned $3,266. average nightly take home: 466.57

in april i was really sick and i made less money than i spent for the month. all the other months i have saved money. i worked so few days in june and july partly because it’s summer and i like to be outside playing but also partly because of my distaste for mr. manager. additionally, the increasing nightly take home also means i’m physically working harder. after a seven hundred dollar night i’m pretty wiped out and with more money in my pocket, it’s easier to justify working less.

i know all regulars eventually come to an end. i’m going to write a post soon about regulardom and the particular challenges that come along with it. for right now, though, i think it’s fair to say i’m very very thankful.

 

good vs. evil part II

so the two men who fell in love with me. one is named dean and one is named jake. jake is a bro kind of dude. he’s big, he always wears crisp baseball caps and clean clothes. he works part time as a bouncer at a non-strip club club and his other job, well let’s just say that it requires he be big, strong, unafraid and really good at observing details. he’s ocd about my hair in my face so i took to wearing hairclips when he was visiting. dean is older, spends more money, and has generally less interesting things to talk about. i gave them both my email as that is my typical mode of communication with customers. both of them were convinced i was the perfect woman incarnate during the same time period and both of them liked to talk extensively about the guns they owned. one is a drinker and one uses steroids. mr. manager in his ass kissing bravado would shake hands with both of them, give them free drinks and check in periodically to ask how they were and compliment me in front of them. he’s kind of a bro dude also so during his regular customer ass kissing, mr. manager and jake became bro friends. they exchanged numbers and then one night mr. manager suggested jake join him on a rendezvous in the phillipines. i never felt altogether comfortable with their comraderie but jake always seemed so pleased to be getting his ass kissed i couldn’t do much but make homoerotic gay jokes about their mutual affection for each other.

i did my best to keep jake and dean visiting on separate nights. jake in particular, with his large tattooed arms and total lack of interest in any other dancer but me, had a jealous streak. of course, one night they both walked in. i took a deep breath, asked them both to stay calm while i explained the other one wanted my full attention, danced for both, made about seven hundred dollars and ended up deeply offending both of them. dean stopped visiting for awhile until he couldn’t resist my wonders anymore and finally returned. jake kept visiting but upped the pressure on me to share my phone number with him and go shopping. i had already told him my fake real name and he persisted in talking about how much he felt a friendship growing between me and my fake real name. truth be told, i did like the guy. he would regale me with stories about his work all night long and we generally spent a lot of time laughing and i liked the way he smelled and the softness of his athletic undershirt he always wore as a gesture to my tender nipples. he never tried to grope me though i’m sure he knew that mr. manager wouldn’t have lifted a finger or a voice to him.

one night he said he couldn’t make it. he’d gotten into some trouble he said. he didn’t want to talk about it over email. he lost a great deal of money in his trouble and over the next couple weeks he stopped visiting me though he frequently would send me emails saying he missed me and he was working on building his bank account up to come back and visit me and mr. manager at the club.

meanwhile, there was really no love lost between mr. manager and the general stripper population at the club. every decision he made seemed ill-timed, misinformed, and questionably intentioned. Manbo has a very strict policy about walking girls out to their cars at the end of the night. even if one drunk customer is still outside in the parking lot waiting for a cab, we all wait for the parking lot to clear out for Manbo to walk us out (this is just one of the reasons i tell Manbo i love him at least once a night). mr. manager on the other hand would walk me out with my customers still in the parking lot, he’d stop and talk to them telling them to come back another night while i stood awkwardly in my shabby street clothes and smeared make-up and then he’d try to walk me straight to my car while they all watched. he would threaten to kick customers out of the club who weren’t spending much money but would let customers who were spending no money stay. he’d spend money fixing up the dressing room when our stage lights are in bad need of repair. he hired and fired bouncers and cocktail waitresses needlessly and would hang around in the corner when Manbo worked, lurking all night until tip out when he’d stand close to the new girls hoping they’d get confused and give him tips instead of Manbo. he talked incessantly about his “start-up companies” in the phillipines and how he planned to retire there.

one night Manbo was working he asked some of the strippers to come do a private show for a notoriously not-nice motorcycle gang at their hotel. he claimed he would be security for his motorcyclist friends and that the girls were guaranteed a $150 show up fee. he didn’t ask me, i assume because he knew i knew it was a bad deal, but not even one homegirl took him up on the offer of spending a night making less cash than they can make at the club with a gang of men who operate by their own laws.

my coworker told a story about getting groped back when we had the small statured dance-counter. she said she had been holding the groper’s hands over his head and yelling at him to stop and he had been struggling against her, continuing to try to grab her. “he just watched!” she said of the dance counter. “yeah,” i responded, “mr. manager told him not to do anything.” “fuck that. i don’t care if it’s your job to protect me or not. as a man watching a woman getting practically molested without her consent he should have done something.”

rumors flew that mr. manager would get fired but it just never quite happened.

then one night while i was at home, ignoring my informal schedule that has me usually working that night, i got an email from jake, “you’re not at the club.” “nope. are you?!?”, i responded, surprised that he’d show up without checking to see i was working. “yeah, i’m working here.” “excuse me? what do you mean?” “i’m working the door for mr. manager” it was 11:30 pm and i was trembling rage. my manager had just hired my regular to be security. had i walked into work that evening, as i very well could have, my bouncer would be the same man who had spent thousands of dollars on my naked companionship. this man who i lied to about my name and where i live is my coworker, working with my other coworkers who do know my real name and real hometown. jesus, did he have access to my application papers?!? why didn’t mr. manager go ahead and just hack my bank account and hand my driver’s license over to my envious and gigantic regular. i didn’t think i could sleep so i, very sweetly mind you, asked jake how it had come to be that mr. manager had hired him. jake told me that mr. manager’s other bouncer had been out of town so mr. manager had called jake, “but,” jake concluded, “you’re not here “ i couldn’t really genuinely sympathize with him on that but i did say it was probably better off i wasn’t there since we couldn’t have that much fun as coworkers. then i sat down and composed a letter to the owner simply so that all my thoughts were down and out in words then fell asleep and dreamt strange dreams.

i woke up the next morning and called another stripper to ask if my outrage was reasonable. “imagine if you walked in and your regular was working the door.” she said my outrage was reasonable. so i called the owner. i introduced myself and i’m pretty sure my name rung a bell in her head because i know she knows i’m pretty good at making money and i don’t play drama. i asked if she had a few minutes to talk and she said she did.

so in clear language i laid it all out. mr. manager hired my regular. financial idiocy, yes, but most importantly a huge breach of my safety. i wont work there anymore when mr. manager is working and will quit the club altogether if my customer stays on as security. furthermore, mr. manager is a smoke blower. yes, we all want the numbers to go up but he’s throwing basic safety precautions out the window. she thanked me for calling and said she would handle it.

and then she fucking fired him.

she called me back to tell me herself. of course it wasn’t because of me, she had already planned to do it, “but,” she said, “you were the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Manbo also called me and we spent about twenty minutes commiserating on the horror that had been mr. manager’s employment at the club. having no nearby companion to truly celebrate with, i called back my stripper friend to announce the good news.

jake emailed me to let me know that mr. manager had “quit” (“but please don’t say anything!” he asked of me) and so he probably wouldn’t be working there anymore. he also told me that dean had been at the club the night before. i thanked god i did not show up the night before to find jake bouncing and watching me with dean while mr. manager verbally wanked off his general douchbaggery management. then i responded that i wasn’t surprised mr. manager had “quit”, i knew there had been upper management tension and mr. manager hadn’t been happy but i would be pleased to see jake for lap dances when he was ready.

it does seem, that at least for this moment of time, in this corner of the world, good has won out over evil.