While customers are acutely aware that I’m not wearing any pants, they seem to forget that they still are.  Perhaps seeing a scantily clad girl reminds them so much of happy naked time that they forget they are still clothed.  Or maybe their brains just shut off entirely.  Both are plausible.

When I first started working at the club, I would bring a little cloth with me to put on the chairs before I sat down.  There were many reasons for this, two of which are mentioned below, but I stopped doing it because it resulted in conversations like this:

I saunter over to his table and put my hand on the back of the chair next to him, ‘This chair looks like it could use a hot chick!’

He chuckles, ‘It sure could.’  So, I lay my cloth down and sit next to him.

‘Why do you do that? Is it really that germ-y in here?’

It is, but I avoid that question by answering only the first question with only the partial truth.  ‘I don’t like sticking to the chair when I get up.’

‘I never stick to the chairs here.’

‘Right…but you’re wearing pants.’

Another time, I had just brought a guy into the back and nuzzled up against him while we waited for the next song to start:

I put my hand on his thigh, and he puts his on my knee.  ‘You’re freezing!  You have goosebumps all over.”

‘I know!  It’s so cold in here!  At least now you can warm me up!’  Almost everything I say at the club is heavily punctuated.

‘Yeah, but why are you so cold?  I’m not cold at all.’

‘Right…but you’re wearing pants.’

Yet another time, in the dead of summer, I had just approached a group of guys who were there for a birthday party:

I congratulate the birthday boy and give him a hug.  As I stand at the bar next to him, his friends bustling behind us, I startle as I feel something brush up against my ass and turn and swat away at…

The air.

He looks at me as if I’m high.  I try to explain, ‘The flies have been so bad this summer!  They’re driving me crazy!  They must like my new perfume because they’ve been all over me today!’  I lean in and toss my hair so the rich bourbon vanilla envelopes him, embraces him, intoxicates him.

‘Shit, you do smell pretty good.’

I smile and thank him.  Then his friend chimes in, ‘We’ve been here for a while, and no flies have bothered me,’ he says with an eyebrow raised.  He really thinks I’m hallucinating.

‘Right…but you’re wearing pants.’

Come on, guys.  Think before you say stuff because you’re making it really hard for me to be the dumb one.

~W~

strippers fucking customers

Except ‘strippers’ is usually spelled wrong.  Or ‘customers’ is.  That (and the fact that neither A nor I have ever written a post about fucking customers) aside, people have still somehow made it to our page in hopes of finding some lurid account of how I readily took a customer in back where there are no cameras and sucked him off for $20 because I’m so horny and uninhibited and wild and have no shame.  Or whatever other cute little excuse I can come up with for being okay with having illegal, unprotected sex with some stranger for the same price or less than what I can get for 3-4 minutes of dancing where I don’t have to worry about being groped or contracting AIDS.

You’re one of those people, aren’t you?

Well, there will be no such sordid story.  I’m sorry I tricked you.  But to make it up to you, and as a ‘thank you’ for visiting our site, I have a gift for you.  No, not the kind that keeps on giving.  Are you ready?

For all of you who got here by searching ‘strippers fucking customers’, ‘stripers fucking customers’, or even ‘stripers fucking costumers’, here is my public service announcement to you.  You should not go to a strip club looking for extras (kissing, fingering, blow jobs, hand jobs, anal in the parking lot, etc.) because:

1) If she’ll give you a blow job or let you suck her nipples for $20, imagine how many other dudes she’s gotten down with.  A lot of people have $20.  My niece is 7 and gets $5 a week in allowance.  Every month, she has $20.  Your $20 doesn’t make you rich or special.  It’s pretty safe to say that almost anyone who walks into a strip club has $20.  This means that you could be swapping spit (or worse) with any one (or more) of them. Do you really want to lick some guy’s stale cum or have his herpes virus rubbed all over your dick?  For $20?  Really?

2) There absolutely should be no need for a #2, but I’m sure that, for some of you, there is.  So, you can probably pick up a drunk chick in a bar who will fuck you for free and doesn’t have a huge bouncer wanting to kick some ass checking in on her every few minutes.

3) If money isn’t the issue, there are plenty of clean, professional providers who will take care of your every need in an appropriate environment.

4) The strip club is not that environment.  Clubs are there for people who enjoy the tease (myself included), and when illegal activities go on in my club, it compromises my money and the money of all the clean girls.  It also puts us at greater risk for a raid.  The last thing I need is money trouble or legal trouble, which brings me to…

5) If you get caught, you’re probably going to jail, where you will have no shortage of suitors lining up to peg you — and not the kind who look good in 8-inch heels and a two-piece.

6) If you’re still not convinced, just drive up and down the road in your area where all the streetwalkers hang out and pick up one of them.  That way, you get your rocks off for cheap, complete with the exciting possibility that your ween might soon fall off, and I get to dance in a place where I don’t have to dodge your grimy fingers or wonder if I’m sitting on your crusty jizz spot.

Thanks.

~W~

It looked like her ass was chomping on her g-string.  The undulation of cellulite, the jiggling of blubber, the seizure-like bursts of movement.  I wondered why girls would want to showcase their fat.  In my months of research through total immersion, this is what I found…

They don’t.

But guys love it.  In the same way they picture a girl on top of them riding away when they see her tits bouncing around, they picture giving it to her from behind or spanking her or watching her go to town in reverse cowgirl when they see that ass jiggle.

At first, I was told mostly only black guys went for it because that’s how black girls move in bed.  I don’t know much about that.  But I do know that black guys tend not to like me at the club.  Outside of it is a different story, but I have never had a black guy get a lap dance from me or show much interest in me at all while I’m on the clock.

This was evident from the very beginning so, in an attempt to broaden my appeal, I learned to incorporate the art of ass clapping into my routine.  It took a while.  A long while.  Bodies don’t naturally move in that way — my so-white-it’s-see-through body especially.  Every time I’d try it, I could do it for a second or two before my muscles would revolt and start doing weird things.

If you think ass-clapping looks weird, you should see failed ass-clapping.

A and I would practice, share strategies, and usually end up collapsing on the floor laughing.  But then a strange thing happened — I found myself doing it without even realising it.  At really inopportune times.  Like waiting in line at the grocery store.  Or while watching my nephew recite his presentation for school.

One time, I was standing at the rail overlooking the main floor at the club, absentmindedly making it clap.  A white cowboy in his late 30s — wearing the hat, boots, giant belt buckle, the whole getup — walked up to me from behind and tipped me because ‘that was the sexiest thing [he had] ever seen’.  I also had a group of Native American guys come up to my stage and throw money and cheer every time I did it.  My last night at that club, a Mexican guy bought 15-20 dances from me and wanted nothing more than for me to straddle him backwards, get on all fours, and then make it clap the entire time.  Black guys still don’t like me.  My point?

The booty clap knows no racial bounds.

Wait, that wasn’t supposed to be my point.  Well, part of it.  I’ll wrap this up because it has gotten really long-winded for a fluff entry.  We make it clap because:

1) People like it.  All sorts of people.

2) Once one has mastered the ass clap, it takes very little energy to execute as it is more about muscle isolation than exertion.  This is very useful in a job that is very physically demanding.

3) Despite the fact that it doesn’t take much energy, it’s a very energetic move, and it sparks energy in the crowd.

4) It works very well with hip-hop, R&B, and rap music, which I would have trouble dancing to otherwise.  Remember, I’m about as white as it gets.  And I move like it.  At least with this move in my dancer vocabulary, I can kind of fake it.

5) It tones muscles most people don’t use.

6) It’s actually really fascinating to feel one’s fat move at that perfect rhythm — where each wave amplifies the next, perpetuating the motion effortlessly and indefinitely.  It’s almost zen-like.

Okay, maybe that last one is just me.

~W~

I suppose this is an aside, but yes.  Controlling the potty mouth.  I have a pretty diverse and extensive vocabulary, but when I’m with my friends, I fall back on swear words a lot.  So much, in fact, that my iPhone’s auto-correct function has stopped turning my fucks into ducks, my dicks into docks, and my shits into shuts.  However, when I’m at work, I use that extensive vocabulary when I’m hanging with older gentlemen.  And I’ve learned that you never know who might think that your curse words are crass and/or unattractive, so I just try to avoid it altogether.  But anyway.

I’ve come to realize that a lot of strip club patrons lose a lot of their inhibitions when they walk through the door, and sometimes they say things that I can’t believe a stranger is saying.

This weekend, for example, a guy I was standing with used the ‘n’ word.  Two times in as many sentences.  (Later, a dancer in the dressing room asked me, “Did he say it with an ‘a’ or with an ‘er’?”  As if it should make a difference, but an ‘er’ for sure.)  He used it to describe the neighborhood his auto shop is in:

“That part of town is so [insert shitty horribly disgusting and offensive word here].  Someone broke into a car and caused thousands of dollars in damage for a $25 stereo to give to their crack dealer in exchange for crack.”

As he rambled on about being from New Jersey, his mobster connections, carrying a gun and being wire tapped, I wondered what on earth would make him say something like that to a stranger.  He doesn’t know me.  I could be married to a black man for all he knows.  In fact, the man who stepped up and took on the role of my father IS black.

That word, the word he used, is like the Queen Mother of horrible names.  It’s not like he let “holy shit” slip when he stubbed his toe.  He used the word without hesitation.  Not a blink, no twinkle in the eye, nothing.  He was unashamed.  It was like this word is in his regular vocabulary so often that it didn’t register that this isn’t a word you use with people you don’t know.

The sick part?  I still hustled the shit out of him after the fact, and I managed to get a string of lap dances.  His money is still green, and his disgusting behavior made me feel really good about separating him from it.

My confession?  Directly after, I went into the dressing room and told the girls who were in there, one of whom is biracial.  She asked me to describe him to her, and I did.  She left the dressing room on a mission to find him and make his life miserable.  I hope she did.

~A~

My friend and I put a few dollars down, and she came over to us and said, ‘I just started working on that trick again.  The first time I ever tried it was at my old club, and I rolled right off the stage and onto the floor, hitting a chair on the way down with my head.  They had to call an ambulance.  I nearly broke my neck and was out for months.’  Then she snapped her g-string and squished her boobs in my face.

Do not be the girl who is wheeled out of a strip club in glowing underwear on a stretcher.

If you have a new trick you would like to work on, do it at home or in a class first.  Find a similar surface as the stage but without a 3 foot drop at the end and practice until you have it down pat.  Then, when you transition that move into the club, be extra aware of your surroundings, and be extra cautious until you’ve mastered it there as well.

As an example of how serious this can be, I just danced at a benefit for a woman who fell off a pole while practicing an inversion during a pole fitness class.  She landed on her head and damaged her spinal cord, leaving her paralyzed.  She was just a foot off the ground before she fell.

Whenever you are trying new pole inversions, have a spotter.  Any time you are on the pole, keep it clean, make sure you have secure contact between the pole and your legs/side/armpit/etc., and then release slowly, one hand at a time.

Just keep your sexy selves safe.

~W~

Do not say this.  It will not inspire his confidence in you and make him yours.

Instead, try something gracious yet sassy like, ‘Thank you, honey.  You have excellent taste in women.  Why don’t we go somewhere more private so you can get a closer look?’  Then smile, take his hand, and walk him back.

~W~

I generally don’t do private dances for older guys because it seems that they’re more interested in the girls who look about 16 years old.  But I made conversation with Mark and asked him if he’d be interested in a private dance.  He told me that he might like one later, but not right now.

Immediately, I thought, “Ah, yes.  The polite kiss-off.  Whee.”

But later when I went back and sat with him again, he told me he was ready for his dance.  I hadn’t even discussed pricing with him, but I did so as we walked back into the private booth.

He was talking about how he wished that he had a light behind him so that he could see my face better instead of everything being shrouded in shadows.  Knowing that, I made it a point to tilt back a bit during the dance so that he could see my face more.  And that’s when it started.

Mark started stroking my face.  I’m very good at deflecting without being a jerk about it, so I would lean back, or turn around, or put my face next to his so that it was more awkward to try and touch.  But I had to do that the whole time, and he got two dances in a row.

Do not, under any circumstances, touch my face, people!  I have really bad skin, and while I have it semi under control with the help of Proactiv, a stranger’s hands with strange oils and dirt on them could cause a breakout by the end of the night.

Also?  It’s my face!  That’s an incredibly intimate gesture for someone who is paying for me to tease them and then leave.  I don’t know if you washed your hands after you used the men’s room, I don’t know if you were touching some other stripper in some unmentionable place.

DO NOT TOUCH MY FACE!

~A~

You want me to acknowledge your presence at my stage?  Better get those tip dollars down.  You want me to remove my g-string and give you a mini lap dance at my nude stage?  You’ll need to come up with more money than that.  You want me to find a certain dancer for you?  I have a finder’s fee.  You want my company while you nurse your drink at the bar?  If you tip me for my time.  You want my g-string?  Money talks, honey.  You want me naked on top of you without interruption for 30 minutes?  There’s the ATM.

I know strippers are often painted as money-grubbing little bitches, and I’m sure this doesn’t help, but while going to a strip club is happy fun time for you, it’s work for us.  Really fucking hard work.

Imagine yourself in a high-powered sales position where you’re paid on commission and you have no benefits.  Think of all the stresses that come along with that job.  Now, think about doing that job while naked.  In a place where people want what you’re selling but don’t think they should have to pay for it, where they think nothing is off limits and rules and laws are meant to be broken, where brutal honesty is common when it isn’t necessary and lies are even more common when a bit of honesty would do, where every rejection is about you, and where — when something effects you — it effects you to the core. Oh, and to top it all off, instead of  getting paid by your ‘employer’ to work, you have to pay them a flat fee to even enter the premises and cough up about 20% of your earnings in booth and stage rental and another 25% to tip out the bar staff, the DJ, and the bouncers.

Yeah…

We start our day off in the hole, and there’s no guarantee we’re going to get out of that hole by the end of the night.  And if we do, we take out that wad of cash, however big or small it may be, and then we wave goodbye to about half of it.

Not really happy fun time, is it?  But we have to pretend it is.

I’ve gotten good enough at the game that I am almost guaranteed to walk out with more than I would per hour at my day job if I focus and keep my head in the game.  If I’m a machine.  A machine with a smile and a bounce in my elevated step.

I haven’t walked out with less than I make in 10 full days at my other job in over a month, and I am continuously honing my skills in hopes that my earnings only continue to soar upwards.

But at what price?

Today, while I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for my dad to meet me with my snow tires so I could have them put on, A texted me.

‘Arrrg!  I have been doing really well this week — going to the gym, eating right, trying to get back on track after my vacation.  I got on the scale this morning, and I’ve gained weight!  Fuck my thighs, fuck my hips, fuck cellulite.’

Two weeks ago, at 5’2″ and 106 lbs., I was told by two clubs that I needed to lose weight before they would contract me.  Last night, I had the rare opportunity to enjoy a five course gourmet Italian meal with wine pairings, and the whole time I was thinking, ‘Look at all of these carbs.  I won’t be eating tomorrow if I plan to work Saturday.’

By the end of the conversation, we each had completely torn ourselves apart in every area of our lives.  It moved quickly from how we look on the outside to who we are on the inside — leaving our innermost selves raw and exposed and…

Hurting.

‘I don’t even know if it will be worth it to go in,’  I confessed.  ‘I don’t want to put my life on hold because I’m so stressed out, but I just don’t see how I can make money when I’m feeling like this.  And I don’t know how well I’d be able to handle a bad money night.’

‘I know exactly how you feel.’

My dad drove up, and we got my car in at the tire shop and then walked over to Starbucks to wait.  He bought a regular coffee for himself and a green tea for me.  We sat at a small table in the sun and took off our winter jackets.

He doesn’t know I’m a stripper.  I don’t lie to him, but I give incomplete information and he draws the most logical conclusion.  The wrong one.  But I don’t tell him that.

A few months ago, I told him I started working six days a week –  my regular five days at my day job and then Saturdays as well.  He just figured I started picking up an extra shift there every week.  My vacation from my day job started yesterday, and I’m planning a trip to Vegas next week.  I was going to work the club tomorrow to get some extra cash for the trip and to help with the bills and paying off my debt so that I don’t have to borrow from savings again next month.

‘So, are you working tomorrow?’

I pause.  Sure, I could use the extra money.  But is it worth it?  I’ve been working 6 days a week for months except for a couple of weeks here and there when I was feeling too worn down to drag myself in and be the life of the party for 10 hours.  The past month, I’ve been doing it anyway because the money is just too good.

But you know what?

I’m not okay.

I take a sip of my tea and turn to my dad, ‘No.  I’m not.’

‘Good.’  But he must have sensed my hesitation.  ‘Just take this time and have fun, kid.  If things don’t go as planned or you start to worry about anything, just let it go.  Think of something good and forget about everything else.  Be happy.  You deserve it.’

My dad isn’t one to dispense support, much less inspiration.  On the drive home, I tried not to lament over missing a night at the club.  ‘But I just spent a small fortune yesterday getting my nails done for tomorrow,’ I said aloud.

When I got home, I saw a post online from A:

I feel fucking awful.  And I’m fucking sick of feeling so fucking awful.

That’s all it took.  I knew I couldn’t continue on like this anymore — putting energy towards everything else but myself.  And neither can she.

I need some time to just have fun.  I’m on vacation, dammit.  That’s what this time is for.

So, I invited her to play hooky with me tomorrow.  It took some doing, but she’s going to come over.  We are going to work on our pole tricks, eat delicious food, visit the cool little shops on my street, and just be silly.  If we feel up to it, we’ll head into work.  If not, we don’t have to.

‘I just realized that, as I was bemoaning the fact that I’ve gained about an inch on my waist, I was drinking a beer,’ A texted me about an hour ago.  ‘I’m still drinking the beer.  Screw it.’

Yeah, screw it.  I’m sick of trying to be everything for everyone else.   This week is for me.  And for A.

I feel better already.  And I can’t put a price on that.

~W~

~W~

W1 is great, actually.  He’s friendly, respectful, he watches out for us, and is just generally down to earth and helpful.

W2 is pretty okay.  He reminds me a bit of a grumpy John Candy, but when push comes to shove, he’s not a bad dude.

J is… Hm.  I’ve never had an issue with him, but I know some of the other girls have.  I think because I tend to keep my head down, not cause trouble or start drama, and do my job, I don’t run into problems with him.  He can be kind of cocky, but whatever.  When you’re a silver fox like that, it’s expected.

But M.  This fucking guy.  This is how every conversation goes that I have with him:

Me:  Hey, M.  I’d like to check out now if that’s cool.

M:  *annoyed* Were you scheduled?

Me:  Only until 10:00.

M:  *heavy exasperated sigh*  Are you on the list to go on stage soon?

Me:  Nope, it’ll be like an hour, and at that point, it’ll be after hours, and I don’t work after hours.

M:  *another exasperated sigh* Fine, go check out with the DJ.

Now, usually it doesn’t bother me, and I just blow it off and check out with the DJ.  But it’s getting to the point where I dread asking to leave.  I don’t like being treated like a little kid or an inconvenience.

Saturday night, after a really good set on the main stage, I was squatting, gathering my money.  As I stood up, my patella started sending shooting pains through my knee.  I thought it was just something weird from squatting and that it would go away, but as I stepped up off of the stage and put weight on it, I almost collapsed.  I have no idea what I did.  My set didn’t feel any different than usual.  I didn’t pop or crack anything or do any weird maneuvers that would make that happen.

So I kind of hobbled over to the bar and sat with a customer who, as it turns out, went to high school with me (I’ll probably talk about this more in the next blog entry.  It was kind of a weird encounter).  I thought if I sat for a few minutes, it would be better.  But again, as soon as I stood up, shooting pains.  And now my patella was visibly bruised and swollen.

I walked over to W to say goodbye since it was her last night *so sad*, and I knocked on the door of the office, praying in my head, “Please be W1, please be W1, don’t be M.”  Aaaaaand, M opened the door.  Before I even opened my mouth, he looked irritated.

M:  What is it, dear?

Me:  I’d like to leave.  I hurt my knee, and I can barely walk.

M:  *huge eye roll and sigh, while saying in a really snippy tone* Fine.  Check out with the DJ

At this point, he kind of slammed the door while I was still standing there.

I wasn’t really upset until the drive home, the more I thought about it.  I stay past when I’m scheduled.  Half the time, I’m not even on the schedule.  I ALWAYS stay until midnight, at least.  I’m a decent dancer, I don’t cause drama, I don’t start fights, I do my work, I don’t break any rules, and I really feel like M needs to start cutting me a little slack.  No one wants to watch a gimpy stripper hobble around.

I know he’s like this to all of the girls who work there, and every girl who has ever talked about him has said that he’s a dick.  So, I’m not alone.  It just irritates me that he walks around treating the dancers like we’re an inconvenience, that we’re not important when it is the dancers who make money for the club, not him.  He wouldn’t have a club to be a douchebag at if there weren’t any dancers.

I go home in the wee hours of the morning with bruises on my hipbones and maxed out tendons in my knees.  I work really hard, and I deserve a little respect.  All of us do.

I’m taking a couple of weeks off.  This weekend because I’m still too angry with him to go in, and next weekend because my day job is taking me out of state for a week.  When I go in to let J know that I’ll be gone, I am going to tell him exactly why I don’t want to be there.  Maybe if enough people complain about M, he’ll be asked to leave.  I’ve never tried to get anyone fired in my life, and that’s not really what I’m doing here, but I can’t let him keep treating me the way he does without speaking up.

Also, in general, I’m just not feeling very good at what I do.  If the money was made on the stages, I would do great, but it’s not.  I’m still having a hard time finding my place, talking to people, reading them.  I’m not making as much money as I would like, I’ve hit my nightly goal one time in the past 6 months, and it’s wearing on me.  It shouldn’t make me feel badly about myself, but it does sometimes.

I’m just wondering when it will click.  If it ever does.

~A~