Club 42

by Joanna Angel

  They threw more money. I rejoiced. I was actually having fun. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I was shy, but I’d never thought of myself as the type to throw their pussy centimeters in front of someone’s nose with confidence. Right now, I felt confident enough to try just about anything.

  The song ended. The crowd cheered—or, four people cheered. My twenty-dollar fan shouted, “You’re gonna do great! Congrats!” I picked up my clothing and the money on stage, and I felt like Miss America, waving and smiling and blowing kisses, picking up crumpled dollar bills instead of bouquets of roses. I walked off the stage and back to the bar with my tits and ass and not very groomed pussy exposed. The bartender chuckled.

  “Tony will kill you! You can’t be on the floor naked— put something on!” Of course his name was Tony.

  “What?” I replied, which seemed to be a recurring response of mine here. “So, I have to be naked on stage, but I can’t be naked here?”

  In the past five minutes, I had definitely become an exhibitionist, and I truly enjoyed being naked at a bar. One of the men who had watched me on stage now walked toward me. I smiled and waved at him, feeling like a celebrity kindly acknowledging one of my adoring fans. Tony intercepted him, his expression not nearly as excited as mine. I was fumbling to throw my dress back on, which, I realized, was just as inconvenient to put on as it was to take off. Marc Jacobs could have thought more of strippers when he created this dress.

  “Well that was . . . something,” said Tony. “I’m guessing you haven’t done this before.”

  “Well, technically no,” I said.

  “Well, I’m short on girls . . . so I guess I can put you on the day shift. Any day Monday through Thursday. Shift starts at 10:00 a.m. and ends at four. Definitely can’t use you on weekends. You can start—”

  To see what happens if Naomi starts her shift today, turn to page 13.

  To see what happens if Naomi starts her shift tomorrow, turn to page 119.

  “Follow me downstairs and get me your ID, and I’ll go through the rules,” said Tony. Everything was happening so fast. I’d never known strip clubs even had day shifts. Perhaps this was when the more dignified customers came in, and Tony totally sensed how smart and sophisticated I was, and therefore wanted me to be with other people like myself.

  I’ll just keep telling myself that.

  I followed Tony into his office with my dress still only half-buttoned. On stage I’d felt like an empowered naked woman, but here I felt disheveled, like I’d arrived at a job interview hungover. I reminded myself that this was not an interview—I already got the job—and I was also one of the only women in this building with clothing on.

  The office was small, with exposed brick and pipes, an old PC that didn’t look like it had been turned on in a long time, and a desk covered with random phone numbers written on yellow Post-it Notes. I’m not sure why these weren’t just entered into a cell phone? There were stacks of cardboard boxes full of bottled waters and sodas, and a giant safe about half the size of one wall, with a state-of-the-art keypad on it. It was by far the most modern piece of equipment in here.

  He took my ID and thoroughly inspected it with various lights and scanners and such. He then had me fill out some incredibly unofficial-looking paperwork, a stack of stuff that was photocopied (some pages even handwritten) and that required my signature, all of which more or less spelled out that I was over eighteen and I fully understood that I had to be nude.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. He talked the way people think everyone talks in New York, but barely anyone actually does.

  “Naomi,” I said. “It says it right here on my ID!” I pointed out, as if he couldn’t read, or as if he wasn’t aware that legal identification clearly did, in fact, state people’s names.

  “You want to use your real name on stage?” He looked at me, slightly puzzled, and slightly disgusted I think.

  “OH!” I replied. “Sorry. Yes. No. I wouldn’t do that. I understand now.”

  “Yeah, most girls pick the name of their favorite movie star or something. But do whatever you want. Just tell the DJ whenever you think of it,” he said.

  “Okay. Got it.” I didn’t really . . . but I assumed this would all be explained later.

  “Well,” he looked at his watch, “there’s a few hours left of the day shift. You can stick around till it ends.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled, as if this was an extreme act of kindness to allow me to expose my genitals to strangers drinking carrot juice and staring at pussy in lieu of eating lunch.

  “House fee is forty-five dollars,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you not hear me?” he asked.

  “No, I heard you, I just don’t know what a house fee means. I’m sorry,” I added, though in fact, I don’t think not knowing that was worthy of an apology at all.

  “Oh, oh yeah. Well, THE FEE TO WORK HERE IS FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS,” he said, speaking loudly and slowly and using large, nonsensical hand gestures like he was playing charades—only nothing he pantomimed resembled what I would think of as “fee” or “work” or even “forty-five.” He lowered his voice a bit and continued, “Some girls pay when they come in and some pay on their way out. But for your first month, you gotta pay at the beginning.”

  Okay, brain. Come back. I needed several moments to process this. I had to pay to work here? I’d never heard of such a thing. Was this like a resort fee at a hotel? Were Wi-Fi and snacks included with this cost? I looked at Tony inquisitively, and he just held his hand out. He was very confident in this fee. He was not going to explain it or justify it. I counted the money I had just made on stage and handed it to him—it tallied up to forty-three dollars. He nodded.

  “You can give me the rest later,” he said with a smile.

  I was now officially two dollars in debt from being a stripper. Times were tough.

  Suddenly, a girl came through the door. She was tall and thin, with hair dyed an unnatural platinum blonde, though a hint of black roots revealed its true color. Okay, maybe she wasn’t so tall, but she had very high clear heels on, so she did appear tall. She had on a neon pink little slip with a long and loose cowl neck covered in rhinestones that dripped down her chest like an icicle. I could see her perfectly pointy, seemingly unnatural tits peeking through. They weren’t huge, maybe a big C or a small D. I’d look like a bean pole wearing a neon body stocking had I put this dress on, but her breasts made this unflattering piece of fabric sit on her perfectly.

  As she stormed in, the droopy pink rhinestones jiggled from side to side. She sat herself down in a chair and took a rubber-banded wad of bright purple monopolylooking money out of a garter belt that was around her thigh. As she bent down, her right breast became completely exposed—not just a nip slip, the whole thing hung out loud and proud, and now I could confirm that they were enhanced, but very modest for a fake breast. I’d assumed everyone in the world with fake boobs had giant ones.

  “Here you go!” she said, with a thick accent that sounded like a mix of Puerto Rican and Staten Islander. She smiled, winked, and folded and unfolded her arms indignantly. I wasn’t sure if she was insulting him or flirting with him. She threw the wad of fake money on the table. Did someone pay her in Euros? Did Tony here have his own underground currency exchange program? If there was a forty-five dollar fee to be employed here, I could only imagine the exorbitant conversion rate he must charge.

  “That’s my girl, Brandi,” Tony said. He counted out the purple money and then opened his safe. He had a swift method of covering his hand while he typed in the code. Brandi might be “his girl,” but not his girl enough to know the code to that giant safe. He pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills, and that was such a small wad in such a large safe with so many other wads. What the hell was Tony doing in this rinky-dink club? There was seemingly enough money in there to retire on an island somewhere—and not, like, Long Island. Like, a nice one.

  He doled out $600 and handed
it over to her. She asked for a one-hundred-dollar bill to be broken up into twenties and then she gave him sixty.

  “That’s for you,” she said.

  “Aw thanks babe!” Did she really just give him a tip for handing her her own money? Was that normal? There were a whole lot of unexplained fees here, but right now, I had negative two dollars to my name so I needed to get to work.

  I hadn’t opened my mouth, but it must have been clear I was asking questions because Tony started answering them. For someone who didn’t know me, and didn’t even really like me (I think), he read me pretty well.

  “If a customer doesn’t have cash, they can get this money with their credit card and then pay you with it,” Tony said, waving the purple bills in his hand.

  “You new here?” said Brandi.

  “Brand new,” said Tony.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “She doesn’t have one yet,” Tony laughed. I was having a hard time answering any questions here. I wasn’t feeling very empowered. Apparently I needed to go back upstairs and shove my vagina in someone’s face to the sound of seven-year-old hip hop to regain my confidence.

  “Awww, you’re like REALLY new,” Brandi said.

  “Yeah, I am,” I admitted.

  “Well, I’ve got a customer waiting for me up in VIP. He likes doing doubles. I’m sure he’d LOVE a new girl. Wanna come with?”

  To see Naomi go with Brandi to the VIP room, turn to page 19.

  To see Naomi explore the club herself, turn to page 82.

  “Ummm, yeah!” I said.

  Brandi pulled me through the strip club, past the stage and the DJ and the bar. We arrived in a dark hallway lit with what looked like those constellation stickers I bought at Sharper Image and put all over my bedroom in high school. There were several spaces lined with dark velvet curtains. Brandi opened one of the curtains and revealed a scrawny man sitting on a decadent velvet bench, dressed in khakis and a patterned button-down top, with glasses and dark hair. His hands were in his lap, and he was looking at the floor. I felt like we were detectives walking into an interrogation room, and this khaki guy was definitely guilty of something.

  Brandi sat on his lap and played with his hair. To say the least, her pink sparkly getup and his khaki garb did not complement each other well. There’s no other scenario in the universe where these two people would be interacting like this.

  “Scotty! Look! I brought a friend,” she said. Scotty seemed excited.

  “Oh- y-y-y-y-es. D-d-d-d-d-o you guys like to play together?” he asked.

  “She’s new here and I can’t WAIT to play with her,” Brandi said, while hamming up the hair playing a little more. It truly looked like a soothing massage—this girl knew how to rub a head.

  “Come on Scotty, I want to play! You know what you have to do.” Brandi pouted like a little girl on Santa’s lap who wanted a pony. And then something incredible happened—Scotty reached into his pocket, opened his wallet, and “ponied” up five hundred-dollar bills. He handed all of it to Brandi, and she handed two of them to me. Just like that. Scotty was far superior to Santa. Santa charges people to take photos with him and rarely comes through with anything you ask for. Scotty pays for an electric bill in the blink of an eye.

  Brandi folded up the money and rubber-banded it around her garter belt. I unzipped my fanny pack, which had now morphed into a very inconvenient clutch. I pulled out my wallet and placed my new crisp lap-sitting money next to my metro card and my long-expired student ID, which I still used to get discounts wherever I could. But if I could find myself a Scotty, I wouldn’t need a 15 percent discount on anything ever again.

  Brandi kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you!” she said. “You’re the best—you’re always the best. Love you!” She smiled at me and pulled me onto his lap, and while his knee was incredibly bony, I found a way to balance my also bony ass on him. Brandy removed her dress by untying one single tie in the back. I could see the convenience of this contraption. I must remind you, I was still in my red polka dot, polyester dress. Had anyone walked in here at this moment—with Brandi wearing nothing but clear heels, and me sitting properly with my legs crossed and my hands folded on Scotty’s leg—it would have looked like Scotty took his daughter into the strip club after taking her on a tour of a local college campus.

  Brandi gyrated her tight round ass against Scotty’s crotch, while I remained perched on his lap. I could see her ass and pussy—everything was so smooth and perfect, not one ingrown hair or pimple in sight. Scotty smiled and kept his hands at his sides. I assumed that was a protocol here, and I commended him for sticking with it because I don’t know how he didn’t reach out and grab her.

  “It’s her first day, Scotty!” Brandi said, looking at me with her piercing brown eyes.

  “Ooooh really?” he replied.

  “Yeah! I wanna take good care of her,” Brandi said.

  She reached over and slid my dress up to my breasts, while continuing to rub her ass against Scotty’s crotch. The multitasking was incredible. She smelled like lavender and vanilla and peaches all mixed together, and the scent was mesmerizing. My dress unfortunately came to a halt at my breasts. Brandi gave it a good head start, but I was aware that it was my job to continue to get this damn dress off. I had gotten paid generously by Scotty, after all.

  I was done fussing with the buttons in the back. I pulled the dress over my head and heard it tear as it slid over my ears. I didn’t care. Brandi giggled, and her adorable reaction made this entire interaction less awkward. She slid her smooth fingers up and down my body, and it felt like my matching bra and panty set just disappeared. She was some kind of magician, clearly. And now . . . I was naked.

  Brandi lay back with her ass still on Scotty’s crotch. She pulled me over and laid me on top of her, facing her, as if Scotty and I were creating a Brandi sandwich. I moved along with her, around and around. I was naked against Brandi’s naked body, but Scotty was completely clothed with his hands to his sides. It was bizarre, yet erotic.

  I could feel her pussy lips against mine. Her fingers moved over my back, and our pelvises pressed together as we went around in a circle. Scotty got more and more excited. I understood where he was coming from, because I too was getting aroused. I inhaled all her pleasant stripper scents, and it was intoxicating.

  She pushed me down until I was on my knees on the floor. And as she focused on this backward dry hump against Scotty’s crotch, she took my head and pushed it into her pussy.

  “I want you to lick me while I make Scotty cum,” she said. I appreciated how direct she was, and I thought this was an excellent plan. She didn’t even know my name . . . and come to think of it, I didn’t know my name either, and that was fine. I stuck my tongue into her pussy lips as they moved around. I did my best to follow along. I’d never had a threesome before, and I still don’t think this counts—I’m not sure what exactly the word for this was.

  I stuck my tongue deep into her, and her pussy tasted just like the rest of her body smelled. I felt like I was licking a pussy while shopping at Bath & Body Works, and I liked it. I licked and licked and inhaled her pussy as best I could. She moaned, but I wasn’t sure how much was real and how much was a performance paid for by Scotty. I wanted to be sure she actually enjoyed my tongue, so I licked her harder and stronger, searching for her clit. She could fake it for Scotty, but she couldn’t fake it for me! I wanted to give her a real sensation. I wanted to feel her quiver.

  “You’re such a dirty girl,” she told me in a high-pitched voice.

  There was a train of pleasure going on. I licked Brandi and she rubbed on Scotty. The harder I licked, the faster she rubbed. I liked having this effect on her—I felt like I was a crucial part of contributing to Scotty’s boner, even if I wasn’t in direct contact with it. I couldn’t relate this to anything I’d done in the past, so I just paid attention to what my body and my tongue told me to do, and that was to keep licking with as much gusto as I possibly co
uld.

  Brandi moaned beautifully. She was certainly an expert at turning people on. Scotty was now moaning too, and I had my mouth full doing my thing. He breathed heavily as he moved his hands to hold onto Brandi’s hips—I could tell he was restraining himself from touching anywhere else with his invisible handcuffs. There was a musical medley of moans, and suddenly, Scotty quivered and shook uncontrollably. Then he stopped and lightly pushed Brandi off him, looking exhausted.

  I saw a big wet stain around Scotty’s crotch. Perhaps he should have worn darker pants—khakis were not the best choice of wardrobe for making a mess. I was embarrassed for him, but he didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He was proud. I had to give him credit for that.

  I wanted to keep licking Brandi, but it seemed like the paying customer got to decide how long things went on in here.

  Brandi giggled. “You bad boy.”

  “Th-th-th-th-thank you,” he said, looking drunk. He pulled out another hundred-dollar bill and handed it to her, and he walked out. She pulled two twenty-dollar bills out of the rubber-banded wad around her garter and handed them to me. I was perfectly fine with the sixty/forty percentage split. And honestly, a part of me wondered whether I could lick her again for a few more minutes if I gave the forty back.

  “You’re fun!” Brandi said. “You okay? Some of the girls here fake it when they do doubles, but I like doing the real thing.” I still wasn’t entirely sure of all the lingo here, but I thought I understood what she meant.

  “Oh, yeah, that was amazing! And thank you for including me,” I said.

  “We need to think of a name for you,” she said. I genuinely liked that she had decided she was a necessary part of this process. I naturally thought of Cardi B. She was my inspiration, even though we looked absolutely nothing alike and had virtually nothing in common.