by Joanna Angel
“Harder! Harder!” I said. I was practically crying. I have to admit, it was really complicated and rare for me to have an internal orgasm without any clitoral stimulation at all. He could feel my pussy tensing up, and he knew what was going on. He used the entire force of his dense body to fuck this one particular spot inside my pussy. He was panting and sweating, like he was getting to the end of a marathon. I was quivering, and then I felt my pussy clench up so tight that I almost pushed him out of me—but he kept fucking harder and fought the force of my pussy.
A powerful and intense orgasm took over my body. I was shaking and squealing and moaning and cumming. I hoped Jessie was enjoying Rob’s Xbox on a loud volume so she couldn’t hear the insanity going on right now. Or maybe I just didn’t care. If she was entitled to leave dirty dishes in the sink for eight consecutive days, then I was entitled to have loud obnoxious orgasms.
He pulled out and let out a loud, sexy grunt, and his semen exploded all over my stomach. Rob barely had the energy to move off the couch to get himself a soda, but when it came to sex, he turned into an athlete. I sat there and admired the large load of jizz on my stomach. I scooped it up into my mouth, and it tasted almost as good as the garlic butter sauce. He dropped down on my bed and passed out. Or was this our bed now? Was he sleeping here again tonight?
These were somewhat major things to be addressed, none of which I had the energy to address. I wiped the remainder of jizz off my stomach and pulled out an extra long D.A.R.E. T-shirt I had in a clothes drawer. Rob was snoring. I didn’t know how he passed out so fast. Oh, right, it was the power of my pussy that put him to sleep.
I left my bedroom and plopped myself down on my couch. Messy Jessie was nowhere to be found. I grabbed a controller and did what I felt was the most logical thing to do, what with all my convoluted emotions and life decisions, and that was to teach myself how to play Xbox.
To go back and see Rob go down on Naomi, turn to page 156.
To continue with Naomi in this fantasy, turn to page 166.
I‘d been working at Club 42 for a little over a month now. I worked Monday through Thursday, and sometimes Fridays if I wasn’t too exhausted. My life became like a nude Groundhog Day. I woke up, rode the subway to Times Square, covered my face in makeup, put on microscopic clothing that sparkled, took it off, danced on people’s laps, went on stage again, and repeated this several times each day. Throughout the course of a day’s worth of dry humps, twerks, and smiles, it accumulated to anywhere from three to seven hundred dollars, depending on the day.
I’d love to say I was paying off all my student loans, or taking care of a sick relative, or putting money toward a security deposit on an apartment that didn’t resemble a railroad in any way, shape, or form, but I wasn’t doing any of those things. I was spending almost all of my money on Rob.
I’ll have to backtrack here. I wasn’t exactly just spending my money on Rob, I was spending money on the both of us. I’d always lived like a broke college student in New York, and I’d recently realized the joys of being not broke in New York. Every night, we’d eat at different restaurants, high-end gastro pubs, and drink cocktails with multiple ingredients in them.
One night when my air conditioner wasn’t working, we simply walked out of the apartment and got a room in a $750-a-night hotel in Brooklyn that overlooked the water and boasted artwork from local artists in the rooms. I couldn’t even calculate how many lap dances that hotel room, and the room service we ordered that night, tallied up to. My thighs hurt just thinking about it.
Throughout all of this, I still hadn’t told him I was a stripper. I didn’t know how he thought the coffee shop salary was supporting this life of excess, but he never asked. Maybe he just assumed I had a trust fund. Maybe he thought I made a ton of money off the documentary film I made that never came out. Maybe he didn’t know how much money most people made at jobs because he’d never actually had one. It didn’t really matter. We existed in this plane of existence away from reality, where we didn’t talk about our relationship status, we didn’t address the fact that he moved in without asking me, and we didn’t discuss mundane things like where I came up with $1,200 plus in cash to spend in one evening, even though I lived in a railroad apartment with a roommate.
He’d told me a few times that he was going back on tour again “soon.” I’d actually looked up his band’s tour schedule on social media, and all it said about their upcoming tour was “TBD.” That could have been soon, and that could have been never. So, you’re probably thinking, well, why didn’t you just kick him out? And the truth is . . . I didn’t want him to leave.
It wasn’t a healthy relationship. I’m not even sure if it was a relationship, or if I was just free housing with pussy included. But whatever it was, I enjoyed it. That is, until a particular Thursday in August. It was record-breaking heat outside. I feel like any day of extreme temperature in New York, they call it record breaking. Perhaps New Yorkers find the shit weather exciting if they know it’s legendary on some level. But this day felt hotter than any other record-breaking day of heat I’d experienced in New York, and I had experienced several.
I could confidently say that I was more hungover than I had ever been. My evening before with Rob had consisted of multiple bottles of champagne, countless amounts of whiskey shots, and an assortment of eighteen-dollar cocktails from a bar that looked like a speakeasy where everyone wore three-piece suits. The more expensive the alcohol I drank was, the worse my hangovers got. It’s like it was stronger or something. Who knew?
My pussy was so swollen and sore, from so many hours of sex. Truthfully, it was having its own hangover, and it desperately wanted to drink some Gatorade and curl up on the couch, but instead it had to go onstage and look loud and proud so strangers could attempt to refill the large hole in my bank account.
I caked on as much makeup as I could. I contoured and re-contoured my face, attempting to mimic an Instagram video I’d watched in hopes that it would bring some life to my face, but it was as if I was just smearing dirt across it. The other girls in the dressing room were shouting at each other, and it hurt my head. Melody entered, and I turned slightly away. I was embarrassed for my stripper mentor to see me like this. Of course, we were strippers. Maybe she’d be proud?
“Good morning,” she said, happily drinking a Capri Sun, wearing a long, soft, black cut-up T-shirt and a sports bra underneath it that squished her large breasts.
I gave her a half-smile back. It wasn’t like me to be so dismal when Melody entered the room, but it fully hurt to speak.
“Well you’re looking awfully chipper this morning,” she exclaimed, taking her T-shirt and sports bra off. She always did her makeup topless to avoid spilling excess makeup on her clothing. She used a lot of liquid liners and loose powders. It was always exciting when instead they spilled on her breasts, and then she’d wipe off the rainbow of leftover makeup with remover wipes at the end. Something was incredibly arousing about the way she wiped shimmery powder off herself in such a clean and calculated way. There was almost never even a drop left on her creamy, white, freckled skin after she was finished, but if there was, she’d rub Pond’s Cold Cream into her breasts and then wipe it off again. And that’s when things really got exciting.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked.
“Well . . . yeah,” she laughed. “I can practically smell the alcohol from here. No actually, I can smell it. It’s coming out of your pores.”
“Great,” I said. “Maybe it will work as an aphrodisiac!” I replied. I was hopeful. I mean, this alcohol had inspired some marathon sex last night after inhaling it through my mouth, who knew what affect it could have on people when being circulated back through my pores?
I thought maybe going on stage would literally and figuratively shake this out of me. I put on a sequined zebra-striped dress. I actually thought the dress was hideous, but I was drawn to it for some reason, and this logic seemed to translate to the customers because I always made more
money in this dress.
TJ the DJ knew this dress very well, and every time I wore it, he put “Welcome to the Jungle” on. This animal role-play brought to you by ’80’s metal always got me in the mood. This tune turned every uptight businessman into an air guitar specialist, reminding them of their more wild days when they possibly had long hair and didn’t have to wear suits. Or maybe they were just always boring people their entire lives who, at some point while studying for their exams in medical school, listened to this song and felt slightly less boring. But regardless, they all knew this song . . . and I did too. And I felt a different relationship with these men while dressed like a zebra. We were very much in the jungle, baby.
But today, it just wasn’t working. I made my entrance. I strutted around the stage, and people even walked away. I leaned against the pole, I smiled, I scowled, I growled, I looked fierce, I looked innocent, I licked my lips, I went through every facial expression I could possibly think of, and my four-person audience was unaffected by any of them. I was a ghost. Could they even see me? I shimmied down the pole and spread my legs open, and no one even glanced in my direction. I got down on all fours and circled my ass . . . still nothing.
TJ could sense the awkwardness on the stage. He tried livening up the customers with banter, telling customers to tip if they loved the jungle. He told them to walk on the wild side, and then he got slightly more crass and he told them to scream if they liked pussy. They did not tip, and they did not scream. They just sat there, painfully unamused as my hangover continued to spread through all the limbs in my body. TJ ended the song early, something he never did.
I glanced up at TJ in the DJ lighthouse, and he shrugged and shook his head. He seemed defeated. I knew he was grasping for straws when he asked guys to scream if they liked pussy. I walked off the stage with zero dollars. But it felt even worse than that, like if there was a way to tip negative dollars, these people would have done it. Perhaps I would be sent an invoice and be billed for the three minutes of time during which I’d offended these people with my naked body.
I walked toward the back of the club, hoping to drain my sorrows in carrot juice. Melody stopped me in my tracks. “Hey, we all have days like this,” she said.
“Really?” I replied.
“Yes, really,” she urged.
“Will it get any better?”
“To be honest, it usually goes from bad to worse. It’s like the customers can smell the desperation on you, and it’s their least favorite scent. When you really need them, they don’t want you. And when you’re really busy, they want you more. I’d just cut your losses and call it a day. Go home, come back and start fresh on Monday.”
I couldn’t believe the rules of playing hard to get still existed when you showed the inner folds of your labia to someone before even knowing their name. Was Melody right? Was there no coming back from this? Or should I scour the room and search for whatever shred of sexiness I might have in me, in an attempt to channel it back onto the stage?
To see what happens if Naomi goes home, turn to page 172.
To see what happens if Naomi stays at the club, turn to page 184.
“Alright, I guess I’ll just go home,” I said.
“Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. If you stick around and beat a dead horse, it’ll fuck with your head, and then you’ll never make money here again. It will curse this place!” she said.
“Alright! Alright!” I replied. “I’m going.” I started walking away.
“Call me later, let me know you’re alright?” she called after me.
“Well, what if I’m not alright?” I said.
“Well, call me anyways.” She blew me a kiss, then she perked up her breasts and walked away.
I left the strip club feeling like a boxer who’d just lost a match. I gathered my things and walked through Times Square toward the subway, sweating profusely from the humidity. I certainly didn’t deserve a Lyft, and I didn’t even deserve a yellow cab today. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I deserved the subway. Perhaps I should just walk forty blocks, eight avenues, and over a bridge to suffer for being a failed stripper today.
I’d flunked a math course in college, and at the time I’d found that quite humorous. I’d also failed my driving test three times when I went to get my license, and I’d thought that was hysterical. But there was nothing funny about today. There was no silver glitter lining on this stripper cloud, and it made it worse that I couldn’t go home and vent about it, because no one knew about this aspect of my life.
Perhaps today should be the day I told Rob the truth. I wondered if there was a way I could fast forward this confession, and say, “Hi, I’m a stripper. I have been for a few months now. I like it . . . usually . . . but today was a bad day. Now, please give me a massage and maybe some slow and sensual oral sex and make me feel better.”
I sat on the subway and watched my fellow passengers, who were bopping along to music on their headphones, reading on their Kindles, or casually engaging in small talk. All I could think was, no one else on this train failed as a stripper today. I mean, I didn’t think anyone on this train was a stripper at all, but it was safe to say that if anyone was, they probably didn’t fail at it. My parents would have considered me a failure if they knew I was a stripper, but what would they have said if they knew I’d failed at being a failure?
My emotions were all over the place. Between the hangover, the rejection from strangers who stared at my ass, this up and down rollercoaster with Rob, the lying, and a bizarre little side crush on Melody, I felt like I just wanted to melt into a puddle of sequins and body spray.
I got off the train and walked to my apartment. Regardless of the financial logistics, I was happy that Rob would be there when I got back. I could use some familiarity, some affection, and . . . some Gatorade. While Rob never offered to pay for much, he always went and got Gatorade for me at the bodega across the street when I was hungover. Which, lately, was just about every day.
I walked into my apartment and . . . Rob was in his boxers playing Xbox with the other guys I didn’t know. The other guys were thankfully not in boxers. This situation was somehow more offensive, and more confusing, than me walking in on him with another girl. One guy was lanky and pale white, wearing bootcut pants and rocking a shaggy blond haircut. He seemed like he came straight out of the ’70s. The other guy was extremely attractive, with black and gray tattoos that looked subtle against his dark complexion, including tattoos on his neck and hands. He had a gray skull cap on and a red and gray T-shirt, baggy pants, and some impeccably shiny and clean silver Air Jordans with a gold chain dangling from the laces. It seemed silly to wear such expensive shoes inside my railroad apartment just to sit on a couch next to a guy with no pants.
“Hello?” I said. The three of them hadn’t noticed when I walked inside. They were in a heated argument about what kind of potions and plants to get in some virtual bodega. In the past month, I’d learned to occasionally enjoy indulging in the Xbox. I will admit, I sometimes found pleasure in pretending to be a sexy samurai swords-woman, running through fields and slashing people’s heads off. I loathed this particular game, which never seemed to have a beginning or end, just a whole lot of walking around as an anthropomorphic lizard person collecting weird items for a battle that never seemed to happen.
I was still completely invisible. I’d spent the morning being ignored by men while I was naked, and now I was being ignored in my own apartment, wearing clothes. I was starting to doubt my own physical existence.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was likely about one minute, Rob acknowledged me.
“Oh, hey babe! What are you doing home?” he said. Did I really need to answer that question? Did I need to explain why I was in my own damn apartment?
“I . . . left work early.” I wasn’t lying. I still technically hadn’t really lied to him since that first morning—I’d just left out a whole lot of information. The two other guys on the couch gave me a half-
smile, half-wave kinda thing. I will admit, while I wasn’t entirely pleased with strangers making themselves comfortable on my couch, they were handsome strangers. So I supposed it could have been worse. In the club, dancing would boost my serotonin levels so high, I could be attracted to anyone. But at the moment, I found myself incredibly attracted to these men who were definitely more excited about a virtual ogre speaking in talk bubbles than they were about me. I forgot that I actually do have a type. And all three men on this couch were it.
“This is Sean, and this is Digger,” Rob said, pointing at each of them respectively. Digger was the shaggy blond one, and Sean was the guy in the skull cap with the tattoos. Ah. I knew these names—they were the other guys in his band. Sean was the singer, Digger was the drummer. There was another guy in the band (a guitar player named Jackson), but I guess he didn’t hear about this gathering on my couch, or maybe he was coming later.
“It’s nice to meet you guys!” I said. They both smiled back at me and said hello. I was still standing by my door, like I was waiting for a proper invitation to my own couch. I took my bag of makeup, heels, and sparkly clothing off my shoulder and threw it underneath my kitchen table . . . as if that was a way to hide my evidence.
“We just finished up a little band meeting. We had to go over some stuff for the tour!” he said, with such confidence. He definitely wanted me to be proud about the fact that today he got up before noon and, um, “went to a meeting,” I guess. I wondered if the other band members cared that he didn’t bother to put pants on for the meeting. Or was it just an understood rule that whoever’s house the meeting is at doesn’t have to wear any pants? Not that this was his house. But that’s beside the point.
“I’m about to slay this fucking dragon, babe! Come sit down, you gotta see this!” I had no desire to watch him slay a dragon, and I also knew that with this goddamn boring game, he wasn’t going to be slaying any dragons, or any anything at all, anytime soon.
