by Joanna Angel
“Rob, could I bring my video camera and document this experience on the road?” I asked.
“You have a video camera?” he replied. I pushed him and laughed.
“Rob, you know I went to school for filmmaking right? Do you ever listen when I talk?” I teased.
“Sometimes. I’m usually just busy looking at your butt,” he replied, with an adorable smile, and I couldn’t be mad at him for having no idea what I did for a good portion of my adult life.
“But seriously, would you be into that? Would the other guys in the band be cool with me filming them too?” I said.
“Yeah, totally. In all seriousness, I know the label has been trying to relaunch our YouTube page, and they could use some of this stuff. Hell, maybe I can get you paid by the label to do it!” His eyes brightened at the thought.
I screamed with excitement. I can’t even explain how happy I was at this moment. What I thought would be the most dismal fall of my life would now be full of memories that would last forever, and hell, might literally be there forever, on YouTube.
“Well fuckin’-A dude. I have to pack. I have to call the club and tell them I’m not gonna be there . . . I have to tell my roommate . . . I should probably tell my mom? Where do I begin?” I seriously had no idea how to pack for a three-month trip. I took a whole suitcase with me on a weekend getaway . . . did that mean I’d need twelve suitcases?
“I’ll help you pack. Don’t worry. We can get shit on the road. But right now, I wanna see that video camera. I need to test it out . . . you know, to make sure it’s, uh, good for the documentary and stuff.” He smirked.
“ROB! It’s a 4K Sony camera I got from the university. Of course it’s good enough. Are you serious right now?”
Rob continued to laugh as he took one more bong hit, stood up, and threw me over his shoulder, carrying me into my bedroom. He pulled off my denim dress and threw me down on the bed.
“Come on, get the camera!” Rob said. This portion of the documentary was certainly not going to comply with the YouTube terms of service.
On my first day of film school at NYU, I was told that when it comes to documentaries, you shouldn’t follow any traditional rules of filmmaking. So I applied my college degree in this moment of passion and took it upon myself to film Rob’s mouth licking my pussy. I turned the camera on to film the very first shot of this movie, a POV shot of me opening my legs and taking my panties off. It felt appropriate, to set the tone for all the leg spreading and panty removal I’d be doing all over the country these next coming months. My professor told me that through filming a documentary, I would discover the world and myself, and that’s exactly what I planned to do. Through my lens of strip clubs, rock shows, and orgasms.
God damn it, Rob looked so good eating my pussy. I was gonna cum.
And then I really needed to pack.
THE END
To see what happens if Naomi decides not to go on tour, turn to page 306.
“Rob, I appreciate the effort you’ve put into this, but I can’t just pick up and leave for three months,” I said, as kindly as possible. He was clearly confused. I don’t think a woman had ever turned him down for anything before.
“Seriously,” I added. “I mean, what do I do about Club 42? I feel like I just got a good thing going over there. I’ve got regular customers that come in to see me, and Tony has finally warmed up to me. The other day he said hello when I walked in AND goodbye when I was leaving. That’s a big step!” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Dude, who cares?” Rob pushed. “They’ll let you work there when you get back. If no . . . there are so many other places you can go. You really want to stay home to work the day shift at some shitty strip club?”
I was shocked and offended by his arrogance, and I answered him honestly when I replied, “Yes. Actually, I do. I like it there.”
We sat there in silence, and he folded his arms, pissed off that things didn’t go his way. He was used to getting whatever he wanted . . . especially with me.
Rob had been such an integral part of my career so far as a stripper, and this morning, when I felt that slipping away, I’d felt helpless. If I went on the road with him, I’d become entirely dependent on his presence in my life to continue my job. I felt so empowered on stage, but my power was too intertwined with Rob cheering me on. I had to prove to myself that I could really do this without him. While I dreaded him leaving, I was excited to have my next few stripping months without him around, to further my self-discovery.
“Alright well, I gotta go meet up with the guys for band practice. I’ll see you later, I guess.” He got up off the couch. I stood up to kiss him, and he turned his head away.
“Alright, fine, be like that. But I love you, Rob. I mean it,” I said. He nodded and gave me a patronizing halfsmile, and then he walked out the door.
I wasn’t sure if that would be the last I’d ever see of him, or if I’d hear from him in a few hours. But either way, I’d be back on the Club 42 stage tomorrow, shaking my ass in the afternoon for sober men, completely happy with my own decision. My first pair of stripper heels will always have his name written all over them, and his jizz will forever be ingrained in the soles. But it was time for a new thong, and a new song. And this time, I was going to be the one to choose it.
I sat on my couch and teared up. My phone beside me buzzed, and I picked it up.
“Love you too <3,” it said, in a text from Rob.
Of course he did. I am fucking awesome, after all.
THE END
To go back and see what happens if Naomi decides to go on tour, turn to page 303.
About an hour later, I was walking around Times Square with a mini-duffel bag full of a random assortment of anything from my closet that was even remotely stripper-ish. Rob didn’t give me any store names, which made me uneasy—I would have liked to check their Yelp reviews. I mean, I’d never purchased stripper heels before, and I needed some reliable customer feedback to guide me through the process!
Without a clue as to what my destination was, I picked a random street to walk down. 44th Street, to be exact. I passed the tourist shops and the chain restaurants, and then a block later, there were several sex shops in a row. One of them had an array of smoking devices and dildos in the window, one had nothing but male mannequins wearing assless leather things, and one had multiple options of lingerie on headless minimannequins, along with pairs of high-heeled shoes displayed on towers of shoe boxes. That seemed to be the one for me! It was called “Sexy Store,” or it just boldly announced that it was a sexy store on an awning.
I walked in, and it was in fact a sexy store. The inside was painted pink, with pink neon lighting everywhere. On first glance there were racks of feather boas, diamond- encrusted bikinis, walls of colorful lingerie in boxes, and a small but exciting selection of shoes showcased inside of a blinged-out display case.
There was a beautiful girl behind the register. She was about my age, with long black hair and large, perky breasts. She was wearing a tight, knee-length leopard-skin dress, with gold accents that perfectly complemented her dark brown skin. She actually looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out where I knew her from.
I shopped through the selection of shoes. I had my eye on a pair of black stilettos, because they’d inevitably match with anything, but they were also the least exciting shoe in the display case. There was every shade of neon heel imaginable—orange, green, pink, yellow, and a striped rainbow one, but a neon rainbow with glitter all over it. None of these would match anything I’d brought with me, but truthfully, I wasn’t all that excited about wearing anything I’d brought with me. I never was much of a neon person, but I was also ... never a stripper? So perhaps this change of career also called for a change in my usual color palette.
“Can I help you with anything?” said the girl behind the register. She paused and did a double take. “Naomi?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, turning from the rainbow platf
orms. “That’s me! I’m sorry, you look super familiar . . . where do I know you from?” I said.
“We dated in college! I go by Natasha now.” She shrugged her shoulders. That’s why I recognized her! I had dated her when I was a freshman, before she transitioned. We’d always had amazing chemistry, but we’d broken up amicably before I left to study abroad, and we’d lost touch after she graduated.
“Oh my god! It’s so good to see you again, I can’t believe I ran into you.”
“I know, what are the chances?”
I gestured to the display of colorful condoms and penis straws around the cash register. “How long have you been working here?” I asked.
“Working here? Ha! Honey, I own this place,” she replied.
“Really?” I said. I was taken aback—not by the fact that she owned a sex store, but by the fact that someone who’d graduated just a couple of years before me owned their own business in Times Square. She’d been managing a store she owned while I had been steaming milk.
“Yeah! Well, for a while I worked as a hostess at a bar around the corner. I’d stop in here after work sometimes and check out the shoes and lingerie. One day I saw a “foreclosed” sign in the window, and I just felt like it was fate. I got a loan from my aunt, and here we are today!” she said.
“That’s . . . incredible. It’s a beautiful store—I mean, it definitely stands out from the rest of the ones on the block here. It drew me in, that’s for sure,” I said. She flipped her hair from one side to another. I found myself drawn to every move she made.
“Well, speaking of, and sorry for my rudeness, but what the hell are you doing here?” she laughed.
“Oh! Yeah . . . me. Well, talk about fate and stumbling on things . . . I got a job at Club 42 yesterday, and I need some clothes.”
She did a double take. “Really? YOU?” Her mouth turned up into a half-smile.
“Yeah! Me! What’s so weird about that?”
“Honey, you used to shower with your clothes on,” she said.
“Hey, I took them off when I got in the shower,” I replied, smiling at the memory.
“Touché.”
“But yeah . . . I honestly do have no idea what I’m doing. So maybe you could help me pick something out?” I said, motioning to the expanse of outfits.
“I can do that! What did you need?” She walked around the counter and joined me on the other side.
“Well, I have some clothes, kind of? I mostly needed some shoes,” I said.
“Lemme see what you have there.” She grabbed my bag, opened it up, and just started to laugh. I had now officially been laughed at by a current significant other and an ex about my lack of stripper clothes, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.
“Alright,” she said. “We’re gonna just start over.” She inspected me as if I were a model. “Let me help you out here. You’ve still got the same killer body, and just about anything would look good on you.” She winked at me, and I couldn’t help but notice that her lashes were long and bold and beautiful, and her eyes were a deep brown, and there was a brush of bronze eyeshadow across her eyelids. Truthfully, now that we were standing closer to each other, I couldn’t stop staring at her, and while I knew she was only staring me up and down to figure out what version of stripper I should be, I liked to imagine she was also checking me out.
She walked behind the register and into a back room blocked with a velvet pink curtain. Moments later, she returned with a long neon yellow gown. Was gown the word? It was gown at the bottom, with a long flowy skirt, but the top was a bikini top, held to the bottom with a string of rhinestones. She also had a pair of clear stripper heels in her other hand.
“You still a size eight?” she said.
“Oh my god. Yes, how do you even remember that?”
“I remember a lot of things about you” she said, and she smiled.
I cocked my head when she handed the outfit to me. “Natasha, there’s no way anything that’s neon yellow will look good on me,” I said.
“You’re not wearing this to your wedding. You’re wearing this inside of a dark strip club. You need to stand out on stage. Trust me. It’s gonna look great on you,” she said. “Just try it on!”
I swiveled side to side, wondering where to try such a thing on. “Where?”
“I don’t have a fitting room built here yet, but you can go behind the register and put it on. Or, hey, I do own the store so . . .” Natasha went over to the front door and switched the sign in the window from “Open” to “Closed.” Then she pulled down a black shade over the window. She shut the overhead lights off and turned on a few more of the neon lights in the store.
“Now, you can see what it looks like in the same lighting as the club!” she said. I stood there speechless, mesmerized by the thirty-seven different neon lights. “Come on, quickly, I can’t keep the store closed for too long” she urged.
I turned around and stripped out of my sunflower- patterned summer dress and pointy flats. She looked me up and down.
“You never had an ass. Where did that ass come from?” she said.
“That’s how you remember me? The girl who had no ass and a size eight foot?” I laughed.
“I always thought you looked like a hot supermodel. But supermodels have no ass. Now you’re a supermodel with an ass. It’s not fair,” she said.
I tugged on the bikini top, trying to get it to fit. “I walked up a lot of stairs in my last apartment . . . and, oh, I’ve also been drinking a lot of beer.” I laughed and finished slipping on the neon dress. Natasha tightened the strings on the back of my neck, and brought me in front of a mirror, standing behind me, with her hand momentarily around my waist.
“See? See how amazing you look!” she said. She had a point. The neon wasn’t quite so harsh in this lighting, and the crystal connector from the top to the bottom of the gown sparkled in the dark. The heels gave me some sexy posture, and made the dress fall on me in a flattering way.
“I can’t believe I’m buying something neon,” I said.
“You Brooklyn hipsters think you’re so different . . . but you all dress the fuckin’ same! It’s okay to step out of the thrift store every once in a while,” she said.
“Okay, but I’m going to wear neon to the strip club, NOT to Skee-Ball.” I laughed and turned toward her. “Thank you, Natasha,” I said. We stood there facing each other, her dark, smooth skin illuminated by pink and blue lights. “Can you show me how this comes off?”
“It’s designed to come off easily,” she said. She unfastened the tie behind my neck, and the dress fell to the ground. A gust of air conditioning rushed through the vent right above us. My nipples grew erect, and goose bumps traveled down my body. “Sorry about that. It’s always too hot or too cold in here,” she said.
“My apartment’s just like that too,” I replied, my mind still on the feeling of her hand brushing the nape of my neck. “So, what do I owe you?”
“You know what, this one’s on me,” she said. “Just promise to come back to buy your next outfit.”
“You sure about that?” I said.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She handed me my sunflower dress. “Alright, I should get out of here,” I said, trying not to sound reluctant.
“It was really, really good to see you Naomi,” she said. I had to agree.
It’s amazing how much difference my appropriately inappropriate clothing made. I walked into Club 42 with confidence. Tony showed me to the dressing room when I first arrived, and I sat in a room full of other naked women, who were speaking several different languages on their phones with their various sizes of giant breasts out, gluing lashes on their eyes, applying liner on their lips, and plastering thick layers of cover-up on their faces. When I threw my mini-duffel down and took out my collection of makeup and my new neon, no one batted an eye. I just seemed like I worked there. Also, when I walked through the door, I was not handed a flyer. The past twenty-four hours had changed my entire aura from a gi
rl who spilled coffee to a girl who worked at a strip club.
Tony ambled through the dressing room with a clipboard, doing what appeared to be a head count of each girl there. The girls seemed as nonchalant about their nudity around Tony as he was. This entire establishment was set up with the intention to make people horny, but the dressing room was like a non-arousal zone, no matter how attractive anyone was.
“What’s your stage name?” he asked me with a pen in hand. I’d forgotten about the fact that this type of work required a pseudonym. I wasn’t entirely sure why it was necessary. If my parents, or anyone I’d prefer to keep this profession a secret from, came in here, the whole full nudity thing would definitely expose the fact that I am, in fact, me.
However, inventing a new name was also exciting. And as far as I could tell, this clipboard was not a legally binding document—I could pick a name today and then pick a different name tomorrow without any real consequences.
“Natasha!” I said, inspired by my neon dress.
“We already have a Natasha,” he said. It was odd that he had enough respect for this Natasha to not let anyone else use her name, but also had no problem referring to her like an inanimate object.
“Nah, she don’t work here anymore,” said a woman with long brown hair, who was trimming her pubic hair over a small trash can.
“Oh. Sure then. Natasha it is.” He wrote what was now my name on the clipboard. I felt 120 percent sexier, just calling myself that name. I wondered what Natasha would think if I told her about this. Would she be flattered? Would she find this creepy?
