by Lacey Lane
This went on for the better part of seven years until my mom remarried. That union effected a new emotion in me, one that came from deep within—anger. I had always been the sweet one, a total Pollyanna, always looking for and finding the best in any situation. But my new stepfather was a harsh taskmaster, not to mention extremely over-protective. So over-protective, in fact, that leaving the house was impossible. My friends had to come up with ingenious ways to smuggle me out. Authority had been passed to my stepfather and it infuriated me that he was now the disciplinarian. One incident in specific I will take with me to the grave. My stepfather found a few small pieces of a Devil Dog dessert treat on the carpeted stairs. He gathered my two sisters and me to find out who the culprit was. When no one confessed, he snatched up the crumbs and angrily rubbed them into our hair. But despite his overbearing nature and cruel disciplinary tactics, my stepfather had a very strong work ethic. Early on, he taught me the value of money, although putting me to work at the age of 13 (after-school jobs at grocery and ice-cream stores) to help contribute was a bit much. It’s not like we were even close to being poor or destitute.
Throughout my high school years, I didn’t think about my real father at all, although I’m relatively certain that the ease with which he erased me from his memory contributed largely to my self-esteem issues, issues that were like rusty daggers in my side. I knew I had to do something to overcome them—otherwise they would most assuredly overcome me, to the point that I wouldn’t be able to function normally. What exactly does that mean? I couldn’t really tell you. Would I crawl under my covers and wait to die? Would I go on an eating binge and balloon to 900 pounds? Would I put a gun to my head and pull the trigger? Who knows? At the time, I certainly didn’t.
I read a few books on depression, thinking they might help me to work out the issues for myself. From them, I took comfort in the fact that other girls (and boys) out there had the same feelings I did, and that helped me to feel less like an outcast, but they didn’t do a damn thing to “cure” me. A shrink was also on tap, but for $250 an hour he just regurgitated things that I had told him and suggested possible roots for my issues, the majority relating to my father and stepfather. No duh, Doc! A stranger on a bus could have told me as much—and saved me $249 in the process. What I desperately needed to know was how to make those feelings go away. And as the years passed, I realized it was something I would have to do for myself. Sadly, I wasn’t getting any closer to an answer.
One night, during my sophomore year in college, a bunch of my guy friends decided to go to a strip joint and asked me to come along. I’d never been to a strip club before—in my mind, they were reserved for drunken bachelor parties or horny old men who never got to see live naked women unless they paid for the privilege. On top of that, the thought of a woman—and not just any woman, me!—going to one of those lewd dens of iniquity was a completely alien concept. Understand, I wasn’t prudish, or prissy, or stuck-up. I just had old-fashioned views on sex. Some of my girlfriends were real boy-toys, piling up one-night stands like they were designer outfits on closeout sales. I, on the other hand, was always relationship-minded and monogamous; for that reason, I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 18. It was the most sacred thing I owned (next to my Trans Am) and I wasn’t about to let anyone get a free ride until I was plenty good and ready to have a passenger.
But whether I wanted to admit it or not, I had always secretly wondered what really happened inside one of those places. I had heard so many stories that I often wondered what was fiction and what was fact. And now that I had the opportunity to find out for myself once and for all, I was not about to let it pass.
On a scale of Phyllis Diller to Marilyn Monroe, the strip club we went to that night rated a solid Carmen Electra—what I would consider the perfect combination of sleazy and sexy. The guys each paid a cover charge of $10, a bargain when you consider what they got to see. My admission was free, but the gorilla-like doorman’s reptilian stare-and-smile combo made me feel as if I’d paid the full fare—with my soul.
Inside, the set-up was impressive. I’d been in numerous bars before, but nothing like this. There was a large, sweeping, ebony-colored bar off to the right with about 20 stools, thickly cushioned oversized booths around the room’s perimeter that looked as if they could seat six adults comfortably, and a host of two-, four-, and six-top tables. Three stages dominated the room. The two flanking the main stage were smaller by about a third and each had a gleaming silver pole—like the kind you’d find in a firehouse—running from floor to ceiling. The main stage jutted farther into the room than the two pole-stages and was connected to what I presumed was the dressing room by a narrow disco-light catwalk seemingly right out of Dance Fever. To the left of the catwalk was the source of the sounds: a raised glass-encased DJ booth. The entire club was bathed in an orange-amber glow that reminded me of a snifter of Grand Marnier. It’s too bad the club didn’t smell as appealing—just a sweet and-sour commingling of cheap perfume, cigarette smoke, and sweat. But there was an additional aroma in the room, an overpowering bouquet common to casinos, card rooms, and racetracks. Now that I really think about it, perhaps it was more of an aura than an actual smell. I’m talking, of course, about money.
At the moment we entered the club, the pole stages were empty. All eyes were locked in rapt attention on the main stage where two centerfold-quality blondes, naked except for their colored-dental-floss thongs, were smearing each other with iridescent body paint. Under the many pin-spot black lights, which were trained on the girls like snipers’ sighting lasers, the body paint reacted like the skin of chameleons walking across a Twister board.
My guy friends whooped, hollered, and high-fived each other, as if their favorite football team had just won the Super Bowl, before making beelines for an open table not far from the stage, leaving me behind as if I were nothing more than a rusty car part on the side of the road. But it wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t think I could have followed them under my own power if I had wanted to. I was actually frozen in place, assaulted by a mixture of emotions: shock, fascination, and embarrassment.
Shock: Two women were doing this in public! Fascination: Two women were doing this in public! Embarrassment: Two women were doing this in public and, based on my initial visual recon of the room, besides the dancers and the cocktail waitresses I was the only other woman in the place!
Eventually, my legs thawed and I was able to walk to the table my buddies had selected. With the two dancers now bent over, butt cheek to butt cheek, grabbing their ankles and coating each other’s buns with the funky fingerpaint, I could tell that my friends, along with every other hot-and-bothered male in the place, were envisioning a quarterback-and-center scenario unlike any you’d ever see on Monday Night Football.
After another 30 seconds, the lather-fest ended. The two girls were showered with applause and whistles, not to mention swarms of tossed, handed, and tucked bills. It took the two of them nearly ten minutes to snatch, pluck, and scoop all the greenbacks that came their way. It was at that moment that a new emotion forced its way into my consciousness: awe.
Standing on the raised platform before me were two five-foot-nothing featherweight girls, seemingly not much older than I was, and they had every swinging dick in the place basically licking their boots. (I’m sure that, had one of the girls actually been wearing boots, she would have had plenty of volunteers to tongue-scrub them ’til they shined!) Even my friends, muscle-bound tough guys who played football for a major Division I school, were reduced to the equivalent of gelatinous masses in a matter of seconds. Wow! Had I not seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. But the proof was right there in front of me—and they were still raking in their dough.
It was truly empowering. I felt proud to be a woman. My thoughts momentarily turned to my Political Science 101 class where, a few days before, we had briefly discussed the Equal Rights Amendment. Eyes locked on the strippers, I thought that it was a crying shame America’
s political process wasn’t based solely on the happenings inside a strip club. If that were the case, the balance of power in this country would be vastly different.
As I watched the girls fetch the last of their cash, I started wondering what kind of iron constitution was required to step out on stage and let it all hang out—literally—in front of what amounted to a pack of hungry lions. I was certain that not one single woman who performed in a strip club thought of herself as ugly or worthless. Perhaps this was the solution to my self-esteem problem. A far stretch, I admitted to myself, but if I could somehow work in a place like this, maybe I would subconsciously break free of the issues that were hampering me—issues I didn’t even have a handle on. Unfortunately, while it sounded like a reasonable consideration, the thought opened a fresh can of worms.
The problem: There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I would shed my clothes for money. I didn’t care what they paid me. I didn’t have a problem with my body—at least, not one that I knew of—but that didn’t mean I wanted to show it off to total strangers. However, I did have some experience as a waitress. Maybe if I could get a job cocktailing in such a sex-crazed atmosphere, wearing one of the skimpy outfits the drink-chicks wore—fuck-me pumps, a barely there skirt, and a bikini top that left nothing to the imagination—maybe that would be enough to get me over the hump (a fitting word considering we’re talking about the sex industry). At the very least, I figured that by delivering drinks dressed like a call girl I’d be able to put some cash into my pocket instead of shelling it out to a psychiatrist.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. So while my friends got their dollar bills ready for the next show on stage, I sought out the club’s manager. The bartender pointed him out to me and I immediately wished he hadn’t. Growing up, my younger sister was a huge fan of professional wrestling. Well, this guy was the spitting image of greasy manager Lou Albano, complete with a red rubberband around his pubic hair-like goatee. How this guy thought he looked good was beyond me. Think of a short fat dildo with hair. Anyway, had he not been looking directly at me when the bartender pointed him out, I would have gone back to the table where my friends were in a heartbeat. I mean, this guy really creeped me out!
But it was too late, so I took a deep breath, mustered all the courage I could, and walked up to him. Respectfully, and trying to be professional, I reached out to shake his hand. He took my hand in his, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. Not like a gentlemen would, mind you, but open-mouthed, making certain I felt his hot slimy tongue on my knuckles. When he pulled his mouth away, a filmy strand of saliva remained connected for a few moments before snapping. I thought I was going to vomit. Somehow, I choked down the nausea building up inside me and was about to pop the question when he beat me to the punch.
“Lemme guess, sweetie,” he said, talking to my tits. “You wanna work here?”
“Was I that obvious?” I replied, unsure of how else to respond.
“Every girl who comes in here wants to be one of my girls,” he bragged. The way he said it was reason enough for me to look elsewhere for my therapy, but I knew that dealing with a scum-sucking pig like him was, in all likelihood, part of the process that might ultimately cure my mental ailment. So I stayed put.
“Are there any openings?” I asked.
“Funny,” he said with a grotesque smirk. “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”
I looked at him curiously, as if I didn’t understand the comment. But inside my mind, I was kicking him in the nuts repeatedly with a steel-toed boot.
After nearly half a minute of awkward silence, he asked:
“Got any drug problems or felonies?”
I shook my head, no.
“Any jealous boyfriends I might have to throw out of here?”
Once again, a shake of the head did the talking.
“What kind of dancing experience do you have?”
I smiled. “I don’t want to dance,” I said. “I want to be a cocktail waitress.”
It was his turn to shake his head. “Don’t need any drink-schleppers, honey. What I need is dancers. And you look like you’d do real well …” Once again, he addressed my chest: “Assuming your body looks as good out of clothes as it does in them.”
I blushed and thanked him for the, uh, compliment, but explained that I had never danced in a topless club before and that I had no desire to show more skin than the cocktail waitresses did.
He shrugged, then threw up his hands. “Then I can’t help you,” he said coldly. “Try Denny’s. They’re always looking for waitresses.”
Dejected but relieved that I wouldn’t have an Albano clone for a boss, I started to walk away—but he stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder and spun me around. “You really should give dancing some thought.” He gave another sick grimace. “If not for your benefit, for mine.”
I didn’t respond verbally, although I wanted to. In the worst way! Instead I pulled away and went back to my friends’ table. When I arrived, a tall pretty redhead with a billion freckles, small boobs, and a big ass was giving them a table dance. Excited by my return, the guys thrust me into a chair and had the stripper dance for me. My cheeks turned brighter than her hair, but I saw that all my buddies were getting into it, so I sat there, let the girl do her thing, and let the guys get their money’s worth.
I watched closely as she gyrated and swiveled around me. I got the feeling she had somehow detached herself from the action. She simply treated the table dance as a chore for which she got paid.
When the dance was over, the stripper collected her fee and tip, then moved on to another table. My friends all high-fived me and asked me if it was as good for me as it was for them. They said other things, too, all on the subject of threesomes. It started out funny, but after a while my earlier nausea returned. I like one-on-one affairs, with men only. Not that I have a problem with homosexuality, but I’ve always preferred the company of a man.
After I’d had enough of the sailor talk, I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room. When I came out, I saw the redheaded stripper sitting just a few feet away at a small table by herself, sipping a glass of wine. I walked over and asked if I could join her for a moment. Although she wasn’t as congenial as before—when money was involved—she nodded and motioned for me to sit.
“You’re a good dancer,” I said, more as an icebreaker than a compliment. In truth, I thought her dancing ability—at least, what I had observed—was about average. Paula Abdul, she wasn’t. “How long have you been stripping?”
She took a sip of wine. “Three years, on and off.”
“How do you do it? Where do you find the courage?”
“I’ve got two kids to feed,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And an ex-husband who wouldn’t know child support from fairy dust. This puts food in their mouths, clothes on their backs and still gives me plenty of quality time with them.”
I was impressed. Here she was, a single mother, grabbing the bull by the horns and providing for her kids the best she could. This was hard work. I started thinking of her as a good role model for women. Looking at her more closely, I could tell she didn’t live a pampered life. Makeup, even the excessive amount she used, can only hide so much.
“Do you ever get nervous when you dance?”
“When I started I was scared shitless,” she said. “But I got drunk a lot during my first few months, which really helped.” Okay, so much for the role model. “Now I look at it like it’s just another job. Same as working in a restaurant or behind a sales counter. Trust me, I did both. They’re boring and the pay is lousy.”
Well, she was right on both counts. I, too, had worked as a waitress and at a cosmetics counter. Boring? Big time. Lousy pay? You betcha.
“You’re thinking about giving it a try, huh?”
“I’m thinking about it,” I said. “Don’t know if I’m cut out for it, though.”
“Some girls are, some girls aren’t,” she said and drained the re
st of her wine. She stood up, then looked me square in the eyes. “But if you come to work here, just stay the hell out of my way. I’ve got enough competition as it is.” She walked away without another word.
O-kay. However, I took her statement as a compliment. If she felt I would be competition, that had to be a good thing, didn’t it?
Based on what I’d seen and what I knew about women in general, it wasn’t hard to picture the business of exotic dancing as ultra-competitive, where dancers fought with each other tooth and nail for the wealthiest best-tipping customers. In fact, it was impossible to imagine it as anything else. Think about it. Women are catty enough as it is when it comes to their looks, bodies, and outfits. But throw money into the mix, in an industry that I guessed would be largely visual-dependent, and it wasn’t hard to envision a continuous World War III. While working in a topless club might be just what the doctor ordered for my beleaguered self-image, that method of treatment could very well lead to other ailments—for example, a bleeding ulcer, or a broken nose if I happened to get on Ms. Pale-n-Pasty Redhead’s bad side, which I might already have accomplished.
After another hour, we left the club. The guys were flat broke, dead drunk, and hornier than rabbits on Viagra. On the way home, with me at the wheel, I suggested they seek out some freshmen football groupies, the kind of girls who would even screw the kicker just to say they’d made it with a member of the team. Either that or hit the showers. Cold showers. All I know is, as soon as I parked the car, I got the hell out of Dodge. Sure, they were my friends, but remaining in the company of four seriously drunk and horny guys, all of whom weighed 230-plus, after they’d spent the better part of the evening at a strip club would not have been an intelligent move on my part.
