by Lacey Lane
The door to the VIP Room is now open. Enter if you dare.
The "Pit" Boss
Let me make one thing perfectly clear—this story has absolutely nothing to do with casinos. I’d been working at a seedy club in a major city for about a week, finishing my turn on stage, when a good-looking middle aged gentleman—he looked like a doctor or a lawyer—said he wanted to go to the VIP Room with me. I smiled, took his hand, and started to lead him back there. En route, Cinnamon, a long-legged redhead and veteran of the club, sidled up beside me and whispered something to the effect of: “You’re gonna have fun with this guy, but I hope you’re wearing deodorant.” She giggled and pranced away, leaving me clueless as to what the hell she was talking about.
We got to the VIP Room and after I told him my rate and he agreed, I got down to business. But just as I started to dance, he shook his head “No” and whipped out a small Polaroid camera, one of those older folding models.
“Do you mind if I take a picture?” he asked. “Not at all,” I replied. “But it’ll cost you.”
“Certainly,” he said with a smile.
But before I could tell him my fee was $20, he produced
a wad of cash and peeled off a $100. Greedily, I snatched up the crisp bill and struck my sexiest pose. Strangely, the guy frowned.
“That’s nice, but not what I want.”
I was confused. “What do you want?”
“Come closer, and lift up your arm.”
“Huh?”
“Your arm,” he pointed. “Lift it up. I want to see that
beautiful pit.”At first, I thought he was kidding. But when I saw that he wasn’t, I nearly burst out laughing. Quickly, I came to my senses. After all, no matter how you slice it, a hundred dollars is still a hundred dollars. So I did as he asked and let him snap the photo of my smooth hairless armpit.
The guy smiled like a kid in a candy store, stepped closer, aimed, and took the picture.
When the photograph was fully developed, he kissed it. “Beautiful,” he said lustily. “Now, I need your scent.”
This guy was starting to freak me out. “What do you mean, my scent?”
Once again, he pointed to my armpit. “I have to wipe this against you to capture your essence.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I wanted to kick Cinnamon for not fully explaining this guy’s antics. Seeing that I was uncomfortable, the guy took out his money roll and peeled off another hundred.
“Will this help?” he said. My arm went up faster than a little kid in a classroom who knows the answer to an easy question.
When he was done wiping the photograph on my armpit, he took out a small plastic baggie and secured the picture inside it as if he were a Crime Scene Investigator collecting evidence. Then he proceeded to bargain me down to fifty bucks for the other armpit. The guy must’ve been in sales! When he was finished, he packed up the photos, put away the camera, took my hand in his, and kissed it.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll cherish these forever.”
Yeah, right, I thought. Whatever works for you. Yeesh!
After he left, I tracked down Cinnamon in the dressing room. By then, she’d told a few of the other girls what was going on.
“Welcome to the club,” one of the girls said. “He’s already gotten all of us.”
Apparently, the guy had been coming to the club for more than a year and had already “pitted” all the veteran dancers. Now, each time he came in, he zeroed in on the new talent.
I’m afraid to think what he does with the photos in the privacy of his own home. I’m just glad I shaved before going to work that night.
The Exterminator
While this whole crush fetish thing—stomping insects and other small critters to death for voyeuristic jollies—is the latest rage, I know a dancer who experienced it first-hand (actually, first foot) years before it became, uh, popular.
Princess was doing her thing in the VIP Room when her customer whipped out a small plastic film canister and asked her if she wanted to “stomp some bugs for bucks.”
Princess turned green at the suggestion, but quickly reconsidered when he offered to pay her on a per-bug basis. They eventually agreed on $10 each, a hefty sum in the insect-bashing biz.
The guy opened the canister and dumped out a small pile of skinny yellowish-brown mealworms. (Princess described them to us later; one of the girls had a pet chameleon and knew exactly what they were.)
Princess got brave, spread the pile of worms out with the point of her high heel, counted 32, and asked to see the $320 before she raised a foot.He flashed, she smashed. Nauseous as she was, the money worked better than a bottle of Pepto Bismol. However, she did throw away her $49 pair of stilettos after the stomp-fest was over.
About a week went by before the “Exterminator”—that’s what Princess nicknamed him—returned. Once again, he asked her to join him in the VIP Room. This time, he had a Tupperware container filled with cockroaches—27 to be precise.
Princess could feel the bile rising in her stomach, but when the Exterminator offered $25 per bug, she couldn’t turn him down. She did the deed, pocketed the $675, and hurried to the bathroom where she promptly re-tasted her lunch. She also tossed her shoes—another pair of $49 stilettos—and took the rest of the night off.
Over the next month, the Exterminator made three more appearances at the club, each time bringing a new container of bugs—spiders, crickets, and earthworms—and selected Princess to do the stomach-turning tap dance. Although the floor of the VIP Room was littered with broken bug bodies and guts after each stampede, the money was just too good to pass up and Princess tipped one of the doormen $50 to clean up after each grisly occasion.
However, when the Exterminator showed up with a small box of baby white mice, Princess threw in the towel and had the guy escorted off the premises.
Seeing as how Princess was now experienced in the art of pest control, whenever one of the dancers spotted a roach or any other type of bug in the club, she was the first one we called and she never let us down.
Sweet Feet
I was dancing for one of my regulars in the VIP Room at a club in Las Vegas when he propositioned me. The guy asked, flat out, if I wanted to earn some real money, not by dancing.
With an icy stare, I told him I didn’t play those games and that he should pay a visit to one of the state’s legal brothels to scratch his itch. I grabbed my cover-up and started to leave when he began apologizing up and down, explaining that I took his proposition wrong and that sexual favors were not what he had in mind.
“Exactly what did you mean?” I asked testily.The guy produced a couple of individual-serving-size jelly packets and a plastic butter knife. “I was hoping you’d let me spread this on your feet,” he said matter-of-factly, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“What happens after you spread it on?” “Well, I lick it off, of course,” he replied quickly, before adding: “That is, if it’s okay with you.”
I’d been dancing close to four hours at that point, and I don’t even want to think what my feet might have smelled like. If this lonely fetishy schlub wanted to spread strawberry preserves on my feet and then lick it off, hell, more power to him.
“How much money are we talking about?”“Two hundred. Two-fifty if you’ll let me spread it between your toes.”
“Not interested,” I said. “For that amount, I won’t even let you sniff my feet, let alone lick them.” Once again, I made a show of leaving, but as I hoped he would, he halted my progress.
“Okay, three-fifty. That’s all I’ve got with me.” He took out the money and offered it to me. “Please.”
Truth is, I would have done it for his initial offer, but I had to try and up the score. After all, what he was proposing had to constitute oral sex in some states. And I do have pretty feet. Anyway, I snatched the cash, sat down on the couch, and popped off my heels.
“Go for it,” I said. “But I’m only g
iving you two songs. If you’re not done by then, I’m outta here, jelly and all.”
The guy was on his knees and at my feet a split-second later. Come to think of it, that’s how all men should be in my presence. The jelly felt really strange going on, but I pretended I was at the luxurious spa at one of Vegas’ many hotels, treating myself to a foot massage and pedicure—something I would definitely be doing with his money the very next day.
When he began licking the jelly off, it felt weirder still, but the song was winding to a close, and I was too busy deciding what else I was going to be doing with the extra money to really care about what was happening to my little piggies. So long as he didn’t try to gnaw off one of my toes, I could live with my decision.
In his defense, I have to say that not even a smudge of jelly remained on my feet when the song ended, although I did find a strawberry seed under my big toenail in the bathtub later that night.
This routine was repeated nearly a dozen times while I worked at that club. The guy went through a host of flavors—apple, strawberry, and black currant, to name a few. But after the little “seed incident,” I confined him to just jelly—no more preserves!
The Love Glove
Honey—a real skank of a dancer whose company I despised—and I were dancing in the VIP Room of a Texas club for a guy named Eric—tall, tan, good-looking, mid-30s, dressed like a golf pro (minus the spiked shoes). We’d done about three songs for Eric who, strangely, was only drinking soda, when he removed a crumpled golf glove from his pocket and asked us how much we would charge him to rub it against our coochies.
Now, had Eric been drunk, I would have just laughed it off and continued to run up his dance tab, but the fact that he was stone-cold sober nearly caused me to slap him across the face. But Honey—who probably carried a pair of knee pads in her purse—plopped herself down on his lap, ran her fingers through his hair, and asked him what the deal was. Eric claimed to be a professional golfer in the midst of a tournament in which he was close to the lead. According to him, he needed an extra stroke of good luck on the last day of the tourney.
Disgusted by the thought, I wanted no part of the glove-crotch interaction. Honey, on the other hand, thought the idea to be sexy and even felt honored—this chick was warped—that he would appeal to her to help him win his tournament.
Morbidly curious, I stuck around to watch Honey earn her measly fifty bucks, which is what she agreed to do it for. Once he had given her the cash, she took his golf glove, pulled her g-string aside, and wiped the glove against her nasty-assed pouty lips. Thinking back, that old well-worn golf glove might just have been the cleanest thing those lips had touched in years!
Honey handed him back the glove and kissed him on the cheek for extra good luck. I just took my lap dance money, said goodbye with a roll of my eyes, and left the room.
Honey spent the rest of the night bragging to the other girls that she had “blessed” some big golf pro’s glove and that when he won, he was going to come back and share some of his winnings with her.
Yeah, right!
Two days later, the other dancers and I waited for Honey to arrive so we could grab the newspaper’s sports section from the bartender and see how her new beau had placed in his competition.
She gave us his last name, which he had apparently given her along with his phone number, and we checked the PGA results. Strangely, his name wasn’t in there at all. Thinking he had lied to her, Honey got all pissed off and stormed out of the dressing room, amid much laughter and teasing by the other girls.
But I noticed another set of golf results—from something called the Nike Tour. (I later found out that this was for professional golfers who didn’t qualify, or hadn’t yet qualified, for the PGA Tour.) Anyway, I scanned the list of names and, sure enough, I came across Honey’s guy … Only he was close to the bottom of the list. The “help” she provided had been anything but. Well, I guess the saying holds true: “Loose lips sink ships.” And if that’s really the case, Honey’s crotch is the Titanic all over again!
You Snooze, You Lose!
Customers should treat topless dancers with respect. Those who don’t would be much better off staying home with a bottle of their favorite intoxicant and an adult video. Here’s a story about a man who could’ve used this advice.
I was working at a club in Los Angeles, dancing in the VIP Room for a bald fat guy with more chins than a Chinese phone book. I was midway through the first song when he uttered the first of his nasty comments. Apparently, he thought I wasn’t “glittery” enough. Many of the other dancers had sequins or sparkles in their outfits; that night, I was wearing black leather.
“Hey, you picked me,” I replied. “If you want someone else, have at it.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll keep you. You look a little sleazy and I like that. It reminds me of my ex-wife.”
Now, dancers hear all kinds of comments from their customers—some flattering, some disgusting, and some downright insulting. Usually, we take everything in stride. Most of the guys are just unwinding or drunk or both, so I let this remark slide, chalking it up to booze and a bad day. But a few moments later, he lashed out again.
“Those are the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen,” he laughed.
My immediate response was to ask that fat bastard when was the last time he saw his own shoes, but I held my tongue. Booze and a bad day, I said to myself. Still, his insult really pissed me off. I was wearing a pair of $150 Pradas and I know they looked good. What the hell did he know about fashion? Had he been talking about food, I would have taken his word for it, but designer heels, no friggin’ way!
By the end of the second song—and his third Long Island Iced Tea—he was really starting to get belligerent, finding fault with just about everything I did. I was considering grabbing a bouncer and having him tossed out of the club when his karma came back to bite him.
Somehow, Mr. Bald & Fat nodded off. The loud music playing in the background apparently made no difference—he was counting sheep like a shepherd. Now I was really pissed! How the hell could anyone—even a drunk—fall asleep during one of my performances?
I walked over and was about to rouse him from his slumber when I changed my mind. Instead, I vicked one of his cigarettes, sat down on the couch, and took a break. Of course, his meter was still running like a high-priced taxi waiting on its fare. When the cocktail waitress came in to fetch him another round, I ordered a glass of wine for me—on him, of course.
This scenario continued for the next six songs. And since his platinum Visa was already imprinted at the bar, porky Rip van Winkle unknowingly treated almost half of the girls working that night to a cocktail or two.
Eventually, I decided he’d been punished enough, although he probably wouldn’t learn anything from the experience, having slept through it.
I woke Mr. Bald & Fat, who looked at me with the same pissy expression he wore before falling asleep, then matter-of-factly asked me how much he owed. With a straight face, I gave him the number—$185. The breakdown of his charges: $40 for the two dances he was awake for, $120 for the six “dances” he slept through, and an extra $25 for the “pain and suffering” brought on by his rude comments.
He shrugged, handed me two hundred-dollar bills, and said: “Keep the change. You could use a new hairdo.”
As he walked out, I wished I had milked it for another twenty songs—along with a nice take-out steak & lobster dinner from the Palm.
The guy waddled to the bar, never batted an eye when the bartender hit him with the huge tab, paid it, and left. I never saw him again.
The Collector
During my topless tenure, I had numerous encounters with and heard countless stories about customers (men and women alike) who bargained with dancers to purchase their personal items—in some cases, very personal items—as souvenirs. For some, those seeking to purchase a lock of hair or a couple of sequins from an outfit or even a garter, the small seemingly harmless tokens would serve as meme
ntos of a fun evening out. For others, those looking to buy personal effects no one in his right mind would ask for, the items were undoubtedly part of large collections—large twisted collections—indicating that the collector-in-question was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. I’m talking about worn-out stockings, pump (shoe) inserts, toenail clippings, used razors, used tissues, used tampons, broken acrylic nails, empty cans of feminine deodorant spray—the list goes on and on, getting progressively worse as it goes.
Most times, we sold the customers the items they wanted for a modest fee. Occasionally, we had the prospective buyer tossed out, if he/she really creeped us out. Were we adding fuel to a potential serial killer’s obsessive fire by selling the items? Or on the flip side, were we setting him off by denying access to our personal goods? I don’t know. But all types of people go to the clubs and strippers aren’t the hall monitors of society—we’re just trying to make a living. If pervs wanted to buy our garbage, more power to them; we took their money.
Having said that, trinket-seekers were commonplace and most just became a blur in my memory. But one guy, a well-dressed smallish man who looked like a cross between Radar O’Riley (from the TV show “MASH”) and popcorn magnate Orville Reddenbacher, I will never forget.
I was finishing my turn on stage in a Southern California club when this cute balding little man wearing a suit and bowtie asked me to dance for him in the VIP Room. With a seductive smile, I took him by the arm and led him to one of the private booths in the back.
After a couple of dances, he asked me to sit with him, have a drink, and chat. I was glad to rest a spell and readily took him up on the offer. One drink became two and somehow we got onto the subject of feet. Not just any feet, mind you, but my feet. He asked me a slew of questions about my trotters and told me so much about them that I thought he was a podiatrist. Turns out he had a major foot fetish. That’s when he confessed that he wanted to buy my feet.
