Loading the car, I already felt the pressure. I would be expected to entertain and amuse with my stories. And as badly as I wanted to do that, I knew it wasn’t possible. My adventures were amusing to me, but I didn’t think my parents would see it that way. I couldn’t tell them.
I’m a liar.
Six hours in the car alone provided a lot of thinking time. I wasn’t ready to deal with my family and the truth. I was focused solely on completing my education. I was choosing to be blind to the other issues at hand. I felt as if I was nearing the end of a white-knuckle ride. I feared I might not finish the journey if I allowed myself to be distracted. It wasn’t the right time …
Wimp!
When would be the right time to tell my mother I have been lying about my life for over a year?
I was even working on a book about my experiences, a novel based on the stripping world. Two of my English professors had approved my application for independent study in the field of creative writing. Professor Foley was tall and thin, shy and bow-tied. He was in his thirties, and had probably been a devoted bookworm since childhood. Professor Hirsch was older, in his fifties or sixties. He remembered me from my freshman year and was always happy to speak with me whether we ran into each other on campus or in the city. Both men were unfailingly supportive and positive about my work.
With their signatures, the university had registered my independent work for course credit. The professors and I would meet once a month to review my work in progress. They treated it as an intellectual project; only occasionally did a curious (but always respectful) response sneak past their academic distance. Professor Foley once asked, stammering and turning pink, “What is this ‘Feature Dancer’ I see advertised all over the city?”
I imagined he thought he was asking about some exotic, forbidden sort of woman creature. I answered gently, “Professor Foley, I am a Feature Dancer.”
His eyebrow twitched, the pink of his cheeks deepened.
I said, “The Kinky Cop routine — you know, from the essay I gave you called Power Relationships in the Exotic World — it qualifies as a feature act, so the club calls me a ‘feature dancer.’ It’s just semantics.”
Like so much else.
Only a week ago, at the end of the semester, Professor Foley and I had sat in his book-strewn office, discussing the writing I had completed. “Heidi,” he said, “you could publish this, as is.”
Had he read my mind?
My plan had been to try to market my writing, but capitalistic notions were not talked about on campus. I don’t think making money was considered politically correct. I didn’t discuss dreams of writing for money with anyone but Erich. Not even Reid, Isabella, or Tony. It was too early.
“I know an editor at the Providence Journal,” Professor Foley continued. “If you like, I’ll give you his address and call him to let him know to expect your submission. I’ll bet he’ll serialize it. The pay is pretty fair, too.”
“How fair?” I asked, holding my breath.
“Three or four hundred for each installment.”
“Oh, Professor Foley, I’d appreciate that!” I said, but I was torn. I felt joy hearing what I had only hoped for, that I could sell my work, that it was good enough, but I also felt a powerful drive to push my hopes further. I wanted my writing to go big, or not at all. I wanted to write a book.
As I accepted the address, I said, “Don’t call him yet, I need to think about it.”
Topless dancing had become a legitimate part of my real life and I was proud. In order to know me, my family had to know the truth. I felt secure that my future was bigger than the Foxy Lady and topless dancing. That wasn’t the issue. But with Mom, the truth might be easier for her to take if I was a former stripper. If it was something I had done when I had been “young and foolish,” like when Dad explained his early Navy days and his half-dozen tattoos. But that would have been another lie. I wasn’t being young and foolish, I was being responsible and conscious. My mother’s reaction, I realized, didn’t matter. I had to be me.
And lose my mother? I’ve only got one.
I had promised myself I would deal with these issues in a dignified manner, eventually. I renewed that promise as I drove closer to Bucks-port. For now, I needed to concentrate on graduating. I had one semester left. I would not allow anything to distract me. The lie to my family was done; I would have to live with that. The telling would come, and when the time came, I had to be prepared to deal with my mother’s reaction. Once I told her there would be no turning back. Steadfastly, I put my mind on the problem at hand: finishing Brown.
I didn’t have far to go. I needed to work the rest of winter break and through the spring, probably just a few weekends once classes began, and all of spring break. Then maybe a week or two in May, after finals and before graduation. Even though stripping had become an accepted part of my life, I never took the ease stripping provided for granted. A free evening to study was a luxury, one I appreciated. My life had changed, for the better, and I had to thank topless dancing for that.
Refusing to mull over my deviousness, I turned my thoughts to business. Fake breasts were over the line for me, but there were other opportunities for faster cash to consider. I had offers everywhere I looked, and even where I didn’t look. Bachelor parties outside the club were lucrative and easy, but potentially dangerous. Sugar daddies wanting to purchase a plaything shopped at the Foxy Lady — some only wanted companionship, platonic prostitution, others were eager to purchase the real thing. How could I trust any of them? And I had regulars who could be easily coaxed into bigger tips and favors. They could have been throwing their wallets at me, it was so obvious. They were asking to be taken advantage of.
Bob the “Weasel,” a self-proclaimed (used car) magnate, was a sure bet. He offered me $500 just to have dinner with him.
Only dinner?
Even if he was on the up and up, it was still creepy. He would sit in the champagne section, sipping priggishly, pinky straining to remain sharply raised.
If he wasn’t drinking, he was telling me stories about his father, Luigi, who was paid to kill men on the other side of the Mafia fence. He was caught once and, loyal member that he was, proudly served his time. His wife, Bob the Weasel’s mom, wasn’t so loyal, however. She made Bob a little brother while Dad was in the joint. Her boyfriend was Fredo, from the “other side.” Needless to say, it was a serious breach of respect to impregnate your enemy’s wife. When Luigi was released early for his good behavior (and even better connections), he settled the score. The very day he walked, he shot Fredo. Fredo’s bicep took the bullet, the bullet took Fredo’s arm.
Luigi accepted his fate like a man and returned to prison. Unfortunately his enemies had strong men inside. The “equalizers,” as Bob the Weasel called them, came for Luigi in the yard. A crudely fashioned knife was just crude enough to effect the removal of his arm without killing him. “What goes around comes around,” they said. Bob liked this story, especially because I hung on each word of it. I sincerely enjoyed hearing his tales. His life was like a B-movie, cheesy but likable. More than the stories, however, I enjoyed the twenties and fifties he shelled out while telling them.
He also liked to talk about business. He was, with his partner, “No Brains” George, about to relaunch the Volkswagen beetle. After swearing me to the strictest confidence, he shared the details with me. That took about two hours and three hundred of his dollars. I was a good listener and he had a lot of talking in him. I knew he could talk himself into financing my loans (he’d think he was talking about himself, of course), maybe a couple of years’ worth. He was a wealthy wagon, but I doubted if I had the stomach for the ride. He was an aging, skinny, greasy-haired smooth talker. Loneliness and insecurity led him to lean on money and big talk. He wasn’t somebody I wanted to cross any boundaries with.
He did tell a great story, though, and the money …
He just wanted “to talk, make friends outside the club.” He could certainl
y afford to tempt me. But could I stand doing it?
Then there were the cash cows. They were different from the regulars who offered cash in exchange for friendship. These guys didn’t care about friendship; they didn’t fool themselves. For a price, they wanted to buy you. No pretense. They generally avoided me — I was a waste of time. It was clear I wasn’t for sale. I had to wonder what striking a deal with them would be like. I knew girls who had, but wisely they kept silent.
Bachelor parties were another option. Like the party Nikita and I were sent to, they were quick and quite enjoyable: oohs and ahhs when I acted sexy, laughs when the groom-to-be was humiliated, and sincere thanks and a couple of hundreds when I left twenty minutes later. I honestly liked them, but ensuring the gig was truly legitimate and the audience remained respectful was necessary. Otherwise, they were quite risky. I had considered free-lancing bachelor parties. Doing more of them would be a great way to avoid the hassles of club work: schedules, house moms, bad shifts, long shifts, rules. The problem was that no one would be guaranteeing my safety. Security was the big plus at the Foxy Lady. I had never felt more secure at a job than there.
While entertaining at outside parties was officially forbidden and seeing men for money beyond the club was prostitution, it did happen. It was not a part of my topless dancing job. Taking advantage of regulars was, however, a part of the job. It was quite routine for many of the dancers to push the limits. They would taunt and tease their Waldos into giving larger and larger tips. Five hundred a night from one man was not uncommon. This would progress, night after night, week after week, like an addiction growing out of control. Suggestions and lies fueled it; the promise of “dinner next week” was enough to keep hope and the cash flow alive. Hesitant to expand my exploitation of patrons, I felt like a prude at times. I had begun to question my policy of respecting customers by not talking down to them and not squashing their humanity with lies and “maybes.”
The job didn’t have blurry moral lines, people did — but not all people, all the time. The few hours I’d worked earlier that very day was proof. We’d closed at three in the afternoon, after opening at six A.M. for Legs and Eggs — breakfast and bourbon, orange juice and topless dancers. Christmas Eve at a strip joint.
The small crowd was predominantly family men taking a break from last-minute shopping. I was struck by the normalcy of the scene. The atmosphere wasn’t sexy, rather, it was light and fun. The men were cheery and generous, the dancers full of goodwill and smiles. It was as if everyone understood everyone else. There were no inappropriate expectations. We were all celebrating a holiday; it was bigger than seduction. It was Christmas! The fantasy was suspended, as if we were all family.
But my real family was a few miles away now in Bucksport, excitedly waiting for me. I had planned only a quick visit, using the excuse that I needed to work. No one could argue with that. The work ethic was very important to my parents. Besides, I wasn’t as close to my family as my sisters were. The three of them had all stayed nearby, emotionally and physically. Either working or studying, they didn’t venture far from the homestead. I, on the other hand, had been away since I was seventeen, when I left for Brown.
Right away my father had begun calling me “city slicker.” A term I had used myself to refer to sophisticated outsiders. Now was I the sophisticated outsider? Not true! Dad would ask me, joking, about the “fancy people” in the “boomin’ metropolis.” Mom was sure I was bored by Maine, that it wasn’t good enough for me anymore. She sulked, as if she wasn’t good enough, either. Their reactions confused me. As much as I had glamorized my future, I wasn’t fooled by the reality of it. I was still the same Heidi. Ivy Leaguer, yes, but not so different. Mostly my parents were intimidated by the financial aspects of my situation. They seemed to be covering their feelings of inadequacy and guilt with distance. Distance between themselves and Heidi the outsider. You’re a stripper now, Heidi. You are an outsider.
I couldn’t be me. Self-censorship was necessary in every way, for every visit home. “How are you surviving?” my mother asked, meaning well but sounding a bit suspicious.
Or was I paranoid?
“What are your plans?” and “How do you manage to pay for school?” Mom wanted to know. She and the rest of my family were most curious about my writing. I had referred to a “project I’m working on” several times on the phone, which only sparked their imaginations. They had always expected me to make it big, one way or another. The prospect of their Heidi being a star or writing the great American novel would have made yet another lively conversation over their corn chowder and biscuits. Around Thanksgiving, I had called and mentioned I was working on a book. The first evening I was home at Christmastime the subject inevitably came up.
“What is this book about?” my mother asked warmly, “Is it a children’s story?” She didn’t let me answer. “Oh, I always knew you’d write a great children’s book.”
“No, it is not a children’s book.” I blurted nervously. The truth was going to come out, eventually. Meanwhile I wanted to keep the lies as simple and respectful as possible. “It must really be something,” my little sister Rebecca ventured, wide-eyed. When I saw my mother puffing with pride over my secret, but surely genius project, I finally offered, “It is sort of, uh, risque. It is about Providence and the bar scene, wild characters and strange stories. You know, mafiosi and weirdos and … well, you know.”
My answers to their questions backfired. Besides worrying my mother, my cryptic answers added an alluring air of mystery to the entire subject.
This was not going to help matters.
Already Mom and my sisters were conjuring up images of Heidi’s latest adventure. Obviously, they thought it was such an outlandish enterprise that I had to keep it a secret. “It’s going to be her biggest dinnertime story yet!” Rebecca said. My mother was already celebrating. “My daughter Heidi is writing a book,” she told co-workers at the hospital. “Publishers in New York City have even written to her.”
I shrunk from this talk, this atmosphere that I had unwittingly created. I was in trouble and knew it. I had made my bed and had to lie in it. I also knew that some day, not too far off, I was going to get out of the bed and hurt my family terribly when I did. I felt very tender toward everyone this Christmas, as if I were protecting them from the big mean world. They, meanwhile, treated me as though I had been ravaged and tossed about by the tough world “out there” and had triumphed. I liked that, and appreciated it. They thought I was sophisticated, and I guess I was, but they never would have guessed that I had also developed the survival skills of a stripper.
Still, I enjoyed the holiday and my family, though I didn’t stay home long enough to relax. After about thirty-six hours I returned to Brown and the Foxy Lady, my car laden with leftover food and my Christmas gifts, including a funny guidebook written by relatives concerned that I was too nice, entitled How To Be Bad.
If they only knew.
It was easy to work. The intense stimulation of the music and lights, the ego trip of being in demand, and the generous return for my efforts kept my mind occupied. Between shifts I slept like an athlete, charging up my body for another demanding shift. It was winter break, time for me to earn the semester’s bills. I worked eight to fifteen hours most days. It became a mindless rhythm that left not even a beat to think of the lies in a self-defeating way. I was a driven woman. Graduation was my goal.
To wind down from work I would write about my experiences, which from time to time involved reflections on my background and family. The lie would rear its ever-growing head ominously, and I would push it back, intellectualizing it into a story construct or relegating it into a future challenge. It was both, but it was more, of course. I knew I wasn’t being fair to my family.
Who said life was fair?
I was making the most of what I was given. In more ways than one, it turned out.
“How can you do it?” Flutter, a newgirl, asked me my first night after the holida
y. She was shy and sincere, and looked at me with eyes wide, waiting for my reply. I was a real pro now — newgirls looked up to me.
I didn’t know what she was getting at, and gently asked, “What are you talking about?”
She shyly motioned to her chest area, then nodded at mine. She explained hesitantly, “You know … how do you get up there, on stage, and … and act so confident?” Then, carefully, she pointed out my obvious and — to her — overwhelming lack: “You, you … don’t have the breasts.”
I smiled and drew a long breath. This girl could learn a few things from me. But then again, if she hadn’t realized the obvious by now she probably wasn’t going to benefit from my words. I had two minutes before my set, not enough time for a table dance, so I was happy to explain the basics. “Flutter,” I said, “every man in the room has paid eight dollars for admission to see strippers. Strippers are sexy and dangerous, powerful and forbidden. Act like a stripper. Be the goddess they think you are. Act like you deserve the attention.” I wrapped up my little speech. “You’re here, you’re topless. That’s everything they need.”
She wasn’t convinced. She couldn’t distance herself from her body and her negative self-image. She was self-conscious and eager to please, but doubtful of her ability, an unfortunate case. Pleasing the customers, mere strangers, meant too much to her. She was in trouble. She did not now and never would understand that absolutely none of the activities within the club mean anything but money. That it was just a game. She took it too seriously, and I worried for her. I had nothing against stripping, breast implants, playing games for money, but I had a lot against screwing up one’s self-image.
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