“Just about four,” I announced. Molly quickly glanced in her bag. She scanned her various packets and wads, and in a few moments proclaimed four twenty to be her take for the night.
“Wha’ can I gitcha, girls?” the unhappy waitress asked as we tucked our bags away.
“Pancakes” — Molly motioned that she wanted the same — “for both of us and some ice water, too, please.”
The waitress scratched on a pad and frowned at me, as she did at everyone. We ignored her and settled into our seats, luxuriating in our cotton “regular” clothes. I was too tired, and Molly too oblivious, to be bothered by a grumpy waitress.
“The night started out OK, but never really got going. Thank God for my regulars,” I began.
Molly grimaced and slouched deeper in her chair, absently adjusting her breasts. “I just wasn’t into it tonight,” she offered disinterestedly, “especially after last night.”
I was intrigued. She had an attitude; years of being a powerful woman had toughened and bored her.
“After a thirteen-hundred-dollar-night, I didn’t care about pushing it.” Like all of us, she had the ability to charm hundreds, even thousands, of dollars away from the patrons. But Molly was more deliberate and merciless, to an extreme. Unscrupulous in her methods and completely unashamed of it, she consistently earned the most cash. No one knew exactly how much, but it was clear she was top of the class.
Her abilities translated to other facets of her life, I learned over the sticky Formica. She initiated lawsuits whenever the opportunity presented itself — and sometimes created the opportunities herself. Several attorneys worked the scams with her. She also sold real estate and hosted a radio advice and talk show. She manipulated men and women alike, and rarely failed. Most amazing was the fact that she was independently wealthy; she didn’t need money. Control and power motivated her.
“Molly, I do well with my regulars, but how do I get more money from them?” I asked, meekly enough to display my lesser status.
She was happy to advise. I thought for a moment that she might be sincerely drawn to me as a friend.
Don’t befooled like the rest of them.
“Well, you know they’re eventually going to ask you to dinner, right?” she began.
“Yes, of course,” I agreed.
“When they do, say ‘I’m not sure, I need to know you better.’ Then, they will ask how they can get to know you better. And you tell them.”
She was serious; it was simple business practice to her. Yet, I wasn’t quite sure what she meant.
Seeing my expression, she continued patiently, “I told one man that I would like a limousine to pick me up — a black one — and it must be stocked with 1969 pink Dom Perignon —”
“But, wait,” I said, “what do you do with the guy?”
“He asks what you like to do. Then you say you love to shop,” Molly deadpanned. “The best day I had I must have got fourteen thousand out of one guy.”
I was incredulous, but knew, sadly, that it was probably true. “What did you buy?”
“Oh, we went to Copley Square, Newbury Street, the leather shop, the music store — must have spent eight hundred on compact discs alone,” she remembered fondly. “Then there was the furniture store where we outfitted my apartment —”
“But Molly! Why would this guy spend all this on you? Did you sleep with him?” I half-asked, half-demanded.
“No.” She shook her head, a condescending look in her eye. Her attitude and thoughts were not directed at me. She seemed far away, as if sickened by the man’s idiocy. “He went to his hotel when I was done shopping. … Oh,” she interrupted herself, “always do this with a married man.” (This detail was obviously self-evident to her.)
I sat, silent and amazed.
“Then the limo brought me home, or rather, brought me a few streets from home.”
“So what happened with this guy?” I was imagining harassment, phone calls, and the inevitable expectations.
“He sent me tickets to visit him at Aspen, where he was skiing with the guys. I cashed them in. Made up some excuse. We would talk on the phone occasionally. Eventually he faded away.”
I understood. “So things got better with his wife and he forgot about you, right?”
“I guess,” she replied. She didn’t know, didn’t care. She appeared bored with the entire subject. Who wanted to think about work? Our pancakes had arrived and we dug in, ravenous after a night on the job.
A few days later was the day of New Year’s Eve. The club closed early, at five, giving me just enough time to hit the grocery store on my way home. There I ran into a man I had been dancing for just an hour earlier. We laughed, surprised, then perused each other’s grocery baskets. He had bread and brie, and was considering green grapes. I suggested the red, “They’re sweeter,” and selected a bunch for myself. We walked together to the check-out comparing our respective plans for romantic evenings with our loved ones. (Well, he had a loved one, I had a fireplace and a book. Tony was still cloistering himself.) The woman at the register was eager to close up and our friendly banter was holding her up. She was waving us through when I realized I’d forgotten to pick up a log for the fireplace. I mentioned my idea to build a cozy fire as I turned back to look for a log. He chuckled slyly, admitting he and his girlfriend had similar plans. Then, remembering suddenly that he needed one, too, exclaimed, “Wait!” The woman at the register hollered as we both took off, racing through the aisles with our grapes, laughing and cavorting. The fact that I had danced topless for his money was completely forgotten.
Winter break raced by. I played the easy version of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Instead of stories I used my body, night after night. It never bored the kings who doled out the cash that I wanted. Instead of my life being spared, I was rewarded with a pile of tips, night after night. I amassed a pile of green, but nothing else. My friends on campus returned from their trips all over the globe, vibrant and stimulated, changed. I might have earned the cash I needed — a fact I celebrated — but nothing had changed. I had stagnated, as Sparrow and I feared. I promised myself that I would make up for that later. I would utilize my time and money wisely. I would take a trip to Europe and work seriously on my writing projects. Stripping would not stagnate me.
But everyone thinks differently of you now.
The stigma was there, but I had to count on the ability of others to recognize me and all that was good about me. I learned to do this, little by little. I was in my final semester and working only enough to keep my regulars coming in. Things between Tony and me warmed up again, although he was still feeling down. I wasn’t going to count on him, but our time together was relaxing. My book project was warming up with the support of Professor Foley. He had even learned to stop blushing when we discussed it. I had bought a computer, which was more exciting to me than buying breast implants, but the purchase sparked my mother’s curiosity just the same.
“Where did you get the money?” she wanted to know.
“I’ve been saving my tips. Besides, it was a really good deal. I got it through Stu, a computer student I know who became a software developer so he could buy cut-rate from Macintosh. Don’t worry, Mom, it was legal, and cheap. And my writing goes so much faster and easier with it.”
She must have thought about asking what I was writing about, but instead she said, “Oh, Heidi, I wish you would write a children’s book. That would be so much fun.” Then she asked, “Why don’t you write a children’s book?”
“Someday, Mom.”
I had a nightmare about Mom finding out about my stripping on her own. In my bad dream she was sitting next to the decrepit old Wandering Henry, with a clear view of the stage. I began the Kinky Cop show, proud as can be. I knew she was watching and tried to be especially good at my act for her. She watched, content and pleased, until enough of my costume came off to make her realize that This is my daughter! This, and the sudden understanding that my act was sexual, infuriated her. “Come down here
this instant,” she ordered. I climbed down, over the edge of the stage and the chairs, and went to her, frightened and disappointed. I felt like a child, completely intimidated by my mother, the most powerful force in my experience. She was preparing to talk to me. I trembled with fear. It was at this point that I’d wake up dripping with sweat, fear pounding through my veins. It would take me a long time to regain my composure.
I made it to spring break without working more than a few shifts. During the week-long vacation, I worked most of the evenings. Chuck and Angelo proposed a deal to use my phone for “just a few hours, twice a week.” In return, more money for me. They would pay me a hundred dollars, each time they came over. “It would just be for three weeks or so. We’ll move on before the line gets too dirty. Don’t worry, we do this all the time.” I asked Bobbie about it. Her look of dread was enough to convince me to not become involved.
Boxing my ears wasn’t necessary.
At school I busied myself with final papers, exams, and graduation; at the Foxy Lady, with fostering opportunities for bigger bucks. Several businessmen were hoping to win enough of my confidence for a private performance, and a local police station had requested “the Kinky Cop” for a bachelor party. Also, two of my girlfriends, Katrina and Maurie, had requested my talents at parties they were throwing for their boyfriends. Katrina wanted me to dance at Jack’s bachelor party and stand up for her at their wedding. Maurie paid me to thrill and embarrass her lover at a birthday bash she was throwing for him.
All my customers, and even a few friends, wanted more, and most were willing and able to spend more. It was my choice.
My parents celebrated my impending graduation, although they did feel a little bitter. They missed the smiling, carefree Heidi they had carefully raised. Both feared, especially my mother, that I would never come home again. They gave me money, a lot of money for them, for my graduation gift. I valued the gift well beyond its dollar worth. I knew that someday, when I revealed the truth, they would wonder if I really had appreciated it.
And I did appreciate it. They’ll never understand.
Graduation provided a respite from the club and a chance to revel in my hard-won victory. The history and tradition of the Ivy League displayed its colors and connections with pomp and circumstance. Famous people from all over the world came together to honor Brown and its newest graduates. Tony was very proud and hosted a fabulous dinner for my family and me. The fanfare thrilled the remnants of the old me, the naive girl from Maine who negotiated the lonely journey between small-town working class and the Ivy League. But the new me, perhaps too familiar with pretense, could not be fooled.
Granted, my education was extremely important and worthwhile it was in fact everything I had worked so hard for. But it was gumption, as well as hard work and self-confidence, that rewarded me with my dream. I was proud. I had made it, in a place that didn’t seem to want me to. My adolescent hopes had been so simple and flat … and typical. Now I was that Cosmo girl, and smarter in more ways than I had expected. The professional marketplace and its standard options remained. I had shut no doors.
Mom taught me that.
But for now I decided to pursue the unexpected and the extraordinary. What I thought was the American Dream had been stripped of its dull and misleading veneer to reveal an unexpected but distinctive reality. I would make my living as a stripper and devote my intellectual energies and free time to bettering myself through travel, writing, and reading. These were my hopes. I was a stripper with a plan.
Mom didn’t teach me that.
14
The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Beautiful
If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it’s because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that’s the most revolutionary insight of all.
— Erica Jong
After graduation, and a month of love in the sun of St. Martin with Tony, I worked only occasionally, casually observing the dynamics of the club while keeping my finances steady. I found a few co-workers who embodied my approach to stripping (pragmatic and well thought out), but mostly I watched the antics of those entangled in a web of dysfunction and dollars.
Slow nights created the best atmosphere for these antics. Boredom and decreased profits drove some strippers nuts. Sunny, for instance, suffered from breakdowns. Their intensity would increase over several months until she quit in a torrent of tantrums, destroying half the dressing room. She frazzled my nerves more than anything that could occur on the stage. I could forgive men their indiscretions. The women were the ones who had to maintain control over themselves. A week later Sunny would return, assuring us all, “I’m feeling much better.” Cocaine smoothed the bumps in the bump and grind for her.
Queenie had kicked her drug habits many years earlier; stripping was her addiction now. It gave her an outlet for her manipulative behavior, from tampering with my music requests to charming hundred-dollar tips off customers. She was capable of great showmanship and knew how to work her image to the tune of thousands a week, but she was deeply unhappy. Something dark drove her futile pursuit. She had a picture-perfect home life. Her young son was joyful and intelligent, her husband reliable and loving, and her home warm and safe in a suburb of Boston. What would prompt her to commute an hour each way to the Foxy Lady and severely alter her body to earn money she didn’t need from her ever-dwindling audience? She didn’t appear to take pleasure in her work; her scowl was visual proof of that. Her occasional malicious behavior toward me contrasted greatly with the friend she sometimes pretended to be. Only a few months ago I had thought we had a lot in common. I was wrong.
I was also wrong about Binki, another Ivy Leaguer. A psychology graduate, she fell into the Foxy trap surprisingly easily. Besides losing her identity, she seemed to have lost her sense in record time. The first week she danced she made a date with a customer. In a matter of weeks she was fully immersed in the culture and cash of the strip world. She looked great and made a lot of money; at the end of the shift, if she wasn’t ready for a good night’s sleep there were plenty of distractions. Drugs were the least of them (I think she stayed away from those). It was devoted fans that she fell for. Until one of her customers-turned-boyfriends forbade her to dance.
Could you blame him?
I believed she allowed herself to be taking orders from a customer/boyfriend. The stresses of stripping had intensified her desire to be controlled. It was her choice and right. But the fact that she was confused by her choices made me sad. I worried for her.
I acknowledged the psychological and emotional effects of the topless business and protected myself. My experience was different for many reasons. It helped that I chose a boyfriend so comfortable with my work he came in to surprise me on our one-year anniversary. I had been performing a single shower show when I saw, through the suds and steam on the Plexiglas, a large hand place a single foil-wrapped Italian chocolate, a Baci, on the edge of the shower stage. Only one person gave me Baci. Tony! I looked up, spraying myself all over carelessly as I did. Dripping or not, I immediately, and silently, escorted my lover through the club to a quiet table. Once I seated him I said, “Twenty, please.”
He looked at me, nervous now.
“Twenty dollars,” I repeated, then cooed, “that’s a special rate for you.”
“Oh.” He caught on and pulled out a few twenties from his wallet.
“You can put them here,” I said, cocking my slick hip toward him, “or, you can put them here.” I offered my other hip, sprinkling him with water as I rotated.
We played an impromptu game of stripper-customer for only a song, then I sent him home — with instructions for a rendezvous at 2:45 in the morning. “Meet me in Fones Alley. I’ll be driving a …” I described my own address and car, taking the role of seductress seriously. My efforts were not wasted. He was there at 2:45, with a tempestuous kiss, and more, for me.
Beside having an supporti
ve lover, and good luck — I also refused to be dragged down like some of the strippers. Binki seemed to want just that, she wanted to be lost and distracted. Her circumstances, self-destructive as they appeared, were beyond my comprehension.
I understood Lily, however. As a child she was horribly abused, and later she became a drug addict and alcoholic. She searched for love everywhere but didn’t believe she was worthy of it. I couldn’t help but want to save her. My efforts were a mere wish against the wind. She didn’t want to be saved. At times even simple conversation was impossible. “Lily, you look great,” I said once, sincerely appreciating her buff appearance.
“Fuck you,” she responded perfunctorily, death in her narrowed eyes. “I’m so fuckin’ fat.”
I knew she was gauging my response, challenging me. I ignored her.
An hour later she cornered me against the double shower. “I love you, Heidi. I love you.”
She was drunk or high or both, but happily so (this time).
Ivy League Stripper Page 32
