STAGE TWO

“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Now that I’ve given myself permission to spend money, I’ve been running through my earnings at breakneck speed. It’s okay, though. I’ll make more.

It helps that I’ve grown completely ruthless at work.

When I’m in the club now, I watch the clock. No one needs to remind me when a guy’s two minutes are up. I get right down to business as soon as I sit with him.

If he won’t buy anything, I demand that he tip me something for the time I’ve just spent talking to him. If I sit with a guy and he wastes my time, I will get up mid-sentence and walk away, leaving the poor sucker’s jaw hanging open. I no longer mess up on getting my tips up front in the VIP. I hit them up twice, and I usually get what I ask for. I openly sneer at the men who reject me.

Onstage, I draw dollar after dollar out of the marks, just like Sloane. If a mark refuses to tip me, I harass him into leaving the stage.

I used to insist that I’d never turn tricks. But now, there are times when I leave the VIP room with a poker face that isn’t fooling anyone. I blot these experiences out with any chemical aids that happen to be available, and I don’t look back.

I’ve become all the things I used to passionately debate that a stripper isn’t. Maybe there are girls out there who do this job and manage to keep its negative traits from usurping their identities. But I don’t know any of them.

The only thing that’s important now is the money. It’s the only common ground I have with anyone in the club, whether it’s a customer or one of my co-workers.

I suspect that this is true in any trade: once money becomes your raison d’etre, the only way you can justify your existence is to start acquiring things. And money can only buy certain things. So once money is all that is important to you, you must have the things it can buy in order to placate your ego.

That said, I go on ridiculous shopping sprees. Just the other day, I bought two televisions, a high-end stereo and a new computer that I don’t know how to use. I get my hair, nails and makeup done once a week on 57th Street.  I’ve bought suits, summer dresses, designer jeans and four Gucci handbags. I don’t look like a stripper during the day – that’s for damned sure.

Last week, Barry and I were down Steinway Street window shopping. I walked into a pet store to buy flea powder, and walked out the proud owner of another cat.

The same day, Barry pointed out a cute little car and said he liked its color. I walked onto the lot, handed the guy some cash, and drove it away a few minutes later. Then I tricked it out with a two-thousand dollar sound system. I’m almost twenty-one, and this is my first car.

I feel justified. I’m finally in a position to treat myself this way. If I see it and I want it, I buy it right then and there. I’ve never had the opportunity before. The miserable eighteen year old that worked two or three minimum wage jobs at a time and still went hungry to pay the rent is gone. Every time I buy myself something new, I stick another knife into her memory. Die, bitch.

The person I’m turning into is not the person I want to be. But until I come up with something better, this will have to do.

When I first started stripping, I had a goal.

I thought I could do it for a year, save a hundred grand, and go to music school when I was done.

Somehow, that goal and everything that went with it has slid into a bottomless pit. So slowly at first that I didn’t even notice. But this tumble has acquired the speed of an avalanche. I think I’m still falling. I’m not sure.

I gradually started believing that there was something wrong with me if I didn’t break eight hundred dollars a night. I finally understood that nothing else I did would matter to anyone I knew. I looked around, and saw that I didn’t fit.

I watched Sloane. I realized she didn’t even have to smile at anyone to make her money. I watched Tracy, the only stereotypical blonde with big fake tits in the whole club. She cleaned up every night just because she’d molded herself into a life sized Barbie doll.

And I buckled. I really don’t know who I am anymore.

Originality, humor, intelligence, and depth are qualities you need to suspend if you want do this job effectively. Forget about integrity. No matter how you define the word, the concept cannot thrive for long in a strip club.

And if you work in one, it’s only a matter of time before this strange, underground little world becomes the gauge for the way you view all existence.

Continue reading:

« Previous: Next: »
Bookmark and Share

Leave a Reply