Confessions of a Stripper: Tales from the VIP Room

by Lacey Lane

  That was the case with a man I liked to call Freaky Frank. Believe me, the nickname fit him to a tee. Apparently, the guy was a hotshot in the special-effects biz. Science fiction and horror were his specialties, or so he said. (I’d never heard of any of the movies he claimed to have worked on, but I’m also not a big fan of science fiction or horror flicks.)

  The first time I met Frank, he seemed like just another guy. We had a drink at the bar, I danced for him in the VIP Room, we talked a bit, he tipped me and left. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the next time he came in, Freaky Frank had taken over his body.

  He brought two scarier-than-hell rubber masks with him. One looked like a man who had half of his face melted away by acid, resulting in some disgusting smear of blood, flesh, and gore. The other was some kind of insect-alien thing, with many pairs of miniature claws poking out of the nostrils, above the eyes, and around the ear holes. Freaky Frank claimed to have created both and you could tell he was proud of his work. I have to admit, if they were his original creations, the guy had one hell of an imagination, though I wouldn’t have wanted to get lost in his sick and twisted mind after dark. I don’t even want to imagine what kind of nightmares he had, although he probably enjoyed them.

  Anyway, Freaky Frank didn’t bring in the masks just to show off his talent—he wanted me to wear them when I danced for him. Now, I’ve been asked to wear all kinds of things for men in the past: wedding dresses, garters, lingerie, bikinis, a chef’s hat—but never a friggin’ movie mask. That kind of request doesn’t do a whole lot of good for a woman’s psyche.

  But Freaky Frank was quick to assure me that my looks had absolutely nothing to do with his request. He simply loved seeing his creations come to life and it was his deepest desire to see his mask on the body of a sexy woman, especially a topless dancer. He said he’d once asked his wife to don one of his masks before making love, but she became so furious that he had no choice but to bring his unusual request to the strip club—and straight to me. Was I lucky or what?

  After a few minutes of haggling, we agreed on a price—over and above my lap-dance rate—for which I would don his mask. I honestly didn’t want to mess up my hair, nor did I want to have some disgusting latex, previously worn by god-knows-who, rubbing against my flesh, but the extra $200 would be a welcome addition on my next shopping spree.

  So I pulled on the mask, did my best not to think about any cooties I might be contracting, and started to dance. Breathing was a bit difficult inside the thing and I got a little claustrophobic, but before I knew it the song was over. You better believe I had that filthy thing off my face a split-second later. That’s when he handed me the alien mask. Oh no, I said, the deal was for one mask—not both. He offered me two more $100 bills to reconsider. Man, I hated being put on the spot like that, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that $400 goes twice as far as $200, especially in the stores in Beverly Hills.

  I snatched the cash, pulled on the mask, and shook my ass. As luck would have it, that song just happened to be some extended-play version—over five minutes long—but I finished the dance as promised. When I took off the mask, my face was covered with sweat. I had a new respect for horror-film actors and any performers who had to undergo intense make-up treatments before filming. How those poor people managed on Star Trek for so long, I haven’t a clue.

  Freaky Frank came back a number of times over the next few months and each time he brought some new creation with him. There was a snake-man, a living dead guy, and a humanoid robot thing, but the mask that scared me the most was the one of this woman who had eyes in the back of her head, peering out from beneath her mop of blonde hair. The mask looked exactly like one of my old high-school teachers, and my friends and I always joked that she had eyes in the back of her head, because we used to pass notes when she wrote on the blackboard and she always caught us.

  Anyway, some of the other girls got in on the act of wearing his masks—for some, it was a substantial improvement—although the amount he paid dropped considerably. One of the girls didn’t know a thing about bargaining, so when she jumped at his initial offer, it lowered the bar for the rest of us. I eventually quit wearing the masks. By then the cash just wasn’t worth the discomfort.

  The Abusee

  Some people get off on being dominated. I used to be friendly with a customer-service rep for a major airline who moonlighted as a dominatrix. She told me all kinds of wild stories and blew me away with how much money she was pulling in. It was way more than the airline job paid, that’s for sure, but unfortunately, no prime benefits package came with her whips, chains, paddles, and leather. (If there had been, I might have switched professions; I certainly didn’t receive one for stripping.) The majority of her clients were affluent men in high-ranking managerial-type positions, including a number of CEOs whose incomes were well into seven figures.

  While working at a strip club in Los Angeles, I had a customer who would have been perfect for my dominatrix friend, though the abuse he enjoyed was not the sort she usually dished out.

  Glenn was a fairly well-known talent agent at a major agency in Hollywood. Having never been in the TV or movie biz, I had no clue who he was, but one of the other dancers recognized him immediately. She told me he represented some of the bigger names in the industry and the fact that she had worked in many movies—mostly B-films and late-night erotic cable flicks—gave me no reason to doubt her.

  I was just getting ready to take my turn on stage when Glenn asked if I would accompany him to the VIP Room. I had to tell him that if he really wanted me, he’d have to wait. With a sexy wink, I said he’d be sorry if he didn’t. The fish was hooked. He sat down, ordered a drink, and waited. When I was done collecting my dollar bills, I grabbed his arm and led him into the back room.

  After a pair of lap dances, we talked for a little bit and I pegged him as a nice guy. Then he reached into the pocket of his sport jacket, took out a small plastic rubber dart gun—the kid’s-toy type with a suction cup at one end—wet the suction cup, cocked it, handed it to me, and asked me to shoot him in the forehead. I was dumbfounded. Images of me on some dumb TV show performing stupid tricks for a nationwide audience courtesy of a hidden camera danced through my mind, but I quickly realized that wasn’t the game. No way in hell would the owner of that club allow a TV camera in his VIP Room—too much crazy shit went on back there.

  “Fifty bucks,” I told him.Glenn smiled and pulled out a $100, along with a second dart. “Here,” he said, stuffing the bill into my hand, “now you can shoot me twice.”

  So I did. With two darts now stuck to his forehead, he resembled some well-dressed insect with orange feelers. Strangely, he left them sticking there, put away the dart gun, and asked me to perform another lap dance. Midway through the dance, the darts came unstuck from his forehead and dropped onto his lap. He casually put them away and kept right on watching me. When the dance was over, he settled up his tab, gave me an extra $100 tip, and that was that.

  A few days later, Glenn was back in the club and we went straight to the VIP Room. We stuck to the previous routine: a pair of lap dances and some small talk. Then, he excused himself and went to the men’s room. He returned a few moments later holding a fresh roll of toilet paper, which he asked me to roll him in.

  I’d been dancing for years, but being asked to turn someone into a Charmin mummy was a new one on me. Still, the $100 bill he dangled in front of me made the decision easy. Within seconds, I was trussing him with t.p. in a manner that would make an Egyptian pharaoh jealous.

  Glenn started coming in more often, about every three days or so. Each time, after the usual two dances, he had me perform some outlandish but harmless act of “abuse” on him. One time, he wanted me to beat him with one of those ball-and-paddle toys. Another time, he had me shoot rubber bands at him. Another time, I repeatedly snapped his fingers with a small mouse trap-like device. On one occasion, he actually asked me to give him a hot foot with a book of the
club’s matches, but I refused, despite the fact that he offered me $300. I just couldn’t force myself to willfully burn someone. I had gone to a children’s burn hospital once to read stories to the kids and I wanted nothing to do with fire and flesh.

  I refused other of his requests. I wouldn’t pound his feet with a rubber mallet. And I wouldn’t put him in handcuffs and tickle him with a feather. I was afraid that, God forbid he had a heart attack or something while in handcuffs, the judge would throw the book at me, no matter what I said in my defense. Another time, I passed up the opportunity to shoot toothpicks at his butt from a drinking straw. It wasn’t that I was against doing those things to someone I didn’t really know or care about. I just didn’t want to do those things to him. I sensed something scary about the guy and I didn’t want to be the one he eventually lost it on. Maybe it was because he controlled the careers of so many people or because he was just a sick twisted fuck. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to go against my better judgment.

  The final straw came on the night Glenn asked me to pick my nose and fling boogers at him. He even offered me $500. While I’m sure some of the other girls would have done it for far less, I had to keep from losing my dinner. I left the room without even bothering to collect the money he owed me for the two dances I performed and asked the bouncers to show him the door.

  That was the last time I saw Glenn in the club. Ironically, I saw him at a nice restaurant with a woman about a month later. I know he saw me, but he never said a word. Only once did I catch him looking in my direction.

  Glenn and his date left about twenty minutes before my girlfriend and I got the check. Only there wasn’t a check. Apparently, someone had paid our bill. The waiter informed us that he’d promised the payer he wouldn’t reveal his or her identity, but I had a pretty good idea who it was. I guess Glenn felt bad for what had happened.

  That night proved that you may be weird, or even seriously fucked up, but you can still have class.

  Old McDonald

  In the sex business, farm fetishes are nothing new. I love animals, but I also know what bestiality is. Fortunately, the one experience I had with a guy with a full-blown farm fetish was at the most harmless end of the spectrum.

  His last name wasn’t McDonald, and he was definitely not a farmer, unless farmers are garbing themselves in Armani these days. I figured him for an accountant or an attorney, maybe even a sports agent. Styled hair, clean-shaven, manicured nails, well-dressed … I should have also figured this guy for a weirdo. That’s usually how it is. The more money a guy has, the farther he is from normal, especially in the arena of sex.

  The first time he came into the club, he lavished the girls on stage with $5s and $10s. (Most people just throw $1s. Hell, some people even throw change.) During my shift on the main stage, I must have made $300 from him alone. It was a good sign of things to come. After about an hour, he picked three of us to go back into the VIP Room. Things started out normally—two of us danced while one sat with him. That went on for a few songs. Then he asked if we did any imitations. Dawn had taken some acting classes and actually had a few impersonations in her repertoire. She could do Cher, Meryl Streep, and a half-decent Joan Rivers, too—but that wasn’t what he was talking about.

  This wackola had a thing for chickens, goats, cows, and pigs. He’d grown up in the city and hated every second of it; his only joy was when he visited his grandparents at their farm.

  This deep-seated love of the farm had apparently carried over into adulthood. Why he didn’t just buy himself one I haven’t a clue, for I’m pretty sure he could afford it. Judging by the way he threw money around, he probably could have bought a redneck family to run it for him, too.

  He wanted us to imitate his treasured animals during our dance routines. I wasn’t in the mood for a guy with a fetish. Neither was Barbi. Dawn was a different story.

  First, she was flat broke. This girl had a major shopping addiction. When it came to gadgets, contrivances, and just plain stuff, she had one of everything—probably two.

  Second, acting hadn’t exactly paid off for her yet and she was still deep in the red from her photo shoot and 8x10s, zed cards, acting classes, and talent showcases.

  Third, Dawn had moved to Los Angeles from Iowa, where her family owned and operated, you guessed it, a farm. So when the guy explained what he was looking for imitation-wise, Dawn was only too happy to oblige.

  Barbi wanted no part of it and left the VIP Room. I also declined to perform, but I just had to stay and watch. Having more experience dealing with VIP Room customers, I helped her negotiate a good round figure ($600 for two songs) and she went to work, incorporating every single farm animal she could think of into her lap-dance routine.

  I watched her for about 30 seconds in stunned silence before feeling queasy and getting out of there. There was just something unsettling about seeing an attractive nearly naked young woman rolling around on the floor, squealing like a pig wallowing in mud. It took a few drinks to shake the image; in truth, sometimes I still have nightmares about it.

  Human Viagra

  The vast majority of the customers I danced for in the VIP Room were strong able-bodied men (both young and old) who looked as if they wanted much more from me than I was willing to give them. At the very least, they appeared healthy, alert and, well, alive. Pops (what he asked me to call him), on the other hand, looked like he was at Death’s door. Actually, he looked as if he’d walked through Death’s door and stood in the foyer for over a month!

  The first time I laid eyes on Pops, I actually thought he had expired right there in the strip club. He was sitting at a small table in a dark corner and, after observing him from afar for a few minutes, I saw no sign of movement. He was propped straight up, eyes forward, hands at his sides. The problem was, the direction he was looking, nothing was happening. All the activity—the stage, and the girls on it—were far to the right. He was staring at the wall and had been for quite some time.

  I was actually afraid to walk over for fear of what I might find. Eventually, I worked up the courage. When I got to within a few feet and he still didn’t move, I got really worried. But then I saw the faint rise and fall of his chest and I knew he was still alive; well, he was breathing at any rate. I nudged him. He stirred, turned his head toward me, then apologized for “nodding off.”

  Nodding off? Fuck! The old geezer slept with his eyes open. If that’s not the creepiest thing, I don’t know what is. Anyway, he asked me in a voice coarser than 12-grit sandpaper if there was anywhere we could go that was quieter. He said he’d be happy to pay for my time. Since that club had a VIP Room that was nearly soundproof, we started heading back.

  This was no speedy trip. Pops moved slower than a tortoise on ether. I should have charged him for the time it took us to get back there. I would have been able to retire. During this epic journey, which was only about 40 feet, he introduced himself as Pops. In fact, that was all he said during the marathon walk. It seemed like he needed every ounce of air he could suck into his lungs. How he’d even gotten into the club was a mystery. A guy like that usually comes with a wheelchair, a bottle of oxygen, a nurse, and maybe even a priest to issue last rites just in case. I was worried he was going to code on me before I even got my top off.

  Finally, we reached the VIP Room and he sunk right into the overstuffed velour couch. In the light—slightly brighter than the club’s main area—Pops looked ten times worse. Man, I’ve seen corpses that looked better than he did. Corpses that have been buried, no less. For decades.

  Anyway, after his breathing had returned to normal, he gave me the bad news: The doctors had given him only two weeks to live. Cancer, he explained. Throughout his body. Now I’ve heard all types of sob stories from guys who were looking to get a discount—or total freebies. But I believed Pops. Heck, if he’d have told me that he died last week, I probably would have believed that, too.

  Still, he knew how to play it and he waited a few minutes f
or his words to sink in. Of course, I told him how sorry I was and asked him what I could do to lift his spirits. That’s when he reached a shaky hand into his front pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. The bills looked so old, I swear I saw a moth fly out of them.

  A count of the money revealed the sum of $19, not enough to start the music playing, let alone get a look at my bodacious ta-tas. Pops said this was all the money he had left until his next check came, but that was more than two weeks away—and he didn’t expect to be around to cash it.

  So, I went ahead and broke the first rule of topless dancing, the one about giving away anything for free. I turned on the stereo in the room, put on a sensual song by Prince, and gave Pops the lap dance of his life. I figured if his heart stopped while I was performing, at least he’d be checking out with a smile on his face.

  When I finished the song, Pops was smiling, all right. In fact, the old codger even had a little pup tent going in his pants, a visual that embarrassed both of us. I told him I would have loved to dance for him more, but that I really had to get back to work for paying clients. He said he understood perfectly and thanked me sincerely for making his “last moments on Earth” some of the happiest of his life. I helped him off the couch and walked him back to the bar. Only now, he seemed to have a spring in his step; the journey back was made in half the time of the original trip. Hmmmm.