by Unknown
“I don’t know,” I said. “Nobody even looked at me. Maybe they hire everyone who comes in.”
“No way,” Jonny said. “They wanted you because you’re gorgeous.”
I didn’t feel gorgeous. I felt like a fatted calf trotting blithely to her own sacrificial bloodletting, but Jonny’s words puffed me up nicely. I desperately wanted to be a stripper, but I winced at the thought of inevitable rejection. (Or did I secretly long for the stimulation of ridicule in my otherwise placid life? Deep, man.)
“Are you totally cool with this, baby?” I asked. “I mean, say the word and I won’t do it.”
“I support you completely,” Jonny said. “I don’t have an issue with it. I mean, it’s just a job. A means of support. It’s sexy, actually. Does that make me a pig?”
“Hardly,” I said. “I guess I start on Sunday, then.”
That week, I headed back to the stripper store and bought a proper stage ensemble: a short black tube dress and thigh-high fishnet stockings. I imagined myself as a sophisticated vamp straight out of an off-Broadway Fosse tribute, all bobbed hair, cigarettes and attitude. I was sure I’d have to haul my earnings home in a Samsonite. I felt ready. The only thing I lacked was a stage name before I could be a genuine wind-up doll.
I needed something cheeky, yet alluring. The kind of moniker that oozed molten sex, but satisfied my retro fix. I decided on “Roxanne,” since that sounded like the kind of girl who lives in a boardinghouse, drinks Pink Squirrels and fucks old men for their gold pocket watches. Easy.
Sunday, I arrived at Schieks ahead of schedule, forever the early bird in an aviary full of night owls. Business hours hadn’t begun yet, and the place was vacant but for a few waitresses and bartenders who were prepping for the evening shift. The stage was dark, and I didn’t see any “entertainers” on the floor. The place kind of smelled like an old rug that had been latch-hooked with navel lint and cigar butts.
“Hi,” I said to an authoritative-looking woman. “Today is my first day of work. Do you know where I’m supposed to go?”
“Oh hi,” she said brusquely. “You can start by wiping down the end tables in the VIP area. They can give you a rag at the bar.”
I was taken aback. I had to swab the decks in addition to stripping? I figured there had to be a mistake, but I didn’t want to balk and sound elitist. Maybe all strippers had to clean. It seemed reasonable, seeing as how they supposedly earned so much. Perhaps the spectacle drew crowds, like a naked maid service.
“Well, shouldn’t I change first?” I asked.
“Do you have your uniform?”
“I’m an entertainer,” I said. “I didn’t know I had to have a uniform.”
She looked me over, surprised. “You’re an entertainer? I’m sorry. I assumed you were a new waitress. Never mind.” She chuckled. “The dressing room is upstairs, sweetie.” Hilarious! The pasty wage slave thinks she’s a stripper!
I found a frigid back stairwell and ascended to the dressing room. It reminded me of the girls’ bathroom at my Catholic elementary school, with wall-to-wall lockers and a few stiff benches. Not a mirrored vanity in sight; hardly the BaByliss Babylon I’d pictured. Each locker bore a name, and I read them to myself like a misspelled litany: Tiffanee. Gennifer. Kaitlynne. I had expected the dressing room to be frothing with feminine chaos, thick with flying undies and claws-out accusations of lipstick theft, but I was utterly alone.
My tube dress fit me like a sausage casing. It rode up unflatteringly, revealing the hail damage on my meaty hips and creating an unfortunate Esther Williams effect. The stockings squeezed my American thighs accordingly. The three inches of exposed flesh between my hem and my stockings were as pale and malleable as packaged biscuit dough. I put on my stilettos, hoping they’d help, but they didn’t. I felt like a Cathy comic, only unlike Cathy, I didn’t have any methamphetamines to accelerate my metabolism. Acck!
Girls began to slink into the dressing room as I applied my makeup with an amateurishly light hand. They wore pastel sweat suits, carried fake Murakami bags and had their expertly foiled hair scraped into Velcro rollers. I expected them to size me up immedately, since I was a suspiciously frumpy stranger, but not one evil eye came to rest on my person. I soon found out that the high turnover at Schieks resulted in the house girls being completely indifferent to new blood. They probably assumed I’d split in a week anyway.
A blonde woman hauling a briefcase and a backpack fiddled with the combination on her locker. She was tan. Really tan. Malignant. She looked like a live reenactment of a dermatologist’s cautionary tale; her skin was like umber crepe paper.
“How’s it going?” I ventured, since she was the only person nearby.
“Good,” she said, undressing. “I haven’t seen you here before. Is this your first night?”
“Yeah, it’s my first night dancing ever, actually,” I said.
“My sympathies,” she said, her eyes crinkling. Her face looked around thirty years old, but her breasts were so new I expected to see price tags dangling from the nipples.
“I work at an office during the day, though,” I volunteered. For some reason, I was desperate for her to know that I wasn’t a dead-end dolly, a subsistence stripper. I had a future. I was salaried and insured, just like Mary Tyler Moore. Stripping was a mere lark, after all. Right?
“Me, too. I’m a realtor,” she said. “I just wanted a little extra money.”
“Right,” I said. “I’m singing the same tune.”
“My name is Lisa,” she said, extending her hand.
“I’m Roxanne,” I said, unsure if I should use my stage name or my real name. It appeared that stage names were the status quo on and off the floor.
Lisa changed into a dress that was identical to mine, only hers was a vulgar pink shade and fit like a custom garment. She wound a garter snugly around her ankle and tucked in a few dollars. Bait, I guess. She looked strangely prim and professional, like she was about to show a split-level Tudor to a prospective buyer or draft an addendum to a purchase agreement.
“Are you going downstairs?” I asked. She was, so I shadowed her like a brain-dead conjoined twin.
Lisa and I headed down to the main pit. We sat down in an alcove flanked by small curtained-off areas. They reminded me of the dark, crimson-walled confessionals in the Polish Catholic church I’d attended as a kid. “What are those?” I asked. I guessed there wasn’t a liver-spotted monsignor waiting behind the curtain.
“Those are the suites,” Lisa said.
“The suites?” Do explain.
“Private suites,” she explained. “If a guy wants to go into the suite, he has to pay $90 to the stripper and $75 to the club per half hour. Did you buy your suite coupon yet?”
“I have to buy something?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Lisa said. “It’s a required thing. You pay $20 at the front desk when you show up, and they give you a coupon that waives the club’s fee. So your customer can get a private suite with you for only $90.”
“That still sounds like a shitload of money for half an hour with a stripper,” I observed.
Lisa shrugged. “I guess.”
“Can we get our $20 back if we can’t convince a guy to use the suite coupon?” I asked.
“No,” Lisa said. “But they’re pretty easy to sell. Guys like the private suites. I sell my suite coupon almost every night.” As she lit a cigarette, her massive breasts bobbled like caramelized flan, and I didn’t doubt her success.
“So how does everything else work?” I asked. “Nobody told me anything.”
“We give table dances for $20,” Lisa explained. “You have to do a minimum of eight table dances a night.”
“Is that like a lap dance?” I asked, somewhat alarmed. I hadn’t been planning to grind cock, let alone mandatory cock.
“Yeah, it’s the same thing,” Lisa said. “Anyway, once you sell your quota of eight table dances, it comes to $160. At the end of the night, you have to pay out your $160. The
management takes $108 of that and gives you back $52. After that initial payout, you get to keep everything you earn.”
The system didn’t make sense to me. Quotas? Payouts? It sounded like a sales cult. “So, if I earn $160 tonight, they get to keep $108 of that?”
“Right,” Lisa said, as if it made perfect sense. “Plus, you should tip the DJ at least $20 per shift.”
“Suppose I don’t sell eight table dances tonight?” I asked.
“Then you owe them money,” Lisa sighed.
“You mean I leave in the hole?” I said in disbelief. “What if I sell seven dances, give them $108 and keep my shitty $32? That’s their cut anyhow.”
“Nope,” Lisa said emphatically. “You have to sell eight dances or you owe them.” She was complicit with the scam; her blue orbs were blank and blithe.
“Incredible,” I said. “I don’t see how people agree to it.”
“That’s how most clubs work,” Lisa said. “I mean, if you make $800, that $108 doesn’t seem like a lot.”
“What’s your real name?” I asked suddenly.
“Lisa,” she replied, her smile hardening.
Strippers descended the stairs and filtered onto the floor. The scene was blonde on blonde on blonde; genuine daughters of Norway commingling with peroxided aspirants. Their skin was tanned and oiled to the color of wet cigars. They wore short disco-dolly schmattes, theatrical feather-trimmed peignoirs and long backless gowns slit to Venus. Most were startlingly gorgeous and lean as greyhounds. One of them looked exactly like Gisele Bundchen. Her ass was the size of my goddamned fist. I wondered why I hadn’t just gotten a night gig at Fuddruckers, since I’d be hard-pressed to earn a Canadian dime amid this kind of competition.
To my horror, I realized that Schieks’s cadre of cute waitresses were all outfitted in black minis and fishnet stockings. Crap in a hat! Not only did I already look completely unlike a stripper, but I blended right in with the waitstaff. I imagined I’d be flagged down for more tequila shots than table dances. It dawned on me why the other girls were dressed in either white or shockingly bright colors. As they passed, they glowed like neon tetras in the dark cave of the club. Meanwhile, I vanished into the murk like a plume of squid ink. Invisible.
A small bachelor party had arrived, the first customers of the night. They seemed polite and uneasy as they ordered pints of beer and the requisite cigars. Lisa rose from her seat and blazed toward the men like a Patriot missile. I watched as she sat down among them and engaged them in innocuous conversation. They laughed and stared at her breasts. Her breasts stared at the ceiling. When the next song began, Lisa stood up, peeled off her dress and stood in front of one of the men. The slim brown shoelace of her body undulated between his spread legs. Her gym-toned ass was steeped in body oil. The bachelor’s companions smirked and puffed their cigars inexpertly.
A sign in the dressing room had specifically warned that dancers had to remain six inches from the customer during table dances, but Lisa raptly stroked the man’s chest and belly with her sculptured nails. She sank to her knees and ran her fingers along his parted thighs, maintaining eye contact for the duration. Her grin was an angry toothpaste commercial, an unyielding Farrah Fawcett grimace. I couldn’t stop watching this one-woman Hawaiian Tropic pageant gone wrong. I stared at Lisa’s naked back, which was bisected by a single white racing stripe of untanned flesh.
The song ended, and Lisa awkwardly hoisted up her dress. She spoke briefly with one of the men, then turned and gestured for me to join them. I awkwardly rose in my towering heels, and teetered over to join the party.
“The bachelor wants a lap dance from you,” Lisa chirped, pointing to the goateed guest of honor. He mutely handed me a twenty-dollar bill.
“I’m not sure what to do, man,” I mumbled.
“Just do what I did,” Lisa said. “It’s easy.”
The song began, and if I recall, it was a bumblefuck good-times Shania Twain anthem about beds and boots and cheating. (I should mention that I’m obsessed with Shania Twain, because she’s a robot with lifelike vinyl flesh. It was nice to hear her synthetic yodeling during my first-ever lap dance.) I gulped, shoved my dress down to my ankles and began to gyrate against the bachelor.
“Nice!” the bachelor said approvingly. “You’ve got a great body.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m kind of petrified.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked. “Did you just start dancing or something?”
“Tonight,” I said. “This is the first lap dance I’ve ever done.”
He chuckled. “Scared much?”
“I told you I was petrified.” I stroked the bachelor’s cheek like I’d seen Lisa do, then let my hands drift down the front of his flannel shirt. He feigned arousal and closed his eyes like a fat nursing baby. I faintly heard Lisa entertaining the other men with a stupendously dull story about her broken water purifier.
The noxious song ended sooner than I expected; most strip clubs fade songs out at the three-minute mark so lap dances will be teasingly brief. The motivation for this tactic is more prurient than prudish; the more songs it takes for a man to cream his Dockers, the more cash the girls pull in.
“Thanks,” I said, wriggling back into my dress.
“You’ve got nice hips. You remind me of Shakira,” the bachelor remarked.
“Somewhere in Colombia, Shakira bristles at the comparison,” I replied.
The club had begun to fill with nondescript men. The stage rotation had begun, and I realized that I hadn’t notified the DJ of my existence. There was only one stage at Schieks, and girls took turns performing two songs at a time. As I made my way backstage, a man asked me if I could bring him another Sam Adams. “I’m not a waitress,” I replied politely. Why in the name of Lucifer had I opted to wear arid, boring black in a veritable gulf of iridescent, wet-look cheetah prints?
The backstage area was underwhelming and unfurnished but for a mirror. There were a few girls hanging out back there, but it was mainly used as a passage on and off the stage. A topless girl who had just completed her set stood next to the DJ booth, chatting with him nonchalantly. She wore an Egyptian death mask of makeup and a fake ponytail so long it twitched against her rump.
“I haven’t taken a shit in a week,” she fretted. “I’m starting to get worried.”
“Have you tried bran cereal?” the DJ asked. “Canned pumpkin?”
I approached the booth timidly. “Hey. I’m Roxanne.”
“Nice to meet you, Roxanne,” the DJ said, scribbling my name on his notepad. The list wasn’t very long, and my stomach reared with the realization that I’d be onstage sooner than I realized. “What kind of music do you dance to?” the DJ asked.
“Hair metal,” I said stubbornly. It had become obvious to me that most girls favored lascivious R&B tracks, but I wanted to kick it old-school. Like the tongue-waggling video sluts I’d idolized as a kid. Like Tawny Kitaen dry-humping the car in that Whitesnake video, or that girl from Cheers who wore the “Raspberry Beret.”
“Sure,” he said. He switched on the mic and transitioned from his normal voice to his incredibly unctuous DJ voice: “LET’S KEEP THE PARTY GOIN’! Here COMES TAAAAAAAAAY-LOR!” On cue, Taylor appeared, brushed past us, pushed open the mirrored stage doors and threw herself to the wolves.
“Dude, that voice is sick,” I commented once he’d turned the mic off again. “How can you stand hearing yourself like that?”
“This is a good job,” the DJ said, shrugging.
Soon enough, it was my turn to keep the party going. As I stepped onstage to “Armageddon It” by Def Leppard, I realized Schieks wasn’t hosting much of a bash. The customers looked bored and flaccid, more interested in the Vikings game on TV than in the half-naked dolls who were curled in their laps. The strippers who weren’t with customers were sulking near the bar, smoking so aggressively that I imagined their young lungs looked like blackened lamb chops. Out there, it was joyless and airless.
Onstage? It was
sublime.
Joe Elliot sang the body electric. Phil Collen strummed my pain with his fingers. My heart thumped against my ribs as I pulled off my dress and spun to face the back of the stage. In the mirrors, I saw myself standing topless before a backdrop of faces. It was so cold in the room that my nipples shrank to pinpricks and my legs were covered with gooseflesh. I didn’t give a fuck. I was on fire.
I pranced to the center of the stage like Mick Jagger on Hullabaloo, throwing a few rock kicks for effect. I noticed some of the strippers in the back were whispering to each other as they watched me, and I knew it was because I danced like a tool. It was the only way I knew how to dance. I’ve always been graceless and hyper, so it was only natural that I danced that way. If I wanted to be a languid Salome, I’d need a fistful of disco biscuits, and downers are hard to find in strip clubs.
The second song began, and I was running out of ideas. “Floor work” was strictly forbidden at Schieks, and as I mentioned before, there wasn’t a pole or a tip rail. Strippers were basically limited to pacing the stage and posing like models. It seemed like a disservice to Def Leppard to be so banal, though, so I tried to really pump up the jam. I skipped from one side of the stage to the other, spanked my ass insouciantly and twirled around to the seismic thud of the one-armed drummer.
“Say good-bye to beautiful Roxanne!” the DJ boomed. I waved to no one in particular, grabbed my dress and scurried offstage.
(Strange that I always use the word scurried to describe how I exited the stage after a set. That’s exactly what I did, too. Everyone scurries when they’re starting out. It’s a natural response to the jarring realization that one is naked in public. I know that doesn’t make sense, since strippers are used to being naked, but something about the end of a stage set produces a primal feeling of vulnerability.)
With my stage set over, I knew I had to hustle for lap dances. It was a weird series of maneuvers: sit with customer, engage in awkward badinage while batting the lashes at hummingbird speed, ask him if he wants a lap dance, repeat, persist, sparkle. For every “yes,” there were at least fifteen rejections. Over the course of the next few hours, I managed to stiffly administer a few lap dances, but there was plenty of downtime for gawking at the other strippers. Fascinating stuff.