by Unknown
“Time’s up for the panty auction!” the DJ’s voice boomed from downstairs. “Panties going once…going twice…sold!”
I yanked back the waistband slingshot-style and let the panties fly at the pyramid guy. The other guys groaned in disappointment. I squatted on my haunches and struggled to collect all my money. The mess of bills was almost too much to carry, but somehow I didn’t care. A couple of strippers passing through the VIP room stopped to gawk. I waved and ran naked up the stairs to the dressing room, flush with power.
My first night as a synthetic blonde had been a moderate success, though I still hadn’t earned nearly as much as the other ho’s in my area code. I knew this because the Mustaches made everyone’s earnings public. During payout each night, they’d rapidly read off how much each girl owed the house (and if you happened to miss your name and ask them to repeat, they’d call you “retarded”). Anyway, using rudimentary math, one could easily calculate how much a stripper had earned based on what she owed. When someone owed more than several hundred dollars, you knew she had buh-buh-BANKED. Sometimes I owed as little as $80. This presented a veritable Mobius strip of gnarled logic: While I was pleased that my payouts were usually minimal, I also wished that they were massive, since that would mean I was a stone-cold pimp. Some girls liked the fact that Deja Vu adjusted their take according to individual earnings, but I was starting to view it as a scam. The more you earned, the more they socked away. Whether you had a lousy night or a fantastic night, you were fucked.
In addition to periodic raucous panty auctions, another nightly ritual at Deja Vu was the “chair torture.” A bachelor or birthday boy would be summoned onstage and made to sit in an unspeakably filthy chair propped against the center pole. The strippers, who were all required to participate, would stand in a V-formation like psychedelic geese and clap in unison to “We Want Some Pussy” by 2 Live Crew. Meanwhile, the more outgoing girls took turns jumping on the bachelor, whapping him in the face with their tits and kneeing him in the junk. Sometimes a girl would pull off the guy’s belt and beat him with it. The routine could get surprisingly violent, and the “victims’” reactions ranged from merely uncomfortable to straight-up pissed. Happy birthday, motherfucker! You’re about to be the target of twenty strippers’ pent-up rage against men! Because Deja Vu was a popular party destination, “chair torture” could occur up to ten times a night. As a result, I unwittingly memorized every word to “We Want Some Pussy.” I still hate that song.
Slippery When Wet
I never worked at the Vu on Wednesday nights, but one week I deliberately made an exception. Wednesday was “Wet ’n’ Wild Night” (sponsored by O’Douls, the tonic of teetotalers) and I wanted to see what exactly this mysterious watery theme entailed.
“Oh, Wet ’n’ Wild,” a girl said when I asked her about it. “It’s gross.”
“Totally nasty,” another girl concurred. “They pick three or four girls to run around onstage, and the audience gets to squirt them.”
“I sort of like it,” a third girl admitted. “It’s a nice break from the norm. Actually, I usually volunteer.”
My curiosity piqued, I scheduled myself for a Wednesday. The night began as usual, but around 10:00 P.M., a bouncer began handing out plastic squirt bottles and water pistols to the boisterous crowd at the tip rail. The Vu got a lot of college students, which displeased me; they were abominable tippers and seemed to have a distinct preference for whispery-voiced airhead strippers who could make them feel intelligent by comparison. The median age of the crowd that had gathered for Wet ’n’ Wild was around nineteen. The kids gripped their squirt bottles with excited aggression, as if they were ready to play a triple-X version of cops and robbers.
“Gentlemen, no squirting in the face,” the DJ announced. “Ladies, come on out!”
Three girls ran onstage wearing oversized Deja Vu T-shirts. Two of them were pocket-sized Asian girls, and the tacky tees hung past their knees like avant-garde Yohji Yamamoto dresses. The third girl was a robust blonde with 400-cc funbags, and I saw a few of the guys identify her as their favorite by taking aim immediately.
“Ready, set, go!” the DJ proclaimed. Now, I had naively assumed that this exercise was simply a glorified wet T-shirt contest. However, the shirts served little purpose, because the girls immediately lifted them up to their chins, exposing their naked bodies beneath. Streams of water arced through the air as the girls skipped around the stage. The room was filled with the mechanical sklish-sklish-sklish sound of twenty squirt bottles being furiously operated at once.
The two Asian girls sat down in front of the tip rail and pulled their legs behind their heads. The guys instantly began squirting their pussies and rectums. It reminded me of a game of chance at a carnival: Hit the anus and win a stuffed unicorn for your sweetie! I noticed the water was going directly into the girls’ vaginas in some cases. It was the world’s first interactive douche!
Water pooled on the stage; the strippers were soaking wet. The girls pulled off the dripping T-shirts and hurled them into the crowd. One of the little Asian girls got on all fours while the other one mounted her and pretended to fuck her in the ass. Obviously feeling left out, the blonde girl knelt behind the dominant Asian girl and faked eating her pussy from behind. The three of them collapsed into a slippery pile and pawed each other, their fake giggles progressing to fake hysterics as the action intensified. Asses were grabbed. Nipples were tweaked. Tongues were unfurled for some of the showiest kissing I’ve ever seen.
“Thank you, ladies!” the DJ announced. The girls quickly collected the soggy bills that ringed the stage and ran upstairs to the dressing room. A pockmarked kid was summoned to mop up the excess water. I watched the boys at the rail reluctantly return their squirt bottles to the bouncer. I envied them; they’d paid a few bucks at the door for the privilege of dousing a trio of beautiful naked women with frigid water. There had been no limitations or mystery; the girls had literally invited them to squirt body parts that most women only see when their gynecologist holds up that stupid hand mirror. The boys’ faces had been so blank, their trigger fingers spasming relentlessly as they stared between the girls’ splayed thighs. I’d seen that face before, on an ex-boyfriend when he played video games. Empty. No one home but the id.
* * *
Activity Korner!
Match the stripper’s preferred music with her personality type. (Results were compiled after an extended study at several clubs.)
1. The Eagles
2. Mariah Carey
3. Creed
4. Rammstein
5. Erotica-era Madonna
a. Good-natured alcoholic
b. Ugly face, nice hair
c. Methadone clinic patron
d. Bitch
e. Friendly Canadian hesher
Answers: 1. b., 2. a., 3. d., 4. e., 5. c.
* * *
Some Girls
To my surprise, I got promoted to assistant project manager at the agency. It was the first job I’d ever had that involved actual responsibility and accountability. Although I accepted the promotion graciously, I was secretly horrified. I’d enjoyed being a copy typist. It was the kind of bare-bones, solitary, no-“team”-in-“I”-type job I gravitated toward as a sociopath. I’d type scripts at mercurial speeds, hand them off and resume my intense e-mail badinage with Jonny (“I want you inside me. Yours, Diablo”). But now, I had to do actual work and deal with other people. I knew I was up shit creek sans paddle when my boss showed me how to organize a “job file.” (I’m the kind of person who accidentally puts the TV remote in the vegetable crisper, so the idea of me keeping documents orderly is hilarious.)
The only plus side to getting promoted was the promise of more money in my faux-croc wallet. I had become financially dependent on stripping, and the proverbial “golden handcuffs” were beginning to chafe. I’d always thought the income I earned would simply result in piles of fun money, but we spent it as quickly as I earned it. I bought a car an
d funneled increasing quantities of money into my fantastic plastic appearance: high-end makeup, hair extensions and enough bikinis to fill a giant shopping bag in my closet. Rather than a way of earning extra cash, stripping had become a necessary source of income, and quitting wasn’t in my budget. Jonny and I lived from paycheck to paycheck, and the only thing that afforded us a modicum of comfort was my new hobby. I couldn’t quit, even though I hated Deja Vu so much that the mere thought of that bismuth-pink building made my teeth hurt.
It was around 1:00 A.M. on a molasses-slow Monday night. I had netted around $75 for seven hours of work, a pathetic, wretched sum that would be dubbed “McDonald’s money” by all but the most desperate stripper. I trolled the room for potential customers, exhausted. Crueler still, the other girls seemed to be doing a brisk business. There were plenty of guys in the house, but they weren’t exactly clamoring for the pleasure of my company. (Shocking, since I’m sure I looked like Helen of Troy with my slumped shoulders, matted wig, and skintight booty shorts that cleaved my crotch into two distinct visible halves; it was X-Treme Camel Toe.)
As I headed backstage dejectedly, a young guy in a Wild America neckbeard stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop. He’d been tossing cash at the stage all night and this was the first time I’d seen him abandon his seat at the tip rail.
“Hi,” I said warily, anticipating his query: The bathroom is down that corridor, first door on the right.
The guy’s face was expressionless. “You are very beautiful,” he said in a thick foreign accent. “Will you do a bed dance for me?”
“Sure,” I said happily. I’d been clamoring for just $20; I’d be ecstatic to get $60. I didn’t particularly like doing bed dances, but I’d become accustomed to the drill of humping guys’ lunch boxes with my thigh while they stared passively at my breasts hanging overhead like forbidden kumquats.
I took the man by his clammy hand and led him upstairs. (The Mustaches told us to always hold hands with the customers when escorting them about.) “So, where are you from?” I asked.
“Russia,” he said.
“I speak Russian somewhat well,” I tentatively volunteered in Russian.
“Your accent is excellent,” he replied in Russian, surprised. “Where did you learn that?”
“I studied the language at, um, an Iowan university. A university in Iowa,” I fumbled in broken Russian. I hadn’t spoken the language in two years.
“I’m impressed,” the Russian said, switching back to English.
“Thanks,” I said. “Shall we begin the dance?”
After three songs had ended, the Russian requested a fourth bed dance. I was about to comply when he paused and sat up, contemplating the surveillance camera. They were mounted on the ceiling in each second-floor “bedroom.”
“What’s up?” I asked, desperate to continue my run.
“I was thinking,” the Russian said. “There are no cameras upstairs, right? On your third floor?”
“Yeah,” I said carefully. “There aren’t any cameras in the Erotic Loft.”
“What can we do up there that we can’t do here?” he asked.
“More,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to specify, since I didn’t want to do more, but I was hungry. Ravenous. I knew going up to the Erotic Loft would guarantee me at least $90 (bed dances up there were $30 apiece with three-dance minimum). I had never been asked to go upstairs before, and I felt like I’d received a bid for an exclusive nude sorority. (Hair Pi?) I didn’t feel like playing the tired role of Little Miss Good Judgment this evening and ever after. I wanted to go upstairs. I was going upstairs.
As we walked up the chilly back stairway, I braced myself for my first inside glimpse of the infamous Loft. We entered the pitch-dark, cavernous room through the glass-paned French doors. Upon our entry, an attendant with a flashlight phoned down to the DJ to inform him that I wouldn’t be available to go onstage until further notice. I was disappointed to see that the much-touted “theme rooms” were merely small, dark areas partitioned off with black lace curtains, like Spanish mantillas. We entered one of the areas, and I noticed that the wall above the rumpled bed was spattered with a mysterious white substance. It looked like a crime scene or a cheap theater set.
The Russian laid down on the bed. “Can you take off all your clothes?” he asked.
“I’m not supposed to,” I said, but I did it anyway.
A waitress suddenly drew aside the lace curtain and peeked in at us. “Would you like to buy the lady a drink?” she asked the Russian dutifully, but her eyes were fixed on me. I stood stark naked and stared back at her like Edvard Munch’s Puberty. We were mutually ashamed. It was almost as if we holding a psychic debate. Resolved: My job is shittier than yours.
“I’ll have a Diet Coke,” I replied. She nodded and stole away in her spotless white sneakers.
“Take your shoes off, too,” the Russian said. I kicked off my black platforms, the ones Jonny had picked out for me the preceding weekend, and crawled on top of the Russian. I heard faint laughter coming from one of the other sectioned-off rooms. I recognized the deep, bittersweet chuckle as belonging to a hulk of a stripper named Katrine who looked like a drag queen and blew guys for hydroponic pot. I was in Katrine’s world now, but I lacked the protection of that rough, jaded laugh that stirred the ashes in her lungs. Katrine wasn’t scared of anything; she cared for herself above all else. Compared to her, I was a scared little bitch with dirty panties. Channel Katrine, I told myself. She laughed again, and it sounded like an Eartha Kitt record skipping.
It felt like a dream. I did what I did for one reason: I wanted every last kopek of the Russian’s seemingly limitless fortune. I wanted to be one of the girls who went home with hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. I didn’t need to be that girl every night, but I felt entitled to wear the crown just once. Not so much for the money itself, but for the status, the reassurance that I measured up. The Russian lowered his jeans. Three songs went by, and the Russian asked me to keep going. I did, mentally calculating how much he owed me. Six songs. Nine songs. Twelve songs. My hips ached, ball grinding against socket, but I kept going. And went further. I found that singing along with the ridiculous piped-in pop music made it easier to continue, and the Russian didn’t seem to mind. So I sang my heart out, bracing myself on the wall with outstretched palms and wincing as the Russian groped me: “I’m like a bird, I’ll only fly away…”
After about forty minutes spent horizontal, I felt the uncontrollable urge to bolt. “I have to go,” I lied. “I’m supposed to be onstage in a few minutes.”
“But I’m not finished,” the Russian said, stroking my belly.
“I know,” I said. “I can get you another girl.”
The Russian pulled out his red croc wallet and handed me a sizable wad of twenties and fifties. I pulled on my hot pants, grabbed the one shoe I was able to locate in the dark and stumbled barefoot toward the dressing room. A brand-new girl named Lolly, a teenager who had never stripped before prior to that night, was leaving the dressing room in a plaid jumper just as I entered.
“Hey,” I said, seizing her by the shoulders. “There’s a guy in the Loft that asked me to send in another girl for him. He’s got loads of money. Go now.”
“How will I find him?” Lolly asked, terrified.
“First bed,” I said. “Go.” I felt somewhat guilty about throwing young Lolly to Tchaikovsky’s drooling wolf, but somehow I knew she’d thank me later. (She did.)
At four-thirty, we all commenced our usual slow-motion ritual of undressing, sloughing off eyeliner and tending to nascent blisters. I was crouching naked in front of my locker and eating a slice of pizza (sexy!) when the meaner Mustache burst into the dressing room, his eyes wild.
“Don’t get dressed,” he ordered us, fiddling with his cheap-ass Gingiss Formalwear tie. “We have some important guys that just showed up and I need girls onstage.”
“It’s fucking five in the morning!” a girl named Ally yelped
as she straddled a comically oversized douche.
“I don’t care,” Mustache said, and left.
“This is so stupid,” I heard one of the strippers bitch as soon as Mustache was out of earshot. “They always keep the place open for the high rollers. It’s not fair. They’re gonna go up to the Loft anyway, so who cares if we’re onstage or not?”
“Lainy and Fantasia must have been clued in that they were coming,” another girl said. “Did you see how they were waiting by the door all night? Greedy bitches. I hope they suck those guys’ dicks quick so we can go home.”
“Next onstage, we’re going to have Cherish!” the DJ yelled downstairs, obviously as irritated with this development as anyone.
“What?” I said. “I only have one shoe! I lost the other one in the Loft.”
“Go look for it,” one of the girls suggested.
“No time,” I said. “The shoe’s probably up someone’s ass by now.”
“Once again, here’s Cherish,” the DJ repeated, annoyed.
“Fuck it,” I said. Without bothering to get dressed or borrow a pair of shoes, I walked naked and barefoot downstairs and onto the stage. The big main room was as cold and empty as an airplane hangar. I smiled at Mustache, who glared at me from behind his omnipresent clipboard. If they wanted me to dance at daybreak, I was going to really dance. The DJ played “Scar Tissue” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and I improvised a ballet.
I did arabesques and pirouettes and changements. I leapt like Baryshnikov, not caring how my imperfect body chose to ripple or respond to the crash landings. My vanity was gone, replaced with regret and exhaustion and the strange creeping clarity of dawn. In my bare feet, I could be far more graceful than in those crippling stilettos. I whirled and twirled and caressed the poles as if they were a gauntlet of handsome partners. I laughed aloud when I realized how horrified my parents would be if they knew that nine years of childhood ballet lessons had come to this. Spontaneous naked choreography on a dirty stage at sunrise.