Ian sighed. “I can see how it must be hard.”
“What.” I knew what he was going to say, but I had to hear him say it, like cream calls out to be whipped.
“To compete with your mom.”
“Because she’s so sexy.” I zipped open my suitcase. “And I’m not?”
He sat up. Put his feet on the floor. Sighed. “Look, maybe I should go.”
I pressed my lips together. Removed a stack of T-shirts from the suitcase. I had to get over this fast. Of course he didn’t prefer my mother. Of course he loved me just the way I was, even if he didn’t want to live with me.
“I should let you unpack.”
I put the T-shirts in a drawer. I was being overly sensitive. And really, this apartment was much closer to the school, so it would’ve been ridiculous to move in with him all the way uptown.
He stood up. “I’m gonna get going.”
And really. What was the big deal? Why not do a striptease? Where do you think you’re going? Sit back down on that bed, honey, and I’ll show you what I’ve got.
“See you later,” I said.
“Bye.”
He left without touching me. I closed the door behind him.
At least he wasn’t there to see Coco when she emerged from her bedroom all done up for class. She was wearing tight red short-shorts that zipped all the way down the front and a tight, low-cut leopard-skin top. With “her face on,” she looked about ten years younger.
“How’s the unpacking going?”
“Done.”
“Great. That was easy.”
We stood next to each other in front of the hallway mirror. I redid my ponytail while she fluffed out her long, thick hair.
“It almost feels like I never left.”
She frowned into the mirror. “Except now I have more wrinkles.”
“Are you kidding? You look great.”
“But it takes a helluva lot more work. Ready?”
I considered putting lipstick on, and decided not to bother. I didn’t look as glorious as she did, but at least youth was on my side. “Let’s go.”
She slipped on her red stilettos. I put on my white sneakers. We both grabbed a handle on each side of a trunk filled with sex toys and striptease accessories, and lugged it out the door.
chapter two
“ o kay, ladies, the first thing you need to do is get rid of that pubic hair!” She paced back and forth in the front of the room. The wall behind her was all mirror. The students sat cross-legged on the floor in three crowded rows ready to get up and try out her moves. I stood in the back watching everyone else watching her.
“Get rid of it! Men don’t like a furry bush! They have a hard enough time knowing where to go down there—why confuse him with a jungle he’s gonna get lost in? He’ll need a machete to find your clit!”
The women laughed. I took a moment to straighten out the “table of wares.” I liked to line up the vibrators in descending height, like a row of soldiers standing at attention. I had my own personal favorite. The Hello Kitty Vibrator. Forty dollars. Battery-operated. Gentle stimulation. Totally cute. It was pink, and the kitty sitting on top nestled against a little brown plastic teddy bear.
Maybe I was becoming a little too personally attached to my own. But when Ian and I did get around to having sex, I tended to take a backseat when it came to my own pleasure. Please him—take care of myself later. Just seemed easier that way. Even when we were in the middle of sex, I didn’t particularly like being on display.
Coco loved having people admire her body. She was slim but curvy in all the right places. Small waist. Born a B, like me, but got the implants when she was twenty-five. Yeah. She was the fantasy. I suppose I could’ve been that too. I did resemble her. We were both tall, five-nine, same frame, and I inherited at least some of her good looks. But that fantasy thing takes so much effort! The makeup, the accessories, the dieting, the exercise regime . . . Coco worked out every day at the gym. She was toned, and had great thighs and rippling calf muscles. I had more cellulite than she did! I hated the gym. That smell. Sweat mixed with wheatgrass juice. It made me want to vomit.
She went on about the necessity of getting a Brazilian wax. Yeah, right, the more pain and suffering you go through the more you’re ready to present yourself to the man—that was the not-subliminal message. I refused to shave my pubic hair. I hated shaving my upper thighs. It always itched like crazy the next day and got little red marks. Who needed that? In college, I went one year without shaving my legs. That was great. My college boyfriend said hairy legs are sexy. Not that I needed him to give me permission. Well, maybe I did. Because after we broke up, I started shaving my legs again. Anyway, hair just shows we’re animals, right? Why pretend otherwise? Isn’t animalness sexy?
“And,” my mother said, “very important . . .” She strutted across the room in her six-inch stilettos. “The fuck-me pumps.” Coco loves the pumps. “You can tell I’m a stripper,” she said proudly, “because I can dance in these things.” Big deal. Good for her. To me, no man was worth being uncomfortable for. My favorite shoes? Currently, lime green Nikes with orange trim dressed up with purple laces.
I just could not understand why men wanted women to be uncomfortable. Wouldn’t they really show they care by pleading with their dates not to wear those crippling shoes? Here, honey, I want you to wear these moccasins tonight. You’ll feel so much better.
“If you think you’re going to feel embarrassed,” my mother continued, “remember to keep it simple. You don’t really have to do much. Take it slow. And pick out music that makes you feel sexy, not him. You’re the one that’s got to feel it. This is a performance. An act. And—very important—always keep eye contact with him. Keeps him involved. Because men have very short attention spans, and he’s gonna be ready to fuck you long before the dance is over.”
Some of the women giggled with a mixture of amusement and discomfort. The blunt language was part of her act—an act that often spilled over into her “real life.”
“Every once in a while, lick your lips. Don’t do it all exaggerated.” She flicked her tongue like a lizard having an epileptic fit. “Do it like you’re saying Ummmm. Like you’re imagining his cock in your mouth, and how that really turns you on. Believe me, that’ll turn him on.” A pair of gorgeous twins in the front row exchanged amused glances. They had matching skinny model figures, olive skin, and identical dark shoulder-length hair. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were planning on doing a lesbian act for some rich man.
“Very important,” Coco was saying as she touched herself all over, “don’t be afraid to touch yourself. Use your hands to draw attention to your tits, your hips, your pussy . . . As you do a few moves . . . take something off. Do a few more moves, and take something else off . . .”
Even if I did manage to get my body to look as good as hers, I knew I could never be as good a sex object. Because I didn’t have her grace as a dancer. She just had it. And I didn’t. Ever. I couldn’t move like she moved, all smooth and feline and feminine. I didn’t even need to try it to know that those moves—they were not in me. And yes. I was jealous of that. I wished I had it. But I didn’t.
As a matter of fact, I felt like an oaf whenever I felt anyone looking, really looking at my body. Naked? Forget it. Suddenly there were a million things wrong with me, and I just wanted to disappear. Ridiculous, considering I was the daughter of a woman who loved to be naked. Even more ridiculous considering I had a feminist point of view on the whole thing. I’d read my Naomi Wolf. I knew all about how society makes women feel like they should be skinny, perfect, airbrushed ideals, and I knew I should’ve known better than to inflict those impossible standards on myself. But no matter how many small-press books written by angry feminists I read, I still felt like there was something intrinsically wrong with me. And it really pissed me off.
When I was in high school, I thought my modesty problems would go once I moved away to college. I figured I was overwhelme
d by my mother. Too worried that I couldn’t measure up. Everything would work out once I put some distance between us.
I applied to schools as far away from New York as possible. Got into UC Santa Cruz, the University of Michigan, even Reed, where I really wanted to go. Oregon just sounded so wonderfully idyllic. But none of those schools offered me any money. Coco was barely making ends meet. I didn’t want to ask my dad for help. So when SUNY at Binghamton, my total backup school, offered me a full scholarship, I took it. Not as far away as I wanted, but far away enough, I hoped.
“I like to use the fan,” my mom said, taking out a big red feathery fan. “It feels good. Fan yourself. Fan him. Hide your pussy with it. Bend over and put it up behind your ass. Throw it and catch it. Simple stuff you all can do, right?”
I could see the women thinking Yes. I can do that. I’m gonna buy a fan! We got the fans wholesale for fifty cents each and charged seven dollars.
In college, I did have that one really good relationship with the guy who didn’t mind my hairy legs. We dated for a couple years, and it was with him that I had my first non-self-induced orgasm. I wasn’t comfortable getting naked around him, but we had a routine where he’d undress me when we were already in bed, so I managed to skirt the issue. I loved how he would take off each article of clothing as we got more and more aroused.
But we gradually grew away from each other and moved on. Maybe the routine was getting a little stale. A year after moving back to the city, I met Ian. He was dating a friend from high school at the time. He broke up with her and started going out with me. Now she and I weren’t speaking. Sometimes I wished I’d stayed friends with her and dumped him.
Coco got the women to stand up and follow her lead. I observed one chunky woman in a purple T-shirt and gray sweatpants swiveling her hips. From my rearview angle, I could see the flab on her back bulging up out of her bra. Her thighs were flabby, varicose veins sprayed down the back of her knees, and she had cankles. Her hair looked like it was cut by a blender. Why did she think she wanted to do a striptease? There was no way she’d be able to pull it off. I cringed imagining her husband sitting there watching with a fake smile on his face wondering when he could get out of the room to watch Howard Stern.
“Move those hips, ladies! You look like you have rigor mortis!”
On the other hand, I took my hat off to her. That woman wanted to affirm to herself that she was sexy no matter how much she departed from the ideal, no matter how many bikinied twenty-year-olds her husband saw in a typical television-watching day. By god, more power to her. I could learn something from her. Right?
Except . . . she looked ridiculous!
Except . . . she was having fun! They all were!
Maybe I was really just the slowest learner. Taking her class over and over again. Never passing.
Coco would certainly tell me to loosen up. Sometimes she called me a tightass. I hated it when she said that. Who wants your mother calling you a tightass?
Was I a tightass?
I looked at my watch. I wanted to get home. Home to my cozy twin bed and a good night’s sleep.
“Another thing I love are the beads,” Coco went on, taking out a long string of pink plastic pearls, twenty-five cents wholesale, five dollars for our customers. “Just like you can get at the Halloween Store if you want to be a flapper. They come in all sorts of fun colors. And the boa. Very important to have the accessories.” Two dollars wholesale, fourteen dollars for them. She wrapped it around her arms and shoulder and gave everyone her Playboy pinup pose. “It gives you something to work with,” she said, taking it and pulling it through her legs, then snapping it at a woman in the front row. Everyone was mesmerized. It’s no wonder she loved this.
How many of those women actually did go through with doing a striptease for their guys?
“And start out in something sexy, okay? Don’t start in a pair of jeans. Please. And do not, under any circumstances, laugh or giggle while you strip. You’ve gotta make him forget it’s you.”
Forget it’s you? Why? Because you’re not good enough?
“If you laugh and get all self-conscious,” she concluded, “you’ll ruin it.”
After leading the women through a routine, Coco ended the class with a little performance. The women were really curious. Most likely, many of them had never been in a club. This was their first chance to see what got the men so excited.
I put on the Madonna CD. “Open Your Heart.” The song that has the video where she’s working in a peep show. I loved it before I got sick of it from hearing it so many times. Coco got quiet, and very serious, as she did the moves.
Bump. Grind. Undo shirt. Fling it to the side. Squat. Get down on knees. Gyrate hips. Lean all the way back. Open legs. A few pelvis pumps. Bring crotch up. A few more pelvis pumps. Then she was on her stomach doing a little pinup pose with her knee bent, foot up in the air. Submissive. Then on her knees like a dog. Crawl. Lick lips. Roll her head back and forth. Flounce her hair. No one in the room made a sound. Finally, she sat with her legs apart in a wide V and tucked the spandex cups of her black lace bra down under her breasts. They were gigantic, of course. Even though they were done in her twenties, they still looked like new. Her face was full of confidence. Power. Down to business. It was a look that scared me. I know you want me, it said. And the men certainly did want her. Do you dare? There was nothing for me in that look. No room for me.
A woman in the back row whispered to the woman next to her, “How old is she?”
I wanted to tell her my mom was forty-three. I couldn’t help but feel proud of that. With her makeup on, she could easily pass for early thirties.
She finished off with a backward somersault into the splits. Just a final little move to make everyone in the room feel inadequate.
Or was it just me?
I turned off the music. She put her cups back up. “And that, ladies, is the deal. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to do it justice. If you want more detailed instruction, come back for my advanced class. It meets here same time next week. I have fliers . . .”
Everyone applauded.
She put her top back on and gave them her closing spiel. “You have to give ’em what they want or they’re gonna find it somewhere else. With someone like me. Because we’re out there ready for ’em. And if they have money, they’re gonna spend it. And who’d you rather have them spending money on? Us? Or you? You, that’s right! So make it fun!”
Like she was going to solve their relationship problems. Like she’d ever been seriously involved with anyone. Even my father, Ben, had been fleeting. She was a senior in high school. Her one and only marriage. It didn’t last past my first birthday. They never even lived together. Other than a monthly check, the only thing I got out of that was his last name, Levine. Coco was not into monogamy or commitment. To her, marriage was a financial arrangement, nothing more, and since she was perfectly able to support herself, why bother?
Class was ending. The women gathered around her, competing for her attention, asking questions as if she knew the secrets of the universe. Soon enough they would migrate over to check out the stuff on the table. One woman around my age was approaching. She had a pixie haircut, flat chest, good legs.
“That was fun,” she said. I wondered if she had a boyfriend and if she would do a striptease for him that night. Her eyes swept over the vibrators, but I could tell. Even if she was curious, she was too embarrassed to buy one right at that moment. “That Coco. She is so cool.”
I nodded and tried to look pleasant.
She took a pink boa and wrapped it around her neck. “How much?”
“Fourteen dollars.”
She handed me her money. I took it with a smile.
chapter three
w ith six years’ experience working in restaurants, I knew more than most of the others in the new batch of students at the New York School of Culinary Arts. Still. That first day, standing around the butcher-block tables as Jean Paul passed out th
e silly white paper chef hats, I felt like an imposter.
When I began college, I thought I was going to become a lawyer. My father is an estate lawyer and my stepmother used to practice environmental law. I was going to do something intelligent and respectable too. I was determined not to make my mother’s mistakes. I was going to save all the poor women working in the sex industry from being exploited and abused.
I did great in my ethics class and was a whiz at my volunteer job at the Broome County Battered Women’s Hotline. But I could barely stay awake during “Introduction to the Legal Process.” Constitutional law? Dry as flour. I switched to anthropology. Maybe not useful in any practical sense, but at least it wasn’t a struggle to keep my eyes open.
At the time, I was a waitress at a place near campus called JD’s Luncheonette. I liked working where people went to relax and have a good time—just like my mom. Except being nice to abusive people and relying on tips felt like underpaid prostitution. What I really wanted to do was work with the food.
So I asked the owners if they’d ever let me cook. But it was family-owned, three sons divvied up the shifts, they just didn’t need me. A few months later a job opened up at a crepe restaurant in town. The owners, a couple from Ukraine, weren’t comfortable with the fact that I lacked experience and was female. But I’d been there a few times as a customer, and I told them how much I really loved crepes, which was true, and really wanted to learn how to make them. They took a chance.
I loved that job. There was something so satisfying about pouring the batter out on the grill, spreading it out into a beautiful large circle, smelling that wonderful combination of cooking eggs and flour, flipping it at just the right moment of light golden brown, then filling it up with bits of ham, grated cheese, chunks of spinach or sautéed mushrooms. But the very best part was folding it up like a little gift, putting that dollop of sour cream on top with a sprig of parsley. And the dessert crepes were so beautiful! I was really generous with the strawberries and the whipped cream. The grill was out front, so I could actually see peoples’ faces light up when the waitress served their food. Then to see the plate come back scraped clean . . . what could be more satisfying? I was only earning ten dollars an hour, but I was happy.
The Art of Undressing Page 2