The Art of Undressing

by Stephanie Lehmann

  “But didn’t you disapprove?” Coco was working at the Classy Lady, right around the corner. I passed her club on my way to school every morning. I’d never been inside. Never seen her at work since that one time I went when I was seven. Coco had invited me to come—figured I might as well know firsthand what everyone else was going to condemn her for, and anyway, she wasn’t ashamed. I’d refused. I preferred to cloak her activities in my “glamorous” childhood memory of the Platinum Club. But now it bothered me that this guy in my class knew more about what went on than I did. Was it really cool? Or did he have to act like it was to prove he was cool. I was going to have to see it for myself. But still, the idea of going in there made me queasy.

  “You think she cared what I thought? Your mother did what she wanted, and to tell you the truth, even though I was never for it—secretly, I was always a little bit in awe of her.”

  “Really?” I sprinkled more Parmesan on my pasta.

  “I always wondered how she could dance around naked like that.”

  “You were a nude model, though, when you met Grandpa.” He was an art student at Cooper Union. She did poses in his life drawing class. He asked her out after what must’ve been a pretty inspiring session. They got married and were pretty happy together as far as I knew. He worked in an ad agency for awhile as a graphic designer. She got pregnant. He got drafted. Wasn’t in Vietnam for a month even, before she got the news he’d been killed in a helicopter accident.

  “You know why I modeled? Because I was very self-conscious, and I wanted to get over it.”

  “Come on. If you were able to do it, you couldn’t have been all that modest.” I was modest. I wouldn’t have been caught dead.

  “I was! It was a personal challenge for me. Coco? She never even liked wearing diapers. Pulled them down every chance she got . . .”

  I smiled. That seemed so just like her.

  “And,” Grandma added, “she always loved to dance.”

  I knew Coco had taken ballet as a kid. Tap. Ballroom. “So why didn’t she try to do musicals, like on Broadway? Why strip clubs?”

  “Let me tell you. At nineteen, she was already making twice as much as I did, maybe more. She was socking it away. Sometimes I wonder about my own career choice more than hers.”

  Grandma was a public school teacher. How could they allow a teacher to make less than a stripper? Disgusting. But I was impressed. Coco made more than Grandma.

  When I was about ten, Coco had been laid off by the Platinum Club. They liked their girls to be in their early twenties. She worked for awhile at a place on the East Side, then ended up around the corner at the Classy Lady. It was a step down, but at her age, jobs were harder to get. And at fourteen, it was harder for me to “get” her job.

  “So what do you want to make tonight?” Grandma asked as she cleared away our plates.

  “I feel like dirt. How do you feel?”

  “I feel like dirt too.”

  That was our routine for making dirt cake. It was something you could throw together quickly. While she finished cleaning up dinner, I ran down to the grocery on the corner to get the ingredients we were missing—Oreos, whipping cream, chocolate pudding.

  After we’d put it in the oven, the phone rang. One of my friends from school.

  “Everyone’s meeting up at Columbus Circle. You wanna come?”

  That was the year we all started spending our nights basically cruising the sidewalks. I loved growing up in the city. It was a huge, amazing playground to hang out, go to movies, eat at restaurants, walk around aimlessly, and be endlessly entertained. But Saturday nights had always been reserved for Grandma. I’d started wishing I had it free, but I couldn’t get myself to bring it up with her.

  “I don’t think I can make it.”

  After I hung up, Grandma asked who it was.

  “You know. The crowd. They’re just hanging out.”

  “You should go if you want to.”

  A powerful chocolate smell emanated from the oven. “But we haven’t had dessert yet.”

  “Why should you wait around for that? It’ll be here when you get back. Go!”

  “Are you sure?” It broke my heart. The idea of her sitting on the couch. Watching The Golden Girls. Eating dirt cake. Alone.

  “I’ll be fine. Go!” She paused from wiping down the table and looked at me. “I think you’re right. You should see what your mother does firsthand. Ask her to take you one of these nights.”

  “But I’m not really sure I want to.”

  Grandma shrugged. “The worst thing that will happen? You’ll know the truth.”

  A few days later, Coco and I were at the grocery store doing the weekly shopping. I told her I wanted to come to the Classy Lady.

  “I was wondering when you’d finally take an interest in my work,” she teased with a fake offended tone.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not gonna follow in your footsteps.”

  “A mother can always dream.”

  The Classy Lady occupied a basement on Broadway and Forty-seventh Street. I’d passed by many times, avoiding the guy handing out flyers advertising a discount for “gentlemen” arriving before nine. We walked the two blocks to the club, past the corner with the Korean grocery’s display of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. I tried to reassure myself that this didn’t have to be a big deal. I’d seen Coco dance often enough at home, at parties. I’d seen her give lap dances to friends who refused to set foot in a club but wanted to know what one was. I’d seen her in every gradation of undressed. So why was I shaking as I went down those red-carpeted stairs behind her? Why was my stomach churning as if a woman’s hips were gyrating inside my rib cage?

  I tried to appear nonchalant as I stood next to her at the bottom of the stairs and we faced Jer, the manager. Theoretically, the age minimum for the club was twenty-one. Coco had been sure that getting me in wasn’t going to be a problem, especially on a weeknight when things were much quieter. “Hell, some of the dancers are younger than you are,” she’d told me when I expressed my reservations.

  She explained to Jer that I just wanted to hang out back in the dressing room. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  The burly middle-aged guy looked me over from behind his podium. I had tried to dress up (for me) and look older (for me) and so was wearing black sneakers, a pair of red cotton capris, and a black denim jacket that belonged to my mom. In my imagination, the real reason he shouldn’t have let me in was because I’d be so disapproving of the goings-on—not because of my tender age. So I angelically projected goodwill to him. I’m open. I do not judge. I accept.

  “Just make sure,” he said in his thick Queens accent, “she’s not out on the floor.”

  “Of course, Jer, what d’ya think? She’s gonna write a report on it for school?”

  I actually did have a gigantic report on religion in Japan due in two days. Should’ve been home working on that. And some algebra. And a lab. Oh, well. Jer grunted us in. And so I was allowed to cross the threshold into the world I was not supposed to enter. The world that was all set up for them—the men. I was now penetrating the zone. I felt like a spy who was in danger of being assassinated if the enemy found out my true mission. Because I would’ve liked to write a report on it for school (smile innocently for the bouncer who stood by the inner door), a scathing report, in which I criticized every aspect of this pitiful business and portrayed you, Jer, and all the men who make money off the “girls” to be scumbags (convey complete acceptance while Coco says “Hiya” to the friendly bartender) and nod (with good cheer) to the “girls” who sat in stretchy evening gowns (reminding me of when I was little and went to the Platinum Club). A Bee Gees song played over the sound system. We made a sharp left into the bathroom.

  Yes. The women’s bathroom. That was the “dressing room.” The Classy Lady couldn’t even provide a real dressing room for its dancers! I’d once told Coco to complain, but she said it didn’t matter. The point was to be on the floor, maki
ng money, not gossiping with the girls. She’d heard all the gossip before. This was all getting old. Her real concern was figuring out what she was going to do after she retired.

  Coco applied her makeup, and I settled in, perfectly happy to observe the scene, even though it was pretty dingy. It was a fluorescent-lit, gray-tiled bathroom with two beige metal stalls (but only one had a door that latched) and a crapload of makeup on the counter. There was the constant commotion of women in various states of undress running in and out to redo their lipstick, complain about their boyfriends, and catch up on each other’s news. This all felt familiar. She had friends from work over all the time. It was fun and cozy back here with the “girls.” “Out there” was what made me nervous.

  And what I needed to see.

  I wanted to hate those men out there.

  But. I also wanted those men to show me I didn’t need to hate them. They were simply enjoying the bodies. Feeling turned on. That didn’t have to be a bad thing. After all, the old argument went, who was really doing the exploiting? The men used the women by paying for them with cash. The women used the men by pretending to be interested so they could get the cash. Sex for cash. Cash for sex. That was fair. As long as everyone was on the same page. As long as no one got confused that this had anything to do with feeling something.

  But was that possible? Could people really be sexual with each other and not feel? People were always saying that men needed more sex than women. They have to “spread” their seed and all that. But didn’t the men feel something for the women? Didn’t the women feel something for the men? I couldn’t spend half a second not feeling something about every damn person I came across. Cabdrivers, cashiers, waitresses. So how could these people manage to avoid feeling something for each other?

  “I am so horny!” a blond girl with exceptionally pale skin exclaimed as she sailed into the stall with the broken latch and plonked herself on the toilet to pee. “I really need a good fuck.” She wiped her totally shaved crotch with a complete lack of inhibition. I wondered if she was horny because of what she was doing, or despite what she was doing. These women did like being looked at. And the men liked looking. So in that sense, the Classy Lady was providing a service. This was harmonious, like any design of nature. And it was, generally, a jovial scene back in the dressing room, full of cheerful complaining. And it was particularly entertaining when the occasional female patron came in to go to the bathroom and realized she was also “backstage.” I couldn’t help but wonder, if the men had to use this bathroom too, would it get in the way of their fantasies about these women, or just enhance them?

  “So did you hear about Trista over at Scores?” a short blonde asked as she applied pink lipstick.

  “No, what?”

  “She was out there doing her thing when one of her bags popped.”

  “You’re kidding! Right there onstage?”

  “In front of everyone! And you know what? She was on the floor in a heap. They carried her off. Everything went on as usual. No one had any idea.”

  “Fuck.”

  “She’ll be okay, though. Happens sometimes.”

  The blonde checked out her own boobs for a second. Nope. They were fine.

  After awhile, the air in the bathroom was making my head feel thick and the constant chatter was ringing in my ears. I edged out the door and stationed myself in front of the bathroom ready to duck inside if anyone noticed me. It was crowded out there now and business was humming. The décor. It reminded me of a roller rink in Jersey. Formica fake-wood tables. Brass banisters that hadn’t been polished in years. Colored spinning lights. Pumping music, most of which seemed to be from the seventies. A DJ constantly urged men to visit the VIP room with one of the “foxy ladies.” A stupid disco ball even hung from the ceiling.

  Of course, the central focus of attention was the platform extending out into the middle of the room, where the dancers showed their stuff. Wooden chairs lined the edge. Small tables and chairs filled up the rest of the floor. And then in the back, in the shadows . . . well . . . I didn’t really want to look back there. But I did. But I didn’t. My eyes turned to the relative safety of the stage.

  I’d thought each of the strippers would have a chance to go up and perform on her own. A five-minute showcase featuring each woman’s individual talents. But that’s not how it worked here. There were a bunch of them up on the long runway-like stage all at the same time. Right then, my mother was one of them. She was better than the others. I could see that immediately, and it had nothing to do with daughterly pride. She was so obviously a real dancer, with real striptease moves, and you wanted to watch her. In the dim lights, all the clues that would reveal her age were washed out, and she looked beautiful as ever.

  Lucky thing the lights were down low, or the customers would see what I was seeing, because I wasn’t being taken in by all this. How cheap the furniture was, how old and faded the carpet was, how thin this façade of “pleasure palace” really was. So heartbreaking, really, to see that this was what grown men thought up to give themselves; this made their lives seem more thrilling. It reminded me of how a kid at a country fair sees only the pink cotton candy and stuffed animal prizes, not the alcoholic barker one step away from being homeless.

  The other dancers just seemed to want to expend as little energy as possible, barely moving their hips as they stood in one place and, every once in a while, shedding a piece of clothing until they were left only in G-strings and high heels. But Coco was doing a real striptease. And she had her following. Men sat at the edge of the stage with eyes only for her, sticking bills into her garter, laughing, having a good time. Who was I to disapprove? Did I not want them to have a good time? She peeled off a long white glove and threw it to the side. The men cheered her on.

  No, I didn’t.

  She peeled off another glove. The men cheered some more. She smiled down at them. Basked in their gaze. Jealous feelings crowded out my goodwill. Their good time was at my expense. Her smile was for them, not for me.

  Get over it, I told myself, as I pulled my eyes away. Get over it! I wasn’t a little kid. I didn’t need her attention. Let the men enjoy her. Let her enjoy the men. She was still Coco. She was still my mom. She still loved me. It could all coexist. Get over it.

  I tried to distract myself. At one of the tables, I saw a girl I recognized from the bathroom; her name was Amber. She was one of those pretty blond cheerleading types, and she was sitting with a very fat man with very fat lips—a man no woman would be predisposed to have sex with. Amber was in a gold spandex strapless gown, and he had his arm possessively draped over her bare shoulder, and I saw, the way he looked at her, it was like he wanted to devour her. Out in the “real world,” Amber would never spend two seconds on him, but he could just walk in here and buy her company. No wonder this was a booming business. Just walk in off the street and, just like you bought that hot dog from the guy with a cart on the corner, buy a woman. I’d always known this in the abstract. But to see it playing out before my eyes, it just seemed really profound.

  I turned my eyes back to the stage. Coco was stepping out of her dress. She was down to her G-string and heels. I told myself I could be brave enough to see this. It would not have to upset me. I could overcome all these mixed emotions, get a handle on it, contain it, not take it as some kind of personal affront.

  Now that she was almost naked, it was time for her to hustle lap dances.

  Lap dances. Coco said lap dances were what ruined the stripping profession. They caught on in the early eighties, around the same time strippers all started to get breast implants. Connection?

  Before lap dancing, strippers were untouchable beings who looked down on the audience from a stage. The men were like privileged guests in the presence of an unattainable woman. Now the dancers had to go down to the floor and not only mingle with the guys, but hustle dances. It made the work much more stressful. Lots of people don’t even realize dancers have to pay a fee for the privilege of doing
a shift, then share their cut with the owners. If they don’t keep hustling the lap dances, they don’t make the good money.

  The Platinum Club had very strict rules. Even during the lap dances, the men weren’t supposed to touch the dancers; they were only allowed to look at that butt wagging three inches from their face. If those hands tried to cop a feel, they could get bounced immediately. The Classy Lady had lower standards. Admittedly, that’s one of the reasons they were willing to hire my mom when she was on the wrong side of thirty-five. They allowed the men to touch the women when they danced.

  I never understood how she could stand it. Coco claimed that the constant rejection was even worse than the touching. I couldn’t imagine being turned down a hundred times a night. It sounded like being at a friggin’ school dance every night of the week.

  I saw her approach a man. He could’ve been any man, with gray thinning hair and a nice, kind-looking face—the kind of guy you’d want to be your grandfather. He wore white slacks and a plaid shirt and a white jacket. Nothing fancy. Maybe he was someone’s husband. Maybe not. He seemed lonely. Until she came up to him. His face woke up with a smile. Did he know her? Was he a regular? I saw her hands run down his back as she whispered into his ear. He stood up and followed her to that dim area in the back, where a banquette was up against the wall in the shadows. I saw him sit. I saw my mother position herself between his legs. And she began.

  I watched with a mixture of horror and amazement, worried that Jer would find me standing there and send me back to the bathroom, half wanting him to, half not. The man was like a lizard in the sun having his belly stroked. Transfixed by the sight before him. I was mesmerized too. Even though I knew I should look away. I couldn’t. I ate the scene up with my eyes. She rubbed against his inner thighs. Leaned against his crotch. Let her breasts hang in front of his face, always keeping a bit of a smile on her face, as if this was bringing her pleasure too, only letting the boredom show when her back was to him and her ass was in his face. Then she could look around the room. Yawn. Stare at the ceiling.