Strip

by Catlyn Ladd

  “I can go to the police.” His tears are rapidly being replaced with anger.

  “No, you can’t,” I explain. “You gave a stripper cash money in a strip club. There’s no written contract. Do you even know her real name?”

  “Her name is Valentine,” he says confusedly. “She’s Russian, named after her grandmother.”

  “Her name is not Valentine, I can tell you that with absolute certainty.”

  “Is your name Star?” he asks.

  “Of course not,” I snap. I can’t believe that he’s this naive.

  He glances at Tyler.

  “Nope,” she says.

  “But … what’s your name?” he asks me. “If it’s not Star?”

  “That’s none of your business. We work under pseudonyms so that men like you don’t stalk us after work.” If I’m going to be straight with him I may as well explain the whole deal. He has clearly missed learning the rules of strip clubs.

  “I need to find her,” he says.

  “No,” I say. “If you look for her she can have you arrested for stalking and slap a restraining order on you. What you need to do, what you will do, is walk out of here right now and never come back. You just learned a very expensive lesson. Take it for what it’s worth and leave.”

  He glares at me. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it.” I rise and pull Tyler up with me. “Goodbye, Daniel.” I turn and walk away without a backward glance. As I pass Rodney, one of the bouncers, I tip my head toward the corner where Daniel sits. Rodney pushes himself off the wall he’s leaned against and heads over.

  Chapter Ten

  Skin

  Ebony has skin the color of jet. She is one of the darkest people I have ever seen and she is breathtaking. The only way I can describe her is that her skin glows dark. Strikingly, her eyes are a light brown, golden in the lights flashing on stage. She is full-figured and voluptuous, her body moving in serpentine ripples. In DayGlo colors that catch the black lights, she is unbelievable.

  I watch her from the corner of my eye as I sit at the dressing table and put the finishing touches on my hair. The palate of her makeup is the opposite of mine and I am fascinated. To contour cheekbones I use a darker color. She uses a lighter color. The blush crème she rubs into her cheeks is the color of wine. She uses a bright gold bronzer along the tops of her cheeks and sparkly gold eye shadow.

  At work, Ebony wears a wig of waist-length black. Her natural hair is kinky, standing out in a short halo of tight curls. She covers this with a wig cap and affixes the fake hair, carefully fanning the bangs across her forehead. She’s beautiful both ways and I cannot stop looking at her velvety skin. She is terrifyingly perfect and I’m afraid to speak to her.

  Upon first meeting her I smiled and said, “Ebony? Well, that’s descriptive.”

  Her eyes flashed at me. “Well, it’s not like I’m gonna fool anyone into thinking I’m white.”

  “Um …” I stuttered. “No, I imagine not.” Why would she want to be white? I wondered. I would kill for that skin. I wanted to place my hand against her just to admire the contrast.

  She grinned dismissively and, to my knowledge, never looked at me again.

  It takes me a while to realize that Ebony makes significantly less money than I do. I first become aware of this while eavesdropping on her conversation with another dancer. The two of them compare their nightly take, and Ebony names a dollar amount $60 less than the other (white) girl. I do not initially think anything of it—our nightly earnings vary depending on the clientele and whether or not we had regulars.

  But then I overhear her again several weeks later. “You white girls make all the cash,” she tells another girl.

  Can that be true? I wonder incredulously. So I start paying attention.

  Over the years I worked with a number of black girls and Latina. The black girls make about half of what the white girls make. They have fewer regulars, and those that they do have do not spend as much. The Latina girls make about two-thirds of what the white girls make. Some of them sell themselves as having a more exotic pedigree: Asian, Spanish, even Moorish. They exoticize themselves for American consumption.

  It’s more difficult to get hired as a woman of color. I never saw a white girl get turned down for a stripper position. But I saw black girls get refused for auditions entirely. I once heard a manager say, “Sorry. We already have black girls on both shifts.”

  That semester in college I took Feminist Philosophy. I considered myself a feminist because I believe in equal rights, but the concept of intersectionality had never really occupied my thoughts.

  The class, like most classes on women’s studies or gender, consisted of 14 women and no men. I was surprised by this because the class was taught by a popular professor in the philosophy department. In classes I had taken with her previously, the scale usually tipped slightly in favor of male students. I did not yet realize that men don’t think gender is about them.

  In terms of race, the class was ten white women and four black women. We read Judith Butler and Alison Jaggar and discussed the role of emotion and gender in epistemology. I understood the material, but I began to have a nagging feeling that maybe, by focusing on sexism, we are actually perpetuating it. I think of feminism as a lens and, like any lens, it can teach us to see abuse where there actually isn’t any. I began to wonder if the women in the class were seeing sexism where none existed.

  One day several weeks into the semester, I finally voiced my concern. “I’ve never been discriminated against for being female,” I said. “I don’t think anyone has ever taken me less seriously because I’m a girl.”

  The black woman sitting next to me rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but look at you,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She leaned in closer to me, and to this day I give her credit for not just laughing in my naive face. “You’re white,” she explained patiently. “You look like a Barbie doll. Of course people take you seriously. Or at least act like they do. They’re probably trying to look down your shirt.”

  That moment was the first time that the concept of privilege, and the recognition that I have some, clicked for me. I began to understand intersectionality: the concept that every person is an intersection of privileges and oppressions, and that different social constructs like race and gender identity intersect and influence one another. The fact that I am white decreases (though does not eliminate) the sexism I experience in my life. Women of color are more likely to experience sexism in addition to racism.

  This brings me to Elizabeth.

  I meet Elizabeth in a high-end club in a small, wealthy town in a western state several years later. She comes bouncing into the club one afternoon and asks to audition. In stocking feet she might stand 5 feet 2 inches and she is a big girl: wide thighs, swelling ass, baby-fat tummy, breasts that spill over her tank top. She has a round face and round blue eyes all framed in a shoulder-length mop of frizzy curly hair of a nondescript ash color. She has a wide smile that makes me and the day-shift manager spontaneously smile back. She also has an unmistakable Irish accent.

  Aaron is both tending bar and managing the club. He glances at me and lifts his eyebrows. “Sure!” I say. “I’ll take you back to the dressing room so you can change.”

  I take her backstage and show her where she can leave her clothes. “Have you danced before?” I inquire.

  “No, but I’m here on a student visa and I can’t work a real job. And I’ve always wanted to try it!” Elizabeth strips off her clothes with no hint of modesty and pulls on department store lingerie: lacy bra with matching thong panties, garter belt with stockings, and a sheer nightie that ties across her breasts and just covers her bottom. She straps on sandals with a blocky 3-inch heel.

  Baby heels, I think with a smirk. I wear a custom outfit of crisscrossing black straps and interconnected rings. A black bikini top with silver studs covers my breasts, and the whole ensemble is topped with a floor-length sheer jack
et through which my bare skin glows. In addition, I wear a metal collar with inch-long spikes, and four of my fingers are encased in jointed silver rings that cover the entire finger. Thigh-high patent leather boots with a 5-inch heel complete the look. I wear almost a thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and accessories. I look like I just walked off a movie set.

  Elizabeth is unfazed by me. I am not used to being taken in stride. Everything about my presentation is designed to provoke awe. But she is so friendly and bubbly that I find myself sharing that I go to the same college, that I went to Oxford for a bit during undergrad, and that I have never been to Ireland. When she’s ready I briefly explain stage protocol.

  “You’ll audition on stage one and you can pick your own music. Wait until the second song to take your top off. Don’t touch the customers once your top is off. And make sure to keep your crotch covered. Not even a pubic hair can show.”

  She nods seriously, never taking those blue eyes off me. I take her to the DJ booth and turn her over to the day-shift music guy.

  A few minutes later she takes the stage. There are three customers sitting at the railing. One gets up and leaves but the other two look at her with interest.

  She can’t dance at all but she wriggles and gyrates enthusiastically. A lot of new girls have little body control and less rhythm. Some women never truly learn grace and the fluid movements of stripping. I peg her as one of those.

  She has no fear of the men sitting at stage and kneels in front of them, bumping and grinding with gusto. She says something and they lean toward her, rapt, and she beams her thousand-volt smile.

  Aaron elects to hire her and I work with Elizabeth for nine months, the length of her course in the United States before she returns to Ireland. Unlike Ebony, Elizabeth rakes in the cash. She makes more money than most of the girls in the club, myself included. Her personality shines from her like a beacon, and her hearty laugh and thrilling accent light up the entire club. In appearance she is homely according to social conventions, mousy even. But her confidence level is like nothing I have ever encountered. She loves the club, adores dancing, dotes on people, and appears to have not a single iota of concern for her appearance. Confidence truly is the most beautiful thing.

  Surrounded by women with fake tits, women who starved and bleached, plucked and concealed, Elizabeth radiated honesty and self-esteem. She and Ebony are like bookends in my memory, juxtaposed examples of the complexity of femininity and race in the modern world. Ebony remains one of the most sensual people I have ever seen. Hers was a blistering, overwhelming beauty. Elizabeth was her complete opposite: plain and plump. But she, too, had an overwhelming personality. Ebony taught me that race matters. Elizabeth taught me that looks are not everything. As long as you’re white.

  Chapter Eleven

  Creep Show

  Walking through the door my identity shifts, as it does every night. My walk turns to a seductive saunter, my lips curl up, my chin lowers as my daylight persona transforms into the person I become at night. This transformation has become routine; I hardly notice it anymore. Both aspects are deeply me, rooted in different parts of my personality. Some dancers feel like they must adopt a mask in the club. I never feel that way: I just tap into another part of myself.

  I nod a casual greeting to the doorman, handing him my bag of clothing and makeup case to carry.

  “How you doin’?” he asks, stepping back to allow me to pass.

  “Ask me in an hour,” I reply, leading the way across the floor of the club toward the dressing room, which is up three steps and through a double layer of black curtain. Sometimes the bouncers hide in the foot of space between the curtains, grabbing us as we come by, delighting in their ability to make us squeal.

  I scan the club quickly, looking for familiar faces. It is still too early for things to really be hopping, but one of my regulars likes to show up early, timing his arrival to mine so that he has me all to himself for a couple of hours before I get busy.

  A day-shift girl spins lazily down the pole on stage one, reaching to grab the shirtfront of the lone customer, pulling his face into her breasts. The club is quiet and the only men I recognize are the day-shift barflies, clustered around the bar, one eye on the stage, the rest of their attention on the tall tale spun by Holiday, a biker who has been coming to play pool and drink $5 beers for most of the 20 years the club has been open.

  “I swear that cop was 7 feet tall if he was an inch,” Holiday swore and a line of heads nodded in contemplative agreement, not believing a word but engrossed in the story nonetheless.

  “Anyone looks 7 feet tall to a shortie like you,” I call across the bar, and the row of heads turns toward me: seven pairs of eyes traveling as one down the length of my body. I toss my hair and they all laugh on cue.

  “I may be short,” Holiday retorts, taking a swig of beer. “But I got it where it counts, baby.”

  I laugh back at them. “I bet you do.” Turning, I let them watch me walk across the floor, the doorman trailing with my belongings.

  I claim my spot on the long counter that serves as our dressing table and spin the lock on my combination, opening a locker stuffed with clothing. I quickly pull out micro shorts and matching top. I select a G-string, red to complement the black velvet outfit, from the hoop of underwear hung from a hook in my locker, and lacy socks, black with red bows. Last, I remove my shoes from the pile at the bottom. They are black patent pumps with 5-inch heels and an ankle strap.

  I shuck my day clothes, jeans and a tank top, and complete the transformation. I typically do my hair and makeup at home to give myself a few more minutes of solitude, arriving ten minutes or so before shift change. I fold my normal clothes and place them neatly at the front of my locker. My boots and coat go on a rack between the rows of lockers.

  I powder my nose quickly and apply lipstick. Removing vanilla body spray from my makeup case, I spritz it over my hair and under my arms. Last is jewelry: spiked dog collar, wooden hoops that look like gauges but aren’t, an arm band in the shape of a dragon, and the rings for which I’ve become famous. On the thumb of my right hand is a thick silver band with a single hooked talon. On my ring finger slides a jointed sheath that slips over my wedding ring, hiding it. There’s a matching one for the middle finger of the right hand. And then the most spectacular ring on the forefinger of my left hand: it covers my entire finger from the top joint, hooking out past my fingertip in a claw. It is jointed twice for my knuckles. I like to tap that metal hook on the stage; it’s a great attention getter.

  I look quickly in the mirror, doing a last check for stray hairs, uncovered blemishes, smears. But I am perfect, a cyborg vampire in velvet and leather.

  I hear the call for shift change, and all of us in the dressing room head out to the stages. The day-shift girls take our places in the dressing room.

  I pick the least crowded stage and drop slowly into the splits, stretching languorously, warming up my muscles. Kris waltzes onto stage and drops behind me, stretching herself out in a mirror image.

  “How are you?” I ask her over my shoulder. “How was the party last night?”

  She laughs her husky chuckle. “Well, I didn’t get laid but I got in a fight.”

  I crane my head back to look at her. She’s probably the most naturally beautiful woman I have ever seen, with perfect white skin, almond-shaped hazel eyes, and deep black hair curling to her waist. She’s also intimidatingly heterosexual so I admire her from afar. “Are you being serious?” I inquire.

  “Yep.”

  “A fight?” She is so reserved that I find this hard to imagine. “Did you win?”

  She grins smugly. “I did.”

  “Who did you fight?”

  “Some girl I went to high school with. We didn’t get along then and she started talking smack about me, telling everyone I’m a stripper whore.”

  I can’t imagine anyone less whorish than Kris. “So what did you do?”

  “I punched her in the nose.”
She holds up bruised knuckles as proof.

  “What’d she do?” I ask.

  Kris shoots me her sardonic grin again. “Cried.”

  I laugh out loud, amused by the image of decorous Kris punching someone in the face. It’s so incongruous. “Well, sorry about the not getting laid part.”

  She sits up on her knees and arcs into a slow backbend, stretching her arms out to each side. “I’ve never been in a fight. It was kind of interesting.”

  “I’ve never been in a fight either,” I reply, waggling my fingers at the DJ who stands in the middle of the club writing down our names. He’ll form the set lists that will dictate the order we dance. I hope I’m paired with Kris. The girl on stage one always dictates the music and the two of us like the same stuff, heavy, dark, and melodic. I can dance to pretty much anything but I have my preferences, and my regulars like it when I strip to things that obviously turn me on. The music is a crapshoot, though. Kris and I are similar enough in style to steal customers from one another. It can be better to be up with girls who are entirely different.

  One time an owner tried to tell me that I couldn’t dance to metal anymore because it turned the customers off. I responded by laying three 100-dollar bills on the bar and asking if he wanted me to keep tipping out 10%. I argued that diversity is actually a good thing for a club because it brings in a diverse customer base. He relented.

  The song ends and I swing by the DJ booth to see when I’m up. Three sets, that’s six songs, or about 30 minutes. I scan the club but none of my regulars have shown yet. I’m a bit of an introvert and pick the people I talk to carefully. A lot of strippers make the majority of their money by hustling private dances, but I’ve never been able to just walk up and ask a guy if he wants to drop 20 bucks on a private dance. I make the majority of my money from regular customers with whom I’ve established relationships.

  I spot a familiar face. He’s been in before and tipped well on stage, but I haven’t had the chance to meet him. I stroll over to the table where he sits alone a couple of rows back from stage one. “May I sit with you?”