by Aya De León
* * *
That evening, Lily walked in early to the One-Eyed King. The humidity was nearly 100 percent, and these were the months that Lily gave up the pressing comb for a weatherproof weave. She was wishing she could cut her hair and wear it natural. Then she could wear wigs on stage and be herself the rest of the time. But the wigs often looked tacky if she threw her head back when doing pole work, not to mention that once her wig had nearly fallen off. And natural hair was out of the question on stage. Black strippers already made less in tips. In the place she danced, wearing short, kinky hair was like asking for an 80 percent pay cut. So much bullshit on this job just trying to make a living. She came early that night because she was sure no one would be there to sign her in. She knew management would be beyond pissed. But they wouldn’t have had time to replace all the dancers, and they certainly weren’t gonna lose any more money by being closed for a night. This was when she needed to be extra careful. They would use any excuse to fire her.
As she was waiting to sign in, Hibiscus strolled up—the Trinidadian girl who refused to leave during the walkout. A security guy came out and handed Hibiscus the sign-in sheet.
Lily tried to sign after Hibiscus was done, but the guard took the list. “You can’t sign in,” the security guy said to Lily with a smirk.
“At least now you admit you’re keeping me from signing in to my job,” she said, and sucked her teeth.
“You can’t sign in because you’re fired,” the guy said.
“See?” Hibiscus said. “I told you keep your mouth shut. Not everybody so high and mighty they can afford to lose this job.”
“Fired for what?” Lily asked.
“Insubordination,” he said. “Walking off the job. Disturbing the peace. You name it.”
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Lily said. “I need to see the manager.”
She pushed past the other girl and strode toward the office. The security guard yelled after her: “And don’t even bother going to the clubs in the boroughs, because you’re banned from the whole chain.”
As his voice followed her down the hall, she made a detour into the dressing room and dug under the pile of towels to retrieve her shoes.
“This is bullshit,” she said, as she stormed into the office.
But instead of the owner, there was a young man sitting at the desk. The same guy who’d tried to drag the blonde into the VIP room.
“What’s bullshit?” he asked with a leer. The security guard filled the doorway behind her.
“Nothing,” she said, and backed out of the office, pushing past the guard and striding quickly out onto the street.
She nearly bumped into two other girls coming to work.
“I got fired,” Lily said. “For last night.”
“Hell no,” one of the girls said. “They can’t single you out.”
But it turned out they hadn’t. One by one, the girls who had walked out all found out that they’d been fired. Except the blonde from Guadeloupe, who was invited—at the special request of the young man who had tried to pull her into the VIP room—to keep her job. She declined.
The knot of dancers stood on the sidewalk outside the club.
Early evening traffic went by, and a double-decker bus of tourists gawked at them.
“This is fucking scandalous,” the brown-skinned Latina Giselle said. “When we were on Broadway—”
“Give me a goddamn break,” said a young woman who was smoking a cigarette. “I’m so sick of hearing about how good you had it on Broadway. Well, you ain’t on fucking Broadway now. You ain’t even at the fucking One-Eyed King anymore.”
“Will you just let me finish my fucking sentence?” Giselle said. “When we were on Broadway, we had a union, and the management couldn’t pull any of this kind of shit. Not the dressing rooms, not the harassment, not firing us.”
“Then we need to form a union,” Lily agreed.
“A union?” one of the younger girls asked. “What strippers do you know that are in a union? That’s for the nurses who keep their uniforms on.”
“I know some dancers who sued their club,” Lily said. “It was a class action suit for wage theft. They all got paid.”
“Yeah, but like three years later,” the girl with the cigarette said. “My bills are due now. Not in three years.”
“Some girls did form a union,” said one of the other dancers who had been in the Broadway show. “In San Francisco. I saw a movie about it.”
The smoker took a last drag on her cigarette. “This ain’t San Francisco. This is dog-eat-dog New York,” she said. “People leave their heart in San Francisco. You leave your heart in New York, some motherfucker will snatch it up and sell it. Fuck that.” She flicked her cigarette butt into the street and hailed a cab.
“Well, I’d like to be in a union again,” the young girl from Broadway said.
“I don’t have time for this,” one of the other girls said. “I’ll see if I can pick up a shift at Vixela’s. I gotta pay my babysitter for the week, so I need to make money tonight. I can’t get involved in some union drama.”
“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Lily said. “Not if we work together.”
“Yeah,” Giselle agreed. “Do what you gotta do tonight while those of us with free time start work on a union.”
“Count me out,” one girl said. “I just got my certification to teach pole dancing.”
“What?” Lily asked. “Those bitches wanna steal our stripper style, but then be like ‘whaaaat?’” She batted her wide eyes and let her mouth fall into a slack circle. “ ‘Strippers? We’ve never even heard of strippers.’”
“I’m done,” the girl said. “In pole dancing, we don’t need a fucking union because nobody’s trying to assault us on the job or pressure us into giving blow jobs in a VIP room.” She stormed off down the street.
“Yeah?” Lily yelled after her. “That’s because you all play the good girls and leave the dirty work to us.”
“Lily,” Giselle pulled her arm. “Let her go. Let’s focus on strategizing with the people who support us.”
The women agreed. Some knew girls who worked at other clubs in the chain.
“Who’s got connections with the club in the Bronx? Who’s got Brooklyn? Queens?”
“What about Staten Island?” one girl asked.
“They have a location on Staten Island?”
“Don’t talk shit about Staten Island,” she said. “That’s the club where I started.”
“Okay,” Giselle said. “All five boroughs. But for now, it’s strictly word of mouth. We can’t let the management know we’re trying to unionize, okay?”
All of them agreed. And then Lily made sure she had everyone’s phone numbers to stay in touch.
Three of the girls headed over to Vixela’s.
“Is it true you can’t make any money there unless you do VIP?” one asked.
“Yeah,” said the one with the babysitter. “Don’t even waste your time if you just wanna dance.”
* * *
The next day, Tyesha had a stack of paperwork to handle in her office. It had been Marisol’s office originally. Her predecessor had it done up in designer leather furniture, wood paneled walls, and a massive wooden desk. Southern exposure brought warm indirect light into the room and sustained several plants. The office manager had to water them. Tyesha always forgot.
Throughout the day, she kept pulling up the draft of her text to Thug Woofer. Every time she went to send it, her heart beat hard. What if he was already serious with someone else? It had been several months since his album dropped. The most disconcerting part was when her mind wandered off into recalling their one kiss. Maybe because there hadn’t been any sex, it had just left her hungry, curious, yearning.
She sat in her office with her finger hovering over the send button. Her mind played tug-of-war with itself. What if she would make a fool of herself by texting him? But she had promised Deza. Yet if this Mr. Nice Guy shit was
all an act, then she didn’t want to fall for it. But that kiss. Could she really live without knowing what might follow a kiss like that?
Her body buzzed with a yearning curiosity. Just then her phone flashed an incoming call. It was the stockbroker. He’d been calling all week.
“Tyesha,” he said. “Hey, where’ve you been?”
“Busy,” she said. “Can you come over tonight?”
“Tonight? Yeah, I—sure—”
“Good,” she said. “Wear a kilt with no underwear. And don’t bother with any small talk. Just be down to fuck.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I don’t have a kilt.”
“I’m sure you can get one by nine tonight,” she said. “This is New York City, not Indiana. Isn’t that where you’re from?”
“Ohio,” he said.
* * *
The stockbroker showed up at nine fifteen. His kilt was in shades of blue, green, and black.
Tyesha knew it was petty and probably unfair. Since she stopped doing sex work, she was ready for the guys she dated to be the ones to make an effort. She hadn’t waxed since she left the business, and it made her feel overgrown and feral.
“Look,” the stockbroker said. “As you can see, I got what you asked. But I need to tell you, as I was walking up here, I asked myself ‘what am I doing?’ I’m not this desperate. Really, I’m not. You’re a sexy woman. But I want more than to be someone’s boy toy.”
Tyesha tilted her head. She had to repress the awwwww that threatened to escape her mouth. He was so cute when he got feisty. She liked a guy who wouldn’t let himself be played with, even if she also liked playing.
“I respect that,” Tyesha said. “In fact, it’s kind of sexy. But I definitely can’t offer you more than boy toy status.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” he said, and turned to leave.
“Don’t rush off,” she said. “Can’t we have some good-bye sex?”
His face brightened. “Definitely,” he said, with a laugh. “I’d hate to think I bought a damn kilt and stood on the subway freezing my balls off for nothing.”
“Hmmm,” Tyesha said, reaching underneath the pleats. “They don’t seem cold to me.”
* * *
Around the same time, Lily was walking up from the subway to the One-Eyed King in the Bronx. It was a two-story brick building, but it looked particularly low-slung, as it was located around the corner from a towering hospital. Lily approached the club’s staff entrance, as she had always done when she picked up shifts there.
“ID please,” the security guard demanded.
“ID?” Lily asked. “I never been asked for ID before.”
“Fine,” the guard said. “Tell me your name, and I can find you on the employee list.” He lifted a clipboard with names and headshots.
“Never mind,” Lily said, and strode around to the front entrance.
“ID please,” the woman at the customer entrance asked, barely looking at her.
Lily handed it over and the girl looked up, eyes wide.
“Lily, you can’t be here,” she whispered.
“Why not?” Lily asked. “I’m not coming in as an employee. Just a member of the public. To a public place.”
“They got your picture on the wall here,” the girl said. “You’re on the no-fly list. I have orders not to let you in.”
“Okay,” Lily said. “Will you give these to the girls, then?” She handed over a stack of flyers the size of business cards.
“I don’t want to lose my job,” the girl said.
“Neither did I,” Lily said. “Just leave them in the dressing room. No one needs to know it was you.”
“Okay,” the girl said, taking the flyers. “I saw that video. To hell with these guys.”
* * *
Two hours later, at the One-Eyed King in Brooklyn, one of the dancers had to pee. Badly. Since the managers had consolidated the dressing rooms to make another VIP lounge, there was only one bathroom for all the girls in the dressing room. Two stalls, and one of the toilets was broken.
It would have been fine if she did something else for a living, but for the next hour, she’d be dropping into wide-legged squats. It wouldn’t do to piss herself on stage.
“Hurry up!” she said, banging on the stall door.
“I just started my period,” the girl inside said. “I gotta dam up the river before I go on.”
And I got my own waterfall to worry about, the full-bladder girl thought.
She stood at the stall door for a moment. It was covered with stickers that represented various music albums, indie bands, political slogans, and sex industry-related websites, both for customers and professionals. One said: “I’m ready for my sex vacation!” It listed sex worker burnout prevention tips. As she leaned forward to see the fine print of the website, she felt a stab in her bladder.
Fuck it. The management didn’t like them using the front office restroom, but it was better than pissing on the customers.
She threw on her dress and slipped into the office restroom.
After she relieved herself, she stepped out of the stall to find a tall black woman.
“You work here, right?” the woman asked in a West Indian accent.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I know we’re not supposed to use this bathroom, but—”
“It’s okay,” the woman said. “I’m not management. I’m Lily, one of the girls who got fired from the Manhattan club. We’re starting a union. Would you be interested?”
“Fuck, yeah,” the girl said, taking a few small flyers and giving Lily her phone number.
When Lily walked out of the restroom, a security guard was waiting for her.
“I have orders to escort you out of the building,” he said.
“Why?” Lily asked. “I’m just here to watch women dance and jerk off like everyone else.”
“Am I escorting you out or throwing you out?” he asked without any humor.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m leaving.”
As they passed by the girl at the door, he growled. “Please refund this bitch’s money. She’s not allowed in.”
“I didn’t pay to get in this place,” Lily said. “It’s a weeknight. Women get in free.”
Book 2
Chapter 5
Tyesha and Kim stepped off the subway and strode down the street to the One-Eyed King in Manhattan.
“Damn!” a young man said as he walked past them. “You got a nice ass on you, girl.”
“Thank you, baby,” Kim yelled back, and she and Tyesha laughed. Kim’s ass wasn’t exactly flat, but it was like a dime to Tyesha’s silver dollar.
“Wait,” the guy said. “I wasn’t—”
The two girls kept walking and weren’t bothered to hear the rest of it.
Inside the One-Eyed King, they claimed to be looking for work and gave their names as Keisha and Sue. Keisha had a long blond weave, blue false eyelashes, and silver lipstick. Sue wore black lipstick and several face piercings.
It was the day after Lily and the union girls had done the flyer drops at the other strip club locations, but Tyesha was convinced that their best next step was to try to get some dirt on the owners. They both wore body cameras.
“It’s a miracle they didn’t recognize you from the press conference,” Kim said. She wore her camera in a jewel in her belly button.
Tyesha arranged the body cam among the oversized rhinestones in her bustier. “It’s the one good thing that came from me being unable to speak,” she said. “I wasn’t in most of the news clips, so they haven’t seen my face.”
For the next three hours, they just danced for mediocre tips. Kim gave a couple of lap dances. Both of them turned down VIP invitations, but several of the other girls didn’t.
In between dance sets, Tyesha went to talk to the manager. As she walked down the hallway, she turned on her camera and called Kim on her phone. “How does it look?” she asked Kim.
In the bathroom stall, Kim watched Tyesha
’s video image from her smart phone.
“Tilt your chest up a little,” Kim said. “I won’t be able to see the manager’s face.”
“I don’t want him to think I’m trying to hit on him,” Tyesha said.
“He sees hot girls all day,” Kim said. “I doubt he’ll be bothered. Tits up.”
Tyesha threw her shoulders back and pressed her chest upward.
“Better,” Kim said.
* * *
Tyesha caught the manager on his way out of the office. “So how does VIP work?” she asked. “If I go in, how much do I get?”
The manager shrugged. “Whatever happens between consenting adults is whatever happens.”
Tyesha scoffed. “Fine, what’s the room rental fee or whatever? I mean, who do I give a cut to?”
“There’s no cut,” the manager said. “Like I told you. The VIP room is optional—if you take a liking to a customer, you can like him in private.”
* * *
In the cab on the way home, Kim and Tyesha counted their money. Mostly singles. Less than two hundred dollars after they paid all of their fees.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Kim asked.
“No way,” Tyesha said. “They must have some kind of system. But obviously, they’re not gonna tell the two new girls from off the street.”
“Right,” Kim said. “Especially not after a viral video and a press conference.”
“So we can’t get any evidence that they’re pimping,” Tyesha said.
Kim nodded. “Maybe if one of us hid in the VIP, we could manage to document that they’re running a brothel.”
Tyesha shook her head. “The clinic’s position is for the decriminalization of sex work between consenting adults. We can’t be part of prosecuting someone for it. That’d be too whorephobic.”
“So what do we do?” Kim asked.
“Take this to the team and we’ll figure out the next steps.”
* * *
The following day, Tyesha and Lily sat around the conference table with Eva Feldman, the Maria de la Vega clinical director, who was also an attorney.