by Dee Simon
“Look, I’ll give you twenty dollars if you piss for me. Please.”
“Zoe, it skeeves me out knowing that a man is drinking my urine. I’m sorry.”
“I think it’s fucking funny,” she said, giggling. “I just had to sit there for two hours and listen to Chad tell me how his wife makes him wear a strap-on and fuck her because he can’t keep his dick hard.”
“Damn, no wonder that guy is so fucked up.”
“He kept making me call him an impotent piece of shit and slap him in the face.”
“I’m sure you enjoyed that.”
“I did, actually. Check out what he bought me.” She reached into her purse and pulled out two tampons. “Other girls get jewelry. I get fucking tampons.”
“Well, it’s a very utilitarian gift.”
“Yeah, just what I needed. Tampons. He said he wants me to use them next time I’m having my period and save them for him. He said he’d pay me $200 per used tampon.”
“That’s not bad. And what does he plan to do with them?”
“He said he wants me to slap him in the face with it and then jam it in his mouth.” Zoe frowned and shook her head as she crushed her cigarette in the ashtray.
“That guy is a freak of nature. I can’t believe he’s married.”
“And he has two teenage kids.” She held up the empty champagne glass and pointed it at me. “So, are you going to piss for me or what?”
“As long as you hold the glass for me.”
“Fine,” she said with a shrug. I locked the door to the DJ booth, unzipped my pants, and shoved the head of my cock in the glass. Within twenty seconds, it was filled with warm yellow urine. “You need to drink more water.” Zoe smiled and held the piss-filled glass up in the air. “To health and happiness!” she chimed and handed me a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. “And thank you for your services. Now, to watch Chad sip on your piss while I tell him how much of a limp dick piece of shit he is.”
“Anytime, darling.” I unlocked the door and held it open as Zoe sauntered by carefully gripping the champagne glass to prevent any spillage.
When discussing strip club patrons, it’s essential to distinguish between normal customers and regular customers. The former typically visit strip clubs in groups and usually for an event such as a bachelor party, birthday, or company outing. They range from frat boys and military men to businessmen showing their visiting clients a good time. Their motivation is to have a good night out on the town, tip the girls onstage, get a few lap dances, have a few drinks, and then leave. They do not visit a strip club to engender a personal relationship with the girls who work there. And that is the principal difference between normal customers and regular customers. Regulars frequent a strip club several times a week and almost always by themselves. They schedule their visits in advance with the dancer and usually show up at the same time each week. I’d recognize a lot of regulars during day shifts because the club was less crowded and it was easier for the dancers to spend more time with them. At the Ruby, the dancers would spend at least three hours with their regular customers, and the visit would encompass a meal and VIP-area lap dances. Not only would they make $1,000 from the visit, they often received expensive gifts, such as jewelry, lingerie, and cellphones. Depending on the duration and intensity of the relationship, some regulars went so far as pay a dancer’s monthly rent, buy them new cars, and finance their breast implants and other forms of cosmetic surgery. But despite all the gifts and money, their relationship with the dancer rarely developed into one of a sexual nature. What they have is a sexless relationship based solely on commodity, which is exactly what most regulars desire. A lot of these men are married with families, and the fantasy of an extramarital affair is more exciting and convenient than actually having one. This way they have a faux relationship with a beautiful woman who would never look at them twice outside the club. If sexual gratification was their goal, they could easily afford to purchase an escort for the night; but what motivates the regular is the interactive fantasy of this faux relationship. They willingly suspend their disbelief, and for a few hours each week, they have the undivided attention of a beautiful, exotic dancer who acts like she’s sexually interested and enjoys spending time with them. This type of regular tends to be an older gentleman who might have a dying spouse or is recently widowed, and the dancer he visits reminds him of his youth or provides him with an opportunity to escape from his problems. I’ve heard more than one dancer comment that it’s extremely creepy when their regular shows them a picture of his deceased wife in her early twenties and then tells the poor girl how much she resembles the dead woman. I worked with one girl who had a regular that would bring his deceased wife’s bathing suits and beg her to model them. Initially, she flat out refused, but eventually he offered her enough money that she complied regardless of how disquieting the experience.
But there are several other less innocuous types of regulars who frequent strip clubs. I’ve always been fond of the fetishists. Chad the Piss Guy fit perfectly within this category. It would be difficult for Chad to walk into a normal bar and find a girl who would be willing to sit with him for several hours while he complained about his impotence and begged her to let him drink her urine. Whereas, at the strip club, as long as there’s money involved, there’s no judgment. For $500, almost any girl I worked with would scream invectives at Chad while he drank their urine. There were quite a few dancers who worked as professional dominatrixes, and they preferred the fetishist regulars. I knew a 6’2” Amazonian dancer named Blondie who operated her own dungeon in South San Francisco but still worked at the clubs to earn extra money. She had a regular who would visit her once a week who enjoyed having her shove her used panties in his mouth while kneeing him in the testicles as hard as she could. Blondie confessed that she found his visits to be cathartic, but I never asked her to explain. I learned from experience that it’s best to avoid asking the reason these girls work in the industry. But regardless of the amount of compensation, it takes a thick skin and a high measure of tolerance to deal with the fetishists. I once worked with a seasoned stripper and prostitute named Violet who had been working at brothels and strip clubs across the country since she was in her late teens. She was in her early thirties when I worked with her at the Doll House, and looking at her face in daylight, it was obvious that her lifestyle had taken its toll on her appearance. Violet had some incredible, cringe-inducing stories, and she rarely seemed unhinged by any of the odd characters she serviced, with the exception of one type of fetish. Keep in mind, I never inquired the reason why this particular fetish bothered her while the ones that sounded much worse were tolerable. I probably didn’t want to know the answer.
“Jesus, that was the longest 2-for-1 I’ve ever done.” Violet sighed heavily as she walked into the DJ booth. Her hands fumbled with the clasps of her bikini top, and I noticed that she hadn’t bothered to put on her bottoms yet. Though I tried not to stare, Violet had the strangest-shaped labia I had ever seen. They dangled like burgundy caterpillars on either side of her vagina. I assumed that that was the result of many years in her profession.
“The two songs were three minutes a piece, like all the rest of the specials.”
“I know. It just seemed like it was never gonna end. I have an annoying regular here today. He’s sitting over there waiting for you to run another 2-for-1.” She pointed to a thin, balding middle-aged white guy tapping his fingers nervously on the table while staring disinterestedly at the porn film playing on the movie screen.
“What? Is he cheap?”
“No. He’s a fucking freak. He comes here once a week with his speculum and penlight. And I have to stand over him while he shoves his fucking speculum in my pussy and shines the light up there,” she remarked with disgust.
“That’s kinda gross. Do you ask him to give you a pap smear at least?”
“Shut the fuck up. He’s a freak. Today he brought Star Wars figures. I told him he had to put a condom on before he put t
hem in. And he was upset about that. But you have to draw a line with these guys. If he didn’t pay me good money, I’d tell him to fuck off.” I wondered what “good money” meant to Violet. I didn’t ask, but I doubt that guy was paying her more than sixty dollars per 2-for-1 special.
“Which Star Wars figures: Chewbacca or Darth Vader?”
“I don’t fucking know. I let him put the gold guy and a stormtrooper in there.” I imagined Violet could literally fit the Millennium Falcon inside her vagina.
“Well, it’s good of you to indulge his fantasies.”
“Whatever. I always get the fucking speculum guys. I’ll be back. I’m gonna smoke.”
While the fetishists were the most interesting regulars, there were a couple other types who were also amusing. I never tired of the “Captain Save-A-Ho” regular. These regulars were typically older men who made it their mission to persuade the dancer to leave the industry and live a more virtuous life. They would visit at least once a week and offer to pay for their college tuition or rehab, or help them find other means of employment. Oftentimes, they would pay for their child’s medical treatments and help with living expenses. These regulars attempted to create a seemingly wholesome father-daughter relationship with the dancer, but there was invariably an underlying element of perversion. A lot of the strippers preferred this type of regular because they usually didn’t have to give them private dances. The captains portrayed themselves as these platonic friends who just wanted to have a conversation and compensate them for their time. In my opinion, the Captain Save-A-Ho regular was a first cousin to the Megalomaniac regular. While the Megalomaniac used his money to exert his power over the dancers, the Captain Save-A-Ho did the exact same thing but under a veneer of altruism. Typically, the Megalomaniacs were much wealthier than the Captain Save-A-Hos, and sometimes they would buy two or three dancers at a time and have them perform private lesbian shows and group lap dances. These men had disposable incomes, and their fantasy was to see what they could force a beautiful woman to do for money. They would ply the girls with ecstasy, cocaine, and expensive champagne, but their primary intent was domination and ultimately humiliation. It was a power game for them, and their money allowed them to control these women. A lot of these guys were unattractive, obscenely wealthy men who were aroused by humiliating young beautiful women. They were well aware that these women despised them but needed their money, and that was the essential component of the fantasy. You could argue that the Megalomaniacs were fetishists, but instead of being kicked in the testicles, their fetish was dominance.
Poor Zoe had one of the most notorious Megalomaniac regulars at the Ruby Club. What made him even more difficult to deal with was that he was severely handicapped. The dancers called him Doug the Retard even though he wasn’t actually retarded. Doug reminded me of a slightly younger Larry Flynt. He was in his early fifties and had similar fleshy jowls, thinning reddish hair, and a petulant disposition. He was also a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, which is the main reason I thought he looked like the infamous publisher. Doug had been frequenting the Ruby Club for years, and every dancer who had worked there for more than six months had the unfortunate experience of spending at least one afternoon with him. He would buy one or two girls for a four-hour ordeal, which involved multiple full-contact lap dances, degrading demands, unpleasant odors, and the worst part: a meal that they had to feed to him. It was an arduous experience for even the seasoned strippers, and though he paid them quite well for their time, most did not want to endure him more than once. There were only a couple girls who counted Doug as a regular, and Zoe was one of them. I knew when Doug had shown up at the club because the dancers would hide away in the DJ booth until his handler had procured his luckless prey for him.
“Oh my god. I can’t fucking deal with him today,” cried Zoe in exasperation as she threw open the door of the booth, snatched my cigarettes off the counter, and shoved one between her thin red lips. “It’s too fucking much. I can’t deal.”
“Doug?” I asked, knowing full well whom she was referring to.
“Yeah,” she replied, deeply inhaling and suddenly noticing that there was another dancer in the room sitting on a chair with her legs tightly crossed, her attention fixated on her cellphone screen. The slender, blonde dancer was named Haley, and she had been texting for the past half hour. In fact, I had forgotten that she was still there.
“He’s not easy to deal with. I feel for you.” I reached over and gave her shoulders a brief sympathy massage before checking the CD player to see how much time I had left of the current song.
“I was giving him a lap dance and trying to pull his hands out of my g-string when he smacked my ass and called me an ungrateful whore.”
“What’d you do?”
“I slapped him in the face, and then he started laughing and asked me to do it again. So I hit him three more times as hard as I could.”
“Jesus. What’d he do?”
“He fucking shit his pants and kept screaming, “Uh oh. Poopie pants. Uh oh, poopie pants.”
“That’s fucking gross.”
“You have no idea. I could feel him shit on my thighs, and the smell. Fuck. It smelled so bad. I almost puked all over him.”
“He probably would’ve loved that.”
“I’m sure he would. Sick fuck,” Zoe hissed as she smashed her cigarette into the ashtray.
“You know he stinks and he’s crippled, but he’s got money, girl,” said a nasally voice. We both looked over and saw that Haley had put her cellphone down and, uninvited, entered our conversation. “Last time I danced for him he gave me $1,000.”
“Yeah, but did he shit while you were giving him a dance?”
“Girl, as long as it doesn’t touch me. He can shit his pants all fucking night. I just want his money.”
“Then why doesn’t he take you?”
“Because he doesn’t want me. He knows I just want his money. He wants you because you’re affected.” She walked over and gently brushed a lock of Zoe’s hair away from her face. “Look at you, darlin’, you’re holding back tears.”
“No, I’m not,” Zoe choked. Her eyes were quivering.
“It’s okay. You can cry back here. I have many times. Just wipe away those tears when you go back to him. Don’t let that bastard see you cry.” Tears streamed down Zoe’s tiny cheeks, and Haley knelt down and wiped them off with a tissue. “It’s okay, darlin’.”
Feeling a bit awkward, I diverted my attention to picking out the next song for the dancer on stage. When I turned back around, both girls had left the booth. Though Zoe had to experience a horrendous ordeal, it sounded like she would be more than adequately compensated. Two hours later, she returned to the booth in a much better mood and wearing her street clothes, which consisted of dark jeans and a hoodie.
“Hey, are you splitting? I take it Doug has left the building.”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. He paid me $1,500, so I’m getting the fuck out of here. Here you go, honey.” She handed me a $100 bill. “Thanks for dealing with me today.”
“Thanks, Zoe. You know I’m always here when you need me.”
Zoe stood on the tips of her toes and gave me a hug and a kiss. “Thanks, Dave. You have a good night.”
“You have a good night, too.” She flashed a quick smile and disappeared down the hall.
I still had three hours left of an uneventful Friday day shift. I noticed that Trinity was coming up next, and since I knew she loved eighties music, I grabbed an eighties compilation and selected the fifth track, Hall and Oates’s “I Can’t Go For That.” I had to piss, but I had to start Trinity’s song and introduce her before leaving the booth. I cut the current dancer’s song short, introduced Trinity, and flipped on the compilation. By this point, my bladder felt like it was about to burst. I bolted to the upstairs bathroom at the end of the hall, but the door was locked. Fuck. I had to use the downstairs bathroom. I ran through the VIP area and bounded down the stairs to the first
floor. Most restrooms at strip clubs are deplorable, and the one at Ruby was no exception. It reeked of semen, shit, cigarette smoke, and Lysol disinfectant. Luckily, the bathroom was empty and I slid into the first stall and relieved myself. That piss felt better than my last six orgasms combined. In fact, it felt so good that I needed a smoke afterwards. Since there was no one around, I figured I’d sneak a bump or two and help the remainder of my shift go by a bit quicker. I dipped the tip of a key into the baggie and snorted several shards of crystal into my right nostril. It burned as it entered my nasal passage, causing me to gag reflexively. I was about to do another bump when I heard a moaning sound. I ignored it—after working at a few clubs, I had learned that it’s best to pretend not to hear or see most things—and held the key up to my nostril, when I heard the sound again. This time it was louder and protracted. It sounded as if someone was in a lot of pain. I hastily snorted the bump and shoved the keys and the baggie back into my pocket. Stepping out of the stall, I looked around to see if anyone else had entered the bathroom. No one else was there. I heard another moan. It seemed to be coming from the handicapped stall at the end. Hesitantly, I approached the stall and leaned into the door to push it open, but something was obstructing it. It wasn’t locked and I could push it open an inch or two, but there was definitely something solid blocking the door. Finally, I gave the door a hard shove and heard an anguished groan come from inside the stall. Peering in, I could see a man lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, his arm extended weakly upwards in a futile effort to grab the metal railing. A foul stench emanated from the stall, and there was a brownish liquid seeping out of the man’s right side. He noticed me staring at him and meekly whispered for help. I sidestepped out of the stall’s doorway to contemplate this situation. I didn’t need this right now. I really didn’t have time to deal with a drunken idiot. I leaned my head back in the doorway to take another look and suddenly realized the identity of the man lying on the floor in his own excrement. It was Doug the Retard.