Strippr

Sitting at my favorite deli, waiting on my favorite salad. I walked in wearing my tank top bearing the logo and name of the company I decided to contract with — a bachelor/birthday/strippers-for-parties service. I’ve gotten priceless looks, ranging from OH HELL YES to EW THEY EAT LIKE HUMANS? I’d really like it if people would just keep to themselves. Especially the busboys, who are so busy sweeping every single crumb anywhere near my table that it’s irritating.

I had a photo shoot today with the company and met the owner. I really like him; he’s smart, knows the business, up front about expectations. The shoot was classy and well-thought out in a beautiful park instead of hotel trash. I, unfortunately, woke up with snot dripping out of my face and watery and red eyes from allergies. One eye is probably infected. I’ve got bruises all over. He assured me he’s great with photoshop, and I assured him I’d taken two forms of allergy medications, an antibiotic, and eye drops. Turns out, he’s great with a camera.

I think we’ll get along well. He’s a no-bullshit-about it kind of guy—and makes his expectations for being on time, being presentable, being well-mannered, and staying away from hard drugs and getting drunk well-known by firing without rehire anyone who crosses the line. I like these rules. I like the girls—they’re some of the best dancers in my city, and we all get along well. I actually feel pretty excited that I was chosen to work with the long-legged, beautiful, poised girls in the company. These are the girls I make the most working alongside in the club, The Gazelles. I don’t feel much like a Gazelle, but I suppose someone likes me enough to ask me to work for them.

Onward to salad-eating and work. And then hopefully home early from a half-night and some extra sleep tonight. I could really use it.

I’ve got to have the weirdest Amazon Wish List ever.

I’ve been working three nights a week since I went back to work (after taking five weeks off, sick) in mid-July. For the past few years, I’d only worked two nights a week; it paid the bills, left me with money for vacations and treats and plenty of time to spend the spare cash. After realizing how much more effectively I could be using some of the prime years at my job by working more frequently, I added a third day.

My physical capacity is at about four days in a week, so three days was a nice compromise. I’ve started to fiercely attack that student loan debt that’s been tying up any of my available credit. 

Physically, I’m wiped out, constantly. I’m adjusting poorly to this gluten-free thing. I hate cooking. I miss food. I can barely stuff enough of it in my face to keep myself at some sort of equilibrium, to keep from losing more weight. 

Emotionally, adding a third day of work to my schedule has left me with more anxiety. More anxiety in crowds. More anxiety about people, in general. Curling up with the puppies, watching episode after episode of Dexter, is about all I want to do. It’s so simple.

I’m…angrier, I guess. More than once this week I’ve snapped on the loving boyfriend who’s dedicated to creating my favorite foods in gluten-free form. Although, once, he was whiny about my suggestion of skipping our mid-week date night in favor of alone time to myself, so the snapping was more or less reasonable. The rest, I just woke up bitchy. I mean, I always wake up bitchy, smacking him in the chest or face with his phone alarm going off, but several days, I just woke up bitchy and my morning caffeine supply didn’t help.

I can barely run anymore.

I’m hurt that my favorite hobby has been ripped away from me by an inability to physically keep up with it, and work, and tending to a house and yard, and, really, just being awake.

I bought a treadmill to help this. It’s posted up in my living room. I run on it a bit here and there, but nothing long. Nothing like those hours-long runs through the parks and golf courses and fields and forests and forgotten areas. Nothing like the playing I felt in the sunshine and rain. But at least I can keep moving, inside, while it’s too hot for my newly weaker body to even think of running outside. 

Today: Mid-afternoon waking up, per the usual. Bill-paying and errand-running in a car without air conditioning, which wore me out. Rest. A stop down to a drinking festival with exotic animals (the people drinking, not the animals), some Dexter, after being worn out (without drinking). I made a gluten-free spice cake from a package and made cream cheese frosting from scratch with the help of Google. I love the Internet. Onward to more resting in front of the stupid television before I try to run just a few miles on the hamster wheel.

I wonder whether the guys I danced for this week imagined that this is what their peppy, sassy, no-fucks-given stripper was doing on her days off?

I’m as curious about what other people think I do in my free time as they likely are about what I actually do in my free time.

I know there are a handful of New Orleans and Gulf Coast area sex workers on Tumblr. Hoping you are okay tonight. Please be safe in the rough weather this week.

I had a guy on stage that wouldn’t let go of my shoe, thinking it was funny, even after I made it clear it wasn’t. So I bent down, doggy-style, and “skunked” him.

I farted in his face. A silent one, but man, don’t fuck with me after I’ve had a half can of black beans, salsa, fiber chips, fruit, spinach, beer, and soda.

Bet you’ll let go of that shoe next time, ey?

Turned down an actual cash offer of $5,000 tonight from a drunk guy who wanted to lick my asshole.

Apologies for the brevity; I’m at work. All of these have happened tonight. I need to vent.

— Grinding your teeth. Fucking creepy.

— Waggling your tongue between your first and middle fingers (in a “v” shape). Fucking creepy.

— Masturbating or pulling your dick out. Dude…we have a bathroom. It even has a really gross stall.

— Not letting go of your dollar. It’s not funny or original or cute. Dick move. And I almost always respond by spilling your drink into your lap “accidentally.” If you need your dollar that badly, don’t go to strip clubs.

— Clapping or cheering after not having tipped. Enjoyed the show? Pay up, motherfucker.

— Sitting at the rail and not tipping. No tip? Move your ass so someone else can pay me.

— Licking your lips repeatedly. Ew.

— Picking your nose. Self-explanatory?

— Asking “what you get for a dollar.” You get a hot girl in front of you. You know what a dollar buys me? A package of M&Ms, motherfucker. I’m not going to work that hard for it.

— Similarly, asking, “Is that it?” Yeah, it is. If you want more, go for private dances. It’s fucking two-for-ones night.

— Puking. Self-explanatory. Go home.

— Sticking dollars to your face. The comments on this one range from “Do you know where that fucking dollar has been?!” to “Whatever you expect me to do for that (now infinitely more gross) dollar, I’m not doing it. Ew.” There are plenty of good reasons not to stick them to your face or in your mouth. Sick.

I’ll add more later. This night is crazy.

I worked so hard for so long that it was all just a blur that I barely remember and question whether it happened at all, anyway. Second, I’m wiped out and want to get back to bed soon…but the boyfriend is sleeping like he’s in a sauna with a chainsaw right now. Anyone know any good snoring remedies? In the meantime, I’ll be awake and Craigslisting for a treadmill while writing this post.

Barely made it into work on time, found out that I was only the third girl in with little hopes of having more girls before the shift cutoff at ten o’clock. I came up second on the stage rotation, hair still dripping wet, makeupless, and sporting massive bruises and a pile of acne. Great. I rushed to get ready, trying to scarf some terrible gluten-free macaroni and cheese while throwing whatever makeup I could onto my face and sucking down some caffeine and popping a few pieces of nicotine gum to get the whole thing going. 

My pre-work ritual was prematurely cut off by being called on stage, J*’s voice booming and half silly-drunk already, “[Dancer #1] will be available for one-on-ones in the private room, and on stage next is the pleasing Piiii-per…” I hate that they think the alliteration of each girl’s name with an adjective is cute. A while back, I had them convinced to use “smutty” instead, just to end the alliteration. Old habits die hard, and night after night they use the same fucking adjectives. “Pleasing,” unfortunately, is stuck to me like fucking glue. Another dancer and I even bought the DJs a thesaurus, once, just to broaden their horizons. It’s since been lost in the rustle of papers and CDs and computer games and beer.

Anyway, I jogged up to the stage worried that the toes of my shoes would trip me in the awkward, fawn-like stride, mostly makeupless, hair thrown into a messy bun, sporting a prominent bruise the size of an apple on my left thigh and two huge zits on my left tit — why does the left side of my body take so much more abuse than the right? — and still throwing my bra over my shoulders. BASE. I win. No fines for being late to stage for THIS girl.

I danced my five — fucking five motherfucking songs (about 20 minutes or so)we’d better get some more motherfucking girls ‘cause I can’t do that shit all night, every hour, or I’ll fucking drop — on stage, slow stuff. Portishead and Garbage. I danced my heart out, warming up my muscles, to a mostly-empty room, fast strobes around me making me feel like a princess. My legs look longer, I’m lean. I look as graceful as I’ve felt, now.

The Iraqi-Guy-Everyone-Calls-The-Indian-Guy turned up. Usual spot, just in front of the fishtank, still nervously playing with what hair he has left, even though he’s seen me at least weekly for over three years. Two dances, and he took off like a bullet, as always, darting back to, I assume, wifey.

Before I could hit the dressing room to deal with my moppy hair and/or putting some stockings over my abused-looking legs, I had a request to do dances with another guy. Nondescript Middle-Aged White Guy #1 of the night, who really, really, really wanted to get off. I held him off for four VIPs, getting him closer and then pausing to ask a question here and there. He tipped me a hundred bucks, paid the hundred and forty he owed me, and took off. I felt bad for him — his wife had died a year ago. Cancer. I think he just couldn’t get into the dances like he wanted because he was remembering her.

Another stage set. Another Nondescript in a blue shirt, turns out to be the friend of an old regular I intensely dislike but have to pretend to like for the time being to continue getting tips and try for dances. Sure as shit, I stepped off stage and he was ready to head back to the private room. No matter what I did to hold this one off from getting off, the Minuteman came in his pants in like three minutes flat. Less than two songs, a fat tip. Thanks, buddy. At least I didn’t get semen on me, I suppose. I was on a roll. The last thing I’d want to do was take a shower and gag over the ick factor.

Still bothering to try to head back to the dressing room, I was stopped by the aforementioned disliked regular from the past. He and I have glared at each other and refused to speak for a year and a half, after he Facebook-stalked me (under my legal name, which I don’t give out, and apparently had found me as a friend of another dancer; I now refuse to “befriend” dancers online that can’t keep their personal shit more private) and called/texted repeatedly begging for far too much of my time. I had him banned from the club for awhile, but like everything, money talks and doorgirls forget the long list of people who are forbidden.

Anyway, he stopped to chat, and I bit my tongue and spoke amicably. I thought maybe I could snag him for a couple of dances, maybe shove a stiletto into his face and demand he pay me for it at some point. Nope. Time-waster. The last time we spoke, he’d wasted far too much of my time, night after night. I didn’t know then that I could have made much more elsewhere. I gave him five minutes, this time, knowing I could snag dances elsewhere and blow him off with plenty of satisfaction.

Another stage set — they’ve all kind of blended together in a haze of strobes and early-nineties bands and flashing yellow and red lights and the same damn pole tricks over and over — and I’d given up on trying to look my best for the night. Apparently, these guys were stacked up in line waiting for me while I looked possibly my worst yet. Why not stick with what’s working? To add my amusement with looking abused and frazzled and sweating buckets, I was making great tips on stage.

The Russian Computer Programmer, who repeated over and over that he wanted me to “spoil” him (read: wanted a handjob/blowjob/some other forbidden act), stayed through four more VIPs, surprisingly politely.

Another Nondescript, another guy whose wife died of cancer recently, three more dances. I spent these mostly hugging the guy, patting his shoulders and softly stroking his hair. I wanted to cry for him. With him?

Two more VIPs with a young, burly bail bondsman who wanted only to rub my back. Fantastic! My back hurt by now. Yes, please, I’ll take a handful of twenties to receive an amateur back massage! Why can’t more amateur masseuses pay for my time (most expect it for free, as though they’re doing me a favor by touching me, usually with little skill — and plenty of babydancers fall for it, over and over, feeding their entitlement)?

At some point, we had fifteen dancers working and a club unusually full of customers for a Thursday, and transitioned to working two stages instead of one. [Insert audible groan from every dancer, who now has to do twice as many songs on stage for an increasingly younger audience.] Another stage set. Surprisingly, a twenty-dollar bill from a young guy. Couldn’t have been more than twenty, not intoxicated, and had ones available to him. I was sure it was no mistake, but threw the bill far out of reach toward the center of the stage, anyway. He looked like an engineering major I once knew.

And that’s where my notes on my night end: halfway through, 11:37pm. I smelled like sweat and pheromones and feet. My hair had tiny “pedophile clips” holding the whole thing together (so named because adding a single one to pull the straight hair away from my face made me look young enough to attract every “I love daddy/daughter fantasies” creep in the state and used to bump my earnings up…before I, um, aged a little). I tried to keep my eyes from looking tired, but the sleep-wrinkles kept getting deeper. I barely had time to send a text to the boyfriend, to gulp down a little Gatorade, before having to rush off again. I never gagged down more than a half-dozen bites of the terrible gluten-free macaroni, had only had a few corn chips for “breakfast” around 4:00pm. 

The rest of the night is a sea of mixed-up faces and VIPs, and strobes to music I’ve heard thousands of times, and wobbly legs needing food and rest desperately, and dollars flying at me from every angle on the dog-bone-shaped playground/stage, and guzzling water bottle after water bottle just to keep up with the sweat (why was it so hot in there?), and money flying onto my garter. The money. Yeah. Halfway though, it was heavy enough to make my garter awkwardly slip; by the end of the night, I couldn’t fold the stack in half to keep it ON the garter. 

Just before my last stage set, a request for a dance by a 21st-Birthday Boy. His friend tipped me just to stare into my eyes (a little creepy, to be honest, but I kept calling it a staring contest and letting him “win”). I was so shaky through my last set I kept waiting to simply fall off the fucking pole (one of these days, it’s going to happen) or push my hands into the floor and not be able to get back up off of it. Food. I needed food. ASAP. I hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours.

Did the dance with 21st-Birthday Boy, and walked on tender feet to the desk to give the house their cut of my night, refusing aloud to do any more dances for the night. Shop closed. Hurry up and play that fucking Semisonic song, the signaling of the end of the night when all of the lights get turned on full blast and raise the curtain on all of the illusions of the night. The snap back to reality for patrons and dancers alike couldn’t come fast enough.

Celebrated morning with the boyfriend and a quickie before he left for work, but made clear I was going to have to “be fucked” instead of do the fucking, watched a little Dexter and snuggled the doggies, and then passed out. I’d made more last night than I ever had in a single shift, and my body will be paying for it for days. I pulled a muscle in my ass from repetitive hip motion; knee swelling, tender feet, massive bruises covering my hips and thighs and knees and calves, ankles that won’t flex into pointed toes, hamstrings that gave up, a back begging for a chiropractor, a shuffle-limp.

Lost another two pounds somewhere, after rehydrating and eating to my heart’s content. By the time I put the weight back on, get to run a few miles, and stop aching sitting still, I’ll have to be at work again Monday for the same abuse on two-fers night. 

But, I paid off a $1400 student loan today! $21,000 left. I’ve paid almost $10,000 already. School, now that I’m paying for it, was a fucking terrible idea. My internet costs me $50 a month, and I spend about the same on books, learning any- and everything I want to know. 

Now that Amazon is selling POD self-published books, my search for stripper memoirs/sex industry reads is inevitably littered with garbage. I found this gem today and couldn’t resist sharing. 

“Date a Stunning Stripper: How to Change What You Do and How You Act so the Girls Want to Date You, Not Just Take Your Money” by William Richardson. Yes, that IS the full title of the book, word for word. The summary:

This book will teach you how to be a strip club insider. Someone who is known and trusted in the club. At its core, a strip club is just a well-designed, legal, fantasy designed to separate you from your money as quickly as possible. The only way to be trusted in that kind of environment is to be in on the fantasy! You will learn how to get dates with strippers without using false, manipulative, and let’s face it, dishonest tactics. * No Hypnosis * No Nero-Linguistic Programming (NLP) * No Cheesy Gimmicks (handwriting analysis, palm reading) * No Pretending to be Someone You’re Not (photographer, producer) * This is All My Personal Experience. It is not based on some “stranger who told me the secret!” Just an easy-to-follow, straightforward process that puts you in the proper position to be trusted and viewed as “Class-A dating material” by these girls. 

(All errors are those posted by the author on Amazon.com)

I wish I could meet William. Perhaps I could teach him English.

No time for dinner, so I talked another girl into ordering from a deli that serves gluten-free food with me. In frustration, we both tried to come up with enough food to create a $20 minimum order for delivery, eventually ordering two potatoes loaded and a full plate of cantaloupe, strawberries, and pineapple, running back and forth to the door girl to deliver more money for fruit, then a tip, then the rest of the tip after the total was calculated. I always wonder how the deli chooses its delivery driver for our club, how anyplace we order from does. We always get a grown male looking panicked, trying to exit as quickly as possible. Pizza. Americhinese. Burgers. Bar food. Deli. Everyone sends a panicked thirty- or forty-something white guy.

Monday night. Two-fers. Spotted an easy spender in the crowd while on stage, rushed through the “what’syourname?sohowareyou?cametoseetheprettygirlstonight,yeah?” bullshit to get straight to the part where I say, “So, you came in on a pretty great night — it’s two-for-ones on private dances and—”

Before I could get the “VIPs” part of the sentence out, Nondescript Middle-Aged White Guy was already asking me for a dance. Despite the fall allergy season, my sense of smell for an easy mark was dead on, a good sign for the rest of the night. We headed back towards the private room, and I revealed my true, barefoot height (5’6”) just as I realized that the guy was a giant. Beanstalk-worthy giant, at maybe 6’8”, 6’9”. I laughed, looking up at him, pressing my tiny hands into his freakishly mammoth ones. A new song starts, we claim the solo couch away from the others and the mirrors, the most popular spot to feign a little privacy. 

I make attempts to straddle his lap, but there’s no fucking way my tight thighs can easily accommodate. It’s the beginning of the night, and my hamstrings and abductors are still pissed and thinking they don’t have to be submissive, to bend to my will. The dance goes as usual, until his hand is creeping further and further to the inside of my butt cheek. 

Sigh. Eye roll. Sigh again, look of disapproval, elbow pressed into the offending hand’s shoulder, wait for a glance of pain that he got the nonverbal message. Nothing, surprisingly, and that shit hurts. Psychopath or high pain tolerance? Send verbal message that, “We can’t do that here,” moving his hand. Hand continues to creep towards my pussy, in plain sight of cameras, in an open room with other dancers and men, frequently checked by bouncers. 

Fine. I happily inflict wounds, Nondescript Guy. 

I punched him in his throat, returned to smiling and chatting in a voice much younger than my years, outdoing his psychopathic glances with my own. Perfected over the past few years, you could say. Freaks ‘em out every time. A child’s voice from a woman who just caused you panic and/or pain while smiling and grinding on your lap, grinding her fluorescent nicotine gum between her teeth? The sadistic part of Piper very much loves these times, these confused looks, the feeling of absolute power in that moment of their disconnect from fantasy, the snap back into their brains. 

Needless to say, he didn’t get another dance from me and left after the first. I was a little disappointed, in truth, just getting warmed up and stretching out those pissed off muscles from the night before.

Second guy, same easy mark, money-smelling sense still flowing. Nondescript Middle-Aged White Guy #2, A*, also significantly above average height. What the fuck? A few dances, very vanilla. Popped in the dressing room to check texts from a friend in pain, a regular who promised his presence but got stuck in a WoW dungeon in frustration, the boyfriend who hears all of the funny anecdotes from my night; ate a few more pieces of fart-inducing tasty cantaloupe and popped some more nicotine gum, rearranged the stack of cash in my garter, hit the floor again just before my next stage set.

The Cranberries’ “Zombie” playing, the beautiful black man singing along (poorly, but I was impressed with not only his knowing each word but his lack of self-consciousness and generosity in tipping). The tread on my shoes, at some point, started peeling up from the toes. I watched my tricks in the mirror. Under strobes and in two pairs of stockings and leg warmers scrunched over my poor beaten ankles, I sort of look impressive throwing myself around the pole without any concentration.

Third guy, the beautiful black, succinct and sharp twenty-something from DC, sending me into stupidchick brain unable to hustle this guy; he’s not graying yet. A single VIP, mostly talking about his scar, DC, his unfamiliarity with strip clubs.

Book Man, who was stuck in the WoW dungeon, finally arrived, sans books this time but not lacking for conversation he’s been saving for me for two weeks. I listened as he jumped from topic to topic and back again to the Stripper He Loved, to the Woman That’s (Sort-of) Living With Him, to his grandchildren, to the stock market, to, of course, bomb construction and war strategy. We headed back for dances and he repeated it all again, for sixteen songs (count it: that’s 48 minutes). A tip. My graceful exit thwarted by desperate changes of topic, until he finally had to use the bathroom and I finally had to rush off to do something-or-other-I-made-up in the dressing room.

A lull. New Stripper talking with a House Girl about the definite effectiveness of Ouija boards and card readings and spirits and spells and becoming a witch. I held my cackle until I was out of the room, not wanting to be drawn in to conversation with attempted persuasion of magic’s merits. Foolishness, all of it. While holding my bubbling laughter, I stared at nicotine gum and fidgeting with powder under my sleepy eyes instead of inviting conversation through eye contact. They’re both sleeping with the Magic-Doer, it turns out. Apparently, he’s good in bed, but you see, he’s also good at spells. And one of them has a ghost in her house, and it’s definitely fucking with her. When is it appropriate to slap logic into people with Ouija boards and Bibles and broomsticks? Remind me?

A stage set, forgotten music. CuddleBug tips in fives as usual, asking for hugs in return as usual, smiling to see me and complimenting my tricks, as usual. An Asian man outdoes him with tens, not speaking, enchanted by pussy. I never made it to the Asian man, and I’m kicking myself for it, because I didn’t get a creep vibe from him. I take a spot next to CuddleBug on a couch, talking about dancing with honesty, like we do. He talks about himself, honestly, as he does. A few dances, in which he confesses to his depression as he had many months ago and I remember, and he asks me for advice, and I offer the same advice:

I dealt with my mental health problems by dealing with my physical health problems. Eating, exercising, and sleeping well, in moderation, with deliberate intent, started to help. Breaking unhealthy habits, quitting smoking, quitting the binge drinking, helped. Finding something to be proud of and look forward to, helped. Ridding my life of toxic influences, other people constantly drowning in misery and critical people and emotionally manipulative people — it all helped, but it was never one thing. There’s never one answer. 

I didn’t want to charge him for the second dance. I held the twenties, thinking about giving them back, the one small sign of genuine care about this man that I could possibly give at that moment, the giving up of income just to spend time with him. I see him every week. Next week, I think I’ll take him something. There’s something about CuddleBug — maybe his lack of overt concern for sexual stimulation in favor of conversation and the gentle contact of hugs, maybe his loneliness or his broken heart or the time his dog died and he came to the club a bunch of days in a row, maybe his generosity in tipping, maybe a whole bunch of these things together — that stirs up very deep feelings of care for him. A phenomenon not based in a large sum of money. Perhaps I’ll take him a Diet Dr. Pepper (his drink of choice) and a favorite fiction book of mine. I could take a cue from Book Man on this one.

I took the money, hesitantly. It is my job, he never hesitates with paying and always throws in a 20% tip, there are better ways to show my affection for a man in his sixties suffering from severe depression, frequenting the only place he knows he can receive any physical contact at all. Next week. Next week I will give him something.

CuddleBug breaks my heart every time I see him, makes me question in my own head what the fuck is wrong with humanity that he is so alone.

Finale time fell just before I would have gone on stage again. I pranced a little, did a dozen pull-ups, hung inverted by an ankle for a remaining minute, encouraged — while upside down — another dancer to keep practicing the tricks she’s worked so hard on. I vacillate on my feelings for this girl; the pride in her determined pursuit of pole tricks for years, the discontent with her “business practices,” the selflessness she’s shown me, the unstable volcano of fury waiting to erupt. I feel one thing about her and the next day, another. Today it is pride.

I ask a few Israeli men for dances, not knowing they barely spoke English just by looking. Moved on quickly. Plopped next to a guy barely old enough to drink, who sat in disbelief that I’ve been working in my club for more than three years because he never sees me there so I must be lying, who drilled me with questions on stripping and how much I made tonight and can I have your number and what’s your real name and he should be a stripper he thinks he’d like making all the money I make even though the economy sucks. I answered them all honestly. I laughed at him for his assumption that I hadn’t been stripping at the [Club] for as long as I have, saying I must be so busy in VIP or talking to people that actually pay me for my time that I hadn’t seen him either. I explained that a lot of male stripping is actually the gay-for-pay thing, that if he was very interested in having plenty of men stick dollars in his g-string and learning how to waggle his butt in the faces of men, to go right ahead. Sigh. Young bucks in the titty bar, thinking they’re studs instead of the silly careless fawns they are. We really need to raise the age of majority in this country.

Headed back to get dressed once the lights came on and the torture/pleasure of hearing Semisonic’s “Closing Time” ceased. Glanced twice at one of the 3x5 foot mirrors, now broken into a thousand pieces, raised my eyebrows at my coworkers in wait for an explanation.

“New girl broke it. [New Stripper’s New Alias]. Said it was a wallet [disbelief], but there’s no way that was a wallet. That [crack in another mirror] was from S* [former temperamental alcoholic dancer] and that was a shoe.”

“I guess she was mad that she got dressed and was told that she had to stay out of the dressing room [until the lights come on and we’re released to ‘go get dressed’ by the DJ] so she threw something at it.”

“She’s probably gonna get fired. Who does that on their first night? I mean, dude. Seriously. The mirror. [Manager]’s not gonna like that tomorrow.”

Telling silence when New Stripper enters the room. I shook the glass out of my clothes, threw my sandals on so I wouldn’t step in any, stripped off my thong and several layers of legwear, stuffed three suitcases’ worth of Stripper Masks And Charm into my one suitcase, hung out and waited to leave. Counted the cash in my car. Hit a gas station far from my club, ran into two lesbians that were just there who don’t recognize me and none of us acknowledge each other, drove to a store nearby. Picked up nicotine gum, condoms, dog treats, and ice cream. Ran into the DJ and his girlfriend (Vacillating Emotions Stripper, R*) in the pet aisle, lube in their cart with Gatorade and pajama pants.

The drive home was that pre-dawn dark; it was clear, driving straight towards Betelgeuse and Bellatrix and seeing faint, rarely-visible stars in clusters, satellites, a red-eye flight. Episodes of Dexter, dogs thrilled with rare new junk-food bones, sleep.

Punched my first customer in the throat. Here’s to hoping my night picks up.

Repeat last Sunday night, add more laughter.

Laughter, my bright spot in the club, the thing that grounds me back into reality in that dark box of strobes and disjointed and double-jointed girls and enormous, heavily tattooed bouncers and customers in their varying shapes and stripes. Laughter is universal, laughter is pure, it’s innocent, the good stuff can’t be faked and the fake stuff is for money.

There’s a real shortage of the real stuff in the club. Focus, focus on the money, the story he’s telling for the third time this week, the expression I’m wearing until it’s time to—like everything else—take it off. 

A dressing room pal came into the club, late, drunk with a Californian she’s been fucking. At length, there were jokes about the Trollish Girls (the majority of the dancers, last night, to my irritation), about Horse Face and her favorite dance move, “shaking her tail feathers”

—this is the one where a babydancer holds the horizontal pole with both hands spread wide, bends at the knees, pigeon-toed, bends a quarter of the way over from (well, we hope) the hips, and makes a hilarious twist back and forth, swaying her butt, thinking it’s a turn-on—

with a gaping mouth and blank stare, eyes rolled up in her head like she’s trying not to see the drunk in front of her, and BedBug, who appeared with an extra-special air of arrogance and self-consciousness all at once. BedBug wore an outfit with shoulder pads that sent favorite dancer pal and Californian and I rolling with laughter. We mocked the Horse Face’s expression, likening her terrible fake mullet to a troll doll, watching in horror as she gave a private dance by sloshing herself around on a customer like Jell-o in an earthquake.

I almost—almost, but not quite—feel badly for laughing at these coworkers. Almost, because their pain is real, their struggles are longer and harder than the one’s I have now, because they’re really just trying so hard and failing something miserably and, I think, know it. They’re dancers, a part of this awkward sisterhood of catfights and alcoholism and dry-humping guys their grandfathers’ age, just as I am. I feel protective of other dancers, a part of me wants to teach them, to defend them just as I would the most apt and most graceful of strippers. 

The “almost” feeling badly…I don’t. I don’t feel badly after numerous girls have tried to help Horse-Faced Mullet Troll, and she’s rejected the advice, the help, the makeup consult, only to fall into being used by a pill-popping hustler that she drives to work anywhere in the state. I don’t feel badly for BedBug, whose nose is so far in the air and personality so blank, who won’t stop talking to full dressing rooms of girls who won’t listen to her go on and on in her drugged rambles of nonsense anymore. 

It’s hard to be disliked by all of the girls in the club. Many of the girls were outcasts, and live their lives now as a faint broken rung on the bottom of the ladder of the caste system. It’s hard to be disliked by a group of women who would lend you anything (except money, of course), would hold your hair while you puked, would help you break in your shoes by wearing them the first few nights, would tell you, honestly, if they could see your tampon or that ass-pimple. It’s really hard to be disliked across-the-board in my club, but it happens after they give up trying to help or the trust is betrayed.

I almost feel badly that BedBug and Horse Face are the outcasts of the cast out. Though, I don’t; they had to try hard to become those double outcasts.

Laughing relieved the staleness of the place. So few customers last night; my net profit was $19, most of it from the dressing room pal and her Californian. We laughed at Mr. Pee-Pee Pants, a “gentleman” who spent most of his evening after midnight in soaked shorts, passing in and out, sleeping on the tip rail while we sprayed him with water and thumped him with shoes. He didn’t tip, but I suppose I was entertained. Mr. Pee-Pee Pants walked around the club, stumbling into the ATM, knocking over tables, landing in chairs at other customers’ tables, spilling beer, crashing through the doors of the bathroom, nearly landing on me at one point but smacking his head on the wooden raised platform booths instead. I think the only reason he wasn’t kicked out was because he was paying us well in entertainment.

On my way home, I drove underneath the valley of fog between two large hills, thinking how metaphorical it seemed. It doesn’t seem metaphorical in a profound and industry-encompassing sense, now, not at all. It seems like a mortal detail in a superhero world, and I think acknowledging it was some sort of continuation of the night of laughter I’d already had.

I’ve read this lovely woman’s blog since I started catching on that other stripper blogs existed. She took it down when outed and it’s sort of like a stripper disappearing — I was certain she still existed, but was wondering what happened to her (beyond the mess of the newspaper fiasco, which became public knowledge). Not her, the journalist, or her, the stripper, but her, the sharp-tongued writer with keen insight bookmarked in Google Chrome, someone I’ve thought of from time to time. After the fiasco, I figured there was no more wit from her to keep me company on cold afternoons. I guess I accepted it in the same way I do when favorite pals from the dressing room disappear one day, having found love or money or a degree or another club or whatever or some combination of those things, never to be heard from again.

Stripper blogs are—the good ones, because there are plenty of terrible ones—sort of like having a pal to share the afternoon with, killing time before work, driving my own experience away and laughing with someone else’s words on her own. Being angry at others’ customers, saddened with some of the shittier things that happen to them. I can’t always explain what I feel, but companionship with several of the stripper blogs around is…how I kill more time than I let on to.

I suppose I feel something for the women who write my favorite stripping blogs. Something, something…like the same something I feel for the girls in the “other” dressing room on the opposite side of the club, long ago named the non-smoking dressing room before the 2007 cigarette ban in public businesses, the same something for those girls that I know of and occasionally exchange pleasantries with, that I see frequently but don’t really know. A shared understanding, I suppose.

The book, Diary of an Angry Stripper, by Sarah Tressler, available on Amazon.

This is her newly-updated website, including information about special appearances she’ll be making.

I took off early from work tonight, using a free pass to leave instead of paying the house fifty bucks, intending to enjoy a bit of my cool, quiet evening watching a favorite show on disk. I wound up online (of course) after snapping pictures of stripper shoes I tore apart, on Tumblr (of course), thinking about all of the writing I do here (of course), and the surf crashed into a website listing writing contests and due dates and prizes.

I browsed my archive for inspiration, laughed at my babystripper know-it-all self, laughed at some of the opinions I held when this blog was created. Laughed, watching my little babystripper self grow and blossom and then grow some thorns and then get torn up a little and then keep growing. It’s been a hell of a journey thusfar, and only recently have I been able to admit how much I’m still growing and learning as a stripper. Evolving, over time, honing my skill and mulling things over (usually on Tumblr, yes).

Even knowing how much growing I’ll likely continue to do, how much experience I’ve gained each year, I’d still like to write something; something shorter, not a lengthy book. Submit it to a contest. People beg for stripper stories, memoirs, thoughts. Stripper gore leaches into pop TV and careers fill books and people really are fascinated by the whole thing. Though I’m not sure whether I really have a talent for writing, I certainly have the free time and a basic skill set that lends itself well to doing so. It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything…artsy. 

The blog is mostly a show-and-tell kind of thing. Inherently, I’m a teacher, rather than a storyteller. How do I tell a story about dancing? Which story? From when? Do I mush stories together? Write a poem? How do I write a story about something that is an entirely different world that even I find mysterious when I’m not immersed in it? 

I had a premature ending to my night tonight, and just knowing that the strobes were still flashing and the bass thumping and the poppy music playing and the televisions flashing minor-league late-night sportscasts and that girls were still running around in underwear was a very bizarre thought to me. I can, of course, picture the club, the people in it, the girls, the staff. But that it all goes on when I’m not there is very unreal to me. It’s shadowy, mysterious when I’m not there. Does it actually exist when I’m not there? Have I actually just gone off the deep end and made all of this up? Am I crazy? Or are my pals really still running around in underwear in the dark, dry humping strangers for fistfuls of cash? Yeah. It never seems real outside of the place.

I think it’s because it’s another ME that exists there. Another identity, pulling pieces from my real identity, stealing the desirable parts of me and filling in the rest with haphazard crayon marks, Magic Eraser-ed off for the next guy to fill in. I’ve always tried to maintain quite a bit of me in that place, hiding identifying details of course, and keeping myself sane by keeping most of one identity. Like playing dress-up and looking different and feeling the sexier side of me come out.

But the more I dance, the more I make, the more I realize — it isn’t me. I threw out the vacant eyes, drank beer all night, told blatant lies, laughed at shit that wasn’t funny, agreed with things I’d usually care not to, left silence to be filled, threw my hair into the most awful bun in five seconds, darkened the fuck out of my makeup…I made money. Not just a little more than usual. A significant, noticeable sum more than I do. I looked worse, I gave no fucks, I made more. It scared me a little. It’s not that I’ve never done these things, it’s that the trashiness I put out there had all been so very precisely calculated to mesh well with the classiness I’ve got. Maybe none of this is making sense.

The more I dance, the less I feel like I’m putting on a makeup mask, and the more I feel like I’m actually peeling away all of the parts of myself and creating an entirely new person. Like two people, existing under different names, both of whom I possess. It’s bizarre. I’ve kind of been in the middle of an identity crisis since Monday.

But back to the main topic. How the fuck do I write about these things? How the fuck do I explain it to someone who has no idea what stripping is like, save for the occasional Tucker Max movie scene and cartoonish references to the trade in hushed voices and the thoughts of their men going to clubs for bachelor parties? How do I show this, rather than teach them about this?

I know, I know. Literary devices and shit. I can use all of the metaphors and hyperbole and shit that I want, according to my transcripts and a few bits and pieces I wrote in the past, tucked away in a trunk now. But to tell a story about stripping seems so…daunting. There’s no ending; the beginning is so complicated.

…Because I keep getting so many that I can’t answer. It’s not that I don’t WANT to answer, it’s that I actually can’t. I don’t know what the club is like, or the city is like, or the rules or social courtesy or management is like…these are things I cannot tell you. Most of these questions come to me from anonymous users.

Some are questions that would best be answered privately, when I can answer, instead of posting question after question on the blog.

So, for awhile, you’re stuck with asking questions under your Tumblr ID. Apologies for the inconvenience to those that don’t use Tumblr — but you’re welcome to use Disqus comments (at the bottom of each post page) to ask questions there.

If you don’t want your question posted and would like me to reply privately, just say so! I’d be happy to reply directly to you. I understand that dancing or considering dancing is something that you may not want the whole world to know.

Things are in progress. Changing. Death, taxes, change, inevitability. I take a little more adjusting to change than most, usually running screaming back to my old ways, destroying change in favor of what was once comfortable, only to find that whatever was comfortable was what I craved changing in the first place. But somehow, kicking around, I always manage to grow a little, bit by bit.

*

Food without gluten is a difficult thing to do sometimes. Everything had to be replaced, some was given away, remnants of things I used to love that were making me sick. I miss sprouted-grain pasta and ravioli and these amazing local fried flour tacos and fresh miniature bread loaves at restaurants and my favorite macaroni and cheese and meals out with friends and sandwiches, god I miss sandwiches, and shredded wheat cereal and my favorite crackers and shitty beer and good beer…

There are gluten-free alternatives. I know that, of course. If you look hard and love cooking, gluten-free isn’t all that much different. I was born untamably feral, missing my cooking glands and any desire. Chopping vegetables and babysitting pots is akin to having a cavity filled. I don’t wanna. Secondly, these alternatives are often second-string, “B” class, hodgepodge foods made for whiny girls recently having to adopt a new diet after a lifelong habit of everything carby. They aren’t usually the kinds of things people would, say, just choose to buy over a wheat/rye/barley version, except potato-flour brownies. You have no idea how much better potato-flour brownies are.

I’ve been subsisting on salads, on homemade rice pizzas, on rice, on beans, on nuts, Naked juices, frozen peppers and potatoes and waffles. I’m back under a buck twenty now, bitter about food, energy waxing and waning, and I think, still wondering when I can go back to all of the tasty stuff I love (never).

Breakfast: Naked juice, mango. Baked red potatoes with salt, basil, rosemary.

*

There are so many confusing names for meals in this world. It’s 4:30pm, breakfast. At 7:30, I’ll have dinner with the boyfriend. Maybe a midnight dinner, before having a breakfast snack before bed. None of the meals are bound by the normal rules of meals, like breakfast-food-for-breakfast. After work, some of the girls go out for breakfast, but we have already eaten dinner and breakfast and lunch was a completely lost concept. It’s all strange, anyway.

*

The boyfriend is moving in this fall, slowly, as both of us are incredibly scared to fuck this up and neither wants to live with the other out of “need.” We’ve both done the “needing” thing upon moving in with previous lovers — the lover or ourselves in a shitty situation, cohabitating a most urgent necessity — and we’re both waiting until we’re sure it’s out of want. Love. It’s good, this being with a man who can take care of himself.

It’s turned into a commitment thing, a merging of life’s stuff imminent. I’m anxious, yeah, but I love him, and learning to live together could be a grand adventure of painting rooms and painting each other and arranging furniture and co-owning a sectional couch and marking all the holes in the yard for when he takes a turn mowing (if the grass comes back from dust after the drought). 

*

Working more, lately. A minimum of three days a week (25 hours). Trying to pay off some student loans, trying to buy grown-up furnishings to replace the mismatched Salvation Army explosion in my house from my younger/poorer years, trying to get my shit straight, y’know, girl?

And what’s happened is now I have this pile of money. I don’t know what to do with a pile of money, because historically I’ve lived pretty much week-to-week and elated to have a little extra. I took vacations, I bought a horse, or I quit working for awhile. Hoarding 6” strips of paper is odd, anyway, but now I’m doing it like everyone else, all the real bona-fide grownups. 

*

Off to have a date night with my guy. Onward to gluten-free food that I have not, as of yet, cooked or ordered or figured out for a date that came to mind in an instant when date plans were asked about. I’m feeling scatterbrained today. I think I need a run.