Last night was my commencement ball, and it was the first time in a while I felt like a normal college student. Well, semi-normal. And by that I mean I'm pretty sure I was the only one there that got their hair and makeup done for the ball at a strip club.

I worked the day shift yesterday until 6:30 so I really only had time to run home, change, and grab a cab to the park for pictures before hopping on the trolly. The night was really fun, although I do need to keep myself in check when I go out dancing lately because I inadvertently bust out really whoreish moves out of habit. No, it is not appropriate to caress your breasts over your ball gown while amongst peers.

I've got a bit of a problem though. See, I wasn't supposed to be going to this ball. Remember that whole not graduating cause I took a semester off thing? Well, because of that I've had to miss out on pretty much all of senior week. It meant no senior toast, no ball, and obviously no walking with my class at graduation. It's been a tough week seeing all my friends get ready for it, and it's been hard not to get kind of down about the whole situation. But on Wednesday night one of my close friends called me and told me she had somehow scored me and extra ticket to the ball, which I thought was absolutely impossible. I'm embarassed to say I actually teared up with happiness. I rushed out Thursday morning to get a gown, get my nails done, etc, and then called my boss.

I was supposed to work a double. But it was a Friday night, and I figured it would be no problem to do a make up shift this Monday. And I was doing the responsible thing by calling and telling him the situation, instead of just not showing up or calling out sick, like most girls do. Right? Wrong. He was a complete douche about it, told me there was no way I could take Friday night off. I couldn't believe it. This is my COMMENCEMENT BALL. It's a pretty big deal, and there was no way I was missing it. So I went in yesterday morning for my day shift and under the guidance of the house mom, the makeup artist, and the other girls (who all agreed that the manager was being ridiculous), simply walked out at the end of it and accepted the fact that I was going to be a no call/no show.

This is the young manager we're talking about, who I've never had a problem with before but everyone else seems to hate him. I see why now. The real manager is on tonight, so I guess I'm going to have to just cross my fingers that he is more understanding and I don't get a suspension. That would suck. The Boy just got his offer accepted for a new house he's co-buying to flip, and we're trying to renovate the other rentals bathroom and a bunch of other things right now, so we need the money.

So I'm just going to go in tonight and hope he lets me work. After my shift, I'm driving to my home town (over an hour away) to where the rental houses are because The Boy needs all hands on deck to get it ready for the renters that are coming next week. This weekend has been exhausting.

Random Shit Guy

I had a glorious Sunday and Monday off, worked a double at my restaurant yesterday, so am now just finding the time to sit down and write.

It was Friday night, probably around 11 when he came in. He rolled up in a huge van and made multiple trips back and forth, carrying no less than 10 bouquets of roses and 4 or 5 huge shopping bags, as well as an assortment of boxes. With all of his stuff, he took up about 3 tables in the corner next to the main stage. I looked around at the other dancers; none of them seemed phased. I pulled one of them aside to get the scoop, a petite, sweet girl named Jolie.

"Oh him? That's random shit guy. Dave. Yup, he just brings in random shit to give to the girls. And he's really diligent about it - he keeps a notebook with him to record which gift he gave to each girl so he doesn't accidentally give them the same one twice."

I decided to go over to introduce myself to Dave, who is heavy set and slightly mentally challenged. He opened his notebook and wrote down my name in it, with "NEW!!" next to it.

For the next few hours girls came in to the locker room with flowers, beanie babies, dolls (knock offs of the American Girl type), you name it. Jolie even got a giant blow up Kahlua-bottle piggie bank. When it was my turn on stage, he places a whole bouquet of white roses and a little Otter beanie baby on the tip rail.

Here's the thing - I've always said to work this job you have to have pretty thick skin. I've had guys grab my boobs, try to stick fingers in my ass, say the most derogatory things you can imagine. I laugh it off and can honestly say that I never let it bother me. But this sweet, gentle man comes in with all these presents every few weeks, and I find myself in the bathroom crying over it. Can somebody explain that to me?

Friday night in general was pretty slow money wise, I think because there were a lot of sports games going on. I worked a double so I was still satisfied with the 700-something dollars I walked with. I had my first dancer be a bitch to me, and that upset me more than I expected to. I was leading a customer down to the lap dance area and accidentally elbowed a girl. I immediately turned around to apologize and she just glared and yelled "Don't FUCKING elbow me!" Jesus Christ. Calm down, honey, it was an accident.

Deena told me this is the worst club she's worked at in terms of the cattiness and the drama in the locker room. She likes working here in general, but can't stand the other girls. I had just assumed that that's how all strip club locker rooms are.

It's late, I just got home from work, so this is going to be brief.

It was a laaaame night. I'm starting to get the feeling that this is the norm for Thursdays in general. I didn't count yet, but I think I barely broke $200 after tip out. I'm going to reconsider making this part of my schedule, because in my experience the Wednesdays I have walked in have been consistently better.

I don't have anything to compare it to, but I think the way my club sets up the schedules is pretty fair. You pick a minimum of three shifts, and it can be whatever three you want. Scheduling starts on Thursdays and ends on Saturdays, so there is a chance that a shift will fill up, but I've never had that problem. And you can choose to walk in any night you want, as long as it's before 8-9ish.

Alright well I'm about to pass out. Oh yeah, got pulled over on the way home for not quite making that yellow light I thought I was going to (whoops). I guess it didn't hurt to be wearing big fake eyelashes and giving the officer one of the extra promo t-shirts I had, but I drove off without even a warning. Such is the life :)

The "Regular" Dilemma

When I first started dancing, all of...4 weeks ago (I think?), I remember listening to the other girls talking about their "regulars," as well as the make up artist and the house mom warning me that they will probably get pissed if they see you chatting up or trying to get a dance from a girls set "regular" or "customer." After listening in for a bit I learned that a regular is someone that comes in to see a specific girl, and it's usually to take her up to a champagne room. They have set days they come in, even set hours. I've heard girls complain about being "double booked" for the night with their customers.

So this whole concept still kind of mystifies me. At first I thought only the dirty girls had regulars, and the reason these men were consistently coming back and spending at least $300 an hour (plus whatever else she "charges") was because they were getting sex. But I talked to Deena and a couple of the seemingly normal girls, and it seems like just about anyone that's been dancing long enough has their regulars. And now, after only being there a few weeks even I am seeing repeat visitors. No one that regularly wants to take me to champagne, but always gets dances from me, etc.

I suppose I'm kind of getting the hang of cultivating regulars, although I'm still a little confused about the whole thing.

My biggest question is, how do you keep these customers, who are obviously very enchanted with you, from wanting to cross the line from regular to relationship? Like I swear, every guy that I've had any sort of repeat business from has immediately started harping on me about seeing me outside of work, taking care of me financially if we were "together", you know the drill. A couple of them seem like really good guys, and definitely have money. So I'd like them to come in and see me, but how do I keep them coming back without specifically saying "NO. We will never be together. End of story" ? I should also note that I've been strongly advised to NOT tell any of them I have a boyfriend. Do you agree?

My confusion on this topic is apparent in how disjointed this post is. Please forgive my naivety, I'm sure I will get the hang of it soon. But advice would be much appreciated in the meantime.

I got to the club last night around 8:30 to wait for Kyla to come grab me for the bachelor party. She mentioned in passing two nights before that she may have me be a "rub girl" at the party instead of dancing, because I had never done it before. As long as the money was the same, I could care less. But then April said she was going to be a rub girl, so I assumed I would still be dancing.

I let Henry do my make up while I waited. A girl I didn't know and had only done maybe one shift with was counting her money out on the counter by us.

"You're doing a party?"
"Yup."
"Have you ever done one before?"
"No, first time."
"Oh, Jesus. Be careful sweetie. Seriously. Be really careful."

Henry nodded in agreement and told her he had tried to warn me already, which I certainly don't recall. Just then two of the girls that were doing their hair in the mirror next to me turned to face me.

"Do you have ANY idea what you're getting yourself in to?" Shelly asked.

"Well....I mean....Kyla said..."

The girl next to her, Theresa, is much more blunt and cut right to the chase.

"They're going to want sex. It's a completely different atmosphere. Why do you think they do it at their home instead of coming to a club? They're going to want sex, for girl on girl
- for you to do sex acts on the other dancer."

Shelly chimed in again. "That's why there are girls who specifically do these parties, and they ask for $1,000 - just for an hour. Not $200."

Alright, so now I was confused. Kyla had put the offer on the table in the middle of the locker room, and no one had said a thing to me. Plus, she said the whole reason she was asking me was because I wasn't one of the "nasty" girls. But the rest of the girls seemed to have no doubt as to what the bachelor party protocol was.

Just as I was thinking about high tailing it out of there, I got a text from Kyla. They didn't want rub girls any more, and she already had dancers. Henry looked up at me as I read the text and said "Trust me, you're better off."

A little notice would have been nice, but oh well. I could have stayed and worked, but I was exhausted. I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night, and then a Friday double.

Speaking of which, Friday double proved to be extremely lucrative. It honestly didn't feel as brutally long as I thought - and I didn't even take the hour break I was allowed. One of the girls gave me a tip earlier in the day, and it really stuck with me. Set a goal, and make it. It sounds simple, but you'd be shocked how many girls waste their time gossiping in the locker room or getting drunk. I asked her what a reasonable goal was for a double, and she said $1,000. Okay, well she's been there for a few years and I'm brand new, plus is was the first gorgeous day we've had in a while so it wasn't that busy. So my goal was $800. And once I got focused, I wasn't quitting. I only left the floor to go down to eat real quick, get my hair and make up done for the night, and then I was up and back at it. I walked with $950.

I'm thinking about buying some black shoes today. Right now I have just plain clear, and white. The white bottomed ones are so uncomfortable that I almost never wear them. Or maybe clear, mirrored ones. Looking into it now.

Last night was weird. I got to the club around 8 as a walk-in, and it was just so dead. It's the least amount of money I've ever made in my tenure there, including that one day shift I randomly worked. Still, $220 isn't something you previously would have heard me complaining about back when waitressing was my only income.

There was this really old man there, and I know I've seen him in a bunch before but I've never interacted with him. I don't know whether to feel creeped out or sorry for him; it's a pretty level mixture of both. While I was doing my set on stage he put a $20 up on the rail and said he was pre-paying, that he wanted me to come give him a dance afterwards. His hat said "Korea Veteran." So I came down and found him, and walked him down to the couches under the raised stage. Before I could even start he pulled me close to him and said "I don't want you to dance dear, I just want to hold you." Okay. So this clearly violates the no touching rule. But there were no bouncers around and he wasn't touching me in any sort of vulgar way. Just hugging. And as we hugged for the duration of the song, he explained to me that he lost his wife 9 years ago, his "companion" 3 months ago, and two guys he was in the service with in within the past year. My heart absolutely shattered. It was all I could do not to cry and smear the electric blue eyeliner the makeup artist decided to experiment with that night. He stayed the entire night, literally from open until close, and I'm fairly positive he did this with every one of the 7 girls working.

The only other dances I sold were to a big group of guys that came in, all in their late 20's to early 30's. I caught them right when they came in the door, and honestly they looked normal enough and the most I was hoping for was people to sit with instead of sitting down in the locker room. There was maybe about six of them, and two are leaving for Afghanistan today. The friends bought one of the soldiers a dance from me, and when I finished he asked me to keep going for two more songs. Then later on I gave him a few more. When I was on stage they all came up to the front row and tipped me well there, too. I was a little conflicted because I could tell soldier guy liked me; he didn't buy dances from any of the girls that asked. And he even joked when I gave the old man a dance that I was "two timing" him. But then one of his friends, who truth be told was much cuter, started coming up to the front row every time I was on (which was a lot, considering the amount of girls on rotation), and asked me to dance for him. well, of course I did. Money is money and on a slow Tuesday being picky is not an option. But his soldier friend was definitely angry, and left without saying goodbye to me even though I told him to come find me before he left.

All in all it was a pretty lame night, and I spent almost everything I made on a new pair of Uggs today because it's freaking freezing and my old ones are destroyed. I justify this by saying I walked in on my off night, and it was money I wouldn't normally have anyway.

In other news, I'm doing my first bachelor party on Saturday night. One of the girls I work with, Kyla, asked me if I could. It's her cousin, so obviously she can't do it. She said they're all business guys and gentlemen, and some of the fiancee's family will be there so that's why she didn't ask any of the "nasty" girls to go. As of right now it's April and I. We're all going to meet at the club to get our stuff and meet her at 8:30, and she's going to drive us over, introduce us, and wait out in the car. It's $200 up front each, for only an hour, plus whatever we make in tips. I'll be out so early and I don't even think they want us to get fully nude.

The boy is nervous about this. I explained to him that Kyla is legit; she's honest, doesn't do drugs, and she has a normal day job. I trust her, and I will be with another girl from the club. He worries that in a more relaxed environment, and without any bouncers, they guys might be more apt to get aggressive. But for some reason I'm not worried about it at all. I trust the whole situation.

Went home for the weekend, and on the way back to the city the Boy and I decided to stop at a strip club near my town. We had had a few drinks while we were out to dinner (the most spectacular dinner I have had in a long time, I might add) and were both feeling a little frisky.

The club - or bar, rather - could not be more different than where I work. It was a dive. We knew what we were getting ourselves into, but still we were surprised. The stage was tiny, and was constructed out of what appeared to be particle board. They had maybe 5 girls on, and the quality actually wasn't completely terrible. I as expecting toothless crackheads. Okay, well maybe one of them fit that bill but we made sure to avoid her.

We couldn't have looked more unassuming. Him in a white polo, me in a crisp white tunic purchased at TJ's that day, dark skinny jeans, and leather flip flops. Flash forward to three vodka drinks and one kamikaze shot later, and with the Boy's encouragement I am being pulled on stage by a dancer we had gotten friendly with and stripped of my shirt. The guys went fucking nuts. I'm sure to them it looked like good, wholesome girl gets drunk and goes wild. Little did they know that it was just my night off.

Quote of the night

The signature “two-for-one” song played as it did every hour when we offer out specially priced lap dances. I approach two clean cut, but fun looking men.

“I can’t get a lap dance. My wife will know if I come home smelling like stripper.”

Me: “And what exactly does stripper smell like?”

His buddy, without missing a beat: “Heaven.”

Cast of Characters

I’m sure that throughout these postings I’ll be dropping some names here and there, so I think I should take some time to introduce these characters. And trust me, characters they indeed are.


***Side Note***: After finishing, I just realized how dreadfully boring this whole thing is to read through. Please feel free to use it solely as a reference.


Deena is my closest friend at the club, and I guess the only girl I would really refer to as a “friend” at all. Not that I don’t get along with the other girls; I don’t have any trouble with anyone. I just trust her, we get along and stick by each other. We both started at the same time, about a month ago, but Deena has danced before. I remember the first week into it she looked at me and said “you’re the only other normal girl here.” She has the build and look of a supermodel: 5’10”, lithe figure, olive skin with big brown doe-eyes. Her high pitched voice and giggly demeanor become endearing once you see hat a genuinely sweet person she really is. Deena’s two years older than me - 24 - and has a three year old. She nannies during the day and, like me, keeps her dancing a secret. Everyone thinks she waitresses at night. She doesn’t do any drugs, or even drink.

April is young. She just turned 21 the other day, but from what I gather she has been dancing since she was 18. On my first night, Jim (the manager) put her in charge of giving me the tour around and showing me the ropes. She also let me borrow one of her outfits, seeing as I didn’t really have any of my own yet. Like most girls she can go both ways with her demeanor; playful and friendly with me sometimes, but never forgets that I’m competition. She rarely comes in to work not stoned, but this seems to be kind of the standard with a lot of the girls. She jokes that her typical day is sleeping until 3, smoking a few bowls, and coming in to dance. The make up artist has also made references to a time where she did heavier drugs, but it wasn’t enough to damage her looks like some of the others. She lives with Ali, another one of the dancers who I get along with usually. One of the regulars has told me that Ali has a pimp, and that both April and Ali work together on the side as call girls. I try not to think about that too much.

There’s a few other girls that I’ve been told are “dirty”, but I need to take it with a grain of salt given the amount of locker room gossip that flies around. Barbie, who I will call such because she is doing her damnedest to resemble one, has a porn site and allegedly is known for her “extras”. She is over tanned to the point of ridiculousness, has white blonde hair extensions down her back, and ONLY wears neon orange and pink outfits. Krystal is another one that is rumored to have similar antics. On one of my first nights, I heard Jim yelling at her after coming out of the champagne room. I heard a few of the girls say she had gone to get a condom. She’s over tanned as well, but with dyed black hair. She’s pretty, I suppose, but definitely looks like she has some miles on her.

You can tell Lara used to be beautiful at one point. She still has a nice body and from far away, under the make up and blacklight of the stage you can see the lovely, sandy blonde girl she used to be. But drugs have sunken in her whole face, yellowed her skin, and ruined her teeth. She’s allegedly cleaning herself up; I hear her talk about it with the Tracy, the house mom - an ex-addict herself. The fact that she’s a single mom makes me all the more happy for her getting off drugs.

Bianca’s another one that seems to be struggling with some substance problems; my guess is heroin from the long lace sleeves she always wears as accessories on her arms. She’s young as well, maybe even younger than April but I don’t know for sure. She has a pretty, but blank face and a piercing below her lip and in her tongue. She was friendly at first, offering to let me use outfits and giving me tips. But she’s drifted just in the three weeks I’ve been around. I don’t think Bianca had a lot of friends there to begin with; Henry told me to stay away from her, that “there are certain people you don’t want to associate with, because other people will draw certain conclusions about you.” Cryptic, but succinct.

Christie, Jolene, and Amanda are our three foreign girls. Amanda is from England, Jolene from Israel, and Christie from Russia. Both Christie and Jolene speak perfect English. As a matter of fact, I thought Jolene’s accent was from New Jersey when I first met her. Christie gives the most sensual lap dances I’ve ever seen; not raunchy or explicit like some of the other girls, she just moves and looks in the eyes of the client in a way that makes them feel like she is theirs, and theirs only.

There’s way too many girls for me to keep going like this, but that’s a good chunk of them. People come and go so often that I’m sure a lot of them will disappear, and I am still so new that it's very possible that my perception is skewed.

Close Encounters

I had my first close call last night with running in to someone I know, and worse, someone that knows my dad well. There were a ton of girls on last night and I didn’t even get on stage until around 10 PM because the rotation was so long. And even then, I was on the little stage (we have three in the club) for my first set. Granted I had given a few dances, but the night was still very young and it was just beginning to pick up.

So I’m on the stage, doing my thing when three older businessmen walk in. Now, the club is not trashy by ANY means, but you could definitely tell these guys were very wealthy - in a subtle sort of way. They sat about one table back from my stage and were clearly celebrating some sort of business deal, cheers-ing with their first round of drinks. It wasn’t until almost the end of the last song that I got a good look at the one that had his back towards me, and I absolutely froze. It was a close friend and business buddy of my dad’s, who I’ve met several times but thankfully I don’t think just a glimpse at me with all that makeup, and in that setting of all places, would have enabled him to recognize me. I would have run off the stage if it wouldn’t have only drawn more attention to me, but I calmly waited for the next girl to get up there and ducked into the locker room. I explained the situation to the house mom who radioed the DJ to take me off rotation, and then relayed my request to the manager to leave and do a make-up shift during a weeknight next week. The only other option was to sit down in the locker room until they left, and who knows how long that would be? So the manager let me go. I changed out of my tiny gold dress and heels and into the yoga pants and Uggs I wore in, tipped out basically everything I had made, and as the bouncer walked me to my car I kissed the 600+ dollars I would have made that night goodbye. Oh well.

I thought I was being careful by picking a club so far outside the city, but it worries me that I’ve only been there three weeks and this has already happened. I guess I haven’t seriously considered what I would do if people (as in, my family) found out I was doing this; I think part of me is prepared to just hold my head high if it happens, and explain to them that the financial independence is not something I am willing to give up. My mom and dad watched me make the difficult decision to take the semester off to work, and because of the economic crash there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. My dad all but forced me to go to the school of his choosing - granted, it’s a wonderful school and I was grateful, under the pretense that if he was paying for it he had the right to pick. Had I known I would be financially accountable I would have chosen something much more affordable. Fast forward to three years later and his business is all but bankrupt and here I am at an outrageously expensive school, in an even more outrageously expensive city, with no means to pay for it.

So I guess it wouldn’t be the absolute end of the world if they found out, although it maybe feel like it temporarily. Only three people know right now: my boyfriend, and two of my best friends. As for everyone else, including our two other roommates, I tell them that my night job is working promotions. If I said I was bartending at another restaurant they would want to stop in. But even with promotions they always ask what bars or functions I had been working, and I’ve never been a good liar. I’m starting to think that keeping this a secret may be harder than I’d imagined.

She left behind nothing but her glass slipper...

I’ve started to adjust to using a name that is not my own every night, so you can call me Melissa. I am 22 years old, and I have just recently entered the world of exotic dancing. Entertaining. Stripping. Whatever you would like to call it, that's what I have been doing for a mere month.

I’m a normal girl, I swear. I’ve never done a recreational drug in my life, unless you count some all-nighters studying with the aid of adderall, and the occasional high school flirtation with marijuana. I’m not a single mom, although I have all the respect in the world for the girls I work with that are. I’m just a girl whose whole family and life were turned upside down by this economic crash, and is making the best of it.

I’m a country girl at heart who moved to the city for school; I work about 30 minutes outside of it to avoid any run ins with people I know. I have a steady, long term boyfriend who I have lived with for a year now. And yes, he knows, and supports me 100%. We have two roommates, a yellow lab, and a relatively normal life. I work another job waitressing and bartending on my off days and nights, and make frequent trips home or up to the mountains where he lives to visit our families. I was a student at a fairly prestigious college for the past three years - a writing major with hopes of breaking into journalism, until the crash happened. More on that later.

But every Thurs-Sat, when the clock strikes 7, I become someone else entirely - by both name and appearance. I change out of my jeans or sweatpants and in to a g-string, 5” clear heels, and whatever microscopic dress I pick out for the night. Sometimes I clip in long blonde hair extensions to add to my shoulder-length hair, and the make up artist proceeds to turn me into a man’s fantasy. Glossy lips, long (fake) eyelashes, the occasional spray tan; all the glamorous and perhaps borderline trashy details that men secretly and not-so-secretly love.

And then I dance. On stage, in private, a few times in the champagne room. I use the term “dancing” loosely; I’ve never been too great at it. I have the flexibility of an 80 year old man thanks to an old foot injury, though I’ve been assured that it will improve the longer I work there. It’s more winding and moving seductively than anything, and that I can do. There are girls that are immensely talented and can do all sorts of tricks and contortions on stage, I’m just not one of them. Yet.

When 2 A.M. rolls around it’s all over. The locker room becomes packed with girls counting out their money and tip-outs, changing into their normal clothes, grabbing their purses and waiting for the O.K. that the parking lot is cleared and it’s time for the bouncers to walk us out.

It’s been a whirlwind of a month in this new occupation of mine, and there certainly is a learning curve to it. I’m still learning the beautification tips of the trade, which I may venture into in a future post, as well as stripper etiquette, hustling techniques, etc. It’s still very new to me but I feel myself starting to get comfortable with it. Most importantly, I am making more money than I ever have in my life. In just the first two weeks I was able to pay off all my credit cards AND my rent. With some leftover. The feeling is unbeatable, my friends. I remember sitting in my car at the end of my first night, wide-eyed as I counted out $500. And I’ve been told that’s a bad night. So I will continue to dance, and write about it throughout, however long that may be.