We should consider every day lost in which we do not dance at least once. 
                                                                                        – Nietzsche

Tips In: $362

Tips out: $51

There is a giggling, gal-bonding thing happening in the dressing room tonight. We goof around sharing stories and locker room humor. No one is crying, nothing has been stolen recently, Lydia has been fed, and Pandora has a full pack of cigarettes and a Red Bull & rum waiting for her just outside the dressing room door. Roxy, a lovely Latina woman with a harsh New York accent, waves her hands around and flies into a hilarious tirade about how every man these days can’t wait to tell her that she looks just like Jennifer Lopez.

           
Jim and one of the bartenders carry in a big box of decorations for a Hawaiian Luau party tonight, and together we tape them up on walls and along the stages. As the place begins to populate, I go from table to table advertising the party that will start much later tonight.  After flitting around for quite some time, and I finally plant myself at a table of some nice looking techie types.

           
They react to me with a peculiar lack of enthusiasm, as if they are not sure they should be seen talking to me. Hell-lo! Strip bar: Strippers! Evidently, they’ve run into their boss who has now joined them at their table under coerced invitation.  I call a waitress over and coquettishly demand that they order another pitcher of beer. Before too long his status as their superior becomes irrelevant, and I gain a loud and loyal fan club. 

           
One devotee begins to talk to me at length. Right away I blow the single, no kids lie. He works with digital video, and I ask him many questions on behalf of my son who is very interested in photography and animation.  We start talking about more personal topics. Again, here is one more attractive, personable man with a very good job, hanging around in a strip club. He is no regular, but still, I’m baffled at the attraction to a place like this and all of the attention and money he is willing to spend on a married stripper. 

           
After exhausting the subjects of websites dedicated solely to the mullet haircut, digital animation software, and never having enough random access memory, he begins to tell me the intimate details of his recent, bitter divorce.  My guess is one of two extremes: either he has never discussed the divorce before or he has discussed it so many times that his friends will no longer listen to him.

            “I never cheated on her, I never even thought about it. Things started to go badly, and we didn’t do anything about it for at least a couple of years. We just kept going along. I thought it would get better, but it only got worse until we barely acknowledged the other was even in the room. She kept a journal and one day I read it. She wrote that she couldn’t stand it when I touched her. Couldn’t stand it when I touched her! Why would she just keep going along so long after writing something like that?” 

           
I am stunned at the depth and delicate nature of the conversation and stumble to think of a response. I muster up something brilliant to say like,

            “I’m so sorry… No, I don’t understand it either.”

I change the subject to something sexual as quickly as possible, and we rebound into lighter subjects. I suggest a game of pool. I am a lousy pool player, so to make things fair, I have changed the objectives of the game ever so slightly.

            “Your goal is to get the balls into awkward positions so that when it is my turn to shoot I have to stretch and lean over the table. You can either face me to look down my blouse or stand behind me to admire my ass.” I pivot, smile, and point to the referenced body part as I explain the new rules. “I get as many shots as I want. If I do manage to knock a ball in, I jump up and down in celebration, and you get to watch me.” This is my standard pool game shtick.

Surprise, surprise, I won, and he showed no more signs of melancholy. Now that I had a solid warmed up audience, complete with a built-in fan base, I was on a roll that couldn’t be stopped.

           
My next set was in the smoking lounge, which almost invariably sucks.  It’s just a small stage with a mirror against the wall, no poles. People are usually too busy playing pool or talking to strippers who are bumming cigarettes from them. Not this time. Three drunken amigos sit down at my stage and when one gives me a dollar, I challenge the next to give me a five. When he gives me the five, I turn to the third,

            “Are you going to let him show you up? Honey, I can’t bear to see that happen.” Ten more dollars on my hip, and I circle back to the one dollar man in mock disgust. As I continue my musical theatre, their pickled peer pressure escalates resulting in the continued round-robin transfer of funds into my T-bar.

            “Real men empty their wallets, baby, there is no shame in that… Awwww, YOU are my knight in shining armor, sweetie… Thanks so much.  There’s an ATM by the front door, no problem.” I dance off the stage and all the way back to the dressing room to deposit my windfall.

           
I pay a visit to Jake, a DJ who is constantly trying to fool around with me, and every other girl in the club, I’m sure. I humor him, but I heard that one of the dancers is his girlfriend, and when he comes up from behind and rubs against me, I remind him once again not to set me up to get my ass kicked, thank you very much. Jake is a cute guy, but a smart ass who never plays exactly what I ask for. Music is extremely important to the atmosphere and features prominently in the quality of work life of the exotic dancer.

           
Speaking of that, we have a dancer, Emotion, who brings her own briefcase of carefully cataloged CDs. She plans out very carefully every song she wants played in a certain order for each set. One time Jake played something else, acting as if it was a mistake, and she refused to move an inch until he put her song on. When her set was over you could hear her yelling at him in the booth over the music.

           
After the smoking lounge, we rotate back to Stage One where the dancer gets her choice of music.

            “I want Brass in Pocket. Jake, I want Brass in Pocket; you know I always tip you so play the song, okay?” He’s pretending to be concentrating on something else and then turns to me and says, “You girls get money just for showing your tits, it is so unfair. Hey, I’ll show you my penis for a dollar.”

            “I’ll give you a dollar if you show me your penis and play my song.” He whips out his dick, and I admire it for a few seconds then hand him a dollar. I start to walk back down out of the booth, but I turn around and yell back at him,

            “I’ll give you five if you get it hard!”  He wants to take the deal, and tries to get my attention again, but it’s too late, I’m already halfway back to my table of techies.

            “Just play the song!”

           
I’ve danced and sweated off my last drink, and my new divorced friend buys me another one. I take one sip before it’s my turn on Stage One again. We have an unwritten policy never to leave a drink at a customer’s table or otherwise out of our sight. I have no concern whatsoever that these men might tamper with my beverage, but still I take it with me out of habit.

           
I am following Lana tonight and she makes a production of exchanging places with me on stage. She takes my hand and draws me onto the stage, but doesn’t immediately let go, running the back of my hand softly across her cheek.  Men respond especially generously to displays of same sex affection around here, so I play along and flirtatiously smile and push her long black hair away from her face. She puts her shoes on and before she leaves the stage, I stare into the eyes of a patron sitting near the exit steps while I reach down to squeeze her shoulder. Any girl-on-girl activity has some overwhelming magical power over these men, and he can’t hand over his money fast enough.

           
Jake plays what is now my signature song, Wait, first up. It’s busy and I have a full stage of customers. I take wide, heavy strides all around the stage to attract attention from every corner of the room. I pop open a buckle and pull a string in time with the music. My techies are cheering for me and I coax them to risk losing their table and come up to my stage to tip me. By the time Chrissie Hynde belts out “I got Brass, my black vinyl top flies off as I spin around, in pocket.” I am Trinity, queen of the pocket protectors!

           
I make my way around the stage, kneeling close to the edges of the stage and cradling my breasts with my forearms to push them up and out farther. Using one of the poles to steady myself, I bend over as far as I can and catch the eyes of a customer behind me on the opposite corner. I stomp my feet and make such a spectacle of myself that it seems that every pair of eyes is on me. I can hear chanting from my new fan club,

            “You go, Trinity! Trin It TEE! Trin It TEE! Trin It TEE!”

Within my larger than life dance routine, I still manage to give every one sitting at the stage some personal attention, bending over, lingering eye contact, or leaning in and whispering, “Thank you” as I pick up my tips.  I grab my clothes, a few high fives, and a couple extra bucks floating around, and I get ready to pull the next dancer on stage. Jake calls into the microphone,

“Trinity to the DJ booth.” At first I think I’m in trouble for being so wild on stage, but then I hear him add,

“And bring that five bucks.”