The Aussie and I are on the patio of the W hotel bar, waiting for my kickass Chicago customer with the Flock of Seagulls hair, who’s paying us to skip work and go out on the town with him. We are having a really amazing conversation about what this job does to your social life (in a nutshell: it torpedoes it), and that’s when it hits me. This relationship epitomizes the reason I started dancing. I knew I needed to get on the inside, so I could gain the trust of these women, but I never really expected to find such true friends such as her. Lately, I’ve realized that my mission, in this lifetime, is to connect with people, to try and understand the truth of others’ experiences; she has shared with me more than I ever thought possible, perhaps because we’re so on the same page about this shit, even though we’re quite different. When she finally started reading my blog, after we became close and I kept telling her about all the quoting of her I’ve been doing here, she texted me: “I’ve been waiting for you.” (I started crying at a stoplight when I read that). And the truth is? Not only have I been waiting for her, for like fifteen years (since I first became fascinated by the sex industry), but I never expected to find her at all. But find her I did, and on my way out of the business no less. The timing couldn’t have been better (unless I’d connected with her, say, five years ago). I’m so happy we’re friends.
I had my eye on her for a while. You see, I’ve never met an Australian that I didn’t find hilarious (and hot), and she was no exception. But she was a tough sell, hard to get close to (I am too. Go figure).We’d had some highly entertaining conversations at work, and had made plans to hang out a few times (her idea), and every time, she would cancel on me at the last minute. So I just stopped trying after a while, stopped believing it till I saw it. Strippers are flaky, whatever. But then her best friend, also an Aussie whom she had met in the club, moved away. She mentioned this to me one night, sitting at the bar, and also added that since her friends had left, she was kindof lonely and looking for someone to hang out with. I saw my opening, and I jumped at it.
It’s been hot shit on a platter ever since. She and I get along really well, and can party with each other in an uncannily seamless way. We’re seemingly always on the same page, we go at the same speed when we go out together (she says she has two settings: on and off. She’s fun either way), are always like, “YES! Great idea! Let’s do THAT!” and are there for each other when we need to recover and wind down and lay on the couch and order PPV and delivery food. I feel like I could travel the world with her. And that’s saying something.
A friendship like this is one of the main reasons I started dancing. I knew that I needed to get in really tight with another stripper before anyone would share any personal details, impacts of this work on one’s life, which had any depth or breadth. Images, scenes, snippets about her riddle the Evernote entry that I keep running on my droid, the fodder for the blog. I take notes at work, and I regurgitate them here. There’s a bunch about her that need to come out, now. It’s time. Ahem:
I’m on stage four, twirling while the Aussie dances to Bizarre Love Triangle. It’s a Flashback Sunday, always a good time. This song reminds me of walking to the bus stop in middle school, when a cover track done by a one-hit-wonder band named Frente was on the radio, which I of course listened to religiously on my trusty walkman. Back when I didn’t even know it was a cover of my now much-beloved New Order. So, the song conjures up images and memories of adolescent angst, all the while I’m spinning mostly naked on a pole. My how far we come, my how my path was absolutely impossible to predict. Who knew I’d be here, almost twenty years later? How could I have known, hormonal and angsty in seventh grade, that I’d be getting all mushy-subversive here, now. She’s doing her same routine as always, which I noticed yesterday, it never changes. I’m tearing it up, tearing up, and I’m filled with joy. I’m so glad we’re friends.
I often get sentimental when I’m dancing and certain songs happen to come on. If I’m just walking around the club, it’s not a big deal, but if I’m onstage or performing privately, the music can create emotional weight that dictates meaning around the simple movements I’m undertaking. The audience, the customers who for the most part only objectify me, will never know how subjectified I am in those moments, seemingly performing for them but reappropriating those motions for myself while something personally meaningful plays. I’m dancing to a secret, embodying something emotional while projecting only faked lust. They’ll never know what this means, because I keep it only for me. I’ll never let them inside to see this part of me, but I can express it, only for myself, naked, in front of god and everybody. This is a beautiful thing. These walls we put up, most shrinks would call them unhealthy compartmentalization techniques which arise as coping mechanisms in an abusive environment; these walls, they are beautiful. I can be entirely myself, but nobody has to know. I only let them see what I decide to share. And I can be one thing, while they’re seeing another, but only I know who I truly am in that moment. There is poetry in compartments, beautiful expression embedded like mortar in the walls we put up. She sums up her (very different) perspective on this sentiment of mine: “This is not the kind of place where you want to have people see who you really are. I try and pretend that songs like this don’t exist. When they come on, I feel emotionally raped.” While it might be a violation to her—and it is to some extent for me, to be reminded of real feelings/memories/people/selves while trying to project an image of faked eroticism—I revel in that violation. Fine, bring new meaning to my performance, rattle my core. I won’t let it get to me, I won’t let you see who I really am unless you deserve it. And money doesn’t buy trust.
***
We’re sitting at the bar, and a drunk guy decides to insert himself into our conversation, asking us if we want to come home with him, and it’s not even 7pm yet. We’re getting increasingly annoyed, rolling our eyes at each other, until she finally goes, “We’re in the middle of a conversation.” He responds, seeing me taking notes on my phone (which I often do during these times with her), “Then why are you texting? You shouldn’t be texting” and I go, “The word ‘should’ doesn’t need to come out of your mouth again.” Fucker. How dare he, intrude upon our moment of realness, how dare he interrupt our dissection of life and the meaning of the sex industry? Hey, science: where is my force field already? Jeez.
Part of what I was recording when fuckface decided to intrude: She goes, “Since we’ve become good friends, this [read: work] has become easier for me. It’s nice to have an ally. We’re helping each other make money. When I was working with Fiona [aforementioned best friend who moved away], we had some problems because she’d go upstairs and make her thousands, and then come downstairs and kill all my seeds [guys she’d had her eye on].” We have very different work styles, so we don't often work together. But when we do, man, does it work.
***
I’m sitting at a table consisting of her, her customer, and his business associate, and I’m looking at her, watching her expressions, watching her work her magic. We’ve been paid very well by these guys for the last two days, and I don’t think either of us has even taken our dress off. Always the observer, I’m regarding her, knowing this might be the last time we work together, getting sentimental, when she hikes her eyebrow at me and I nearly melt. She’s holding court and shit is amazing. I love watching her wheels turning. I’m soaking it in, saying goodbye to this aspect, this facet of who we are together.
***
Our friendship happened at the most opportune moment for both of us. She says: “A lot of things about my life, I’ll fluff them up before I put them out there, but you don’t because you don’t give a fuck. Your anger comes out in your style [of relating to customers] and mine is starting to. I’ve been conforming and I don’t care anymore. The timing of our friendship is correct. I’ve always been this person, but it’s showing more on the outside now. Your lack of fraudulence makes this a lot more fun for me. When you’re sitting here with me, a lot of people [read: strippers] who would normally come up and complain [about the club being empty] don’t do that anymore. I still think we’re going to make money. I’m staring at an empty club but I’m in a good mood because of you.” We complete each other, here. I give her courage, she provides reaffirmation and depth to these things I’ve been trying to put my finger on for five years. This is a beautiful thing. I am so grateful.
***
She doesn’t like to go upstairs anymore, she’d much rather work her magic on people downstairs where she knows what she’ll make and what she has to do for it, rather than leave anything up to chance. She says: “When I have control over the situation, I don’t feel objectified. That’s why I don’t go upstairs, because I don’t feel in control up there the way I can control the anonymous laps downstairs. Control is an illusion, I know, but…” I say, finishing her thought: “power changes hands every other minute in here, and you’ve figured out how to maintain yours.” Subject/object, power/control. The nuances are subtle in this space, and these articulations of ours are absolute revelations for me, each inspiring unspoken amounts of gratitude. No amount of reading stripper anthologies would have ever gleaned thought streams such as these. And that’s why I had to become a stripper.
***
We go on and on about relationships, in and outside of the club, literally and figuratively, and I quote her extensively. “We come in here and the relationship is very transactional, but our interactions [with eachother, and to a certain degree with our customers] don’t feel that way.” On how outside relationships affect work relationships: “Getting fucked before work is bad for your money. Relationships and work can’t coexist. Spending time with people makes you not want to go to work. We sell chemistry, and if you’ve experienced real chemistry recently, it’s like it’s a zero sum thing, you’ve used it up and you don’t have enough to sell when it’s done. That’s why it’s cool to jerk off each afternoon before my shower [I do that too!], but having been sexually real with someone prior to work makes it harder to sell it here.” Oh, so that’s why I didn’t work as much as I should have when I was engaged. Oh, so that’s why I haven’t had a serious (local) relationship while I’ve been a stripper. Fuck, I wish I’d met her sooner.
***
Randomly: “It’s good to have friends who know where the bodies are buried, who still like you anyways.” When you engage in a stigmatized activity together, you can share things with each other that you’d never possibly speak to another human being. That is all.
***
We can be really frank about money with each other. “In the real world, $400 is $400 but we choose to not live there.” Meaning: most of my peers would be perfectly thrilled to make $400 in a day, but that’s a crappy shift for us. In a nutshell: we’re spoiled, and we’re really good at being spoiled together.
***
She compliments me in really deep and meaningful ways. “There are so many girls who fall into this work, talking about things and people as if they’re objects, instead of ideas. And after five years, you’re still talking about ideas, and that’s a good thing. You’re going to make it out of here alive.”
***
The only thing which could have made our friendship better timed would have been if I’d gotten close with her while I was writing my thesis. It would have significantly changed that document, for the better, for the real-er. But, no regrets. I’m so lucky to have her in my life, at the bar, on the stage, on the couch, on the dancefloor, forever. My thoughts about the nature of our work have been greatly enriched by her influence. And that, my friends, is why I became a stripper. All the money I’ve made in the club could never rival the value of this gift she’s given me. The clothes I bought will rip, the memories of the vacations I took will fade, but I will never be without the insight her love and sharing has given me. All the sacrifice, all the indulgence, all the pain and tears and laughter and joy and greed, all of it was worth it, because of her.
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