March 2012
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Natalie
I was always falling in love with the girls. Crushes were commonplace for me, though I generally kept this to myself. The object of my most heated affections… the one for whom I still carry a torch… was a girl from El Salvador named Natalie. She lived with her boyfriend and his mother in Venice. She was 19 and she’d worked as an escort for a year, before coming to the club. A...
February 2012
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New girls seemed to come and go in waves, but I was on firm ground at the club. I was a leader during the day… and untouchable at night.
By nightfall, there ceased to be leaders or followers. The social politics of the club lacked any such clarity by then. We became mere parts… of one large, pulsing body. Moving in one motion, in one direction… but with an infinite number of...
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Sin and the Firefighter
One thing I loved about the club is that it was always there. They opened at noon and closed at four in the morning… so any time I felt like it, I could drop in. Everyone needs a place to go sometimes… and The Body Shop was my playground.
One rainy Tuesday afternoon I went in around 1:00. Why not give Alex a thrill? Sassy was already in her chair, and there was a new girl to talk...
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my drink of choice
I’d grossed over $1000… on what might have appeared to be a slow afternoon. Of course, Alex didn’t know how much I made… but he knew a girl who was on a roll, when he saw one. He magnanimously plunked a glass bottle on the counter.
Perrier was my drink of choice at the club… and Alex knew every girls’ favorite. When he wanted to do or say something nice, this was what he...
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The night lurched ahead… and the bodies kept coming in waves, pouring their energy… to and from the stage. I went with the tide… in those booths in the back, and on the floor... I could do this with my eyes closed.
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“Enjoy your body, use it any way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what...”
– Kurt Vonnegut
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“Once you have perceived that life is very cruel, the only response is to live...”
– Sarah Kane
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I was addicted to these visions… flashing quickly, then slow. They fed me new life and offered precious glimpses into the story of my life.
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these days
Usually, I get up around seven. Not because an alarm has gone off, I don’t set one… but because I can’t wait to have my coffee.
My newest habit is to look through pictures on tumblr while I’m having my breakfast. I just scroll… kinda endlessly… and absorb the outside world in this way, as the caffeine works it’s way through me. I like pictures that are sexy or heartbreaking,...
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Money is energy. It represents faith, power, and pride… elusive things which we constantly strive for… and try to hold on to. Where else but in a strip club, will you witness people throwing their money… literally into the air... with such a sense of abandon?It’s quite the symbolic gesture, really. They were trading the tokens of what society promises… for what we naturally...
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To gyrate your hips, get on your hands and knees… to spread your legs and open your mouth… these are not the acts of an inferior being. Quite the contrary. These are the natural positions of female power. These are the positions of birth, conception… seduction and desire.
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Anonymous asked: So I went to my first strip club last night... and seeing all those girls up there, made me want to give it a shot, thinking I COULD DO THAT. I know I'd feel great and be great at what I'd be doing. Do you say go for it? What made you do it?
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“memories… just lift me up. put me down. spin me round… and then....”
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“Whenever I go back to LA… I wake up sprinkled with glitter.”
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“The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the...”
– Caroline Myss
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I remember that ride well.
I was high on a chemical charge of adrenaline. By the time I turned into the parking lot, the nervousness jittering through me… had morphed into an almost unreasonable form of confidence. I felt like a badass. I was going in.
The darkness inside blinded me for a moment. I saw a few girls out of the corner of my eye… and one of them said something to me,...
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When my memories revealed themselves to me, they were vivid and overwhelming. It became my chore in life to allow myself to feel… all the fear, pain, and sadness I had denied.
It wasn’t at all pleasant. It was confusing and gut wrenching… and I resented the reality I was faced with. I sunk my teeth into the process, though… because I knew if I was going to be the wife,...
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I felt it went pretty well… for a first time, that is. It was fun, that was for sure… and the feeling of walking out…seeing their faces and hearing them yell. Then getting naked like that and seeing them so close, well… it was a total and immediate high. As good as any drug, or better.
I felt alive and connected. Seen and appreciated.
Sure, I could stand to smooth out my...
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I’d studied ballet, so I had been on stage before… though it couldn’t have been more different. Every step was so laid out. So rehearsed and memorized. I strained to express some part of myself through the choreography… but I didn’t think or react at all. There was nothing to react to. In the large auditoriums where we performed, the audience was distant… silent...
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chin up. turn out!
This is what they taught me in ballet class… and with the stone faced easy pleasinesss of a child… I complied. I still didn’t breathe. Almost always, I was anxious… and I was checking. Holding on and holding in. Not feeling, not flowing… never being as I should or could, but I was getting by… and I was growing bigger.
I had a chance now… to leap across the...
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“Home was always a hard place, but he expanded my ideas… of home.”
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It was a strange and magical ride home through the hills. Houses and trees glinted very distinctly… amongst twinkling lights… roads signs shining their warnings… which seemed so unnecessary.
Exotic tastes and smells… still lingering in the sound… of my music moving… through the cool breeze.
And as I pulled up my driveway… a silhouette appeared…...
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twenty-seven
“I’m gonna come get you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup. When we’re twenty-seven. I’m gonna find you, wherever you are.”
We were lying on the floor of my apartment. There was a sparkle in his eye and knowing him, he probably had his hand on my ass… though I honestly don’t remember. We first kissed when we were sixteen. In high school, we used to ditch class and do it on the rooftop… or in the...
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