If the shoe fits...

Men with shoe fetishes come with the territory. Last night I had a fairly regular customer come in. He's a surgeon. Anyway, he comes over to my station and says. "I want lap dances tonight. Lots of them!" Which is just fine by me. Except with him, he likes it when I wave my shoes in his face and let him lick my toes. That's his version of a lap dance. Oh, and being told what to do. He likes to be dominated.

All in a night's work. As I was getting off, he got my email. Today he sent me an email gushing about this and that and wanting me to come over to his place this week for more foot fetish fun. Here's the way I look at it...easy money. No sex, no weirdness....just my feet and him and his wallet.

Hey, I don't really get it. It's not something that gets me going. But still...thank God for foot fetishes!

Liabilities....

Stripping makes you so hard. It has to. It's like that pair of ten-inch Alexander McQueen shoes. Until your soles get calloused solid, it's going to hurt like hell to walk in them.

I like it to hurt. I like to be human. I don't want to get hard.

A job like this has multiple liabilities: the first is that you lose the understanding of what a dollar means. You can't help it. Four minutes of your time are twenty bucks, and then thirty bucks is discounted at two hundred and sixty. So, yeah, four half-hour VIPs and you're already making more than people who make $20 per hour are making per week! It's some serious cash folks. So before you go and trot out your pitchforks and rake ME over the coals for defiling the body God gave me and shit, think about it....GOD his very self did just that. He GAVE me this body. To use how I want. Sigh.

Anyway, you start looking at everything around you in terms of VIP gigs—a pair of Christian Louboutin high heels with red soles? That's a little more than a one-hour VIP. And rent is just three one-hour VIP dances. Hell, you KNOW how fast you can line up those VIP dances. No biggie.

This is when you realize you have been indoctrinated into The Stripping Life.

The second liability is what it does to your perception of men. In short, it really, really fucks it up. Let's face it, if you're a good looking woman, you know what it means to have so many possibilities you spend your entire life shopping for someone better. It's just like that. You have men all over you all day and night long. But this eventually conspires to suffocate you. And your sense of tenderness and intimacy. And well, your friendships are guarded too.

But this is why I had made friends with my friend who is now dead. He was someone I would never sleep with, whom I knew wouldn't try shit with me and who was respectful. Sure, sure...I met him in a strip club too. I didn't say he wasn't human. But he was one of the men I trusted is all I'm saying. Him and Jimmy (hi Jimmy!).

Anyway, the second stage, on the other hand, hits you like a damn wall and it's called doubt. Do they really like you or do they just want to fuck you like everyone else? Do they really know you or are you playing the role of someone else like you do for a dance? How do you know they mean the shit they say when you hear the same shit a hundred times every night from drunk men you end up never seeing again? The answer is, of course, that you don't. And probably never will so it's much easier to stick with doubt and perhaps even Certainty. Certainty that people in your life are completely insincere and fucked up.

Mix in a hearty dose of Resentment, Bitterness, and Rage and you get heartbreak; which is where I'm at.

The worst part is a combination of the above two things. When I was younger, an older woman stripper friend advised me to accept every date with cute, rich guys. “Why not?” she reasoned. “It's a free dinner.” I always thought this was a terrible deal—put up with someone talking with you for a few hours for food? WTF??? When you're younger and have nothing to do, it doesn't matter so much. But as reality seeps in and time becomes a luxury, the idea of trading in your time for dinner becomes less and less appealing, even if it is the newest restaurant in town.

When you dance, weekends are out of the question, to start. Right off the bat, this dude is costing you at least six hundred big ones. Is he worth it? This is why so many girls go into escorting. Until you try, you have no idea how many men will hand you money after you tell them, “I can't. I work every night. One date night is $800 less for me and I need that $800.” It's a small step to negotiating the price of sex after that. One time, I totaled my car in a drunk driving accident and I didn't have a car to get around and my driver wasn't here either. So one of my clients gave me $5,000 that night to “fix” the problem.

I took it.

But yeah, when you're off work, then with some of the guy I go out with, it's like suddenly you're not dating, you're working. These men aren't boyfriends, they're tricks.

This is Loneliness.

I don't want to get hardened. I don't want to forget the value of money or lose sight of what genuine connection feels like. So yeah, now I'm raw from a friend's death. I'm thinking about my place in the world as a Universal Life Church minister. I'm thinking about my place in the world as a stripper. I'm thinking about my place in the world as a person...who needs the basics.

Yeah.

Stripper Ministries...a different kind of party.

Last night I got into work a little late (I blame this on my new addiction to writing out blog posts and obsessively checking the grammar to make sure i get it right before throwing it up on the web).  Frank was pissed at me, but fuck him.  Stripping often feels like this obligatory party one must attend night after night, week after week.  You get on your party dress, have a few shots, shake your ass and your tits and pull some moves on that pole.  And that pole is my gym membership by the way.  Keeps me fit.

Anyway, Penni wasn't working with me last night and there was some bitchy new girl who just kept giving me the stink eye.  Like who is she anyway?  But I got my makeup on and got out there.  I don't know why, but Weds are crowded.  Lots of guys were out.  And I made some good cash.

But his new chick looked liked she was WORKING.  Not like she was having any kind of fun.  You know what?  No one likes a downer at the party.  You know the type...the one who stands by the chips all night long and complains.  Or who says to everyone "don't eat the blue acid".  After everyone's eaten the blue acid.

I have a good smile to go with my assets and I use everything.  Came home with good money last night too.  But I'm bored with stripping.  No, i don't go telling everyone this at work, but my friends know it.  I'm tired of going to the party and being the entertainment.  Truth is, I don't want to end up like miss Debbie Downer from last night.

I'm giving some serious thought to a side business now.  I know I keep talking about how I'm a minister with the Universal Life Church and all that...but I'm thinking of a little Las Vegas in Panama Beach.  Like Stripper Ministries or something.  Where I could run things from my apartment, marry people, offer spiritual counseling and even do baptisms.  i know.  i know.  It sounds crazy.  But before you all trot out the pitchforks...think about it.  Who would YOU rather have in your baptism photo?  A priest or a hot stripper anointing you in your baptism photo.  Let's be honest.....that picture would get a lot more mileage, wouldn't it.

Getting ready for work...

I've been whining all day about the heat.  It's so goddamned hot here in florida.  But I was thinking about the rituals a stripper goes through.  Like packing my bag.  In go the Platform Sandals...they are black and have "Skull Lights" in the heels.  guys love these.  And then my romper, my short shorts, and my various tops.  Gotta put my makeup on there, it'll melt off in this fucking heat here.

The locker room is a weird place in a strip joint.  You leave the emotions outside.  The girls all getting into the mindset.  Maybe one or two coming off shift are pissed off about their tips.  They count their money on the benches.  Penni's working tonight.  She's been fired twice now for dealing weed and pills in the locker room, but she seemms to make it back in.  The girls deal with the life in different ways.  Me?  i knock back a shot or two and that's it.  When I'm ready to go, I hit that floor and move between the different stations and I just get into the zone.

Almost all those guys are regulars.  I have exactly one stalker.  Most girls do.  Jimmy you hear me?  You need to watch out for that guy tonight, ok?  LOL.  for the most part, the guys are ok.  I hope they throw some money at me tonight.  I want to get some hair extensions soon.