Moving. Packing. Donating the Excess…

I put on my old Pleasers. They have clear plastic straps and clear plastic toe holders. The tops are all plastic. The bottoms are all shiny black heel. What to take with, what to leave behind… It’s almost like it goes deeper than the item itself and it’s actually about what it means to you. I think I want to keep my stripper shoes because I haven’t written about that chapter of my life yet. 

 

The shoes remind me of some strange far off nightmare that occurred in Hadley, Massachusetts all those years ago.

 

How I called my boyfriend crying while he was driving to Tennessee on the way to the music festival.  As I lay on my puffy white comforter—somehow I had gotten home safe in my lime green mustang. I could still taste the Tanqueray hours after I had stopped shuttling it with tonic down my esophagus. I remember getting to my car in the parking lot of the strip club, feeling confused and giddy and guilty and drunk. Mostly drunk. I palmed the keys to the stang and pressed unlock. I slid inside, jean shorts still unbuttoned from my hasty exit, ears burning from the free alcohol. The bartender said I could leave now, so I booked it out of there as fast as I could. It had been a long and treacherous night filled with pants and cum, cups and dollar bills.

 

I thought it would never end. One of the other girls had offered to go halfsies on a bag of blow at one point, when I was spotty-visioned and silly-happy. 

 

“No thanks, I’m trying to cut back,” I said.

 

She shrugged and walked down the brightly lit back corridor towards the deep dark club at the end. 

 

“Tonight’s house tip out is ten dollars,” the bartender lady said to me. There was no threat in her voice but I understood that before I could make another move it was pertinent that I open up my Crown Royale draw string pouch, crunch on some dry ones and hand over the ten dollars. I spotted a ten in the brightly lit hallway and handed it to her hastily. She nodded and the bill disappeared.

 

I clomped off down the hall, wobbling and blinking. I was entirely unaware of how I looked in my scrappy black Victoria’s Secret undies and Walmart brand lace cami. Despite being half naked I did not feel any sort of sexual way. I felt men’s eyes on me and I felt their horniness like nets, sticky like cum, spewing and trailing behind me as I clip-clopped my way towards the stage. 

 

A cool breeze washed over me from some relentless A/C vent overhead and I shuddered. My skin became bumpy and I rubbed my right palm over my left bicep instinctually.

 

“You cold?” a man at the bar asked me. 

 

“Yeah it’s freezing in here,” I said.

 

“Well, you don’t have much on, so,” he trailed off to give me a once over.

 

I looked down at my naked cramped toes. “You’re not wrong.”

 

I smirked to try to convince him that I did this all the time. That I was a pro.

 

“Why are you here?” he said.

 

“Why not?” I replied.

 

“No but really. You’re young, seem somewhat intelligent, like you have your wits about you. You don’t belong here with these other girls,” he said, frowning.

 

“I know,” I said.

 

“You should get out of here, like right now,” he said, urgency in his voice.

 

“Okay,” I said.

 

Eager to please, I went up to the bartender like a schoolgirl asking permission to pee.

 

“Can I go now?” I said.

 

“No, it’s only eleven. Stay until one at least. Please.”

 

Her tone wasn’t demanding, but I understood that I wasn’t able to leave yet. I looked at the hefty security guard sitting at the main entrance and I wondered what would happen if I booked it out of there. But I came to play games, so I said, “Okay,” and walked away. I turned to look at the man who had told me to leave, caught his eye and shrugged my shoulders to say, I guess I’m staying. 

 

The bartender finds me again and she says, “Hey, I think that patron over there likes you—he wants a private dance. You should go over there and talk to him.

 

“Okay,” I said.

 

I saw a short soviet-looking middle-aged man smiling and waving at me. He looked quiet and fairly embarrassed. Totally non-threatening. I approach him and he shies away from my presence. I feel a domination over him but its not coming from my end. His submissiveness just defaulted me to become the dominant one. His mere stature forced my hand at dominance. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. So I grabbed his hand and said, “Two hundred dollars, forty-five minutes.”

 

“Okay,” he said.

 

He skipped along behind me, humming to himself, nothing that was coming through the dad rock speakers matched what he hummed. I rolled my eyes and swept the ball of twenties into my pouch, cinched it tight and swung it back around my wrist. 

 

“That’s the lucky Crown Royale bag!” one of the girls said to me earlier. “You must be something special if Betty gave that to you.”

 

I felt special and I knew I didn’t belong there.

 

I took my tits out for the soviet guy and I said, “Sorry, they’re kinda small.”

 

“I like it,” he said.

 

So I sat on top of him for forty five minutes, just like that. He put his face on my bony chest and snuggled in between my small tits for what seemed like an eternity. The forty five minutes were up. I had his two hundred dollars tied to my wrist and we walked out of there hand in hand. Unscathed. When we emerged from the private rooms I felt that signature A/C blow and he scampered off into the night, never to be seen (by me) again. 

 

Now that it was over, I felt revived and a new confidence bloomed inside me. I saw those black glossy steps up to the stage that matched my black glossy heels and they met, one by one, as I clomped up until I grabbed hold of the mirrory pole, my reflection in it distorted like a spoon. I spun around a few times. Weeeeeeee. It was kind of fun to spin around on those spinning poles. Around and around and around. My palm firmly grasping the cold metal floor-to-ceiling cylinder. I can do acrobatics! I thought to myself—the Tanqueray coursing through my blood. I began to climb, up, up, up, away from all the clamoring, horny drunk men. And now for the grand finale, as I pumped and twisted towards the ceiling. I was spinning faster now, ass hanging out below, my toes pointed and blue from the too-tight shoes. I pulled my spinning body towards the glistening pole, legs flying, open, speeding towards collision. Suddenly my crotch smacked firmly against the pole, all the inertia spun my pussy bone right down onto the cold hard metal. 

 

“OOOooohhmmmmpphhhh.”

 

I shouted as I slid slowly down, limbs wrapped helplessly against the pole, trying to pretend like I didn’t just bruise the shit out of my vagina. 

 

“That’s gotta hurt,” some man said, watching as my pitiful ass thud against the stripper dance floor. 

 

“That pole really came out of nowhere!” I said, giggling at the absurdity of it all. I felt a little embarrassed, but also a little macho, like eh, that didn’t hurt too bad. Sticks and stone may break my bones… that sort of thing. “I’m okay,” i said, rubbing my banged up pussy, not realizing how I must look to the consumer. 

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Stella.”

 

“No, but what’s you’re real name?”

 

“Stella.”

 

“C’mon baby, where are you from?”

 

“South shore.”

 

“Oh, so you know the Walpole Mall then.”

 

“Yes! Of course I do. I spent much time there getting into unnecessary trouble with my friends. Like that old arcade, I wonder if its still there, with the tickets and the prizes like those chinese finger traps and bright pink and green rope bracelets. And the skeeball machines! I was so good at skeeball, I’d always win.”

 

My toes were numb and I wanted the conversation to end. 

 

“How much would it cost to fuck you?” he said, blinking and pushing another Tanqueray and Tonic my way. I swallowed a bit of it and smirked.

 

“One hundred thousand dollars,” I said.

 

“Too much.”

 

“I have student loans to pay.”

 

“I could get—see that girl over there? She gave it up for two hundred dollars.”

 

“Well, I have a boyfriend,” I said.

 

“Does he know where you are?”

 

“No.”

 

“So then don’t tell him.”

 

“No, I’m gonna tell him.”

 

“How’s about two hundred fifty for a private dance?”

 

“Okay,” I said.

 

So I danced for him naked in some hole of a club in the Pioneer Valley.

 

I wriggled around, slurring my speech. I felt his hands on me. The plastic couch was not comfortable. He put his hand on my inner right thigh and took his dick out of his pants.

 

“No, no. I told you, a hundred grand, that’s the deal,” I said coldly.

 

“I know the deal, I’m not gonna do anything.”

 

“Okay.” 

 

And suddenly his lips pressed against mine.

 

“MMMmmph!” I said. “No, I don’t kiss.” As his dick brushed by the crown royal bag and went dangerously close to my shaven crotch. It wasn’t that hard so it wasn’t that menacing but still. I tucked my legs away from him and turned to dance. I squinted at the red glow of an alarm clock looking timer. The time is almost up.

 

“Hey what’s your name hun?” he crooned.

 

“Stella, you know that already.”

 

“But tell me your real name,” he whined.

 

“That is my real name, my real stripper name, Stella,” I said impatiently. 

 

Queue the harmonicas, credits roll, red show curtains slowly move to conceal the pair sitting on a plastic couch cast in a dark neon glow.