Chapter 3: Strippers and Shotgirls.

KIKI.

I stormed into the Twinkle Vodka bar as I slammed my bag onto the floor next to Claire, my best friend who was dressed in a low-cut neon shirt with a black miniskirt and black fishnet stockings. A neon leather choker could be spotted on her neck which goes to show that she was going for a kinky, bondage vibe for the night. Her face was full of dark, smoky eyeshadow, fake eyelashes, thin, highly arched, penciled eyebrows, glossy lips and liberal layers of foundation and concealer to hide any flaws in her skin.

"Girl, it's a 'I want to fake my own death, move to Mexico and leave off tacos and tequila kind of day.'" I said as I launched myself onto the couch opposite hers.

"I know, right? I can totally relate. So how was work today?" Claire asked giving me the ' know how it is already but I'd rather ask anyway' look.

"Ugh! Stop asking me that! Why do you people ask how was work? Like, bitch, work is work. I would rather be in Europe right now, naked on a yacht while destroying my liver but here I am."

"Oh, so it was a bad day. As usual. So don't you think it's another day and chance to just join the money making club then? Why walk when you can fly, uh? I don't get why you keep doing three or more jobs when you can just become a stripper and make almost what you make from these three jobs joined together. You're such a weird one."

"I'm not trying to act or sound prude neither am I trying to sound judgemental but stripping is just not for me. I'd rather work ten jobs, no offence."

"Oh, none taken. It's a thing of choice. I have to be out there now tho, the earlier, the better. Be right out on time too, Nate just employed a new shot girl and she seems like a spicy one." Claire said as she exited the room walking comfortably on a seven inch heel.

I proceeded to change into a spicy outfit I felt comfortable in, pairing it with the same heel I've been wearing for years now. I stepped out of the room, ready to take the night by it's horns. Being a shot girl is essentially the same as any other sales job, it was almost like a waitress job but we were using our personality to turn a profit. However, unlike most sales jobs—which are conducted from the safety of an anonymous suburban desk cubicle—we were required to work in a dark room with the constant threat of an unwanted ass grope or boob-hand-brush.

I didn't start out as a shot girl, I started out as a waitress. I remember my first time walking into the strip club for an interview. I had walked into a cluttered manager's office, on the top floor, the manager took one look at me and then called a different manager of another club to tell him "I have a very beautiful and curvy girl for you that will be dancing in no time." This was ultimately any strip club's goal, they always want to find more dancers to bring in more clients to make them more money. So in an attempt to meet this goal, they take in pretty girls as waitresses, dress them in some skimpy wears, ask them to work eight hours on their feet for minimum wage while the strippers make thousands upon thousands of dollars a night all around them, in the hopes that the struggling waitress or shot girl will eventually say "this isn't worth it" and start dancing, too. And as you could probably guess, they're successful a large percent of the time.

I wouldn't even lie, it was extremely tempting. Most of the women I watched, night in and night out, looked like they were having so much fun while simultaneously securing a small fortune. Waitressing at a strip club was easy, it gave me night hours so I could work more than one job at once and didn't require as much training as a "normal" serving job because, well, it's not difficult to bring drinks to men who couldn't care less about their beverage.

As time went on, Nate, the manager of the strip club called on me to introduce me into what he called, "Almost like waitressing, nothing like stripping but twice the money you are making right now and thrice if you know your way." And after much persuassions and explanations from my best friend, I ended up accepting the so called promotion as she had called it.

"I was a shot girl for about three months before I became greedy and decided to just start stripping. The job requires you to get on your social A-game as soon as you clock in. Simply batting your eyelashes doesn't work, because there's normally another girl selling shots in the same bar, and chances are she's prettier than you and doesn't have nearly the same amount of sweat building up under her hairline." She had said.

"If this is you convincing me to take the job, then you're doing a very bad job at it." I had said.

"Oh, let me land, will ya? So the job works on commission which means bigger, better clubs mean bigger, better profits—but you can also do all right if you corner a couple of bankers locked into one of those weird macho competitions that revolve around trying to out-spend each other on Don Julio shots. And if you're willing to work over New Year's or Christmas, I've heard of girls managing to clear close to a grand in a night. I'm not even exaggerating, I once made this too." She had added.

That night, I took the big step and accepted the offer. It was tricky at first but as soon as I got better at it, I was making thrice of what I made as a waitress.

Although watching the strippers which included Claire count out hundreds if not thousands of dollars after only working for a few hours was nothing short of alluring. When I wasn't ringing up champagne rooms or slinging drinks, I leaned up against the bar and watched gorgeous women weave their sexuality into some kind of all-powerful tractor beam of potential pleasure. And I watched the men who were powerless to control it.

I watched a married man come in five nights a week and spend at least two thousand dollars every night, on just one woman. He had his favorite and he would wait for her, politely declining dance propositions from other women, until she was available. She would give him one, maybe two dances, but the rest of the time she would sit on his lap and talk. For hours, that is all they would do. Talk.

The metal of his wedding ring would glisten as the lights of the stage would flash and turn, highlighting his smile as he genuinely clung to every word the dancer said. He was possibly lonely, definitely sad and it was clear that spending thousands of dollars for a small portion of a stranger's time and attention made him feel better. A part of me assumed he was a widower. The other, more pessimistic part of me, believed him married for at least 30 years and so devastatingly out of love, he was too exhausted to do anything about it.

I watched young men come in and throw hundreds of dollars around, mimicking a scene from some rap music video they've seen at least twenty times. They'd come with a multitude of friends and they'd always be loud and they were more than happy to give every woman they saw twenty dollars or fifty dollars or even hundred dollars tips.

For the few hours they were in the club they seemed so powerful, rich and happy, but I'd continue to watch them as their friends started to leave, one by one. I'd watch them as they signed their final bill, a sadness rushing to their cheeks, because they knew as well as I did that the allusion was coming to an end. The sun would rise and the comforting darkness wouldn't be able to hide their emptiness or self-doubt or whatever it was they were so desperately trying to mask.

I watched nervous men who were pressured by boisterous friends, uncomfortable and unsure. It was obvious they didn't want to be there and didn't fit into that kind of environment but, sadly, felt trapped by misguided obligation. If they said something, they were labeled "pussies" or "gay" or both, so they'd force a smile and hesitantly laugh and white-knuckle their way through the evening.

I watched angry men, who felt the need to take out their sexual frustrations or recent rejections on women they deemed "less than." These guys were usually kicked out before the night was over, and for good reason.

I watched women who loved what they did and found stripping to be an expression of their beauty and self-love and sexuality. I watched other women, like Claire who stripped because they were severely convinced that it was the only thing they were good at. Their self-esteem was tied securely to their body and their ability to use it. And sadly, I watched a few women who stripped because it was a means to an end and an easy way to sustain a living or help their family out of poverty. I would hope and wish for them because it was painfully obvious they didn't really want to do it and those are the women I think of the most.

Because they reminded me of myself.