But apparently, her song is over because she’s leaving the stage.
I need to go downstairs. I need to talk to her.
But that’s when the phone rings.
My personal phone. My cell phone. Never ignored, because it’s always important.
And only one person usually ever uses it to call me. It’s no surprise that it’s on the windowsill behind the strippers. I reach over and grab it and turn it on. This better be quick. I need to go downstairs and find this girl.
Oh, what a
bout the ones in front of me, you’re wondering? On their knees, cooing and purring and licking my cum?
Whatever. I don’t fucking care what they do tonight. I’m done with them.
“Gerard?” I say into the phone. He usually doesn't call in the evenings. He doesn't usually want to interfere whatever—or whoever—I’m doing.
“Arsen,” the calm off-English voice of Gerard comes through. “You need to meet me at the Plaza Hotel immediately. Your father just died of a massive heart attack.”
It’s like I hear the fucking words, but don’t understand them.
“Arsen,” Gerard says after a pause. “Your father, Sloane, is dead. You are now the sole owner of Hawke Media and you need to come over. Now.”
Well, fuck.
I need to get the fuck out. I need to go to the Plaza and meet Gerard.
Oh, listen, if you’re still here. This seems like it’s going to be a fun ride. You’re welcome to stay along. If it’s not your cup of fucking tea, no harm, no foul. But if you stay on and move onto the next page, then take my fucking advice and go somewhere you can be by yourself. And maybe take your panties off if you don’t want to do laundry. I won’t have time to remind you because I gotta get to the fucking Plaza. Like now.
Ashley
Every other stripper in this club will hate me, but I've got to say it anyways. I like it when I’m on stage. But not for the reason you think. Sure, I’m getting naked and sure I’m getting "rained on." When the customers “make it rain” the club actually changes a $100 bill for them for 100 singles and then lets the customers throw the bills over you, in effect making it rain.
It makes it a bitch to collect though. But I can deal with that.
No, I like being on stage because I don’t have to hustle and work the main floor. I can be by myself. Most dancers—we prefer dancers and not strippers—prefer earning the lap dance cash from the clients one to one. I like being up on stage. Most dancers only use the stage as an advertisement, to catch a man’s eye so when they go down to the floor, people remember them. I wish I could stay up here forever.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I can’t get anyone to agree to a lap dance. It’s actually the opposite. Guys just flock to me. Sometimes they stand in line for me to grind on them.
No, I hate this part of the night because I have zero respect for the guys that come in here.
I mean, if they’re married, what the fuck are they doing in here by themselves? Creeping me out is what they’re doing. I bet their wife or girlfriend will really appreciate them coming home smelling of cheap body spray at the end of the night.
If they’re here in a group, well, that’s slightly better, but still, kinda skeeves me out. I mean, they’re here watching each other get hard as some girl rubs herself on them. Sure, I’m okay to go out with my girlfriends and hit on guys while they’re there. But with women, we know it’s just harmless fun. These guys in the club—they have this glint in their eye and they’re crazed.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some innocent little virgin who’s never been told the facts of life. I mean, I work in a strip club, right?
But something about the patrons just causes me to want to stay on stage.
Maybe it’s the hundred times a night I have to make sure guys know that they can’t touch me. I can touch them. Or how they’ll try to buck their hips as I’m grinding on them, just so they can go a little deeper.
Maybe it’s because at the end of the day, they’re judging me based on my looks and putting a monetary value on it.
That’s probably it. When I go out with my friends and we talk to guys, I’m not putting a dollar value on how much I’d pay to talk to the guy or flirt with the guy. Even if I make out with him or go home with him, it’s not like I’m asking him how much it costs. But these guys think that they can have me just because they’re carrying fat stacks of $20 notes.
Sure, that’s what I’m here for. Technically, the more I can make them think that, the more money I make, and the more I can pay off the student loans that funded my Art History degree from Yale. The degree that still hasn’t landed me any sort of meaningful job.
It’s been roughly one year since I graduated. I’m now 24 years old, and this is my second month stripping. It got to the point where I had to decide whether not stripping was worth not paying rent and moving out of the city and back home with my parents. I must have sent out at least seven hundred resumes by then. Gone on dozens of interviews. But ended up with nothing.