Don’t lick me!

[3:30pm]

Puppy George has fleas again and it looks pretty bad.  Guess we’re going to the vet tomorrow.

Work last night was fine, walked with $320.  2 VIPs and the rest were dances, including a lot of $10 happy hour dances, which I HATE.  The club was pretty empty all night, except for when a group of lesbians came in.  That wasn’t really helpful to me though, as lesbians are about as far away from my demographic as you can get.   Anyways, my night went like so:

In a bad mood as a result of not hearing from Long Distance Boyfriend, consequently decide to forgo my usual Sohodolls, Santogold, Goldfrapp, and Lily Allen playlist and dance to Hollywood Undead all night.  Also wear knee-high black tights instead of the thigh-high fishnets I normally wear.  Not in the mood to be the expensive and arrogant blonde I usually am, so go for the girl-next-door schtick instead.  It’s easier but the customers are usually more grabby, and this night is no exception.  Have to go dominatrix on one guy who just will not stop with the licking.  Grab his hair and slam his head into the back of the couch, but do it with a coquettish smile so he doesn’t think I just tried to give him a concussion on purpose.  Here’s a tip, guys:  if you want a good dance, DON’T LICK ME.  When you lick me, I don’t want my boobs anywhere near your face, and consequently you wind up getting a shitty air dance.  If you are respectful and keep your mouth shut (that means no dirty-talk, either), it makes me feel comfortable and more secure, and I will be much more likely to give you a great dance.  Don’t wear sweatpants with me, either.  I guarantee I will gyrate in the air above you and not touch you at all, because you are a jerk who wore sweatpants to a strip club.

Have to use the “I have a girlfriend” line a LOT this night.  I love my imaginary girlfriend, she usually works like a charm keeping the creepers from bothering me about a date while still piquing their sexual interest.  Whenever I do the girl-next-door thing, I get asked out a lot.  One guy will not take no for an answer, even after I tell him I am in love with my girlfriend and am not interested.  He keeps insisting that if we met for lunch, she’d never know.  Yeah, because encouraging me to cheat really makes me think you’re a good guy.

The couple that always makes me feel sad comes in.  They’re both obese but the woman is strikingly huge and has a goiter.  She sits at the tip rail looking morose while he gets VIP after VIP with Alice, who is the only one who can put up with his stories about giving women 15 orgasms in a row with his magic fingers.  She’s a good actress.  She’s also kind of weird herself.  We’re allowed to get naked in VIP as long as we’re 6 ft away from the customer.  He likes to sit 6 ft away the whole time and watch Alice pretend to touch herself.  Pretty easy way to earn $120 in fifteen minutes, but he is just so nasty and annoying I don’t think I could put up with it.  And when he’s done and comes out, he kisses his wife on the mouth and they leave.  When we see them leave, Ashley and I spend a while in the locker room imagining what their sex life must be like.  I surmise that they must go home and fuck, with him imagining the girls he saw at the club and her knowing that if she wants to keep him, this is how it has to be.  We both feel sad when we think about this.

Get a puppy-dog customer, the kind that stares at me with googly-eyes the whole time and keeps saying how beautiful I am.  Feel like Natalie Portman in “Closer” because I don’t know how to respond other than with “Thank you”, over and over.  It is nice that he got a VIP without testing the waters in the $20 dance area first, though, so I stay sweet and give him a pretty good dance.  Until he starts feeling on my ass, at which point he gets an air dance for the remaining 5 minutes.  He still has googly-eyes when it’s over, and tips me $60.

Go in the back and see an email from Long Distance Boyfriend on my Blackberry.  He’s been in lab all night writing an abstract and has sent it to me for review.  Feel bad that I was mad at him for not calling earlier.  He works too much.  Am emailing him back when he calls.  It’s 3am New York time, and he is sick.  Poor baby.  He tells me he loves me repeatedly and I hang up content.

All of a sudden become very over the whole night and want to go to bed.  Stick it out for another hour but don’t hustle for dances, just collect stage tips, which are paltry since it’s pretty damn empty for a Friday.  Get four dances right before closing.  Count my money and see I made $320 in dances and enough in stage tips to cover my house fee and the 25% I have to give back to the club.  Walk with $320.

Give Ashley a ride home and we decide to stop for Mexican food at the 24-hr place down the road.  It’s full of drunk college kids.  The Mexican guy behind the counter knows me because I stop by after work so often for bean and cheese burritos.  This time I get a carnitas plate and pay with crumpled ones.  He makes a joke about stripper money, and Ashley follows up by paying for hers in crumpled ones too and reminding him that they used to be in her g-string.  He laughs, and at the table we decide that we like him because he’s not a creeper even though he’s a 20-something Mexican guy and those are usually the worst sort of creeper.

Drink horchata and think about Long Distance Boyfriend, who loves horchata.  Gossip about everyone with Ashley.  It’s nice because I don’t have a lot of friends here anymore and it’s really hard to make friends as a stripper.  She’s only 18 but she’s more worldly than I am.  She worries she has herpes and I tell her to stop sleeping around and go get tested.  One of the things I love about this world is that everyone is no-bullshit about everything.  If a girl asks if she has gained weight, other girls tell her the truth.  There is no pussyfooting around problems.  Abortions, STDs, boyfriends, one-night stands — it’s all discussed in the locker room between sets, without any embarrassment or judgment.  It’s refreshing.  Ashley has slept with dozens of guys and I have slept with only 7, but neither of us judge the other.  It’s a twisted and transient sisterhood, but it’s there nonetheless.

It was an alright night, it would’ve been better if I hadn’t been so wiped out and pissy, but that’s how my Fridays usually go anyway.  That $320 is going toward George’s vet and a new front tire for my car.

Just ate a massive amount of sushi, don’t feel like getting ready and going in.  Tell myself I’ll get off the couch and start getting ready in an hour.