The Job

I first got the idea when I moved out on my own. I was 21. There was this strip club behind my new apartment. I could see the flashing red neon sign from my window. I was curious. At first that's all it was. But one night, I felt compelled to walk outside, through the alley and into the club. I've asked myself a lot of times since then why I was drawn to it, but I still can't really answer that.

A man with a moustache was sitting behind the coat check counter taking the cover charge from men coming in off the street. It was dark, the walls were red velvet and there were 1970s-style paintings of naked women everywhere. Their breasts were covered with scraps of leopard skin. It was pretty tacky.

I went up to the cover man and asked him straight up if they were hiring any dancers. He looked at my body and then in my eyes and said, "Yeah." Then he handed me an application form. I couldn't believe they actually had application forms. He asked me if I'd ever danced before.

"No, but I can dance," I said.

"You got a boyfriend?" he asked.

I'd just gotten out of a relationship two weeks before that, and he was still stalking me, showing up at my apartment uninvited with half baked brownies. I told the man I didn't have a boyfriend.

"Good, 'cause some girls try to lie to their boyfriends and it doesn't usually work out so well," he said.

A man walked in off the street and asked the cover man how much for a dance. He told him it was $10 to get in the door and $25 for a lap dance. The customer shrugged and opened his wallet.