“Jesus, JJ. What the hell…?” Piper flips her hair away from her face and drags me into the light for a better look at my face.
“I’m fine, Pipes. Forget it.” I just want to get behind the bar, to get a drink, to work, to forget this happened.
“What? Are you crazy? J, you should really have someone look at that. What happened, baby? Does it hurt bad? Sit. I’ma make you a drink…Maxie said you had an accident?”
“Maxie says, this ain’t a freakin’ tea party. That’s what Maxie says.” How a big man like Max slips in and out of a room unnoticed is beyond me. But he does. You never notice him come in, and you never see him leave. “Behind the bar, both of youse.”
“Max,” Piper cracks a fresh bottle of Smirnoff for me and flashes her best St. Louis smile for him, “just let her sit for a minute. I can handle everything for a while. Don’t I always get you every last dollar and send ‘em to the bank for more?” She giggles at him, pushes a rocks glass full of vodka in front of me and heads towards the back room. She touches my hair as she passes, just a brief touch, a second, and for that one single second, I think, I’m safe now, and then it’s gone.
Maxie slides onto the stool next to me and looks at my empty glass. I’d swallowed it in one gulp.
“Here, kid. Ya look worse’n usual. You could use another.” He pushes the bottle towards me. I can always use another, I think. “Now, spill it,” he says.
I pour my own drink, skip the ice, and look up slowly into those watery Bassett hound eyes. I wish he could just make me his, look after me, protect me, make it all go away.
“What’re you my boyfriend now, Max? My father? What? Leave me alone, OK?” Finishing my cocktail in one swallow again, I get up to go behind the bar, still holding that bottle of vodka in my other hand. My bottle of vodka. The only thing that’s making me feel safe at the moment, my vodka.
Max grabs my free arm and pulls me towards him. “You want me to be your daddy? You’d like that wouldn’t you? Not that I give a shit,” I can feel his belly press against me, his stubble tearing at my cheek, his voice rumbles about my face and ears. “But tell me, who hit ya?” He pops bar nuts into his mouth and waits for my answer.
“Nobody, Max. I told you, I fell is all. It was an accident. Lemme go, you’re hurting me. You’re gonna leave a bruise. I gotta set up the bar.”
“I’m gonna leave a bruise? Take a look at yourself.” He flicks his head in the direction of the mirror behind the bar, but he doesn’t let go. “Do ya know the guy?”
“It was an accident.”
“Do I know the guy?”
“An accident Max, it’s nothin’.”
“Fine,” pushing me away, “You wanna protect some piece’a shit, then maybe you asked for it. Maybe you got what you deserved.” He spits on the floor and walks into the back room, still popping nuts into his mouth.
What could I say? How could I explain any of it? I invited him in. I’d offered to let him sleep on the couch. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought I was untouchable. Safe. I thought I had Nigger JJ on my side. I thought I had the Ice Man. I thought we were friends. I thought…
Glad to be alone and busy, I start setting up the bar.
Idiot work for an idiot girl.
I fill the tiny champagne bottles with ginger ale, screw the tops back on and tuck a new bottle of Smirnoff away under my cash register. I was sure Myron watered down the booze. Piper thought so, too. We set aside a fresh bottle every night. Tonight I wanted one all to myself.
“Take a look at yourself,” he’d said.
I don’t do that, look at myself. Not my whole self. Just the bits and pieces I absolutely have to. One eye at a time, or just my mouth. But I don’t ever look at my whole face in a mirror.
“Take a look at yourself,” he’d said.
I look up into the mirrored wall opposite the bar, behind the tiny platform the girls danced on. I see my reflection standing behind the bar, my body from the waist up, but I can’t see my head at all. I am the headless barmaid.
The clinking of quarters in the jukebox brings me out of my reverie. Customers. It’s Showtime.
The sounds in my head aren’t quite human, they’re pre-verbal, a jazz opera of pain and fear and a survival instinct I didn’t know I had. It clatters and crashes; it bubbles up and breaks free from the antediluvian soup at the base of my brain and bounces around my head. I stay on the floor, just for a fraction of a second, to catch my breath, to get my bearings, to make sense of it all before the next blow comes. And the jazz congeals into coherence: Make it stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. StoWhack - a fist connects with the side of my head, sending me crashing into the oak table I’d found on the street and rolled home. Things shatter / fly apart. Things are broken / beyond repair. I scurry blindly on all fours /cowering /trapped /desperate for a way out. A few pathetic gurglings are the only things that find a way to escape. He feeds on my terror, growing larger with every mouthful he takes. Make it stop. Stop. Stop. Please, someone make it stop.
“Hey… it’s me. Lemme talk to Big Maxie.” I cradle the phone against my cheek, examining the bruises on my face in the cloudy antique mirror above the futon in the living room. Where he’d slept. The sheets still smell of him, of his cologne, his sweat, my blood. His smells engulf me, smother me as I watch myself talk, like talking to myself, into the phone.
“Yeah, what?” Maxie says, “you’re late… Ya gonna bother to come in?”
“Yeah…yeah, Max - I’m comin’. I had a little accident, is all.” The odor of the Big Man covers my face, burning my eyes. Staring into my muddied reflection, into my own eyes, testing my black eye and swollen nose with one finger, my nail polish almost matches the dried blood on my cheek. My blood. My blood is Vamp Red. “I’ll be a little late, but I’m comin’, Max.”
“You’re already a little late. Get your fat ass in here.” Click. Disconnect. The phone slams down on Maxie’s end; on my end, the receiver slips from my fingers.
Still staring at my reflection, I gingerly press my fingertips against the burns on my chest. And just like that, that smell is back; the sulfur of match-heads, the slightly sweet hint of tobacco, burnt hair and flesh. I begin to shiver, then convulse. Choking sounds gurgle up as I twitch/twitch/twitch, my eyes never leaving their cloudy reflection, my other self, my shadow sister, the sounds turn to laughter, loud and raucous.
I’m going crazy is what.
I’m losing my mind is what, but
I’m comin’ in to work.
No worries.
Gotta get ready.
Gotta get ready.
Stepping around overturned the chairs and tables, over knick-knacks and clothes, sidestepping shards from broken mirrors and glassware, I make my way to the tiny bathroom and step into the old claw foot tub. Hot water pounds down, streaming down my body, burning my open wounds.
Slowly, I remove the costume he chose.
The black chiffon peignoir, the push-up bra and G string all drip down to the bottom of the tub, clogging up the drain. I plop down beside them, mesmerized by the way the chiffon keeps finding its way down the drain each time I pull it out. The drain trying to swallow the whole thing. I pull, it swallows, I pull, it swallows. I give up that game when I notice my feet. Come-fuck-me pumps my father used to call them. Stiletto heels. Black patent leather straps. Bound so tight they cut into my ankles and little trickles of my blood float in the water. Seeping through the chiffon, oozing across the patent leather straps. Slowly I release first one foot and then the other.
Oh, God, make it all go away,
make it not true, not true.
I Gotta get ready.
The first two tears roll slowly down my face. My feet throb painfully as the blood starts flowing back into them. I slump over, sobbing. I can’t stop myself.
Get it all out now, bitch.
I didn’t cry in front of him, wouldn’t let him think he’d beaten me, broken me. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he could hurt me. And now I can’t hold back. My tears, my blood, my shit, my clothes and his semen all mix into an after-rape soup in the tub.
Pull yourself together.
Get ready. You’re late.
Man up
and move the fuck on.
I stand up, take a deep breath, thrust my face into the stream of scalding water, letting it wash everything away, soap up and began to get ready to go to work.
Every memorable night deserves its own theme music.
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Antonia Crane is one of Naked Ladies. You can read her bio here.
She has her own blog, where she writes about her life as a stripper, sex worker, HIV Counselor, writer, daughter and sister. This piece was originally posted in Antonia’s blog on 1/1, it’s reprinted here, in toto, with her permission. It bears repeat reading if you saw it there already. And it’s here, just in case you missed it.
Almost Girl: A Classy Holiday
by Antonia Crane
Some girls shove cupcakes in their mouths and those hot dogs wrapped in obscene bacon on Sunset Boulevard when there are holes punched through their hearts. I wander into hotels and casinos and offer my body to strangers for money. Not my whole body, just a little bit of it.
Maybe because I’m the girl in second place. I’m the Almost Girl. I’ve been runner up my whole life and am troubled by this. I crave attention and something sick happens to me when I don’t get it.Everything’s complicated when you’re this raw and yucky. Even casual encounters hurl me into Walgreens for Rolaids. I’d sooner douse myself with gasoline then be rejected by a man. I’ve got to win. Even when I don’t.
Growing up, I was nominated for things but never won. Like “best looking,” “homecoming queen,”and I was a contestant in a reality TV show to win $25K which I promised my mom half the winnings for her chemo and radiation bills. It was down to the final two. Me and one guy. In those last sweaty moments before the panel, the producer whispered to me, “You’re about to win a lot of money right now.”
I sat in the metal chair, waiting. I was high on adrenaline like it was happening to someone else. But, I lost to the surfer kid who lived with his fisherman Dad.
Mom died after that and there went the beach property in Humboldt that I was supposed to inherit.
Recently, I’ve leapt from the topless clubs on Hollywood Boulevard to Craigslist. I offer the promise of a happy ending to an otherwise dismal life for men who travel alone during the holidays. After all, the holidays mean things to people. There’s obligation, anxiety and volcanic loneliness.
People need to be touched and that’s a fact. Touch is the first and final language and it’s the one thing computers haven’t figured out how to replace. Casual, profound touch book ended by cash. No fights or let downs. No disappointed wives or nagging kids.
Sometimes, I show up alone. Sometimes with my friend, Elle for one excellent hour of manufactured intimacy. Their loneliness bleeds into mine just long enough to give me a hit of the attention I crave, like a baby after the nipple. Together with Elle, we provide distraction, entertainment and a hand job in the sessions. I’ve not had to go hog wild with my pepper spray yet.
Christmas night we had a client at The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, where Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton smear fois gras on rice crackers and get shit-faced. A tall white guy with silver hair answered the door at the end of a long skinny hallway. There’s construction paper on the floor. They’re remodeling.
“You are amazing. Such beautiful souls,” he was tower of flesh, covered in tiny scabs. What’s wrong with him? I thought, coveting the fruit bowl piled high with ripe figs and greasy pears. My mouth watered. I didn’t eat dinner.
“There’ sooo much love. So much love,” he said. His eyes watery. According to Elle, he’s a powerful attorney. Oh brother, I thought. A new age attorney.
There was something wrong with his skin. It hung on him like sick flabby meat before it’s tossed down the garbage disposal. It made me sad and grateful to be alive and not have cancer or some skin disease.
I held him tightly in a three-way hug for as long as possible. This seemed to be what he was after, at least, for a few quiet moments. I got sad and the bright room went dark.
We got undressed. I like to keep my shoes and fishnets on for as long as possible.
Elle likes to be naked. He wrapped us up in his pale freckled arms. He had grizzly hair on his neck, chest and in his ears. He laid on his back. A beached whale sunk in soft sand with his belly out, big as a watermelon.
“Are you married?” Elle cut to the chase. She has methods with married men. She likes to help teach them to bring their wives to a better orgasm. It’s stuff she learned in that crazy sex cult she was in for years in Nor Cal.
“She passed away two years ago.” He didn’t look sad. He closed his eyes on the soft pillows that have that posh memory foam stuff. “You’re so amazing,” he said again. His voiced reminded me of soft crying.
“Do you mind if I dim the lights?” I asked. Lighting is everything and I’m prone to migraines so bright lights make me cringe. I love dimmers. I’m a stripper. I make a big show out of taking off my clothes and tease it out some. The lighting has to be right. We draped and dripped our limbs over him on the bed.
That’s when I saw his feet: His big toes were rotting off at the edges, the skin chewed up. His toes were eating themselves and turning black. He had no arches at all. The blackened skin spread up his calves in violent, splotchy little bruises like tiny prunes up his legs. The surfaces of his stomach was freckled and paper thin. I wondered if he hurt. Jesus, I thought. This guy’s got Diabetes or leprosy.
Elle’s great at keeping the fantasy going. She talks dirty.“I feel like you’re inside me,” she said in his face. Her hands were behind her back. She pointed to his junk. This was her signal to me to look at him more closely. “What’s your fantasy?” she asked our man. He ate this up:
“I’m a kid in class and my teacher calls me into her office. She wants me to take my clothes off for her. She draws me and photographs me. Then she demands I play with myself. I hear girls giggling.” Elle giggles. It’s creepy but not as creepy as his cock, which upon close inspection I find the reason why we haven’t touched it yet with our coconut oil. His cock had little warts on it, tiny little red pustules. Angry red strawberry skin at the shaft. Elle’s still giggling like a horror film.
“Will you suck it?” he asked me. His eyes open slits now and his mouth open. He looks like a chubby salamander in a trance.
“Well, sure, but you have some reddish spots and it looks like even warts which can lead to HPV,” I said, crash landing the buzz-kill. I play it safe. I’m an HIV counselor.
“No,” he said. “The doctor said it’s just age. Promise. And. I have a blood disease.” He stroked his cock.
“It’s sensitive at the shaft,” he said. I’m thinking this guy thinks we are stupid bimbos. I’m thinking about the money.
“A promise isn’t enough,” Elle said, her face close to our man who was losing his smile. I’m glad she has a way of being submissive and tough. She has the body of a twelve year old but she’s direct and mature.
“Do you have a condom?” Elle makes herself more available than I do. I’m there for the money. I watch the clock. She’s into energy work and the shaman thing. She says I work too hard and I don’t think she’s wrong but I just can’t shirk my blue-collar roots. This is a service job to me.
“There’s more money in it for both of you,” he said. I jumped up at this and jogged to the bathroom,which was like a mini-spa resort. Huge shower and billion thread-count towels. Two virgin white robes hang from the door, which I consider stealing. Several glass bottles of Evian. Guest soaps that cost more than my car.
I found two types of condoms, one with lube and one without. I think, for oral, the best tasting one will be without lube. They don’t slip and slide when I put them on. I reached into the fancy basket.
Four hundred bucks, I thought. Merry Christmas, darling.
9 AM. I’d only just crawled into the loft bed when the phone rang; I was still playing solitaire, obsessively. I play three games, every night. I have to win, or lose, three in a row before I’m allowed to sleep. I was so wired even if I could get the cards to work right…but Laurie? She was never up this early, or this late, depending on which side of life you’re looking at it from.
“What’s wrong Lo?”
“Your friend. The guy…from last night? His car wouldn’t start, he said. He just wanted to use the phone. I thought, I thought you were still with him, out in the car… but you’re home. And, and he’s here…and… waiting for the tow truck, I guess, and I know it’s…I thought you could come back and…
“Lo? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Scared?
“No. Maybe..yes.”
“Sit tight, I’m on my way. Say whatever you think you need to say to make him happy. He’s crazy Lo, you understand? Crazy. But, he’s just fucking with your head. He’ll leave with me, so, really, no worries, okay? He’s watching you talk on the phone with me, isn’t he?”
“Uh huh.”
Every time we go out, me and the Big Man, we stop at the diner on Eighth Ave, across from Piper’s building and around the corner from Possible 20. P20 is supposed to be a jazz joint, but it’s really just one more pimp bar. Piper’s building is crawling with pimps, too. My neighborhood has junkies, hers has got a pimp infestation. A pimpfestation. Anyway, the Big Man gets me broiled lobster with melted butter and a baked potato. To go.
Piper doesn’t want him in her apartment, P20 closes at 4am and he won’t let me eat in the car.
My girls worked hard to pay for this car, he says.You can’t be disrespecting them with that fish stank, spilling butter on my leather. Lots of good ass got sold to pay for that white leather and not a dollar’a that come from you.
So, I wait till we get to 366 or Harry Brooklyn’s or some other afterhours where I sit in a dark corner and eat lobster with my hands while he sits at the poker table.
We never just stay at the diner and eat like regular people.
366 is around the corner from Laurie’s apartment. I thought, just once, it would be nice to not eat in the dark. And she always has wine. We did line after line of the Big Man’s coke, washing it down with wine stolen from the Italian restaurant where she worked.
I meant to be generous, to pay her back for taking care of me. That’s what I meant to do. But once again, I’d brought crazy into Lola’s house. She had no business getting involved with Havasha. Lola was strictly a good girl. She was strictly Long Island Jewish. She didn’t know what to do with a crazy man, what to do when they turned on you. H fractured her cheekbone. You’d think she’d of learned after that, that my boys were out of her league. She should not be allowing them any one of them into her house if they weren’t with me.
Havasha’s crazy couldn’t hold a candle to the Big Man’s.
I was at her door before she could hang up the phone.
The door is unlocked. He’s sitting in a chair across from her; quietly crushing cigarettes into the bare skin of his chest and watching her reaction. One after another. He lights one, takes a few puffs, staring at her, then grinds it into the festering sore in the center of his chest.
His name was Michael and Sammy and JJ. He had other names, I couldn’t know them all, didn’t know if any were real. He was a big man, about six five and somewhere between 280 and 300 lbs. Maybe not. Maybe he’s just grown in my memories.
But he was big and I shoulda seen it coming.
Just another pimp doing just another pimp job. In the antiseptic halls of my intellect I know he didn’t have the right. But deep inside, in the darkness that hides my heart and soul, I know they were right.
JJ doesn’t come around the Lollipop, like he didn’t come around the Butterfly. He sticks to the big joints - the Mardi Gras, the Metropole - where you don’t notice so much who’s where doing what because there’s so many people that everyone blends into the crowd; or the afterhours like upstairs at 366 8th Avenue where it’s dark enough for a nigga to not be noticed no matter what he’s doing.
Other pimps look to be noticed, but JJ’s all on the soft side with his grey flannel and his whispers, all on the downlow. Even so, even though I don’t see him except when I’m hanging out at the Mardi Gras or the afterhours, everybody knows about him and me.
They know I got my name from him, that we’re connected. They know even though he’s not pimping me, they know they don’t have a chance to either, cause he’s got my back, he hipped me to what was the what when I first showed up and he’s still looking over my shoulder, keeping a big brother, cock of the walk eye out for me.
That thing in the motel?
…with Lockey
and
Lightfoot?
…and the broken window?
That was nothing.
That was just
a mistake.
That wasn’t supposed
to happen.
I’ve got the Ice Man, too. So, the guinea wiseguys like Junior and Joey Two Shoes, they know they can only go so far. The Ice Man’s looking out for me.
I’m covered. I’m a year past my expiration date, yeah sure, but that just means I’m untouchable now. I’m cool like that.
Applications for this 2010 weekend workshop offered by Sex Work Awareness (SWA) in New York City are being accepted up until February 17, 2010. Class size is limited to 10 participants.
Using a variety of methods, including role playing and hands-on activities, former $pread editors Audacia Ray and Eliyanna Kaiser teach participants to navigate the pitfalls and opportunities of today’s media. You’ll learn to evaluate, and respond, to media requests using a variety of formats. There’ll be instruction on writing press releases, op-ed pieces, and letters to the editor, building a press list and pitching a story to an editor, as well as a crash course on starting your own podcast, blog, or video podcast. Current sex worker media will be examined with an eye on how to contribute to these existing efforts. Click here for more information about Sex Work Awareness programs. Click here to go directly to the Speak Up! application
(Please note this workshop is not restricted to Naked Ladies. Naked Men are welcome as well, but it is limited to 10 participants and all identify as current or former sex workers)
As a long as there’s been music, women have danced for the entertainment and titillation of men. Scheherazade. Minsky’s Burlesque. Cage dancing go-go girls in the psychedelic 60’s. Times Square strippers, pole dancers and lap dancers. Women dance….Men watch.
Just one Naked Lady. Because, if it’s the right one, one is all you need….
purple boa by luma rouge
Image by the gorgeous Luma Rouge. Luma can create an image for your erotic event or from your erotic event, recreate a scene from a show or photo. View more of her work here or email her here.
What the hell, I thought, looking at Junior laying there on the floor rubbing himself, and remembering how he’d needed a firm tongue up his ass that one night, pussy can’t taste any worse than all the other things I’ve put in my mouth. I got off the couch and walked into the bedroom.
“Hey. Hello? Bored out here…” I sat at the end of the bed playing with Joey’s toes, working my hands up his leg, I took a deep hit off the joint in my hands and passed it over to him.
Joey looked at Piper for permission. She smiled and nodded. I kicked my shoes off.
“Do her first.” He locked eyes with me, like he was watching for my reaction, like we were the only two people in the room, and this was the only room in the world. Like there wasn’t a room full of men a few feet away, watching and listening. He locked eyes with me while he held the joint to Piper’s lips with one hand and started pulling on her nipples with the other. Getting them hard again. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you Piper-cub?” he said to her, all the while, looking at me.
“You don’t have to if …,” I was half way up her leg before she finished the sentence, “you don’t want to, JJ.”
We do everything together. Sex’ll be just one more thing. Like the princess she always wanted to be, Piper lays back and lets me do all the work. I run my hands up her short muscular legs. She’s so tiny, I can reach her whole body from wherever I am. My fingers reach into her pubic hair, naturally blond and softer than mine. My thumb finds her button and rolls it around gently. I slide my body up one side of her. Joey watches from the other side.
Her breasts are larger than mine, soft and pink and the nipples look sore. I put one hand on each and feel their weight, their silkiness, brushing my thumb across one nipple, gently. She lets out a little gasp and I lower my head to take it into my mouth. Turning it over with my tongue, flicking it around, nibbling only a teeny bit. Joey takes my hand and slides it back down between her legs. Piper inhales the smoke from the joint, moving her hips up to meet my hand. I feel around, tentatively at first, now bolder, parting her warm lips with my fingers. She starts to rock with me. I move my mouth to hers and take her tongue inside me. She tastes of pot and Joey’s Two Shoes’ semen.
“Fuck her, fuck her hard.” His mouth is right at my ear, his breath damp and a little sour. My finger is deep inside her, probing. I open my eyes and see Joey stroking himself as he watches us.
I slip a second finger inside her and pump. She rides my hand and we kiss. Sucking each others tongues and ears and necks. Her hands find my tits and pulls at my nipples.
“Eat her pussy,” he murmured, pushing my head down, shoving me off of her face.
Men are crude, but I wasn’t in a position to be offended by anyone’s choice of language.
I glided down between her legs and like that, the magic was gone. It’d been kinda fun. The coke and the vodka, the porn and Piper, not having to be at work. It was all fine. Fun even, until I found myself face to face with another woman’s chocha. Wet and red and smelly from being in a leotard all day and fucked all night.
And I remembered the audience in the living room. There was no way out of this; I’d never live down the humiliation if I chickened out now. I dove in and licked and sucked and prodded and nibbled like I thought I’d like it done to me, if I actually liked having it done to me, which I didn’t. I heard the glass crack of an amyl nitrate ampule and felt, more than heard, Piper suck the pungent odor in. Her body tensed, all of her contracting, then releasing.
Joey cracked another ampule, for me. I inhaled deeply and reached out for his cock. Sucking his cock. He’s kissing her. The audience cheering. The world spinning. My head expanding until it almost explodes. And contracting too fast. The amyl nitrate. My heart racing. Please, please, don’t let my heart explode. Everyone’s watching. I kinda like Eddie, but I don’t know how to talk to the nice guys….
The effect fades as quickly as it came and I worry about how I look to others. Is my hair is messed up? Is my makeup smeared?
Do I look fat from this angle?
How I looked was like a whore.
Piper would always be the good girl. I was always the whore. It was never going to change.
That night in Little Italy when she walked into Stevie G’s restuarant, drunk? When she pulled a gun out of her pink leather clutch–the one that matched her pumps–and held it the head of the idiot bartender who wouldn’t serve her because she was already insanely drunk?
That was my fault.
Myron called me at home, angry. “Go fix this!” he says
“He’s an idiot Myron. Just tell him to give ‘er a fucking drink,” I say, “and she’ll put the gun away.”
“Fix it. You fucked this up, you need to go down and fix it.” Myron says, and slams the phone down. When I get there, everybody, except Piper, looks a little tense. The bartender is ghost white, standing frozen in a corner of the behind the bar.
“I knew you’d come,” she says, smiling, slowly batting her eyes at me. “They won’t give me a drink, J. I just want a little drink is all.” She hands me the gun–I don’t even have to ask. I order two vodkas from the idiot bartender, one for her, one for me.
When anyone else tells this story, anyone but me or Piper, I’m the one they’re mad at.
When Piper disappeared on a three day drunk, surfacing in some sleazy spade bar on 133rd Street, that was my fault too. When she got so fucked on ‘Ludes she kept sliding off the chair? My fault.
She was everybody’s darling, no matter what. She lived in a fancy doorman building on 55th Street and 8th Avenue. It didn’t matter that the building was chock full of pimps. I lived in a run down tenement in the East Village. It didn’t matter that half the tenants had been born in that building. No matter what, I was trash. It’d been like that since we met at the Butterfly.
Everybody loved Piper.
She had Myron, Joey Two Shoes, the Fat Man and me.
Junior’s is the first face I see when we get to Joey’s. We lived together.
No, that’s not exactly true. Junior lived on my couch. Briefly.
Having Junior there was like waking up to fresh flowers every day - nice to look at the first day or two, but that’s about all and after a week it’s just a vase full of dirty water and dying organic matter. He’s on the rug, watching dog porn and rubbing himself –nothing’s changed, it’s pretty much all he did when we lived together he lived on my couch. In a little while he’ll head to the bathroom, jerk off into a towel and hang the towel back on the rack.
That part drove me crazy. Getting out of the shower, grabbing a towel and… “Junior! You motherfucker! Get me a clean fucking towel!”
We’d been together. Once. Before he moved in.
Thing was, cocaine makes men feel like sexual giants, like they can fuck all night. Okay, maybe they can, but not in any way I’ve ever found satisfying. There always needs to be something “extra” in the mix. Like a single girl and the usual holes are not enough and sex becomes something devised by Rube Goldberg rather than Mother Nature. You need extra hands, extra stimulation and sometimes you need an extra person or two. Junior’d needed me to do all the work, follow instructions, move this here, put that there, left, right, inside out, upside down, tongue here, okay, okay, now, now, wait, now…okay.
Sometimes, once is more than enough. But, he was still pretty, goddamn it, and he was connected. So I’d let him stay. On the couch.
Two Shoes and Trigger the Greek bookie hovered over the pile coke on the table. The more the Greek sniffed, the worse the spasms in his leg got. Hence, the nickname. Tonight, he was threatening to wear a hole in the carpet. There were two actors, A. was famous–but just for the moment, Eddie was not, a few unidentified wiseguys on the couch and a few unidentified guns on the table.
Piper brought the bottles into the kitchen and mixed us a couple of drinks. Vodka. Ice.And a splash of Seven-Up for color.
“Here,” I dropped the bullets between the guns, “we took ‘em off a cop at work.”
Joey looked up from his cocaine. “Five?”
Piper grabbed him by the arm, laughing and pulling him into the bedroom. “Stop it now. Come with me Daddy and let me tell you what a bad, bad girl I’ve been.”
I made drinks for the boys, settled next to Eddie on the couch, and to the background TV sounds of girls giving head to German Shepherds and horses, we watched through the open door as they undressed each other and made love, laughed, smoked, slept, got high, fucked some more. From our spots in the living room we watched them and we laughed, got high, smoked, slept, got high and laughed some more.
I liked Eddie. He was sweet and handsome. He paid attention to me like I was a regular girl. But, he was no one, going no where. Eddie’s only juice was being friends with Joey.
And the only way to Joey, was going to be through Piper.
“Hurry up,” he grumbles counting the money in my register, “Two Shoes is waiting.” I shake my generous butt at Myron and smile over my shoulder as I flounce out of the bar and into the back room.
Piper and Carl are sprawled across one of the loveseats. The Lollipop “private lounge” is pitch black except for the high school stoner/head shop black lights. White clothing gleams, dental caps radiate pale blue, lipsticks glow bright orange and hair dye shines with a dull greenish hue, but black things, like Carl, are nearly invisible.
I don’t need to see to know there’s a loaded gun between Carl’s legs. Piper would be stroking it, saying oh baby, it’s so big, it’s so hard, pushing the gun up against the flaccid penis in his pant, the cock that never got hard. Sometimes he’d rub his “cock” over your face or your nipples. It made him harder, he said. He liked for you to stroke his cold metal “cock”, to push your tits up on him, whispering into his ear how big and black and hard he was, how you wanted it inside of you, tearing you apart, pushing, deeper & deeper. He wanted you to do that until the soft piece of flesh inside his pants exploded, leaving a small stain on his dark pants.
Piper & I trade on and off with Carl. He’s a good tipper, easy to work and a vice cop. Carl has the good drugs, all the time.
“Hey Carlos, my man, what up?” I drop down onto the couch besides him. He has a joint in my mouth before my ass hits the cushion.
That meant they were finished. The stain was already there. It was the way it went, part of the ritual, first the cocaine, then the “sex”, then the pot and a coupla drinks. I don’t really like pot. The better it is, the more I hate the way it makes me feel. But, sometimes doing stuff I don’t like is just easier than saying No.
“Mmm. All the pretty white girls,” he mumbles into my hair, reaching inside my top to fondle my breasts. I take a couple of tokes as my eyes adjust to the darkness, and look down at Carl as he plays with my tits. I hear a sharp metallic click.
“You need help up front J, or you just need a break?” Then, a small quick series of clicks. “Carl, here. Your turn.” Click.
“Myron says we’re going up to Joey’s.” The clicks again. “What the hell is that?”
“Here, baby girl, your turn,” Carl slurs as he places his service revolver in my hand and nestles his face against my chest. “It’s OK - Piper took the bullets.” He holds up a handful of bullets, takes the gun back and puts it up to my neck, wedging it up under my jawbone, pointing up to my brain, the long way. Click.
“One of these days they’re gonna cut you loose on a psych Carl, you know that don’cha? You’re gonna be out on your pension, living in a locked ward, shuffling around in paper happy face slippers, spending your days playing dominos with the wet brains and waiting for the nurses to bring you your meds. You be lucky if you don’t wind up with electro-shock and a bite stick.” I take the bullets away from him with one hand, push the gun away from my neck, grab Piper by the wrist and stand up.
He smiles and lays down on the couch, “But you’ll always love me, won’t I?”
“Always, Carl. You sleep a while now, I’ll send someone back for you later, before your shift is over.”
Piper and I leave Carl to sleep it off and head down the stairs, back into our street clothes. Little Maxie’s taken our place behind the bar. There’s a hundred-dollar bill stuck to his forehead with spit, a stunt usually reserved for the afterhours. It cracked him up, the way the girls reacted to him then. We grab the booze–Black Label and champagne for the boys, Smirnoff for us–and a cab uptown. There’s a party at Joey Two Shoes’. Well, there will be when we get there.
Leaning back, I open my hand. “Pipes? Honey? If you took all the bullets outta the gun, how come I only got five here in my hand? Doesn’t that gun hold six?”
She just bats her eyes at me, tosses her hair over her shoulder and starts to laugh.
“Jee-sus,” I reach over, crack open a bottle of vodka and take a swig, “you’re gonna get me killed one day, Piper, you seriously gonna get me killed. Maybe I’d be better off in a locked ward.”
“Maybe, J, but it’s a helluva ride till then, ain’t it? It’s a helluva ride.”
It was still early when the pay phone rang. Not even midnight yet, but the tiny joint was packed. Every couch and cubicle in the backroom was full, so were the eight bar stools and all the chairs surrounding the stage. Frat boys leaned against the new jukebox, a few more leaned across the bar, trying to talk me into leaving with them.
Myron and Maxie wandered around making sure everybody was drinking & everybody was paying. Some nights they’d practically give the place away, but when it got busy, they got greedy and the unspoken rule was nobody leaves while there’s still money in their pockets.
I barely heard the pay phone ring over the noise of the music, the laughter and the cash register.
Big Maxie hung up and went into a huddle with Myron. They walked over to the bar, and Maxie squeezed past me. “I got the bar. Go. Go get Piper.” Maxie tossed his head towards the lounge in the back of the Lollipop and pushed me out from behind the register.
I stood there smiling.
Myron shoved me towards the back room. “Go, you little slut, you got a delivery. Now. What are you waiting for?”
Legally, the Butterfly and the Lollipop were Myron’s joints. There was Winks and the Cookie Jar too, but that was before me. They’d been such a huge moneymakers everyone thought it’d never end. It was the 70s, fans and feathers were gone, there was a whole new breed of dancers and a whole kind of money. Guys crammed in to get a peek of pink and girls went home with a thousand bucks a day, clean. No tricks, no handjobs, no hustle. Myron rolled naked over a bed of cash, all his girls were happy and all their girlie habits fed.
When the liquor authorities started making rules about small spaces, booze and cooze, girls went back to wearing the g-strings they’d dropped. The novelty of the bars wore off. Furs, cars, condos, diamonds, cocaine, heroin; Myron’s girls had expensive habits. Suddenly he was deep in a hole of a different color.
Enter Joey Two Shoes. Shoes was in the Butterfly. And he was in the Lollipop.
When it was time to pay, Piper and I brought champagne, Johnnie Walker Black Label and each other. There was always a crowd watching porn and dipping into the mound of cocaine in the center of the table, no matter when we got there. The pile of coke never got smaller and there were never any other girls there.
I wanted a drink, a blow and Joey Two Shoes. He was handsome and mean. I wanted him to want me. He wanted Piper. Piper just wanted to be loved.
“Go, you little slut, you got a package to deliver. Now. What are you waiting for?” He was annoyed. Shoes almost always called when the joint was packed. Never when we were sitting around with nothing to do.
“I’m just imagining the two of you, working the bar in leotards and heels.” When we left, there wouldn’t be enough girls to go around. It killed them to miss even a dollar.
Myron wasn’t always a paunchy middle aged bar owner, in hock up to his neck, trying to hold the interest of underaged dancers with presents and drugs and lies. He used to be was a suit. Not a straight suit, but a suit nonetheless.
Myron was a shyster, a lawyer. Past tense. That’s why Mulberry Street hung around, he’d been their lawyer. Louie the Ice Man, Jimmy Peanuts, Rocky, Crazy Jimmy, BooHoo, Chief, Harry Brooklyn, Eddie Bug Eyes, Jack the Jew. Myron was a man who believed in going that extra mile in search of the holy grail, the fast and easy buck. If you rolled snake eyes and had to go directly to Jail? Myron stepped up to pass GO and collect two hundred dollars, even if he wasn’t exactly entitled to it.
Disbarred, but not imprisoned, he changed his name, scraped some money together and went into the always profitable business of tits and ass. In the beginning, everything he touched turned to gold. Then came the girls, the cocaine, the state liquor authority, the excess, the huge, huge debt–and Joey Two Shoes.
But Myron is a dealmaker, with an eye for a scam and a nose for a sucker. He always knew who he owed, how much and what they’d settle for.
He put a brown paper bag on the bar. Two bottles of Johnny Black and two bottles of not the worst champagne. “Go, get Piper, pack up and start moving. Shoes ain’t gonna wait all night.”
LZ Hansen: Starting out in the sex industry, be it stripping, whoring, or porn movies, you’ll know after day one if this is something you can make a career out of. If it is, try to make a plan–how many years do you intend on being in this business? And try to stash your money. We all think the big bucks will be there tomorrow, so we spend it all today. I woke up after 17 years, having made and hustled millions of dollars, with nothing but the clothes on my back & a lot of stories.
If you’re doing it to survive, like I was, try to get off the drugs and straighten out your life. Otherwise, you might never make it out alive. Above all, be true to yourself, conduct yourself with honesty and dignity and you’ll make it. And don’t forget to have fun, because it is a hell of a ride.
Lauri Shaw: It’s a job. Treat it like one. Be responsible, punctual, and sober.
Do your research. There’s plenty of info out there that wasn’t easily accessible before. Use it. Find the online message boards where both workers and customers write about the clubs. Learn the laws in every state and country you plan to work before you get there.
If you’re stripping, you’re paying the club to work. That means they do not own you. You are an independent contractor. They will also not have your back at tax time or if the club ever gets busted. They’re looking out for their interests and you’re looking out for yours. Be friendly, but always watch your back.
Put together your business dream team: your stylist; your personal trainer; your lawyer; your accountant; and possibly your stockbroker. Keep receipts and keep a set of books. As an entertainer, you’re a sole proprietorship company.
The window of time you can hustle at a job like this is finite. Save, invest, and plan for the future.
Georgina Spelvin: Insist on condoms and save your money. Oh, and this is for everybody, not just sex workers, moisturize! All over. Every day.
Dr. Betty Dodson: Avoid having first time sexual encounters under the influence of booze. If sex is worth doing it’s best being conscious when you’re doing it.
Nina Hartley: Save your money. Have a plan for After. Don’t date anyone who gives you shit for being a sex worker, period. If you don’t do it at home for free, don’t do it on camera for money. If you don’t do anal, don’t do anal. Don’t do cream pies for any amount of money. Pay your taxes. Go to school. Your newness is your most valuable asset, so guard it carefully and don’t over work your first year. Learn to say “no” and make it stick. Work as little as you can afford to and have a life. Extensions look trashy. Ditto very long nails. Think twice before you get that boob job. Three times, actually. If you do, shop around, a LOT. Do not go for lip injections, period, lest you be called “Daisy Duck.” Easy on the spray tan, Eugene.
Kelly Hayworth: You’re probably thinking you are different; you may consider yourself an “unlikely stripper.” You are not. The men and women that make up the sex industry come from all walks of life and backgrounds; they might be great cooks, strong athletes, accomplished writers; they may even have degrees. That’s right: having a college degree does not make you a special case. I was horribly condescending when I started out in the sex industry. “I’m not like them” I would think—I hope I never said it out loud—“these are hopeless cases; stupid, vapid, no futures; I’m just doing this because…” The end of that sentence, I now realize, is “because of the same reasons everyone else does it.”
Essence Alexander: Be clear about the fact that you are running your own business. Invest your money into vehicles that will allow you to walk away with some income. If you get to the point that you can’t do the job without a drink, etc. it’s time to quit!
Carol Queen: I think these three things increase your chances of a positive experience:
–Get as much sex info, and be as sex-positive, as you can. If you think your clients want unusual and perverted things, it won’t do your self-image any good (or your social skills as a good whore).
–Understand as much about your OWN sexuality as you can. It’s your own choice whether you share your true colors with clients (I always thought having orgasms was a fine perk, myself), but at least have sexual pleasure in your life somewhere. Also be clear about any challenging sexual stuff in your past (and try to root any of this out of your present life, if there is anything like an abusive partner or boss). This also means you are better-equipped to negotiate from a place of self-knowledge.
–Have some support. Maybe you can’t tell everyone what you’re doing, but have someone you can talk to and share the “shop talk” that is so useful (and frequently interesting) to work through.
Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D: Follow your muse. Stay in your truth. Do it your way. Be willing to, and have the courage to, change–because change happens. I had a wonderful porn star support group called Club 90, which was extremely empowering and helpful. We have been the best of friends, and meeting for twenty five years. So if possible, get yourself a support group of like minded peers. For me, nothing could be better than that.
Melissa Petro: When I share my story, one or two women will typically come up to me and reveal that they’ve had a similar experience, or that they’re considering sex work.
I don’t give advice, but I do share my experience often, which is a somewhat cautionary tale. My only suggestion is to ask yourself if you can do this type of work and remain true to the woman you are and to the people that you love. Many women can and do. I didn’t, and that’s what brought about most of the pain in my story. Research suggests it’s neither traffickers nor pimps nor drugs nor disease but, rather, the stigmatized and criminalized nature of sex work are the greatest contributing factors making sex work dangerous.
There is nothing inherently wrong with sex work, other than the fact that it is illegal and looked down upon. Society continuing to condemn and criminalize sex for money obfuscates the real issues– typically, issues of poverty, immigration, education, and so on. Those of us who can, have a moral obligation to speak up and share the reality of ourselves and our experiences.
Antonia Crane: Stay sane and sober while doing your job and I swear you’ll make ten times the cash you made drunk or high. Promise.
Jo “Boobs” Weldon: Get your tax and other legal advice from professionals, not in the dressing room.
Rachel Aimee: Grow a thick skin fast–you’ll need it. Don’t let the assholes get to you, and stay away from the ones who play mind games. Avoid drama in the club. Know that the other girls are exaggerating how much money they’re making, and everyone always says it was better last year. Try not to cry on the bad nights.
Caty Simon: LEARN your trade. Don’t be isolated. This is not a game, and it has high stakes, especially if you aspire to a legitimate career later on. Find a benevolent indie escort who will take you under her wing for a small cut and teach you how to screen clients and watch for the sort of legal entrapment that the police practice. After you’re on your own, join a bad call list/ database. If there isn’t one in your area, start one. And listen to your instincts, ALWAYS. They’ll get better as you’re in the business longer. The only thing that won’t get better is your own propensity to tell yourself that you’re just being paranoid. But remember–no amount of money is worth your life or your freedom.
Tracy Quan: Pfft. Is it kind of pompous to give advice to the new girls? I do appreciate the advice I received as a newbie, even when I didn’t take it. So here’s one thing I feel strongly about: don’t feel guilty about lying. Nobody is entitled to know what you do. Lying about it is one of our traditions. If you follow this tradition, be honest with yourself and kind to others. Don’t tell a guy you’re dating him exclusively while you see customers behind his back — let him know you still date other guys and leave it at that. If you create ambiguity, you’re not turning him into some kind of patsy. (It’s really none of his business whether the other men are paying.)
Also, no matter how angry you get during a lover’s quarrel, you should never use the fact that you see men for money as a weapon. It’s been known to happen. Some people, harboring a sexual secret, will lash out with their secret when they’ve been arguing. If you use this info to hurt or insult a guy or to get the last word, you’ll regret it.
Jennifer “Blowdryer” Waters: My favorite advice books, besides my own, Good Advice for Young Trendy People of All Ages, is Anna Deavere Smith’s Letters to a Young Artist, Quentin Crisp’s Manners from Heaven, and Ariel Gore’s How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead. Smith reminds us that anybody who has power is The Man, and it’s wise not to forget that. Crisp’s main point was that you take your riches in people, and true style is both consistent and comes from within. My advice is skittish: be an open book - never make information a weapon, it’s old fashioned. If you’re threatened by an up and comer, love them instead. And in these hard times, you should have somebody sleeping under your kitchen table at least once in awhile, or you’re not even fricking human.
Jodi Sh. Doff: Some jobs more than others, but every aspect of Naked for Money still has some stigma attached to it. That’s potent stuff, even when it feels like it’s not, or like you’re tougher than that. Make sure you have someone outside of the business who loves you. Someone who can listen without judging, who has your best interest at heart, will call you on your shit, will have your back. That’s probably good advice for everyone, no matter how you make your money….
January 1981
The Butterfly is gone. Myron set up a new place for us called the Lollipop Lounge.
I got into a scene with Piper and Joey Two Shoes. We’re pretty good friends now. Me and Piper, not me and Shoes. He’s a loan shark or something.
Junior moved in, but he’s sleeping on the couch, so I guess we’re not a thing. We did a thing, but we’re not a thing. Piper said he’d been indicted for murder 9 times. He admits to three of them–the indictments, not the murders.
So, that’s who I spend all my time with now. Killers, loan sharks, coke dealers. But mostly well-dressed. The well dressed underbelly.
So, that’s who I am now. High class slime.
February
Mommy came in yesterday - to yell mostly. She thinks this job and this lifestyle are bad for me. I’m sure she’s right, but even when I had a respectable job I was with people she didn’t like in places she worried about. So, nothing’s really changed. Except now I make more money.
February
Mommy wants to know how I see myself in the future. I don’t know. I’m past my expiration date, like a quart of soured milk. Maybe I could marry Louie the Ice Man or someone…
??
it’s happening again I’m becoming dangerous I must be very careful next time may be the last
May
It’s been months. Past events are starting to fuzz. Details lost. A little unstable. Lots of lonely. Worked 20 days in a row. Some jerk driving me home from one of the Jersey gigs tried to pull into a motel. Hadda jump out. $25 cab ride back to town.
The Big Man stayed at my house. Raped me. Said I stole his ring, but I didn’t. Tied me up and gagged me with pantyhose and neckties anyway. Maxie 86′d him from the Lollipop for two weeks. Two weeks?
Construction on Myron’s after-hours club halted. Sleeping with BooHoos guy, Roman. I think he’s a bookmaker or something.
Phone number changed to unlisted. Contact lenses. Money in the bank. Roaches in the house.
Still drinking.
I want to be left alone with someone else.
To be naturally beautiful when I wake up.
To have 2 days off a week.
There’s a car sitting across from me with a guy watching me and jerking off. I wish they’d all go away.
Rich man
Poor man
Beggar man
Thief
Knights of Decadence
Daze of Grief
Woke up on the couch, the door unbolted. There’s a puddle of water in the center of the floor and a chair in the middle of that. I know who I came home with and that we fucked but after that…who knows? I hate everyone from the Deuce I meet.
Fancy dressers
Smooth talkers
snakes in the grass
sweet kisses
endless praises
just for a simple piece of ass.
The streets seem less and less friendly - or maybe it’s just me.
Same places
different faces
different places
with the same faces
round and round she goes
down and down she goes
LZ Hansen: Yes! I’d do it again, I loved my life as a whore. I had issues when I was a speedball freak, but that had nothing to do with whoring. I loved brothel life, loved the women I met, not all, but even the bitches I fought with, I liked.
I’d do it all exactly the same.I made a stack of money & blew it on drugs, vacations & things. As long as my drugs & rent were paid for, I didn’t need a lot of stuff. Then, as a sober whore, I made the money again & spent it on more things & bigger rent. I got my American Dream, still no regrets. I have no shame. Today, I tell the world I was a whore & loved it!
Georgina Spelvin: Yeah, I’d probably have jumped at the chance to be in a movie even if it DID require explicit sex. I was that eager to be in film and I still don’t see why the actuality of real-life intercourse between humans should be less palatable than a good turtle-fuck on Animal Kingdom.
Betty Dodson: Yes! My naked lady days was throwing or attending sex parties in the sixties and seventies, but no money exchanged hands. When I was a sex coach guiding women through pleasure rituals so they could learn how to provide their own orgasms with masturbation, I got paid. It wasn’t until I was postmenopausal that I did a few doubles with my girlfriends who were sex workers. Their johns were often more polite than many men I’d dated.
I’d like to see more women and men better sexually educated and skilled so they could provide their own erotic entertainment. We need to get beyond the only accepted model of heterosexual monogamous marriages, a lifestyle that ends up creating party girls, prostitutes and johns. No one should have to pay to enjoy orgasms.
Nina Hartley: Yes, definitely. I’d have left my first husband ten years earlier and have married Ernest that much sooner. I’d manage my money better (though sex workers are notoriously bad with money management, as a general rule). I’d have taken a stronger interest in the business aspect of porn, instead of just the artistic/personal aspects of it.
Essence Alexander: I’d do it again. I would plan my exit up front. I would save.
Carol Queen: Yes, absolutely. I learned more in the trenches of the sex biz than I have almost anywhere else. There’s plenty of secret know-how between those sheets. I’m not sure I’d really do anything differently except maybe learn better money management skills. I didn’t piss away my earnings, but neither do I have any of that money any more. Of course, my 401(K) is half gone, too, and that had nothing to do with my money management. What I invested in while I was a sex worker was time to develop my writing. I recommend every sex worker figure out what s/he/ze is in fact investing in.
Jodi Sh. Doff: Sure. Knowing what I know today, in a heartbeat. I’d put a major chunk of change away right off the top, investing it in real estate. I’d drink less, say “No” moreoften and take lots of photographs.
Tracy Quan: In my teens, I met a wealthy guy who had quite a crush on me. He was in his late twenties, very civilized, and he wanted to court me rather than pay for sex. He barely touched me that night and insisted on giving me lots and lots of cab fare as I was leaving the hotel room. Any sensible girl in my shoes would have called him the next day and pursued the relationship, but I didn’t know what to do. I was intimidated, didn’t feel glamorous enough for this rich playboy, so I ran away from the attraction. I should have been more courageous. I should have asked another working girl for advice. Instead, I kept the episode to myself and never saw him again. I was a scrappy little idiot.
Annie Sprinkle: I’ve had a great life, and would love to do it again, and again, several times. I would take a few classes on running a small business, and how to manage money when I first got into the biz. I’d learn to balance my check book, invest, and save money. But then again, I would probably enjoy blowing my money all over again.
Melissa Petro: Today I am entirely comfortable with the person I am, and I recognize that who I am is the cumulative effect of my choices and experiences. For this reason, there is nothing in my past that I regret, nothing I would change or wish to undo. This is not to say that I didn’t make mistakes or that my choices didn’t bring about a terrible amount of unnecessary suffering, only that I’ve learned– or, am learning– from my past and, hopefully, by sharing my experience, I can use my past to help or educate others. The experiences I’ve had, as well as my education, put me in a somewhat unique position to have a positive impact on peoples’ lives.
Antonia Crane: Yes. I’d do it all again the same way. I wouldn’t change those years dancing in San Francisco during The Golden Age for anything. But, if I didn’t keep going back to dancing, I may have pursued other goals more voraciously. I wish I would have gone to school much sooner, instead of well into my thirties, but I’m relieved to have the self esteem to pursue my career now.
Jo “Boobs” Weldon: I would do it again. If I had to do something differently, I would probably take it more seriously as a job than as something that was impeding me. That’s the feeling I had when I was very young–that it was taking more from me than I was getting out of it. I can see the advantages and disadvantages differently now.
Rachel Aimee: Absolutely. I can’t think of a more convenient way I could’ve supported myself through four and a half years of volunteer-editing $pread! In an alternate universe, I would’ve put more effort into trying to be a good stripper–calling customers, buying new outfits once in a while, etc–but in reality that’s just not me and it never would’ve worked. No, I wouldn’t make any changes. I’d do it exactly the same all over again. (OK, maybe this is the nostalgic talking now because I only just quit!)
Caty Simon: In a heartbeat. Escorting gave me financial self-sufficiency, self-respect, new skills, too many things to list here. Only this time, unlike the childish 21 year old I was, and the dope fiend I became, I wouldn’t carry around my ill gotten cash in a money clip and act like a Mafioso, treating all my friends to dinner at the most expensive restaurants and working back to zero all the time. I wouldn’t have the misbegotten impression that what I thought of as “free money”, à la Patti Smith, would last forever, as sadly, so many escorts do. I would save, save, save–at least half my income. And I’d give more of it to the activist movements I’m involved with today.
Kelly Hayworth: I didn’t begin stripping until I was 26. I sometimes wonder if I should have started earlier. I do wish that I could go back and hustle those timewasters I didn’t know how to deal with in the beginning. It took me a while to learn.
Lauri Shaw: I would’ve done it differently. I’d have been more careful which girls I trusted to tell me the rules when I first started. I’d have left my ego at the door, and understood that it was a JOB — it did not define how pretty I was, or what else I was fit to do with my life. I wouldn’t have so readily allowed people to manipulate me.
I’d have stayed sober when I was on the clock, kept my nose clean (no pun intended), and socked away money like there was no tomorrow. Lastly, I’d have been honest with myself about how I felt about the job — vs. the way I thought I should be ashamed. I’d have stood up to the world, stripped for another 5 - 15 years, bought real estate, made other investments during those boom years. I’d be sitting pretty right now…
Re-reading my response to this question pissed me off. While I was writing it in late December, I realized just how much of this ending is unresolved for me. I quit ten years ago believing I needed to do something more “legitimate” with my life. Having regrets is frankly incompatible with the woman I think I am. And so I’ve decided to return to the front lines after all these years. At a very different place in my life and in a different country! I’m very excited about what comes next.
I think the fact that I’m older now is great. It will put more money in my pocket. I’ve been on one audition so far and seen the girls. They don’t look any older than I do. My life is very different now as well. I have a husband who’s behind me 99.9% and has his own money coming in. I’ve cut ties years ago with any relatives who’d think it’s okay to judge me. I’ve had several jobs in mainstream entertainment, moved out of New York, and seen a whole lot more of the world. I know the perils of being intoxicated at work and have decided it’s a no-no for me.
Bottom line: I’m no longer that scared little girl who would do anything to keep a roof over her head. I have choices now. And I’m happy to be able to say that my choice is to go be the best stripper I can be, for as long as I can make great money doing it.
Next Wednesday: Final Round of the Naked Ladies’ Holiday Gang Bang: The Naked Ladies offer advice, warning and words of wisdom for anyone just starting out in the Naked for Money business
My dream is to be paid for working on the farm. I’ve been working there for free for months.
We made it official two weeks ago. Well, semi-official. The offer was made and accepted, but there was still the ever elusive paperwork to bag. I worked. I worked again. And then came the great crash of [...]
, is Anna Deavere Smith’s 
, Quentin Crisp’s 
. Smith reminds us that anybody who has power is The Man, and it’s wise not to forget that. Crisp’s main point was that you take your riches in people, and true style is both consistent and comes from within. My advice is skittish: be an open book - never make information a weapon, it’s old fashioned. If you’re threatened by an up and comer, love them instead. And in these hard times, you should have somebody sleeping under your kitchen table at least once in awhile, or you’re not even fricking human.
