OFF THE POLE

By the time I was seventeen, I was so rebellious and pissed off I was the perfect candidate for the life of a Go-Go Dancer. The seductive lights, smoke filled bars coupled with drunken patrons, easily deceived a young girl into thinking she had the world to call her own.

It all started late one summer night when a neighbor called the police to report screams of domestic violence coming from my apartment. When the police arrived I was barley dressed and covered in my own blood. My boyfriend was still threatening to kill me in the midst of the commotion.

After he was handcuffed and arrested, the police took me down to the station to complete a report. An Officer sat with me and explained why I needed to file for a restraining order. The Officer warned me with the utmost sternness in his voice that this man, my boyfriend, would eventually kill me. Believe it or not, I wasn’t sure if I could do what The Officer was suggesting.

I was scared, alone and very much dependent upon the man who beat me. I was estranged from my family and life with him was all I knew. The Officer promised me that if I trusted him, he would not only accompany me to court and face the beater with me at trial, but he would also make sure that I would be able to take care of myself. The Officer repeatedly assured me that he would do whatever it would take to help get me on my own two feet.

I wasn’t sure if I could or should believe this Officer. I had been lied to so many times over the years I wasn’t exactly the most trusting person. Alas, after several long hours in the station I was too exhausted to argue with anyone. I simply agreed to do whatever The Officer suggested.

One week later, The Officer escorted me to the courthouse where I pressed formal charges. I was given a final restraining order. I was officially on my own. And I was scared shitless. At seventeen years old, it was tough to imagine my future.

After court and a cup of coffee a small celebration of my new found independence The Officer, nicknamed “The Breeze” took me to his favorite bar where he was close to the owners. So close in fact, that he was godfather to the bar owners’ children.

The bar was called Scorpios.

I had never been inside a strip club before. I did not know what to expect. The Breeze and I sat quietly in the windowless bar. I was too shy to speak. All I could hear was the beating of my heart pounding in my eardrums. It took more than a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When my eyes did focus I still couldn’t see clearly. I remained disorientated by the incessant flashing disco lights hitting my face. The mixture of perfume, cologne, alcohol and cigarettes wafting in the air made me so dizzy it nearly knocked me off of my barstool.

Moments later we were served drinks compliments of The Owner. I was never asked to show ID due to the company I was associated with. The treatment we received from the bartenders lessened the awkwardness I was experiencing and my curiosity piqued.

The Breeze walked over The Owner to tell him my story. I sat alone sweating profusely. The only thing that gave me solace was staring intently at The Breeze. He was an older gentleman. He was obviously seasoned in his career yet he still had soft and kind eyes.  He had dark brown hair with the classic military haircut and a noticeable five o’clock shadow. He wasn’t very tall but even with his modest stature he could command a room.  Somehow, I hadn’t noticed his appearance until that very moment.

The Owner, wearing all black and an all too shocking an eye patch, looked me up and down with his good eye. He smiled and said, “What can we do for you?”

“I don’t know?” I said, feeling guilty for even being in the bar.

I just happened to be wearing a summer dress that day. My dress was stripped in grey and white. It was hemmed more than above my knees with a very low cut v-neckline that had a bow tied in the middle. Apparently, that outfit was appropriate for my surroundings.

The Owner walked over towards my direction. He threw a crumpled up napkin onto the floor.  He asked me to twirl around, bend over slowly, pause, look back at him and pick the napkin up off the floor. I did. I was hired. Only I didn’t know it yet.

I remember thinking ‘this is weird’. Why did that man with the eye patch just throw a napkin on the floor and ask me to pick it up? I was too naïve to realize The Owner was sizing up my ass.

For the first time in my life, I watched the girls dance. I couldn’t take eyes off of them. One by one they came on stage. Loud music played and I could feel the bass of the music deep down in my chest. My chest was vibrating to the beat. The blinking shades of the multicolored rainbow lights reflected off the high gloss of the stage. They no longer blinded me. The lights enticed me. The girls were spinning, floating, twirling and suspended in air against gravity. Some of them were as graceful as the professional dancers I had watched on Broadway as a child.

After each dancer was finished performing on stage, she would come down from the hard wooden platform with anchored metal poles on each end, stand behind the bar and talk to the customers. The bar served as a protective barrier while the dancers collected dollar bills in-between their bra-covered breasts.

One after the other, the dancers sauntered over to The Breeze to pay him respect. He was somewhat of a celebrity in the bar. He always tipped each girl more than twenty dollars.

The girls who came over to The Breeze looked at me and said, Hello. I was surprised at how welcoming and pleasant they were to me. They didn’t see me as a threat. They looked at me and talked with me as an equal. They asked me questions like, “What bar do you work in? Are you going to work here? Oh, you should work here!! You’re so beautiful! You could make a lot of money!”

One girl in particular took a real liking to me. She was a young girl with blond hair. She was slightly plump with a well-rounded ass. During the evening she brought me back into the dressing room to meet the other girls. She invited me to watch her get ready for her next ‘set.’

I was amazed at the clothes, the costumes, the incredible bodies, the glitter, the shoes with seven-inch heels and the pallets of make up. But mostly I was amazed with the camaraderie. It was obvious they were all in this together. There was a quiet unspoken alikeness. They carried a sense of strength and shared that with each other.

After several strong drinks and one too many shots, a few short hours in the dressing room and I was ready to put on a new face. While sipping champagne from a dirty glass, I spackled my bare skin with massive amounts of foundation. Then, I loaded my cheeks with excessive amounts of dusting powder.  I generously applied black liquid eyeliner to the upper lids of my eyes and I spared no mercy when it came to the mascara. I must have put on at least 25 coats. My lashes practically looked false.

I went back out to the bar to show off my face to The Breeze. He was still sitting at the bar, but now, his face was buried in a dancers crotch, with his mouth full of dollar bills. I remember being shocked. But I was too inebriated to react.

The Owner walked over to me with his creepy black eye patch and said, “Are you ready?”

I said, “Ready? For what?”

He said, “You are going to dance, aren’t you?”

“Well, um, uh, I don’t know.” I stammered. “Maybe I should just watch for a little while longer?” While I was brave enough to paint my face, I was still rather uncertain about gracing the stage.

The Owner walked over to the manager of the bar and whispered in his ear.

The Manager was an old, Irish, hippie-looking guy with long, gray, stringy hair, pulled back into a messy ponytail. After their short exchange, they motioned with their hands for me to come over to where they were standing. When I reached the two of them The Owner walked away. I became nervous all over again.

Danny, the manager, pushed open the purple swinging doors and we walked onto the black and white checkered floor of the bar kitchen. The kitchen was the only room in the entire building that was well lit. The smell of greasy chicken fingers became a scent I would learn to love.

Danny examined me up and down, with professional and serious eyes. That’s when I was first asked to show ID.

Danny said, “Jesus, you’re so young, did you just get off the school bus?”

“No”. I said beginning to feel the pangs of anxiety. All of the beverages I had previously consumed had worn off . I was instantly sober.

Danny persisted. “Show me, show me your ID.”

With sweaty palms I took out an obviously fake ID from my purse. One look at the badly laminated ID, and Danny laughed. He laughed out loud as if to say, nice try.

The rest of the conversation when like this…

Danny: “Okay, okay, rule number one, when you are here, in this bar, you will have to drink out of the red plastic disposable cups we keep behind the bar. I will talk to the bartenders, so they will know what to do when you order a drink. I never want to see you drink out of any of the glasses that can be seen through, just in case the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) decides to come in and break our balls. Got it?”

“Yes! That won’t be a problem.”

I was just about to walk away wondering what was this ‘ABC’ he was referring to and what are these rules all about when Danny said, “Rule number two, what is your name?”

“Uh. Meleah”

“Hmm, that is going to be a problem, we are going to have to change that. If you could choose any name in the world, what would it be?” Danny waited patiently for me to reply.

I thought about it. A million different names rushed in and out of my head. I thought of people I knew. I thought about my favorite actresses. I thought about the names of women I admired. Yet, none of which appealed to me. Then, after a long pause, I thought of my favorite scented lotion. Jasmine Vanilla.

In an uncertain shaky voice I said, “Jasmine.”

Danny grinned and said, “Jasmine? Ah, good choice. We don’t have one of those yet. I like it.”

Then, he looked me dead in the eyes and spoke with an uncompromising voice, “When you are here, you are Jasmine. Never give out your real name, address, or personal information, especially to the clients. Trust me.”

I agreed. Without. Question.

Danny walked me back out through the dark purple bar and into the dressing room again. He asked Brenda, a veteran dancer, to help pick out a costume for me to borrow. I was to make my debut in thirty minutes.

The girls leapt at the chance to dress a newbie into a lavish costume. They primped and prepared me. I tried on many different outfits until we found the right one. The costume was made of a spandex-silk like material. It was an all black halter-top that velcro-ed around my neck like a choker. It had thick strips which barley covered my breasts. As for the bottoms, I wore a simple pleated black mini skirt, with huge silver buckle that snapped on the side of the waist, for easy removal, complete with a matching black thong. I laced up the patent leather, shinny black, square heeled boots, up to my knees and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was astonished at my own appearance.

The girls finished off my look with a burgundy wine lipstick for a permanent stain on my lips. Before leaving the dressing room for the first time as “Jasmine” the girls gave me words of encouragement and advice.

“Always maintain eye contact, make each man feel like he is the only man in the room. Let the music take you over. You’re beautiful; you are going to do so great!”

(Little did I know that once the outfit was picked out, fitted and agreed upon, one of the girls went to the DJ booth to tell him what music would go with my costume.)

Back in Black, by AC/DC blasted over the sound system as soon as I walked to the opening of the bar that led to the stage. Danny, The Owner and The Breeze were standing with their backs against the wall with their arms folded across their chests. The three of them stood side by side in the corner all the while nodding encouragement my way. I took a deep breath, forgot who I was, and graced the stage with an unfamiliar confidence.

I closed my eyes and started moving. I was strangely exhilarated. I wasn’t uncomfortable in the clothes or the shoes. I was liberated. I was in charge of creating a whole new me. There I was with a new name, a new job, a new look, and most importantly, I had total control over the whole room.

I could feel the weight of all eyes on me and I loved what they saw. I loved how they looked at me. It wasn’t like the way the counselors in high school looked at me, taking pity on a broken child. It wasn’t like the looks the therapists and psychologists who felt sorry for me. I wasn’t a rape victim or a small scared child hiding under the bed from the big bad daddy coming to take my childhood away. Suddenly, I was desirable. I was a virgin dancer and in Go-Go Land, that was enough virginity to cause a roar.

After 15 minuets of dancing, sweating and euphoria, there was applause from the whole bar. That’s when I made my first mistake. I came down off the stage without collecting a single dollar! I ran up to The Breeze, The Owner and Danny aching for approval. The Breeze handed me a crisp $100 bill. Danny said, “Like a duck to water.”

I was now a professional entertainment dancer.

The newfound voice of this woman-child was so powerful and more than intoxicating than anything I had ever known. It was all I could do to try to contain those unknown feelings of control I was experiencing.

I wanted to do that again. I wanted to feel that way all the time. I had found a place where women, just like me, accepted me, brought me in and gave me the much-needed confidence I so lacked. I wanted to be a member of this world. I wondered what else could these women teach me? That was the first of many times I confused that feeling with the concept of being in control.

The first night I cleared over a thousand dollars in cash, I was convinced I had made the right career choice. I wouldn’t have to take beatings or have cigarettes put out on my arms. I would not be used as a sexual punching bag or be called worthless by a man ever again. I could support myself.

Being a dancer was my way out. A way out of the past I had been running from since I was eight years old. I was well on my way to becoming someone else. Someone who one day could even fly.

But, first…

I had to learn how to swing On The Pole.

©Meleah Rebeccah Hawthorne 2006-2009

The exotic dancing industry has been glorified in movies and fictional stories. Famous actresses such as Demi Moore and Elizabeth Berkely have portrayed the “stripper lifestyle” as an easy way to make money complete with gorgeous costumes for little girls to play dress up.  And, I…wanted to be one of those girls.

But no one ever told me the truth about the underbelly of the Go-Go world.

When I arrived on the scene nothing seemed ‘normal’ to me. The lifestyle was foreign and overwhelming. It was as if I was floating above myself watching a movie. The volume on everything was so turned up it dominated my judgment. It wasn’t too long before all of the things that shocked me became the very things I did.

I never saw the invisible line fading between the real Meleah and the dancer Jasmine.

In the beginning of my career I did my best to keep my real life and my life as a dancer separated. I worked extremely hard to maintain two individual identities. Maybe that was my way of protecting myself from the reality of what was happening?

During the day I was Meleah. I was a responsible bill-paying survivor. I was shy and reserved and untrusting. I had normal friends. I did regular things. I went shopping and out to lunches. I went to the movies, the beach, the mall, and dance clubs. I cleaned my apartment and folded my laundry. I was an ordinary girl who rarely wore makeup.

But when 6pm rolled around? I would leave my friends, kiss myself goodbye, grab my dance bag full of costumes and drive to Scorpios. I had to allot enough time to under go the extensive transformation into Jasmine. There I became the vibrant, self-confident, life of the party, complete with slutty make-up, big hair and seven-inch heels.

Living a duel life was not because I was ashamed of what I was doing, at least not at first. I hid my occupation because the people in my life who did not work in the bars treated me differently when they discovered I was a dancer.

The moment I made the conscious effort to conceal one form of my existence from the other was the day my friend from childhood found out what I was doing to make a living.

My girlfriend and I met for lunch at a local chain restaurant. We hadn’t seen each other in months. I hadn’t seen any of my friends since I was held hostage by my abusive relationship. I was basking in the pleasure of our reunion.

We ordered unsweetened ice-tea and decided to share appetizers. I didn’t want to eat too much knowing I had work later that evening. With concern in her voice she had asked me where I had been hiding. I felt safe enough giving her the graphic details surrounding the trauma I suffered throughout my tumultuous entanglement. When I was done speaking she reached over to comfort me by placing her hand on top of mine.

Without missing a beat we quickly changed to polite conversation. She casually asked what I was doing these days to support myself. And that’s when I boldly told her I was working at Scorpios. The look plastered on her face was nothing short of sheer horror. That expression has been forever tattooed to my brain. Heavy silence replaced our chatter. She immediately removed her hand from the top of mine and pulled away from the table. Her reaction made me want to say ‘Just Kidding’. My heart sank to the ground when she announced that she would no longer be my friend. She could not possibly trust a stripper around her boyfriend. She threw her napkin and some money on the table towards the bill. Then she walked out of the building and out of my life forever.

Rather than feel ashamed about my career choice I used that instant to sit up and take notice. I realized the way people in the real world viewed dancers. And I did not like their perception. On the contrary, I started paying more attention to the way my fellow entertainers along with the clients made me feel so comfortable and welcomed. Anytime my fragile ego was slightly askew I could run to the bar for a fix of confidence.

The scary part of the business is the same part of the business people never talk about. Things that used to turn my stomach into knots, slowly and inevitably, turned into my everyday life. The more time spent immersed in that sub-culture the less appalling and the more appealing that world seemed to be. My very moral fiber began to change. What was once abnormal became normal.

Take for instance the dressing room.

The first time I worked a full night at the bar was almost a week after my audition. I was terrified. The dressing room wasn’t how I remembered it. It seemed a lot dirtier. The first thing I noticed were the stains on the floor accompanied by rips and tears in the faded purple carpet exposing grey concrete underneath. From my peripheral vision I clearly saw large cigarette burns on the oversized vanity countertop. The second I passed through the opposite side of the heavy metal doorway my body tensed up. I quietly tread my way across the dressing room to a distant corner secretly hoping no one would notice me. Yet, as much as I wanted to be invisible, I swiftly scanned the room for a familiar face to recognize me. I barricaded myself into that spot with my gym bags. My gym bags were now filled with the necessary ‘props’ one needs to grace the stage including brand new lacy panties and matching bras. I lit a cigarette to steady my shaky hands. With each drag of nicotine I gained enough confidence to pick up my head and look around the room.

The next thing that struck me was the way these women changed costumes so comfortably in front of each other. Beautiful women surrounded me. They were completely naked talking to each other and they were talking about ordinary things. They conversed about everything from the weather to their children. As those bronzed bodies faced the full-length mirror they shared lipstick and gossip amongst each other. They acted as if they were in a ‘regular’ bar and dressed in clothes as patrons. I didn’t know where to shift my eyes even if I wanted to join the conversation. I was no prude, but I had never seen so many beautiful naked women in one room together.

While desperately trying to acclimate myself to my surroundings, a friendly laugh rang in the air. It was Brenda. The very same blond-haired plumped-ass girl that was so kind to me. I exhaled my first sigh of relief.

Brenda spotted me immediately. “Hey Girly! I booked myself tonight to work with you!”

“Oh. That’s awesome! I’m glad you are here.” I admitted.

Brenda smiled at me. “Oh Yeah. We are going to have a P-A-R-T-Y tonight!”

“Okay. Cool. Let’s get some drinks!”

I needed to take the edge off. I had to quiet my nerves. It was essential for me to become mildly tipsy. With that the two of us headed out to the bar.

Since I was under age, I was given my drink ‘Sex On The Beach’ in a red plastic up as per Danny’s rules. Brenda ordered up her usual, a chilled ‘Lemon Drop’ shot with sugar lined on the rim of the glass. And it looked delicious. Brenda and I sat at the bar still wearing our day clothes for two quick drinks. Brenda gave the bar a good once-over in hopes of seeing any of her ‘regular customers’ before we headed back to the dressing room to get ready for the night.

Upon completing my first full night I was no longer petrified of the dressing room. It took a few months but eventually that room became the place where I felt most at home. I no longer saw the dirt on the floor or the holes in the carpets. The cigarette burns blended flawlessly into the countertops.

I’m not sure when this happened. There was no big defining moment when I was desensitized enough to engage in conversation with tanned bare flesh on parade. Despite the nudity I was no longer aware whether or not people were clothed.

Another example of how easy it was to get sucked in and pulled under the abyss happened seamlessly.

Naturally the more night shifts I worked the later I slept in the day. When I arose I barely had enough time take care of my laundry before I was due back at the bar. As a result of the hours I was keeping I started to lose touch with my regular friends. I was operating on a different internal clock. Therefore I began to hang out with the girls from the club outside of the bar.

I spent more time with the girls due in part to the simple fact that body maintenance was of the utmost importance. I was no longer an ordinary person. I was evolving into a product. I was selling my image for a dollar at a time. To sustain my appearance I had to schedule weekly full-body waxing. I needed manicures and pedicures at least twice a week. I went tanning to uphold my glow three days a week and who better to accompany me than the girls who had to endure the same.

I didn’t see any of those events as turning points. I did not recognize that, little by little, Meleah was slipping away and Jasmine was assuming control.

A classic example of how the abnormal evolved into the normal was the first time I saw drugs being used. I had done drugs in the past. Hell, I had already hitchhiked across the country by that time in my life. I was no stranger to substance abuse. Nonetheless I was baffled when I saw two girls sitting in plain view chopping lines of cocaine on the black plastic counter top in the middle of the dressing room. Sure they were careful not to spill the white powder onto any surface freckled with discoloration, but they weren’t hiding the fact they were getting high. They passed the CD case and straw to each other as if it was perfectly normal to snort lines in the wide open. Not one person in the room had an accusatory face.

Fast forward in time to the first time I ever used drugs in the bar.

It all happened the night I was too intoxicated to go on stage for my next ‘set’. I had been drinking steadily from 630pm until the clock struck 10pm. At that point I could barely stand, let alone possess the sort of coordination required to dance. Considering I did not have much to eat that day because I had become obsessed with watching my weight, the alcohol hit me. And it hit me hard. I was in one of the bathroom stalls on the verge of vomiting when I heard someone ask if I was okay.

“No. I think I am going to be sick.”

The voice on the other side of the door said, “I think I can help you. Just open up.”

I obliged.

The girl knelt down on the sticky checkered floor beside me with a CD case in hand. There lay sparkling white powder resembling crushed diamonds equally distributed in two perfect lines. Then she handed me a rolled up hundred dollar bill. I graciously accepted her offer.

I placed the bill in my right nostril while holding the left nostril closed. Surprisingly in my inebriated state I was able to aim the other end of the bill in perfect alignment with the cocaine. I inhaled as hard as possibly could. The coke hit the back of my throat so hard I almost threw up. Instead I gagged then swallowed and felt my teeth go completely numb. My mouth tasted the way a band-aid smelled.

Within a matter of seconds I felt slightly sober. So, I did the other line. Instantaneously I returned to complete coherency. Cocaine was like magic. I felt as if I hadn’t sipped a drop of alcohol. I was awake, alert, and clear headed. Yet, I held onto enough of a buzz to face the audience awaiting my presence on the other side of the door.

“Thank you.” I said looking up at her with grateful eyes.

She smiled and said, “Any time. We are all friends here. We share everything except our men.”

And then we both laughed.

At that precise moment it seemed perfectly normal for me to indulge. I had become one of them. At first I adapted to the life and then I became the life.

Ultimately it was increasingly difficult to manage both personalities or to handle both of my identities. It came close to half past impossible to continue to live separate lives.

Someone was going to have to take over.

Would it be Meleah? Or would it be Jasmine?

©Meleah Rebeccah Hawthorne 2006-2009

In my early dancer days and all of it’s new found splendor, there was a magnitude of money to be made. Dancing was still a true art form. We were expected by management and the patrons alike to deliver a show. To ensure the dancers gave their best performance we were paid employees of the bar.

My salary was paid out per the number of ‘sets’ I danced. A set consisted of fifteen minutes working ON the stage. Working the stage entailed dancing as best I could until my toes were numb along with acrobatic pole swinging. The next fifteen minutes were spent working the bar OFF the stage. That meant collecting tips from the customers.

I worked very hard on my appearances and routines. After all, I was learning from the best of the best in the industry how clothing, costumes and even my make-up had to match theme music. For me to really understand the art of dancing I would sit quietly at the bar sipping from my plastic red cup and watch one of my favorite dancers, Lila. She had long, shiny black hair that she teased into the perfect 1980’s poofy bigness. She had the largest breasts I had ever seen. They were perfect in every way and though I am not exactly sure what size they were, they must have been at least triple E’s. It was hard not to notice her. She had a beautiful face with searing blue eyes, yet I found myself constantly distracted by her plethora of colorful tattoos.

She used to dance an unbelievable routine to the song ‘Hot for Teacher’ by Van Halen. Lila dressed up like a slutty little schoolteacher. Her costume was intricate enough to include props such as black-rimmed eyeglasses and a yardstick ruler. She slicked her mane of hair back into a tightly wrapped neat bun. She wore a short plaid flirty skirt with a white buttoned down blouse complete with nude lipstick as opposed to the color red she typically wore. Lila proceeded to tear up the stage floor showcasing her meticulous choreographed moves. I know now that those dance moves had been worked out painfully at home for hours at a time, in front of full-length mirrors, while acting out the lyrics of the song as if she were rehearsing for a spot as a Vegas Showgirl.  When the beat of the drum hit the hardest, Lila ripped off her glasses, dropped to the floor and rolled around as if she were alone and pretended to masturbate with the ruler. When the guitar notes soared, so did she. Her pole work was incredible. Lila had certainly mastered seduction. Her costume cover up came off with perfectly executed timing. She kept her skirt on just long enough to really tease the customers. She consciously waited until the crowd was wild with anticipation before slowly unbuttoning her blouse getting down to her lacy bra and g-string. All the while she never broke that long sultry eye contact with the customers. The clients roared with applause when she was finished. Her performance literally took my breath away.

It took awhile for me to get the hang of what dancing, really dancing, involved. I was still starry eyed and amazed watching all of the other girls. They seemed so professional and so comfortable in their own bodies. There was an obvious pride carried by each of the girls with respects to the entertainment side of the business.

If I had the evening shift, my first ‘set’, began at 7pm. I stumbled nervously onto the surface of our scratched wooden stage in my specifically chosen costume and a face full of make-up. I was responsible for entertaining the crowd from 7pm until 7:15pm and those fifteen minutes felt like a lifetime.

As I climbed onto the stage I placed my pocketbook neatly at the edge for easy access to fill with money. I had knocking knees and clumsy feet. It was difficult to find my balance in those complicated shoes. I took deep breaths while refraining from making any sort of eye contact with anyone. My biggest fear was that I was going to throw up, pee, or even worse yet, slip and fall down in front of everyone.

When I managed to find my center I spent a few seconds with my eyes closed to feel the music inside of my chest. Somehow within that space of time I transformed into Jasmine. As the loud bass pulsated in the air I felt Jasmine emerge and allowed my body to move freely. I stopped paying close attention to my feet and simply began to trust them. I swayed back and fourth moving my hips to the rhythm. However, the flash of the strobe lights would throw me off at times and I would have to use my fail-safe move. I would pretend to grind the pole. That always helped me regain my sense of coordination.

Grinding the pole was about the only pole move I knew how to do. I was too scared to try any of the other moves even though I had been studying the other girl’s routines for weeks. The palms of my hands were just too sweaty to stabilize a decent grip. I knew if I attempted to swing my weight around, I was sure to go flying off the stage head first onto the floor.

If I noticed a man gazing in my direction I learned to hesitate while undressing. There was something truly exhilarating in knowing these gawking men wanted me and I wanted to entice them as long as I possibly could. Slowly and steadily I removed each article of clothing that covered up my red leather thong and matching bra, finally exposing my flesh for all to see.

When my three songs were finished I had fifteen minutes to work the bar. Working the bar meant collecting tips. There was a pretty straightforward technique to this.  In order to collect tip I needed to approach each customer individually from my side of the bar. It was necessary to engage the client. However, I was too intimidated to make eye contact with them. I felt too self-conscious. I knew I wasn’t a good dancer, at least not yet. But the men seemed to enjoy the fact that I was shy and seemingly submissive. Since I was incredibly timid I always initiated my contact with the customer by not facing them at all. I stood with my back to the customer. I bent over slowly while arching my back and holding my ass up high as I counted to the number twenty in my head. That was more than enough time for the man seated at the bar to get a good look. Then I gradually positioned my sweaty body turning around to face his direction before being handed a dollar bill in-between my breasts. If the customer did not make the first move and begin a conversation with me, I smiled sheepishly and walked away.

By 7:30pm I was off the stage and outside of the bar. It was time to head back to the dressing room to change my outfit. I had to fix my hair and make-up and reapply any chipped nail polish.  My next set would begin promptly at 8pm.

If there was a big tipper seated at the bar and he appeared to be remotely interested in spending his time and cash on me I considered that to be a glorious occasion. Instead of hightailing it to the dressing room to undertake the get-ready-for-my-next-set process, I quickly change my costume and proceeded to sit with said high paying client for drinks. I used my very best fake laugh at their mostly stupid jokes, pretended to care, or just simply kept them company.

Big Tippers were not always the stereotypical flashy guys you see in the movies. In fact, the really big tippers are practically invisible. They are reserved, quiet, and unassuming.

I had only been working in the bar a few short weeks when I had my first encounter with a Big Tipper. It was right after my 8pm set. I was behind the bar doing my best to look sexy without crashing into the rack of liquor bottles that lined the sinks. The man couldn’t have been older than thirty. Yet, through my seventeen-year-old eyes he may as well have been eighty. When I leaned over the bar squeezing my breasts together signaling the man to ‘place your dollar here’ he grabbed my hand instead. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans with a sports jacket. He had light hair and light eyes. He was alone sipping on what appeared to be scotch from a rocks glass.

With a slight southern drawl and a quiet tone of voice he asked, “What’s your name little lady?” I could barely hear him over the music.

“Jasmine!” I replied loudly. I was confused by the softness of his voice. But I thought he was a kind man right away.

“How long have you been working here?” He inquired.

“Um. I don’t know. Like a month? Maybe?” I said.

“Do you like working here?” He asked.

“Yeah. The girls are really cool.”

I was beginning to wonder why he was asking me these questions without ever handing me a dollar. Didn’t he know that I was working? I didn’t have time to chitchat. I needed to make at least one full sweep around the bar before heading back to the dressing room. I went to pull my hand away from him, but he held on tighter. I was suddenly over come with the feeling that he was going to be one of those creepy kind of guys everyone warned me about.

“Have you ever danced in a Go-Go Bar before you started working here?” He asked quizzically.

“No…but, I did take dance classes when I was a little girl. Um. Can I have my hand back now?”

“Sure.” And with that he let go of my hand.

I pulled back and I was just about to walk away when he said, “Wait. Stop. You didn’t collect your tip!”

“Oh. Oops. Right. Sorry.” I tried to act like I forgot but I was really trying to escape. I reluctantly turned back around and that is when he placed two one hundred dollar bills in the palm of my hand.

I was stunned. I was literally paralyzed for that moment time.

I think he got off on my reaction more than my appearance. For the rest of that evening I would dance on stage when it was time for my set, but when it was time to work the bar, I only went up to him.  I made $3,000.00 that night. And he never touched me once.

Working a full night shift consisted of seven sets per night. I was paid $26.00 per set for a grand total of $182.00 per night. If you added my pay to all of the tips I could get my hands on I would walk out of the bar with a minimum of $800 dollars per night, even on a slow night. At my age, that was a shit-load of money to handle.

Needless to say the goal of all of the dancers was to work as many sets per night as possible. When I began dancing full time I used to go into to the bar early to ensure the 7pm slot. Of course I also went into work early to claim my spot in the corner of the dressing room where I found comfort. I liked feeling tucked in behind my dance bags. Besides going in early afforded me the amount of time I needed to stop the jitters in my hands and calm the butterflies in my stomach. The only way I knew how to compose myself was to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. Smoking gave me something to focus on. As I inhaled harder and harder I watched the glowing red cherry on the end get brighter then fade with each new drag as the white clouds hung heavy in the stale bar air. Alcohol gave me the guts I needed, like liquid courage in a red plastic cup.

The only people the dancers paid money out to were the bartenders and what ever Disk Jockey was on rotation that night.  The bartenders were well compensated for keeping the drinks flowing and for making us ‘water shots’ when we ordered fake ‘vodka shots’. You see, there was an in-house signal the dancers gave to the bartender letting her know it was okay to charge the customer $5.50 for chilled double Grey Goose vodka shot while in reality serving us water.

The person who taught me ‘The Signal’ was the bartender named Kim. She could not have been taller than five feet on a good day. She had short brown hair and green eyes. But she had all the gusto and spunk necessary to hold her own behind the bar.  She was always well prepared with witty comebacks and a brilliant white smile. I liked her immediately.

One day Kim came into the dressing room to fix her own hair and make up when she decided to pull me aside. She wanted to help me out after I had gotten carried away the evening before. I drank way too much and became violently ill. I was not able to finish working my shift.

“I want to let you in on a little secret. If you don’t want to drink the shot the customers bought you, you can always use the signal.”

“Okay. But, what the fuck is the signal?”

Kim sat down in one of the broken black bar stools underneath the vanity mirror and placed her right hand on the plastic countertop. Then she made her right hand into a fist and said, “Watch me.” While looking at my reflection in the mirror Kim said ‘yeah I’d love to have a shot of vodka’ as she spoke she extended her index finger and tapped it twice on the surface of the counter.

“See. Now if you do that, I will bring you chilled water. No alcohol.”

“Oh. Sweet. That works for me.”

Kim said, “Okay. Now you do it. Show me.”

Kim stood up and I took the barstool she was seated in. I placed my right hand on the countertop and made my hand into a loose fist. I looked at her reflection in the mirror and said, ‘yeah I’d love to have a shot of Grey Goose’ while extending my index finger and tapping it twice.

“Atta girl. You got it. Get it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

It was a win-win situation for everyone. The customer’s didn’t know what was happening. The bar made free money and I got to keep my food down.

The other employees of the club that were well taken care of were the DJ’s. They were given generous tips at the end of the night from each individual dancer. It was a well-known fact that the DJ’s often used their own tip money to build their voluminous libraries. Without them our choices would have been rather limited. Therefore, the Disk Jockeys were paid handsomely for meeting our musical needs. The DJ’s often sat in their booths listening with a sympathetic ear to the dancers cry or bitch about our jealous boyfriends. There was an implicit bond that developed between dancers and their favorite DJ’s.

The first DJ I became close to was an older man named P-Dubs. At least that’s what everyone called him. P-Dubs was a humble man in his mid to upper forties with smoky blue-grey eyes that always seemed just a little bit sad. He was practically bald with the exception of salt and pepper colored hair on rim and edges of his head. He was extremely kind but constantly being arrested for late child support payments.

I went into the DJ Booth before each set to select what music I wanted to perform to. The DJ Booth was located in the right corner of the bar conveniently in-between the stage and the dressing room. It kind of looked like a cave with tinted-out windows that overlooked the whole room. The booth had a three-step walk up. Once inside the booth my eyes needed time to adjust to the lighting, which only consisted of tiny white Christmas lights strung about.

P-Dubs patiently helped me pick and choose each and every one of my songs. I was still too distracted by fear to be able make any decision. He gently coaxed me into my song selections.

Eventually, I began to learn the mechanics of how the bar worked and why managers made some of the choices they made.

According to The Alcohol Beverage Control (more commonly referred to as the A.B.C.) in the state of New Jersey it is illegal to have any type of nudity up to and including topless women in the same club where the bar serves alcohol, thus the term “Go-Go Bar”. While there are plenty of ‘nude bars’ in my home state of N.J. they are called “Juice Bars”. At a Juice Bar clients are allowed to bring their own alcohol yet, somehow, the lure of the Go-Go Bar was still strong. That made the actual art of performing all the more vital, and when the owners discovered a new talent they did anything in their power to keep her. Own her. Possess her. More times than not a young newbie with a beautiful body and brilliant smile would end up having her name in lights on the sign outside of the bar proclaiming her as the main attraction. The first time I saw ‘Presenting Jasmine’ on the billboard in front of Scorpios, I felt like I had won an Oscar. It meant I had arrived.

First class dancers were not a dime a dozen.  Truly skilled dancers had loyal customers and big followings who bought and served them champagne. These dancers were also treated accordingly by the bar owners. The bar owners did not want their headliners working in any other clubs. They were wise in their ways in keeping their girls devoted to their bars.

The owners of Scorpios controlled two other bars. This meant if you worked at Scorpios, you were a Joey and Anthony Mozelli girl. In short, you became their property.  There was an unwritten yet often spoken rule that girls who worked for them did not work outside of their bars. And a Mozelli girl never ever worked for the rival family - The Spatanno’s. The Spatanno’s also owned several bars one of which was a mere 50 yards up the street from Scorpios. In fact, most of the Mozelli girls would not even associate with dancers that worked in any other bar. We had quite the inner circle.

In addition to paying us well, the owners gave each of us bookings at every club they owned. Circulating the dancers between bars served several purposes:

1. The clientele wouldn’t get sick of seeing the same girls over and over again.
2. We had enough nights to work between the different bars to make enough money to support our habits: drugs, shopping, and kids.
3. We didn’t have to search for outside work.
4. In return, we were loyal to them.
5. That made Joey Mozelli girl’s exclusive to his bars.

The bar owners looked at our salaries as a well placed investment and rightly so. The club owners knew if they paid the dancers we would go out and spend our money on those explicit shoes and elaborate costumes. We needed that money to pay for the expensive perfecting make-up. And we paid steep fees for gym memberships to stay fit.

I was hooked into dancing early. I loved coming home at the end of the night with my Santa Clause sized sack. I walked straight into my bedroom dumping the bag out onto my bed to stare at the pile of cash.  I would gaze at the money with astonishment. I had never noticed it before, but money has its own scent, especially when there was enough of it to cover a queen-sized mattress.

Then came the ritual separating of the money. It was my favorite thing to do. I chain smoked cigarettes while drinking fresh brewed coffee in order to stay up all night counting.  I made individual piles of bills: ones, fives, tens, twenties and even hundred dollar bills. I sat back reveling at the stacks of cash. I was memorized. I usually made somewhere between $800-$1,000 dollars on an average night.  Good nights could range from $1,500-$3,500 even after tipping out the bartenders and DJ.  I became completely captivated by the power and ability to make so much cash in so little time.

If I ever needed to work, a manager always found room in one of the bars to squeeze me in for a few sets.  Likewise, if I called out of work there were always enough girls to cover a missing dancer.  When I say I needed to work, it was because I found it all too easy to waste away large sums of money and fast. I spent all of my money on any and everything. It was a necessary evil to invest money on myself in order to become a more desirable commodity.  Before I could manage my money it was gone.

I called my manger Danny noticeably upset because I was broke.  And by broke I mean down to my last few hundred dollars.

“Danny, I really need to come in and work. I am running low on cash”

To which he would reply, “Be smart young one.”

(There would be a pause followed by some silence on the phone then I would over hear the sounds of Danny rifling through paperwork.)

“Hmmm, I am looking in the big book and I do see an opening…would you like to work the 4-11 shift?”

Overwhelmed with a sense of relief I replied, “Hell yeah! I’ll be right there.”

It was that easy.

Sometimes, the bar called me into dance.  When a girl didn’t show up or happened to call out last minute, I was called at home and asked to come into work to cover her shift. The day shift was often a neglected shift by dancers. Many of the girls were either hung over from the night before or slept in too late, some had sick children and some women simply felt ‘The Day Shift’ was beneath them.

If I were booked for a day shift Danny reminded me the night before. Jokingly with a serious glint in his eye he would command, “Go to bed early tonight my dear; you have the day shift tomorrow. Treat tonight like a school night; lights out before midnight. We don’t want you to have puffy eyes in the morning!”

You might be wondering who the hell is going to be in a Go-Go Bar, drinking alcohol, looking at half naked women at 10am?

The answer? ¬

The REGULARS.

That’s who!

The Regulars were in the bar by 10:15am. Sometimes they were outside the door like early bird shoppers waiting for a Macy’s One Day Sale to start.

The Day Shift clientele was an interesting mix of older men, some with very successful careers, commingled with the unemployable.

The job holding clients came into the bar around lunchtime for a drink or two. They came in wearing suits and ties and were usually accompanied by one of their fellow co-workers. They sat calmly at the bar tipping their favorite girls. Sometimes they ordered food or ate from the Free Buffet. When they were finished eating they simply paid their bill, took care of the bartender and left the building.  There was something very normal and comforting about their behavior.

On the other hand, the unemployed customers behaved more like wild animals. They straggled in one at a time only to remain in the same seats all day long. They quickly turned into sloppy drunks as they sat there slowly sucking down the last of the warm flat beer they could afford. They barely tipped any of the dancers. Many of them left only quarters on the bar-top to tip the bartenders. The unemployable, were jobless for a reason. In part, I am sure due to the repulsive behavior they exhibited so freely. I used to get really uncomfortable around the unemployed. They were unpredictable. One second they loved me and offered up proposals of marriage. However the instant I refused to flash them my tits they became ravenous lunatics shouting how I was nothing more than a whore.

One day while working a day shift I met an older dancer. And I mean older in every sense of the word. She was painfully bloated with dry straw-like over-dyed bleached-blond hair. She was terribly out of shape with a leathery tan. She had creepy hollow blackened eyes and a saggy ass.

It was 11:30am and she was already sipping vodka straight up from a rocks glass lined with ugly red lipstick on the rim. She started talking to me as if she were bragging about being in the business for 15 years. She regaled me with tales of the parties she had been to. She reveled aloud in her own memories of the sexual encounters she had with several bar owners over the years. She was gloating about her experiences. She went off on a tangent pertaining to money she had made over the years, yet it was painfully obvious she didn’t have much to show for all of that so-called cash.

At first, I felt sad for her. Then I felt awkward in my own skin. It was hard looking at her. It was even harder to listen to her belligerent ramblings. She was talking as if she were proud of the fact she had lasted that long in the industry. It was clear to me that her glory days had long since been over, which left me to wonder why she still worked in the bar? Was she only employed because the managers felt some sense of loyalty to her? I wondered if the customers took pity on her the way I did. Was she a stripper charity case?

After she finally walked away from me I thought incredibly clearly for a moment. I said out loud to no one in particular “THAT WILL NEVER BE ME.”

But…I was wrong.

©Meleah Rebeccah 2006-2009