I spent all day Friday ravaged by anxiety. I moped about at my day job, a tattered veneer of focus shrouding me like a decaying burial cloth.

Yes, that’s melodramatic, but you’d be freaking out too if Uncle Sam were looming over you like an executioner with a hoodie and axe. I had zero budget for paying my taxes. The amount I owe doesn’t even include my dancing income yet. SIGH.

I arrived at the club promptly at 7:30 pm, and the manager whisked me to the back right away. He pointed at a stage off to the side. “Go dance on that stage for one song,” he said. “Topless.”

I had forgotten how good it felt to be onstage. I danced longer than one song. When the manager realized I was still going, he abruptly motioned me to get off and come over.

“Put on your top, and go fill out your paperwork,” he said, striding away. And that was that. Easy peasy. I felt dumb for being so worried.

I hated it immediately. They would not let me use my stage name, Circus, or my burn name, Aphrodite, or another name I wanted, Hella Dangerous. “It has to be a real person name,” they said. I was very disgruntled about this. Real person names are boring.

While I deliberated on a “real person” name, Sunshine, Memphis and even one girl named fucking “Soju,” cycled through the stages. They were all black, though. I assumed that if a black girl tells the club those names are real names, the club clams up for fear of being labeled racist. Damn my lily white skin and the lack of appropriately cool enough white girl names.

I couldn’t pick one, so they gave me a list to choose from. Genevieve was one of the names on it. I chose to use it in honor of the real Genevieve, who was so kind to me at my last club. Still, it doesn’t resonate with me. I spent the whole evening introducing myself as, “Circ – er, Genevieve.”

Also, the VIP set-up was much more pretentious. At my previous club, a client could get a VIP cabana for three songs for a hundred bucks. Get you 4 – 5 of those customers, and it was super easy to make good money. Here, VIP starts at $350/hour for a cabana plus $800/hour for your dancer. Ain’t nobody gonna pay $1,150/hour for my normal girl self. I was gonna have to eke out a living at $20 a pop and seduce a lot of customers.

Since it was my first night, they let me work as late as I wanted. Seduce a lot a customers was exactly what I did. Coming from a club as dead as my last one, the chaos was welcome but overwhelming. By 2 am, it was standing room only, and you could barely walk around. The music was so loud you had to yell into someone’s ear if you wanted them to hear you.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO SEDUCE SOMEONE IF YOU CAN ONLY YELL IN THEIR EAR? How is a girl supposed to cash in on her personality if nobody can hear her? Like, seriously, these dudes do not even like me until I talk to them, and I could barely talk to them. HOW ATTRACTIVE IS IT WHEN I YELL?

Nevertheless, there was a shit ton of money floating around in this club. At one point, I had barely started to dance for a incredibly drunk guy when his girlfriend walked over and told him it was time to go. Angrily, he jumped up and began pulling twenties out of his pockets, throwing them at me. Ooh, baby! Pitch that hissy fit! Pitch it harder!

“I’m so sorry,” his girlfriend apologized, “But I’ve got to get him out of here.”

“It’s fine,” I said, collecting all the twenties off the floor and thrusting them at her, “But I don’t think he should be throwing all his money around like this. I’m not into taking advantage of drunk guys.”

I only said that because she was there looking out for him. I totally take advantage of drunk guys.

“Girl, he is soooooo rich,” she said. “Keep it.”

Consider your little hissy fit thoroughly pitched, Drunk Rich Dude. And come back and do it again next week!

I walked out of the club with more money than I’ve made on a Friday for months, even after the relatively expensive tip-out fees. Still, mid-shift is a really shitty shift. Also, from now on, I’ll have to leave the club by 10 pm, and it’s hard to make money prior to 10 pm.

I walked out in my heels, and the lady at the front desk stopped me. “You can’t leave the club in your stripper shoes,” she said. “It’s illegal.”

How illegal? Misdemeanor? Felony? I decided felony sounded cooler. I kept them on and kept walking. Felony number one!

This is really gonna level up my pick-up game. Everyone knows sex is better with a felon.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Just kidding. I’m super awkward at seducing people in real life.

They run a tight ship at Palazio. What was acceptable at my old club was illegal here. By Saturday, I had committed around fifty two and a half felonies. This story gets much, much worse.