It’s 2 am on a Tuesday. My bestie and quarantine partner, Sigmond, and I are sitting on the living room floor, concentrating deeply on our task at hand, as my elusive roomie walks past.

“I bet she wonders about me sometimes,” I whisper to Sigmond.

“Girl, think about it!” Sigmond exclaimed. “You’re half-naked, getting spanked by a black man and taking pictures. Of course she wonders about you! Why would she not?”

This is my new life right now.

Since I have a face that usually doesn’t curdle milk and an ass with an extra fat cell or two, I have moved online to make money with OnlyFans. Along with, you know, a few of my other newly unemployed friends and peers. All 63,489,978 of them, if I had to guess a number.

(OnlyFans told me recently I am in the top 20% of creators. All right! I must be really standing out amongst . . . 12 million other people.)

It’s been an awkward learning experience. Instead of luring men with intelligent conversation, stupid jokes and my reading-ass titties, I have to be a sexy girl now. Like I once told my friends, if you see me out in public and I am sexy girling, it was a complete accident. It’s still true. I don’t know how to sexy girl.

It’s been an agonizing learning experience. Under the glare of harsh lighting, who knew my ass had so much cellulite? Who knew there were so many stretch marks on my thighs? I mean, I kinda knew it was bad, but not THAT bad!

At this point, I can do nothing but resort to the motto I learned at the strip club:

FUCK IT! NOBODY CARES / Because they really don’t / And I promise that some people like you, even if other people won’t / Maybe one of these days, I’ll photoshop that shit / Until then, baby, what you see is what you get.

I absolutely love it, though. This came as a surprise to me during my first photoshoot. There was I was, pulling off black lace pantyhose frame by frame, when I realized something very strange: Baby Girl was melting.

The pink canoe needed to be paddled. Baby Girl needed a little do me time. Time to listen to the downstairs deejay while flying through the batcave. THAT MUFFIN NEEDED TO BE BUTTERED.

I have found my kink, and apparently it involves me photographing my pussy and plastering it all over the Internet. Well, okay then. Who fuckin’ knew? If you’re one of my subscribers, know that I love what I’m doing for you. It’s truly a labor of lust.

Which brings me to another thing that is strange to me: why do (straight) men (obviously) like looking at pussy? It’s wrinkled and discolored. Mine looks like a grenade exploded at a deli counter. Even after almost two years in the adult entertainment industry, there is much I don’t understand about the male libido. I just take their money and stay confused.

It’s not easy to take sexy photos in quarantine. My chipped nail polish is turning brown around the edges. The blond hair atop my lip is definitely becoming thick enough to catch the light. And my butt crack is so fuzzy, it looks like a squirrel crawled up there and got stuck.

When this quarantine is over, war WILL break out at the beauty salon. I’ll probably go in armed with a nail file. And I swear, I WILL bean a bitch with a bristle brush if she stands between me and my butt wax.

Look, if you saw my butt right now, you’d realize how justified that would be.

These are all trivial things of course, but they are keeping my brain busy in a time where idle hands are truly the devil’s workshop, if the devil’s workshop is just a den of despair. If I’m thinking about how to properly light my tits so that they look as gigantic as possible, then I’m not thinking about thousands of people dying from a deadly virus and wondering which of my loved ones might be next.

Who knew porn would become my path to mental wellness and sanity? It’s a strange new world out there, and it’s only getting weirder.

If you missed last week’s episode, here’s a quick recap: It was basically about my first house call that went awry when my client lost his contracts due to Coronavirus, and ended when I received a text from another client.

But let me back up really quickly: If you follow my entertainer Instagram account, then you probably saw a post where I advertised house call services shortly after the city shut down all the clubs, bars and restaurants.

I got a handful of takers. I didn’t go visit any of them. I’d like to pretend it was because I’m super virtuous and chose to stay home and self-isolate voluntarily like the rest of you angels, but no. I didn’t go visit any of them because they all looked huge and scary in their Instagram photos, and I wussed out.

Rajit was a different story, however. He wasn’t an Instagram follower of mine at all, but a client I had met my last night at Palazio. After just one lap dance, he fell in love and tried to date me.

So when he offered to pay me to come over and cuddle, I figured he was probably a pretty safe bet. (Sorry, Siggy. I know how itchy your trigger finger is!)

And he was safe, but oh, so annoying. Look at this shit, ya’ll. Look. At. This. Shit.

It goes on like that for MILES. Rajit was the texting version of the black and white static that appears on old TVs when you first turn them on. Boy, was he a tooth grinder.

It was a half hour drive to his apartment in south Austin. When I arrived, he came out to the parking lot to lead me in, but he walked far ahead of me without looking back. It was odd. He clearly didn’t want his neighbors to see him with me, and I think that was the first time I’ve ever felt the shame and stigma that people feel about hiring sex workers.

Inside a strip club, all the clients are there for the same reason. There’s no shame inside a strip club. Inviting a stripper you’ve just met into your apartment must make you feel some other way entirely.

I wish men didn’t feel so oddly about hiring sex workers. I wish there were less stigma in our society surrounding it. First of all, your sex worker is grateful to be there. Chances are pretty high they like you as a person and enjoy their job on some level. And finally, it’s not that different from driving by Cheddar’s (don’t laugh; I LOVE Cheddar’s) for some take-out on the way home from work: you may be a great cook, but sometimes you just want comfort without having to work very hard for it. It’s a very human desire, and there’s no shame in being human.

Rajit’s apartment was clean but barely furnished. It was the apartment of a man who cannot put down roots. Standing there, in the silence and emptiness of his space, I began to feel his loneliness creep into my bones.

“Wait here,” he said, disappearing into the darkness of a back bedroom. “I have something for you.”

I waited nervously, hoping he wasn’t about to pop out in underwear with a rooster head covering his cock or some weird shit like that.

No, thank goodness! Instead, he came back with a bottle of perfume from Victoria’s Secret. “This is for you,” he said shyly. “I asked my friend what you might like, and she said this was the thing to get.”

The perfume smelled sickeningly sweet, but I melted a little nonetheless. It was an adorable guesture.

“I would like to put on some porn,” he said. “Do you like porn?”

“I don’t hate it,” I confessed, “But for the most part, I find it a little silly.”

“Then we will not watch it,” he said.

I tried to protest, but he was firm. “I want you to be comfortable.”

I stripped down to my thong, set a timer and started some music. He immediately scooped me up and carried me into his kitchen. There was a huge butcher knife on the counter.

That was when the enormity of my new reality hit very hard. I was at this man’s mercy, and this was my first day on a brand new job. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.

While I eyed the knife, memorizing its position on the kitchen counter, Rajit had other thoughts entirely. “I want to hug you in every room in this apartment,” he murmured into my shoulder. “That way, when you leave, I will walk into that room and remember you there.”

You think I was kidding when I said Rajit fell in love? You guys, I was not kidding.

We began our cuddle session, and Rajit could not stay still, switching positions every two minutes and trying to kiss me on the lips. It began to feel more like a wrestling match, accommodating his ever-changing positions while dodging his kisses.

After awhile, Rajit opened up and told me that his parents had arranged a marriage for him back in India. He had been making preparations to fly back and meet his bride shortly before all the airlines closed down. He was worried the young lady would not like him.

“How do you tempt a woman?” he asked me.

“Like, into having sex with you?”

“Yeah.”

I thought for a moment. “Take her on romantic dates, but you don’t need to spend a lot of money. Take her on a picnic with wine and cheese. Lay out on a blanket at night and watch the stars. Go for a walk around the lake. Keep doing that over and over and when she’s ready to have sex with you, she’ll let you know.”

Rajit seemed satisfied with my answer, but later, when I recounted our conversation for the bestie, the bestie laughed at me.

“That’s a very 1965 answer,” he said.

It was, but . . . AM I WRONG, LADIES?

Judging from numerous conversations I’ve had with with my girl friends, I don’t think I am.

The timer went off at half an hour, all Rajit had been able to afford. I was so relieved the wrestling match/cuddle session was over.

“Time, it goes by very fast with you here,” Rajit observed.

I really hope his new wife likes him, whenever he finally gets to meet her. He is certainly a very kind man.

And I hate the fact that I can’t melt away the loneliness of every single person on the planet. This job has made me keenly aware of just how much loneliness exists out there, and it weighs heavily on me sometimes.

But it does tell me that my job is necessary and valuable and that maybe, I’ve done well in choosing it.

Still not gonna make house calls for my scary looking clients, though!

I’m about to give y’all a deep, dark dive behind the scenes of my life last week, but first, an announcement!

After much begging from a few but very vocal Instagram followers, I finally started up an OnlyFans account. Immediately after I uploaded my first photoset, it was crickets from those guys. SIGH.

Still, you can now view the bod that has made me such a terrifically mediocre stripper at https://onlyfans.com/circusmacabre.

I am SUCH GREAT at marketing.

And now, onto the shit everyone REALLY cares about: my weird clients!

Long before any of us had even heard of the big C-word, I received an inquiry from one of my Instagram followers:

I checked out his Insta account. Holy, shit, he was hot! And an artist. Throw in some emotional unavailability and excessive drug use, and he’d be just my type.

I resisted the urge to message him back, “Dude, I’d fuck you for free. Let’s just skip all this shit and bone.” Instead, I quoted him a stupidly high triple digit sum and emphasized it was for non-sexual play only.

Jeeeeezus, he didn’t even blink.

We set a date, and I fished out my massage oil from my very neglected sex toy box. Pretty sure the Pop Rocks in there were two years old. This massage oil was even older. Still, it smelled vaguely of eucalyptus, so it would do. You’d be surprised how little my clients complain about stuff.

At this point, if you’re a better person than I am, you may be less concerned about expired massage oil and more concerned about my safety. “Circus,” you might ask, “Is this . . . safe?”

No! No, it isn’t safe at all! Welcome to the illegal sex industry. It’s never been safe.

Still, I could definitely take some precautions. And by that, I mean my best friend, Sigmond, a 6′ black, ex-Marine with dreadlocs to his waist. Sigmond is a walking precaution. He was super excited when I asked him to be my back-up.

“My roommates and I have been stockpiling guns and ammo for weeks! Just say the word, and we’ll break the door down and storm in locked and loaded! Hmmm . . . I wonder if I still have some leftover tear gas canisters . . . “

I began to suspect Sigmond would be extremely disappointed if something DIDN’T go wrong.

“Um, just remember that I’ll be there in some capacity,” I reminded him.

“Sure!” he said cheerfully! “Just hit the floor when we bust in to avoid most of the bullet spray!”

Um. Well. Okay! Sigmond’s enthusiasm and armory couldn’t be beat, so we agreed on a word I’d use if I were fine and one I’d use if I weren’t and several time limits in which I’d check in.

And then it was on. My client, Nathan, was making a pretty big deal out of this:

He even requested this:

That made me feel pretty goddamn weird, but it wasn’t the oddest request I’ve received, such as when a lawyer from Mississippi asked me to fart in his face, so I agreed.

I have LOTS of outfit options on my Insta, but it was clear Nathan wanted someone to make a fuss over him and make him feel important. I also have a crap load of costumes and outfits that weren’t on my Insta. I grabbed a few of them, and an hour later, I sent him these:

“Just consider me your own, personal Build-a-Barbie,” I told Nathan dryly, hoping he wouldn’t detect my sarcasm via text. “The outfits and hair are interchangeable. Pick and chose your favorites.” He was thrilled.

And then, just like Sigmond on a bad guy, coronavirus burst onto the scene.

Nathan lost three contracts and had to bail. His texts became a little incoherent:

Did you guys catch that? I WAS HIS SUPPOSED TO BE HIS BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO HIMSELF!

Instead he got the world’s worst birthday present ever: a global pandemic.

Awwwwwww . . .

On the plus side, this means I’m a better birthday present than a deadly virus to at least some people, so that realization was a nice self-esteem boost.

Still, I was disappointed about the loss of a hot guy paying me a shit ton of money NOT to fuck him.

That is, until Rajit texted me.

To be continued . . .

I am once again on a date with a client.

I really don’t do this very often. I’d tell you if I did, because I have no shame. My clients either enrage me, annoy me, or frustrate me, but most of them make no memorable impression at all. In fact, the longer I do this, the more their faces blur together and the more remarkable a man must be before he’ll capture my attention.

Toby was remarkable for his laser-focused perception. Several comments he made in the VIP booth caused me to stop mid-dance and gape at him. Still, when he crawled into my DMs and asked me out, that’s not why I said yes.

I said yes because I had just extricated myself from a predatory but brief relationship and had shit all going on. I said yes because I was bored.

I also said yes because, despite spending an hour in VIP with me being butt ass naked, he never once touched me inappropriately or begged for a blow job. Respect: It’s so hot these days.

You might ask me, “Circus, is it weird going on a first date with a man who’s already seen you butt ass naked?

No, it’s not that weird! Considering my penchant for spontaneous public nudity, you might not be surprised how often this happens. My mother would say it’s weird, though. My mother would say the mystery was gone, and men like mystery. My mother would say once I presented as a sex object, he’d always see me as a sex object, never again as a human being with value and worthy of love.

I wish I could get my mother’s goddamn voice outta my head. Anxiety, thy name is Mother.

I couldn’t even remember what this guy looked like. He had very little social media presence, so I couldn’t stalk him pre-date. What if he were casually racist or a Trump supporter? (Oh, sorry, that was redundant.) All I could remember about him was that he went to CrossFit, but considering that wasn’t the first thing out of his mouth, even that spoke well of him.

I was on my period and counted ten zits in my t-zone as I prepped for the date. If I wrote an album about my love life, “Ten Zits in My T-Zone” would be the title track. Sigh. Fingers crossed for a restaurant as dark as da club.

Three minutes into the date, Toby told me he had read my entire blog, bottom to top. It had taken him three days, at work, on his phone.

Well. FUCK. ALL. YA’LL. I don’t think even my closest friends have read this entire blog bottom to top.

“It’s pretty funny,” he commented, “You’re funny.”

I started to sweat a little. I am total sucker for people who laugh at my lame jokes. Forget sucking oysters or pouring tequila shots down my throat; just make me think I’m funny, and you’re 38% into my panties.

38% goes a lot further than you might think, considering these ain’t no granny panties:

Toby was not a Trump supporter, which meant that his chances of making it all the way in increased dramatically.

Whew.

This is what I wear for Trump supporters, in case you were wondering:

Anyway, back to the date: Toby was a very pleasant, absolutely perfect gentleman. We went to Jack Allen’s Kitchen, where I tried chicken fried meatloaf for the first time. It was absolutely decadent.

(Fun Fact: My daughter was in high school musical theater with Jack Allen’s daughter, and that family spent so much money on that theater department, making that two Macabre girls dancing in dollar bills.)

At the end of the date, he walked me to my car and left a very gentlemanly kiss on my cheek, mercifully missing all ten zits in my t-zone.

I feel another rap song coming on.

Ten zits in my t-zone, in my t-zone / Baby, where you have you gone, where have you gone . . .

Doncha wanna pop this, pop this / Baby, got me squirtin’ like a Swiss, like a Swiss

I’ll work on it.

The day after our date, the City of Austin ordered all bars and restaurants to shut down across the city in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

There goes my side hustle, but don’t worry: Baby’s taking her show on the road! The stories will continue!

In addition, all new relationships are shut down in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

FUCK.

On the evening that the City of Austin announced they were canceling South by Southwest for the first time since it’s inception 34 years ago due to Coronovirus fears, I went to dance at Bare Cabaret and found there was no soap in the women’s bathroom.

Austin, I have found Ground Zero for the Coronavirus!

There was much chatter in the dressing rooms amongst the dancers as to the impact that the SXSW cancellation might have. The general consensus was that people would come to Austin anyway and just have more money to spend at the strip clubs. Clearly, all these dancers are optimists.

I wondered if Coronavirus fears would keep people away.

THEY ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DID NOT.

Let’s see, how to explain how packed the club was on Friday?

At Bare Cabaret, there are private stalls available for lap dances. Once you’ve secured a client, you lead him to a private stall, dance as long as he wants, leave and hustle somebody else.

Friday night, I did not even have to leave the stall. Nor did I have to hustle anyone. Dudes were literally lining up outside the stall. I didn’t even have time to dress between dances. In all my dancing days, I have never seen anything like it.

I danced for men from Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Washington, DC, Seattle and San Francisco. I am definitely getting coronavirus. I am just going to lick every dude who comes through here and get this shit over with as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, friends, if you don’t wanna hang out, I totally get it.

I didn’t realize this before I started dancing, but Austin is a huge destination for bachelor parties. Dudes come here from New York and LA to party. Canceling Southby isn’t going to prevent jack shit. They are coming anyway.

It’s only a matter of time.

In my almost two years in this business, I have come to realize that the different types of strippers can basically be boiled down into two distinct classifications: genus ratchetus and genus snobbicus.

Genus ratchetus will first ensnare you with a highly sexualized verbal or phyiscal greeting and is the type known for defying anatomical realities with their dance moves, such as pounding their pussies in your face while clacking their heels together over your head. (I am not this kind of stripper. I might be if I could move like that, but at my age, I’d just break a hip.) Conversational topics will almost always be about her problems and how much she needs money. You will most likely feel sad or brain-dead after said conversation. Your wallet will empty for one reason or another: you’ll either feel compelled to help the ratchetus, her incredibly vulgar dancing will drain all your self-restraint, or she’ll just straight up scam you.

WARNING: Both classes will leave you light in the head, heavy in the nether regions and especially light in the wallet regions.

Genus snobbicus, the classification to which I belong, will first ensnare you with witty, intelligent conversation intended to make you laugh and is the type known for giving subtly sexy but otherwise rather restrained lap dances, which will lead to your request to be slapped in the facial regions with our mammary glands or gluteus maximi. It is well-known that the male species derives extreme pleasure from such activities and can be persuaded to part with a large amount of the local currency in his possession in order to participate in said activities. Conversational topics will almost always be centered around you, which the snobbicus will then use to silently judge you harshly. Your wallet will empty in hopes of one day gaining the snobbicus as your girlfriend, but soon those dreams will prove to be as empty as your wallet.

Comedian Rae Sanni, in a bit in which she laments the humiliation of being a broke-ass stripper (which you can view here), has a more succinct viewpoint:

“So I was in the strip club being myself. Hey, don’t be yourself in the strip club! They don’t want yourself in the strip club! I’m at the bar talking to customers. I’m like, “Well, this tattoo’s from a book of James Baldwin essays . . . and this tattoo is from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which is about four lovers in Russian-occupied Czechoslovakia, but really it’s about Nietzschen philosophy . . . Do you want my titties in your face?

“No! He don’t want your readin’-ass titties in his face! He wants illiterate titties. He came to the Bronx for some Reganomics, defunded public school-ass titties!”

Now, there’s an argument to be made here for a number of things. First and foremost, much could be said about how I should not be perpetuating stripper stereotypes; nevertheless, they persist because we strippers are often not helping our cause. Another argument could be made that negative stripper stereotypes persist as a direct result of any politician who defunds public education. Sex work and sexual exploitation increases in bad economies and under-educated societies, so there’s a lot to explore from a political standpoint.

I’m sure plenty of strippers exist who defy all classifications — hell, I know some of them — but quite a few of us are not rising above; no, as last Friday proved, we are doing quite the opposite, diving headfirst into the shallow, foaming cesspool of negative stripper stereotypes and splashing around.

It was quite gratifying to learn, when I applied to work at Bare, that it was staffed by former managers from my previous club, namely, Caesar, the former VIP manager. However, while I filled all my new contractor paperwork, Caesar put twenty dancers on suspension leave for involving themselves in a 20-girl pileup the night before.

All the red flags were waving, but you know what? It’s hard to see red flags when you’re wearing rose colored glasses. As I usually do, particularly when it comes to my relationships, I looked at those red flags and thought, “Oh, my! How pretty!” And then immediately found myself all tangled up in them.

On my second night at Bare, Caesar beckoned me into a large VIP booth and told me to stay put. Before long, he stocked the booth with nine more dancers, all of whom seemed to know exactly what to do. Immediately, they arranged themselves in a semi-circle around the booth, naked asses out and twerking.

When a large party of very young birthday boys arrived and were greeted by this sight, they were terrifed. Only a few of them had the courage to slide into the booth, and they were immediately rewarded with at least two pussies in each face. “Man, they all got fat stacks!” I heard one dancer squeal. “We gon make some monies!”

Most of the hella uncomfortable young men milled around outside the booth, occasionally turning to throw a wad of singles into the air or film the scene on their phones. Before long, the booth looked like Jeff Bezos had thrown up everywhere, cash swathing the carpet like a prom dress on a debutante and dangling from the seams of the surrounding mirrors.

At the height of the spectacle, one dancer writhed around on the floor on her back, and I admired her courage. I do not have the ovaries necessary to roll around on the ground while ten pairs of ice picks stomp around my face. I did my best not to stick a stiletto in her eyeball. Two other dancers hopped on a nearby pole, hooping and hollering while the men flung dollars. Those of us lacking faces to thrust pussies into danced solo as lasciviously as possible.

I didn’t want to be there. Not only was I recuperating from the flu, but I was exhausted, having slept less than two hours the night before. None of these men wanted to engage in witty and intelligent conversation. I did my best to keep up, but my genus snobbicus self was far out of my element.

Not only was I feeling completely out of place, but all this chaos did not strike me as the best way to monetize my time. Judging by the amount of cash decorating the booth, my take would be about fifty dollars max. Singles seem like a lot of money until you count them. I was ready to go, but I wasn’t sure how to get my booty out of there without also taking my share of the loot. I cannot emphasize enough how much cash was frickin’ everywhere. I expected someone to get twitchy about it any second now.

I didn’t have to wait long, but I was surprised to find myself the target.

I don’t know; perhaps there were some incredibly well-rounded ladies in the booth that night, but at first glance, mine appeared to be the only readin’-ass titties present. So there I was, minding my own business, making a half-hearted attempt at shaking my flu-ridden ass, when I heard another dancer yelling. “She’s ugly as fuck, she’s barely shaking her ass, and I am not splitting all this money with her!”

My first thought was, “She is surprisingly articulate.”

My second thought was, “Is she talking about me?”

Oh, yes, she was. Two seconds later, two dancers grabbed me by the arms. “You can’t be here,” they said. “You need to leave now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You just . . . these guys don’t want you here. They don’t know you.”

That was a lie, obviously, so my third thought was, “Bitch, if you kick me out, your take goes up by about five bucks, but it’s okay. Math is hard. None of us would be here if we could math.”

I let them pull me out of the booth. A couple of dancers shot me sympathetic looks; others ignored the spectacle. Part of me was mortified but part of me was too exhausted to give a fuck. Besides, they were inadvertently solving my problem for me. Behind me, one of the men protested. “Where you goin’? Nah, let her stay! She good, man, she good!”

My titties might have been readin’-ass quality, but they were still the best titties in that booth.

BOOM.

Once out of the booth, I marched straight up to Caesar. “These girls are kicking me out,” I told him, “So I’m gonna go, but I need to be compensated for my time here.”

I could almost read his mind. He knew we had been just one “Bitch, don’t touch me!” away from another 20-girl pileup. I had decided to overlook their physical assault, and I could see the relief in his eyes over the fact that he wasn’t gonna have to suspend another twenty dancers. “Come see me when you tip out,” he said. “I’ll take care of you. Just don’t tell anybody I’m splitting the money with you.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I really don’t know what I did to piss them off.”

Caesar winced. “Man, they’re just a bunch of Reganomics, defunded public school-ass titties. Don’t pay ’em any mind.”

Actually, that’s not what he said, but I can’t repeat what he really said on this blog.

Can I please just work at a club full of readin’-ass titties? No. No, I cannot, because one doesn’t exist. I’mma have to go back to Bare, and boy, am I dreading it.

An unexpected side effect of being an exotic dancer is that it is ruining places of business for me all over town. For instance, there’s this one little restaurant in the heart of downtown Round Rock that I can no longer patronize because the owner severely violated my boundaries during a lap dance a few months ago.

Now there’s about 15 bars in downtown Austin I can no longer frequent.*

I’m tempted to name drop. Who wants to know the names of local businessmen who treat strippers poorly? Raise your hands!

It was 8 pm at Palazio on Saturday night, and I’d only made forty bucks dancing onstage. The female manager, whom I suspect took an instant disliking to me for some reason, pulled me offstage mid-song demanding to know why I wasn’t wearing regulation t-backs.

Because I don’t have any that went with my outfit? Obvs. Did this club cop not respect color coordination?

She did not. Ugh. I had just emerged from the dressing wearing *two* frickin’ pairs of underwear when *he* beckoned me over.

“It’s about time,” he said when I arrived. “I’ve been waiting for you all evening.”

I smelled money. My night was perking up.

He had blue eyes made all the more striking by his blue fleece hoodie. He waved me onto his lap but refused to uncross his legs. That should have been a red flag, but it wasn’t. In my 20 months of dancing, no man has ever refused to uncross his legs for me.

“You are the hottest thing in this club right now,” he said.

“Just wait a few hours,” I told him. “It’ll pick up.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. This dude would spend the next hour complaining about my lack of authenticity. For a sharp-eyed businessman, he certainly wasn’t paying attention.

They never do, though. I am just a museum collection of very nice tits and ass, an odd but beautiful specimen lacking brains and heart and a voice.

Also, who the fuck comes to a strip club seeking authenticity? You may as well go to a Catholic church seeking a moral compass, or this blog, seeking wholesome content.

He slid a practiced finger into my bra and pushed it aside. “You have perfect tits. I like perfect. And you’re tiny, too. It’s so hot.”

I tried to hide my annoyance. You want to see my tits close up? Either find me flashing tripping hippies at a rave after midnight or buy a lap dance, asshole! I’m not your free admission to the museum.

“I own 15 bars in Austin,” he said, giving me his name. I recognized his last name immediately. “And now I want to own you. How much would that take? Forty thousand a year?”

“Um . . . *only* you?” I’m not averse to wearing a very expensive collar, but I need it to be really loose.

“Well, yes, but you can lie to me. Or look, how about a free apartment, and you blow me once a day?”

“A free apartment where?”

“Look, what’s it gonna take to get you to go to breakfast with me? Money is no object. I don’t give a fuck about money.”

He mumbled something to his friend next to him about charging five times more for sandwiches in areas hit by the coronavirus, which he seemed very pleased about.

His friend wore a “Crows Before Hoes” GOT-shirt, which made me like him a lot better. He shot me a sympathetic look.

“Three grand,” I informed Mr. Moneybags. I had been thinking two, but my price increases inversely to my calculation of what a stellar human being you are.

“Alright,” he said, “But I get to fuck you five times.”

Too bad for this guy I only fuck broke musicians. Usually only *after* buying them dinner and driving them home, though. I mean, I try to be a lady about it.

“I don’t fuck men for money,” I protested. “That includes an evening in VIP, and then I’ll go to breakfast with you.”

“Fine. Three times, then.”

“We’re done here.”I pushed myself up to leave, but he put his hand over mine on the side of the chair and tightened it.

“Look,” he said, his eyes glinting. “I really do have a lot of money, and if you walk away, I promise you’re, at some point, gonna think ‘Tsk, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.'”

I must’ve looked really pissed at this point because he softened his tone. “Look, I really do just want to get to know you better, that’s all.”

“Then come spend an hour with me in VIP,” I said. “Yes?”

“Alright,” he said reluctantly, allowing me up. I took his hand and led him to VIP, a cute waitress dutifully following us.

I led him to the most expensive cabana in the back while the waitress explained how the transaction would work.

Somehow in VIP, the confident, cocky businessman turned into a scared child. “Wait, this booth is $600 for two hours?” he asked incredulously.

“Plus a thousand an hour for me!” I rolled my eyes on the inside. I thought he said he didn’t give a fuck about money.

He looked at me, wide-eyed. “Six hundred dollars is a lot of money! I’d rather just spend that on you outside the club.”

If I could have rolled my eyes harder, they’d be knocking down strippers like pins at a bowling alley. I cannot even begin to count how many times I’ve heard that particular phrase. Whenever you hear it, that’s a good sign that it’s time to pivot on your heels and stalk away, your clenched backside communicating your contempt.

“Look,” I said as kindly as possible, making one last attempt to salvage the past hour in which I’d received exactly zero dollars. “If you want to spend time with me outside the club, the best way to do that is to take really good care of me inside the club.”

This is 100% true, but they never get it.

The waitress shifted her feet, and I decided he had wasted enough of our time. I stood up. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”

“There are women in here who will fuck me for free!”

“Go talk to them, then!” I retorted, striding away, my backside clenched tight enough to choke a hamster.

The only thing good he had done for me was convince one of the managers to let me stay for the full night shift. While I danced for frat boys and blue collars, all of whom showed me greater decency and kindness than Mr. Moneybags, I caught glimpses of him across the club. Dancer after dancer cycled through his lap, but he didn’t buy dances from any of them.

I checked on him once when I found him curled up in a chair in VIP, bowed in almost a fetal position. He looked up when I approached.

“I really did just want to get to know you better,” he said, looking at me with eyes that were both petulant and pleading.

“You can for three grand!” I exclaimed brightly.

He groaned and slumped back over.

I’m not sure Mr. Moneybags had done me a huge favor, allowing me to stay for the entire shift. It had not been a lucrative evening. When I tipped out the deejay, he picked up the stack of ones and peered at it suspiciously. “Are there twenty bones in here for your skip?” he asked.

“What?” I asked. Then I realized what the deejay meant: While I was in VIP trying to wrangle three grand from Mr. Moneybags, the deejay had skipped my turn in the dance rotation, which costs twenty dollars.

Which meant that my hour with Mr. Moneybags had actually *cost* me money. MOTHERFUCKER. I hope they cure coronavirus real soon just to spite him.

I mean, for the obvious reasons too, but I am hella petty.

In the meantime, if you don’t see me out at my usual haunts around town, it’s because I realized I know the owner. UGH.

—————————-

*On the other hand, Bar 1919 in San Antonio is owned by a fantastic human being, and you should definitely go drink his delicious cocktails and smoke his humongous cigars.

Somewhere deep in the heart of the State Capitol of Texas, in a small room dimly-lit with expensive torchieres and the smoking ends of fat cigars, a bunch of old, creepy, definitely white Congressmen hunched their portentous bellies over their tiny brains to think. In the dank recesses of their misogynistic minds, they thought bitterly of all the beautiful, powerful women who refused to fuck them long ago and concocted a set of the most inane, flabbergasting, and frustrating laws regulating the bodies of beautiful women that they could possibly imagine.

And then, they refused to write any of them down, choosing instead to communicate them via an oral tradition that would result in a vast and confusing array of rules that would vary from strip club to strip club.

When this task was done, they sat back and laughed and laughed and laughed at the onslaught of chaos that would inevitably ensue. Their revenge was complete.

I know of no other way than the above scenario to explain my bewildering and mortifying Saturday evening back at Palazio.

My favorite targets at the club are the men who look like they haven’t talked to a woman since the Regan administration, and one of these men was Roger. Roger appeared to have forgotten all of his conversational skills, but he was polite and agreed to a dance when I asked.

During the dance, as any stripper worth her stilettos should do, I did my best to determine what the client wanted from me. Roger definitely just wanted me to grind on him. I checked in frequently, “How does this feel? How’s the pressure? Lighter, harder?”

Harder, definitely harder. I bore down with all my strength and sawed away. By the end of song number two, I was a hot mess. Roger was too. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. “How about let’s do two more songs,” he gasped, “and I’ll pay you for five?”

The songs are looooooong at Palazio. It’s the best lap dance deal in town. I felt like a raccoon dying in a desert.

“I’d love to, Roger!” I beamed.

No, I really want to do something else now, Roger, but apparently you want to cum in your pants, so I’m gonna wear myself out for your hundred bucks, because that is the kind of greedy bitch I am.

I don’t know where I found the strength to keep thrusting for eight more minutes, but when I was done, I felt like a sex machine.

The minute I clambered off Roger’s lap, dripping and gross, one of the female managers appeared at my elbow.

“Genevieve, can you come with me, please?”

Puzzled, I followed her back to the relatively quieter space in the VIP lounge, fastening my top as I walked and racking my brains as to what I might have done wrong. For a moment, I wondered if a VIP member had seen my sex machine act and wanted a piece of it for himself, but nooooo, my luck is not that good, and my life is not that cool.

“First of all,” she said, “You can’t continuously grind on our clients like that. It’s simulating sex, which is illegal here.”

“Oh!” I said. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea!”

Bitch, this is a strip club, not Mitch McConnell’s bedroom! Sexy things happen here! We sell nothing but sex, so how is it that simulated sex is somehow illegal?

As tough as it had been to grind on Roger for four songs, I once did the same thing for eight back at my old club, and nobody said a gotdamn thing.

The night before, some dude practically gave me a mammogram with his mouth and another wanted me to rub my nipples all over his beard, but somehow we draw the line at dry humping?

“Second of all,” she continued, “The clients usually don’t want that. You need to look at what the other dancers do and mimic them. It’s supposed to be more like a private show.”

“I usually prefer to do something more like that,” I assured her, “but in this instance, the client specifically requested this particular . . . thing.”

Bitch, you did not just imply I don’t know how to give a lap dance!

“Well, people were looking at you and talking about you. I want you to do well here, but you won’t with moves like that.”

“Not a problem at all. I won’t do it again. Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy, but I appreciate it.”

“Yeah.” She grimaced. “It’s awkward.”

Bitch, maybe if someone wanted to make a list of everything that’s illegal in this stupid club, you would have a lot less awkward conversations. It’s not super cool to find out I’ve broken a law only when I’m getting chewed out for it!

Contrast her little shame speech with the one I got from Rocco the Pirate at my last club. He once said to me, “You should charge these guys to lick your butthole so you can tip out more.”

Notice that I went from that to this.

Honestly, I’d kind of prefer to work a club where butthole licking is an option. Not that I really want a client’s tongue anywhere near my butthole, but sketchy places have fewer rules. And I hate rules.

Bare Cabaret is looking better and better. Perhaps I should consider giving them a shot.

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.

On New Year’s Eve at the club, we threw a party and no one came. I cleared $90 after house fees and tip out. My costume for the evening cost twice that.

The negative ROI was the last straw. I was done.

My club has been dying slowly over the past year, but the real slump came when the new manager got rid of all the drug dealers. Idiot. You can’t yank the electrical cord out of the wall and expect your lights to stay on. Rumor on the street has it that a club called Wild Bill’s out of Dallas will be taking over soon. That’ll probably amp it back up in six months or so, but I owe two grand to the IRS, and they are probably not gonna wait that long.

It was time to find a new club.

I decided on Thursday evening to go looking. My heart was not in it, though. I haven’t worked at the club in three weeks, and my self-esteem was at record highs. I was not super excited to start comparing myself to twentysomethings again. That, of course, didn’t stop me from NOT dying my gray roots. I was clearly half-assing it.

When I climbed into my car to head out, I wrinkled my nose. Something smelled like yesterday’s sushi. Then I realized it was my dress. It’s the sluttiest one I own, with a neckline to my belly button and a hemline that barely covers my ass, so I probably should not have been surprised that it smelled like rotten fish. I put the car in drive anyway.

Definitely half-assing it.

I hit up Perfect 10 North first. The doorman slowly got up to open the door for me, but he smiled politely when I entered. The itty bitty thing at the front desk told me not to even try. “The manager has turned down the past five girls who have come through here tonight. We’ve just got too many girls right now.”

I would have been smart to bail on my club a lot sooner. Honestly, I knew this a long time ago, but it’s tough to leave your comfort zone and people who have become like family.

A lot of those people aren’t there anymore either, though. Even DJ Rob has bailed for another club.

Foxy’s was next. I drove in and counted eight cars in the parking lot at 10 pm on a Thursday night. I immediately drove back out.

Palazio’s parking lot had a satisfactory number of cars. The doorman opened the door for me, but I realized the manager was also standing outside, so after the doorman checked my ID, I turned to him. Standing a bit further away than was necessary, I shook his hand and politely inquired if they were hiring dancers.

“We are currently auditioning ladies for our mid-shift,” he said politely in return. “You are welcome to audition.”

An audition? I wilted. I had never had to audition before. This is why I don’t dance at classy clubs. Previously, I just walked into the sketchy ones and landed the job on the spot. FUCK.

I walked into the lobby to do my paperwork and immediately realized I had forgotten to bring my social security card. “Come back tomorrow!” the front desk lady told me breezily.

Maybe. I was grumpy about the whole mid-shift thing. The hours, 4 pm to 10 pm, were terrible. Not only are those the slowest hours at the club, but they pretty much shoot your whole weekend in the ass. I couldn’t work on a Friday because my day job doesn’t end until 5:30 pm. I’d have to work either just Saturday or Saturday/Sunday. Neither option was ideal.

There was one last place to go. Bare Cabaret. Perhaps not the Sketchiest of the Sketch, but close. DJ Rob told me the place gave him bad vibes.

I was so desperate to not go there that I texted an old lover. He comes to parties at my house from time to time because he’s friends with my roomie, but I had not privately conversed with him in nearly two years. “Hey!” I said. “Weird question: still wanna do that Chaturbate channel with me?”

“I do!” he responded back, “but my current partner would probably not like that.”

Well. It had been worth a shot.

Bare Cabaret was so close to my house that all I had to do was drive through a super seedy neighborhood to get there. I passed six cop cars and, of course, one of them pulled me over and gave me a warning for not having license plates on my new car. License plates are so overrated. Honestly, the only thing license plates will get you is toll fees. I will delay putting on license plates until I am practically arrested.

There were eleven cars in the parking lot of Bare Cabaret at 11 pm on a Thursday night. Not great, but better than Foxy’s! The lobby was also full of millennials. I like millennials. They hardly ever come to strip clubs, but when they do, they come to party.

Like I was accustomed, the manager gave me a job on the spot. He actually seemed eager to have me, edging closer and closer while I kept backing away. I didn’t want him to get a whiff of me and change his mind. Feeling wanted was nice, though. One likes to go where one is appreciated, even if it’s a club at the edge of the universe, like this one.

I had doubts, though. The club is BYOB. How the fuck does a club make money if it cannot sell alcohol? Does it just leverage heavy fees on its dancers? Probably. How much was I gonna have to pay to work there?

Also, the club is all-nude. How the fuck does a girl dance all-nude when she’s on her period? Asking because I’m on my period. I could wear femme cups, I guess, but in the past, they consistently gave me yeast infections. I missed out on a number of tantalizing sexual encounters because of those stupid yeast infections, and I’m still hella resentful of them for it. Are dangling tampon strings sexy? I have never pondered this question before, but I doubt it.

I texted DJ Rob. “Where will I make the most money?”

“Palazio,” he shot back.

FUCK. Looks I’m gonna have to go through with that damn audition after all. The anxiety is crushing.

On my drive home, a half-blind armadillo hell-bent on a suicide mission threw itself under my wheel. I swerved to miss and still hit it. The squishy THOINK stayed in my head until I fell asleep.

Lucky armadillo. It’s not gonna have to audition at a classy strip joint tonight.

FUCK.