Read Online Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America by Lily Burana - Free Book Online Page B

this question, something primal stirs inside of me. A long-dormant instinct is waking up and feeling the air. Sandra Dee has left the building and hustle mode has begun.
    I rest my hand on his thick, hairless forearm. "What do you have in mind?"
    "We could get together sometimes. You wouldn't have to work here. I could put you up someplace and support you. I promise it would be worth your while."
    "Hmmmm, interesting!" I say, looking into my drink, smiling slightly. I have no intention of taking him up on his offer, but he doesn't have to know that.
    My mind flashes on an earnest women's studies student I once met at a cocktail party. During a conversation about the sex industry, she swirled her vodka violently around in her glass and exhorted, "Well, stripping isn't as hypocritical as the rest of the culture, which denigrates sex but uses it all the time to sell stuff. At least stripping is honest! "
    I would say that stripping is blatant in its purpose but I wouldn't call it honest. More than anything else, the point on which this business turns is suspension of disbelief. That's show biz. Plato said, "That which deceives may be said to enchant."
     
    At this moment, I am about to become one enchanting motherfucker.
    "Oh, that's an intriguing offer, Arthur," I purr, draining my glass, "but I just don't know you well enough."
    As if on cue, he pulls out a hundred-dollar bill and slips it under the garter around my thigh. "I've made the same arrangement with a couple of women who've worked here and they've all been very happy. They get some extra money, then go back to where they came from, and it works out well for everybody concerned." He speaks with the money-clip cool of an executive sketching out a business plan.
    Now I want to see how far I can push this. If I liked Arthur, I'd be restrained by guilt. I would feel terrible about leading him on and play it clean. But it's hard to work up sympathy for a self-professed serial cheat. I feel almost vindicated taking him for all he's worth. This isn't bilking an old lady out of her pension fund. This is relieving the pressure in a philanderer's obviously straining wallet.
    "I'm sure you're a very generous man, Arthur. But so much of what I hear in these clubs is all talk." Careful to suggest but not promise, I am leveraging my Maybe with another woman's Yes—a classic stripper feint. I don't particularly like this part of myself, but I'm impressed by my own audacity. I never attempted such a stunt when I was doing this for a living, I was afraid I'd scare the guy off. Funny how much nervier you can be when it's not for necessity but sport.
    Arthur folds up another hundred and presses it into my palm, confidently. "Well," he says, getting up off the bar stool and stretching, "I should skedaddle. It's getting late. You think about what I asked and I'll see you soon."
    Not likely, I think, crunching down on an ice cube. I turn round on my bar stool and watch his broad back as he leaves the club. Grimy yellow streetlight shows through the open door.
    Considering the setting, I'm not insulted by Arthur's proposition, but by the same token, I'm hardly flattered, because it has nothing to do with me. For Arthur, the art of the deal is key: What do I have to do to buy this girl? It's simple dollar-cost averaging—for every seventy-five girls he drops a couple hundred bucks on who say no, maybe the seventy-sixth will say yes.
    I return to the dressing room to patch my makeup and a buxom dancer in a tropical print bikini sidles up to me at the mirror. The furrows in her forehead deepen as she raises her eyebrows, trying to look aggressively neutral. "I saw you sitting with Arthur for a while. He likes you, huh? You'd better watch out."
    "Why, what's the deal with him?"
    "Oh, he's a total dick," she sneers, fluffing her long poufy wheat-blonde hair with chubby fingers. "He'll pester you forever to screw him and if you give in, he'll be really mean to you from then on."
    I tell the girl