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Airborne as I erupted from my customer’s lap, I cried out with passion:

“Noooooo!”

I was seized with panic, mid-lap dance, at his sudden confession.

Made clear by this admission, the 20-year-old boy beneath me was not a normal customer, but a poor, bleating lamb astray in a land of $20-dances.

“I must save you from this pricey peril!”

Snatching his innocent wrist, I leaned into a full sprint and charged heroically toward the VIP-area exit.

Launching after his arm, the floppy-haired lamb dragged behind his rescuer with startled blue eyes.

“Come on!” I shouted urgently.

The cape of truth and justice streamed behind my stiletto-ed figure like a rippling emblem of financial sobriety.

We flew to the exit, and the doorway broke into a zone of economic relief--the main floor--where lap dances cost only $10 per song.

I flung the bewildered blond to budget-conscious safety.

Whip-lashed ahead, the boy stumbled into a cluster of cushioned cocktail chairs and spun around to stare at me in consternation.

Chest heaving from our wild retreat, my eyes stayed with his as I fell to my knees before him and clasped my hands in desperate fear of Suze Orman’s wrath, shouting piously:

”I can’t take money from the fries-guy at McDonald’s!”

...

“...Yeah, I work at McDonald’s,” he’d admitted, to my abject horror.

They might be the only words powerful enough to disarm a bloodthirsty, sales-driven predator.

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t sell you any more $20-dances if I know you work at McDonald’s,” I (actually) said, perched in the boy’s lap on a VIP-area couch.

I cringed at the mental image of him slaving behind a broom for minimum wage.

“Um, OK, well, that’s nice,” he said. "But I really, really don’t care.”

What....?

He shrugged as he blinked, staring at me without expression.

“I want a lap dance, and you have the most amazing butt ever, so just give me a dance."

Mmmm.

shut_the_hell_up.jpg

"You're sure?" My conscience made me press.

"Yes," he said, obviously annoyed.

“Okay,” I said, flashing a rare fake smile.

Under 20 minutes later, I shook my head and walked away with 80 of his hard-earned dollars.

Tips from the last time I charged my camera's battery.

Day_3_Club_032.JPG

"You!"

A beautiful, raven-haired girl jumped in front of me moments after I walked in to work last night.

"What?!" I asked, genuinely surprised, but excited to have the attention of one of the club's pristine, princess-like dancers, whose beauty and pole skills outrank mine by quite a bit.

"I know something," she said, sparkling as she smiled and pointed at me.

My eyes bugged out.

"What--Uh, did you tell anyone? Um--Well, what are you talking about?" A terrible liar in the first place, I'm the worst when nailed without warning.

I knew exactly what she was talking about, and I froze like a six-year-old caught sneaking cookies in the middle of the night. I worried if the secret got out, my (also secret) new club might not be very excited about it.

"I know about you," she said, still grinning.

"About what?" I asked, cracking a smile back at her. I liked this girl, and had a good feeling that she would be safe...

"Do you write a blog?"

"Yes," I said, smiling as I monitored my volume. "But it's a secret. Did you tell anyone else?"

I looked around. I don't want my little corner of the internet to complicate the job I love so much.

No one else was in earshot.

"No," she said. It was the ballet and a few other details that gave it away, she said.

She promised to keep it a secret.

I smiled and hugged her. I was so grateful for her discretion and glad my secret hobby could continue.

A bouncer approached, and we dropped the conversation immediately.

I grinned, and felt a kind of sisterhood with her in keeping the secret together.

It was a crap night for tips, but I danced gleefully, all night long.

A picture of my (happy) foot from last night, because I can't post a smile for you. (I'm a ninja; sorry! Also: Shoes purchased by a happy customer, and worn proudly all night).

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In the latest sign of the apocalypse, it is possible to earn VIP status at the 23rd Street Taco Bell in Lawrence, Kansas.

This is very bad news if you report to work with no pants on, and people show up to watch.

"Oh! It's you!" the all too familiar voice said through the speaker.

It was 3:01 a.m. last Saturday, and the drive-through guy was telling a long line of customers they were now closed.

"Here's a drink," the smiling teenager said when I pulled up. I grinned, thanked him, and started to drive away.

"Wait!" he yelled. "We have quesadillas for you!"

"Yay!" I said, unable or unwilling to decline the free snack. I smiled and accepted the bag. "Thanks, guys!"

Total sweethearts.

As I drove home, I had a bite of the yummy, cheesy goodness, pictured my butt, and wished that evil didn't taste so good.

But it did taste good, and over the past 12 months, I gradually ate more and more of it at the 23rd Street Taco Bell drive-through.

So...

I weighed 117 pounds when I moved here in May 2009, and now, um, I don't, anymore, and this is bad.

"Do a trick! Do a trick!" an excited customer demanded of me recently. In keeping with strip club etiquette, he tucked $3 in the side of my black Victoria's Secret underthings for his request.

"Thank you," I purred, smiling through worried, clenched teeth. Could I pull off the one (cool-looking) trick I know? Even though I hadn't done push-ups in forever?

Eh. Why not?

I hugged the pole and swung my legs up high, stretching my stilettoed toes to the ceiling as I snaked my legs around the metal fixture and squeezed, hard, to support my weight. I hung upside down, looking 'up' at the floor. Ready!

My legs unfolded to a graceful pose, my arms absorbed all my weight, and I slid down into a crowd-pleasing, topless... Semi-slow-mo...

...face-plant.

Awesome.

Yeah, I weigh 136 pounds now, and I looked super sexy flailing my legs around with my face smooshed into the floor.

A good laugh later, I sat with customers in the soft red chairs by the stage and wistfully watched the Barbie-shaped princesses rocking the pole like demons in front of us.

Sigh.

"Get out of here with your big blond hair and your crazy acrobatics!" I gawk silently, watching them monkey up and down the poles on all three stages.

"You're fat!" a regular customer teased, interrupting my admiration.

"Shut up," I said, unbothered by anyone's opinion, teasing or not. (Thank you, stripping, for testing and affirming my bulletproof self-esteem).

At any rate, he'd paid for two of my $55 parking tickets, despite the extra poundage, so who was he kidding? (Hi, Lawrence PD! No hard feelings). He (and every other guy in Kansas) is obviously not tired of watching me dance around in my underwear.

I don't actually look fat--I'm not visually offensive, but after years of competitive ballet and jazz, this adult triathlete never thought they'd know what 19 pounds of fat looks and feels like during such a physical job.

Below: I salivate behind the lens.

Despite what my boyfriend says ("You're not fat!"), I have to lose the weight, says the American Heart Association. I'm overloaded with 19 pounds of unnecessary calories, and I've doubled my risk of developing Type II Diabetes, as well as my risk for post-menopausal breast cancer.

So I have a plan. Twenty days of healthier food and jogging around the local high school track, and I should be looking much better, inside and out.

But it will require push-ups.

UGH.

Below: A new wall decoration.

The requisite groceries are in the fridge.

IT IS SO ON.

On that note, I'm going to bed.

My new day starts when yours ends.

Lawrencians in a similar situation can collaborate and find support on the new Lawrence Journal-World health site.

PSA: Please message me if you, personally, have a three-, four- or five-bedroom house for rent around 151st Street in Olathe, KS, which I will forward to a party who will get in touch with you. (Include phone/email). It's an urgent matter.

Human sacrifice is alive and well in the United States, and people really like it.

I've watched them and participated in them most weekends (that's when they tend to happen), delighting in their every detail.

As you might suspect, they're only available at the finest gentleman's clubs.

Only the finest, and with good reason: You need stage and ceremony, and a team of professionals to set the mood and carry it all out with great attention to each humiliating (rather than bloody) detail.

Wildly apart from the daily drudge of anonymous civilian life, a sacrifice [sak-ruh-fahys] is a theatrical act in which any and all male pride is surrendered at the stilettoed feet of a pack of beautiful, wild women.

And it always starts with you.

You get in, and you round up $50 (sometimes more) from your group (usually a bachelor party) and hand it to a strip club staffer. At your request, three, four, or up to eight girls of your choice (The prettiest! The nicest! The meanest! The funniest!) get a heads-up that your sacrifice is coming.

The name of your bachelor booms out over the loudspeaker!

The team of chosen girls pull him onto stage and force him into a chair, backed against the pole.

Swarming him immediately, the girls demand proof that he's wearing underwear.

He pulls it up--just a thumb!--and the girls seize it, and rip off the waistband entirely.

"Oh my god! You guys!" laughs the groom who with enough humor and humility to survive and thrive in his marriage.

"Oh my god! You bitches!" whines the angry groom who won't last two years.

Like triumphant pirate queens, the girls fling the ragged remnants into the cheering, yelling crowd.

The music starts!

"Girls Girls Girls" by Motley Crue. "Bodies" by Drowning Pool. "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. Whichever the club chooses, it's loud, it's boisterous, and the team of girls is lined up to climb on him like a human jungle gym.

A small jungle gym, anyway, because many of them step easily onto his shoulder on their way straight up to the top of the pole, several feet over his head.

The dancer might pause at the ceiling for effect, smiling sweetly over her shoulder, suspending her body in some impossible hold (usually like this, but at the top of a taller pole). She might swing a bit, "threatening" him with her strength.

The bachelor visibly prepares himself for a world of hurt.

"...Go-ing down!" the emcee cries out like he's bracing for impact, too.

Whoosh! She plunges straight down onto his lap, smiling deviously. Delighted anyway, the groom winces with his whole body.

"Oh, man!" the crowd smarts along with him.

With a flourish that could be abusive (a slap!) or sweet (a wiggle), she smugly returns to the back of the line as the next girl sashays up.

"Hi, bitch!" our smiles say as we happily climb up past his face and whoosh down. Some girls just dance on the guy a little; others, however, stand over him, grab the pole, and pound him in the chest with our rock hard abs.

Bam! Bam! (Some clubs ask you to be gentle). Bam! (But rough is more fun for me). Bam!

We did six of these last weekend at my club. One guy went twice.

Again, and again! We sometimes go through the line two times.

Push-ups are next--while we're beating his butt with his own belt (and two others), or standing on him (naturally). They usually go pretty fast, but the slow ones taunt us--and live to regret it. (Or enjoy it. We've got to up our whipping skills for these guys. I love a good challenge at work).

It can take a while to finish ("...Six! Seven! Eight! Eight! Eight!"), but we eventually make it to 10, and he's done... Only to crawl around the stage on all fours, of course! Or submit to purple-nurples. Or both. While we smack him around.

All in good fun. It has to, after all, start with you!

"Aww, he ran away!" the emcee laments when an occasional wimp flees the smiling brawny beauties on the stage. "We must have a replacement!" the emcee demands. "Who will take his beating for him?!"

So close to the end!

The two times I've seen bachelors tap out, an enthusiastic groomsman has immediately leaped on stage to finish it out wearing the most stupidly happy grin I've ever laid eyes on.

A choreographed group hug makes up for the shocking (shocking) lack of sugar and spice in the whole ordeal.

In a final bid to strip him of his dignity, we nail him with another round (or two!) of plunging down the pole.

And the crowd goes wild.

Though we get $5-10 for each sacrifice we do, many girls maintain they'd do it for free.

Still waiting on that Kansas earthquake our boobs are going to cause.

"Blaaarrrgghh!" I exclaimed as I leapt into the air and performed the Furious Dance of the Potentially Unjust Parking Ticket in a public lot on Vermont Street.

Why do "expired stickers" of some sort cost $55?!

I was furious. It's a sticker! I wanted to spend that money on something besides a freaking sticker. Or save it. Or send it to my school. Or give it to my parents.

UGH.

My memory of the subsequent events is somewhat vague, but I believe that someone (I forget whom) then told me that for this kind of ticket, I had to go to the Treasurer's building. They started to explain more, but I think I was so irritated I must have changed the subject.

So I get to the Treasurer's building (after parking very carefully) and stand in line, steaming, to shell out the $55. I complained bitterly to the defenseless man behind the counter.

"You got it because you haven't paid your property taxes," he patiently explained.

"But I already own my car," I said, thinking out loud and feeling embarrassingly under-informed. "I paid the taxes on it when I bought it. I feel like I'm being asked to pay for it all over again."

"I know, but all these roads and stop signs have to get maintained somehow," he explained, so patiently, for what was likely the zillionth time in his career.

"Oh," I said. Duh. I thanked him for being so nice to me about it. This was, after all, my first car. Urbanites don't need them.

"You owe $230," he said.

I was about to throw up my hands and do the OMG-WTF-BBQ Dance, when he added: "And don't worry about the ticket. When you pay this amount, you just take the receipt over to the parking ticket people and it's taken care of."

OK.

I asked a few more questions, which he patiently answered.

$230 in property taxes, huh. My inner snowflake felt wronged.

I pulled out my cell phone, climbed up on the cross, and dialed I-800-But-Dad.

"Yeah, your car is kind of new," my father said to me as I lamented the Horrible Injustice of Excessive Taxation on Things That Already Belong to Me. "That's why it's so high."

Well, if I had to pay $230 for something that was already mine, what about the work I'd been doing?

"What about actual taxes? Like when I have to pay for all this money I've earned?" I hated sounding like an idiot, but I'd rather feel stupid asking a question now than feel even dumber when I get fined for not knowing the answer, later.

He sighed as he answered his precious little snowflake's additional questions about living in the real world. I was, after all, quite far from the castle my parents had so carefully built around me.

"Work with The Family Accountant, and everything will fall into place," he finally said.

Ah, The Family Accountant. The man who's been doing my taxes since I was four.

"I've been saving all my receipts," I announced with pride, waiting for my gold star.

"That's great!" he said with tired enthusiasm.

We hung up.

I had recently come out to The Family Accountant as an exotic dancer. As a child, I was a frequent visitor to his house when my parents and he needed to meet after business hours. Leotard and tights under my skirt, blouse, and blazer from school, I would moan and groan about how hungry I was until my parents cut their visit short and gave in to my need to eat (six times more food than they ever did) "right nowwwwww-uhhhhh."

"I can count on one hand the number of people I know who genuinely love their job," he said after I gushed breathlessly about my love of the spotlight, however needlessly stigmatized it was.

"Keep your receipts and keep track of mileage, gas, and all those details until we chat again," I confirmed that I would. We hung up.

A few months later, my mother asked me not to call him anymore.

"We can't pay for The Family Accountant anymore," she said.

What!

Even in our post-business-meltdown poverty (that stopped shy of bankruptcy, thank heavens), it hadn't occurred to me that this guy would disappear, too.

"He costs $50,000 a year," she said to me.

Holy bananas. Really?

Could I pleeeaaaase go to him for help?!

"It's $300 every time we talk to him," my dad was saying now.

How the heck am I going to figure everything out without a professional's assistance? I have income from more than one source, including some "investment vehicles" that I don't know every little detail about. How am I going to work this out without knowing everything?!

I would have to fill out forms. Really detailed forms. Probably a lot of them, I thought.

I started to panic.

I'd have to read and understand all the directions without a professional's help, and if I got something wrong, the IRS would probably fine me, or put me in jail, or otherwise interfere with the precious happiness I'd found in life.

I was too embarrassed to hit up a friend for help.

I submitted an anonymous question to the KU Small Business Development Center. Did I have to incorporate, or something?

"No," they said, in sum.

But if I'm an individual, there's still so many exceptions, and special circumstances, and I'd have so many questions. So much room for error.

I pictured myself in an orange jumpsuit. Could I even blog from jail? Probably not. People want you to suffer for your sins, and the Internet is so fun.

No BBC and likely no more Twitter, unless I knew people in jail. I don't know anyone in jail!

No more Lawrence Journal-World. No more Fark!

Eeeeee.

Do they even use sterilized speculums for cavity searches on new inmates?! Because non-disposable ones would be gross!

Ahhhhhhhh!

Dangerously close to the April 15th deadline, I called my parents about this issue.

"Panic-panic-panic!" I howled into my crappy Samsung.

"The whole family is getting an extension, so don't worry about it for now," he said. I wondered what invisible entity had all my information and was taking care of this dilemma. I wondered if anything said "exotic dancer" on it.

"We'll call you," he said.

Eep.

Safe? I think?

For now, anyway.

Time to do some hard core self-education! I promised myself I would know the necessary information and all the applicable laws cold--at least in laymen's terms--by the time I had to get everything in.

I got down to work.

To Be Continued...

I had seen it happen before.

A girl would saunter in to the dressing room early, wearing flip-flops and sweats. She'd barely be through the door when a bouncer would stick his head in and call her over.

"C'mere for a second," he would say.

Then, not subtly enough, he would silently show her a yellow pad of paper.

A black marker usually spells out the dreaded words, typically in all capital letters.

"[So-and-so] no longer dances here."

It's a message from Jeff, the owner of the Outhouse, and as I understand it, he rarely leaves a written explanation to go along with notes like those.

When the dancer sees the note with her name on it, a look of surprise and injury usually spreads across her face. Some just turn and leave, headed to another club to find work that night. Others cry and need a hug. Others yell about it and make their exit in spectacular fashion.

It hurts to see a girlfriend lose her job, especially when you know you can't do anything about it but try to help her feel better, get her phone number, and wish her the best.

Even if I could save someone I thought should have been allowed to stay, it is Jeff's business, and he's entitled to run it how he sees fit.

Of course, I never thought I would be shown any message on that yellow tablet.

Call it elitism or any other of a number of things, but I felt invincible to getting fired--ever. In following all the rules, genuinely liking everyone, and loving the job, I earned a reputation for cheerfulness and rule-following without really trying.

But last Monday, at 7:00 p.m., one of the nicest bouncers followed me into the dressing room with the dreaded yellow tablet in his hands.

He looked at me with sad eyes, shaking his head.

"I'm really sorry," he said as he showed me the note.

"Anna no longer dances here," it said.

"What?" I said, not believing what I was looking at.

"I'm really sorry," he said.

"Do you know why?" I sputtered. The feeling of surprise was still establishing itself.

"I have no idea," he said. "You'll have to text Jeff. I'm really sorry." I knew there was nothing he could do, so I didn't press him.

The feeling of surprise gave way to a sudden realization that I had to leave the club I loved so much.

"Um," my voice wavered awkwardly as I prepared to make the announcement to the five or so other girls. "It looks like I've been fired."

"What?" someone said.

"What did you do?!"

"I don't know," I said, feeling the tears well up. "I wasn't here over the weekend. I don't know what I did."

I felt hot all over. What had I done? It had to be something.

I would never do something to get myself fired on purpose. I racked my brain.

A girl pulled me aside.

"You never do anything [to break the rules here]," she said. "Are you sure that nothing happened? Did you say something bad about Jeff on the Internet?" she asked quietly. People know about my blog, but only one or two girls have actually read it and told me about it.

"No, I didn't," I said, pausing for a second to make sure that was true. "I haven't posted anything in weeks."

I had nothing to say about Jeff. I'd had five or six conversations with him, really. And posting about some of the things he's talked to us about as a staff just would have been bad form.

"He hasn't even given me anything bad to say," I said. Well, in the context of working at a strip club, but even then, I hadn't posted anything. "And I really haven't done anything wrong that I can think of. I would tell you right now."

I would have.

We were standing in the same place in the club where I'd first admitted to Jeff that I was the one with the blog, and he'd been OK with it. The only time I ever said things about drugs or prostitution, I ran into him at the club and told him about it in person.

"Text him and ask him what you need to do to come back," she said. "Maybe you'll just need to pay a fine or something."

"Is there a fine on the books for me?" I suddenly thought to ask the bouncer.

"Um," he checked the books. "No, there's nothing. I'm really sorry. I wish I knew anything at all."

Jeff does, rather magnanimously, I think, allow some girls to come back after paying a fine for whatever they did. Depending on the severity of the crime committed (and his opinion of you), I've understood fines to be anywhere from $100 to $200, and as high as $500 or $1,000.

I honestly, and truly, had no idea why I was being let go.

"Where else can I go?" I asked the group. "Is any other place even close to the money here?" Girls either shrugged or shook their heads.

On the inside, I freaked out. I haven't managed my money well recently, and even taxes are going to be hard for me to swing.

"Please tell me if you hear anything," I said to the girl. She nodded and hugged me.

"Bye everyone," I said.

I walked to my car and typed out a text to Jeff, a few tears falling in my lap. I couldn't believe this.

"When I came in to work tonight, Cookie showed me a note that said 'Anna no longer dances here.' What do I need to do to come back?"

Jeff rarely responds to texts right away, so I called my boyfriend.

"I have no idea why I was fired," I sniffed into my crappy Samsung. "I don't know what to do. I don't want to work anywhere else." I sat there and looked out over the field in front of me as he tried to make me feel better.

He failed. We hung up.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go anywhere I'd have to explain that I'd been fired, but I had to figure out some way to pay my bills; no choice there.

Suddenly, I remembered the Oracle. (This is not her real dancer name).

She would know what to do, I thought.

Blessed with an exceptionally stunning face and beautiful body, I am lucky to count the Oracle as a friend. She doesn't like a lot of people, and with an acid tongue like hers, you figure that out pretty fast.

Girls are afraid of her, and her customers are obsessed with her. She seems to know everything about stripping, clubs, and navigating the sometimes tricky situations therein.

I needed to talk to her, but it had been a while.

I called her club. "Does [the Oracle] still work here?" I asked.

She does, a man said.

I hung up and punched my destination into my GPS.

An hour later, I found her.

The club was beautiful and big. I looked around. Three stages? Wow.

Where was she?

Then, I saw her.

Forgetting my troubles for a second, I smiled. She was just like I remembered her.

She lay on her stomach, looking very bored, stretched out across the lap of a grinning female customer. Resting her head in her hand, the Oracle managed, still, to have her nose in the air. Looking at her long black hair and her regal pose, I thought of Cleopatra, and smiled.

She waved me over.

"How are you!" I said, hugging her and ignoring her customer, who seemed over the moon just to get to spend time with her.

"Are you busy?" I asked.

I would hate to see this girl mad. She's at least half a foot taller than I am and much stronger.

"No," she said, ignoring her customer in typical Oracle fashion. I laughed silently, again marveling at this incredibly beautiful girl's ability to eschew any practice remotely similar to 'customer service' and still rake in an absurd amount of money.

I told her what happened.

I wanted her to tell me some kind of secret code, some kind of secret password---anything that would get me my job back.

Of course, there isn't one.

She shrugged.

"Sometimes he fires people for no reason," she said. "He's just unpredictable like that."

"You should just move on from there," she advised, shaking her head. "Maybe they'll hire you here," she offered, admitting that money hadn't been good lately.

Well, money is bad everywhere right now, I told her, even at the Outhouse. Money hasn't been consistently good since the end of December, actually. So annoying. [Hearing that money is always bad in January, I decided that next year, I'll simply spend the whole month abroad and forget about trying to make money when there isn't any.]

I went to the management and asked if they would hire me.

They did.

Whew! Now, nose to the grindstone.

"I'm going on a date with a stripper, mom," my boyfriend apparently said right before our first date.

She was a little shocked.

"She said she trusted my judgment," my boyfriend recalled when I asked him about it a while ago.

Soon enough, though, the day comes when a mom wants to meet her son's new girlfriend.

"Hi! Thank you for not driving me away from your son!" I chirped, giggling as I walked toward my boyfriend's mom in her rural driveway.

We hugged and went inside.

The conversation did, after a while, turn to my line of work.

"Do you like it?" she asked me.

Eeeee.

"I love it!" I said, unable to feign an unenthusiastic attitude toward getting naked and dancing for strangers.

"Good!" she said.

"Is the money as good as they say?" she asked.

"Yes!" I said. (Well, this past couple of months, not so much, but hey).

There's a reason for her whole-hearted support, she said.

"When I needed a job in the 1960's," she said. "I looked everywhere. The library wouldn't hire me," she said.

"So I went to my local VFW hall and got hired as a cocktail waitress," she said. "I called my mother to tell her about it, and do you know what she said to me?"

"What?" I asked.

"She said 'that's a job for whores.'"

"What?!" I said.

"That's what people thought back then," she said. "Of course, they were wrong. People wanted to adopt me more than anything else."

I am so lucky!

Four bottles of wine later, the conversation was still going.

"I am such a fan of the ballet," she sighed at one point after she learned I went to ballet school for a time. "Show me a pirouette!"

I smiled, leapt to my feet, and showed her a perfect, single pirouette. She clapped and cooed.

Hooray!

I am so glad this is working. Secrets suck.

If you go to any strip club/bar/store on a regular basis, you develop a kind of relationship with the people who work there.

After several months, it might feel more like a friendship, and you can get pretty close.

But if a customer and friend suddenly completely freaks you out and disrespects you by breaking a rule, as a certain man did to me back in December, it's a real betrayal, and it hurts.

This is what happened between me and a man we'll call 'Jake.'

It was June 2009, and a customer at my then-bar, the Paradise Saloon in North Lawrence, wanted my phone number.

"No," I said to the man whose name I'd already forgot. "If I give you my phone number, I'll get in trouble."

Dammit! What was his name?

I smiled and tried to force the conversation back to the business at hand.

"Are you sure you don't want a lap dance?" I asked sweetly, giving him my best raised-eyebrow and flirty smile.

"No thanks," he said. "You're great. I just don't like lap dances." He stood up halfway and reached for his wallet.

"Here," he said. "I just want you to sit here and be a cute young thing in my lap."

He handed me a fifty. I accepted it and tucked it into the purse I used to take shopping at boutiques and malls in Boston. Sigh.

"OK," I said, plopping into his lap. "Thank you, sweetheart!"

I put my arms around him and we chatted for quite some time. He turned out to be really nice and very respectful, like the majority of my customers seemed to be at Paradise Saloon.

After our whole conversation, I still couldn't remember the poor guy's name.

"Since I can't have your number," the man said. "How about I'll give you mine?"

"Let me ask the manager if that's OK," I said, feeling dorky.

The manager had already told me the rules about phone numbers a hundred times, but a moderately severe learning disability makes it extremely hard for me to remember verbal instructions.

For this reason, I've always taken copious notes. On everything. A notebook or a laptop was always in my hands. Even if I was out. My entire life is probably available in hard copy in boxes at my parents' house.

I can't walk around with a notepad at a strip club, so I suffer accordingly.

"Can you tell me again if we're allowed to take customers' phone numbers?" I asked the manager, cringing at my idiocy. It's embarrassing and it's obnoxious to everyone around me. I expected him to yell at me.

"Just don't make a big show of it," he said, folding his arms. "It's not something we encourage because of the risk of prostitution."

"OK. Thanks," I said, glad he didn't yell. I trotted back to my customer. I smiled as I made my way to his seat.

Dammit! What the hell is his name?

I kicked myself for forgetting it. I am great at sales, but I feel my disability holds me back.

Jake! Jake was his name.

"Hi Jake," I said smiling and sitting in his lap. "It turns out that I can take your phone number."

He wrote his number on a napkin and made a few jokes suggesting that I might not call.

"I'll call," I promised.

"I hate strip clubs, but you're a cool girl," he said to me.

"I'll call you next time I'm in," I said, smiling. I liked him.

Over the next several months, I called him every so often, and he would come. He always gave me $50, bought me my favorite drink, and had something interesting to say. He never broke a single rule.

His easy-going nature and disinterest in flirting with me quickly earned my trust, and I looked forward to seeing him.

We grew close, trading a lot of personal stories. I even told him about my learning disability, which is a source of extreme embarrassment and self-consciousness for me.

We began to chat on the phone occasionally even when I wasn't at work. He knew about my day-life and my night job.

I told him my real name.

When I moved from the Paradise Saloon to the Outhouse (where dancers are not allowed to exchange contact information with customers) in October, he was unenthusiastic about visiting me.

"It's crazy in there," he said. "It's loud." He hated it for the reasons I love it.

"I guess I have to come by at some point," he eventually said in a phone conversation. "I'm getting you an Android for Christmas."

"Jake, I don't want an Android," I lied. "I don't want anything. I have everything. In triplicate." It's true.

He visited me anyway.

For once, he did want a dance.

I gave him one, as I told you in this entry, he put his mouth on my boob.

"What the hell!" I'd said. "I thought you said you'd follow the rules!"

He didn't apologize.

I saw red, but said nothing further about what he did. I was too pissed.

I finished the dance, took his $300, and stiffly bid him good bye.

In an unusual move, I did not even confront him the next day. I stopped answering his calls. I was livid.

Two weeks later, around Christmas or so, I was calm enough to tell him why I was ignoring him.

"I am too angry to see you because you broke a rule," I typed in a text message. "I need space. I'll contact you another time."

"You are disgusted by me!" he responded. "Forget it, [Anna]."

My heart raced as I looked at his message on the screen. He wasn't taking responsibility for what he did. He had never acted like this. I didn't know what to do with this behavior, so I just stood there and got mad.

I didn't want to see those sentences there. I didn't want to see his name in my phone. I didn't want to see him ever again.

Red-faced, I deleted his text message, punching the keypad hard.

"Ugh!" I thought. I wanted to scream. "You are smart enough to know which one of us is in the right!"

He called a few times. I didn't pick up. He finally left me a voice mail, which I erased.

I didn't hear from him for several weeks.

"It's hard to find good friends, [Anna]," he texted me out of the blue in January. I didn't respond.

He sent another text a few days later. "I'm really sorry and I want to patch things up," he typed (roughly).

"I want to forgive you, but I'm still mad," I texted back. "I need space. I'll get in touch with you next month."

I didn't. I kind of wanted to, but thinking about what happened still made me so mad.

He sent another text message toward the end of February.

"When you look back in life, I want you to remember me as a good guy," he wrote.

I kind of wanted to forgive him, but I didn't respond. [At least, I don't think I did. Not sure].

March came, and I still felt betrayed.

He sent me another message, much like his last.

"I want you to look back and say 'that was a good guy,'" he wrote.

I gave in.

"I am not ready for things to go back to normal, but I want you to know that I forgive you," I said to his voice mail, hesitating to continue. "Talk to you later."

We haven't talked yet. I still don't know if or how we'll ever re-connect.

Moral of the story:

Don't be a jerk. It ruins everything.

DAH-lings. (Can I call you that??)

I know you're waiting on pins and needles to find out what happened at the strip club this weekend, so here's a list of stories I am working on to post as soon as I can.

You just get a list for now because I'm super stressed out about some stuff I have to get done by Thursday. (Yes, you'll hear about it, if I'm brave. It's relevant to this blog, but I'm scared to put stuff here because I know some people might use the information to be big jerks. But jerks don't matter in the end, so I'm trying to work up the courage anyway).

Thursday last week:

I officially decided, after much thought, to make up with the regular customer who broke a rule with me in December. Before him, no one had ever pulled that crap with me before, and I was so mad I stopped speaking to him. So I'll talk about that decision. Later that night, after I got to work, we had three new girls. One of them did not want to be there. All three were asked to leave before the end of the night. It was scandalous! (OK, it wasn't, but I've been wanting to use the word 'scandalous.') A girl got pissed at me about a bit of stripper etiquette I was sloppy with at two points in the evening.

Friday:

Sore as hell, I danced my tail off and made bank! Took some ibuprofen, too. :) Unexpectedly met another reader! :D Fessed up to the girl I thought was on drugs, whom I wrote about without her permission.

Saturday:

Took LOTS more ibuprofen. Didn't have a good night money-wise, but it was off the chain fun-wise because @MeowKitty came to see me with her fiancé, two girlfriends (including a girlfriend of mine who recently learned my secret!), and their significant others.

Sunday:

Met my boyfriend's mom... Dun DUN!!!

Monday:

Minor D-R-A-M-A in the club.

Stay tuned.

"I like old guys," read a t-shirt in a store.

"Haha! I should get that," I said to my boyfriend, who is almost a decade older than I am.

There was a hat with the same message. I didn't get either of them right then, but I definitely have to go back and get one of them and wear it at work. Early in the evenings, we get a lot of older men who would get a kick out of it. It might help me sell dances.

Thursday night at work...

"You don't remember me from Wednesday night?" asked a sweet faced 19-year-old kid, sounding hurt.

Uh oh. I hate it when I forget customers' names and/or faces and they remember mine.

Luckily, I recovered the conversation, and he took me to VIP for a couple $30 dances.

"Who's your favorite dancer?" I asked flirtatiously at one point.

"You are," he said. "You're the gold standard." He looked a little too sincere.

"Oh," I said. "Well thank you, sweetie!" I hugged him and silently wondered if he had a crush on me.

I was pretty surprised. Young guys like to talk to me, but they don't always get dances with me. They tend to like the prettier girls with bigger chests.

"I like older women," he said.

What!

"Really?" I asked. "You know, if you don't mind, can I ask you an invasive question? I've never had an opportunity to have a frank conversation with someone who feels that way."

"Sure," he said. "Go ahead."

"Why do you think you developed that preference?" I asked, facing him in his lap.

"Hm," he thought for a second, as he rubbed my back. "I think it's because when I was growing up, my friends' moms were really hot. And they were always so nice to me," he said.