Monday, May 12, 2008

dirty talk

"Just take a deep breath. Relax. Shhhh."

We are back in the Champagne Room and you have me on your lap, my head clamped into your shoulder in a manner intended to be comforting.

I am not, in point of fact, sad. I am not relaxed either, although as requested I do take a deep breath and let it out slow. Inevitably, physiologically, this does cause my heart rate to lower and my muscle tension to soften. I do not like this at all. In this close proximity to a stranger's armpit, in this near darkness, I would prefer to retain a bit of tension.

"There you go," you say. "You needed that, didn't you? Just imagine we're alone, somewhere far away from here. Imagine we're in bed together, OK? Just us, just laying together. Are you imagining that?"

It hard not to. You are holding my head and whispering into my ear, and the music is not loud enough back here which is something I've started to hate about the Champagne Room because you have to talk and these days I am sick of talking.

In my imagination, we are underneath a sweaty wool blanket and everything smell like beer and farts. Your hairy belly threatens to pour over me like one of those smotheration dreams where I am drowning, sinking, muffled in impenetrable, unrelenting softness and I throw my arms out and kick and wake up thrashing in my sheets.

"Just be yourself," you say.

I am being my self. Which is to say, I am being a stripper, which is what I am. As a stripper, I am giving you what you want, which is my body to hold and my hair to stroke, my ear to whisper into and an imaginary construct of an ego that you can comfort for its imaginary sadness. For my tragic childhood, my crushed dreams and abusive skinhead boyfriends and pill addictions and whatever else you are making up for me in there.

Go ahead: This imaginary personality is safe to toy with and torment however you like, unlike my actual self, which is not a toy. This is as real as you and I will ever get.

"Talk to me," you say. "Tell me what you want me to do to you."

Which, lucky for both of us, turns out to mean "listen to me tell you what I want to do to you" and you describe for me all the delights you will bring to my body and how happy I will be.

Sure. Sure. I wish I had a cigarette. I want a cigarette so bad, but you don't smoke and besides you are still holding my head and your breath on my ear is unpleasantly moist and warm. I bet if I said I was going to the bathroom somebody in the dressing room would give me drag. It's a slow night. Everybody's back there smoking and cussing and reading Texas Adult Guide to see if we recognize any of the girls in the escort agency ads.

"Don't be afraid," you say.

I'm not afraid.

"Look at me."

You release my head and I straighten up. My neck is getting stiff. I look at you. You are a bald, fat guy. You are somewhere in your late thirties, I'm guessing. You have glasses. And a tiny, beaky nose, like a little owl. Your eyes are pleading with me. You are sad and afraid, but I don't have any answers for you. Sorry. I only know what works for me and you and I are pretty different.

"You need this, don't you?" you ask.

Our hour is almost over. In a few minutes the waitress will come and kick us out and I will go back in the dressing room and smoke a cigarette and you will go god knows where. Home to a good apartment in a nice part of town where you live with ghosts and imaginary people and ghosts of imaginary people, which is what I'll be when you remember me, after you're done with me, if you remember me.

"You needed this. You know you can always be yourself with me," you say. "You know you can tell me anything. I like you just the way you are."

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing and insightful. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I have to say that this guy just creeps me out. Kudos for you for being able to stand it at all.

Anonymous said...

I always think strippers and escorts end up seeing more damaged goods as clients in the run of their job than most therapists do.

Pause said...

He sounds kinda creepy to me too. Gritty writing, very good as always.

Unknown said...

Creepy? Nah. Just your every day pathetic loser. From the group that goes to clubs for the fantasy of making a "real connection." Sad? Maybe. Creepy? Not so much.

Hellaciously written though, Grace. I've beed reading your stuff for a while now and I love it, mostly. You really do catch the mood. Don't stop.

Anonymous said...

But that is the job isn't it. I mean -- being there for that guy, lying to him in the way that he wants to be lied to? It makes up, for him, for all of the profoundly humiliating things women said to him when he was being genuine. He is smart to pay you to lie to him, because look how even in a simple contractual relationship where the boundaries are all clear and up front and where you are better reimbursed than I have ever been for blowing smoke up peoples asses at the counter or at the day, you still need to come home and castrate him on your blog. Even with his money in your pocket, paid to you for a job you chose, you still have to assassinate his character.

That is the part of you is what is toxic, not the part that preys on his insecurity for your living in the first place, but the part that holds him in contempt.

Mitch said...

Are there many customers who don't
seem creepy?

I've only been to a strip club once.
There were some things I liked about
the experience, I'd like to go again,
but if I'm going to be perceived as
creepy, or if the experience is negative for them- I don't want that.

Are there 'good' clients, and if so,
what does it take to be one?

Anonymous said...

This is my first time reading your blog and I really really like your writing. Keep it up!

*bookmarks blog*

Anonymous said...

It's about disfunctional people -- they're all around us, and sometimes they are us. They/We are making ration decisions -- which only requires that we act in a manner that we prefer to all of our alternatives. Imagine how sad some peoples alternate lives are.

I came here because a link was posted on Ferroever. Maria is another great writer whose work captures our frailties and foibles.

Anonymous said...

commenters on your blog = customers in your shop

Anonymous said...

That was incredibly good.

You are a great writer! Thank you.

Anonymous said...

That was some writing. Stop stripping if you must, but don't stop blogging.

Anonymous said...

@James

Sounds to me as if you are projecting a little onto the client. I mean, who was there - Grace, or you? You weren't there...were you? Your portrayal of him as humiliated-but-sincere is generous, but not founded in any fact as far as I can tell.

Grace did her job. She silently swallowed his fantasy, and spit it out here in the anonymous vacuum of the Internet. If you are saying that you go through life without criticism toward any fellow human, then you are either on the path to sainthood or on some pretty good meds. Her venting in this blog about Captain Creepy is not toxic, any more than your response is toxic. Or my response, for that matter.

Unless I called you a self-righteous jerk. That would be toxic. But I am above such things. ;)