want.â
âLive here with us,â Daddy said, his voice calm, âand go back to school. Iâll pay your tuition.â
âHigher education is what separates topless dancers from corporate executives,â Whitman said.
âI donât want to be a corporate executive!â
Whitman turned away as if he couldnât bear to look at me.
âWithout an education,â Daddy warned, âyouâre going to be stuck in this rut for the rest of your life.â
âIs that what you want?â Whitman looked at me over his shoulder. âWhat do you do when your tits start to sag?â
âIâm not talking about a lifetime career,â I said. âIâm talking about earning some money now.â
âI thought you were a lesbian,â Whitman said. âMy dear, lesbians do not dance in topless bars.â
âIâm bisexual,â I announced. âI fall in love with the person, not the gender.â
âWell, youâre going to be seeing a whole lot of gender if you start throwing your tits around in a topless club, and itâs all going to be male. Is that what you want? To be a sex object?â
âWhatâs wrong with that?â
Whitman shook his head and turned to my dad. âTell her,â he said.
âTell me what? Iâm twenty-one years old! I donât have to listen to you.â
It blew up into one of our larger fights and finally I ran out because I couldnât deal with the dadsâ hostile disapproval.
What was so bad about exotic dancing? You danced for fifteen minutes once an hour. Darlene, who worked at Terryâs Topless, told me she made over two hundred bucks in tips on weekends. The men poked tens and twenties into her G-string.
âAll you gotta do is lettem cop a feel,â Darlene explained. She was a single mom saving up for dental hygienist school. âCan you handle a bunch of men pawing you?â
It sounded better than putting on a dorky polyester uniform and flipping burgers at Wendyâs. Or calling strangers and asking them if they wanted their windshields replaced.
And who doesnât fantasize about being on stage? Being the center of attention. Being the star everyone looks at and wants?
So I did it. Just to show the dads that I wasnât their fantasy little girl anymore. And because I needed money fast and bad. I applied for and got every credit card that was offered. I charged everything. I was getting credit-card bills for hundreds of dollars.
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The first night I was so scared it made me puke. Dancing in a club with your friends and a warm hit of Ecstasy in your brain is one thing. Dancing half-nude, by yourself, on a stage, in front of a bunch of gaping strangers, is something way different. Iâm not really graceful. Iâm not in really good shape. But there is something about me that men like. âItâs called sex appeal,â Darlene told me. âYou gotta translate that into tips.â
Tips were what you worked for at Terryâs Topless because the salary was below minimum wage.
Mom wasnât overjoyed with my decision, but she wasnât negative like the dads. I made the mistake of asking her how to strip. âWell, honey, I donât really know. I suppose youââ She got up and tried to demonstrate.
âYou look like an old lady on her way to the chiropractor,â I said. âDidnât you ever strip for Daddy?â
âNo, honey. I always hid under the bedcovers. I was so ashamed of my body.â
I wasnât ashamed of mine. But if I was going to show off my charms, I wanted to do it in a way that was graceful and romantic. For my number I played âYou Make Me Feel Like a Natural Womanâ and stiffly paraded around the raised wooden runway wearing long gloves, high heels, and lacy satin lingerie that cost a fortune at Victoriaâs Secret. When it came time to shed the bra and reveal my luscious
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