Sliding Into Home by Kendra Wilkinson

you.”
    “There are a lot of bad people in strip clubs.”
    “I’m tough,” I assured him. “I can handle it.”
    I
was
tough. I wasn’t going to let a guy do something that I didn’t want him to do, and I was totally dedicated to Zack. There would be no sex in the Champagne room for me.
    “What about drugs?” he asked.
    “You know I’m smarter than that. I’m done with that shit. I don’t care what the other girls are doing; I’ll never be some trashy, coke-whore stripper.”
    “I don’t know . . .”
    “Did I mention how much money we can make?”
    He reluctantly agreed. I think he knew I was going to do it no matter what he said so he had no choice but to go along with my new plan.
    I don’t know where my new obsession with money came from, but as soon as I was out of school I developed the instinct to make as much as possible. If that meant stripping, then I could do that. I
would
do that. The next day I went down to Cheetah’s, the most popular strip club in San Diego.
    “Excuse me, sir, I would like to strip,” I said to the owner. I was a nervous wreck, but I turned on the same professionalism that had landed me the job at the dentist’s office. Of course, this time, instead of my mom’s sweater I wore a tight little T-shirt and short cutoffs. I gave him my driver’s license, and then I had to go downtown and get a stripper’s license. (Yes, they have those. Who knew?) I filled out an application and took a picture for the license, and just like that I was a stripper.
    Before my first night of work, I knew I had to go out and find something to make me look the part. All I really owned were cutoff shorts and a few old soccer uniforms. While some guys would probably find the uniform hot, I didn’t think that was going to cut it at this club, so I went out and bought some stupid lingerie and big stripper boots. (Okay, I actually liked the boots.)
    The night before my debut, I tried on the new outfit and stripped at home for Zack. He was impressed. My ass-shaking was top notch. I could be sexy, and he knew it. He’d always known it. Now I knew it, too.
    I was very nervous on my first night. I didn’t care so much aboutgetting naked—I was comfortable being naked—but I was nervous about how the other girls would treat me, how the customers would treat me, if I was going to be any good at stripping.
    Zack dropped me off and kissed me good-bye, and I walked into Cheetah’s.
    Walking into the club that first time was scary. It was dark and seemed overwhelmingly big. When my eyes adjusted, I saw a girl on the pole, naked and swinging around like a gymnast. I’m a pretty open person and I don’t judge, but I hadn’t seen the inside of a strip club at night before. I looked around and surveyed the scene. With the music blasting and the lights flashing, it was intense. I felt like a lost, shy little girl on the first day of school.
I’m going to do it,
I kept telling myself.
Don’t back down.
I had to just keep thinking about the money.
    I went into the dressing room to get changed and there were a bunch of girls already back there getting dolled up, talking about how they were doing that night.
    “Hi, I’m Kendra,” I said to the room. “I’m eighteen.”
    A couple of girls glanced over, then went right back to what they were doing—applying hair spray, using a curling iron, grabbing anything they could get their hands on to look pretty, smell pretty, and feel pretty enough to make the money.
    “Can I sit here?” I said shyly to one girl as I made my way to the bench closest to the front. I didn’t want to be in too deep. She looked kind of annoyed, and I felt like Forrest Gump when he gets on the school bus.
Seat’s taken!
    Once I was dressed I went out to watch some of the girls in action. You get two songs on the stage—one to tease to and one to strip to. I watched as the girls worked the pole, teased the guys, and made theirmoney. Then it was my turn: “Kendra to the main