Prostitution ran rampant at most of the clubs, and there was a lot of competition between the professional hustlers and the hookers. It remained that way throughout the rest of my dancing career.
Although prostitution was covertly tolerated in most of the clubs, there was still an opportunity for a dancer like me to make money. The women who chose to prostitute very rarely made more money than the professional hustlers who gave the men nothing. The prostitutes had what they considered to be a logical explanation for giving the customers what they wanted. These women felt that it was easier to have sex with the men than to con them out of their money. It was easier for the prostitutes to give them the sex that they wanted, earning less money, and going on to the next.
In order for me to continue to work in this business, I would either have to resort to prostitution, which wasn’t an option, or buckle down and start utilizing the methods of extracting money from the customers that my ex-employer Vince Roth had instilled in me years ago. This meant that I had to focus on making money while I was at work. Which was something that I never did in the past. I never applied myself. I just made enough money to get by, but things were going to be different now. I was somewhere in my mid-thirties at this time. The hands of time were turning and not even I could elude them. Instead of going to the club every night and dwelling on how much I hated being there, I concentrated on making as much money as I could for eight hours a night. My new approach began to pay off. Before long I went from an average producer to a top money-maker, and true professional in what I did best: act.
While most women my age were engaged in some kind of a career and raising a family, I was busy thinking of new and resourceful ways to extract as much money as I could from the customers. Sometimes I would resort to some pretty bizarre schemes in order to get the customers to spend their money. On occasion, I would call another dancer in if I thought the man might be a big spender.
There were basically four different types of customers that slithered through the doors of the strip clubs and I had a different approach for all of them. The four categories were disloyal married men, maladjusted introverts, hard-core sex perverts, and psychopaths.
The married men category was the largest and undoubtedly the most lucrative one. Married men are the lifeblood of most sex enterprises in spite of what their wives may think or want to believe. Without the patronage of “happily married men,” the sex industry would have surely collapsed hundreds of years ago. Sadly enough, most of these men would have sold their souls for the opportunity to have sex with somebody other than their wives. The sad part about it all was that a lot of them did. Married men were notorious for haunting their favorite X-rated place during their lunch breaks, or directly after work. It was for this reason that most strip clubs began to have a day shift that usually started at 11:30 a.m. and ended at 7:00 p.m. when the night shift came in. In most instances, the wives of these individuals were clueless as to their husbands’ whereabouts. The average woman would never suspect their wayward spouse of patronizing strip clubs behind their back.
Many married men squandered away huge amounts of money on exotic dancers in the hopes of having sex with them. The irony is that these men end up spending ten or even twenty times more money on a stripper who won’t give him anything, but a lick and a promise, than on a prostitute who would give him the sex that he wanted.
The category of socially maladjusted introverts was an interesting one. These were the men who lived alone and had virtually no social life other than their jobs. Many of them had never been in a relationship with a woman outside of a detached prostitute. Their entire social life revolved around strip clubs. The good thing about these men was that they were very free with their money and relatively easy to lead on for long periods of time without any sex. The downside was that when you were through with them, they were hard to get rid of and had a tendency to resort to stalking.
Hard core sex perverts were the sickest of the sick, but probably the most profitable. Their fetishes were the pinnacle of their pathetic existence absorbing most of their thoughts and free time. This group of men engaged in everything from necrophilia, the practice of having sex with the dead, to dismemberment of their body parts for the sake of a sexual climax. They were sadists, masochists, and child or animal molesters. The list of bizarre perversions was endless.
Although most of these men were single, an alarming number of them had spouses who condoned their partner’s perversions. Many of them had open marriages, and were involved in swinger organizations, and sex clubs. Their favorite past time was frequenting strip clubs, adult bookstores, peep shows, and orgy parties.
Last but not least were the psychopaths. These people had very little connection with the human race outside of a few family members or unsuspecting friends.
They were predators, stalkers, peeping toms, and loners. Men like these prefer to remain anonymous, and gravitated to the darkest holes that strip clubs had to offer. They very rarely spent large amounts of money on the dancers.
Although these men’s sexual appetites varied considerably, they all sought to achieve the same thing: a sexual climax. Over time I was able to control and manipulate every classification of creep that one could possibly imagine by creating the illusion of being their sexual confidant. The more bizarre the men were—the more money I made. Eventually, I became indifferent toward even the most disturbing of sexual practices. These included self-mutilation of the genitals and sexual crucifixion, to name a few. Becoming emotionally disconnected was considered to be a working hazard for most strippers and prostitutes. I never considered my apathetic attitude problematic. As far as I was concerned, it was a blessing. My biggest issue was that I chronically felt disconnected from myself. I felt as if I was operating outside of my body. I treated myself as if I didn’t exist.
A few more years had managed to slip by, and I still had done nothing worth-while or constructive with my life outside of saving some very hard-earned money. I was still working four nights a week at the club and sleeping my life away whenever I could. Although I had made quite a few friends, my life still primarily consisted of working, sleeping, and spending large amounts of money at expensive shops. Occasionally, I would join a few of the other dancers and go on shopping sprees. These sprees consisted of spending the day at an upscale retail mall. Money was no object, so we could afford to buy ourselves whatever we wanted. Perfume worth $300, $50 lipsticks, expensive jewelry, clothes, and lingerie were our primary purchases. The trinkets that we bought distracted us from the type of work we did, but the satisfaction that we derived from our self-indulgence was soon forgotten the moment we walked back through the doors of the club. Our depression resurfaced and served as a constant reminder that you can’t put a band-aid on misery.
Practically all of the dancers I had ever known succumbed to some type of self destructive vice in order to escape their problems. My vice was sleeping, but most of the women resorted to drugs and alcohol. The effect was short lived regardless of what methods of relief you chose. Many of the dancers drank excessively at work or engaged in some sort of drug use. Cocaine, heroin, valium and prescription sleeping pills were the most commonly abused substances. The women who chose to oblige themselves with drugs and alcohol didn’t function well on the job. The more passive women could typically be found passed out in the women’s bathroom, while others spent a majority of their evening instigating fights with their coworkers or acting out in some other type of violent way.