Rebeckka Black - Dance to Despair - Memoirs of an Exotic Dancer

As far as the dancers themselves were concerned, the quality of the women who worked at the Nite Strip Lounge far exceeded those that I had worked with in the past. These women were much more attractive, polished, and professional. Their costumes were absolutely gorgeous, richly adorned with sequins, rhinestones, and beads. Many of the dancers had their costumes custom made by well-known wardrobe designers from Las Vegas. The cost of some of these gowns well exceeded $2,000, which in many cases didn’t include all the matching under pieces. All of the dancers wore expensive four to five inch high heels on stage. The shoes were seductive and very glitzy. Most of them drove expensive cars: Cadillacs, Lincolns, Mercedes, and Porches were the automobiles of choice.

The club’s rules were strictly enforced. That was made clear on the first night that I began there. They were the same as in most clubs—no accepting tips, no prostitution, and no quoting prices. The rules didn’t stop there. We were required to work six days a week, with no exceptions. To take a day off, we were required to submit a request four weeks in advance. There was no such thing as calling in sick. Mr. Roth expected his employees to come to work regardless of how bad they felt. Anyone who didn’t abide by these rules was fired.

The dancers weren’t allowed to hang out in the dressing room. The waitresses and dancers were restricted from socializing with one another as a desperate attempt to discourage the employees from stealing. It wasn’t unusual for the dancers and waitresses to collaborate against management. If the waitress and the dancer worked together as a team, their earning potential could easily increase by 100%. This scam was by no means difficult. If a customer spent a considerable amount of money to take one of the dancers into the secluded area, all the waitress had to do was turn in a believable portion of the cash to the bar and pocket the rest. The proceeds were then split between the waitress and the dancer at the end of the night. It wasn’t uncommon for the plotting pairs to walk away with a couple thousand extra dollars apiece. The dancers were also not allowed to take any breaks as long as there were customers in the room.

We’re required to work the floor over and over again soliciting each and every customer sometimes ten to fifteen times a night. The drill would continue until the customers either broke down and spent their money, or became angry at the constant badgering and left. According to the manager who went by the name of Monty, Mr. Roth ran the club with an iron fist. There was a tremendous amount of pressure put on the dancers to produce.

A few days after I started to work at the Nite Strip Lounge, I was introduced to a young blonde woman clad in a skimpy-black cocktail dress. The attractive woman referred to herself as Lara. Lara was very friendly and outgoing. Before long, we were engaged in conversation. Lara had just started to work at the club a couple of weeks prior to my arrival, and she was currently residing at the same motel that I was. During our conversation, Vince Roth’s name was brought up.

Lara asked me if I had the pleasure of meeting him yet. I told her I hadn’t. Lara laughed and shook her head. “The guy is a real prick,” she said, “I just stay out of his way. There’s a high turnover rate here. A lot of the dancers can’t take him.”

Lara took a sip of her coffee, “you’ll see what I mean.” I wasn’t surprised by what she told me. I had heard other negative reports about this man before, but I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, even Charles Manson would have been an improvement over the last creep I had worked for.

I glanced at the clock that hung on the wall behind the bar. It was practically midnight and my turn to dance. The club was packed to its full capacity that was somewhere around 200 people. The stage in this club was huge and quite elaborate, and I wasn’t used to dancing on it yet. Clad in a skin-tight, gold lame gown, I slowly walked up to the stage. My music began to play. I always danced to the same type of music, the blues. I could feel the eyes of the customers taking in every part of my body as I sauntered seductively across the stage to Janis Joplin’s version of “Ball and Chain.” On my third song, I was naked except for my rhinestone g-string and gold-spiked high heeled shoes. Suddenly the music abruptly stopped. For some reason my show was cut short. Embarrassed, I immediately left the stage. As I walked down the staircase that led back into the dressing room, I heard a woman calling my name. It was one of the waitresses. She instructed me to get dressed because Vince Roth was waiting to see me. My time had come to meet the supposed tyrant. I quickly got dressed and left the dressing room.

Cat whistles and obscene remarks followed me as I walked through the crowded room. When I arrived at Mr. Roth’s office, the door was partially closed. I decided to knock instead of walking right in. A gruff voice ordered me to come in. I opened up the office door slowly. Mr. Roth was sitting behind a large, black-metal desk reading a newspaper. “Have a seat,” he said with his eyes still glued to the paper. I chose to remain standing. I have to admit, I was expecting to see a man much younger. Mr. Roth was easily in his mid-sixties and had the looks and demeanor of a mobster. He was a very tall robust man and wore his jet-black wavy hair in a long ponytail. He had a very dark tan and was dressed entirely in black. The first four buttons of his shirt were unfastened revealing a very substantial gold chain that hung down his chest. A lit cigar was carefully positioned in a red plastic ashtray atop the huge floor safe.

Vince Roth read the paper for a few more minutes. Then the large man shook his head as if he were in total disgust. He shoved the newspaper across the desk in my direction. In the most abrasive tone that I had ever heard, he began to speak. “Are you out of your fucking mind working for some lunatic like this!” I have to say Mr. Roth’s congenial greeting totally caught me off guard. My first reaction was to tell this caustic bastard to go to hell, but I managed to keep my mouth shut only because I was desperate for a job.

When Mr. Roth continued to speak, if that’s what you want to call it, it sounded more like yelling. “That god damn idiot was so desperate for dancers that he had to hire a fucking murderer.” Totally confused, I asked him to tell me what he was talking about. He reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a fresh cigar.

Once again the man raised his voice to me. “What do you mean, what am I talking about? Don’t you read the fucking newspaper?” He pointed to the newspaper that he shoved across the desk at me a few minutes earlier. The dancer who had warned me about Mr. Roth was absolutely right. By the looks of things, he was certainly everything she had described him to be and then some. “I must have forgotten to pick up this morning’s copy,” I sarcastically replied, “so do you mind if I take a look at yours.”

“Be my guest,” he snapped, “I’ve got to make a phone call anyways.” Mr. Roth began to frantically dial the phone, but apparently whomever he was trying to reach wasn’t answering the phone or wasn’t answering it fast enough for him. Vince Roth slammed the receiver down violently.

“Stupid son of a bitch,” he said, “I’ll be right back.” When the tyrant stood up from the desk, I could see he easily stood 6 feet 4 inches tall.

As soon as he left the office, I began to read the opened page of the newspaper.

There it was, jumping out at me in big black bold letters. “Man and woman arrested and charged with the alleged murders of several unidentified women.”

To the left of the newspaper article was a picture of a grungy-looking middle-aged man. For some reason, the man’s face looked familiar to me. I kept reading and then it hit me! “Sara and Samuel Bebson of Louisville, Kentucky, were apprehended last evening at their home.” This was the strange couple that lived in the blue shack next door to the Ruby Garter South. Apparently, this couple had been sexually torturing women in their home for months. The deceased women were thought to be hitchhikers who made the grim mistake of accepting a ride with these cold-blooded people. The article continued to describe the grisly findings. The police discovered a soundproof building in back of their property that had apparently been used as a torture chamber of sorts.