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

I stayed in the dressing room and chatted with my co-workers for several hours.

Somewhere around midnight the club began to get fairly busy. None of the dancers were out on the floor because they were busy smoking dope in the women’s restroom. Mr. C. stormed into the dressing room and told us that if we didn’t come out onto the floor, none of us would be paid at the end of the night. Needless to say, we all left the dressing room in a hurry. As I walked out from the dressing room toward the showroom, I noticed suit clad men carrying briefcases walking through the club. The mysterious looking men immediately went downstairs to the owner’s office. They disappeared for a while and then left the club.

This type of activity went on at the club just about every night of the week.

Rumor had it that this club served a host for illegal gambling rings and other mob related activities.

Before I reached the main room, I was stopped by one of the waitresses. She asked me if I was busy. I wasn’t thinking, so I made the mistake of telling her that I wasn’t. Before I knew it, I was being whisked away into the secluded area. “You won’t be alone with this guy,” the waitress said, “he already has four other dancers back there with him, and has put close to $6,000 on his tab.” I was relieved to learn that this wasn’t going to be another grueling one-on-one situation. As soon as I got back to where the customer was sitting, all four dancers greeted me.

“Look at what we found, Sathen!” a couple of the women began to laugh, “Turn the flashlight on so that Sathen can see little Markie.” Little Markie turned out to be an elderly man laying on the floor in a fetal position. The man was clad in a pair of diapers that were fastened on to his body with what appeared to be a couple of clothespins. “What the hell is that?” I said to one of the dancers. “This is our new little baby,” one of the girls replied. While nudging my arm she said,

“Isn’t he sweet?”

“He’s lovely,” I remarked, “what rock did you guys find him under?” The dancer who was shining the flashlight on the customer told me to be quiet. “Don’t talk so loud, you’ll wake up baby.” I looked down at the pathetic excuse of a man huddled up on a make shift blanket that one of dancers had constructed out of some dirty old bar towels.

The man began to whimper. “I think the baby wants his bottle,” one of the dancers suggested. “No!” one of the other dancers protested. “He needs his diapers changed. Who wants to change baby?” Nobody offered. A couple of minutes later the sitcom was interrupted by the waitress. “How about another round for the girls?” the waitress asked the diaper-clad man. The character of little Markie suddenly disappeared and had been replaced with a very angry perverse old man.

The man reached for his pack of cigarettes that were lying on a nearby table. “I’m done spending,” the man replied, “I’ve already agreed to spend $6,000 and I haven’t even so much as begun to get my money’s worth.”

The customer grabbed his trousers that were thrown underneath the couch. “I’m out of here,” the man said, while struggling to pull up his pants. The waitress tried to talk him into staying, but it was to no avail. Without warning, the man bolted and began to run toward the front door of the club without paying his bill.

The waitress ran after him while screaming for the aid of a doorman. A few minutes later the fleeing customer was apprehended. To make a long story short, the doorman cracked the man’s head open with a small black, lead-filled club that he kept concealed in his suit jacket. He also bashed out the windshields of the customer’s vehicle.

I was relieved when Saturday night finally ended. My sentence at the Golden Show Lounge was about to come to an end, and although it wasn’t a particularly lucrative experience for me, it certainly was a memorable one.

Once I received my paycheck, I gave my resignation to Mr. C. He was surprised by the news and asked me why I was leaving. I told him that the club’s system didn’t work for me. Mr. C. took a long exaggerated drag off his cigarette and deliberately exhaled the stale-smelling smoke directly into my face. “I’m sorry to hear that Sathen, but our system works for us.”

“That’s right,” I replied in a hostile tone, “and that’s exactly why I’m leaving!”

“Suit yourself,” Mr. C. sarcastically remarked. “I intend to,” I curtly replied as I walked out the door. The Golden Show Lounge was now behind me.

I really wasn’t the type of person who enjoys changing jobs frequently. I preferred to stay in one place for a fairly long time, but working at the Golden Show Lounge had become counter productive for me.

I was approaching the age of 34, and I was still not ready to leave the strip clubs.

For some reason, I kept avoiding mainstream society. I could never quite figure myself out. I certainly wasn’t criminally inclined, yet I continued to work in an environment that condoned crime.

Besides the fact that I was totally miserable with the profession that I had chosen, I was equally as displeased with my personal life. Over the years, I had developed a few close friendships, but the people that I gravitated toward were as mixed up as I was, if not more. Most of them were alcoholics, drug users, or emotionally unstable. Because I had an intense fear of ending up alone, I drifted from relationship to relationship and moved from place to place. I kept looking for something that didn’t exist. When I became burned out on relationships, I opted to live with roommates. Finding a reliable person to share a home or apartment with wasn’t an easy task. Nothing ever seemed to work out for me, and I could never understand why.

For years I had very little interest in anyone or anything. My sole existence revolved around looking at myself in the mirror. My free time was spent cruising the cosmetic counters in search of the ultimate product that I thought would further enhance my beauty. If I weren’t doing that, I would lock myself in the house and spend hours listening to my favorite type of music, the “blues.”

I didn’t have much of a personal life. Working nights in the strip club for twenty something years did nothing to enhance a person’s social life. Therefore, it’s easy to become socially disconnected while working in this type of business. Exotic dancers aren’t considered to be of any particular value to society. We’re often thought of as social misfits or deviant criminals. Subsequently, you become secretive about your life. If you don’t, you discover that you’re setting yourself up to be discriminated against by landlords, financial institutions, and prospective employers.

Our profession also had a negative impact on our personal relationships both platonic and romantic. Many of the dancers never told their parents or children the truth about where they worked, because we didn’t want to hurt our families.

There were very few people that we could be honest with.

People who became romantically involved with exotic dancers were more often than not left disenchanted. Initially, a majority of our spouses, lovers, or significant others were drawn to our physical appearance. They were intrigued with what we did for a living, and impressed with the amount of money we made. But after awhile, our mates began to resent us for various reasons. A lot of them were covertly jealous of the income that we generated. Others became over possessive, and would accuse us of being a prostitute when things didn’t go the way they expected in the relationship. It was for this reason that a majority of the dancers that I knew, myself included, were unable to connect with a permanent mate.

Our personal relationships usually became highly combative as soon as the novelty of dating a stripper wore off.