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

Sefra was impressed by the amount of money that Ken had spent. I found nothing impressive about it at all. Blinded by the almighty dollar, she suggested that we set up a lunch date with him. I told Sefra that I thought her suggestion was rather premature. “There’s something wrong with that guy,” I said.

Sefra was completely indifferent to my concerns. “You think everyone is a creep,” she argued. “He’s just some type of gun freak and that’s all. Ken’s harmless,” she insisted.

I strongly disagreed with her. As far as I was concerned, any delusional gun freak that was stupid enough to drop huge amounts of money in a strip club could hardly be deemed harmless. Sefra knew that she wasn’t going to win this argument. Frustrated, she flicked her lit cigarette into one of the filthy toilet bowls, and stomped angrily out of the bathroom.

The next night, our newly found friend reappeared at approximately the same time that he had arrived the night before. Sefra was the first one to spot him, and immediately came into the dressing room to retrieve me. “Guess who’s here?” she said. I asked her if it was Richard Speck. I couldn’t have sounded more disinterested. Some of the dancers overheard my comment and began to laugh. “Just about,” Sefra sarcastically replied, “sicko’s back and he brought a lot more money with him. He wants to see you. Hurry up, we’re sitting at the same table as we were last night.” I took a deep breath as I stood up from my chair. I knew I was in store for another lucrative, but mentally draining night. Sefra, who was usually stoned on heroin, didn’t dread his company nearly as much as I did. I guess her drug addiction was her ultimate incentive. Mine was merely my bank account.

I walked through the dressing room doors, and onto the main floor. I immediately spotted Sefra’s glittering silhouette from across the room. I begrudgingly walked over to the table where Sefra and Ken sat patiently waiting for me. I pulled up a chair and joined them. “Hey Sathen, can you believe it! Our man came back,” Sefra said as she made a derogatory hand signal behind his back. “I see that,” I commented. Sefra nudged Ken on his arm and said, “Tell Sathen what you were doing tonight.” Ken took a deep breath. “I was just finishing up an important government assignment not too far from here,” he claimed. “Is that so?” I remarked. He was probably just released from the Elgin State Mental Hospital, I thought to myself. “Were you out in Elgin?” I asked. Sefra started to laugh. She knew what I was implying. My comment flew right over Ken’s head.

“Nope, I can’t tell you where I was. I’m afraid that’s privileged information,” Ken said as he bowed his head and scratched his left ear. Sefra and I glanced at each other. I gave her a slight nod. Without saying a word, Sefra and I were able to communicate with each other. It was time to cut the small talk. The meter was ticking. “Sathen and I really missed you,” Sefra said while fondling the gold electroplated chain that hung around the man’s neck.

“That’s right,” I added, “I couldn’t get my mind off of you.”

Ken’s smile was smug. “You girls are great,” he replied.

I reached over and gave him a hug. In the process, I noticed that there was a black leather travel bag parked next to Ken’s chair.

“Is that your bag?” I inquired. I was concerned that there might be a gun hiding in it.

“Don’t worry about it,” he snapped, “I couldn’t leave the bag in the car. It’s classified information.”

Sefra sensed that Ken was becoming a little edgy. She was worried that he was going to walk out the door without spending any money, so she began to rub the back of his neck in an attempt to calm him down.

“Are you going to party with us tonight, honey?” Sefra’s voice was soft and soothing.

“I’m financially prepared if that’s what you mean,” he said. Sefra wasted no time in flagging down the nearest waitress.

As soon as Ken paid his dues, Sefra and I led him away to the same old dingy booth that we had sat in the previous evening. This evening turned out to be a repeat performance of the night before; even the gist of the conversation remained the same. Around 2:30 in the morning, Ken left the club using the same excuse as he did the night before about a phone call from a government co-worker. I figured that this was just another one of his fabricated stories.

Ken began to come into the club once a week, and it was always on a Monday night. He consistently spent the same amount of money on us as he bragged about his secret-service job and his impressive weaponry collection. After a few months of Ken’s visits, Sefra and I decided to hit him up for a lunch date scenario. Against my better judgement, we set up a date to meet him at a nearby upscale restaurant. The agreement was that Sefra and I would spend two hours with him at lunch for the sum total of $4,000. We also made it perfectly clear that no sex was included. Ken eagerly accepted our offer, and for the next several months, Sefra and I would meet him in various restaurants. Ken seemed to be perfectly content with this arrangement for the first couple of months, but then one-day things began to change. He began to pressure us to give him our home phone number, which naturally we weren’t about to do. In an attempt to temporarily pacify him, we gave him the phone number to the club. We used the excuse that we were living with some other people, and that we didn’t want them to know our business. We promised to give him our home number after we moved.

Before long, Ken began to call either Sefra or myself at the club just about every night that we were scheduled to work. He wanted to meet us after work or have us come over to his house on the nights that his father wasn’t home. Obviously, that wasn’t about to happen; so Sefra and I had to keep inventing excuses as to why we couldn’t see him after work. Unfortunately, Ken was very persistent.

Eventually the bartender began to complain to the doormen about all the calls that he had been receiving for Sefra and me. According to him, some man had been calling anywhere from fifteen to twenty times a night wanting to talk to us.

The bartender kept telling the caller that we were busy or up on the stage dancing hoping to deter him, but nothing worked. He was relentless. The bartender described the caller’s voice as sounding muffled and difficult to understand.

Word traveled fast at the club, and it wasn’t long until the excessive phone calls were brought to the attention of Sefra and I. The bartender confronted us. We told him that we had no idea who the caller was. We both knew that Ken was a strong suspect, but we elected to keep our suspicions to ourselves.

A few nights after our confrontation with the bartender, Ken showed up unexpectedly at the club. It was a Friday night, which was a switch from his usual Monday visits. Once again, Ken, Sefra, and I huddled together at the same old table as before. The same waitress came over to our table to collect the money from Ken, but this time he only handed her two thousand dollars. I could tell that the waitress was disappointed by the look on her face. She nonchalantly asked the customer why he wasn’t spending the “usual.” Ken told her that he wouldn’t be staying long this evening due to an urgent change in plans. I could sense that the waitress was suspicious, but she didn’t challenge his excuse. Sefra and I exchanged glances. We both knew that something was up. Ken seemed nervous and preoccupied. We pretended to act concerned about him and begged him to tell us what was wrong. Ken didn’t respond to our questions, instead he just sat with his head bowed down staring into his glass of coke. I could feel my patience begin to wane. Finally, he began to speak, “Listen girls, I’ve got some pretty bad news.” The first thing that popped into my head was that he was broke and couldn’t afford to spend any more money on us. I was wrong. The supposed bad news was that he had to leave town immediately to go on some special assignment overseas. Ken told us that this particular assignment was very dangerous, and that his life could be in jeopardy. Sefra and I acted alarmed, but in reality we were relieved. He also said that he had stopped by the bank earlier that day to pull out some money for us in the event that something should happen to him while he was away. From the inside pocket of his black-leather jacket, Ken pulled out two separate bundles of rubber banded money and laid it on the table directly in front of us. “Now ladies, it’s very important that one of you give me a telephone number that an authorized government agent can reach you in case of my death.”