My stage name was Felicia Fearless. Living vicariously through her cheeky and dauntless essence, was therapeutic for me. Being Felicia, taught me how to have boundaries. At the beginning of every show, before the music, I had to set the rules. No taking pictures, no touching without permission, and no touching with out paying for it. They were clear, simple, and concise. I discovered my worth. Sure, I had equated myself to a salable good, but a valuable commodity none the less. I felt that if they wanted what I had, then they had to pay for it. Twenty dollars per lap dance, per song. $200 extra for my XXX show. And, that was on-top of the one-hundred dollars I got just for walking through the door.
Heres a tip, if you want a stripper to like you, pay her. Pay her a lot. In my mind, the more they paid me, the higher my self-appraisal was. Luckily for me, I almost always had good shows, and very rarely had occasions, where I felt that I was not getting payed what I deserved. The best clients were blue collar workers. Those guys worked hard for their money, but were often the most generous. They knew how to have a good time and didn't take themselves too seriously. The worst, were the wealthy, upper class, country club, types. Once a monetary transaction occurred, they boasted a sense of of entitlement. They acted like they owned me, and that never faired for good energy during the show. I was always having to repeat the rules, over and over again, until sometimes I just had to leave. Drugs were often present, especially at late night appearances, but I kept my nose clean of that stuff. The funny thing about guys high on coke, is that they would pay me $300 to watch me tie my shoelaces. Sometimes I felt a little bad about taking huge sums of money from them, but hey, that was how I made a living. I had to be firm and stay in control. My safety and the profitableness of the show depended on it. I think the reason I never had anything bad happen to me, was because I always assumed authority. For that single hour, I could have men pay me what I could have made in a 40 hour week, at Starbucks. I could convince them that they were in for a surprise, and then whip them with their own belt. If I felt the reigns slipping away, and could not pull them back in, I left without hesitation. Although, there were a couple of close calls.
The Hollister show. It was a three girl show. We had two bouncers, Jim (the owner and my housemate) and Pete. Angel and I arrived first. We went to the bathroom to start getting ready, and wait for the third girl, who was meeting us there. While we were in the bathroom, the energy in the house seemed to intensify and swell, like a bottle of soda pop falling down the stairs. It was loud out there. They were becoming impatient. They started knocking on the door and yelling for us to come out. It was a huge group of about 50 young men between the ages of 20 and 22. The house was packed. Testosterone was buzzing through that place like yellow neon through a sign. The third girl showed up and was getting ready. I started to get a bad feeling about it. Angel and I agreed that this show was about to end before it even started. There were too many guys, too out of control already, and putting ourselves out there, would have been like throwing ourselves to the lions. It was time to go. Sometimes the flight in me would kick in, and when I felt that, it meant we had to leave fast. Pete made up some excuse why we had to go back to our car, and we quickly made it out the door. As we approached the drive way, a sea of guys came running out on to the lawn. Jim stopped to talk with them (which was dumb), and some of them started chasing us. Angel and I started sprinting for the car. Not so easily done in platform heels and a g-string. We made it into the car unscathed and locked the doors. Pete went back for Jim. A minute later Pete came back, knocked on our window and said “get my bat”. Good grief, it was not going well. Apparently a mob was outside and wouldn’t let Jim leave, without getting their money back. So while Pete was trying to get Jim to make a break for it, Jim gave the guy ALL of the money in his pocket (including the couple hundred dollars I had made from the previous show). Pete had to come back to the car, drive up to where Jim was, and we opened the door, yelling for him to get in. He finally got back to the car and we were all pretty shaken up. We had to call the police, because my car was still parked directly in-front of their house. We got an escort from a policeman, and made it safely home. I guess there is some clothing store called Hollister now, and any time I see a shirt with that name on it, I remember that incident.
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