Let’s Zone Out on Tits Together Instead of Being Awkwardly Polite
A glass jar at the edge of the property has become a natural little terrarium over the past thirty years or so.
I live in a rural area and work in a city, preferring the quiet and the dark skies and open spaces. Spring has finally come to the Midwest, and the snow has ended…which means I was finally back to mowing the acreage. Except, then I snapped the cable that runs through the shifter, and my mower was stuck in neutral. First ride on the garden tractor this year and I already fucked it up. Temperamental little bastards they are, really. Plan B: enjoy a few hours watching the baby geese at the pond, just beyond the property line and at the foot of my neighbors’ hill.
The ivy and vines are still low from a long winter, and I took the shortcut through the brush and trees at the edge of the property, jumping a three-foot rusted wire fence and climbing over stacks of garbage left behind by previous residents. They left cans, bottles, glass, metal, tin roofing material, carpet rolls, an entire boat trailer, farm machinery circa 1940-1960. Most of the year, this tiny patch of woods is covered in snow or in vines, but for a few weeks each spring, I can explore.
This year, I looked for the original entrance to what appears to be a destroyed cellar, complete with concrete and brick steps that have been entirely turned upside down. I knew the ground was littered with glass and broken jars from previous explorations, but what I’d never noticed was that whole jars still exist — including likely still-edible preserved pinto beans (I can tell they’re pintos!), and the jars I’ve posted in pictures that have begun growing plants inside. This acreage never ceases to amuse and amaze me, year after year. Of the things I am capable, of the treasures buried and the pieces of stories I find left behind (I once found naked photos on a kitchen top shelf of the previous residents).
I had a lovely afternoon, even if I couldn’t finish mowing my yard. I didn’t want to work, but Thursdays are a night I’ve committed myself to, trying to give myself some sort of structure and discipline or work ethic. Because working three days a week shouldn’t seem difficult to fit into my schedule between playtime and yardwork and running and dogs and housework and reading and learning and thinking and sleeping and exploring and cooking and traveling — but it fucking IS. There are so many things I want to do, and in the spring, working in a dark and cold and hopeless box loses its appeal to sunshine and new growth and months ahead of warmth.
I reluctantly agreed to be a grown-up for a little while to fund these adventures of mine, and headed off to work, still in my muck boots. By the time I got to work, I simply didn’t feel like being nice to strangers. I wasn’t in a bad mood, or having a crappy day, or whining about being all “adult-responsible,” I just didn’t feel like being nice to people I didn’t know. Polite skipped me today. I straightened my hair, I pulled outfits out of my bag, I admired the nifty tan from lotion of a young dancer, and pretty soon, I got to feeling a little fat, too.
Over the prior twenty-four hours — TMI? — I shit literal bricks of weight. Whether from hard hill workouts on the trails or ditching nicotine gum for the last time or more water in my body, I shit at least four or five pounds. I shouldn’t have felt or looked chubby, and yet, maybe working just wasn’t meant for me tonight. I started plotting my escape home two hours after the club opened.
I stopped by a few tables, chatted with a few men who’d shown interest in me on stage with eager tips. Both were broke, which wasn’t a good vibe to get from the beginning of my fat-day/lazy-day/impolite-to-strangers kind of day. Fine. I took my ass upstairs for a shot of Captain to improve my mood, even knowing it wasn’t a great idea. I spent a painfully slow Wednesday night getting wasted with the owners after I’d make a killing off of regulars, and woke up today with a splitting headache and a dog whining to be let out into bright sunshine.
Post-Captain, an old regular of mine stopped by the club. One of my very first regulars, in his mid-forties, I remembered him as awkward but sweet. He’d spent a shitload of money on me in the first handful of months I danced, and slowly the money tapered off to nothing and I stopped staying at his table for longer than a minute or so. Tonight, this regular had made the trip from his little farm town to the big city, just to see me. I hadn’t seen him in maybe nearly three years, and in the meantime, he’d been excited to tell me about his new job — as a delivery boy for mechanical parts. I congratulated him on his new job, and moved conversation along quickly, getting down to business about dances. Forty-year-old delivery boys don’t tend to be very lucrative, but since the rest of my prospects in the club were confirmed as broke, I had to take the shot and ask.
The old regular put me off with a “maybe later” that was clearly a stall for being penniless, and I bailed, letting him know that if he wanted dances, I’d be around. He’d expected me to remember the details of a legal case he was involved in, details of things he’d told me years ago, and I didn’t have the effort in me to play pretend about what a special snowflake he was without compensation.
I ran food back to the dressing room, grabbed a water from the front, danced on stage, and had zigzagged my way through the club a few times, when he stopped me to ask if I remembered his name. I did. Somewhere in the Rolodex of my brain, I did. It was something…common. John. Dave. Steve. Bob. Chris. Dan. Something like that. While my mental Rolodex was quietly trying to index what the hell his name was, he kept talking at me, being considerably more awkward than I remember and acting pretty nervous. I finally admitted that all systems failed on remembering his name beyond “something common,” and he told me which it was, and added quickly: “I still remember YOUR REAL NAME!!!!!!!!!!” (Imagine his expressiveness with plural exclamation marks, okay?) He’d asked me if I remembered his name not to see if I remembered his name, but for a conversation lead on letting me know that he still remembered mine.
“Oh?” Heh. Great. I’d told him my real name back then? Figures. I’m such a moron.
“YEAH. It’s [my legal name]!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Sure is.” I’m already looking to bail on the conversation, but I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was trying to make money, and he was trying to impress me while being kind of a pain in the ass by reminding me what a stupid babydancer I’d been to give him my legal name (after some time, yes, and he was a regular back then) in the first place.
“But I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I won’t tell them it’s [my legal name]. I told you I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.”
“Uh, okay. Thanks for that…” I wasn’t exactly worried. My tone of voice was somewhere between yes-mom-I-will-make-a-dentist-appointment-someday-thanks-for-reminding-me-even-though-I’m-25, and yeah-sure-put-the-receipt-in-the-bag-please.
“It’s [my legal name]!!!!!!!! But I won’t tell anyone!!!!!!!”
“Still is, yep. Thanks.” I walked away from that mess. He’d either gotten crazier in three years, or I was an extremely naive babydancer with zero people-skills (truth, on the second one, for sure).
*
I spotted the Cleaning Company Man, and knew I could probably hustle a few quick dances out of him and get the hell out of work before I dug myself into a miserable shit hole of fat-day and not-making-any-money-day. I fed him a few of the usual lines I reserve for regulars, “What have you been up to?” “Got any plans for the weekend?” “Still getting in trouble with _____?” And then I just stared at the stage for awhile, zoning out on nothing which happened to be pussy, but I wasn’t really staring at pussy, just at space that happened to be occupied by pussy at the moment. You know how it goes.
I tried the honest-plus-sarcasm approach. It’s like this delicate balance between not coming off as a beggar and pathetic, and coming off as totally being a fuck-up who could be redeemed through copious dances with YOU, of course.
“So, here’s the deal, [Customer]. I’m totally spacing out on things to say. I went through, ‘How are you?’ and ‘How’s business,’ and ‘How am I?’ and I’m just drawing a big — BIG — blank on the next stupid thing I could ask you to be polite.” He laughed, a good sign.
“I could ask you something really fucking crazy right now, or we could just sit here while I zone out on GEs* vagina, or something, but I need a cue from you, because I’m totally sucking at being entertaining today.” We laughed, we sat, and he zoned out on tits, too. He finally brought up the weather, I accused him of being lame, and then we headed for dances.
Where I promptly fucked myself over again. I give good dances, but I give dances just good enough to vacillate between frustratingly-horny-and-want-more and ughhhhh-yes-that-is-good; I do it on purpose to make the kind of money I generally do. I was feeling a bit dazed from the Captain and my carelessness and give-no-fucks day, and I suppose I simply gave too good of a dance for awhile. I wasn’t giving extras, I was just touching him the way he likes and being extra sparkly and smiley and flexible or something…and…didn’t end up with as many dances as he’d normally do because he couldn’t hack sticking around. Damnit. Damnit. I mean, if there was ever a time to be a little bit shitty at something, it’s while giving private dances. Keep ’em back there awhile.
*
I wandered back to the dressing room for another bottle of water and a break between Cleaning Company Man and my next stage set. I’d walked just outside the room to talk to another dancer, when a drunk man came to us and stood disturbingly in my space without so much as touch or words for a second, eyeing me hard. I asked him for a dance and mentioned that I’d be leaving soon as a gesture to either pony up some cash for dances or go away.
Of course the weirdo stuffed $100 for VIPs in my hand and off we went, with me topless in the haste of being whisked away. Oh well — I was just going to peel that off, anyway; boobs are no secret and no shock around here. The first two dances, he kept telling me to slow down, until I just sat still. I sat. At a certain point, I simply can’t move any more slowly, and I wasn’t in much of a pleasing-others kind of mood. I sat my happy ass on his lap for awhile, petting his face and killing time until his $100 had passed. The third song, he asks me to sit next to him on the couch, with my legs draped over his lap. Fine. I’m fairly happy to accommodate easy-cheesy requests like that.
Sit. For $8.75 per minute — thats 6.8 cents per second, calculator app tells me — sit with my legs over someone and do nothing? Sure. I guess. Twist my arm.
We sat, and he talked at me while leaning forward more and more, twisting towards me so that he was now above me, even if my legs were draped over his lap.
It began to remind me of being assaulted in VIP two years ago. I am the one that is “on top” or “in control,” or I am one angry, fiery, violent, spitting and swinging little wench. I learned a lesson about letting customers get into a physical position of control or dominance the hard way that day. I kept my cool tonight, knowing that that kind of assault was a freak occurrence.
He began to try to kiss me, all over. My neck, my tits, my forehead, my hair, my face, my lips. “Baby, I don’t kiss on the mouth.” Our songs ended, and to my surprise, he said he wanted to stay for another hundred and twenty bucks’ worth of dances. I’d seen the wad of cash he had earlier, and agreed to stay, even though it meant dodging his face repeatedly. He tells me he has a fetish for my hair. I shrug. Okay, dude. Whatever. I’m not exactly overwhelmed by a hair fetish.
And oh boy, I did some dodging. Over and over and over. In between, he’s talking about how he likes to be the one in control, and I’m not masking my irritation. It’s a give-no-fucks-day, and I tell him that I’m unwilling to be a submissive kind of girl. He’s telling me he takes control; in general, he’s just sounding pretty rape-y, which is making me puff up on the inside like an alpha toy terrier, ready to unleash a wild fury of hardcore ankle-biting at the drop of a pin. I rested my right foot on his chest, knee bent and flat-footed, and kept instrumental time with my left foot, a warning. My own version of a cobra rising, a tail rattling, teeth revealed, my colors changing. Quiet.
I still spent the rest of our dances — several hundred dollars’ worth — dodging his face and pushing his lips against his teeth and nose with my dirty palms, but he backed off the weirdo rape-y talk and positions. I’ll never understand why guys go to the club, get dances from a girl, and then continue to get dances while trying to get what they want the whole time, thus making the dances complete crap as the dancer spends the whole time doing the dodge-dance-dodge.
I didn’t have time to find something to put over my tits before I hit the stage, but I figured I was just going to peel it all off anyway. No fucks.
*
The birds are chirping and my eyes are heavy, even though I left work three hours early. Typing this mess takes me forever, which is probably why I don’t do it as often as I used to. My mower guy is coming to fix my shifting cable at noon. Too early.
*
The Little Man With The Hat dropped by the club, to my astonishment. It’s been six months, maybe, since he’s been around. He lives on the East Coast. I didn’t even ask for dances, and in seconds, we were walking that way.
By far one of my oldest customers, he’s a wily one. He insisted on unbuttoning his shirt, as usual, but today, he took his pressed dress shirt entirely off. I’m sitting in VIP with a very little, very white, balding, little-old-man-chest kind of guy, trying to focus. Focus on doing whatever it is I’d do in my off time to please a much younger man. Another dancer walks by, and the weirdo that wanted to try to make out with my face constantly. Yeah, yeah, I know. Little old man chest, and he’s got his shirt off. The dancer and I exchange looks; mine, frazzled, though I wasn’t.
The Man With The Hat begins rubbing what amounts to the skin and (slight) fat covering my small intestines and uterus. About that spot on my body, digging his fingers in, rubbing vigorously, as though he’s trying to simulate rubbing a clitoris without actually breaking my rules/the law. He does this, song after song. Song after song. I give up on trying to figure out why, and settle on hoping he’s pushing fat from that area towards my tits, now small Cs that leave a little to be desired.
*
I left after that, having had enough of these men and their quirks and I wanted to get back to my sunny weekend and my lawn mowing. Because there are still more jars and treasures I haven’t found in the woods yet, and clammy hands all over me isn’t how I wanted to enjoy a beautiful night.
I think, in fact, I’m going to take the dogs for a sunrise walk down the gravel road before I head to bed.
Left in the vines and trees for thirty years or so, this jar has become a natural little terrarium.
What's Your REAL Name? 