I Was a Stripper

          True story.

          After I left school and travelled all over this beautiful country of ours, I met up with a scotch-soaked bar room queen in Tulsa. Not exactly a Rolling Stones song, but oh, so close.

          Shady was her name, but her given name was Shadelle La Fontaine Pemberton.

          She was a copper-skinned ex-model (or so she claimed) from Las Vegas, where coincidentally, I would end up several years later.

          Unbelievable.

          I was nineteen, and my body had not yet suffered the abuse I have put it through in my lifetime, so I was in the best shape I ever got to in my life.

          I met Shady at a coffee shop counter around three o’clock one cold Oklahoma morning. She was incredibly sexy, and I used this encounter as a reference for my story Beauty in my book Emotions! Not your Mama’s ABC’s!

          Then I put a weird twist on it.

          Shady owned two of the three strip clubs in the city way back then, and I was working as a bar back for some easy extra cash in one of them, and some awesome working conditions (cue the naked strippers bouncing by…). Shady called me into her office and said she needed a male stripper for amateur night, and if I would do it, she would give me a fifty-dollar bonus on top of the tips I made.

          I had been there long enough to see the big loads of cash these guys would pick out of their G-strings and rocket pouches on amateur night.

          Even the bad ones.

          Now, I am not about to start bragging about my dancing prowess, but I just knew I could make bank with my Latin animalistic moves, so I told Shady I would accept her offer at which time she set down her Cutty Sark, produced a Ulysses S. Grant, and handed it to me.

          She told me to come back at four and they would prep me backstage.

          I must have done a thousand sit-ups and pushups getting ready, and I was nervous as hell, truth be told. I had performed onstage in my music history, but this shit was different.

          Way different.

          The place was nicer than the other clubs shady owned, but it was still a little sleazy.

          But all the naked women…

          I was even able to make a date with one after I told her I was going to be dancing in amateur night.

          Things were looking good for the Satin Latin.

          I didn’t need any body tan product or anything, so they gave me the oil to apply to my skin (the guy was just a little too eager to apply the oil to my young hard body).

          I had about ten minutes to kill before showtime and I decided to take a shot, a chaser, and a hit of cocaine.

          The tools of the trade for fledgling male strippers.

          I decided to take a peek through the curtains as I could hear the crowd getting louder and louder.

          I was stoked.

          I parted the curtains ever so slightly until I could see a full house. Not an empty seat.

          Not a woman in sight.

          I hauled ass out of there faster than the speed of light.

******

Stay well.