Perks of the Job
Sunday evening. I'm sitting in The Bourgeois Pig on 7th and Avenue A with Lucy the stripper and Gay Friend. It's hot hot hot, the kind of melting, dribbling, lethargic slobber of an overcrowded city in summer. We're talking sex. We're talking stripping. Gay Friend is fascinated by our employment.
"So, what happens when you go in the Champagne Room with a guy you actually like?"
Lucy looks at me. I inadvertently inhale white wine through my nose and we both erupt. Lucy laughs like a jelly.
"Boy, c'mon! Whaddya think? It's fuckin' hot!"
I laugh too, but I don't know the answer to that question, not really. I always get stuck with the Francois' and the heavy breathers and the Mr Cum-in-their-Pants. Must be the pre-pubescent face stuck on top of hips which could have spawned Spain. I guess it could happen, I think idly. Although my head is too full of Federico and the disturbing aftertaste of bony-model butt to entertain the thought too seriously. Three months now. Three months since I last slept with anyone. This job fucks with your libido. Gay Friend looks horrified.
"You don't even masturbate?"
I bury my head in my wine glass as Lucy laughs even harder.
Monday's fun. Mafia Joe comes in. I've been in the Champagne Room with his friend. And with him. He keeps trying to get me to go to Las Vegas with him. I've warned him he may change his mind if he ever sees me outside the club, minus the slut dress, stripper heels and dressed in baggy combats. Oddly, this does nothing to dampen his enthusiasm.
"Mimi, I can't understand it. You've travelled to over 45 countries on your own, but you don't feel comfortable enough to meet up with me alone for a drink outside the club?"
Go figure genius.
But Mafia Joe is good for keeping the Red Bulls flowing. On a quiet day, strippers resort to drinking excessively and laughing. By 7pm on Monday I was nicely tanked enough to fall off the stage onto my friend Lulu, who was liplocked with a cute Dominican guy. I had maybe 60 bucks from the entire day, which wasn't even enough to cover the house fee. Sometimes it happens. I'd given up on the money part, and was laughing with the DJ and Simi, and tormenting clients, who seem incapable of responding to the fact breasts and a vagina can also possess conversational skills and wield heavy sarcasm. Some Wall Street guys sit down. I wander over and start laying into them. They buy me a few drinks, and the dancers flock around them sniffing out cash. One of them makes me laugh. Then I'm called on stage, and they all disappear into the Champagne Room. A minute later the one who makes me laugh reappears and grabs me off stage to go in the back. And I spend two hours getting very drunk, acting like Mimi instead of Michelle, and having one of the best conversations I've had with anyone in New York. Poor Federico turns up at 8pm and waits for two hours, and when I eventually get out of the club at 10pm, we grab some food.
Sometimes there are moments which need to stay precisely as that - a fleeting beautiful moment with no follow up. On Saturday night it was perfect to kiss Federico on a yacht beneath the Statue of Liberty. And on Monday night it was perfect to sit in a darkened room with a Wall Street guy and laugh and laugh, and find something good, and real, something better than the average Pimping Pussies pervert. But it wasn't good to go from this, straight to Mafia Boy Fed and find he's a self-obsessed prick with a typical South American machismo chip on his shoulder. I knew it was doomed when we grabbed a cab to 34st and I started chatting to the cab driver from India. Federico turned to me in disgust.
"Don't talk to him."
"Why?"
"Because you're just doing the patronising little white girl act, trying to be kind to the third world brown person. You know you are."
I was actually talking to the third world brown person because I suffer from interminable verbal diarrea and love conversation, with anyone, and especially cab drivers, who are always good for weird and wonderful stories. But if Mafia Boy says I was being a patronising little white girl, well... obviously Mafia Boy must be right seeing as he's the poor, underprivileged Hispanic kid, and I'm the White Bitch Slut who takes her clothes off for a living.
Moment over. I wish it had stayed just that - a pure transient movie scene moment on Saturday instead of intruding into my Monday.
I received this in my inbox today. I asked permission from the guy who sent it to reprint, but he hasn't replied yet, and I have insomnia from the heat and too much writing, and I'm not a very patient person:
Have you ever had a ride on a roller coaster? Do you recall all the emotions you feel as you stand on line waiting to get on? How about as you sit in the seat waiting for the ride to start? Then the ride starts and you're scared shitless yet so excited all at the same time. Then it's over and your heart is beating so fast and half of you is ready to puke while the other half is ready to stand in line and do it all over again. You need a moment like that.
On the ride home I was thinking when we first met. You must have thought 'I'm leaving in an hour and these guys are going to buy me some drinks and I'm going to get a few dollars before the night shift comes in.' Then you found a sparring partner, sort of a mark, that perhaps you could banter with if not have a dance or two.
Meanwhile I'm tired as hell. I'm soaked from the rain. The guys that I'm with only need me there so they can expense the night. I'm planning my escape before I get in. Then worlds collide and here comes the Brit.
I had a wonderful evening. Somewhere in the three hours, at least for me, I forgot where I was and just enjoyed the company.
When I walked out and got into the car to go home I realized that my roller coaster ride was over.
One moment gives way to another. I guess I can answer your question now Gay Friend. Sometimes life is just perfect.
"So, what happens when you go in the Champagne Room with a guy you actually like?"
Lucy looks at me. I inadvertently inhale white wine through my nose and we both erupt. Lucy laughs like a jelly.
"Boy, c'mon! Whaddya think? It's fuckin' hot!"
I laugh too, but I don't know the answer to that question, not really. I always get stuck with the Francois' and the heavy breathers and the Mr Cum-in-their-Pants. Must be the pre-pubescent face stuck on top of hips which could have spawned Spain. I guess it could happen, I think idly. Although my head is too full of Federico and the disturbing aftertaste of bony-model butt to entertain the thought too seriously. Three months now. Three months since I last slept with anyone. This job fucks with your libido. Gay Friend looks horrified.
"You don't even masturbate?"
I bury my head in my wine glass as Lucy laughs even harder.
Monday's fun. Mafia Joe comes in. I've been in the Champagne Room with his friend. And with him. He keeps trying to get me to go to Las Vegas with him. I've warned him he may change his mind if he ever sees me outside the club, minus the slut dress, stripper heels and dressed in baggy combats. Oddly, this does nothing to dampen his enthusiasm.
"Mimi, I can't understand it. You've travelled to over 45 countries on your own, but you don't feel comfortable enough to meet up with me alone for a drink outside the club?"
Go figure genius.
But Mafia Joe is good for keeping the Red Bulls flowing. On a quiet day, strippers resort to drinking excessively and laughing. By 7pm on Monday I was nicely tanked enough to fall off the stage onto my friend Lulu, who was liplocked with a cute Dominican guy. I had maybe 60 bucks from the entire day, which wasn't even enough to cover the house fee. Sometimes it happens. I'd given up on the money part, and was laughing with the DJ and Simi, and tormenting clients, who seem incapable of responding to the fact breasts and a vagina can also possess conversational skills and wield heavy sarcasm. Some Wall Street guys sit down. I wander over and start laying into them. They buy me a few drinks, and the dancers flock around them sniffing out cash. One of them makes me laugh. Then I'm called on stage, and they all disappear into the Champagne Room. A minute later the one who makes me laugh reappears and grabs me off stage to go in the back. And I spend two hours getting very drunk, acting like Mimi instead of Michelle, and having one of the best conversations I've had with anyone in New York. Poor Federico turns up at 8pm and waits for two hours, and when I eventually get out of the club at 10pm, we grab some food.
Sometimes there are moments which need to stay precisely as that - a fleeting beautiful moment with no follow up. On Saturday night it was perfect to kiss Federico on a yacht beneath the Statue of Liberty. And on Monday night it was perfect to sit in a darkened room with a Wall Street guy and laugh and laugh, and find something good, and real, something better than the average Pimping Pussies pervert. But it wasn't good to go from this, straight to Mafia Boy Fed and find he's a self-obsessed prick with a typical South American machismo chip on his shoulder. I knew it was doomed when we grabbed a cab to 34st and I started chatting to the cab driver from India. Federico turned to me in disgust.
"Don't talk to him."
"Why?"
"Because you're just doing the patronising little white girl act, trying to be kind to the third world brown person. You know you are."
I was actually talking to the third world brown person because I suffer from interminable verbal diarrea and love conversation, with anyone, and especially cab drivers, who are always good for weird and wonderful stories. But if Mafia Boy says I was being a patronising little white girl, well... obviously Mafia Boy must be right seeing as he's the poor, underprivileged Hispanic kid, and I'm the White Bitch Slut who takes her clothes off for a living.
Moment over. I wish it had stayed just that - a pure transient movie scene moment on Saturday instead of intruding into my Monday.
I received this in my inbox today. I asked permission from the guy who sent it to reprint, but he hasn't replied yet, and I have insomnia from the heat and too much writing, and I'm not a very patient person:
Have you ever had a ride on a roller coaster? Do you recall all the emotions you feel as you stand on line waiting to get on? How about as you sit in the seat waiting for the ride to start? Then the ride starts and you're scared shitless yet so excited all at the same time. Then it's over and your heart is beating so fast and half of you is ready to puke while the other half is ready to stand in line and do it all over again. You need a moment like that.
On the ride home I was thinking when we first met. You must have thought 'I'm leaving in an hour and these guys are going to buy me some drinks and I'm going to get a few dollars before the night shift comes in.' Then you found a sparring partner, sort of a mark, that perhaps you could banter with if not have a dance or two.
Meanwhile I'm tired as hell. I'm soaked from the rain. The guys that I'm with only need me there so they can expense the night. I'm planning my escape before I get in. Then worlds collide and here comes the Brit.
I had a wonderful evening. Somewhere in the three hours, at least for me, I forgot where I was and just enjoyed the company.
When I walked out and got into the car to go home I realized that my roller coaster ride was over.
One moment gives way to another. I guess I can answer your question now Gay Friend. Sometimes life is just perfect.
MIMI IN NY | 3:41 AM |
