Regrets
"Will you miss it?" he asks.
I look down. My hand is hot from the stage. It steams the glass up beneath my palm - wet, cold. The condensation is soothing.
"I dunno. I've never stayed with anything so long. Not since University. Maybe. It's a blessing and a curse doing this job, you know?"
He nods, smiles. He's going back to school. I've known him since January, the bar tender. He gives me free drinks. He put me in a cab when I was drunk and fell. I know his life inside out - his probation, his girlfriend problems, money worries. I still don't know his name. Whatever. The club's full of new girls tonight - Russians. I don't know them. They like me though. Pretend to. After six months I'm one of the 'oldest' girls here. Earn good money. That means the new ones like you. Ostensibly.
"I go. China."
He smiles. The little Chinese guy upstairs. Another one. He slips me a cigarette. Smiles again. Can't speak English. They're all going. The girls have gone. The House Mom. I'm left. And I'm going too.
"Will you miss it?" The clients ask. I just laugh, throw the fake hair around, feel it knotty and dry against my smooth skin, lean in close. The more I work the better I get. Now I'm good. Then I wasn't. Now I enjoy it. Now I'm in control. I drink just enough to anaesthetize myself, not enough to feel nothing. Enough to get up, do yoga for two hours, drink coffee with my friends, hang out in the East Village, go on dates, have a normal life. A normal life. It just happened. After 16 months it just happened, barely perceptible. Slipped in when I was feeling happy one day. Just stayed.
"You'll miss it?"
The yogis ask me the same question, I'm outside wrapped in someone's jacket, a scarf entwined around my legs to conceal my white thighs, tiny dress, plastic shoes, talking about romance. "You'll miss it though right? You enjoy it?'
And I walk back in, dance for school teacher and her husband, married for 18 months, desperate to dig into our world for a fee, buy into the illusion, get some kicks from the glitz and the tits and the asses in their face. She leans over as I dance for her husband, latches onto my mouth - wet, soft, desperately, impossibly unsexy.
He digs it though.
"It's good to find something you're good at it in life," she says, and looks at her husband as he eyes a pair of tits far bigger than hers. "We're in love," she explains, and his hand trickles down my ass. I know what you mean baby.
"You'll miss it?"
I'll miss my yogis, I'll miss my five hour asana classes, homework on impossible sanskrit philosophies, I'll miss the first friends I had in Manhattan, the people who made it work for me, who made me keep going, who gave me something more than I had for five years of travelling.
I'll miss the money.
"But you'll miss it," she says, and it's a statement, she wants to believe it, that we'll stay here, in this club, forever trapped in our polyester pieces of crap, fake hair, bodies toned and smooth and hairless. We'll stay here for eternity, ambitionless, timelessly trapped in a cock-grinding purgatory, far out of sight of their Manhattan, their normal life, their marriage - so stable they're here after 18 months, kissing a stripper on the floor, trying to find some spark, a marital aid without double A's or a listing on the back pages of the Village Voice.
As I leave, she's outside, crying onto a friend's shoulder as her husband gets one more dance. Yeah I'll miss it, I think, step in cab, slam door shut, back to the Lower East Side. Like a fucking hole in the head.
I look down. My hand is hot from the stage. It steams the glass up beneath my palm - wet, cold. The condensation is soothing.
"I dunno. I've never stayed with anything so long. Not since University. Maybe. It's a blessing and a curse doing this job, you know?"
He nods, smiles. He's going back to school. I've known him since January, the bar tender. He gives me free drinks. He put me in a cab when I was drunk and fell. I know his life inside out - his probation, his girlfriend problems, money worries. I still don't know his name. Whatever. The club's full of new girls tonight - Russians. I don't know them. They like me though. Pretend to. After six months I'm one of the 'oldest' girls here. Earn good money. That means the new ones like you. Ostensibly.
"I go. China."
He smiles. The little Chinese guy upstairs. Another one. He slips me a cigarette. Smiles again. Can't speak English. They're all going. The girls have gone. The House Mom. I'm left. And I'm going too.
"Will you miss it?" The clients ask. I just laugh, throw the fake hair around, feel it knotty and dry against my smooth skin, lean in close. The more I work the better I get. Now I'm good. Then I wasn't. Now I enjoy it. Now I'm in control. I drink just enough to anaesthetize myself, not enough to feel nothing. Enough to get up, do yoga for two hours, drink coffee with my friends, hang out in the East Village, go on dates, have a normal life. A normal life. It just happened. After 16 months it just happened, barely perceptible. Slipped in when I was feeling happy one day. Just stayed.
"You'll miss it?"
The yogis ask me the same question, I'm outside wrapped in someone's jacket, a scarf entwined around my legs to conceal my white thighs, tiny dress, plastic shoes, talking about romance. "You'll miss it though right? You enjoy it?'
And I walk back in, dance for school teacher and her husband, married for 18 months, desperate to dig into our world for a fee, buy into the illusion, get some kicks from the glitz and the tits and the asses in their face. She leans over as I dance for her husband, latches onto my mouth - wet, soft, desperately, impossibly unsexy.
He digs it though.
"It's good to find something you're good at it in life," she says, and looks at her husband as he eyes a pair of tits far bigger than hers. "We're in love," she explains, and his hand trickles down my ass. I know what you mean baby.
"You'll miss it?"
I'll miss my yogis, I'll miss my five hour asana classes, homework on impossible sanskrit philosophies, I'll miss the first friends I had in Manhattan, the people who made it work for me, who made me keep going, who gave me something more than I had for five years of travelling.
I'll miss the money.
"But you'll miss it," she says, and it's a statement, she wants to believe it, that we'll stay here, in this club, forever trapped in our polyester pieces of crap, fake hair, bodies toned and smooth and hairless. We'll stay here for eternity, ambitionless, timelessly trapped in a cock-grinding purgatory, far out of sight of their Manhattan, their normal life, their marriage - so stable they're here after 18 months, kissing a stripper on the floor, trying to find some spark, a marital aid without double A's or a listing on the back pages of the Village Voice.
As I leave, she's outside, crying onto a friend's shoulder as her husband gets one more dance. Yeah I'll miss it, I think, step in cab, slam door shut, back to the Lower East Side. Like a fucking hole in the head.
MIMI IN NY | 3:34 AM |
