Previously: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
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[Explicit content, obviously.]
VII.
Backstage in the Cheetah dressing room, the pulsing, greasy energy from the club was seeping through the walls. Nomi stood at the mirror, carefully applying her cheap false eyelashes.
Carmi, another dancer watched her, declaring “fancy fancy.”
“I like them, where did you get them?”
“Woolworth’s,” said Nomi. Carmi and Dee made a mental note to pick some up.
Nomi didn’t think the lashes made her look anything like Cristal. She took them off.
Carmi asked the girls, “do my tits look bigger to you?” cupping them and thrusting out her chest.
“Oh shit, Carmi thinks she’s pregnant again!” exclaimed Dee.
“You no period?” asked Nadia, the Russian.
“I don’t know, I don’t think so,” said Carmi.
“God Carmi, you don’t even know if you missed your own period?” Dee couldn’t believe it!
“Nomi, do they look bigger to you?” she asked Nomi. Nomi was a tit-whisperer. She would know.
“Maybe a little,” said nomi.
“They hurt,” said Carmi.
“That’s because they’re too damn big.” Wait so does that mean she was pregnant?
Nomi didn’t have time to think about it anymore because she felt the presence of Henrietta Bazoom who heaved herself through the door and hoisted herself on the nearest chair.
“Jesus fucking Christ it’s like a Japanese convention out there.”
“You’d better get your “little-weenie” jokes cranked up, Henry,” said Dee. Henrietta was known for her racist Japanese jokes. She went to Juliard for it.
“This thing isn’t working again,” sh saidm pressing her elbows against her sides, again and again.
Nomi slapped her on the back and POP! Her enormous breasts popped out of the top of her evening gown and in again, making a comical slide-whistle sound as they did.
“Okay?” said Nomi.
“I think I gotta oil the damn thing!” said Ms. Bazoom. “Do it again!”
Nomi did it again. Her breasts popped out again.
“Made in Japan,” groused Henrietta, and the irony was not lost on any of them.
The beaded curtains parted again, and Al , the owner, entered the dressing room, awash the sea of tits and dreams. He wasn’t alone: a leggy blonde followed him, with a pageboy haircut.
“Okay ladies, this here’s hope.” The others hooted and hollered. “Cut it out! Hope, this is Tiffany, Heather, Farah and Lea.”
“My name isn’t Hope,” said Hope. “My name’s Penny.” Oh gurl.
Al was annoyed, especially for this girl to defy him in a room of his employees and his mother. He thought of the best insult you could think of. “They want class, dumb-dumb. They don't want to fuck a Penny. They want to fuck a Tiffany or a Hope or a Heather. This is a class joint.”
And so, she was Penny. “You ever done a lap dance before?” Al asked her.
Penny had not given a lap dance before. Al helpfully explained, “You talk 'em into it. Fifty bucks a pop. You take 'em in the back. Touch and go -- they touch, they go. You touch 'em, but they can't touch you.”
“That’s good!” said Penny, relieved at how efficient Al’s business model was.
“If they come, it's okay. If they take it out and come on you, call the bouncer. Unless he gives you a big tip. If he gives you a big tip it's okay. You got it?”
Penny started to realize the life she was about to become. It was one thing reading about third wave feminism in her doctoral program, it was another thing having to do it to supplement her shitty adjunct salary.
Al turned to Nomi. “Where the fuck were you last night?”
Nomi, already prepared with her story: “I was having my period, Al. You don't want me to get blood all over the place, do you?” That was the Tuesday night theme, Nomi’s day off.
“I'm gettin' real tired of your shit, kid.”
Nomi wasn’t tired of giving him shit. In fact, giving him shit was her shit. Besides, this was a crappy whore’s den and I’m secretly better than all these guys.
Al remembered Penny (Hope) was there. “One more thing,” he told her. “If you wanna last longer than a week, you give me a blowjob. First I get you used to the money, then I make you swallow. “ He chuckled to himself and left, because he never missed his mother opening the show.
Penny looked mortified by the illegal, rampant sexual harassment. “Was he serious?” she asked Nomi.
Nomi was used to covering up truths. “No. He's all right….hey, you’ll be fine.”
Penny sobbed in her arms.
Nomi felt bad for Penny. She didn’t have the heat that Nomi had. She was just a stripper and a whore. Nomi was a dancer!
VIII.
Nothing was more Vegas, more garish, more bodily fluid drenched than the main floor Cheetah club. Out on the main floor, women gyrated, men leered music blared, alcohol flowed, cum dried. This was different from other strip clubs, however, because there was a fully produced show. Henrietta was the opening act.
She was doing her signature act. “You know the difference between Japanese women and Chinese women. The Japanese women say Nip-on-these –” she grabbed her breast, “and the Chinese women say Chow-on-chow” and grabbed her crotch. The crowd goes wild! And then the finisher- she flaps her arms and her boobs pop in and out. More laughter! Is there anything funnier than a fat woman trying to be sexually appealing?
“Pull your dress up!” yelled a devoted fan.
“Honey, you could never handle me. With all these wrinkles of fat -- -- you'd never even find the thing. I'd have to piss on you to give you a clue!” Henrietta learned early in life that you have to laugh at yourself before others do. But Henrietta did not learn how to leave on a high note. She kept going, bringing out all of her greatest hits.
“The farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell, I had a cherry once -But now it's shot to hell.” She meant her vagina. She always meant her vagina.
“Get off the stage!” someone yelled.
“You better shut your hole, mine's makin’ money!” The neoliberal shadow of doom was always on her shoulder. Now, the big finish….
“You know what you call that useless piece of skin around a twat? A woman.”
Missing the groundbreaking comedy, Cristal Connors and her lover Zach climb out of a limo, coked out of their gourds. With her are Phil Newkirk and two stereotypes of Japanese businessmen. Cristal is beside herself with glee for slumming with the gross strippers. They are led to a table and watched Nomi dance a pirouette around a pole and Penny spread eagle on the floor. The Japanese men say, “In America, everyone’s a gynecologist.” They decide to put that on a bumper sticker.
“See anything you like,” Cristal asked Zach.
“I like you,” he said, getting up the nerve to ask her to go steady. But she’s the most popular girl in the show!
“I’ll buy her for you,” she offered, referring to Nomi.
Nomi finished her dance and headed backstage, wiping herself off with the towel. Al told her, “What the hell you doin' in here? We got a bunch of spenders out there, put your nightie on.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself,” Henrietta said. He was an ungrateful son!
"I’ll kick your ass out of here,” he warned her.
“Tell him. Do yourself a favor!” Henrietta urged her.
Nomi was confused about the mixed messages. Nomi backed down. “Okay, I’ll put my nightie on.”
Nomi headed back out into the main room and approached the tables, urging them to buy a lap dance. “Hi, my name is Heather. Would you lie to have a private dance with me?” Even saying the words was hard.
“Can I suck your tits?” said the guy said.
“You can't touch me, but I can touch you. I'd really love to touch you.”
“I know where you can touch me,” the guy said. He meant his penis. The other guys at the table laugh.
Al interrupted them to tell Nomi that Cristal and Zack have requested a private dance with her. Taking a deep breath, she headed over to their table, pretending not to know them.
“Hi, my name's Heather, would you-”
Cristal reached out and grabs her hand. “Hi, Nomi. I like your nails.” And she really did.
Nomi pulled her hand away.
“We'd like you to have a private dance with both of us.”
“We don't do that. One at a time, no women.”
Cristal countered, “a hundred dollars.”
“I'm sorry, that's the rules.”
“Two hundred. You just do Zack and I'll watch.”
Nomi was speechless.
“Five hundred.”
Nomi was speechless.
"DONE!” Al says from behind her.
Nomi reluctantly leads Zack and Cristal to the back room.
But someone else is following them- James with his eyes. He had been watching the whole thing go down!
“Sit here,” Nomi told Zack, indicating she meant the couch.
Zach sat in the couch.
“I’ll change the music,” she said.
Nomi then changed the music.
“I think I'll sit here,” said Cristal, indicating a couch facing Zack.
Cristal sat.
“What's this about, Cris?” Zack wondered. Why would his bisexual girlfriend want to watch someone give him a lap dance?
Nomi gives him a lap dance. Except it is more of a crotch dance.
Meanwhile, James peeks in from behind the beaded curtain, with no expression.
“What are you doin' here, man?” asked a bouncer, unaware that men like to look at titties.
“Nothin'.” said James. But it was not, in fact, nothing.
“You want it, you pay for it,” said the bouncer. James did not want to pay for it.
“Thank you!” said Cristal, once Zack finally came in his pants. Nomi dismounted Zack, and now in the harsh light, looked like a very…naked. Except for the cloak of smugness in her eyes. Cristal opened her tiny purse and counts out five hundred-dollar bills for Nomi. Thank god she stopped at the ATM!
Nomi grabbed her nightie and sauntered out of the room, leaving Cristal and Zach to their afterglow.
“It was fun, wasn’t it?” Cristal asked him.
“You’re such a bitch,” he told her. That was his way of saying I love you.
“But you love me. Can you walk?” Sometimes Zac’s boner left his legs paralyzed. It was actually a serious condition they had been searching for a cure for years.
Back in the dressing room, Nomi gave Al his cut. “Hey, you oughta go out and celebrate.” For instance, his mother was taking him to Chuck E. Cheese later.
“We can go over to my place and smoke some dope,” said Dee.
“You still got that Thai stuff?” asked Carmi.
“Russia, end of day, salami and vodka. Here, marijuana. God bless America,” said Nadia, making a false equivalency.
“You wanna come?” Dee asked Nomi.
“Not me,” said Nomi, who was more into eating chips.
“Look at her,” she heard Al say as she left. “She pulls five hundred off a lap dance and she acts like somebody died.” But someone did die. Somewhere someone was always dying.
What is this? A semi-regular newsletter about being a culture studies graduate student. Do you like it? Great. Please share it widely.
What to look forward to:
Academia shenanigans
More Showgirls, the novelization
Recommendations of culture to consume at home
Possibly some fiction…?