McKenzie , a strip club story
McKenzie was what you’d call a spinner. Petite, long bleach blonde hair, straightened flat all the way to the ends. Whenever I straightened my hair like that my dancer-bestie Cassia would sigh in disappointment, grab the styling iron and add some curls to my pressed ends, “just looks so tacky otherwise” she would say. I liked tacky. I always thought it was so strange when strippers looked like they weren’t strippers but trophy wives dressed for a charity event. Like they weren’t bending over naked in backrooms but bidding on antiques. Fake diamonds, long gowns. Gala but make it slutty? I have always preferred strippers that look like strippers. Bleached, minidress, porn on plateaued heels, no disguise! Like McKenzie.
She was sitting next to me on the corner lounge facing one of the club’s many television screens that usually showed sports. Baseball and Boobs, Sex and Scores, an alliance of masculinities or whatever to bring in the boys and their wallets.
Usually, McKenzie wasn’t the chatty type, not in the dressing room anyway. I don’t think I ever even noticed her before. Maybe she was new. Or maybe she wasn’t new but was always just busy doing business, as opposed to me, who so easily gets sidetracked by pleasure and story.
I love money, who doesn’t, but do I love it more than story? I’m not sure. I have created a life where money and story go hand in hand. One equals the other and it’s hard to say what came first.
McKenzie’s priorities were much clearer. She came to cash in.
But today was a Monday night and still early which meant no guests yet which meant no money to miss out on which meant time to breathe. Calm before the storm. So here we were, McKenzie and I, vegged out on the plushy velvet, heels off, tummies not in and chatting; eyes glued to the TV that showed porn. Pre-game programming.
It was shitty porn, we agreed. We didn’t like the performers. We thought they were ugly. “Man, I am so glad I’m hot,” McKenzie said, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Can you imagine being ugly like that?!” I could not. But I also could not imagine being tall or being very very old. Imagination only takes you so far. At the end of the day, we will only ever fully know the experience of what is.
McKenzie went on: “Like, my brother for example, he’s so ugly! Like, he’s got really bad skin and all”. She looked slightly disgusted and I could tell the possibility of non-beauty was a serious concern. Ugliness really did upset her. “I would make fun of him all the time,” she said, “just being an asshole-sister basically, and my mum would yell at me, like Young lady you just wait and see! Karma is a bitch! Let’s see what puberty does to YOU! So of course I got like super scared and stopped teasing him and I guess that was smart because look!”, she pointed at herself, “puberty did THIS, haha!”
“Seriously though”, she stopped laughing, “I’m just so glad, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be ugly! I mean I couldn’t be doing this! I’d have to go to college or something!!!” The thought of being limited to intellectual career options visibly frightened her and we both agreed we were very lucky indeed. Being hot was a blessing.
The waiter served the drink I had ordered and asked McKenzie if she wanted one too to which she said no, “I don’t really drink at work, fucks up my game”.
The next shift I didn’t see McKenzie at the club and the shift after I didn’t either. Girls come and they go some of them stay others don’t. They disappear. They return. Sometimes, and sometimes never. It’s a transient world, a lone wolf’s hunting ground, a carnival of elusiveness!
I love it so.
A few weeks later I ran into McKenzie at the bar, or she ran into me, where I was talking to one of my regulars. She was drunk or high or both and grabbed me, leaning in for what I assumed was supposed to be a sexy kiss. She held on to me hard, her dress almost slipping off her shoulders, then slid her body down mine to get onto her knees to do I don’t know what. I held her up, trying to keep her from falling or worse and brought her backstage to take a break.
i was at a birthday reception once. It was a fancy reception, fancy people, German upper class. Somebody presented a horse as a gift to the hostess. There was a dance floor and on it was a drunk woman and a big dog that jumped around the woman, excited and wild until the woman stumbled and fell onto the floor with the dog on top of her. The dog licked her, licked her face, licked her body. The woman didn’t mind, the woman smiled, the woman closed her eyes. People started gathering, staring. I went in, pulled the woman off the floor and out of the crowd. Watching a person involuntarily humiliate themselves is a sensation I was never able to endure.
McKenzie was back the next night and as sober and sharp as ever. She didn’t seem to remember the previous night or she pretended she didn’t and I did the same. We talked about travelling, renting airbnbs. “I travel alone,” she said, “I don’t like to be around people too much. I prefer to keep to myself”. I nodded, “totally, yeah, I’m the same," I said. Was I though? There was strange familiarity in her words but up until this moment I didn’t know you were allowed to be a person who preferred to stick to themselves, even tell people about it.
The last time I hung out with McKenzie was in the VIP room with two customers. Although we didn’t really hang out, we worked. She was fucking a client on one side of the lounge while I did the same on the opposite side. Miami strip clubs! Shady, sleazy, anything goes. Beautifully bad, I miss it much. McKenzie’s silhouette moved quickly up and down, her tiny boobs bouncing as tiny boobs do. Everything about her was so quick, quick, next! McKenzie didn’t look at me during her performance and why would she. She was a hustler a business woman not here to make friends but bank! She preferred to keep to herself.