Stripping was logical for me. One fall day last year I just bought some cheap high heels and a bra-and-panties set from the discount rack at the lingerie outlet and showed up at my first club. I didn't get coerced into it, there was no moral dilemma, no lying awake at night being tormented by my downfall. It was, in a way, unavoidable.
Montreal's clubs line Ste-Catherine Street in the touristy shopping district, mixed in with the high-end boutiques and fancy department stores, cinemas and restaurants. You walk down the street in the middle of the day and there are their blinking neons, lit photos of blond pinup girls beckoning to you: a strip club next door to a maternity clothes store, a massage parlor sandwiched between a Forever XXI and a smoked-meat place, a seedy sex shop next to a five-star hotel or a student residence, and no one bats an eyelash. I passed three strip clubs every day, on the way from the shitty dorm I shared with two other people. I could see the blinking neon legs from the windows of one of my classrooms, going up and down, up and down, ticking away the seconds like a metronome.
But somehow other girls managed to escape the pull of it, to keep walking right past it without their eyes straying from the sidewalk, their minds focused on the day ahead, on their classes, their assignments, their deadlines. And me—I slipped right in like I belonged there.
Maybe my mom was right, maybe everyone in my class was right—there always has been something about me. I was born missing some crucial lobe in my twisty, unknowable artist's brain.
Maybe this missing lobe is what allows me to erase every night from my mind as soon as the clock strikes three, obliterating the faces and names and cologne smells with laser-guided precision.
It's not till one AM that the place starts to fill up. By now I'm lethargic, my motivation evaporated. I sit at the table in the back of the club, the one no one wants because it's too far from the stage, and flip open the mini sketchbook I always carry with me. I tap my stub of a pencil—too short to use in class, but just perfect to fit in my tiny work purse—on the blank page. Nothing comes. I'm so used to it. There was a time when my head was teeming with images, pictures, swirls of rich color and pattern. With ideas just begging to be put down onto paper in generous strokes. Lately my head is just empty.
I draw two vertical lines, close together, through the center of the page. A pole. Against it, I sketch the mere outline of a silhouette, a girl leaning on it, back arched to the extreme, head thrown back, her hair brushing her lower back. I start on the details of her face when someone calls my name.
My head snaps up and, by sheer instinct, I snap the sketchbook closed, just like back home when I'd get caught drawing in the middle of algebra or history. But it's just Maryse, another girl from the club.
"Hey! Sky. There's these guy in the last booth to the right, he said he wanted two girls. Wanna go?"
There's two hours left in the night, and I made zero dollars beyond what I need to take the $15 cab ride back to the loft. Oh yeah, and the first of the month is tomorrow. Doesn't look like I have a choice. So I put away the sketchbook, get up and follow Maryse.
Of the booths across from the stage, only two are occupied, and Maryse leads me directly to the last one where four guys are sitting on the tacky red faux-leather U-shaped couch. A bucket of ice on the low table houses a bottle of champagne: the Dom Perignon. I know all the items on the price list by heart: it's $800. Maybe the night isn't going to be a total loss.
"This is my friend, Sky," Maryse announces, leaning forward as she climbs onto the seat next to a guy with cropped grey hair and glasses. She curls up like a cat, with her legs tucked under her, displaying her curvy-in-the-right-places figure at a flattering angle. It's the glasses guy who has the money here, this much is obvious.
He regards me with a look I learned to recognize: slight disappointment. I'm not what he had in mind. He wanted another girl like Maryse, a bleach-blonde with a tan and something to hold on to. But for whatever reason, he opts out of brutal honesty.
"Sky," he says. "That's nice. Where are you from?"
"From here," I say, trying not to show my discouragement. Another question everyone's obsessed with: where are you from? No, I mean where were you born, what's your ethnicity? And they refuse to give up until you've given them an answer that goes with their vision of you—with the little fantasy they've built inside their heads.
Ideally, if the guy is from out of town, or from the States—they want a local, one of Montreal's notorious "hot French chicks." The locals, they want something exotic.
I hate the word exotic. I'm about as exotic as a strawberry pop tart. And apparently small-town Minnesota just isn't sexy, however you spin it. They start to wonder if you're some wayward little cousin of someone they know. Which kinda ruins the fantasy.
So I say I'm German, Dutch, Eastern European—whatever comes to mind, and whatever I think I can get away with.
But right now, I'm just not in the mood for all the dumb questions that follow. Did you come here to strip? Were you trafficked? Do you like it here? So for now, I'm a Montrealer born and raised.
"Those are nice tattoos." He goes to grab for my arm and I dodge him. A no-no. I'm supposed to let him examine my tattoos in detail while he takes the opportunity to discreetly fondle my shoulder, run his fingers over my back, my hip. I expect to be asked to come back later any second now, but instead he reaches for the wallet at his side.
"Listen, I don't want a dance right now," he drawls. Here we go. "But I want you to take care of my friend right here. Her name is Elizabeth, and she just moved back to town after five years living in freaking Abitibi, so we gotta give her a warm welcome, all right?"
I turn: the girl he's talking about is sitting at the other end of the U-shaped couch, on the very edge, her hands on her knees. She seems young, the youngest in the group. She doesn't look like she even wants to be here, much less like she wants a dance.
Grey-haired guy hands me a $100 bill. "Take good care of her, okay?"
I feel a shiver of discomfort as I take the bill and tuck it away into my purse. I don't like dancing for someone who's not into it. It's just awkward as hell. Most of the time, though, it's some guy with his girlfriend who pretends to be cool with it but clearly isn't, or some unlucky bachelor who's just trying not to throw up after his 20th shot of tequila. Usually if you pay someone to sit on your lap in a G-string, it's because you like it.
Still. I'm not in the position to turn down money.
I move, taking tiny steps in my heels, until I'm facing the girl. Up close, I realize she's probably in her early thirties. Her hair is long and dark, and messy, but I'm not sure if it's on purpose or she just didn't bother. She's cute. She has one of those model-girl faces, with the cheekbones, a big eye, the hint of a cleft in her chin. Her eyes are her most striking feature—deep and slanted so they're sad-looking, probably even when she isn't sad, and fringed with lush, dark lashes.
She tenses as I lean over her, gazes up, and the edge of a tattoo peeks above the collar of her black button-down: the swirling, broad strokes of a dark vine with sharp spikes of leaves. I look her over: her fingers start to tap nervously on her thighs, and she has some kind of letters tattooed on her knuckles. I normally hate knuckle tattoos, but I'm not repulsed, just curious. It's too dark to make out what the letters say, and the angle is wrong.
Suddenly I'm overcome with the kind of girly awkwardness I usually leave at the door when I come to work. My character slips, and I become plain old Alaska Snow again, who can't even muster the courage to talk to a person she likes.
"You're coming with me," I say. My sexy voice fails, but the music is loud enough to disguise it.
She gazes up at me with a mournful look in those sad eyes. "Oh. No, thank you. I don't want a dance."
"Come on. Your friend is buying, you know how lucky you are?"
"Thank you," she repeats. She lowers her gaze, staring straight ahead—avoiding me on purpose. "But not for me. Dance for him."
The grey-haired guy leans over.
"What's the matter here?"
"I don't think your friend is into it," I say. My smile never felt more fake. There's nothing more humiliating than having to give back money in public. "Maybe you should come with me instead."
"No freaking way," he says with a laugh. "Take her. We're here for her, and she's going to enjoy herself even if I have to tie her down. So don't listen, just grab her and..."
The girl sighs and leans toward her friend, saying a few quick words in French. Grey Hair replies, and I can't make out a single word. Grey Hair claps the girl—Elizabeth?—on the shoulder, says something encouraging.
Elizabeth leans back with a resigned look on her face. "All right. We'll go. Just because he insists."
She starts to get up, and a feeling of unease fills my chest. The reluctant ones tend to be the worst. One minute they're moaning about how they respect women too much, and the next they're trying to grope between your legs and asking how much for a full-service.
But I lead her to the private booths in the back anyway, and she follows. The booths are almost all empty: the other girls aren't having any better luck than me tonight. I pick the last one, where the lighting is soft enough so I don't feel self-conscious.
She takes a seat in the red fake-leather armchair that looks like something from an as-is sale at IKEA, and I let the curtain swing closed. Now it's just us.
"Sorry," she mutters. "I usually don't do this. You can just go. It's okay, for the money, I mean."
My cheeks warm. Part of me just wants to take the money and run, the old stripper reflex. But another part of me, I have no idea why, says, "No."
The song begins—Where Is My Mind, by The Pixies. And I start to move.
She watches me, a sober, reflective look in her eyes. I straddle her, my knees on the couch on either side of her, and lean in closer—so close I hear her sharp intake of breath. I meet her gaze, but I can't tell what color her eyes are—one moment they look light, blue or grey, the next dark and impenetrable.
I lean back a little, just enough to see all of her, how her hands tighten their grip on her thighs, fingers digging into her dress.
My gaze never wavers from her as I run my hands over my body, palms grazing my breasts through the skimpy fabric of my gold tank top, down my stomach, my sides, my hips. And she can't look away.
I don't break the eye contact, even as I pull the tank top over my head and let it drop gently into her lap with a flick of my wrist. This is usually where they melt: the slack look comes over their faces, their gaze drops, their breath quickens, their pupils dilate like they just did a pound of coke, and I know they're mine.
But her gaze doesn't waver. I see her throat move as she swallows, the tendons in her jaw tense, but she looks me right in the eye the whole time. I sway, like a cobra before a snake charmer, except in reverse, I'm the snake charming her. Reaching out, I softly run my hand along the seam of her dress on the outside of her thigh. This gets them every time.
She doesn't stir.
I flip back my hair, lean on my arms and lower myself, closer and closer to her face until I can feel her breath tickling my skin.Her nostrils flare, but she still won't move.
Frustrated, I stand up straight, and at this moment her hands shoot up and catch mine, startling me and knocking me off-balance for a second. I feel her grip tighten in the moment before I regain my footing: she's strong. Really strong.
And that's when I glimpse what it says on the knuckles of her right hand: C-H-O-I-X.
My gaze darts to her right hand, but that's when the song abruptly cuts off. The moment tears like gossamer. And then it's just me, in nothing but a lacy thong with a $100 tucked into it, and some random girl who has both my hands in a vise grip.
We face each other for just a heartbeat. Then she lets go, as if embarrassed, and drops her hands back onto her lap.
"Calisse," she murmurs. "This wasn't a good idea. I didn't mean to behave inappropriately."
"It's just my hands," I say. "You're allowed to touch my hands."
"I don't know how it works here. Some places you're allowed to touch everything..."
Here we go, I think. Part of me is crushingly disappointed. The next song starts, some cheesy pop ballad.
"That's not on the menu," I say coldly.
"God," she gives a nervous laugh. "I don't even want the menu. No offense."
"Why did you go, then?" I ask. Color creeps over my face, and I'm glad it's too dark to tell. "You could have told your friend no."
I'm relieved she's not going to pester me for extras, sure. But at the same time, I'm a bit vexed. What, she doesn't want to touch me—not even a little bit?
I realize how fucked up this is, and mentally kick myself.
"He's one of my old Montreal friends. He used to be my boss," she explains. "And he's so determined that I have fun, I didn't want to disappoint him. That, and I figured you could use the money."
I put my hands on my hips. "There are plenty of people in this club right now who actually want a dance from me."
She looks up and quirks just one eyebrow. "Really?"
I must turn redder than the neon lights under the ceiling.
"Okay. So it's a slower night. It's a Sunday, for God's sake."
"Of course. And you're absolutely beautiful. I'm sure you make lots of money on the busy nights."
"You don't have to give me fake compliments, you know."
"I mean it. Just because I don't want a dance doesn't mean I don't think you're pretty." She smiles. I realize it's the first time she's actually smiled, and it changes her whole face. That brooding, sad-puppy look vanishes. She actually has a dimple. Just one dimple, on her left cheek.
"That's nice, but if you think flattery will get you somewhere—"
"I don't want to get anywhere, remember?" The smile widens. I'm stricken with a feeling she's laughing at me, not with me. "We'll just sit out the half-hour or whatever he paid you for, I'll tell him you gave me the time of my life, you leave with the money, and everyone is happy. And in the meantime, we can just chat like normal people."
"When normal people chat, one of them isn't undressed down to her panties," I point out.
She chuckles. "All right then. Put your shirt back on." She holds up my once-gold top. "If you can call this a shirt."
"Hey," I say, snatching my top out of her hand. "We're not in church here."
I turn around and start putting the gold top back on.
"What's your tattoo?" she asks. "On your side."
I pause, the top halfway over my head, and roll my eyes. So much for put your shirt back on, huh. I pull it back up and turn sideways so she can examine my latest tattoo, still unfinished.
"Is it an angel?" she asks. She leans in closer to see, and somehow it doesn't seem like a ploy to cop a feel. So I let her. Her fingertips linger a quarter of an inch above my skin, and for a second I wonder if I was wrong—but she catches herself and pulls her hand away. Like she'd almost touched a flame. "No," she says. "The wings are her shadow, right? It's a swan. A girl with the shadow of a swan."
I run my hand over my tattoo, self-conscious. "It's not finished," I say, stating the obvious.
"She's turning into a swan?" she asks softly. "Is it Swan Lake?"
I'm impressed she even knows Swan Lake. But that's not it. Usually though, I feed everyone the same lie every time: it's an ugly duckling thing, she grew up into a beautiful swan. Then they can say, I can't imagine you were ever an ugly duckling! And then they can feel good about themselves.
I don't know why, but I tell her the truth. "It's Leda," I say.
"Leda? Greek mythology?"
"Yeah. The woman who turned down Zeus, so he turned into a swan and raped her."
The words resonate, strange and dark and out of place, like a slap.
"You don't have to answer," she says, "but why did you decide to get it?"
"You're right. I don't have to answer."
She gives a solemn nod, and doesn't press on.
"It's for a poem," I blurt. And immediately kick myself. What is this, weekly confession? Is she going to tell me to do twenty Hail Marys for my sins?
"A poem?"
"A Margaret Atwood poem. She wrote a poem called Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing. Ever read it?"
She shakes her head no. "Helen of Troy was Leda's daughter, though, right? By Zeus."
"It's about a stripper."
That sobers her up. "Margaret Atwood wrote a poem about a stripper?"
"Google it if you don't believe me."
"I believe you." Her gaze meets mine, and suddenly I realize I never did put my shirt back on. Hastily, I pull it over my head.
When I pull the shirt down and can see again, she's shaking her head. "You seem different... what did you say your name was?"
"Sky." I never did tell her my name.
"You seem like a smart girl, Sky."
"Please," I say, rolling my eyes. "Don't ask me what a smart girl like me is doing here."
"I wasn't going to. We all have our reasons for doing what we do, and yours are none of my business."
I groan. "God, will you stop?"
"Stop what?"
"Stop that. And act like a normal customer. Go on, ask me what my real name is, whether you can take me out to dinner. Ask me if my parents know what I do. Try to cop a feel when I'm sitting on your lap."
"I thought I said I wasn't interested."
"Oh, please! You know how many people say that? Until the curtain's drawn, that is, and then they turn into an octopus."
She starts to laugh. It's so clear and genuine that I find myself cracking up too. "And you're funny. Damn, you'd be a real catch, if only—"
She cuts herself off. The laughter dies in my throat.
"If only what?" I find myself saying. My voice is hoarse.
"Nothing. Sorry. How much time do we have left?" She's avoiding my gaze. That feeble connection between us has snapped, blown away in the wind like a silvery thread of spiderweb.
"We're done," I say. We still have about seven minutes left. But I mean it. We're done.
If only what? If only she met me somewhere else? I've heard that one before, and all it did was crack me up. Then why do I stand here feeling like she just stabbed me under the ribs?
She practically leaps up from the armchair. "Thank you... Sky. Thank you. It was lovely."
She gives me an awkward Quebecois air kiss on both sides, at a respectful foot of distance. And then she pushes aside the curtain and bolts from the booth without a backward glance, leaving me there in my tacky gold outfit, with a sucking black hole of confusion and emptiness slowly expanding in my chest.