Ava Adore

Shift: 10.15.10, 6pm-2am.

This was a really fucking intense shift. Long report.

So much happened. So much surprised me and concerned me and taught me new things. Like why guys consistently try to solicit sex work from dancers. And that Tr. can actually be pretty nice. And that sometimes the things you want destroy you. And that if they want you bad enough, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.

One by one…

I sat with two gentlemen, Keith (not the possessive one) and his friend. They look like two circus guys I can’t remember the names of. Keith tipped me very heavily and we spent about two hours bullshitting. He was very frank and, despite being good humoured, he said flat out: If you’re not giving me a blow job, I don’t want a dance.

I was taken aback by his honesty and his frankness and recognized this as a point of opportunity for learning, since he didn’t want me to leave, despite him dubbing me ‘Snow White’ for my modesty (Good thing he didn’t know about my costume?). So I asked him, in a non-jackass tone for once, ‘Why don’t you just get a prostitute?’

He said, ‘Because you don’t know what you’re going to get. Here, I can see a girl, talk to a girl, choose a girl—I don’t have to commit until I know what I’m committing to. Also, unless you’re raided, it’s less dangerous for me.’ My club doesn’t get raided—we’re very clean, one of the cleanest in my area.

This was an interesting revelation to me, not being an actual sex-worker, as in, one who sells the act of sex. I admittedly don’t know much about prostitution beyond what I’m told by working girls, and of those I don’t know many. It hadn’t occurred to me that the illegality goes both ways. 

It hadn’t occurred to me that it wasn’t like magazine shopping, like the escort websites I’ve seen in high profile political scandals—or that even if it is, photos lie, and we’re flesh and blood proof of who we are, right in front of you. What you see is what you get.

This doesn’t make me condone extras at a club at all, but it helps me understand. It’s still not part of my bloody job description and that’s my personal choice. That’s a kicker I always love to hear: ‘It’s just the club rules, you can bend the rules, we can hide it.’ No, fucker, it’s MY rules. My body, my rules.

Speaking about bodies and rules, I had a heartbreaking locker room moment with one of the dancers, a darling girl crying over her latest miscarriage. It was devastating, absolutely fucking devastating. She wants a child so badly and watching her work through that guilt, that shame, that helplessness yet again… I don’t have words for it.

I wasn’t there through her prior ones, but the scene was enough.

And the reactions were a study in itself. Her friend sent us to watch out for her, out of concern—not realizing she didn’t want the extra attention. It caused some to talk of God, some to talk of men, and some to tell her there’s more to life than children. All things this poor girl did not need to hear right then.

What do you tell a 19 year old woman then, when what she wants most in life, to be a mother, is consistently denied to her? What answer can you give that doesn’t invalidate her experience, her life, her desires in that moment? There isn’t one. There’s only solace in dingy lights against mauve lockers, too shaken to stand.

I danced a lot that night and the people were tipping well at the stage; I made a good third of my money that night on stage tips, which always pleases me. I was supposed to be out at midnight (trying to take care of myself a little with the internal bleeding thing, you know, don’t need to do that again) but a chain of events kept me until 2.

First a dancer wanted me to do a 2 hour private with her and a party of VIP-room clients, but she was drunk and misunderstood them; they were turned off by her pushiness, and reading that, I left them and sat with a sweet kid who had his first time in a strip club; we danced once.

The VIP gents took a liking to me and invited me into the champagne room with them, dancing for each once. I ate their food and went for one last stage set, where Tr. did a sweet thing and complimented my dancing and recommended me to her customer’s friend; we did a lapdance for them, she was really funny.

It was the kid’s 21st, her client, and his first time in a strip club. She kept joking saying, ‘It’s my first dance, oh it’s my first dance too! I hope I’m not doing a bad job!’ as she did all this ridiculously acrobatic shit I wouldn’t even dream of attempting on some guy’s lap.

I was laughing so hard, as was my client, that half our dance wasn’t really dancing. Just laughing. After that it was so very definitely time for me to leave, I didn’t want to push myself past 2, so I got changed—only the duo of 21st birthday boys caught me, bags in hand.

21st Birthday was like, ‘Oh, you’re changed?! I wanted a dance from you!’ and I said I was very sorry, but my shift was over two hours ago and I was already changed. He was disappointed, but his friend/my client said, ‘Fuck it, I’ll take you in jeans.’

And that is how I did my first lapdance in just street clothes and Etnies.

I wore a smattering of things but I always seem to wind up in Punk Rock Princess V2.0. Before that it was ‘Baby Firefly,’ which is a white halter, white thong, and jeans, and the new pink-fishnet-unnamed-Limewire-esque thing. Thing needs a freaking name.

I’m trying to own my small breasts, actually; I thought I need cleavage to sell, but I mentally know that’s horse shit, so I’m challenging myself to wear outfits that don’t require bras more. Other goals include getting my 6 pack back (I have 4!) and doing a split—and a few more tricks.

Douchebag Count: 0
$hift Grades: A