I Love The Way You Look At Me

Hello darlings. I am continuing with my little bit of blogging on topics you give me.

Spinsterwitch asked me what made me want to work in a strip club and what I thought of it.
First, I should correct you Spinny. I never worked in a strip club. I worked in a gay club in my town. I was not a ‘stripper’ but a ‘gogo dancer’. Some may say there is little distinction, but whatever gets you by, right? Suffice to say I never, in the time I worked there, took off my top or my bottoms. I was never naked. I was never even half naked..

So - to the story of how I became a gogo dancer.

The club I worked at was [is] the most prominent gay club in my city, and likely one of the most prominent in my state. It was not a strictly male or female club. It allowed patrons of age 18 or older. When I was not working or in college I would run off to this club. In part because I was excited to be ‘out’ and I loved the atmosphere. In part because it was helping me to overcome my shyness. Believe it or not, I spent the first few months I went to this club hiding in a corner with a soda watching people.

Eventually I came out of my shell [left school, for reasons I don’t feel like discussing at this point, although it wasn’t because I was failing] and got an apartment with Preacher Man, whom I was still on speaking terms with. He has come out as well, and it turned out there were several gay men who lived in the townhouse next to us. Eventually the group of us began going out most nights.

When they didn’t go I went alone, and it was on some of these nights I began to make friends of my own that I happened to like a little better than them. I watched the drag shows and became a familiar face. I was a good tipper and became friendly with most of the queens, who even if they didn’t call me friend certainly called me a fond acquaintance.

I am also, as I have mentioned before, a remarkable dancer. I grew up classically trained, and in the hands of gay men it didn’t take me long to become one of the more prominent dancers at the weekend dance parties. Even at the club, long before I was working as a dancer, on dance nights I was being tipped by patrons who enjoyed watching me dance. It was my dancing, I think, that caught Diva’s eye.

After my dalliance with Diva I think just about everyone who worked at the club knew me, and thankfully possessed no ill will over the fact that I was able to get Diva into bed when so many of them had failed at it. Diva invited me out one night to the "gogo" night, a new feature they had on a few different week nights. It was formatted so you would dance on the stage as a patron, but there were also "gogo" dancers preforming on elevated platforms surrounding the stage. Every now and again they would preform to a song on their own and everyone watched. A lot of fun.

The first night I went Diva got a phone call and had to leave [he had a day job as a security officer for a large corporation in my area] and I was left to my own devices. Suffice to say I was a little nervous. I did not know this particular night’s group of patrons, and all of the dancers were male, so I was only mildly interested in them, and only because there were a couple who were good dancers.

During one of the breaks the host spotted me and pulled me up on stage because ‘she’ knew me through Diva, who was her roommate. She also knew my dancing. Through no small amount of intimidation through the microphone and catcalls from an interested crowd she pulled me onto one of the platforms and tried to get me to dance. I shook my head ‘no’ but before I could get away she had the DJ playing one of my favorite songs, and she was poking at me to dance. She whispered up I didn’t have to take off my clothes, and after that I figured why not?
I danced for 20 minutes. I made nearly $200. After the evening was over, as I was leaving, the manager of the bar told me the owner had instructed him to hire me as a dancer, whatever my price. I negotiated free entrance to the club, free drinks and a base pay into the works and I was an employee that night.

As far as what I thought of it, there isn’t much to say. I made a lot of money. More than most of the men. I was the only female, so I was doted on heavily, which I loved. I became a bit of a mini celebrity, which I loved. Of course, it took as while because I wore a lot of wigs and when I went out a made an effort not to look like "Alecya" but myself so no one would bug me. When that didn’t work I became Alecya all the time and I had a lot of fun. I also started preforming in some of the other shows singing [yes, I do sing] and I worked with some of the drag performers as a contract dancer for shows when they were in pageants or on the road, and I also dressed them, which taught me a lot of the makeup, breast binding/enhancing, leg shaving tips that make me such a lovely woman when I get all dressed up.

I was never admired by many women, but made most of my money from gay men who liked my dancing or had other reasons for liking me [which I sometimes couldn’t fathom]. I was very thin, and very pretty I think, at the time.

This was also the time I started doing drugs. They were free, another perk to working in a prominent club, because people who knew me wanted them too, so the people who provided me with them made plenty of money off of people who knew I could point them in the direction of whatever they wanted. Of course, the non-stop parade of nose candy had two major effects on me. One, I was ridiculously confident, almost unbearable to people who didn’t like me, but it made me generous to the point of excess with people I did like. This made me a lot of temporary friends and garnered me access to a lot of places in the club, and in other gay clubs and parties, etc. about town, that I wouldn’t have otherwise because I was a lesbian and there are far more gay males on the club circuit. It also destroyed my nasal cavity. Which is the one drawback I can think of for the whole experience.

I never had a lot of problems as a dancer. There are only two incidents that come to mind immediately. The first is one night when a strait couple came in and were looking for a partner for sex afterwards. I indicated to them I wasn’t interested, despite the heavy tipping, and their coaxing. The gentleman [and I use that term loosely] made to grab at me and when I moved away called me a name I am too much a lady to repeat. He moved away as the bouncer came over, but tried again later in the evening. I lost my temper and grabbed him by the elbow and took him to the door of the club myself, tossing him into the street with what was likely a little more force than needed, and then sent the bouncer out to him as I sent the manager to get his wife, and their names, so they would not be allowed back in the club. I did, however, make a bit of money that night from guys who thought the sight of me in high heels and my underwear forcefully ejecting a male from the club was amusing.

The other incident came from a woman, believe it or not. She was drunk, and had stumbled in with her buddies from a college bar next door known well for its "meat market" atmosphere and high rate of Fraternity/Sorority attendees. She was dressed, as usual for that club, in clothes that were to small, too short and too revealing. There’s sensuality with taste, and then there’s looking like a whore. This poor girl got it all wrong. She and her friends settled near my platform, and she began to loudly protest she was better looking and a better dancer than I. She stumbled onto the dance floor and kept making to get onto my platform. I gently pushed her away a few times, the law in my state requires that patrons are not allowed to be on the platform with a dancer. She became mouthier, and drew the attention of most of the patrons.

I’ll pause to say, for the most part, I am a lady. Regardless of my personal preferences in the bedroom, regardless of my orientations, regardless of my profession at the time, I prided myself on acting like a lady. I treated the patrons well. I used clean language. I always minded my manners in front of customers - never mouthing off, never insulting. It is not only necessary for that profession if you want to be more than a dancer, as I was, but important to me.
I was not a lady that night.

The kind thing to do would have been to have her bounced, had them call her a cab, and send her away alone. That would have been the ladylike thing to do. She caught me on the wrong night. I won’t make excuses, but I will say it had been a bad day, I was on speed and completely overconfident, and was sick to death of the morons that had been stumbling in and out of the club that evening from the bar next door. The other women were mildly belligerent. A few sneered at me. I expected that, its part of the job. I got it from lesbians too. I didn’t mind that too much. But for someone to invade my space and insult me, that was too much.

I signaled the bartender to send her a shot, smiled at her friends, and stalked off to the bar to sit with a few my regular patrons who were grinning like sharks. They knew what would happen. I was quite popular, and this strait girl had crossed the line. The host set her on my platform, gave her the shot, compliments of me, and told her I was offering her my job. They played my signature song, and she was hissed off the stage. There was no question it would happen, there had been a few of the male dancers who had the same problem with other men who had auditioned and not been given a job. Only after she was done did the bar pay her a cab home, and left her friends to figure out what to do. I went back to dancing, the girl left in drunken tears. I was cruel, I know.

And maybe a little passive aggressive.

Other than that, I really enjoyed it. I miss it from time to time. When Beloved and I started dating she insisted I stop. I still go out on the weekends every now and again [like on my birthday] and I am still treated well by all the staff.

Does that answer your question Spinny? Or were you wanting more like ‘what was my favorite outfit to dance in’ or ‘what were my favorite songs’ or....I don’t know. Was that what you wanted to know?

More questions, loves. This is fun for me.