The Strip - Max

1 / The Deal

I sat at a table near the stage in Mariposa with my husband, Dan, watching the show while enjoying a plate of nachos and some ice-cold beers. The girl on the stage stumbled around trying to look sexy in a tiny bikini and high heels but wasn't really succeeding. She is one of the dancers I had come to see. The other would take the stage once this one was done with her performance.

"So, Maria wants you to teach this girl how to dance?" Dan asked as he nodded towards the girl on the stage. "Those heels are not helping much."

"Yeah, I've been helping Jena, so she asked if I could help some of the other girls."

I met Jena a few weeks earlier and sort of put the idea of working in a bikini bar into her head; unintentionally, I might add. She impressed the bar's customers and its owner, Maria, and landed a job on the spot. Since then, she's been a bit of a catalyst for change. For years, most of the girls would stroll out onto the stage in their bikinis and do their best to look sexy while moving around with background music almost as an afterthought. Calling it dancing would be generous. The poles on the stage would be used mostly for balance, with only a few girls actually knowing how to incorporate them into some sort of routine.

"This girl, she's been working here for at least a year. Why does she suddenly need help?" Dan asked.

"Oh, so you come here often enough to know how long the girls have been working?" I asked with a laugh. "Look at her. She has seen what Jena has been doing and wants to do the same. She's trying but it's just not... working."

As Dan had pointed out, this girl was not doing very well in the heels she was wearing, but trouble had started much earlier. As in, back in the dressing room. She wanted to do the partial strip that Jena had been doing since she started but trying to peel off a pair of tight yoga pants while on stage, wearing heels is a tough chore. Add in this girl's lack of practice and dance skills and you end up with a nineteen-year-old looking like a drunk on amateur night at Coco.

"Jena is Mathilda's friend?"

"Yeah..." Jena's friend, Mathilda, is dating one of Dan's best friends, and they are both friends of Lin, the daughter of Mei, a former dancer at The Strip. The crazy fabric of friends and acquaintances.

"And this is work... helping the girls, it's part of your new plan?"

"Yeah! I told Tyler that I'm done with privates and lap dances. I'll still do some performances for a while, but I think I want to focus more on helping the girls here and at The Strip. I told him... it's time for me to start my exit."

Dan placed his hand on mine and gazed into my eyes, "If that's what you want. I'm behind you... all the way. What did Tyler say about it."

"He hugged me and... you know Tyler, he told me he would help me transition, help me find a new job."

I loved my job, but it was time for me to find my way out of the business. Or at least, my current part in it. I might still work at The Strip in some role, but my days of offering up myself were over. I wanted to leave before I started to hate what I was doing.

As the air hummed with Taste, by Stray Kids, Jena moved in sensual strides over the stage. Her movements, flowing with the rhythm, captured the attention of every man in the room, including Dan. I had crafted the choreography for a girl that goes by the name Kitten at The Strip. Jena would shed the denim jacket and mini skirt she wore by the middle of the second song, then dance in her tiny bikini for her third and final song. When Kitten performed the five-song version of the routine later that night, she would strip naked and do other things on stage that weren't allowed in a bikini bar, no matter how willing the performer might be.