What to wear, what to wear? Mary nervously pondered her options as she prepared to dress for her first day on the job. She knew, of course, that she wouldn't be wearing her own clothes for long, but she wanted to make a good first impression. Or would it be her second, since she had already set foot in the club once to fill out the application? Whatever.
She ended up choosing a low-riding and tight-fitting yet comfortable pair of faded blue jeans, in addition to a plain, tight white t-shirt cut just above her belly button. Sensible yet sexy. For breakfast she ate a fresh peach and drank a glass of skim milk. Vitamins and calcium, sweet and tasty.
After brushing her teeth and rinsing with mouthwash, she sprayed her neck and chest with a mildly fragrant body spray. Then she stepped outside to breathe in the morning air, and a gentle breeze greeted her at the edge of the balcony. It was another bright, warm Florida day, almost perfect. Maybe a cloud or two hovered in the corners of the sky, but nothing more.
After enjoying her surroundings for a moment, Mary headed downstairs and hopped into her car, wishing it were a convertible.
***
The murky darkness that greeted Mary inside the black doors and purple entryway of the Foxxy Laydee shocked her again, even though it had only been a day since she had last been there. The sunny day outside provided such a stark contrast that Mary wondered if she would ever get used to walking through those doors.
Yesterday's apathetic blond stood behind the counter once again, snapping on some chewing gum. She looked up as Mary entered and squinted as the bright sunlight spilled in briefly. "You're Mary Camden, right?" she asked in between gnaws.
"Right."
"I'll take you back to Clive's office. He'll go over all the rules and regulations and whatnot, and then he'll have you sign the paperwork."
"Um, okay."
Paperwork. Mary didn't like the sound of that. She had had to sign all kinds of contracts and forms and such for JetBlue before they would let her start working, and she hadn't enjoyed it. Most of the time she hadn't even understood the documents she was signing. Maybe this time would be different.
The blond led Mary back to the corridor that wound its way behind the main stage. It was painted blood red, but was more brightly lit than the dark purple and black interior of the club. They walked all the way to the end of the hallway, where the blond knocked on a wooden door, painted black.
"Come in," Clive's voice issued from inside.
The blond opened the door to his office. It was about fifteen by twelve with off-white walls. There were windows on two of the walls, so it must have been a corner office. Bright sunlight tried to stream in through the windows, but Clive had shut the Venetian blinds and turned on the harsh fluorescent ceiling lights instead. He sat behind a polished wooden desk in a high-backed brown leather chair, hands behind his head and feet on the desk, looking almost like a comic-book villain who should have been puffing on a cigar and holding a moneybag.
As Mary entered the room, he stood up and shook her hand. "Mary, glad to see you again. Please have a seat." He motioned to one of the two padded armchairs in front of his desk, and Mary obliged him. Without removing his eyes from Mary he said, "Thanks, Sheba." Sheba, the blond, exited and closed the door behind her.
"Now, let's see," he continued as he sat down again. "I was looking at your application and it says here that you have no prior experience dancing."
"That's correct."
Clive sniffed with displeasure, furrowed his brows, and asked, "Well then, how come when I asked you yesterday if you could dance, you said you could?"
"Because, I…" Mary stammered. "Because I just know I can dance. I mean, I've danced before. It's not that hard."
"Mary, you do understand," Clive continued, more than a bit condescendingly, "that exotic dancing is quite different from regular dancing, don't you?"
"Well…yeah, I guess so." Mary could feel her face turning red with embarrassment. She was beginning to hate these meetings in the bosses' offices. Yesterday she had been chastised by her supervisor at JetBlue; today Clive was calling her bluff. Clive? Or Mr. Randolph? Sheba had called him Clive, but maybe she was on a less formal basis with him than Mary should be….
As Mary silently pondered these insignificancies, Clive stifled a yawn and said, "Well, it won't be a problem. We'll just set you up with one of the more experienced girls and she can mentor you for a day or two."
Whew! That sounded like a nice solution. Mary nodded gratefully.
"Now," Clive continued, "let's talk about the conditions of your job. When you start out, you'll be working the daytime shift. That's generally when guys tip the worst, because they're sober. Plenty of them like to come in here for a nice quick titty flash during their lunch break and then leave. There's usually not much money in that, so you'll have to work extra hard. Once you prove you're a solid earner, though, you can move up to work the night shift. Day shift starts at 10 AM and runs until 9 PM, but we have flexible scheduling. You can pretty much pick whatever days and times work best for you, up to forty hours a week. No overtime, unless we're desperate for dancers and we call you…"
Blah blah blah. None of this stuff sounded too important to Mary, so she let her eyes and brain wander again. She noticed that Clive wore a silver collared shirt and navy tie today; he was a snappy dresser. She also saw that he wore a wedding band. Mary couldn't imagine being married to a guy who managed a strip club. The level of trust that would require was beyond anything she possessed….
"Mary? Are you listening to me?"
"What? Oh, of course. I'll be working days, we open at 10 AM, flexible hours. Got it."
Clive looked irritated. "Right, that's what I said a couple minutes ago. Then I mentioned that we don't open until one PM on Sundays, and I asked if working Sundays would be a problem."
"Oh." Sundays. Growing up, those had always been church days. Mary pondered the irony of her dancing naked while her father might simultaneously be standing behind the pulpit, delivering an overheated sermon to the stuffy Glenoak church crowd on the west coast. Oh, what a naughty girl she would be! The thought made her giggle as she answered, "No, I don't have a problem working Sundays."
The giggle seemed to make Clive relax for the first time during their meeting. "Great. Now I'll go over our rules and procedures with you, and then we'll go over the contracts.
"First and foremost, you should know about our money system. It's very important for you to know exactly what everything costs around here, so pay attention. If a guy slips a one or a wad of Washingtons in your garter, he gets a smile and maybe a look or two, but that's all. For a five, you take your top off. For ten, take it all off. If a guy slips you a twenty, he gets a table dance which lasts the length of one song and no more…"
Oh no. This was no good. There were things to remember here too, just like there had been at JetBlue. She had forgotten the things she needed to remember there, and it had cost her job. Would she forget them here too? This was no good.
"…So, is our money system clear to you?"
"Um, OK wait. Let me see if I remembered all that. OK, one dollar is like, nothing. Five is like, I take off my top. Ten is like, I get naked? Wow, that seems kind of cheap. So, one guy gives me ten dollars and I, like, show my stuff to the whole bar?"
"Yeah, but you dance specifically in front of the guy who gave you the ten. Pay special attention to him. If other guys want to get a closer look, they have to come up and give you money too. And of course, if they want a lap dance they have to give you thirty per dance."
Mary glanced at him in confusion. "A 'lap dance'? What's that?"
Clive looked back at her incredulously. "Um, you're kidding right?" Mary stared at him blankly. "You don't even know what a lap dance is?" She embarrassedly shook her head no, so he explained, "Well, a lap dance is just like it sounds. You take a guy back to a private booth and dance naked, on and around his lap. Thirty bucks for a dance the length of one song."
Mary was shocked at the concept, but surprised at the payoff. It sounded rather distasteful, but to be paid thirty dollars for just a few short minutes' work was not bad at all. She gulped hard and queried, "Guys will really pay thirty bucks just for a few minutes of naked dancing?"
"A lot of times they'll pay more than that, especially for a beautiful girl like you," Clive responded suavely. "We do a four for a hundred special."
Something about the way Clive had casually slipped that compliment into business conversation made Mary inexplicably uneasy. She decided she ought to hurry this meeting up, even though it had just started to get interesting. "Thirty bucks, lap dance, one song; hundred bucks, four songs. Got it. Is that everything? Am I ready to start working yet?"
Clive blatantly looked Mary up and down, lingering for a moment on her exposed navel, then slowly forming an apologetic smile as his eyes met hers. He deliberately leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head again, inhaling deeply. "I think I'm starting to like you, Mary," he drawled languidly. "You may not know much about this business, but at least you're not hesitant to get started like a lot of the other girls who come in here, afraid how they're going to be perceived by their friends and family when they take this job. You strike me as a doer, not an over-thinker."
Mary wondered whether she should take that as an insult or a compliment. Was he implying that she was stupid, and that stupidity would be an asset for the life she was about to begin? Plus, he was so wrong about her "not thinking". If he had known about all the time she had invested in selecting her wardrobe this morning, and about all the new-information-processing her brain had been attempting during this meeting, and about all the worries and insecurities that were racing through her subconscious at that very moment, he wouldn't have said that….
While she grew ever more uneasy thinking about Clive's statement, he stood up, walked toward one of the backlit window shades, and turned to face her. Snapping back into a more business-like tone, he continued, "One more thing. Your safety on the job is very important. We have plenty of bouncers and security staff on hand at all times. If a gentleman is harassing you, all you need to do is find the closest member of our staff and inform him that the guy needs to be tossed. And there is no touching. If anybody fondles you or gropes you or does anything else inappropriate, it's very important for you to let the staff and me know immediately. Sometimes we need to do more than just throw the guy out."
Mary pondered that statement for a moment. "You mean, like, rough him up or something?"
Clive smiled. "Only if he's acting belligerently. But I was referring to the fact that we sometimes have to press charges against people if they abuse or molest our dancers on the job."
"Oh, cool," said Mary. Even though she didn't quite know what to make of her new boss, at least it sounded like they tried to keep the place fairly safe to work. Heck, it couldn't be any more dangerous than flying in an airplane every day, right? At that thought, Mary hastily offered, "Well, where do I sign?"
Clive chuckled, recalling what he had just said about her not over-thinking things. He walked over to his desk and opened a neatly filed drawer to pull out the necessary paperwork. Mary tried to read over the contracts carefully, especially the one that mentioned wages as percentages of tips and benefits and insurance and for some reason it all swirled when she read it and it became a blur.
"Do you have any questions about anything?" Clive asked helpfully.
"No," Mary lied, not wanting to look like a deer caught in the headlights. After all, he liked the idea that she was a doer, not a thinker, right? So perhaps it would be better to let him keep that perception intact. "It looks good to me," she said. Faking confidence, she picked up a pen from a holder atop Clive's desk and signed and dated the pages.