Part III The Mother-In-Law

Before we could go any further, Axel knocked on the door.

“Selena! Time’s up, sweetheart. Let me know if you two wanna continue.”

As I’d predicted, Axel did not open the door. He remained on the other side, maintaining Jamie’s precious discretion. I didn’t know whether or not Jamie had enjoyed our time together. I glanced over at him—his pants were buttoned, his shirt was once again tucked.

“I don’t know how you feel, but I would like to do another, if that’s okay with you?” Jamie asked.

It gave me the opportunity to test my hypothesis. Was his hypervigilance a result of the open format of the Heaven Box? Would he be able to tune in if we moved to one of the windowless rooms? Jamie reached between the cushions and grabbed his blow, inhaling one more bump before collecting the rest of his belongings. He tucked the baggie in his sock, and followed me downstairs to the dance purchase register.

“Aw, Ms. Selena, you two didn’t need to come all the way down here!” Axel said apologetically.

“It’s okay. We wanted to do our next dance downstairs anyway,” I said.

“Sounds good to me! What would you two like to do?”

“Another hour, same thing,” Jamie said, keeping a hawk eye surveying the club in between searching his wallet for the correct credit card.

“I’m jealous, my friend, but happy for you!”

I led Jamie to the most tucked away booth in the club and dimmed the lights to nearly complete darkness. Jamie looked around, searching for the red light of the security camera. I wasn’t sure if the thirty-minute booths’ cameras were actually live or not.

“What do you think?” I asked Jamie, “Any better down here? Less distractions…”

“Yeah…” he replied vaguely.

In spite of the darkness, his head continued spinning around, looking every which way.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No… It’s just weird here.”

Outside of our room, I heard Axel chatting with a group of people. The group erupted in laughter. Jamie’s head whipped around and he chuckled.

“They’re talking about us, I know it.”

I’ve handled uneasy clients before. Usually they are worried about breaking club rules or not wanting to transgress a boundary set in their marriages or romantic partnerships. Some worry about STI transmission. Others worry about becoming emotionally entangled or ending a session uncomfortably aroused with no release in sight. Jamie’s anxiety was a different beast entirely.

My DSM 5 brain ran through a symptom checklist:

Fear that something very bad is going to happen

Low eye contact

Difficulty sitting still or settling down

Possible substance abuse

Possible auditory and visual hallucinations

It was a hodgepodge of symptoms that didn’t quite lend themselves to a single clean-cut diagnosis, not that I’d expected to land upon a diagnosis. I unzipped Jamie’s pants again, and continued fighting my way through the mush, hoping to inspire a bit of firmness. Jamie regarded me as if I was in the way of his central objective, which was to continue doing drugs. He pulled away to take another bump, making sure to hide the baggie between the cushions as he had earlier.

“Would you be open to continuing this outside of the club?” Jamie asked.

I wasn't sure. Jamie was giving off particularly strange vibes. His paranoia made me feel paranoid. I felt caught in his paranoid feedback loop, but the money was good. It had been a while since I’d caught a whale.

“Where?”

“I’m staying at my friends’ guesthouse in Marina.”

“How far is that?”

“About fifteen minutes away.”

“I have to ask my manager if I can leave early, but it should be alright.”

I’d racked up over $1000 in dances already. I couldn’t imagine they would attempt to keep me at work, just for the sake of working a certain number of hours.

“How long do you think it will take you to get out?”

“I should be able to leave as soon as I check out.”

“Okay.”

We swapped numbers. Jamie zipped his pants and began packing up, in spite of how much time we still had left on the clock. He stared at the door, waiting for the DEA and vice squad to bust in and cuff him, for his life to be over in an instant of terrible luck. To call something a delusion, it has to be somewhat impossible. While Jamie’s worst case scenario was unlikely, I couldn’t say it was entirely impossible. There was always a chance, and I lived with that chance every night.

We left the room early and Jamie called an Uber while I checked out. Everything seemed to be going as planned until I heard my name barked out by a lumpy, roided-out looking man, standing beside Axel.

“Selena! Come with me,” he shouted gruffly.

He led me over to an empty VIP booth and gestured for me to sit down.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“I don’t.”

I watched a vein pulsing on his misshapen forehead. I couldn’t say I knew who he was, what he did, or anything about him other than that he looked vaguely familiar.

“My name is Chip. I’m one of your managers.”

“Oh.”

“You know, you’re known as one of the worst tippers in the club.”

Ah, it was going to be another one of those talks. He wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last manager to call me out for not tipping enough. I felt ice in my chest as I girded up.

“Do you know how much you tipped out last week, after you made over $900?” he didn’t pause for an answer, $36.”

“No, I tipped more than that.”

“No you didn’t, I counted. I pay attention.”

I raised an eyebrow in protest but kept silent. I knew how much I tipped out, because I count every time. I tip the same amounts every time. This man was demonstrating that either he could not count, or did not count accurately.

“How much do you think you tipped?”

“I tipped $45.”

“Okay, sure. $45 out of over $900, that’s what, 4%? Do you think that’s fair?”

“I think it’s fair, considering the club takes more than 50% of my dance money.”

“That’s not these guys’ money. That’s the club’s money! These guys are out here, doing all the work. Don’t you think they deserve a better tip? Let’s say at a restaurant, how much would you tip? Probably like 20%, right? Don’t you see how that’s unfair?”

If I was paying to receive a service, then sure, a 20% tip would be fair, but that was not what was happening. This clown thought he could intimidate me into not understanding the core fallacy of the strip club tip-out system. It is the employer’s job to pay a fair wage. It is not the job of other employees to compensate for a stingy employer. It is not my fault the bouncers are receiving minimum wage, nor is it my responsibility to cover for a boss that calls stolen wages “profit.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“You don’t understand how that’s not fair?” he asked, irritation pulsing on his veiny face, like a soggy, off-brand Thanos.

“I don’t.”

“Got it,” he said, and stormed off.

It was the second time I’d experienced this form of intimidation at the hands of management at my club, both times I recorded and made public. Of course, I was livid. The night I bring in over $1k of money that goes directly to the club, and this asshole is barking about an issue that isn’t even mine. If Chip felt so strongly that “the guys” deserved more money, he would consider raising their wages instead of hassling profitable dancers. I left the club, activated by the whole interaction. I wanted to yell and cry at the same time, but I still had work to do. I took a few deep inhales and seethed as I drove out to Marina Del Rey.

***

Jamie’s friends lived in a house nestled beside a busy overpass. A homeless encampment sprawled nearby. Jamie emerged from a shadowy corner and waved awkwardly to me. I felt my breath catch in my throat. There is always the risk I will be abducted and murdered in some heinous way when I take these outcalls. I couldn’t help but consider that very real possibility as I wandered over to Jamie.

“Hi,” he whispered.

I looked around. We were alone. I didn’t understand why we needed to whisper, but I went along with it.

“Hey.”

“Follow me. I don’t want to set off the motion detector lights.”

“Okay.”

In spite of Jamie’s ample caution, the motion sensors went off and the outdoor light flicked on, illuminating our covert operation. We slipped through a gate into the backyard and followed a path that led to a little mother-in-law unit. Jamie shut the door with abundant caution, half “shh-ing” as it clicked shut. I expected Jamie to resume speaking at a normal level since the door was closed, but this was not the case. He continued addressing me in a whisper. I shook, still wrapped up in emotions after the confrontation with Chip. I stripped down to my lingerie and let myself into the bedroom. Jamie took a seat at a desktop computer, a banking app already open and ready.

“How much?” he whispered.

“How about fifteen hundred?”

“A thousand?” he asked.

“Sure.”

I hadn’t expected to get $1,500, but I figured I might as well shoot my shot. Shoot for the moon! You’ll maybe land a bit beyond the moon–or maybe with enough luck, momentum, and avoidance of gravitational fields, you could theoretically continue barreling through space for thousands of years and perhaps end up amongst the stars, even if it’s just a few molecules of “you” that persist long enough. A thousand was what I wanted anyway.

“Sex?” he asked.

It had been a while since I’d opened myself up for sex with a client. It wasn’t an item on the menu, but for certain clients, I was willing to offer off-menu options. I also realistically didn’t think penetrative sex would be physically possible for Jamie. Between the cocaine and what I thought might very well prove to be a micropenis, the likelihood he would be able to stiffen up for a condom was particularly slim.

“Sure.”

If it happened, then great. If not, he couldn’t say I didn’t try.

I wrapped myself in the rumpled covers of a twin bed, hoping to warm up. Jamie had barricaded the window with pillows, assuring nobody could see in. Another tick off the serial killer bingo. He turned the light down to the point I could hardly see in front of me. From behind a box of Kleenex tissues, he pulled out what remained of his bag of drugs, took a bump, then wrapped the bag in a tissue and placed the tissue on the ground, making sure to kick it under the bed.

“You don’t want any?” he asked.

“Nah. I don’t like coke. I mostly just smoke weed.”

“I have some weed if you want some.”

I considered the offer. I wanted something to calm down after everything that had transpired. I don’t particularly enjoy doing drugs with clients, but sometimes a little something helps. Jamie brought out a small glass pipe with a blackened bit of weed already in the bowl. I knew it was going to be shitty, and yet, I wanted something to take the edge off. I took a hit, tasting mostly butane. Jamie stripped down as silently as possible.

“Where’s the condom?” I asked.

I wanted to get started as quickly as possible. I’d set an alarm for 3a. It would be my hard out. I had a feeling Jamie would want more time, but I didn’t have patience to spare.

Jamie pulled the condom out and handed it to me. I was bone dry below the belt, and Jamie was soft as over-soaked noodles. Our chances of success were slim to none, but it was good to have protection handy.

“My friends are gonna be so upset at me,” Jamie whispered.

How would they know? I wondered. I wasn’t parked in the driveway. I hadn’t made a peep in between walking from my car into the guesthouse. Unless they had some kind of Ring camera or something, I doubted I would leave a trace.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“No.”

I hadn’t heard anything. It was absolutely silent aside from the occasional rustling of blankets. Jamie even seemed to hold back his breath, attempting to avoid breathing too loudly. It felt chaotic to fight even a whisper of sound.

“Can we have a bit more light?” I asked.

I wanted to make sure I could see that the condom was on, no matter what. Jamie gave me a look of discomfort before reluctantly turning up the light only a hair. While I tried to stimulate Jamie into something resembling an erection, I thought about condoms for small dicks. Not enough cismen consider it as an option because dick size is so linked to self-esteem, but more people should shop smaller. The condom hung baggily from Jamie’s half-chub penis. He’s average, I sighed internally. Too bad. He attempted to penetrate me, but no matter how insistently I tugged, rubbed, or pinched, he was not going to make it into the motherland. Instead, he intermittently bumped his pelvis against mine as I held the condom in place. His penis managed to get softer over time as we continued this strange exercise in intimacy. I tried to encourage him, but he instead chose coke over sex with me, pausing every few minutes to take another bump.

“You ever try Viagra?” I asked, cautiously.

“Doesn’t work.”

“Oh.”

At the sound of my 3a alarm, we both leapt up. Jamie, because the sound had shattered the cone of silence he’d been cultivating. Me, because I could finally leave.

“That means it’s 3,” I declared, “It’s time for me to head home.”

“One more hour?” he asked.

I considered it. At a different time in my career, maybe I would have said “yes.” On a different night, at a different time, I would have gone for the money. But that night, I’d given all I could to sex work and had nothing left.

“I can’t.”

“Okay,” he replied, a bit sullen.

He walked me out, and I escaped into the night.

I felt an inscrutable combination of things percolating inside me. Something had to change, and maybe it was me.