I. Love? You?

“You’re getting antsy? Okay, I gotta go to the bathroom first and then we can go to the back.”

He made no move to go to the restroom, so I stood, and looked down at him expectantly.

“What’s your rush? I’m going.”

He attempted to push himself up, but struggled. I instinctively reached out to help him up. It was a bit pitiful to witness, but he swatted my hand away.

“I got it! I’m okay,” he shakily stood and walked to the bathroom.

He talked a big game, but it was hard to imagine he had the fight in him for any of it. I took him for a half hour and began my routine, but he stopped me.

“You don’t have to dance, you can just sit here and touch my face.”

He wasn’t hard, as far as I could tell. I honestly didn’t know what “hard” might mean for him. He was an intimacy client. He wanted affection and to feel wanted, even if he had weird ways of expressing it. I settled in and focused on caressing his face while staring lovingly into his eyes.

“You’re such a sweetheart. I think I’m falling for you. Are you falling for me?”

I nodded, vascillating.

“Do you love me?”

It caught in my throat. I had to make the decision. Was I going to say it? I cringed as I held my smile.

“I. Love? You,” I choked out.

“Huh?” he leaned in.

“Yeah, I love you.”

“Good. I love you too, Selena. Now say, ‘I love you, Frank’.”

“I love you, Frank,” I parroted.

It wasn’t too bad once I mashed past the strangeness of lying. Of course I have to lie all the time at work, but dropping the L-bomb on a stranger after a single conversation seemed particularly strange. I’ve never had a “love at first sight” moment or believed in that sort of thing. I’ve wanted to bang after a good first conversation, but that’s an entirely different animal. In a way, because it was so weird, it felt less real. How could anyone buy into a stripper saying this? There was no way he could realistically believe what I was saying. Maybe “love” meant something frivolous to him? Maybe it was just a fantasy we were playing out? On the flip, he could have been attached to my nipple, trying to weasel his way into the promised land. Instead he was just trying to weasel his way into my heart, and in a way, wasn’t that more wholesome?

“You’re such a sweet girl. I’d love to have sex with you, one day, whenever you’re ready.”

I love an easy customer, one who just wants a lap dance and keeps their hands at their sides. I love the ones who just enjoy the dance and expect nothing beyond what I’m offering—the ones who are surprised that my dances are so soft and sensual. I love the ones who tip more than expected, just to be close to me. Frank was not that.

“Why don’t you come over here and sit on my face?”

There were a lot of reasons I wasn’t sitting on his face. First and foremost because I didn’t want to. There was not a single appealing thing about sitting on this elderly man’s delicate, meatball stained face.

“I don’t do that.”

“Why not? You’ll love it, I promise. All the girls tell me how good it is.”

“You’re quite the Casanova, aren’t you?”

“Well, maybe. You could say that.”

I snorted.

“So what is it going to be? Are you going to let me lick you?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Why?”

Why? Why? Why? Some men are like toddlers. They keep asking “why” and arguing for what they want no matter how many times you tell them “no”. It was almost comical that Frank couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to sit on his face. Why would I, a twenty-something-year-old, not want to sit on the face of a seventy-year-old? There are mysteries in our universe, almost magical happening we aren’t able to explain, and yet this was not one.

“Because I can’t afford to catch anything. My livelihood is literally at stake.”

“You can trust me.”

“Every man says that.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“Well, what if I have something?”

“I can tell you’re a clean girl.”

I rolled my eyes. Cishet Men don’t give a fuck. The will to nut is stronger than the will to avoid disease or infection. Simultaneously, it felt like he was not particularly aroused. I searched, wiggled around, hoping to detect any joyful lump, but there was nothing.

“Anyway, I’m not letting you today,” I said firmly.

“You don’t have to be scared of me.”

In a way, he was talking so much he was running his own clock. On the other hand, it was the most laborious conversation. How many more requests would I have to dodge? How many ways could I politely decline sexual relations with him?

“You got me so hard, baby.”

??? ??? ???

I had no idea what he meant. I searched. I reached down with my hand and groped. Sometimes boners get tucked to the side, sometimes they point down. I don’t want to dick shame, even though I’m kinda doing it, but if I’m you’re friendly neighborhood sex worker of choice and I can’t find the goods, how am I supposed to do my job? Eventually I landed upon a little mushy protrusion about the size of my thumb but lacking any substantial structure.

“You feel it?” he asked.

“Ohhhh yeah. I can’t wait to get you even harder.”

“Huh?”

It was his turn to be confused.

“I’m already hard.”

Again, not to dick shame, but this left me with a lot of questions. How was he able to cram his junk into a condom? How did the condom not slip off while entering the baby canal? Was there enough protrusion for penetration? How did his interactions with the strippers he was having intercourse with work?

He reached to try and play with my pussy, his hand flopping around like a dying fish.

“You like that?”

I swallowed a laugh and considered my answer. There was nothing enjoyable about it. It wasn’t painful, it was just tickling my thigh, and I know a tickled thigh sounds erotic, but there was nothing farther from erotic than what he was doing.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good. Enjoy yourself.”

I let him flop his hand about for a few minutes, hoping the bouncer would knock and say our time was up.

“You come yet?”

I was taken aback. I know people with front holes can be subtle, but it had been two minutes and I’d shown no physical indication that I was at all aroused. I was dry as the Sahara Desert.

“Yep. Just came.”

“Good.”

The stereotype is that strippers lie and fool you only to break your heart. But plenty of times customers outline the lies the want and direct the delivery. They want the fantasy and roleplay with utter conviction, even as they have you parrot rote lines. Sometimes that’s better than the guys who are jaded and think they’re above it all, no matter how many times they crawl back. They take out their frustrations on us, even though all we’ve done is given them what they’ve asked for.

The bouncer knocked, “Selena! Time’s up!”

“Gotcha!”

I leapt up like a caged animal finally set free. I’d avoided Frank for a reason, and this dance confirmed why. He wasn’t a bad person, he was just insufferable. I’d made it through, but only barely. I didn’t want to have to do it again, but the slow season takes it’s toll and we all have to give a little bit more than we’d like, or take a loss. And I refused to take a loss.