The consultant, the doctor, business tips, a cup of pineapple juice, a baggie of blow, a diaper, and a limp penis

this is a throwback post because i’m on vacation

I didn’t think about making any additional money after Marcus left. I decided to take a dinner break and see if I could soft sell one last dance set. If it didn’t happen, I wasn’t losing anything. I took a seat at the bar and the German coke head consultant plopped down beside me. Earlier, I’d watched him from the other side of the one way glass of the half-hour room. He was jittery, talking to Lelo excitedly with a pair of black headphones perched lopsidedly upon his head.

Him: Thank you sincerely! You are a real gentleman!

I surmised he had just bought a baggie and chuckled aloud mid dance. Thankfully Marcus was similarly amused by the situation, having recently read the story of this particular man, so he joined in my laughter.

Back to my salad, I was eating in a hurry for no real reason. I’d waited until nearly midnight to place my order and I was starving, but simultaneously none of it was agreeing with me. I finished with a stomach ache. Around me, the dancers were grumbling about the meager pickings, and it was especially dire. Nobody was tipping the stage, not even the natural blondes with long hair. The German consultant smelled like he’d been drinking all day. I had a moment where paused and decided after some internal back and forth, not to brush him off like I usually do for the sake of efficiency.

Him: You made it! You’re still here.

It was cheerful, not condescending, as if I’d survived and it was an accomplishment, not a mark of failure to initiate an escape plan.

Him: How long have you been here now?

Me: A year.

I lied because I’m accustomed to alternative truth telling.

Him: Are you doing anything else besides this? Not that this is bad, just curious.

Me: Yeah. I’m a writer, podcaster, and actor.

Him: Oh! You’re a writer? What kind of stuff do you write?

He was wobbling in his seat, too high for much concentration and yet concentrating very hard.

Me: I have a blog.

Him: Oh that’s very good. Do you know what kind of reach you have?

Me: I don’t know my analytics.

It’s one of the most shameful statements one can make as a content producer in LA. Consultants look at you so sadly when you say you don’t know what your viewership is, and yet I continue to procrastinate over checking my stats.

Him: What kind of blog is it?

Me: It’s a personal blog.

Him: But what kind of stuff do you write?

I’d tried to dodge the question, hoping he was too distracted to remember, but to no avail. I didn’t want him to ask me the name because I didn’t want him to discover the story I’d written about him.

Me: I write stories about customers here.

Him: Oh wow, that’s fantastic!

Me: Thanks.

Him: Do you know other people doing the same thing?

Me: Yes, I know some other people writing similar things.

Him: About how many are there?

Me: Um... I don’t know how many.

Him: That’s alright, that’s alright. Are any of them doing the same thing as you?

Me: I don’t think so. We’re all a little different.

Him: What makes you different?

It was a good question. What makes me different from the other sex workers writing about the grind? I like to say that most of them aren’t women of color, but that’s not necessarily true. I also don’t exclusively write from the perspective that all men are goblins to scam and hate. Some are, but certainly not all of them.

Him: Never mind about answering that. Just tell me, is your product good?

Me: Yes. It’s very good.

Him: Good. How much are you making off of it now?

Me: Around $500 per month.

Him: How many platforms are you on?

Me: Just one. I guess two, but the second is the free version.

Him: How many eyes are on your work?

Me: For the free stuff, about 7,000, but I guess that number is isn’t accurate. What’s the stat, like out of every 7,000 followers you only really have about 2,000 users who regularly interact with the content?

Him: I don’t understand.

Me: I’m probably misrepresenting the statistics, but essentially of the 7,000 followers I have, only around 1,000 people regularly interact with my page.

Him: No no no no. You’re making it too complicated.

Me: Oh, well then I don’t know.

It was at this point that an older black man came in and made his way toward the German consultant. They apparently knew each other, because the consultant greeted him warmly.

Him: Ah! Doctor!

The German shook hands with the doctor while maintaining his attention on me.

Him: This is a very good man. Have you two met? Selena is not only beautiful but she is very smart. I’m gonna go sit with him after we finish up.

We had met before. I knew the doctor from a rather predatory incident. I’d come into work and was having a jolly time until I got a call from my aunt announcing my grandmother had not only been diagnosed with cancer, but that the cancer was terminal. That evening, I’d been sitting with the doctor who was waving around a wad of hundreds. One of the bouncers had warned me that while he may wave around a lot of money, he was not especially generous with it. After I finished the phone call, I was shaking. The doctor had noticed my fragile state and offered me a literal shoulder to cry on, which I accepted, in spite of mammoth efforts to repress the fomenting wave of emotions. I sobbed into his chest. He told me a story of his own loss of a parent to cancer as he stroked my hair. When the tears abated, I attempted to steady myself: I was determined to continue my shift and make my quota. Prior to the call, we had negotiated a Skybox and I would be damned if we didn’t go up there and complete the dance as planned. He took it as an opportunity to waffle on our negotiations. He wanted more now. What was I going to give him to make it worth his time? I beat around the bush as I do. He wanted to have his penis out, and I reluctantly agreed, even though I refused to touch it. He purchased the dance and we went upstairs. He touched himself and I was there for support and I suppose to be the subject of his jerkoff fantasy. He was short with me-- frustrated by my boundaries. He wanted to know where he could cum on me. I didn’t know how to answer because I didn’t want him to cum on me in general. He decided he would cum on my breasts. To make a bad pun, it was the icing on the shit cake of that day. I was covered in sixty-seven-year-old man cum after sobbing into his synthetic silk shirt. I abandoned my plans to complete my shift and went home, dejected.

Traumatic? Yes. But, I recovered and to return to the present story, I knew quite well the doctor before me. I didn’t know if he remembered me. It’s funny how that goes-- knowing a client very well and having a relentlessly accurate memory while they’ve forgotten every detail of you.

The doctor waved at me, no recognition passing across his face. The consultant continued.

Him: Do you know what kind of business you are?

Me: Um?

Him: Okay I’ll try not to make it too mumbo jumbo, but to put it simply, there are two kinds of businesses: product based and service based. Which do you think you are?

Me: Um…

I thought to myself. I felt like what I’m making is more product based. I’m producing the products which are stories and podcast episodes?

Me: Product?

Him: Noooo! Service base! Service based. Wanna know why?

Me: Yeah.

Him: You’re not bored? I’m not boring you, right?

Me: Not at all, this is useful information.

Him: See, this is what I do for a living. I know you think, “Oh, he’s a crazy coked person,” but I have some sense. I’d like to help you. If you have questions for me, I can give you information to help you grow. You know what I mean? Would you like that?

Me: Actually, yeah. Especially since I don’t know about this stuff.

Him: Okay good. Where were we? Buh buh buh, oh! You’re providing a service. You’re in the service industry, and I don’t mean here. Want to know why?

Me: Yeah.

Him: Because I can’t pick up your product. It isn’t physical. People are coming to you to have an experience-- reading your blog, listening to your podcast. You may wonder why that’s important, but it is because there are certain rules for how to run your business once you figure out whether or not you are a product or a service.

Me: That makes sense.

Him: Do you know who else is doing what you do?

Me: I know some people.

Him: How many are there?

Me: Um… I don’t know.

Him: Let’s just say it’s fifty. Just like with celebrities, there’s only really about fifty celebrities people are talking about at any time. They change out every ten years or so, and then there’s fifty more, but it’s more or less the same people in every movie. I know this. I’m dealing with their people constantly. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars you could only name fifty.

Me: I believe you. That sounds about right.

Thinking about the number of notable writers writing about sex work being somewhere around fifty, possibly less, was a much more manageable number to consider. I’m an abstract thinker. I have to fight against my own impulses to tabulate the data necessary to run my online hustles. There’s nothing more demoralizing to me than to work on my business plan. The minute I can afford to outsource this part of the operation, you better believe I will.

The problem with most art school is that the business end is more often than not an afterthought. There was no art business education at my college. We all learned how to make fabulously conceptual art but were given none of the tools to monetize our skills. But I digress.

Him: They all form a constellation. You need to figure out the constellation so you can--

Me: Figure out my niche?

Him: No, not exactly.

Me: Oh.

Him: Where do you want your business to go? What do you want to do after you finish this project?

Me: I’m not sure.

Him: That’s okay. I don’t want it to sound like what you’re doing isn’t good. It’s just that you won’t want to do it forever. No creative wants to do the same thing forever. You do one project and then you move on to another one. You take the money you make from it and invest in property. Am I making sense?

Me: Yeah. I’ve been saving to buy a fourplex.

Him: No no no no. Want to know why? I’m gonna tell you why: there’s me and a million other investor sharks with a lot of money out there looking to buy up fourplexes. It’s a hot commodity. Here’s what I say: buy a one bedroom somewhere in Downtown LA. You can live in it for a while, the prices will increase.

Me: Then I can sell it?

Him: Never sell property! Keep it and rent it out. It will pay for itself.

Me: True.

Him: I have to get back to the doctor now, but we’ll talk again soon.

It wasn’t the conversation I’d anticipated having naked, but I appreciated the advice. All this from the man who had previously begged me to allow him to eat my pussy. He grabbed his beverage and walked off to wherever the doctor was camped out. I walked to the dressing room where some of my friends were chatting. I’d started to get dressed when Mandy walked up to me.

Mandy: Leaving already?

Me: Yeah, I made what I wanted to, and I got here at five.

Mandy: Oh good for you! I wish I could say that, ha. I have to tell you about this crazy dance I had!

Me: I’m ready.

Mandy: Okay, so I was dancing with this old black guy. He told me he was a doctor and has cancer or something, and I was like, alright. He bought a Skybox with me and brought along a vodka pineapple and a bag of coke. As soon as we get up there, he snorts literally the whole bag all at once. I’ve never seen anyone do a whole baggie at once! Then he drops his pants. He’s wearing a diaper. He pours the pineapple juice onto his dick and into the diaper and starts jerking off like crazy, but his dick is totally limp. He’s trying to talk to me but he’s too fucked up for me to understand anything. God, I thought I’d seen everything.

Me: Wow, the man had a plan. I just can’t even imagine the stickiness.

Her: He dumped the whole thing on himself. I didn’t even understand why he was trying so hard to jerk it when he was like shrunken back into himself. It was nuts. OH! And he’s back again tonight!

I too believed I’d seen it all, but that was a new one. I’ve twisted a man’s nipples while degrading him about his man boobs and micro penis; I’ve had a couple muscle worship clients; I’ve mashed several dicks beneath my boots, but this was a new one.

Me: Which one is he? I wanna see!

I poked my head out from the dressing room curtain, searching for a man that fit the description but the only black man was The Doctor. When I poked my head back into the dressing room Mandy was gone. I hurried to collect my stuff and separate my tip-out money, then ran out to find her. She was chatting with my manager behind the bar.

Me: Which one is he???

Mandy: It’s that guy there.

She pointed at him.

Manager: Hey! Don’t point at people! You know better!

Mandy: Sorryyyy. It’s that guy across from us at the bar there.

Sure enough, it was The Doctor. Is this a punchline to something? I wondered if there was a joke along the way, but truly the strip club is a unique microcosm where many species exist and go about their unique ways.