B. Domino

Champagne Room

CIt’s funny what people turn into when they think no one is looking.

hampagne Room: A Parable

I’m not going to say how old I am the first time I step out onto a strip club floor. I stand, conservatively dressed, all things considered, on the periphery. I can’t feel my toes because I’m not used to my six-inch heels. A bouquet of women move back and forth in front of me, strapped and laced into a rainbow of outfits. Each walks as though an ocean parts for them.

One, in particular, catches my eye. She sits with a man and makes eye contact as she speaks. She lowers her chin and looks up over the top of her eyes, somehow able to assume a demeanor, like she’s here by accident or coincidence. She’s a thin woman—the stereotypical kind of stripper—and yet, she hides her exposed stomach under her work wallet as she converses. Everyone has rolls when they sit. Everyone. I watch. I learn.

The DJ calls my name. My shoes dampen. The pole feels cold in my hand and against my thighs and stomach. The lights silhouette the faces pointed in my direction, and I realize a very obvious but important fact: a Friday night will never look like a Sunday day. The room had been emptier on Sunday. The crowd was older. Hungrier. Easier. I look out on the sea of Friday night men and leave my body. I will never be able to listen to Daft Punk’s “Around the World” the same way again.

I return to my corner of the room. That amazon I spied earlier appears at my side. She asks if I am new. I tell her it’s my first night, but she already knows that. Her name is Marlow, but her name isn’t really Marlow. She asks me how old I am, and I lie.

She tells me it gets easier. She hands me a stick of gum and my first piece of stripper advice: if you are going to be a piece of meat, don’t be the onedollar cheeseburger. Be the filet mignon. That’s how you get those champagne rooms. And that’s where the real money’s at.

Champagne Room: An Adventure Story

When Marlow leaves my side, it’s like I’ve lost a security blanket. I stand in the corner for two hours before Dave approaches me. Dave has just turned twenty-two. He’s divorced. I remind him of his ex-wife. He speaks

at a dizzying speed, and I only hear half of what he says. In the middle of chatter and trap music, I hear him say something like, I could love a girl like you. I can’t tell if he’s toying with the fantasy and I should play along, or if I should run. He buys thirty minutes in the champagne room, and suddenly I’m the luckiest new girl in the world.

I walk into a private room with him. It’s octagonal. Full-length mirrors and velvet-covered benches line seven of the walls. The eighth, a sheer curtain with jagged edges and frayed strings, serves as the entrance. An LED light glows above, red, purple, blue, red, purple, blue. His legs feel like sticks under my own, and I lay out a set of boundaries that will ebb and flow over the next few years. They come from some back part of my brain that I’ve never accessed. Don’t touch the thong. Pants stay on. We start with the music. I move to the beat. He keeps talking. I respond until I figure out he doesn’t need me to. How many songs has it been? Am I doing this right? I think about Marlow. Be the filet mignon. Ten songs is an awfully long time. Thirty minutes later, the manager comes back. “All right, you two crazy kids!”

As we leave, Dave tells me he’s going to make me fall in love with him someday. I never see him again.

Champagne Room: A Tragedy

He tells me his name is Charley, but he looks down and to the right as he says it. I know by now what a lie looks like. I look him dead in the eye as I lie right back.

“I’m Domino.”

We step behind the curtain. I move slow. I feel the beat. I dance two songs before it starts. He clutches me close. His arms wrap upward around my shoulder blades. I don’t expect this. Men seem trained to hold us at our core in this room. Something wet slips down to my shoulder. It takes me a moment to realize what is happening. He chokes and hiccups as he speaks. He breaks. And he cries.

Charley’s wife died two months ago. I clasp my hand around the back of his head as he tells me this is the first time he has let himself cry. When I ask why, he tells me he just can’t cry in front of his boys—that’s the last thing they need right now. I contemplate discussing the power of that toxic thought, that men aren’t allowed to feel, but he’s not going to hear that right now. I hold him closer with my legs wrapped around him like a force protecting him from the world. I stroke the back of his head, but not like a lover would. He’s a waterfall of words, and he shakes like he’s going to come loose. Charley’s sons just turned six and eight. I think about them growing up repressing everything that hurts. Someday, will their father tell them the secret places where they can let themselves cry?

“Only in the arms of a naked woman, son. One that you pay to keep quiet.” I see him once a week for the next few months before he disappears. Just like Dave, I never see him again.

Champagne Room: An Action Story

I am honest with this man. I lay out my champagne room rules to the letter because he gives me that hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. He tells me my terms sound reasonable. We step behind the curtain. Halfway into the half-hour session, he grabs me and claims that he “forgets” rules sometimes. I tell him again, and he slows down. We continue. A moment later, he “forgets” again. I tell him that we are done and make for the curtain. He grabs my hair and throws me down to the bench. I tell him there’s a camera in the ceiling. He tells me no one ever checks that camera, and I know he’s right. He knows I know he’s right. He starts unbuckling his belt. I tell him I’ll scream. He gets in my face, grabs my hair again and tells me to go for it. “It’s Friday night. No one can hear you.”

I am still fresh in this world, but I understand how this happened in a matter of seconds. This man hangs out with the manager on duty. That manager knew what was about to go down. The world doubles in size around me. I am small. Unimportant. Alone. I think of the risk I took to walk into this room, into this building. I think of the money. I wonder if anything is ever worth this. A moment can feel like nothing or it can feel like forever. All we are is a collection of moments. This one just hurts. But moments exist after this one. For me, this life in this room is all about getting to the other side of moments like these.

He stands between me and the curtain. I see no other way. I move to my knees and I reach for his belt. His body relaxes with thoughts of his impending victory as he says something repulsive like, That’s a good girl. For some reason, that does it. Something in me snaps. Before I can even begin to give him what he wants, I rip the belt from its loops and hold onto the tethered end. The buckle dangles free. I jump to my feet, I rear back, and I swing. I swing again. I swing so hard that I feel the connection of metal against body echo through my arm. When he yells for help, my voice cracks from tears more than anything, but I sound gravely and fierce:

“It’s Friday night. No one can hear you.”

I run. I find this manager, belt still in hand. I make him look at me as I demand my pay-out. Somehow, even though no one would have heard me scream, the story flies around the club. I earn my place. They start calling me nicknames like the gothy wonder woman and bring me into their crew. I laugh as they crack jokes, but I won’t sleep for the next two nights.

Champagne Room: A Story of a Budding Entrepreneur

My favorite bouncer introduces me to a customer that wants to go behind the curtain. I haven’t been in there since I whipped a man with his own belt. I get the sweats and chills at the same time.

The bouncer tells me with a wink that this customer wants some of my specialty. He makes an awkward little whipping gesture. The man beside him nods his head. I pull the bouncer aside and admit I don’t really know how to do that. He shrugs and suggests that I fake it.

We walk behind the curtain. The customer unpacks a briefcase, the contents of which make me dizzy. A clamp. A blindfold. A flogger. He puts the later in my hand and calls me Mistress. I think about every popular BDSM movie that now looks so very vanilla. I rear back. I make a rent payment.

Champagne Room: A Love Story

Straight couples are the worst. Don’t misunderstand—i love love, but damn. Majority America is too repressed to allow people to just have a good time. So, when I’m onstage and I see this couple come up to the tip rail, I can’t help but think, here we go. They don’t read like strip club people; they’re young and a little scared when they ask to see me after my stage. I make bets in my head about how long they last before they get into a fight. As per the etiquette, I sit in the empty chair at their table instead of a lap. I don’t know who is calling the shots yet. The woman compliments my pole tricks. I thank her. She tells me they never really come to places like this. I try to look shocked as I watch them twist their cocktail napkins and chew their ice. But she doesn’t lob the passive-aggressive softballs that I expect; she says real shit. I ditch the hustle and get real with her.

“Why are you here?”

They make a special type of eye contact that teeters between brave and embarrassed. Strippers know this look well. Couples look at each other like this when they are either looking for a threesome or some therapist has told them to try something outside of the box. The club sits far enough outside of most people’s normal box that it always looks like a good option. At first. She tells me they just had a baby. That’s not the response I expected. The guy shells out cash for a champagne room. As he hands the manager the money, he dips away to the bar to watch the game. It’s just her and me. We dim the lights, though not very much. I haven’t felt this fresh about a champagne room since Dave, my very first night.

“What would you like, baby? I love taking orders.” I play up all my wildgirl cards when I know people don’t want sex from me. If I make them say no, they feel like they are in control—it puts them at ease.

“My name’s Lila. And I want you to teach me to lap dance.”

Lila married Carlos four years ago and suffered three miscarriages. It cracked their marriage, but she says they are still in love. Four months ago, they had little Mickey. Mickey didn’t weigh enough and had to stay in the hospital for two months after his birth. But he lived. Lila sips club soda out of a champagne glass as she tells me how hard it was to watch her baby spend the first part of his life in a plastic box. She tells me how much it hurts to love this tiny stranger, but she loves that hurt more than anything in the world. She would die for him. She sounds like the mothers who get ready with me in the dressing room.

“It’s hard to feel sexy after all that.”

I see Lila once a month for a year. We “drink.” We laugh. We get rowdy. She tries on lingerie in our octagonal paradise and doesn’t care that there’s a camera; it gives her a rush. She hopes someone is watching. Last month, I went to Mickey’s birthday party. In May, Carlos did another one of my tattoos. And every now and then, I get a text from Lila between our little sessions.

“Got a half an hour for me?”

My response is always the same, if I’m at the club or not. “Lila, my love, I always got the time for you.”

Champagne Room: A Psychological Thriller

It has been slow. People think we roll in money, but we don’t in my city. Sometimes we lose money. Now is one of those times. My fridge is empty. My breastbone looks like a washboard framed by a hot pink bikini. “Good evening, Roberta.”

I know who it is before I turn. “Good evening, James.”

His name isn’t James. And my name isn’t Roberta. We know this. It’s just part of the ritual. He wears an all-black suit—oxford, tie, and all. Black. All of my girls call him the devil. He carries a garment bag and a duffle; I know what’s inside.

We walk behind the curtain. He hands the manager a crisp one-hundreddollar bill in addition to my fee, and turns the fluorescent light on overhead. He’s the only customer who does this, and he does it every time. On the hook where we girls hang our tops, our onesies, our various clothing items, James hangs the garment bag and unzips it. He produces a blazer. It’s small—female cut. It fits me like it’s tailored, and smells like fresh dry cleaning. I open the duffle and pull out a pair of solid black, peep-toe stilettos. These Jimmy Choos stand me up at a solid 5'4" instead of 5'9"—they’re the source of James’s nickname. He refuses to call me Domino because it sounds too false to him, thus the birth of Roberta. It is a very specific name. I never ask about it.

The first time he presented me with the shoes and the jacket, I didn’t know what to say. Now I say nothing. I just remove my top and shoes, don the new apparel, and assume the position. He plays with my hair as I lay on my back across the bench, my head in his lap. We discuss the stock market and the latest novels we’ve read. He prefers nonfiction.

He plays with the dip above my hip bones and then presses into the grooves between each rib on the front of my chest. His hand makes its way upward, and I know we’ve neared the end of our session. He rests that hand around my neck. I know he’ll squeeze at the end of this song. Just for a second. He does this every time. I look up at him, ready, and see nothing in those eyes. This has all been very domestic and anesthetized, but in the end, he gets off on how quickly he could go American Psycho on me. I know this. I accept it. It’s only for a moment. A man like him wouldn’t waste a life of success on killing a stripper.

The DJ speaks, signaling the end of the song. James’s cold fingers clamp down, interrupting my oxygen and the arterial flow on the side of my neck. I do not panic. I am used to it, and I know the song will end in just a few moments. It does. But the next song starts. He squeezes a little harder. I feel light-headed. My face swells with blood. I haven’t eaten enough for this. That tingling sensation creeps into my temples and nose. Where is the manager? Did James start this part of the process too early? He always counts the songs and doesn’t make mistakes. I grab his wrist. It feels like iron. His lips tighten. The girls call him the devil, and I choose to lay down in his lap and wear his clothes. I think of what people will tell my mother. She was asking for it.

“All right, kids, times up!”

James releases me. I gasp and cough. When I report what happened, the manager shrugs, hands me my pay-out, and says he’ll say something next time.

I never see James again.

Champagne Room: A Sexy Story

“Let’s go have some fun.” I can smell this man’s cologne over the bar rags and beer.

He asks where I suggest we go.

I look back to the champagne room and say, “Somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”

He asks what happens back there.

“Depends on how much I like you.” It’s my best line. And it works every time.

“You’re not the kind of girl that likes to plan, are you?”

“Plans are boring.”

Behind the curtain, he scans every inch of my body and pulls me down on to his lap. We haven’t exchanged names yet. Maybe we never will. I expect his hands to hit my hips as every man does at the beginning of a champagne room—a primal urge to grab the center of his focus. But he doesn’t. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

“The fuck is that?”

He points to something white and deflated on the floor. There’s no mistaking it for something else. It’s a used condom. I mirror his disgust to salvage the moment. We move rooms.

It’s still a sexy story if someone had sex—even if it wasn’t me.

Champagne Room: A Feminist Story

I come back to that used condom as soon as I can. The room’s previous occupant must have dropped it. If the managers aren’t getting a cut of her transaction, they might go through the cameras and fire her. I don’t know who she is, but it doesn’t matter. FOSTA/SESTA—LAWS passed in Spring 2018—shut down web-screening techniques and widely used blacklists. As a direct result, women, men, and folks working outside of clubs disappear more often than they used to. These laws, aimed at child trafficking, have not treated the problem nor its symptoms, yet they’ve racked up a robust body count of consenting adults—mostly women of color and trans workers. A moment of gusto in a politician or celebrity’s mind forces risks on a community comprised of intersecting others and here’s the truth: the outside world will never care. But I do. I’d rather this chick fuck in a chair that I dance in than die with a trick she couldn’t screen.

The condom, now dry, powdery, flakey, sticks to the floor as I pick it up. I hear that felt-tearing sound, even over the beat, and gag. I boil my hand under the faucet in the bathroom after I throw it away, even though I used a glove, but I’d do it again. This woman’s boundaries may not be my boundaries, but I believe in my crew. I believe that feminism must include giving everyone agency over their own bodies, or else it’s just another sad tentacle of rape culture and misogyny.

Champagne Room: The Epilogue of an Action Story

I travel to a big city where the bouncers go by stage names like we do. Maybe it adds to the ambiance. The one sitting next to me calls himself Jax. Jax is a medical student. He has huge hands but a soft touch as he cleans my wound. He tells me it might hurt less if I don’t look while he works on it. I look around the room instead.

The champagne rooms in most big-city clubs look nice, but this one looks particularly lush. We sit on a black, faux-vintage chaise. I am certain the

club chose it because it curves like a female silhouette. Fake candles flicker while a chandelier above emits an amber hue. The walls have been painted with a matte charcoal instead of the cheap, glossy black paint we have at my club back home. I’m not sure how they did it, but it smells clean like a glass of champagne. Minutes ago, a customer held a lighter to the back of my right hand.

He wanted more than I sell. I tried to defuse the moment by making a joke. “There is no secret menu. I am not a Starbucks.”

It didn’t work.

In this city, the bouncers are on it. The moment the lighter touched my skin, time vanished. This tiny flame would consume me for all eternity, I was sure of it. Really, it only lasted a few seconds. I don’t remember screaming, but I must have. Four bouncers ran in and three dragged the man away. One, Jax, grabbed a first aid kit.

Jax tries to chitchat. He asks me where I’m from. I tell him. He asks something about small cities. I tell him. Before he finishes applying the bandage, the three other bouncers return. No one has mentioned calling the cops. Cops wouldn’t do what these men have done for me. I see their red and busted knuckles as they hand me a wad of cash. They tell me to use it for medical stuff. An enormous, slug-like blister and too many colors cover my flesh.

I will lie to my friends and family about how this happened. I won’t dance while I heal for the next month. I will wear outfit-themed gloves for the following two. I will eventually look okay but will feel twinges through the thinned skin, maybe for the rest of my life. I will keep pictures of it on my phone to remind myself that no matter what happens, I just have to make it through the moment. Moments after moments like these have futures. I swear revenge on this man. I will write him into a story. I will tell the world what he is. I will make him sorry.

Champagne Room: A Fan-girl Story

Celebrities love strippers. So, when the DJ summons a handful of us to the celebrity section at my big-city club, I assume a cool, calm demeanor and wonder who I am about to meet. They open the door and we all take a collective breath. We will never speak a word of their identities to anyone. Instead, we will flutter and glide between the various guests, ready to entertain. One man routinely sends girls away. I recognize him. He’s known for his abrupt, even cagey, personality. I take it as a challenge.

After a half hour of my company, this man, now my customer, doesn’t send me away. I count it as a victory. We sip champagne as the room around us dips into chaos. The girls squeal like cartoons. The men discuss success.

He and I, in our corner of the madness, find a comfortable rhythm that feels like a low, steady hum.

From the other end of the room, a man I don’t recognize shouts that my customer needs a dance. He declines. He doesn’t really like the public setting for such intimacy. He’s trying to be polite. The loud individual calls my customer’s bluff and pulls out his wallet. He suggests we get a private room. His treat. My heart pounds. Could I be this lucky?

My customer asks how long the party plans to stay at the club. “Forever.” The loud man slaps an ass.

My customer agrees to the private room. For three hours.

Three hours can be a stripper’s saving grace; it’s more money than I see in a month, sometimes, back home. It can also be a nightmare. In my nine-inch heels, this man towers over me. He stands over six feet with a natural refrigerator build. I’m still new so I only know how to keep things interesting for a little while without exceeding my boundaries. Beyond that, I start to worry. Some girls can keep things interesting for hours. I’m not that good. I think of the last time I went into a private room at a club. I think of the bouncers coming to save me. I remember their busted knuckles and medical money. Someone will keep an eye on us, but will they stop this man? I think of his fame, the money his friends are spending, and the flesh on the back of my hand. How long can three hours of moments truly last? A bouncer ushers us into a room I’ve seen before. As he closes us in, I know that this is my chance. Do I take the risk? Do I bounce? From behind me, I hear the man clear his throat. I turn, ready to lay out the rules but stop. He has removed his dinner jacket and hands it to me. He sits on the chaise, pulls out his phone, begins to read, and asks me to wear the jacket. He’s not into strip clubs.

When I get over the shock, I tell him I could really use the time for homework. I run to the dressing room and grab my backpack out of my locker. The bouncers give me a wink that says, This guy must be into some weird shit. I wink back and return to the room. When they watch us on the camera, they will be sorely disappointed.

The man scrolls for hours on his phone, while I put on my glasses and my sweatpants and work on an assignment for my online class. When he needs a break, he asks me about my degree. At the end of three hours, he barely looks up as he leaves.

I return to my hotel early. Rested. Paid. I remember that while this life is full of moments, some of them will surprise me.

Champagne Room: A “Feminist” Story

Three girls try to touch under my G-string during my stage, back home. When the song ends, I avoid them. When my manager tells me they’ve

purchased an hour-long room with me, I know it is going to suck, but business has been slow, and I can’t say no to money. They wear thick-rimmed, hipster glasses that make me embarrassed about the thick-rimmed glasses that I wear at home. When they laugh too loud, I can tell they feel like they’re being bad. We see this often. If stripping has taught me one thing, it is that fetishization is just another face of repression.

They try to touch under my G-string again because having a similar gender identity somehow negates the need for consent. They dive into a litany of vanilla-laced comments.

I could never do this, because, ew! But ugh, yaasss, get it, kween!

These girls do more blow and get more handsy. They offer me a line, and I say no, thanks. I don’t mind when customers do coke. I mind when customers act like assholes. They counter my rejection by asking to do a line off my ass. I ask them if they are frat boys. I do it because I know it will offend them. After a while, they tell me they have a surprise. They pull out a Scrabble board. Their hipster-points skyrocket through the roof. As they set up the game board, they ask me if I know how to spell.

Yes, bitches, I know how to spell.

Champagne Room: A Tragedy

The Thursday before Labor Day, we all make plans. All of us. We decide to barbeque on the holiday. We make a sign for the dressing room: All spouses, partners, fuck-buddies, children welcome. We count down to each other, three days, three days—we can chill in three more days.

The next night, they pull six of us into the back office. The manager sits with a police officer. We panic. State law mandates that all dancers must wear pasties or liquid latex at all times. If one of us messes up, they usually conduct raids. But this officer doesn’t care about our nipples. He wants to know about T. T who hasn’t shown up to work yet. On a Saturday.

He asks what kind of drugs we’ve seen her do. We say none.

He asks us if we’re sure, and we start to worry. Was she involved with any of the gangs? Did she have a pimp? Was she turning tricks?

I wonder who the fuck says turning tricks anymore? But someone asks about the use of his word “was.” Not “is.” He doesn’t ask us is T turning tricks. Was.

Earlier that morning, at 3:16 a.m., an hour after the club had closed, the police arrived at T’s place of residence. I won’t go into details. They found her on her doorstep. Her seven-year-old son and his babysitter called the police an inexcusable number of times in the preceding hour.

I hear nothing. I feel nothing. The floor vanishes, and water floods my head. Or tears, maybe. I hear tears. The manager hands a box of tissues to one girl and gestures for her to hand it down the line. Someone breaks through my

fog and asks some question about Creepy Steve. I snap to. She says that T had a room with Creepy Steve. It didn’t go well. T bounced right after.

The cop asks, “Who is Creepy Steve?”

The manager explains that Steve is a regular; he didn’t do anything. I know two things: one, Creepy Steve gives the club a lot of money; and two, this manager is a piece of shit. I suggest pulling the security footage. The manager gives me the look of death, but my girls rally hard.

We watch T’s grainy image run from the champagne room to the dressing room and leave in her street clothes. The camera records in gray-scale but I know that sweater was pink, those jeans had an oil mark on the left thigh, and those Chucks were new. Creepy Steve follows about a minute behind. The cops tell us they’ll question him. Nothing happens. They make no arrests. They interview no witnesses. We all know the truth. We’ve done champagne rooms with him and know what he turns into. That night I have nightmares. I feel those moist, pillowy hands holding my hips and wake up to the fact that Creepy Steve walks free.

On Labor Day, the night of our barbeque, we ditch the club. We head to the edge of town. We burn T’s work bag. We retire her favorite song and text all of the DJS. Never play it in that club again.

The next day, we walk into the champagne room, street-dressed and flat-footed. T may not have died here, but some irrevocable shit—precious, disastrous moments, moments when she was still alive, happened between these walls. We nail a painted, wooden portrait of Doña Sebastiana over the entrance and hide a switchblade under one of the bench seats. Most of us aren’t Catholic, but she was. We sit there until they kick us out and pray for T to get home safe.

Champagne Room: A Love Story

Scott looks like a movie star. He stands about 6'1". He carries himself with an air of warmth and self-confidence and knows how to light up a room with a few soft words. Scott doesn’t smoke but finds you a cigarette when you need one. He drinks whiskey, but not too much and always orders your drink before you ask. He listens when you speak and when you tell Scott jokes, he laughs generously but also genuinely. Everyone enjoys Scott. Scott has erectile dysfunction. Scott hates himself for it. Scott comes to see me for a reason.

For a solid year, every Thursday, the girls gather around me in the dressing room and ask what he’s like in the champagne room. I shrug and smile and keep his secret. Scott likes affection and feeling adored, but Scott’s a man that would rather experience some manufactured intimacy at a price than risk rejection. We exchange vulnerability like currency in a way I dare not try with anyone else. We never cross my boundaries, but another man

might take such a bond as a dangerous invitation. I take him to the edge of his ability with my words and then tell him he is perfect when he can’t deliver. I watch him crumble as he realizes again and again that he’s too afraid to chase down what he wants. Until today. Scott doesn’t know it yet, but today, I will introduce him to Janelle.

Janelle is a dream. Janelle’s wit would kill you if it were a weapon, but she never uses it like that; she uses it to make you smile or pick up the loose pieces of conversations. She stands 5'9" without her heels and floats like an angel. She works hard at a club on the Eastside, so she can sell paintings in the galleries downtown. Janelle is very talented. She is also asexual. She loves to cuddle but hates sex. She enjoys the company of others and the tenderness of touch but never wants to be touched like that outside of work. Janelle never works at my club, but today I have texted her to come and meet me. She does not know why.

When she steps behind the curtain, into the champagne room, both she and Scott look at me like they have been betrayed. I ask her to take a seat. Today, I have asked Scott to order a bottle of champagne—janelle’s favorite. As she sits, I make introductions. Because they are polite, they humor me. Because they are kind, they get to know each other. As the session ends, Scott asks if she would like some dinner. They leave together.

I do not see either of them for six months. When she walks into my club one day, she hands me an invitation. She and Scott will marry in the mountains in the spring.

Champagne Room: A Tragedy

The TV, visible from our spot at my Vegas club, jumps to a newscast. The volume goes up. I hear a faint but undeniable pop, pop, pop. I think that it can’t be a gun, but I don’t have a lot of exposure to guns, so how did I know it was a gun at all? The man I’m straddling grabs my arm. Hard. But not to hurt me. His eyes lock on the screen. I turn to the TV. The contact between us, once heated, becomes white-knuckled as we pass silent knowledge back and forth like static electricity. We sit like that on that black chair until the popping stops. The news anchor speaks. She tells us when it ends, which we figure to be around four minutes. Later, we will find out that the shooting lasted almost twelve. They replay it. Over and over. Each chain of bullets sounds like seconds interrupted and recycled as violent little bursts. I won’t learn what a bump stock is until later.

After our time expires, I sit with him for free until the host kicks us back out to the main floor. The club remains locked down and yet operational. No one buys anything. They call girl after girl to the stage. The ones that can’t get ahold of their loved ones just walk around the pole tear-stained,

three minutes at a time, removing their tops at the required halfway point. Automatically. Pathetically.

The man and I share water. We say almost nothing, but we hold each other’s hands and check our phones waiting for our people to tell us they’re alive. He shares his charger with me. The death toll climbs every half hour or so. One of my girls who works the day shift sends me Snapchats of armored cars that look like tanks rolling down the street, right outside our club. We hear about the possibility of a second shooter, but that never makes it to CNN. I eventually lay my head on his shoulder. He strokes my hair, and I somehow relax, just for a second, on this stranger’s arm. When the club finally lets us leave at seven a.m., he asks for my real name. It’s the first time I have ever given it to a man I met at the club, and I will never forget his.

Champagne Room: A Family Story

It’s Halloween. Thirty days ago, nearly sixty people lost their lives just up the road. Tourism has slowed. I can’t sell anything. Me and my girls dress as old-school Power Rangers to try to hit that nostalgia button for the millennial crowd. It doesn’t work. We order pizza. We could eat it in the dressing room but the fluorescent lights make our costumes somehow more obnoxious. My Yellow Ranger suggests we leave, but our club has a set minimum-hour shift rule.

We give our favorite host, Manny, an entire pizza. We tip him fat as he sneaks us out the back. We spend the next four hours chilling at Tina’s place like drunk, scanty, polyester superheroes. We use her overhead string lights to make it “romantic” and joke about how the five of us will always be each other’s girlfriends. It’s the best, most satisfying champagne room any of us have ever had.

In the end, the left-over cash from the night isn’t even enough to save so we toss it in the funeral fund for whoever is next. Lately, we’ve been throwing funerals in waves the way other women in their twenties throw weddings.

At least we are thinking about our futures.

Champagne Room: A Boring Story

I walk behind the curtain at my home club with a man who doesn’t hold my hand. He’s older than me, but not by much. His hairline has receded a little, but whose hasn’t? I tell him about the silver X-men streak I routinely dye out of the left side of my widow’s peak. He owns a coffee shop in the nice part of town. One week ago, his wife left him. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t touch me—not even the parts of me he’s allowed to touch. It’s innocent. Bland, even.

For every tragedy, for every action story, for every death, there are at least a few of these. I try to remember that. But I can never remember their names.

Champagne Room: A Nature Story

I’m mid-sentence about how “that’s not on the menu” when he connects a fist to my right cheekbone. For a moment, I’m convinced he’s somehow made us into one. We have merged through sheer force. I really have to stop using the menu line. It’s cursed. The man’s other hand grabs my shoulder, and he shoves me down. The seven me’s reflected in the mirrors around us go down, too. It’s always somewhere between funny and awful watching these things happen in what I call “funhouse vision.” The entire right side of my face feels like fire and has already begun to swell. A collection of words that don’t make sense spring up from the back of my brain. Huh. He’s a lefty. He finishes unzipping his pants. Hitting me has turned him on. He makes eye contact, which is unusual for violent guys. He says something degrading about me getting to work. If I could kill him, I would.

In one month, I will take a break. I will hold my baby cousins in my arms, cook dinner with my mother, and sit in my garden with nothing but silence. Those moments exist on the other side of this one. I will get to those moments. I reach up and I claw my way out of this one.

Thirty minutes later, I stand in front of the manager. He told me to dress out, so I stand in my jeans with my work bag slung over my shoulder. “What the fuck, Domino. He says you tried to rip it off.”

“I’m sorry. I must have been confused.”

“How?”

“I thought I was starting a lawnmower?”

“I’m writing you the fuck up.”

My bad. Strippers can just be so stupid, sometimes.

I go to a friend’s house—someone I met at the club. He’s the one I called because I know he won’t judge me or try to save me. He gives me ice for my face and keeps me awake to fight the concussion. The sun comes up, and I shake it off. I’ll be back at the club again in a few days.

Champagne Room: An Ending

Most customers bolt the second a champagne room ends. Some link arms with me like we’re taking a stroll together. Some give me a hug, and some can’t find it in themselves to look me in the eye. But after that, it’s all the same. I walk away. Time in a champagne room stands somewhere between a dream and a nightmare, but at the end of every night, it’s all just hustle. Hustle teaches us who we are. It teaches us who you are, too. And who you become in the dark with us is who you really are.