Lexiland

Lexi the hustler and I had another little chat today. She came in late to the strip club because she had to testify against her ex-boyfriend in court, in an effort to keep him locked up for reasons unknown (I didn't need to hear the specifics to recognize it as an awful situation).

We sat together in the early afternoon (not that time exists in the neon-lit bunker that is Tryst)

"Are you dating anyone now?" I asked.

"Nooooo," she said, shaking her head and looking at me with those blank eyes.

After finding out she lives by herself in Astoria, and is often lonesome, I moved onto the most interesting question (to me, since I'm struggling with lying by omission to my own family) I ask fellow dancers:

"Do your parents know what you do?" I asked her.

"Just my dad. The last time I talked to him on the phone, a few months ago, I told him I'm stripping cause fuck him, and he never talked to me again. He never took care of me."

"That sucks," I said, sighing. My father was very absent also.

Later on we sold double dances to an Indian man celebrating his 40th birthday. We writhed on top of one another, and she spanked me a little bit while I played the part of the giggling teenager, even though my schoolgirl outfit, donned for "Lingerie Fridays", the Tryst version of "casual Fridays" in which sexy costumes are also encouraged (as opposed to the slut gowns we usually wear) had been stripped off 15 minutes before. My pigtails were still in effect, though...

When we brought him to the register to charge his credit card and collect funny money for ourselves (funny money is the counterfeit paper "cash" a dancer gets when a man pays for lap dances with an credit card in a strip club, and is cashed out separately), she showed her true brilliance as a hustler:

"How many dances was it?" he asked affably, in the way of a truly friendly person or, perhaps, sucker.

(The correct answer here was 5 for me and 4 for her)

"Make it five and five" she said casually.

"Ok" he agreed.

I grinned, a little shocked but impressed.

"But make it 250 for the funny money" she said, trying to offset the fact that we only get 16 dollars per dance in funny money, as opposed to the 20 per dance we get in cash)

"225," he said, still smiling.

"Ok," she laughed.

We got dressed and left right afterward.

That girl is a trip.

PS I saw Lexi walking down the street outside work the other night, and I was shocked by how much of a busted hooker she appears to be compared with the typical female denizens of Tribeca out and about at 8 pm. The dim lighting in Tryst does wonders to offset these things. She's 21, but could pass for 31 anywhere else but the club.

These were just some observations, rather than criticisms.

Who am I to judge?

PS2 She sometimes says, "Papi." I could never do that with a straight face. It must be a cultural difference, or perhaps one in native temperament, but I would just laugh if I tried to ascribe paternity to a man in a sexual situation without laughing.

PS The manager gave me a plastic ruler to use as a prop with my schoolgirl outfit. I was into it, and so was a skinny, pretty girl named Jenny, who was also dressed in a plaid skirt for the day.

"Will you spank me with that?" she asked with genuine enthusiasm.

I obliged her happily, instantly *feeling* the eyes of about 50 men widen collectively.

She could really take it, so much so that the ruler broke.

Booo, but it was a cheap thing, anyway....