I arrived in St. Louis on Wednesday night, the girls (Fiona, my friend from MI who is besties with my sister from back in her dancin' days, and Athena (cute, petite Pole Princess 2010 from New Orleans) decided to take me to check out the club. Larry Flynt's Hustler Club is located directly off the highway in Washington Park, Illinois about 10 miles from downtown St. Louis. In a fenced in lot across from a BP, and nothing else. It's a gigantic establishment, we're talking warehouse sized, thousands of square feet. You enter through the side of the building and walk up to a glass enclosed 'ticket booth' adjacent from the Love Boutique entrance, where customers can buy sexy items for themselves or the dancers. High ceilings, rows of concert lighting, and wood paneling throughout, it's a real gentleman's club. through a 2nd set of doors is a big marble island bar in front of you. 8 flat screen TV's, games in the bar, and advertisements on loop on either side of the 1 main stage that is to the far left with 3 poles and a ceiling mounted spinning steering wheel. The poles on main stage have these circle plates at the bottom, big enough to put a foot and spin on easier. The O stage is a smaller circle stage in front of the bar, and Beaver Tail VIP stage, open when the club is packed, is behind the bar but in front of the row of 5 champagne rooms lining the far right wall of the room. Seating for 100+ in red leather, wheeled chairs with a gold embroidered H on the back accompany LFHC 'beaver emblem' tables. There is a glass enclosed air circulated 'smoking patio' so smokers can stay indoors and still watch the girls.
Upon entering I see what can only be explained as a nightmare to my home club security (which maintains a strict, no-touch, 6" rule, which I love!). Here I witness a blonde, very well endowed women, sitting on the rack, legs draped over the side of the stage around a customers waist, who is face deep in massive boobs, stroking her thick sides. I look around as others are tucking singles into inappropriate places, dropping them atop shaking asses and some one appears to be 'making it rain' on a girls gaping pussy mere inches the the downpour. Another is seeing how loud they can smack a girls vibrating butt cheek. But everything happening seems to be acceptable behavior here. 4-7 bouncers in matching white shirts and club vests, 2-4 managers, and 1-3 hospitality managers roam around rigged with ear pieces and walkie talkies. 4-6 cocktail waitresses in their black vest and booty short uniforms run around with trays. It is a fucking sight, if you're coming from the tiny, dive bar, 4-9 dancer, 1-3 stage clubs in Portland, where staff wears what they want, and everyone keeps their hands to themselves.
"Oh, good lord.. what am I doing here" that ping of remorse, disgust, and embarrassment creep over me. This is really what goes on here... wow. Ok, I guess.. sure I'll go check out the rooms, maybe we can jump on the beds a bit. They showed me the champagne rooms ranging from $265 to $9,000. 3 New York themed rooms; central park with it's plush green carpet, fake trees and picnic basket wall decor. 47th ave room is covered in broadway show posters, and Times Square with big building cutouts and printed back drop of the flashing neon at the famous intersection. All 3 NY rooms have a small table, and a black leather love seat. There's also 2 San Francisco themed rooms. One is a cheesy, but kinda ok Chinatown themed room with a red chaise lounge for 2, cheap red folding fans & red lame' fabric hanging from the walls, a pagoda cutout and lantern chandelier round out the room. Next door is The Marina, with blue string lights, mermaid fabric, sailing rope and nautical detail. They call it the marina, which is incorrect. It is 'The Pier' in SF, I shake my head. None of the walls go all the way to the ceilings, so you can hear what goes on next door. There are cameras, that aren't really monitored. There are also the much larger and more expensive New Orleans and Paris rooms out on the floor, one next to the smoking room, the other is next to the dressing room entrance. The decor in these rooms is kind of classy. Very large beds, more expensive looking pillows, nice chairs & night stands etc. People actually buy them. They are 2-4 hour rooms with 1-3 girls. You're allowed to buy a room, and have sex in it with someone, as long as the dancers don't participate. For real.
My first shift was Thursday night. I needed a contract before I could be on the floor. You get a number and a manager has to clock you in, then you take the slip up to the DJ to be put in rotation. Not like in Portland, where there is a set amount of girls, needing to be at work & ready on time for rotation they can't opt out of. I sat in the office with the floor manager and a security witness. I was read the entire 4 page contract by the manger. We negotiated my house fee down to $10 (thank god!) because I agreed to be on schedule for 6 hr. shifts, (but can stay as long as I want over that) 4 days a week. If I want to come & go, $30. Opt out of stage rotation and promos, $60. There is a certain number of slots every shift, I got a 10pm on friday and sunday, but had to be in at 6pm on saturday. None of the 'text your availability to the owner and pray you get decent shifts that week' scheduling I'm use to.
Promos include things like bachelor parties and birthdays. "Heels in motion, all ladies to the stage" You know, customer sits in a chair on stage, shirt gets taken off (ew.) and they get fucked with by the dancers. There was one girl (brunette, ok body, trashy face, wearing a hoodie) who would lick, her fingers rub them together, then slap the guy's nipple. Not sure why.. Others would try to pound-hump the guys as hard as they could, not sexy to witness. Another promo is blue light specials. Blue lights in the ceiling would turn on as the DJ hyped a dance special. Some of them include: buy a dance, get a Hustler shirt and free passes, buy one get one free etc. A Silver Platter is when the waitresses clean the stage and try their hand at poorly executed pole tricks. Cute. Dollar dances were the strangest of all. Customers would hold up $1 and all girls would walk around doing 20-30 sec chair dances on the floor, then switch at the DJ's command. $9 is the most i made during this. The final switch was when the girls switched seats with customers and got a quick dance from them. Once, I got stuck with a man 3 times my size, after telling him he couldn't touch me for a dollar. It's also common practice to pull women from the audience on stage and try to get them naked with bribes of shirts, DVD porn, free passes or shots. They almost always get bottomless in 3 min or less. That occurrence is inconceivable in Portland. I'm not even allowed to put my face in girls boobs none the less disrobe them in front of everyone.
The rest of Thursday night was wretchedly slow, even by PDX standards. A boring shift with too many girls, thanks to the 'schedule when you want approach'. I tried to count at one point but lost track at 20 or so, with a ratio of 3-1 dancer to customer.
I was on stage 3 times all night and the few dances I did manage to get were from a touchy Saudi who told me I had poor body language, touched my fake hair, that he made $10,000 a month then underpaid me for dances. When describing my fire dancing, motorcycle riding activities in Portland to him; "Wow, you seem quite gangster", he said in his thick accent. Priceless. I left at 6am.
Friday was just as bad. Less than $200 gross, my fellow dancers know what that means. I got overwhelmed at one point, anxious I hadn't made half of my goal for the evening, getting confused at what all the terms meant and which promos I had to do. It was dumb. I did a dance for an older electrician who kept blowing on my vag like hot soup. Much later in the evening I befriended a handsome, very sweet, 6' 5" Ryan Gosling look alike (vacations are awesome!), there with his 2 metal looking friends, in for some after hours drinking. The club has a 24 hour liquor license. Portland shuts down at 2:30am.
I met Lark on Saturday night. She finally showed up and established herself as my charming, smiley, conversationalist alter ego after almost 2 years of this career. Good lord. After two days of witnessing the spectacle, I opted to put on my game face and play along. I developed my formula that will take me more years to perfect. The hunt/prowel for potential dances. Sought out customers who would seem to 'go for you', approach, sit, (on their lap when there isn't a chair) schmooz, spend no longer than 2 songs chatting but if it looks like a dead end, move on. Upon entrance, customers can choose to just pay the $8 admission to sit, drink and watch, and hopefully tip, which isn't mandatory on the rail (not 'rack' like in Portland). You can buy a wristband for another $10 which allows for them to get couch and bed dances in the "Pleasure Palace" or buy VIP champagne rooms. Portland only has a few clubs that can get away with a less then $5 entry fee, the rest are free. Tipping is mandatory while sitting on the rack, it is at my 2 clubs. I would scan for wristbands and then hone in. I'd ask to sit, ask where they're from, throw in that I was traveling from Portland. The conversation would always turn to my tattoos, and I would try to seal the deal with a "I'd love to share a dance with you, so you can see them all a little closer" ack.. Who says shit like that? Lark does. I met a trio of dudes with metal band shirts on, and one with '90's piercings'. You know, eyebrow barbells, big captive bead earrings, etc. I sold 2 couch dances and a bed dance to them. The one just wanted to talk, then tried to say things like "We really connected, the eyes are the window to the soul, I see you (like, from Avatar?), I want to take you to dinner" No, thank you. I did a dance for 'J' and his boner, which he kept stroking through his shorts at the rack (that would get you kicked out in Portland), and 'B' a roofer with a Dan's Comp shirt on who got a bed dance. We talked about BMX bikes and my Zoobomb mini bike. He had to pry himself away saying he needed to go home or her was gonna lose a lot more money to me. I practically had a lesbian encounter with an adorable blonde, 'M' with huge boobs. It was her 1st time in a club. There might have been a bit of touching during that dance, but I assured her that she shouldn't expect that kind of treatment all the time. At around 5am, I walked out of the dance room, to feel the whiplash stare of a young, cute blonde kid in his polo & khaki cargos, fresh from Army tour. He runs up to me and says the "Oh my god, look at your tattoos, you are so amazing" spiel and grabs my arms to see & touch them etc. The kid hasn't seen pussy for 8 months, I wound up selling $800 in champagne rooms on the governments' tab. For that much money it looked more like an hour and a half of heavy petting. When the club encourages the behavior, and it results in that kind of cash, I'm gonna do what I will. I don't regret it either. I'm positive it is quite a bit less than some other dancers have done. I guess that management says, do what you're comfortable with as long as there is no penis's penetrating anything. I maintain that I did not let anyone touch me on stage, during my whole trip. I left at 9:30 in the morning, when the sun has been up for hours and it's blazing hot outside already.
Sunday was slower than the other 3 nights, I was there just to fulfill my contract. Fiona had left already. 7 hour drive back to Michigan, then home for 4 days before coming back to work the next week, all summer long. She opts out of stage dancing and focuses on the type of clientele who will buy champagne rooms, and sells enough of them to make a living. I had more stage rotation to play on the 3 poles and show off for the 8-10 customers in the room, except for when I landed on one of the plates at the pole bottom, ass first while doing a reverse shoulder mount. ouch! I made $15 in 4 sets. Guh. Close to 4 am, when I would be allowed to go home, a couple sat on my rack with wristbands. It was like shooting fish in a barrel selling them a double couch dance, blue light special with an extra t-shirt and a stack of passes thrown in. Boom! $50 night for sitting on my iTouch the entire time, making some final notes for this blog.
Boy, did I work with some interesting (looking) people. I didn't speak to most of the dancers (scary!) and chatted mostly with my DJ's and hospitality. Some of my 'favorite' dancers were the stringy haired blonde, drag queen looking, man-bodied, ancient lady who had no business being in school girl clothes. Huge mis-matched fake boobs, ripped abs with loose skin and a rapidly aging face. The other blonde with cliche' black hair underneath, who dressed in those 90's fishnet flared catsuits, had no molars and a habit of either talking to herself, or others around her but not quite loud enough to be making conversation with anyone, always about her kids. Or the trashy, obviously 2 kids deep brunette hunched over her box of Popeye's chicken who asked me "What are those for?" while I slipped on my ballet flats (which i'm not allowed to wear) to run out on the floor to get clocked in. "My flats? umm.. to dance in..." wtf? I also overheard a yelling phone conversation of a dancer's Father in-law, going to their trailer & stealing their coffee table. Others include the very urban chick who showed up to work in men's shorts & tee, didn't put on any makeup, and wore the same blue bikini for 4 days. She had a 3 pack-a-day hoarse rattle and long jeri-curl hair. Another was a thick Springfield girl who's thigh is probably the size of my 26" waist, and I'm fat, at 125 lbs, for Portland standards. Ha!
There was maybe 5 girls who were slammin', no fucking around. I witnessed the two baddest-ass black women I have ever seen. Stacked, fit women with big hair, big boobies, tiny waists, shelf asses and could kill it on the pole. Amazing women. I stared at them a lot. A few more fit bodies, some but not many beautiful faces. Honestly the ratio of 'do or not do' was about 5-1. The majority of these girls would never be allowed on a stage in Portland. 5 times in one night i was told I was the most beautiful woman in the room. Me, who is 'Captain mid-shift' at home. Some women had 2-3 kid sag bellies, adorned with sporadic '90's tattoos' of names, angles, flowers, dolphins, tramp stamps, tribal armbands, and ankle roses. There was a girl who looked 6 months pregnant, the way her gut suck out, and her lower spine curved into a permanent L from years of sticking out her 'stripper butt' like a duck. Real pieces of work. I guess that's why management told me they were gonna kidnap me and keep me forever. Especially when I told them that I barely get scheduled night shifts, I'm not "Team Elite" and how grossly under rated it makes me feel. I can't wait to see them all in Oct. when I travel to New Orleans to work and fire perform at Barely Legal on Bourbon St. which apparently does not allow hand jobs in the VIP. Thank god.
