My 21st Birthday

I left Chris right before I turned 21. I came home from work one night, and we sat in the living room of our apartment together and I told him that I just didn't love him anymore. We had broken up and gotten back together several times before, but this time, he could tell it was different. I explained to him that there was nothing he could do to make me stay; I had dealt with this not working crap for too long and it was killing me. I was done. We sat there and cried together for what seemed like hours. I was not heartless about it. It hurt me to leave him. After all, we had spent 2 years together. He was the first man I ever lived with, and he knew me better than anyone. That was a hard thing to do, regardless of the fact that I had been cheating on him.

I told him that he could stay at the apartment for a little while until he could find another place to live, and I started making plans to move out. Until that time, however, we lived together. I banished him to the couch, but every morning when I woke up, he was in the bed next to me, so I decided that he could have the bedroom and I would take the couch. That way, I wouldn't be sleeping in the same bed with him, because I was still dating Derik, and now that I had broken it off with Chris, I didn't want to have to lie about where I was sleeping anymore. Our mutual friend Mike moved in to help keep the peace and yeah, it was a little awkward. At this time, Chris didn't know about Derik.

When I told Derik that I left Chris, his reaction was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I thought he would be happy, and when I told him, he was very nonchalant about it. Almost like he didn't care. It really made me mad, because that was a huge deal for me! I struggled with that decision for months, and then when I actually did it, Derik blew it off like it was nothing. I was confused, but I knew that he would come around. I stayed at my friend's apartment for about a week after the breakup and he would come over there to see me, so I knew it was going to be okay. During that week, though, Chris called me and asked me if there was someone else. I lied at first and promised that there was no one, but he knew I was lying.

"Why does it matter?" I asked. "It's not going to change anything."
And he told me, "If there is someone else, I need to know, so I can move on. If there is any chance that you and I will get back together, I won't be able to."

I knew then that I had to tell him.

"Yes, there is someone else."

Long pause.....

"Is it Derik?" he asked.
"Yes."

He asked me how long I had been seeing him and I told him the truth. It had been months. He asked if I had been sleeping with both of them and again, the answer was yes. Then, he cussed me out like I have never been cussed before. He called me every name in the book. I was a whore, a slut, an adulterous bitch..... you name it. It hurt, but he had every right to tear into me like that, so I sat there on the phone and cried as I took my punishment. After he was done, he hung up on me, and proceeded to text me hateful messages for the rest of the day. I was supposed to go to work that night, but my heart hurt so much that I wasn't able to.

He called me a couple days later and apologized for the way he talked to me, which, in my opinion, was very big of him. He had a right to be so angry and I didn't expect an apology. But, he was living in the apartment that I paid for, so he had two choices: move out, or swallow his pride.

He chose to swallow his pride. It must have been really hard for him to see me come home, hang out with me all day, take me to work at night, and know that sometimes, I wouldn't come home, because I would be spending the night with Derik. But he dealt with it the best he could, and our friend Mike being there helped a lot. During this time, he tried to bring other girls over to the apartment, but it never worked out for some reason. I don't know how I would have reacted anyway.

So, my 21st birthday rolls around, and this is the first one in a couple of years that I won't be spending with Chris. He and Mike took me to work that night and I remember thinking that it would be great! My new boyfriend was going to come see me, and any time one of the dancers had a birthday, they would bring her onstage and all the other girls would dance for her, and customers would usually throw a lot of money on stage, which the birthday girl got to keep, so I was pretty excited about the whole thing.

On the way to the club that night.

But when I got there, I tried to call Derik several times and he never answered the phone. I was pretty upset over that, so I started drinking. And I just kept on drinking. I got so drunk that night, and called Derik over and over and over, but he would not answer his phone for me. So on my BIRTHDAY, the day that is supposed to be all about me, I ended up drunk in the back dressing room, crying for the rest of the night. Derik never came to see me that night, and didn't even called to say Happy Birthday to me, and this was my first birthday as his girlfriend.

When Chris came to pick me up that night, he noticed that I was super upset and asked why. I told him and he looked at me with such sympathy, which I didn't deserve, especially from him, and he told me "He doesn't deserve you. He didn't even wish you a Happy Birthday. And this is the man you want?"

How hard it must have been for him to watch the woman he still wanted to be with cry over what another man had done to her.

I didn't have anything to say to that. That should have been my first indication that this relationship was not going to go well, but like any stupid girl that gets caught up, I made excuses for him.

As it turned out, Derik was mad at me because he thought I had made other plans that didn't involve him on my birthday, and instead of being a grown up, and calling to ask me about it, he completely blew me off and ruined my birthday. He made it up to me by taking me on a walk by a lake in Dallas, and sadly, that was enough for me.

My Double Life

Now, I'm going to take it back to the story. I think that before I talked about my family in my last post, I was talking about how I started to be attracted to Derik. I was very bold back then, and so I approached Derik and let him know that I was interested and started making advances on him. At first, he seemed like he was trying to respect the fact that I was in a relationship with another man, but he wanted me just as much as I wanted him, and it was just an act. He didn't care about how Chris would feel about me cheating. I started talking to Derik about how unhappy I was with Chris and he validated me! He would tell me that I deserved better and yes, I did, but he didn't really have my well being in mind; he was thinking about himself and what he could get out of it, but I didn't know that at the time. I thought that he really cared about me, and maybe, at one time, he did. But I think his motivation was always a selfish one.

So, one day, me and Derik were at the club talking, and I pretty much just came out and told him that I wanted to sleep with him. I guess I thought that if we just slept together once, I would get it out of my system, and it would be over. He actually acted offended when I offered myself to him, and he gave me an choice.

"You can choose option A or option B."
"Ok," I said. "What's option A?"
"Option A is that we sleep together once. But then I'm done with you. Our friendship is over and you mean nothing to me."

I was crushed!! I did want to sleep with him for my own selfish reasons, but I didn't want to lose our friendship. He was quite literally the only thing keeping me going at that time. Every morning I woke up for the sole purpose of going to work and seeing him. He was the only good thing in my life, but in order to get what I wanted, he was going to take that support from me. It looked like I couldn't win. But I still didn't know what option B was.

"....So, what's option B, then?" I asked.
"Option B is you leave Chris and you be with me."

Well, that was more like what I wanted to hear, but I still wasn't sure if I wanted to leave Chris. He was my comfort zone. I was miserable with him, but I didn't know how to be without him, and I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid of hurting him, also, and in a way, I felt responsible for him. If I wasn't the one taking care of him, who was going to do it? So, I struggled with what I was going to do.

But eventually, I told Derik what he wanted to hear, so that I could get what I wanted. I told him that I was going to leave Chris, but I just needed a little bit of time to work things out, and we made plans to meet up. So I started to save up money. I would work, and then put back a little bit of what I made each night so that instead of going to work one night, I could go to Derik's house, and then go home with money, so that it seemed like I was going to work.

And then we planned it out. I had Chris drop me off at work, then I would wait about an hour. Derik would come pick me up at the club and we would go back to his apartment and '"hang out". It didn't take long for us to get down to business. We only really wanted one thing from each other, but once we slept together once, we wanted to do it again. And again. And again.

So, I started living this double life. During the day, I was Chris' girlfriend. I told him I loved him and in my twisted way, I did. But at night, I was Derik's girlfriend. I had 2 full on relationships going on at the same time. I told them both I loved them, and I slept with both of them, but never in the same day. As if that makes it better. But that's what I told myself to make what I was doing not seem as bad.

Derik lost his apartment and ended up moving into his friend Dean's house, and then I started going over there and spending the night. I would call Chris while I was still at work and tell him that I couldn't find a ride home from work, and that I was spending the night with one of my stripper friends and going to work with them the next day. But I would really go spend the night with Derik. This went on for months!! Derik would pressure me about when I was going to leave Chris, and I would cry and tell him it was complicated and he would get mad at me. We had problems from the get-go, but what do you expect when your relationship starts out like that? We were having a full fledged affair and even though I had every intention of leaving Chris, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Derik tried to break off the affair a couple of times, but I would cry and he would eventually give in and not leave me.

My breaking point came around Christmas of that year. This affair I was having was really taking its toll on me. I was so unhappy and I felt horrible about what I was doing to Chris, but I was so caught up in how I felt about Derik that I couldn't stop.

And then Chris asked me to marry him.

Now, I am a married woman and I clearly remember the elation and pure happiness that coursed through me when my husband asked me to be his wife. It was one of the best moments of my life, and I will forever cherish that memory.

I felt nothing like that when Chris asked me. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Never mind the fact that he didn't even have a ring when he asked me, or that he asked me while we were watching "Knocked Up" and he didn't even get down on one knee. When he asked me to marry him, my stomach dropped, I felt sick to my stomach and this feeling of intense dread came upon me.

That is CLEARLY not the reaction you are supposed to have when the man God has for you asks you to marry him.

I just couldn't say yes. I thought about what Derik would say when he found out that I had agreed to marry Chris. It would be over between us, and I just couldn't risk that. I also thought about the fact that if I said yes, I would forever be taking care of this man. He still didn't have a job, and I felt trapped even just thinking about it. So I told him, as gently as I could under the circumstances, that I couldn't say yes to him right then, and then I explained to him why, leaving out the fact that I had been cheating on him for months, of course.

After that, I knew I had to end it. He had asked me to marry him, and I knew in my heart that I NEVER wanted to marry him. Not even if he changed and got a job and started treating me better. He wasn't it for me, and I had know it all along, but now I needed to do something about it. I stuck it out for a couple more months because.... well, I don't actually know why. I didn't want to hurt him, and I knew leaving would, so I prolonged the inevitable... but around my 21st birthday, I finally broke it off with Chris.

Family

Some of you are probably wondering where my family was during all this. I mean, I haven't really mentioned them beyond my first couple of posts, so maybe its time to take it back to the family.

Let's start with my mom. Like I said, I had moved out of her house after we had a huge fight because she found out I was dancing. She didn't kick me out. I voluntarily left, but I always told people she kicked me out because.... well, I don't really know why I told people that. I guess it sounded better than saying that I left because I couldn't face the disappointment that was sure to be on her face day after day. But my mom, God bless her soul, was a pillar of strength during this time. Yes, she cried and didn't sleep well at night, knowing where I was and what I was doing. But she was strong, and instead of pushing me away by telling me what a huge sinner I was, and constantly nagging me about my choice of occupation, she was there for me. If I was having problems paying my bills, she would help me out. If she came over and my fridge was empty, she would take me shopping. It even got to the point where if I didn't have a ride to work, she would come and get me and drive me to the strip club, even though it was an hour away, even though she HATED dropping me off there. Some of you may be thinking "What the crap?? I would never take my daughter to work if she worked at a strip club!!! Well, I never!!!" But you don't understand Mom like I do.

You see, Mom wasn't facilitating me. She wasn't the reason I was stripping. Did she take me when I needed a ride? Yes. Did she want me to be doing what I was doing? NO! But my mom knew that if she didn't take me, someone else would. I was going to get to work one way or another, and this way, she knew exactly where I was because she was the one that took me there. I think also, that if something horrible did happen to me, this was her way of ensuring that she got to see me and tell me she loved me one last time.

In a way, my mom's acceptance of me without judgment brought us closer together. We kind of bonded over the fact that we were both the black sheep in the family; she was the family lesbian and I was the family stripper. This bond opened up doors for us to talk about things that she had never really been able to discuss with any of her other children. She told me about why she was the way she was, and what events in her life led up to her decisions and for the first time, I UNDERSTOOD her. I saw the hurting person that she was, and how strong she had been to overcome some of these things that had happened to her. My mom had been to Hell and back and yes, she came out the other side wounded and now she struggles with an unnatural attraction, but if that is the only thing she struggles with, then fine! Mom had every excuse in the world to be an abusive, messed up individual, but she ended up being an amazing mother and care taker, and if I end up being even HALF the woman she is, I'll be doing alright.

I don't really know what was going on with my Dad. We didn't have a relationship. Dad had moved in with my sister in Indiana after a car wreck that left him with a broken back. He couldn't work and he was facing jail time, and so he went to stay with my sister until he figured out what he was going to do. In time, his wife and her 2 children moved to Indiana also, and they all got their own place together. When my Mom and I would go visit Jessica, that is when I saw my dad. That's really the only time. We didn't talk on the phone. He never called me on my birthday, but in all fairness, I never called him on his either. I wasn't bitter or angry about it or anything like that. Yes, I had daddy issues. So do most strippers. But honestly, I just didn't care that much. There is an old saying that goes 'You don't miss what you never had.' This was true in my case. My dad was never a huge part of my life, and so I didn't miss it. My older sibling remember the good ol' Dad, before the drinking took over his life. But I don't. The only good memories I had of him were few and far between and they ended when I was about 7 or 8. Sometimes I wished that he had been there... there were countless missed talent shows and school programs, but in the end, those things really didn't matter and  so I didn't dwell on it too much. I know that Dad knew what I was doing, but I don't know how he reacted, or if he even cared.

My brother was just pissed off about it. He found out about me stripping and from what I hear, almost broke his foot kicking the wall. He always wanted to be that man to me... the one I could go to instead of Daddy. But I never gave him the chance. I guess I was just hurt by the first man that left me, and so I closed myself off. Cliff was always so good to me when I was little. But as I got older, I pulled back, and even though he tried to reach me, I was already out of his reach by the time I was in middle school. I'll never forget that song he wrote for me though. He was in a band called Rosedale when I was in middle school, and man, I never thought my brother was cooler. I would try to hang around while he and the other band members were practicing in the den, and he would let me stay as long as I wasn't too annoying. He had some cute friends and I was in Jr. high, so you can just imagine....

But he wrote this song for me, and it was called "Fatherless Child". I could hear his love for me in that song, and it touched a deep place in my heart. It still does. When I think of it, I cry sometimes, because that song was practically begging for my life. One of the lines of the songs says "Don't let her fall for this world's romance". That was my brother's prayer for me, and even though I did, in fact, fall for the world's romance, the fact that he cared enough to even devote one afternoon of his life to writing a song for his little sister... well, that speaks of his character.

I tried not to talk to my sisters too often. They were so holy and all about Jesus and quite frankly, I was sick of hearing about it. I loved them, but their Godliness convicted me, so if they happened to get me on the phone, I would only talk for about 5-10 minutes and was very vague about what was going on with me, so they wouldn't know what I was doing. But they knew. Word had gotten around. I thought I was hiding it so well, but I wasn't fooling anyone. After the shooting at the strip club, when I quit, I went to a Joyce Meyer conference with both of my sisters and my mom. I told my sisters then that I had been dancing, but they told me that they already knew all along. I didn't want to have to hide anymore. At that point in time, I had no plans on going back, but you all know how that ended up.

But I also didn't want to talk to them because I didn't feel as if I fit in. My sister Andrea was in this discipleship program in Detroit, and when I would go see her, I always felt as if she was just waiting for me to say something wrong, so she could hurry up and sweep it under the rug. I remember one time in particular, when I went to visit her, we were at her Pastor's house with a bunch of the other kids in the program. We were talking about my mom's old Volkswagon van from the 50's, and I jokingly made a remark about it being called "The Lesbian-mobile" because it was all decked out in rainbows.... and then everyone kind of laughed awkwardly as my sister rushed to cover up what I just said. And it embarrassed me! It seemed like every time I was around Christians, I embarrassed myself, and my family was quick to try and cover it up. I was like the old friend who is invited to a wedding, but secretly, everyone hopes that person doesn't give a speech. Well, as far as I was concerned, I didn't need correcting! If I couldn't be who the heck I was, without someone trying to censor me, then I just didn't want to be around these people. Things like that also fed into my feelings of distrust and further reinforced the fact that I wanted nothing to do with Christianity.

So when Jessica, my oldest sister, got on the phone with me and started telling me about Jesus' love for me, like she inevitably did every single time we talked, I wasn't trying to hear it. To me, Jesus' love was synonymous with Christian's love... and honestly, I only felt loved by Christians as long as I didn't say the wrong thing.

Dance with the Devil

So, there I was, in a relationship that I didn't want to be in anymore, at a job I hated, with a habit I just couldn't kick. I was miserable and the only thing that brought me any type of happiness was my friend Derik. He started to tell me how good I looked sometimes and make little comments that made me feel desirable and I liked it! Can you blame me? I had a boyfriend at home who didn't even realize that I had lost about 20 pounds due to drug use and obviously didn't care enough to do anything about it.

Derik was a bouncer in the club. He used to be a manager, but he got fired for dating my friend Diamond, I believe. But this club was notorious for hiring people back on after they had been fired, and even though the GM HATED Derik with a passion, apparently he didn't have much of a say, and Derik got hired back on, but as  a bouncer this time. I will say that our club had great security. All it took was a word from one of us about how someone had touched us, and they were beating some poor guys face in and throwing him out. It happened all the time, too.

I remember one time in particular. It was a busy night and a young man approached me and asked for a lap dance. I said ok, and took him by the hand to lead him to the lap dance area. On the way there, however, I felt something brush up against my bare butt. Now, we didn't walk around naked, but a general outfit on any given night was a tiny bikini top and a T-back (read g-string). I knew without turning around to look what had brushed up against me. You see, when we did our lap dances, we got completely nude and generally, we would sit down on a customers lap at some time during the dance. We were not supposed to do this; there were certain laws pertaining to dancing in an all nude club, and one of those laws was ABSOLUTELY NO TOUCHING, but, seriously??? Yeah right. Who is going to pay $20 for a girl to dance naked 3 feet away?

Anyway, this guy thought he was going to get a little something extra out of his dance with me. He had unzipped his pants, and put his junk through his zipper hole and pulled his long shirt down over it, and I suppose that when I was nude and sat down on him, he was going to pop it up and I would have sat down right on his.... ya know. But, fortunately for me, when we were walking past his friends, I guess he just couldn't resist showing off, and decided to give my butt a little tap. THANK GOD I knew what it was.

I changed directions and still holding his hand, I walked right up to a bouncer, and lifted up his shirt. Well, it was hanging out quite clearly for all to see, and the bouncer immediately picked the guy up and took him outside. I never found out what happened to that guy, but I know Derik was a bouncer that night as well, and he seemed to go extra hard on the guys that tried to mess with me. I suppose that guy got beat up pretty bad, and honestly, he should have! If he would have done to me what he was planning to do, it would have been rape. Some people may argue with that, because obviously, if a guy violates a stripper, it was because she was asking for it. NO!!! Rape is rape and if something like that is done to ANYONE, even a prostitute, or a stripper and it is not consensual, its rape. I just want to make that clear.

Anyway, Derik was kind of my savior during this time. If I ever had a problem, I went to him. If someone tried to duck out of paying me for a dance because I wouldn't let them touch me in certain places, I went to him. He was my strip club champion and he always had my back.

He was pretty close to all the girls. Like I said, he was charming and outgoing and had a way of making you feel like you were the most important thing in the room, and I know I wasn't the only one who was fooled by him. At the end of the night, he would always walk around and give all the girls good night kisses on the lips. We never thought anything of it; it was just what he did, and even before I started having feelings for him, he would give me kisses on the lips and it NEVER meant a thing. But one day, that all changed. I don't know why, but one night, he gave me my good night kiss, and it lingered.... we stayed lip-locked a little longer than usual and it was just a little different. I can't quite put my finger on why it was different that time, but we broke away and kind of looked at each other like "what just happened?". I left that night in a hurry, confused, but just a little bit elated, and I could not stop thinking about it. In an instant, things had changed between us, and I know that sounds silly and like a romance novel or something, but that is seriously how it happened. A power shift happened that night, and he knew it. I went from merely wanting to be around my friend, to NEEDING to be around this man who stirred up these feelings in me. He had the upper hand from that moment on.

Cocaine

After I started working in the club again, I really took a nosedive. I thought I had already reached my low point, but man, I was wrong. The whole time I was there, I had been pretty good about not getting involved in any hard drugs. Yeah, I took pills every now and then, and drank a lot, but nothing too hardcore. I remember being in the bathroom, and girls would come in while I was in there, and pull out bags of coke. They would always ask if I wanted a "bump", and I would always say "No, no, I'm ok." They would shrug, snort their poison and leave. My friend Diamond, who no longer worked there, HATED cocaine. It ripped her family apart, and that alone was motivation enough for me to not ever do it.... as long as she was there. But after she left, my resolve weakened, and one day, when someone offered it to me, I snorted my first bit of cocaine in over 2 years. And that was all it took. I was hooked. I loved the way it made me feel at first. I always loved being high, and this was a different kind of high... I was energetic and engaging when I was on coke and I felt invincible. But as with any drug, I started needing more and more of it to get that same feeling.

I found coke buddies. These were the girls that I knew did coke; the ones who offered it to me in the first place. If I didn't have any, I could approach these girls and see if they had any, or if they wanted to go in half on a baggie with me. We would share our drugs, and as crazy as it might seem, I developed really strong friendships because of it. But when you are caught up in something destructive, you don't see how it really affects you like other people see it. I didn't see the weight I was losing, but everyone else did. I didn't see how pathetic I looked if I had to work one night without the coke, but everyone else did. It got to the point where people felt sorry for me, but I didn't realize how dependent I had become. It was a really horrible thing... I would desperately want to be high, and then once I got high, I would desperately want to be sober again. I hated it, but I couldn't stand to be without it. Every night I would tell myself I wasn't going to buy any.... and then, without fail, I would get drunk, and I would justify buying coke by telling myself that I just bought it to help "sober me up".

All this time, I was still dating Chris. He never knew about my coke habit until after we broke up. Looking back, I don't understand how he didn't see it, but that just goes to show how much attention he actually paid me. I would go home after doing coke all night, and my stomach would be so empty that it would make these awful sounds... like my insides were hollow. I would smoke a blunt before getting into bed so that I would actually have a shot at sleeping, and when I finally felt like I might be able to sleep, I would curl up around a pillow so that my empty stomach sounds wouldn't wake him up.

If I couldn't get coke at the club, I knew girls who snorted Ice, which is crystal meth, and I would do that instead. I absolutely hated meth though. It burned, and I only did that as a last resort.

So, as my coke habit got worse and worse, I was spending more and more money on it. So much, in fact, that I was having a problem paying my bills. I was broke all the time, but the only thing that seemed important to me anymore was getting high, and I was buying my drugs before I took care of my house fees and tip outs, so I ended up in debt to the club.

I'm not proud of what I started to do next. But when drugs are all that matter, you'll do whatever it takes to get them. The owner of the club I worked at had built a room in the back where he could do his drugs and have sex with the strippers. Everyone who worked there knew what was going on when girls went back there, and we judged those girls. They were "hoes" and we would make fun of them and talk crap about them. I'm not proud of it, but I took my turn back there as well. I got to the point where I spent all my money on drugs, and couldn't face going home to Chris and telling him that I didn't make any money, so one day the opportunity presented itself, and I went to the back office. Afterwards, I was so ashamed, I never wanted to go back to the club, but thankfully, the owner was always so messed up, he didn't even remember who I was the next time he saw me. I didn't have sex with him, but I did do other things. I was desperate, and after that, I could hardly look at myself in the mirror. I always said that I would NEVER, EVER let myself get to the point that I was willing to sell myself, but I did.

My shame led to more and more alcohol and drugs, and the more messed up I got, the more I needed money, and sadly, the cycle continued, and I continued to sell sexual favors in order to pay for my habit. I was on a path that led to death and destruction, and I didn't know how to stop it. I didn't even know how I got there.

Chris never knew about the prostitution. He would have been disgusted and left me, I'm sure. But even at this point, when I hated him because I blamed him for my habit and what I was doing to support it, I was afraid of being lonely, and so I stayed with him. But he wasn't meeting my needs anymore, and so, for affection, I turned to a man who seemed to care about me, even knowing about the coke habit and how messed up I was. That man was my good friend Derik. I found myself starting to seek him out more and more at work, and wearing outfits that I thought he might like, just so I could hear him tell me how good I looked that day. It was sad, but I was looking for ANY validation that I was more than just a washed up coke whore.

Click-Clack, Pow!

The second year I was stripping went by just as quick as that first year did. All the days just kind of blend together when your life has no purpose. I worked, came home, slept all day, woke up, smoked some weed, and went back to work. It was an endless cycle and I had come to absolutely HATE it. Diamond had left Derik because she had been giving him money to pay all the bills in their house while he wasn't working, and somehow, the bills weren't being paid, so he lost his house and she had enough of his lying about where the money went. He still hung around the strip club though, and she quit dancing so she wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. With Diamond gone, I was miserable. She was my best friend, in and out of the club, and I was disappointed that she left. But it was the right decision for her, and after she left Derik, she was the happiest I had seen her in a long time. So I was happy for her, but not sure what I was going to do. Sure, I talked about getting out, but how was I supposed to do that? I had bills! I couldn't wait 3 weeks for that first paycheck! I had a grown man and a weed habit to support! Eventually I got my chance. I was over it, and so I applied for a job at Walmart. With the help of a friend peeing for me so I could pass my drug test, I got the job. I couldn't wait to start, but I figured I would just work at both jobs until I started getting my paychecks, and then wean myself off of the quick money.

I did quit dancing for a very short period of time.... about 2 weeks. And this is why:

After one exceptionally busy night at the club, it was time to close it down. It was last call and the bouncers were walking around throwing all the beer bottles away. We were not closed just yet, but I knew I wouldn't be going on stage again and so I already had my clothes on and was just waiting for us to close so I could leave. Then a HUGE fight broke out on the floor. I guess someone wasn't done with their beer yet, and didn't take so kindly to it being thrown away. What resulted was the worst bar fight I have ever seen. I mean, it was CRAZY!! There were bar stools being used as weapons, pool sticks flying everywhere, bottles and glasses being thrown around, and there was even a guy with a broken leg using his crutches to just beat the crap out of someone. It was intense. And then..... shots fired. If you have never been in a situation where a gun is going off awfully close to where you are, let me just tell you, it is SCARY! I grew up in the suburbs, ok!? I had never been in a shooting and now, the club I was working at was getting shot up. Well, anyone who worked there that wasn't involved in the fight, was now running to the dressing room and hiding. I hid behind a locker and prayed that I wouldn't be shot by a stray bullet, or that the shooter wouldn't come into the dressing room and start capping the girls. There were at least 4 more gun shots...and then.... silence.

We waited for the bouncers to come let us know that we could go home, and what a sorry sight they were. They got it bad, but fortunately no one was shot. I left that night shaken to my core. One of the bullet holes was in a mirror on one of the stages, and it was right where a dancer's head would be had we still been running stages. I got home, and Chris asked me what the heck was wrong with me, and I just broke down crying and told him what happened and how scared I was. He held me while I cried and told me I didn't have to go back there; he would get a job and I could get a regular job and we would make it. I was thrilled. This was the man I wanted; a man who would work and help me out with the bills. We would finally be a normal couple and I wouldn't have to buy his love anymore.

That night I swore I was done. I realized what a dangerous occupation stripping could be, and I didn't want to die. I loved my life more than I loved money, and I was going to do whatever it took to get out of that life.

The night of the shooting was the night before I was supposed to start my job at Walmart. I already had the job, so I decided I was done with stripping and I was not going to go back. And I didn't. Until I got that first paycheck.

During my first 3 weeks at Walmart, Chris got a job!! I was so proud of him! We were going to make it work... that is until we started running out of things. When you get a new job, you don't get paid for generally 2 to 3 weeks depending on when in the pay period you start. Our resolve was strong, until we ran out of weed. And then we ran out of cigarettes. Then we started running out of food, which didn't bother him so much, because he could just go to the studio and eat. But I was pretty much hungry all the time. I survived off of gas station hot dogs and candy bars. Finally, when the last of my stripping money was gone, I got a check!!! I have never been so proud of a check before either. I didn't have to take my clothes off for that paycheck. I earned it honestly and in a way that my mom could be proud of, but for some reason, it just wasn't enough for me. I made in 2 weeks what I could have made in 2 days at the club! After talking with Chris and then discovering that he lost his job because being at the studio was more important to him than being on time to work, we decided that I had to go back to the club. So, about 2 weeks after I "quit for good", I was getting dropped off again at those familiar black doors, hating life and feeling like a fool. It was about that time that my feelings for Chris started to subside. I was furious that I had to come back to this place because he WOULD NOT keep a job.

I worked at both Walmart and the club for about 3 months. It was hell. I worked at the club until 2 in the morning, got home around 3, crawled into bed exhausted and got about 4 hours of sleep, until my alarm woke me up at 7, so I could be at Walmart at 8. I would work at Walmart until about 4 or 5, come home, get high and go straight to work at the club. I was miserable, but I stuck it out until one day I literally passed out from exhaustion at Walmart. I was scanning someone's groceries and all of a sudden, I got that nasty tingly feeling on the back of my neck again. Next thing I know, I'm on the floor with a manager trying to poor Mountain Dew down my throat. That's when I knew I had to make a decision, and since I made more money stripping, I quit working at Walmart and went back to dancing full time.

A Little Light in the Darknes

So, life goes on, and I'm still stripping. My one year anniversary of working in the club rolls by, and I'm like "What?" Where did that year go? It slipped by so fast, but sadly, I spent most of it messed up. But by this time, I had really hit my stride. I was in my comfort zone at the club. It was the first place in my life that I could be my own person. Maybe that doesn't make sense. What I mean is that, my whole life I had always just been someones little sister. I was never known for me, or something that I had done. It was always, "OH! Your Jessica ( Andrea, Cliff's) little sister." I was the tag-a-long, the third wheel, the friend that always got pushed aside when a better, cooler friend came into the picture. But at the strip club? I was Faith. Yes, I was Diamond's best friend. We were our own little clique and that is how we liked it. We would talk to other girls and be cool with everybody else, but at the end of the day, that was my best friend, and not just in the club, either. I had her back through everything, and she had mine. When she started having problems with Derik, she came to my house. And later, when I needed her, I stayed with her.

I kind of came into my own at the club. Like I said, this was the first time in my life I wasn't being compared to my siblings. Stripping was something that I could be good at, and I went for it. I watched the money-makers and the best dancers in the club to see what they were doing. I practiced and mastered moves that I saw the other girls do. I taught myself pole tricks and how to do the splits. I learned how to do my hair and put on stage makeup. I learned which outfits would flatter my figure more so I could make more money. I was serious about it. And it worked. After a while, I was known. I would walk in, and people would say hi to me. I started to get regular customers who I could count on for a couple of lap dances. I made friends with the bartenders, the door girls, the house moms, the bouncers and the other girls. It's sad, but that place was the first place I ever felt accepted for who I was. Too bad that I wasn't really that person.

It wasn't all bad all the time. There were little bits of light that would shine through the darkness every once in a while. There was Mama Kim, the house mom who quit dancing after she had a baby. She was the most trustworthy of all the house moms, and was the only one I trusted with my money. There was Ken, the manager that married Mama Kim, got his affairs in order, and took himself and his wife out of there. Dilemma, the beautiful Mexican girl who chose life for her baby after facing the agonizing choice to abort. I was so proud of her that I bought her baby a gift. Her best friend Jazzy, whose relationship with Dilemma reminded me of the special bond between Diamond and I, and Denise, who danced to support her kids, but never got into the drugs and the drama. There was Silver, who started dancing when she was 40 to put herself through nursing school, and provided all of us with the saucy black mama that everyone needs sometimes, Delilah, the aspiring song-writer/singer who cared so much about one of the girls that she wrote a song for her, and Susan, the door girl, who would cut deals for my friends when they would come in, and also watched my money for me when I got too wasted to know what I was doing.

Then there were some customers that just weren't bad guys. Anthony, an older man whose wife died, who never wanted me to dance for him. He would pay me $20 dollars for every game of pool I played with him. Sarge, who could have smacked my butt every time I walked by, but instead, complimented my make-up. And Ron, who would always give me $5 dollars when I was onstage, but never stayed to watch me dance. When another stripper got pregnant and needed help financially because she couldn't dance, he helped with her medical bills, and later, after I went straight, he did my taxes for me.

Not everyone who works in or comes to the strip clubs are horrible people. Yeah, you got some girls who are in it solely for the money and love it. Those are the girls that end up stripping until their bodies aren't good enough to make good money, and then they go to other things to make the money. It's unfortunate, but true. But a common misconception is that everyone is like that. There are plenty of girls in there who do it to support their kids or pay for school, or they don't want to be there at all, but have been trafficked in illegally and have no other choice but to do it, and act like they like it.

Then you have your party boys who love the strip clubs. They love to go party, drink and they like the attention from girls who would never look their way if it wasn't for the money. But there are older men whose wives died, and they are lonely, or men whose self worth is so low that they feel like they have to pay a woman to spend time with them.

So don't be so quick to judge, because you just don't know.

P.S. I won't be writing again until after the holidays. I'm going to see family and I don't want to cut into my time with them by writing, so I will post again in January. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! And don't forget to pray for those who may not have a family to celebrate with. There will be many women working in the clubs Christmas day, and just as many customers with no family.