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AUGUST 1998 | FICTION BEGINNING of story |
Success Story 1, 2 So I did what some of the other women in my class did -- auditioned for a topless bar. That's when things started to improve, "All you have to do," the owner said, "is wiggle your ass. And let me tell you, baby, that's a nice little ass you got there." In four hours a night, I earned twice as much as in the bookstore. And I wasn't exactly lying when I told Mother I'd joined a modern dance group entertaining in a small cafe. "Finally," she said. "After all my sacrifices." Her sacrifices. "When can I come see you perform?" "I'm not ready for you," I said. "I'm still perfecting my art-form." But art took a serious setback when the boss announced: topless was out -- bottomless was in. Now it's one thing to stand wriggling with your breast exposed while customers ogle you from ten feet across the bar. In the bottomless joints, you're on a circular stage, with perverts seated around the edge. You have to strip till you're naked, and then sashay in nothing but high heels. "Just think of the money," the boss said. "Compared to bottomless, topless sucks." He was right. Only, what a way to earn it! The customers are all clutching wads of cash. When one of them waves, you come up real close, and he tells you what he wants -- like rock your crotch as if you're humping, or get down on your knees, back up to the edge of the stage and spread your legs so he can count the hairs. For that, he hands you a bill -- a twenty, a fifty, maybe even a hundred if he's drunk enough. Between acts, I also had to be nice to the customers. That was easy. The bartenders watered down the dancers' drinks so we didn't get too high. I even let some patrons paw me a little. If any of them got too horny, bouncers were there to rescue me. Still, it took more and more watered-down drinks to keep me smiling. Once in a while, a fight would break out between two guys who got overheated for me. It was a rule of the house always to blame the dancer. After one such fight, when the boss lambasted me in public, I switched from watered-down to full strength. It began to show in class. The instructors said I wasn't practicing enough. The coaches complained I was losing my precision. When I gained weight, they ordered me to shape up, literally. I guess there was enough booze left in me to blow my top. So they said goodbye, come back when I was feeling more cooperative. Not that I cared. My fame was spreading. Customers lined up outside the bottomless joints just to see me perform. Soon, I got a call from Stevie Fortune, the biggest agent on the porn circuit. "You don't belong in these sleazy westside dives," Stevie said. "You're an artist." An artist, he called me. wouldn't Mom have been proud. "First of all," Stevie announced at our first business meeting, "we got to give you a proper stage name, How about Wette Tigress." The rest is history. My fame grew as Stevie booked me first in some pricey eastside clubs, then at conventions. The best paying gigs were the private ones -- at economic conferences, for instance, or at political caucuses. So here I am in Vegas, where Wette Tigress is about to start a tour that will take her to Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam. My mother, of course, thinks I'm still perfecting my art, and who am I to disillusion her? Poor Mom. What a shame I can't share my success with her. After all, without her spankings, tantrums and death threats, where would I be today? And to think I once swore I'd get even with her. * * * * |
