If love isn't forever
Costumes are very important to a dancer. They set the tone of your evening and your outfit defines you nearly as much as your stage name.
I tended to work a bondage queen alterna-slut look. I wore a black lace-up vinyl garter belt with black lace stockings, black lace-up boots, black bra, black leather vest, etc. Leather smells good. Even back in those days when I was a vegetarian. It smells like musky dead animal and co-mingling pheromones. It feels like skin and that's probably why it turns many of us on, at least unconsciously.
I started altering my costume based on some advice received from one of the Jades. This was the prototypical Jade (in my mind, anyway). She had just been released from a court-ordered rehab stint and fell nose first into a kilo of ice. Jade also drank A LOT, she couldn't seem to sober up long enough to find an apartment -- her boyfriend moved another woman in when she was sent away -- so she started shacking up with Sweetwater. They both seemed pretty happy about the situation, always giddy, drunk and kissing.
Back to my outfit. Jade came stumbling in the dressing room one afternoon. I had just arrived with Naomi. We were all wound up. Naomi was trying to paint on her pasties and getting latex on every part of her breast except her nipple and areola. I was so sprung, every time I stuck my toes in my stockings, I would rip through the fabric. My pseudo-silk stockings looked like cheesecloth. Jade started giggling and pulling my stockings off of my legs.
"Damn, Jade! Knock it off!"
"Shit, Mia. Have a drink. You're spazzing out all over the place." She pulled a flask out of the bodice of her white lacy negligeé and passed it to me. "You got a little something-something to share with me?"
I took a long pull from the flask. The booze burned my throat and sinuses. It was Jim Beam. "Yeah, I've got a little something. Give me my stockings so I can finish getting ready and then we can go to the can."
"Oh, hell no! These stockings are done." She balled them up and shot them into the scary trash can under the counter. "Mia, you need to change your look. This goth motorcycle chick thing is getting worn out. Besides, whenever you're onstage all of the guys go on about how great your legs are. You need to show them off. Stop hiding them in these dark stockings. Tell her, Naomi."
Naomi had been rooting through her bag for the last 5 minutes. She stopped and met my eye in the mirror. "She's right, Mia. You've toned up and lost weight since you started dancing. You don't have so many weaknesses to hide. Lose the vinyl garter belt and the stockings. Men like bright happy colors -- just like little babies." She started tugging at something trapped in her canvas bag and produced a strappy lycra dress in the brightest yellow I have ever seen. It was actually chartreuse. "Put this on."
The fabric felt great in my hand but I was intimidated by the color. "I can't wear this. I'll look silly. I only have a red t-back. With this yellow dress I'll look like Ronald McDonald."
Jade smiled and held out her flask again. "The only thing Mia's afraid of is wearing colors. Take a chug for courage, my dear. Let's pop into the back can for a pick-me-up, then I'll do your hair to go with your new dress, Mia Sopapilla." I took another slug of Jim Beam and the three of us tottered into the back corner toilet. Naomi chopped up 6 bumps on the back of the toilet -- one for each nostril. The shit was very potent but rough, you had to snort a couple drops of water after so it wouldn't keep burning your sinus tissue.
Jade fluffed out my hair and ordered me to wear the yellow dress with the red t-back and my Cinderella lucite platforms instead of lace-up leather boots. I felt a little vulnerable and without the boots and stockings I had to change up my stage, as well. I couldn't do as much knee work and confined myself to pole tricks and gyrating. I felt more feminine and less tough. It wasn't very comfortable.
During my first stage in this new role, Jade walked up to tip me. When one dancer tips another, it's naturally a much more intricate and dramatic affair for the sake of everybody's earning potential. This particular time, Jade lay across the stage on her back, placing herself between my ankles, with the dollar grasped between her teeth. I slowly gyrated down, knees about 3 feet apart, until I was squatting over her face, and she slid the dollar between the silk of my t-back and my pudenda. I hadn't expected that and squealed a little. After my stage, we were both busy with table dances for a solid 2 hours. We finally met at the bar and had a beer together. "Sweetwater is gonna be jealous of you," she chanted and then slowly and lasciviously ran her tongue along her upper lip.
It is important to note Jade's appearance at this point. From the dirty talk, general drunkeness and swearing one might imagine a hard and manufactured overly made-up, bleached blonde. One would be wrong. Jade had an unbleished porcelain complexion with rosy cheeks and wide green eyes with perfect bone structure and wavy, raven hair. She had a toned, slightly curvy figure and she was 22 years old. There was nothing overblown about her. She looked like a Waterhouse painting. She was Snow-Snorting-White.
Jade went back to chanting like a school girl. "Sweetwater's gonna be jealous cuz I kissed Mia's chocha. Sweetwater's gonna be jealous. There's gonna be a catfight. Meow. Meow. Meow."
"Shutup, Jade. Don't try and start something where there's nothing. Kisses don't count at work. You know the rules."
"Well, Mia. If you give me a bump I won't tell." She gave me one of her jalapeño and chocolate grins and I realized she had been teasing me.
"Damn, girl. You just had to ask." We tottered off to the dressing room. Jade was leaning hard against me. The woman was using herself up quickly. She was too sweet and silly and young and beautiful for this stupid place.
She was too fucked up to work anywhere else.
