The return address on the letter was from a Connecticut prison. I tore open the envelope. The letter was from M. Within the taxonomy of strip club customers, M. He greeted me exactly where I was, and in that spot, affection bloomed.
When he laughed at all my jokes, the connection was sealed. An up-from-nothing success story, he sounded like Jackie Mason and made it rain like Jay-Z. He grew up poor, made a fortune, partied hard, and struggled with addiction. He had his own spiel about his hard-knock life. But M. His preferred agency hired women who looked like supermodels, and they earned like it, too, he said. Somewhere in his admonishment was a protective impulse I admired.
(mh=ExuBnWAHhYGh8ura)10.jpg "Adult Guide strippers")
Just not me? Honestly, I thought M. But there I sat, in the privacy of my own home, with a letter from him, addressed to me in my real name. I was touched, amused and really weirded out. Why do I call him M. Pseudonyms are customary for strippers; I extend a similar discretion to him as a courtesy. He knew my ambitions, my age.
And, thanks to Google, he knew I had a P. The letter, typed up and printed out, started with a bombshell: The S. Memory is protean. I recall an evening spent sitting in the restaurant section of Scores listening to a dancer describe her financial plan. I also remember seeing a dancer at my home club frowning at a thick gold chain a customer had just given her.
The cash and trinkets become bonding agents. Some people carry the imprint of others around with them. But for those conflicted about monetizing certain things — romantic bandwidth and emotional access, to say nothing of bodies — such messy connections create a problem.
