When I came home that evening, I felt tired, but energized enough from the successes of the day. I had only had three customers, and between them acquired $400 in beautiful green bills. My fingers smelled like money. Unlike the bathroom, which smelled like shit.Literal shit.Loki, Nolan's pet ferret, was allowed to roam around freely during the day out of his cage. I saw the sense in giving the poor animal a bigger space to explore for eight hours. Nolan claimed that ferrets could learn how to poop in their cages, like cats using a litter box.You obviously cannot, I thought at the furry, snakelike beast. Globules of ferret poop dotted the bathroom floor: by the toilet, by the bathtub, in the bathtub, near the closet. I felt my anger swell when I saw a line of shit in the closet, near the wall. Loki tunneled through his playground of t-shirts and blue jean pants. Ripping a handful of toilet paper off the roll, I began to pick up the tiny turds. I breathed through my mouth to

"Keep up the good work," a man dressed in blue jeans and cowboy boots told me, slipping a five into my t-back as I walked past. From my time onstage, I had a whole hula skirt of 1s, 5s, and even a stray 10."Thanks, baby," I replied. "Do you have anyone right now?" He took a sip of his whiskey. "I do, indeed, handsome." My boobs glistened with just the right amount of sweat. "Well, when you're finished, stop by. I'll be waiting.""Then I won't be long," I purred. I drank the intoxication of literally having a queue of men waiting for me to dance for them and get paid for it. The first time I took home $400 in a single day was surreal. I had to count it again in the apartment, just to make sure it was real. $500 almost made my hands shake. I loved the silky texture of legal tender slip through my fingers, as my teller-muscles quickly and effortlessly counted a stack of 20s.Now, it wasn't as though I were taking home that amount every single time I went to the club; I definit

My phone buzzed. Rose, it's Gary, read the text. Three little bubbles appeared. Listen, I was wondering if you could do me a favor, read the next. I waited for more bubbles. I need a car, because I need some way to get around to different gigs. I've been looking at cars on Craigslist, and I think I found one that could work. Ok, where do I figure into this? I wondered. Can you lend me the money to buy it? I swear I'll pay you back. The title will be in your name and everything. I thought about it for a bit. How much? I responded.Eight hundred. I thought about my Crown Royal bag, full of dancing cash. I could make that up in a week, I thought. Sure, I sent. The next week, I went with him to pick up some piece of junk car that had approximately 800,000 miles on it and an engine that coughed its way through existence. "Thank you so much," said Gary. "You're really helping me out. I promise I'll pay you back week by week."I never heard from Gary again. *A

Now, I had never tried cocaine before in my life. If it doesn't come from the earth, I'm not going to put it in my body. But there was no mistaking the pure white powder in a tiny dime-bag that everyone was sniffing out of. I hadn't even seen enough movies to know what to pretend what to do. I didn't want to turn it down and ruin the vibe of the party, but I sure as hell didn't want to be hopped up on coke when I came home that night (much less try to drive). Gold Earring Guy had a small amount balanced on a long pinky nail extended out to me. I looked around, hoping that no one would see what seemed so obvious what we were doing. Luckily, a waitress was walking over, and I motioned for him to go ahead and hit it, since his back was to the waitress and she wouldn't be able to see. Nancy Regan never taught how to "Just say no," when you're a stripper trying to hit the jackpot on a slow day, and the only way to do that is to play along. Chanel must have seen the slightly panicked loo

They were hundreds. He hadn't given me ten twenty-dollar bills; he had given me hundreds. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck…A thousand dollars was one month's rent. A thousand dollars was 1/30th of my undergraduate loans. A thousand dollars was food and bills for an entire month. One thousand reasons to say nothing and walk back upstairs and revel in the biggest payday of my life. You're in the hustling game now, and this is what it means to hustle, whispered evil Ariel.I started to walk up the stairs to the dressing room. I had every intention to put it immediately in my wallet under lock and key in my locker.He probably won't even notice it's gone. He probably has so much money and cash that he won't even notice the difference. Every single other person in here would just take the money and not say a word. God, evil Ariel sounded so sexy. I gave a deep inward groan, because I knew what I had to do. Not today, bitch, I retorted. "Hey Cynthia!" I rushed back down the steps and over to