The Naked Truth

Never in a million years did I imagine I would be where I was, doing
what I was doing. But thinking back, there have been more than a few
times that I could have uttered that phrase. I got into some
outrageous scrapes. But I was lucky enough to have spontaneous and
unexpected visitations of quick wits and cunning to escape them. Who
knows how or why. But I am grateful, and when I recount them,
entertained.

There were some dark times. Though not all my misadventures were
brought on by sad circumstances. Some were just youth with its
arrogance and certainty of immortality.

In this particular case I had to escape from an abusive man, take my
13-month-old son, and sneak away in the dead of night. I had hired a
friend to help me make a secret getaway from Asheville to Atlanta,
where I had friends who would allow me to stay with them until I got
on my feet.

Life in Atlanta was a big challenge. How to make money? Especially
with no car. Somehow by some grace, and persistence, I made the right
connections and created a good life there.

Eventually I needed to make more money. So I was always brainstorming.
I often passed a strip club that advertised a weekly dance contest
with cash prizes. I loved to dance, and had great rhythm, so I made
plans to enter the contest.

Naively, I assumed that the other contestants would be amateurs like
me. But instead they were well seasoned dancers who worked at other
clubs in the city. I was disappointed that I did not win. But after
the contest the manager approached me and asked me if I’d be
interested in working there. I agreed and that’s when I became…Ella.

It took time to learn the ropes and to refine my look from an
alternative punk rocker (it was the 80s), into a slick and provocative
dancer. But over the course of the next couple of years I became quite
successful and it became quite lucrative.

I had always wanted to be an actor but was too insecure to audition.
Dancing in the club gave me a chance to be on stage, to develop
confidence, a persona, and clever and charming ways to elicit tips
from recalcitrant customers.

There is an arc that women go through when working in the world of
strip clubs and GoGo bars. It starts by feeding your ego and boosting
your self-esteem. That shows, and you make more and more money. But
then it starts to have the opposite effect and degrades your self
image; having to live a secret life and carrying the shame of working
in the sex business. Even though there was no sex, there was the
fantasy of sex and the stigma of being a stripper.

I got very burnt out as Ella but had no real skills to make that kind
of money in any other profession. I was glad to help indulge in a
fantasy but could never bring myself to accept the offers to have sex
for money. The reasons being I only wanted to have sex with people I
wanted to have sex with, and I did not want to ruin sex by making it a
job. Not to mention the fact that it was illegal, and I didn’t need
that mess.

So Ella took refuge in another nefarious sexual fantasy business. They
called themselves lingerie shops. Men would come in, choose the woman
they wanted to have model the lingerie, which they would have to pick
out and buy for her. Then they would enter a private room with the
model who had dressed herself in said lingerie. They would relax and
watch her dance while she provocatively removed the lingerie. During
her dance they would relieve themselves. This often involved begging
for the woman’s involvement in the process. Which in my case fell on
deaf ears. Despite that fact, Ella was very popular.

To make the situation humorous I renamed the shop the Wanky Parlor. I
was by nature adventurous and courageous and never really gave a
thought to the dangers that might be involved in these escapades.
Luckily I was never hurt but there was a close call.

One night a very young man, probably in his teens, came in. He chose
me. I led him through the process of picking lingerie and payment and
he seemed very awkward and nervous the whole time. I chalked that up
to a few things. He was very young and this was probably the first
time he was attempting to do anything like this. And he was an
underage black male in this predominantly white area in a business he
was unfamiliar with.

I led him into the room and started doing my dance and when I was
completely naked he took out a gun and put it on his lap. He said,
“Come here.”

Out of nowhere, extraordinary survival instinct, inspired thinking,
and apparent acting ability kicked into high gear. I screamed in a
high intensity whisper “Oh my God, put that away, hurry up before the
manager sees it! There’s a two-way window behind you. The manager
always looks through the window. If he sees that gun he’ll come in
here and shoot you! He has a shotgun! Get out of here! Put that away
and get out of here! Hurry up!”

Apparently I was very persuasive because the young man jumped up and
ran out of the room, out of the shop, and was never seen again.The
management was unconcerned and I was forbidden from calling the
police.

I left the business not long after that. Fortunately before I
experienced any physical harm. And before I became jaded and
self-loathing, built-in side effects of the sex business.

But fortunately not before I could tell the tale of how I prevented a
crime, fully naked, and armed with only my ability to tell a
convincing lie.