Young Writers Society

I am a Daddy’s girl, but there’s not much of a daddy and daughter relationship. What exists is Ma has been dead since I was five months old, and all the love that Pop gives me is the biggest paycheck at The Pole and presents every birthday, Christmas, and Easter. That sums up my life in one sentence. Still, I have more of a story to tell, so I might as well tell it.

The Pole is not a diner in case you are wondering. Let me just describe my workplace in five words. Boobs, asses, liquor, poles, and bills. Clothes are not a part of the collection. Actually, it’s considered a swear word at The Pole, and no one says it unless us dancers are backstage when we are punching the clock to head on home.

There are four people in this club that matter in my everyday life. There’s Pop. He runs the whole thing, so I do not have a say in what to do unless he’s absent from working one night…or two…or three. He’s the one that actually gave me a job here. Do I like it? Well, it pays rent, but do I wish to have a college degree? Hell yes!

My big sister figure, though she’s in her thirties, is Dinah Larson. Like me, she never wants to work as a stripper. Unlike me, she’s doing online college while feeding her two kids she had with her husband who was shot at war. I can just imagine the upcoming Career Day at school, and I shudder. I don’t want her two boys to recreate my dumbfounding Career Day experience in kindergarten. What teacher…No, what sane person wants to hear, “Works at a strip club,” from a child’s mouth. I wouldn’t, and I don’t care about being a hypocrite. After Pop forced me into the stripping business, Dinah became my guardian angel. She doesn’t teach me the hooker moves, but I’ve learned things that at least earn me tips. By the look she always gives me, Dinah doesn’t want a girl like me to work here at this strip joint. “You may look like Madonna, Kick,” she tells me whenever we talk about my stripper name, “but you’re not her twin. You’re not like me either, so whatever you do, escape from here.”

The Pole’s biggest bitch is Penny Labett, aka Princess Penn. If we were to trade lives, I would be so much happier being the daughter of an accountant. Penny is slightly older than me, but she has the brain of a spoiled teenager. Her father gives her anything she wants, which is why she has the best stripper clothes out of everyone who works in the joint. Because of this, she knows nothing but how to flash her woman parts to desperate perverts like the ones that enter The Pole. Ever since Pop brought me into the place, Penny tries to “outdo” me for no reason at all. The difference between the both of us is that Penny is living her dream, and I’m stuck in a nightmare.

The last person I should mention is my little sister friend, Nicki Brown. I’m the first person she met when she came to The Pole, and after learning her story, I’m guilty of only complaining about my life. Her mother comatosed and her father imprisoned when Nicki was sixteen makes me shiver from the tailbone up. Stripping is a need, not a want for her. Because of the crime Nicki’s pop committed of almost murdering his own wife, I’m responsible for getting Nick back into school, so she wouldn’t suffer the same fate as me. At nineteen, she’s smart, beautiful, but weak, too.

“You don’t want to do an encore?” Nick asks me as I’m changing into my regular clothes.

“You know I never do,” I respond blankly.

“Kiki, it’ll give us leftover money from rent and bills.”

“Nicki, if I keep our apartment paid and food on our table, we’re fine.”

She heavily sighs. “Does your father want you to come home that bad for you to work longer than you want to?”

“He doesn’t need me, Nicki. I’ll move back in when he has a stroke, which is sometime never. Get dressed Nicki. You’ll never find a college educated man dressed like that.”

Nicki winces. Every time that I remind her that we’re strippers, she goes into this painful phase in her head. “I want to say my name instead of…”

Pop shouts from the door, “Madonna! Vixen! Are you almost done? I have your pay right in my hands!”

“Vixen…” Nicki’s face turns pale as snow in Midwest winter.

“Lighten up, Nick,” I reply, patting her on the head. “Let’s go to Wendy’s and grab a burger. I’m starved.” Being the taller one is fun when it comes to big sister, little sister. If Ma were alive when I was a kid, she would’ve given me siblings, but then again, I would never have met Di and Nick.

“Can Lady Di join us?” Nicki asks, using Dinah’s stage name.

“I don’t see why not. We’ll have to see if she’s busy or not.”

“If we know Dinah, Kiki, she’ll always have time for the both of us.”

I chuckle. “True, but just remember one thing, Nick.”

“Yup.”

We both take a deep breath and chorus, “Don’t tell Penny.”