iron bridges prop up pondering people as they survey paper cups that struggle on along the gutter – blonde waitresses steal cigs in back alleys composing bitchy soliloquies and erotic sonnets on phones – cars progress like cancer cells on a torrent of false destination and monotone routine, so predicable their path along cobbles and asphalt, drivers caged inside with revs per minute intricately correlated to heartbeats – blood shoots round their soft machinery, their muscled hydraulics and nervous systems fragile with the winter chill –
the most exhilarating moment of their day is the double-decker passing the traffic lights mere inches from their face, they feel the rare thrill of being within a footstep of death, they could almost reach out and grab it – daily masturbation now a modicum of pleasure, an extrication of lust, an expulsion of fluid desire that would render us disasters waiting to happen were the ritual not religiously adhered to – policeman on the beat no hope in his face, follows in his trail a vapour of snide rumours and innuendo, dirty aspersions levelled on him –
pedestrians texting into phones are cruise missiles burrowing their way through the invisible smog – and every time I ignore a homeless man selling magazines and praying for a change a little piece of my soul goes through its death throes inside me – a troupe of amateur dramatics play out some kerbside Shakespeare, harassing shoppers with high-fluting lexicon and displaced narratives – these streets are eroding more and more and still we wade our way through to reach the half-price summer sales –
the banks and building societies and financial institutions play with our lives until market’s end, growing day by day, swallowing up everything we hold dear like a tumour – the other day I stood examining graffiti on the side of a municipal building, deciphering the illegible tags and crude sloganeering, wondering if there was any way I could profit from this venture until the light fell and I had to go home – and I wish I could get my hands on some medicinal substances to retreat into numbness and never come back –
I wish I could administer an intravenous injection of hard drugs into the veins of the city, see the walls collapse over time, the tensile strength of steel-framed structures OD and fall to pieces, the lifeblood of the city, the resilience and pride of the people contaminated and in need of thorough cleansing – office workers are wired on espresso and microwavable panini’s, accountants are living their fucked-up childhood fantasies, graphic designers and advertising execs are conjuring up new ways to transform their own graffiti tags and exotic slogans into banknotes and glossy reality – an amateur band rehearses over the internet, full of attitude and ideas, they will part ways acrimoniously before a rough collection of demos can find their way to anyone’s ears –
two lovers are kissing on stone steps as the rain falls upon their shoulders, nothing else matters around them as far as the imagination can stretch, as long as the very concept of time and the false promise of riches and success, recognition and respect, because between the two of them, from the ruins of the city, they have found something infinitely better.
Friday, 27 August 2010
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Some Kind of Bliss
Jake was sat next to Anna on a long-haul flight from Heathrow to Tokyo. They had felt the mutual attractive discourse emanate between them as exit rituals were played out and the plane banked a confident launch into the sky.
They engaged in light conversation about their respective groups of friends, careers, and their recent failed relationships and became increasingly enamoured within the connection they had accidently forged as the journey progressed, as though they were passengers on a solo flight to a destination no one else was travelling to.
Jake thought Anna was strikingly beautiful, but in a subtle way that meant she didn’t display any signs of being aware of it. Her eyes betrayed an unflinching honesty, earnest in the trusting affection she had begun to display. He noticed the way her nose would crease slightly whenever she found something funny, and he felt grateful for his noticing.
Anna thought Jake was effortlessly attractive but mysterious and alluring all at once. For the first time in weeks her mind was no longer painfully lingering on thoughts of Ben, and she said to herself that this must surely be a miracle in itself.
Anna and Jake became flirtatious as the altitude heightened the effects of the mini bottles of wine that were handed out and rested their heads on each others’ shoulders to watch the in-flight movie – some corny American comedy to which neither paid much attention.
The flight slept and the plane glided through rainclouds in pursuit of the flashes and dots on navigation screens. Anna felt Jake stir against her and she blinked into a semi-conscious state, attempting to adjust to the darkness of the cabin. Jake was staring into her eyes with a deep furnace of emotion blazing away inside his own. She felt mild relief as a gentle smile sketched its way across his face.
She asked what he was smiling about and he replied, “I think I’m in love and now I have no fear of dying alone”.
He had just enough time to register the sleepy confusion yawn across Anna’s pretty face before the bombs packed inside his shoes exploded, giving birth to a blissful corona of fire that lit up the sky.
They engaged in light conversation about their respective groups of friends, careers, and their recent failed relationships and became increasingly enamoured within the connection they had accidently forged as the journey progressed, as though they were passengers on a solo flight to a destination no one else was travelling to.
Jake thought Anna was strikingly beautiful, but in a subtle way that meant she didn’t display any signs of being aware of it. Her eyes betrayed an unflinching honesty, earnest in the trusting affection she had begun to display. He noticed the way her nose would crease slightly whenever she found something funny, and he felt grateful for his noticing.
Anna thought Jake was effortlessly attractive but mysterious and alluring all at once. For the first time in weeks her mind was no longer painfully lingering on thoughts of Ben, and she said to herself that this must surely be a miracle in itself.
Anna and Jake became flirtatious as the altitude heightened the effects of the mini bottles of wine that were handed out and rested their heads on each others’ shoulders to watch the in-flight movie – some corny American comedy to which neither paid much attention.
The flight slept and the plane glided through rainclouds in pursuit of the flashes and dots on navigation screens. Anna felt Jake stir against her and she blinked into a semi-conscious state, attempting to adjust to the darkness of the cabin. Jake was staring into her eyes with a deep furnace of emotion blazing away inside his own. She felt mild relief as a gentle smile sketched its way across his face.
She asked what he was smiling about and he replied, “I think I’m in love and now I have no fear of dying alone”.
He had just enough time to register the sleepy confusion yawn across Anna’s pretty face before the bombs packed inside his shoes exploded, giving birth to a blissful corona of fire that lit up the sky.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Sex Objects of the World Unite (part 3)
The intention, obviously, was to create a momentous stir, a stunt that would ripple through celebrity culture and society as a whole. Looking back it was all too clear that something of the sort would come to the fore and act as the catalyst, the culmination of many minds, the tidal shift from which the waves would be unable to break back.
The new brand of feminine rebellion – or ‘neo-feminism’ as it became known – had been ricocheting through the mainstream’s subconscious for a long while, commonly attributed to a radical magazine cover story that was catapulted around the blogosphere until the theories presented had been adapted and warped to such extremes and conclusions that it barely resembled the original article any longer. The writer was some woman who, whilst initially elevated to a level of cultish notoriety, was now languishing in some obscurity of her own creating.
There had been an epidemic of ‘tell-all’ interviews and gossip columns in which glamorous movie stars, pop stars, models and media personalities came forward and ‘outed’ themselves, with identical protestations of sincerity and bursting pride, as having taken vows of celibacy. There were even cover stories featuring stars like Britney Spears revealing in lurid detail the hymen reconstruction surgery that they had undergone. Jordan sensationally did a naked cover shoot following her 90% breast reductive operations to which there was revulsion amongst the public, but at the same time an undeniable compulsion to keep on looking, as though they were decelerating to crawl past a traffic accident.
So when, at the premiere of one of the year’s biggest summer blockbusters starring Hollywood’s leading power couple – ‘Brangelina’ – both turned up on the red carpet in front of the waiting media, they were fully aware that together they were about to push the bizarre phenomenon into a whole new arena.
At first the banks of zoom lens paused like an army ceasefire, as the couple began to strut hand-in-hand up the carpet, but within an instant, as soon as everyone became fully attune as to what they were witnessing, the place exploded in a grand mal seizure of flashbulbs.
Brad Pitt was wearing the finest tux with his hair cropped into a shorter cut than it had been in recent years. Purposely short to be able to reveal as much as possible of his famous face that smiled wide and shameless for the waiting lens. Across his left cheek there ran a striking deep gash, clearly recently inflicted since the surrounding tenderness of the flesh looked like it would weep blood at the slightest provocation.
It was clear that the wound needed stitches, as it was nearly 6 inches long from the base of the jawline upwards and flirting with the eye socket, although as yet clearly no medical treatment had been sought.
Angelina Jolie beside him had an identical facial laceration, carefully hewn into her porcelain features by a caressing hand. Everyone in the immediate vicinity knew that these injuries, these scars of protest, had been inflicted upon each by the other; there was a loving symmetry in the way the wounds snaked their course deep into the facial tissue like a gorge.
The hysteria generated by the couple’s self-mutilation was enough to ensure the film’s box office success; in fact so healthy were the profit margins that many began to question whether the stars had been pressured into the stunt by some clause written into their contracts by scheming film executives.
Once the defining line in the sand had been traced there was no limit to the level of depravity that such celebrities were prepared to go to in order to instate their commitment to this protest against their sexualisation. Pop star Beyonce stunned fans when she appeared on stage for the first night of her American tour with an impressive array of body scars, all emphasised by the scant costumes worn throughout the show. Jude Law expanded the parameters of method acting when he agreed to undergo facial reconstructive surgery in order to play the part of a car crash victim in a heart-wrenching drama-biopic that won him rave reviews and his first Oscar.
At publicity junkets and celebrity parties in exclusive nightclubs, the beautiful people revelled in the genius of their self-abuse, and gushed over champagne cocktails at how they were getting one over on the public that until recently had idolised and envied their glamour to such obsessive levels. They would stand around spontaneous bonfires upon which effigies of past sex icons like Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Audrey Hepburn and Jim Morrison were cast.
Madonna, never one to be outdone by the younger generations, appeared in public with her sinewy, muscular left arm having been amputated, as part of some desperate appeal for late-career relevance to support a fledging new album campaign. Former supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer launched a new fashion campaign that adorned billboards the world over with their hair shaved into a punk skinhead and sporting a myriad of bruises and shining black eyes, beneath the tag line ‘Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful’.
The peak of this anti-sexual revolution came a few weeks later at a London fashion show amongst a galaxy of scarred stars, where Kate Moss was set to model a new range by Tom Ford. Rumours had flourished and spread like a virus through tabloids and internet forums that the style icon would attempt something sensational in order to lay claim to every headline across the western world. Perhaps due to the level of hype and expectation surrounding the event at what perversities might follow, there was a grim predictability about what happened.
Clearly doused in gasoline that ran down her face like mascara threads, Kate strutted to the end of the catwalk amidst a blizzard of flashbulbs, sat cross-legged on the stage and focussed in to meditation as she set herself alight. There was an almost forced uproar amongst those in attendance as they tried to find the right expression of shock to wear and stagger back away from the catwalk.
It was the perfect culmination of the celebrity protest, the act of self-immolation on fashion’s most glamorous stage, cameras capturing every minute detail as her perfect features rippled and burnt as the flames engulfed her waif body. And yet no one in attendance sought to extinguish the blaze; they could all see so clearly, through the smog and smoke, how fantastic the protest, the mimicking of Vietnamese monks, the self-destructive climax through a cornucopia of exquisite pain. They all knew what a defining moment this would be and all they could think about, as the smoke plumes danced higher amidst the spotlights, was that they couldn’t believe they were lucky enough to have witnessed it first hand and cement their own small footnote in contemporary culture.
As it happened, in the aftermath the excitement and hysteria returned to normal, like an awkward and bashful post-orgasmic chill. The estimated circulation of Vogue and Hello magazines and online traffic to celebrity websites, were roughly parallel in their drop of about 18%.
Sex Objects of the World Unite (part 2)
The hands on the clockface seemed to swing round as though under the propulsive lure of the air-conditioning vents. Amanda was working with a tenacity that she relished, she was the last one in the office, silent save for the background static of a cleaner vacuuming but she didn’t care a bit. After pleading and persuading for much of the last two weeks the editor-in-chief of the lifestyle magazine for which she wrote had chosen her story proposal to run as the cover feature and she couldn’t have been more excited at the prospect.
It had been a late decision for the editor to have made which was why Amanda now found herself at half eleven on a wet Wednesday night, squinting at the words through the glare of her monitor and drinking the vending machine dry of black coffee. She had developed her story over the last month and yet was still too anxious to surrender it to the proof-team just yet. She was intensely proud and passionate about the story, more so than any other she had previously worked on, and so had been particularly cut-throat in making sure the editors gave it the attention she felt it deserved.
The story concerned a report she had heard from numerous sources around 3 months ago, about a developing gender-clash situation amongst staff at a gentleman’s club in central London. What had begun as a minor rebellion slowly became a groundswell that engulfed the whole employ of the lap dancers there, bordering on near-strike action.
Apparently the conflict between the girls and management – who were threatening the whole lot of them with dismissal – had arisen out of the girls taking a collective vow of celibacy in ironic protest at their highly sexualised industry. They would make no attempt to hide this fact of abstention from their paying clients and not surprisingly the reaction was less than appreciative. Management quickly became aware of a marked decrease in clientele coming through the doors, a bad reputation began to spread like a stain and previously healthy profit margins started to shrivel.
What Amanda thought fascinating about the situation was the way this new brand of female liberation seemed to have sprouted up from such an unlikely environment. The girls maintained that they still performed the dances without deviation from before; just they felt it necessary to stipulate to their audience that personally they were no longer sexually active.
Amanda had never particularly thought of herself as being feminist in nature, but nonetheless couldn’t help feeling a strong sense of kindred spirit with their brave stance and thought it a matter of duty – as part of their generational ‘sisterhood’ – to make sure their story gained as much attention as possible. Naturally the male-dominated editorial of the magazine had turned their noses up at the idea and brushed her proposal off, which was why she was now so exhilarated that her persistence had eventually paid off.
What Amanda was also aiming to theorise was that the club’s clientele felt disenfranchised because in order for them to feel aroused and stimulated in such an environment, they needed to have that subconscious sense that the girls themselves were highly sexualised individuals. The subversive frigidity and cleansed reality of the girls that they found themselves buying into proved too much of an awkward and untenable paradox for them to go along with.
Amanda had decided to cast the net of her theory into further shores and offered the comparison between the microcosm of sexual denial and the subsequent stifling of eroticism apparent in the club, with the oppressive culture of celebrity as a whole. With sex routinely being sold as a lifestyle commodity during every minute of every day, could it perhaps inadvertently, she pondered, serve as a crutch or a stimulant for people’s own carnal desires?
The marketing and advertising executives would sell consumables, entertainment and fashion on the acute knowledge that by pummelling the marketplace with sexualisation of their product, however overt or covert, consumers would be helpless to resist, purely out of the fear of being exposed to their peers as not conforming to sexual expectations.
If a glamour model was photographed in a sensual beach shot, for instance, the public would subliminally sense that because of her blatant sexuality, they must likewise be sexually active in order to conform and adhere to that advertised lifestyle. And if they didn’t feel they were conforming already, it would serve as inspiration to achieve something as akin to it as they were able. To be separate or isolated from that circle of eroticism was surely to become the subject of ridicule and pity that no one in their right mind would wish to endure.
Amanda hit save on the document and signed off for the night. She would pick up on it in the morning with a fresh pair of eyes since by now her contact lens felt like they were beginning to melt onto her stinging retinas. As she left the office and the vacuum drone behind her, she felt a ring of confidence unfold around her with an aura stretch. She knew that she had been dealt a promising hand, her big break after slogging it out at the arse-end of journalism for so long; she was silently self-assured that her story would propel her into a realm of far more lucrative career prospects, the momentum it would surely generate could only cast her into the ascendancy. If only she could get the message down in words that she heard in her head.
It had been a late decision for the editor to have made which was why Amanda now found herself at half eleven on a wet Wednesday night, squinting at the words through the glare of her monitor and drinking the vending machine dry of black coffee. She had developed her story over the last month and yet was still too anxious to surrender it to the proof-team just yet. She was intensely proud and passionate about the story, more so than any other she had previously worked on, and so had been particularly cut-throat in making sure the editors gave it the attention she felt it deserved.
The story concerned a report she had heard from numerous sources around 3 months ago, about a developing gender-clash situation amongst staff at a gentleman’s club in central London. What had begun as a minor rebellion slowly became a groundswell that engulfed the whole employ of the lap dancers there, bordering on near-strike action.
Apparently the conflict between the girls and management – who were threatening the whole lot of them with dismissal – had arisen out of the girls taking a collective vow of celibacy in ironic protest at their highly sexualised industry. They would make no attempt to hide this fact of abstention from their paying clients and not surprisingly the reaction was less than appreciative. Management quickly became aware of a marked decrease in clientele coming through the doors, a bad reputation began to spread like a stain and previously healthy profit margins started to shrivel.
What Amanda thought fascinating about the situation was the way this new brand of female liberation seemed to have sprouted up from such an unlikely environment. The girls maintained that they still performed the dances without deviation from before; just they felt it necessary to stipulate to their audience that personally they were no longer sexually active.
Amanda had never particularly thought of herself as being feminist in nature, but nonetheless couldn’t help feeling a strong sense of kindred spirit with their brave stance and thought it a matter of duty – as part of their generational ‘sisterhood’ – to make sure their story gained as much attention as possible. Naturally the male-dominated editorial of the magazine had turned their noses up at the idea and brushed her proposal off, which was why she was now so exhilarated that her persistence had eventually paid off.
What Amanda was also aiming to theorise was that the club’s clientele felt disenfranchised because in order for them to feel aroused and stimulated in such an environment, they needed to have that subconscious sense that the girls themselves were highly sexualised individuals. The subversive frigidity and cleansed reality of the girls that they found themselves buying into proved too much of an awkward and untenable paradox for them to go along with.
Amanda had decided to cast the net of her theory into further shores and offered the comparison between the microcosm of sexual denial and the subsequent stifling of eroticism apparent in the club, with the oppressive culture of celebrity as a whole. With sex routinely being sold as a lifestyle commodity during every minute of every day, could it perhaps inadvertently, she pondered, serve as a crutch or a stimulant for people’s own carnal desires?
The marketing and advertising executives would sell consumables, entertainment and fashion on the acute knowledge that by pummelling the marketplace with sexualisation of their product, however overt or covert, consumers would be helpless to resist, purely out of the fear of being exposed to their peers as not conforming to sexual expectations.
If a glamour model was photographed in a sensual beach shot, for instance, the public would subliminally sense that because of her blatant sexuality, they must likewise be sexually active in order to conform and adhere to that advertised lifestyle. And if they didn’t feel they were conforming already, it would serve as inspiration to achieve something as akin to it as they were able. To be separate or isolated from that circle of eroticism was surely to become the subject of ridicule and pity that no one in their right mind would wish to endure.
Amanda hit save on the document and signed off for the night. She would pick up on it in the morning with a fresh pair of eyes since by now her contact lens felt like they were beginning to melt onto her stinging retinas. As she left the office and the vacuum drone behind her, she felt a ring of confidence unfold around her with an aura stretch. She knew that she had been dealt a promising hand, her big break after slogging it out at the arse-end of journalism for so long; she was silently self-assured that her story would propel her into a realm of far more lucrative career prospects, the momentum it would surely generate could only cast her into the ascendancy. If only she could get the message down in words that she heard in her head.
Sex Objects of the World Unite (part 1)
“I’ve fucking had it with this place!” declared Tara, running a toned forearm through blonde-tinted hair. Elaine, who sat on the stool beside her, sighed at this oh-so-predictable statement of rebellious intent from her friend post-shift.
“No I mean it this time Elaine, I really do. I can’t stand working in this shithole any longer”. As predictable as Tara’s original plea always was, so too was the dismissive attitude that Elaine always regarded it with.
It was nearing 5 in the morning and the bouncer-clad doors had just closed out the world, expelling the last few punters in awkward drabs – out-of-town businessmen and tired drunks who had yawned their way through their fifth or sixth private dance of the night and now tried to rub the impending slumber from bloodshot eyes as they struggled to remember the way home.
At the faux-marble bar top Elaine could sense Tara’s repulsion simmering to the fore and resigned herself to the fact that they were inevitably going to dive into the same argument that they always did. “What’s happened this time?” she asked with calm reluctance, drinking from a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.
“Nothing’s happened in particular. It’s just, I dunno, the whole thing. I need to get out of it, I can’t stand it anymore”.
“I don’t know why you carry on with it if you hate it so much, you’ve been moaning on like this for weeks now” said Elaine, dusting with fingertips the vestiges of an incoming bruise, set to touch down on her upper right thigh before very much longer. A smashed teenager, out celebrating his 18th birthday with a gang of rowdy mates, had been unable to restrain himself and lunged to touch the sensual skin that Elaine taunted him with, prompting his swift ejection from the building. Many happy returns cocksucker, Elaine had thought bitterly as his protesting clan dragged their heels and followed their mate back out to the early morning streets.
“Come on you know I can’t just jack it in. I need this job to pay for Lottie. She starts play-school this week, I’m absolutely broke.”
“What happened to that fella you were seeing?” asked Elaine, feeling the not-uncommon sense of gratitude that she wasn’t straddled with a young kid like Tara was. Far too much unnecessary responsibility to be lumbered with at this point in time.
“Mark? Ah that tosser’s long since bolted. He had his fun and then fucked off as soon as he got a bit bored.”
“Bastard” Elaine sympathised, knowing all-too-well the type of bloke they were talking about.
“I dunno why I didn’t see it coming a mile off. That’s me though, never been a very good judge of character. Big downfall.” She said this with such dejection in eyes that had been frozen into a vacant glaze all night, that Elaine felt an almost over-whelming urge to lock her in embrace. In truth she felt like a big sister to Tara, and in the 8 months they had worked at the gentlemen’s club together they had grown close; primarily because they were the only girls out of them all who refrained from doing coke on a nightly basis. As a result, the other girls just became mechanised and hollow; unable or unwilling to communicate with anyone, staggering through the night in a state of wired undress. In Elaine’s opinion, you had to have some interaction in this job or otherwise you’d lose the will to live, but she empathised with those who clung to the drugs as a means of getting them through the night.
“Look, I know how much you’d love to just up and quit right now, but think of it like this – it’s only a job. It’s not like you’re fucking the guys is it? Just tease em and rip em off. Easy!” Elaine said with a smile that didn’t entirely betray the feeling that her words of encouragement would quickly go unheeded.
“Yeah, but do you not feel so cheapened though? We’re leered at and lusted over by these guys like pieces of meat dangling in front of their faces.” Elaine felt her heart sink a little. As much as she understood Tara’s angst, even recognised it within herself on occasion, the last thing she wanted was to get into another theological debate at 5am. Tara, however, had the bile building up inside her and wasn’t about to cap it off with silence.
“I mean, we are just puppets that dance in front of them as a means of fuelling their own sex drive. I hate the feeling of being exploited for a tenner a time.”
“Yeah I do see your point, but can you not see the other side of the coin? We are exploiting the men. It’s their fault they are shallow enough to come in here, pissed-up, throwing their cash at us. If they want to pay me to get my gear off just so they can recall it later to toss themselves off, that’s fine with me, I’ll take their money every time” Elaine said.
“So you’re telling me you feel empowered do you?”
“In a way, yes I do.”
“So its empowering lying there on the floor with your legs spread wide open, just because they’ve paid in, is that what you’re saying?” Tara countered.
“No” Elaine began to protest. “I mean, yeah, I get the satisfaction of giving them what they want, showing them what they want to see, accepting their money. Why shouldn’t we exploit them to our own benefit huh?”
As ever though, Tara could not be persuaded. “I just can never stop thinking about what my parents would say if they knew about it. It’s no way to make a living. We’re only slighter higher than hookers you do realise?”
“Bullshit. There’s a definite line with us. We know that, and supposedly they do too” Elaine said, gesturing her fresh bruise.
Feeling the familiar sense that each of them had their own reasoning and convictions for following such a line of work, they moved on instead to sharing stories on recent lovers and relationship prospects.
“It’s really disastrously bleak at the moment if I’m honest” Elaine said, having moved on now from Smirnoff Ice to a glass of dry white wine, although the sugar from the Smirnoff had shrink-wrapped her tongue and had rendered the wine almost undrinkable. “I’m fucking this guy called Tom but there’s nothing in it. I don’t really know anything about him. He could be married with kids for all I know. In fact I think he might be married...” She tailed off pensively.
“Well Mark was dreadful. He loved the fact I was a stripper. I know he used it as bragging rights with his mates. Problem was, there was absolutely no feeling between us, he treated me like his whore the whole time. I can’t be putting up with that, not when I’ve got Lottie to be thinking about. I need a guy who can love me for who I am, not desire me because of what I do for a living.”
The two friends shared some more wine and began to laugh together at their respective ineptitude when it came to dating and relationships. It was coming on for 6am when Tara blurted out an idea that took them both by surprise. “Fuck it, we should form a pact of celibacy.”
Slouched on the bar, Elaine snorted wine through her nose having just taken a gulp, but Tara sat up straighter on the stool as the idea began to coagulate into some form of sense in her sleep-fractured mind. “I’m serious y’know. Sex has been nothing but trouble for me for far too long. I’m about ready to call a halt on the whole thing. Cut my losses. What d’you say?”
Realising her friend had swiftly adopted a more serious tone Elaine stopped giggling and said “Well for how long? And what for exactly?”
“Well I dunno, until we meet guys who will accept us for the people and personalities we are and not just use us to satisfy their lust. I might even whisper it to every punter I perform to in here from now on, so whilst he’s there imagining himself all over me, he will know that I am truly unobtainable from him. A lap dance can’t be that erotic when in the back of his mind he knows I have made a choice to quit sex can it?”
Elaine looked at her friend with a bemused resignation. “You’ve lost the plot, you really have.” But they agreed on it nonetheless, Elaine feeling it easier to appease Tara than attempt resistance, and as they stepped out of the club into the harsh light of the morning, each feeling about as un-erotic as possible, felt a sense of renewal that could only come with having aligned the mind’s crosshairs on a fresh target, a change, the pursuit of sexual resurrection.
“No I mean it this time Elaine, I really do. I can’t stand working in this shithole any longer”. As predictable as Tara’s original plea always was, so too was the dismissive attitude that Elaine always regarded it with.
It was nearing 5 in the morning and the bouncer-clad doors had just closed out the world, expelling the last few punters in awkward drabs – out-of-town businessmen and tired drunks who had yawned their way through their fifth or sixth private dance of the night and now tried to rub the impending slumber from bloodshot eyes as they struggled to remember the way home.
At the faux-marble bar top Elaine could sense Tara’s repulsion simmering to the fore and resigned herself to the fact that they were inevitably going to dive into the same argument that they always did. “What’s happened this time?” she asked with calm reluctance, drinking from a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.
“Nothing’s happened in particular. It’s just, I dunno, the whole thing. I need to get out of it, I can’t stand it anymore”.
“I don’t know why you carry on with it if you hate it so much, you’ve been moaning on like this for weeks now” said Elaine, dusting with fingertips the vestiges of an incoming bruise, set to touch down on her upper right thigh before very much longer. A smashed teenager, out celebrating his 18th birthday with a gang of rowdy mates, had been unable to restrain himself and lunged to touch the sensual skin that Elaine taunted him with, prompting his swift ejection from the building. Many happy returns cocksucker, Elaine had thought bitterly as his protesting clan dragged their heels and followed their mate back out to the early morning streets.
“Come on you know I can’t just jack it in. I need this job to pay for Lottie. She starts play-school this week, I’m absolutely broke.”
“What happened to that fella you were seeing?” asked Elaine, feeling the not-uncommon sense of gratitude that she wasn’t straddled with a young kid like Tara was. Far too much unnecessary responsibility to be lumbered with at this point in time.
“Mark? Ah that tosser’s long since bolted. He had his fun and then fucked off as soon as he got a bit bored.”
“Bastard” Elaine sympathised, knowing all-too-well the type of bloke they were talking about.
“I dunno why I didn’t see it coming a mile off. That’s me though, never been a very good judge of character. Big downfall.” She said this with such dejection in eyes that had been frozen into a vacant glaze all night, that Elaine felt an almost over-whelming urge to lock her in embrace. In truth she felt like a big sister to Tara, and in the 8 months they had worked at the gentlemen’s club together they had grown close; primarily because they were the only girls out of them all who refrained from doing coke on a nightly basis. As a result, the other girls just became mechanised and hollow; unable or unwilling to communicate with anyone, staggering through the night in a state of wired undress. In Elaine’s opinion, you had to have some interaction in this job or otherwise you’d lose the will to live, but she empathised with those who clung to the drugs as a means of getting them through the night.
“Look, I know how much you’d love to just up and quit right now, but think of it like this – it’s only a job. It’s not like you’re fucking the guys is it? Just tease em and rip em off. Easy!” Elaine said with a smile that didn’t entirely betray the feeling that her words of encouragement would quickly go unheeded.
“Yeah, but do you not feel so cheapened though? We’re leered at and lusted over by these guys like pieces of meat dangling in front of their faces.” Elaine felt her heart sink a little. As much as she understood Tara’s angst, even recognised it within herself on occasion, the last thing she wanted was to get into another theological debate at 5am. Tara, however, had the bile building up inside her and wasn’t about to cap it off with silence.
“I mean, we are just puppets that dance in front of them as a means of fuelling their own sex drive. I hate the feeling of being exploited for a tenner a time.”
“Yeah I do see your point, but can you not see the other side of the coin? We are exploiting the men. It’s their fault they are shallow enough to come in here, pissed-up, throwing their cash at us. If they want to pay me to get my gear off just so they can recall it later to toss themselves off, that’s fine with me, I’ll take their money every time” Elaine said.
“So you’re telling me you feel empowered do you?”
“In a way, yes I do.”
“So its empowering lying there on the floor with your legs spread wide open, just because they’ve paid in, is that what you’re saying?” Tara countered.
“No” Elaine began to protest. “I mean, yeah, I get the satisfaction of giving them what they want, showing them what they want to see, accepting their money. Why shouldn’t we exploit them to our own benefit huh?”
As ever though, Tara could not be persuaded. “I just can never stop thinking about what my parents would say if they knew about it. It’s no way to make a living. We’re only slighter higher than hookers you do realise?”
“Bullshit. There’s a definite line with us. We know that, and supposedly they do too” Elaine said, gesturing her fresh bruise.
Feeling the familiar sense that each of them had their own reasoning and convictions for following such a line of work, they moved on instead to sharing stories on recent lovers and relationship prospects.
“It’s really disastrously bleak at the moment if I’m honest” Elaine said, having moved on now from Smirnoff Ice to a glass of dry white wine, although the sugar from the Smirnoff had shrink-wrapped her tongue and had rendered the wine almost undrinkable. “I’m fucking this guy called Tom but there’s nothing in it. I don’t really know anything about him. He could be married with kids for all I know. In fact I think he might be married...” She tailed off pensively.
“Well Mark was dreadful. He loved the fact I was a stripper. I know he used it as bragging rights with his mates. Problem was, there was absolutely no feeling between us, he treated me like his whore the whole time. I can’t be putting up with that, not when I’ve got Lottie to be thinking about. I need a guy who can love me for who I am, not desire me because of what I do for a living.”
The two friends shared some more wine and began to laugh together at their respective ineptitude when it came to dating and relationships. It was coming on for 6am when Tara blurted out an idea that took them both by surprise. “Fuck it, we should form a pact of celibacy.”
Slouched on the bar, Elaine snorted wine through her nose having just taken a gulp, but Tara sat up straighter on the stool as the idea began to coagulate into some form of sense in her sleep-fractured mind. “I’m serious y’know. Sex has been nothing but trouble for me for far too long. I’m about ready to call a halt on the whole thing. Cut my losses. What d’you say?”
Realising her friend had swiftly adopted a more serious tone Elaine stopped giggling and said “Well for how long? And what for exactly?”
“Well I dunno, until we meet guys who will accept us for the people and personalities we are and not just use us to satisfy their lust. I might even whisper it to every punter I perform to in here from now on, so whilst he’s there imagining himself all over me, he will know that I am truly unobtainable from him. A lap dance can’t be that erotic when in the back of his mind he knows I have made a choice to quit sex can it?”
Elaine looked at her friend with a bemused resignation. “You’ve lost the plot, you really have.” But they agreed on it nonetheless, Elaine feeling it easier to appease Tara than attempt resistance, and as they stepped out of the club into the harsh light of the morning, each feeling about as un-erotic as possible, felt a sense of renewal that could only come with having aligned the mind’s crosshairs on a fresh target, a change, the pursuit of sexual resurrection.
...
Life is just one long fucking struggle
If I’d known what was involved
I never would have agreed to it.
If I’d known what was involved
I never would have agreed to it.
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