Coco's history -- part 1 -- my first job

I started exotic dancing when I was 18. Like many girls, I started when I was at school, a freshman in college.

Coming from working-class stock, I had worked before that, but innocent stuff, like odd jobs and waitressing at a place kinda like Hooters. It was really tame -- just crop tops and shorts.

I desperately wanted to get out of province (yeah I'm Canadian) despite the fact that it would cost more money.
Believe it or not, I was actually a really good student. I even skipped a grade earlier on. So, with a modest scholarship, financial aid and Canada's lower tuition fees, I got my wish and moved to a big city, away from my parents.

I was free for the first time of my life -- free to go out to bars and clubs with my friends, free to stay out all night and come home with whoever I liked.

I loved my body back then. Loved it. I don't mean in a vain way, the way a rich woman feels high and mighty in her designer clothes. It was a natural, youthful love. I didn't go around telling myself I was beautiful, I just felt that youthful energy coursing through my body and my skin.

I miss those old days of loving my body. I didn't diet, work out, have surgery or fret about it. I could eat pizza and not gain weight. I could eat nothing and still have energy. It was my 18-year-old body and I danced and danced and danced the night away, flirting with any boy in sight.
I felt so beautiful and wild and free that I would jump up on any bar counter, speaker, anything, to dance. I loved the feeling of my body on me, and people's eyes on me.

One day, a manager at a nightclub I frequented (not a strip club) asked me if he could pay me to dance. There were two raised platforms in the middle of the dance floor with poles. And there was also a cage on the side. My job would be to act as entertainment, and get people moving when it looked like the crowd was slowing down.

He said it wasn't a strip or sex job, just a dancing one. And, God bless him, he was true to his word. I wore what I always wore to the clubs, like a tight t-shirt, short skirt and boots.
It was the first time that I realized that dancing was work. It's easy when you're having fun, and you take a break whenever you liked. It's hard when you have to be on time for shifts, stay on that podium for hours, and pretend to be upbeat when your feet hurt.
But I still had fun. I'd make sexy eye contact with the DJ, and he'd play my favorite stuff, feeling all cool. I'd go crazy up there on that platform, even though I had no idea what to do with the pole yet.

The money wasn't great, but it seemed like alot to a girl like me. I was also working part-time in the school library, as a condition of my financial aid work-study programs, so you can imagine the difference.
***
One day, for kicks, a bunch of us boys and girls went to a quasi-strip joint where they had a lunch buffet. It was this big neon place on a main street, which we had all joked about going to. Being dumb kids, we thought this was fun and SO risky.

The girls working there didn't do anything. They just lounged around on a thin stage wearing bikinis, while we sat down on stools, eating lunch on a counter, watching them and giggling. (Later, as a professional, I know the ignored us because we had CHEAP written all over us. But I didn't know that then).

Off in the distance were a few stages, with topless dances and, behind that, some hallways. At the time, it wouldn't have occurred to me that that's where were VIP rooms where sex acts were sold. All I saw was this: Right in front of me, I saw a girl make eye contact with a regular. She crouched down low and lowered her breasts right into her face, with a shit-eating grin. So he slip her a 20 before continuing his sandwich. She made 20 bucks doing basically nothing.

Huh. I played nonchalant when all of us left. But the next day I returned and asked how much they would pay me to just walk around in a bikini and dance, for the same hours I was working at the nightclub. And it was like three times more! And 100 times more than working in the library! The manager guy asked if I wanted to come back for a tryout in a few days, and I said yes right then and there.