The Calling

It’s the last call for drinks. The night is over. The
horny crowd slowly leaves; the noise deflates to a series of
routine, drunken good-byes, after-hours invitations and an
occasional, forgettable argument. You sit on your favorite bar
stool with a glass of tequila sunrise while the crowd thins. Your
ego chills out as you look at the empty, unlighted stage.
It’s not hard to imagine yourself and the flock of mostly
bald homeboys around that stage, touching your thighs, your tight
ass, brushing their Budweiser lips against your thong’s
dick-pouch. And then the two bartenders leave for the restroom
while your boss sits beside you and pats your back a few times for
a job well done. You talk for a while before he puts a wad of bills
beside your drink. You recognize the amount. And then your boss
unzips your pants and kneels before you. You close your eyes,
tight; he knows you too well down there.

At home, you open the window beside your bed. Your bed, your
naked body welcomes the warm night air and the city’s
deceptive peace. You hear a gunshot somewhere: Los Angeles yawning.
Or perhaps that sound is imagined, some unnameable echo in your
memory. A pair of eager lips are working up your chest, slowly,
love’s lips, warmer than the air outside. It is early dawn
now. Your right hand softly touches the back of her neck,
lullabying your girl of two months to sleep. There is no sex with
her tonight, only orgasmic caresses. Outside, there’s no
moon, no mystery. She doesn’t know you’re a stripper,
because you only told her you’re a security guard, which is
true. You’re a part-time guard at a neighborhood movie
theater and after your four-hour shift, you strip for a living.

She falls asleep, eventually. But you’re still awake and
leave the room for the kitchen. Since there’s ample
streetlight through the window; you don’t turn on the light.
You make a cup of hot decaf tea. And then you stretch your body on
the sofa beside the glass sliding door while sucking on a
cigarette. You want to wait for that moment when you see the
sun’s rays becoming faintly visible. Now and then you close
your eyes, recalling the years you’ve been stripping. You
used to strip four to five days for four years. But for the past
three years, you cut the stripping gigs to just two to three times
a week and got the guard job, because you feel the years are
catching up on you, gradually leaving hints that your body is
slowly becoming inconvenient and inappropriate for visual adoration
and titillating sexual display. At 30, you feel old. But you feel
young too, because after three, long years at Los Angeles City
College sweating out those transfer units, a fat envelope was
stuffed in your mailbox: You’ve been accepted as a political
science transfer student to UCLA. Other colleges mailed you their
fat envelopes that week as well; but you threw them in your drawer
and didn’t bother opening them, because you’ve set your
mind on UCLA.

And then before you see the sun’s rays, you remember what
you told your boss after you buttoned up your pants, after watching
him wipe his mouth with his handkerchief. You tell him you’re
done stripping for good. You don’t tell him that you’re
now a Bruin. He didn’t have to know all the details of your
life. And then just before the sky outside appears brighter, you
realize that you may have said the wrong thing to your boss about
not stripping anymore.

You walk back to the kitchen. You wash the cup, very slowly.
After putting the cup on the dish rack, you see your shadow above
the faucet sink. You realize you must’ve been standing behind
that sink for awhile. Your back can now feel the sun’s heat
through the stained-glass window behind you.

You walk back to your room. She is deep asleep. You look at her
body, the curves, the lines. She’s the object of your eyes
that very moment, a magnet, a source of titillation, and you want
to wake her up and make love to her. But you don’t want to do
that, because the longer you are being seduced by that image of
her, the more you are turned on. You obey the urge of the voyeur in
you to just look. But you feel something beyond this urge.
It’s being the object of that urge that you really want,
being the object of seduction.

You miss the stage already.

Finally, you turn away from her and pull the blanket just above
your navel. Your eyes are tired now. You’re sleepy. But then
you pick up the phone on the table beside you and dial his number.
The other line rings three times. You almost put down the receiver.
But then you hear the voice on the other line before the fourth
ring. You tell him, your boss, that you’ve changed your mind,
that you still want to strip. Your boss chuckles because he finds
it funny that you wake him up at that hour to get your job back.
And yes, you get your job back.

In a month, you’ll be 31. You know you’re over the
hill now. But you feel this hill is a lie hyped by irresponsible
mythmakers. You believe you’re still young. And you
can’t help being adored on that stage, of being immersed in
the glamour. Perhaps this helplessness is a symptom of an
addiction, a sin you must live with. And you even feel this
addiction can affect your future studies at UCLA. So what, you tell
yourself. But more so, you strongly feel you’ll be punished
for this addiction and personal flaw with painful longings for lost
youth, soon, years from now, when you’re tired, grumpy and
gray. But for now, that small stage is all yours, because up there,
the adoration does not only give you a high, you also feel that
life is worth living and has meaning.

When work doesn’t feel like a job, that’s something.
This matters most to you than anything else. And, too, up there, on
that stage, even though you don’t feel like a star,
you’re somebody with a clear mission: To entertain and be the
object of sexual fantasies. That’s why you believe that what
you think might be an addiction is really a vocation, a sacred,
personal calling.

Baradi is an information studies graduate student.