Anything But Real

"Out in the real world..."

"I have a real job in addition to this."

"Yeah, I know her in real life."

"My real name is Clair."

Real... was what we were not. Or at least, that's what we wanted to believe, and more importantly what we wanted our customers to believe. We were gossomer creatures floating across the stage. We didn't complain. We didn't have financial problems. We didn't gain weight. We didn't have bad hair days. We didn't get pimples. We didn't have periods. We didn't pee, and certainly didn't shit or fart. We existed on champagne and caviar. For those that actually realized that we led an existence outside the club, our days were assumed to be filled with shopping, a trip to the manicurist, a massage, a long bath, and perhaps an occasional trip to the gym.

After all, this is what kept them coming, and more importantly, kept them paying. Their wives and girlfriends were real. They could pick up real girls in any old bar.

The basement dressingroom told a different story. This was a part of the club I hadn't had access to as a waitress. This was the club's little corner of reality.

The woman I'd seen as a tall, red-headed porcelain goddess on the stage, now stood before me, barefoot in her g-string, with the make-up artist holding a hairdryer to freshly applied body make-up on her ass, as she barked into the dressingroom phone to the DJ, "Listen, tell the light-guy he better not use any black-lights while I'm on stage tonight! Sherry's spackling the the pimple on my ass, and I don't want it to show!"

I stared open-mouthed as those who had previously seemed flawless covered various plastic surgery scars, applied lotion that left a pearlescent sheen on their skin, while the tanning-bed-phobic slathered on Lancome self-tanner. Others used makeup to contour their bodies, enhancing cleavage on the non-boob-jobbed, and emphasizing that vertical center line dividing the two sides of the abs. Even bikini lines were covered in foundation and powder!

Most shocking of all, was seeing these bodies in regular underwear and flat-shoes. Nothing, I say NOTHING flatters a body like a pair of 5-inch heels and a g-string. Shit, I'd wear heels to the beach if it weren't for all that sand!

Don't get me wrong, these girls we're still exceptionally beautiful and in amazing shape, but seeing them in this state, and under real lighting, they were unmistakeably human.

The same girl who I had just heard upstairs telling a customer that she had to go check her lipstick bounded into the housemom's office declaring that she had "THE WORST GAS EVER!" The ready-for-anything housemom handed her a couple of Maalox as the makeup artist checked to make sure the outer corner of her false eyelash wasn't coming up. She chewed the tablets, stood up, let out a HUGE belch, then struck a coy, sophisticated pose, and purred, "I must go entertain my gentleman-friend."

I soon became well-versed in their practices, barking into the phone from the makeup chair, "You want me on-stage in two songs? Not gonna happen, sweetie, Sherry hasn't even put my eyelashes on yet!!!"