Wolf's Head G-String: Stripping for the Ladies

I remember the first time I took my clothes off for money. I was 18 and working at the Harris Bank in Roselle. Since I graduated high school early, I took a full time job as a teller at the bank. I worked mostly with older women, but there were a few who were not much older than me.

One girl was getting married, and started talking about her upcoming bachelorette party.

"I don't think my friends have planned much for it," she was telling me over lunch. There was a small break room in the basement of the building. We were allowed to eat in shifts of one or two people. "It's gonna be so lame," she said.

"What kind of things do you want to do?" I asked. I really had no idea what people did at bachelor and bachelorette parties. Even though my brother, Darrell, was already married, his wedding was in Stilton, England, and the "Stag" party happened before we arrived.

"There's gonna be like 20 of my girlfriends there. We're basically going to drink and hang out. I'd like to have a stripper," she said. "That would be so cool. I just don't think my friend knows of any place to call."

"I'll do it for you," I said.

"What?" she dropped her can of Diet Coke when I made the suggestion. "Really?"

I did the math in my head pretty quickly. 20 drunk girls + one semi naked me = opportunity.

"Of course I'd do it. Why wouldn't I?"

"I have a g-string you could use. It's got a wolf's head on it."

"Okay."

Thus began my foray into the life of a part-time stripper. Once I got the taste of the attention--I got several phone numbers that night, a few of which led into dates and casual sex--I was hooked. I had no problem taking my clothes off at parties (as the years went on, they didn't even have to be bachelorette parties). The end result was most often always the same. I'd hang out with the attendees, take off my clothes (either down to the wolf's head or if it was an impromptu thing, down to my boxers), gyrate around for a few songs, and typically find my way into a strange bed or floor. I was young, I was virile, and I enjoyed myself.

I actually haven't thought about my stripper "career" for a long time. The memory just came to me, even though I've been reading Diablo Cody's book, "Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper." Cody wrote the movie "Juno" after she stopped stripping in clubs in Minnesota. She and I have a few things in common, actually. We both like to write (essays and movies--although she is vastly more superior than me since her book is actually to my left and she won an Oscar), and we both fell upon stripping as a fun thing to do. She did it mostly for the money and I did it mostly for the attention.

I assume we have something else in common: I don't miss stripping...