Strip Tease
conversed without argument. Each of Erin’s successive stepfathers had offered financial assistance, but Erin wouldn’t take a dime. It infuriated her mother. Money was the name of the game, she would say. We girls ought to stick together!
    Erin’s real father, who was also rich, had died in an automobile accident when she was young. One night he got drunk and drove his Eldorado into a drainage canal. The three young women in the back seat managed to climb out and swim to shore. It was just as well for Erin’s father that he did not.
    On the way to the funeral, her mother said it was a shame the sonofabitch hadn’t lived, so she could’ve divorced him in a manner consistent with his sins. Over the years, Erin’s mother came to be an expert at divorce, and also at widowhood. It was no coincidence that each of Erin’s stepfathers was wealthier and more elderly than his predecessor. As Erin grew older, she accepted the fact that her mother was a restless gold digger who would never be happy, never be satisfied. On the other hand, her husbands knew exactly what they were getting, and didn’t seem to care. It taught Erin one of life’s great lessons: an attractive woman could get whatever she wanted, because men were so laughably weak. They would do anything for even the distant promise of sex.
    Erin had almost forgotten this precept until her marriage broke up, and she was left broke and fighting for her daughter. It hit her on the day her divorce lawyer explained what it might cost to gain permanent custody of Angela. Erin was dumbstruck at the figure, which was more money than an office secretary would earn in two or three years. It all depended, said the lawyer, on how big of a prick her ex-husband Darrell intended to be. The biggest, Erin replied.
    She knew then that a regular nine-to-five job wouldn’t do, that she’d have to find another way. That night she’d gone home and stood at the bedroom mirror and slowly removed her clothes, starting with the blouse. It looked ridiculous. She put on some music, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and tried again. Erin had always been a good dancer, but she’d never seen herself dancing in a full-length mirror, stark naked. Even though she had a good figure, she felt silly. She thought: Who in the world would pay to see this?
    The next night Erin went to the Eager Beaver to get a sense of the atmosphere. The place was crowded and the music was very loud. It took about an hour before she relaxed enough to take inventory of both the talent and the clientele. Erin noticed that many of the women were extremely poor dancers who tried to compensate with stage gimmicks. A common move was to wheel around, bend over and show off one’s buttocks.
    Another trick, when hopelessly out of rhythm, was to halt midstep and lick one’s own index finger in a salacious way. It spurred the male audience from boredom to wild cheers. Erin watched in amusement as customers lurched toward the stage, whistling and waving beer-soaked currency. How easily amused they are! she thought. There was little difference between this and what her mother did; it was the same game of tease, the same basic equation. Use what you’ve got to get what you want.
    The following morning, Erin drank two cups of black coffee and phoned her mother in San Diego. “Guess what?” Erin said, and delivered the news in a chirpy tone.
    Erin’s mother disapproved. She said it was a tawdry way to make a living, even for a few months. She said it was no place to meet high-class guys.
    “The money’s good,” Erin said, “and I think I can do it.”
    “Not with those tits,” said her mother.
    The modest dimensions of Erin’s breasts had been an issue for a long time. Erin’s mother (who was on her third set of saline implants) believed that surgical enhancement would increase Erin’s chances of attracting a good man. She pointed to Darrell Grant as an example of the lowlife trash that was drawn to small-bosomed
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